[PREVIEW] A First Look at Delves in World of Warcraft: The War Within

“Delves” is an all-new type of content that will be released in The War Within expansion of World of Warcraft. As mentioned in our previous overview of new content coming with The War Within, delves are meant to be a new form of progression parallel to Raiding, Mythic+, and PvP, while also offering another method to obtain tier set gears.

Thanks to our friends at Blizzard, we managed to get our hands on access to the alpha build of The War Within and try out the delves first-hand. Personally, we tried our hand at conquering The Sinkhole and Skittering Breach.

Keep in mind that as this content is still in development, some details may change on the final release of the expansion.

Delves and How to Spot Them

Delves are quite easy to spot on the world map as they have their own unique icon and will also show up on the minimap if you’re close enough to one. The ability to properly track these delves without consulting the map is currently bugged, but it is safe to assume that it will be similar to locating and tracking down dungeons, as it can be viewed from the Adventure Guide just like dungeons.

Once you find a delve, approaching its entrance makes a screen appear with an option to select from 3 tiers of difficulties, with Tier 2 being the default. Each tier comes with compounding buffs and gimmicks for the enemies. All our delve runs were done at Tier 2 as Tier 3 required progression of the main story campaign and an item level of 525, which we did not have due to being soft locked out of campaign progression.

All delves can be done solo or with a party of up to 5 people, but must be premade before entering the instance.

My Delving Buddy and Me

Delves in the alpha are seemingly scaled to the player’s current level as most enemies do not pose a significant threat to the player as long as mechanics are respected. The contents of the delves themselves are relatively straightforward with simple puzzles or gimmicks, and a single run can be completed in around 15 minutes.

Delvers who decide to go solo will not be alone as all delves ensure that you are accompanied by trusty adventurer Brann Bronzebeard. He’s certainly the furthest thing from dead weight, as he can do a lot of things to assist you in your adventure from attacking enemies with his gun to setting up a campfire to heal in between fights. He will even sometimes remind you about unclaimed loot in the area.

Brann will also level up and grow stronger as you continue diving into delves with him, further augmenting his abilities. He will certainly be a welcome companion for those who are interested in immersing themselves in this new content solo.

As mentioned earlier, the delves are mostly straightforward with not much to explore in the side paths. Some delves also have a specific gimmick tied to them, such as The Sinkhole which takes place entirely underwater and therefore makes breath management a key element. Just like dungeons, some of the mobs are theoretically optional and can be avoided as long as the main objectives are completed.

Boss fight mechanics in delves are relatively simple so far, although we’re not sure if it’s like that by default or if it scales based on the number of players in the instance. These fights were also quite easy to clear and did not pose much of a challenge as all of the troublesome attacks were clearly telegraphed.

Impression

Delves in its current iteration is much easier both mechanically and difficulty wise compared to dungeons while taking less time to complete. The ability to do the content alone or with a flexible group is also a major boon to World of Warcraft as a whole.

At the moment we feel like the Tier 2 content may be a little bit too simple, but we can see that it is a good foundation to build upon for more interesting concepts and gimmicks in the future. We hope that The War Within will further improve and expand on delve contents to make it stand out even more before its official launch.

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