Runs and Zones

How a run works

A run is one fight in one zone. You pick a hero, a zone and a difficulty in the hero menu, press Enter, and the run starts the moment you first move ("Move to begin."). From then on the horde keeps coming, you level up, and a clock counts upward in the run tracker (turn it off with Show Run Tracker in the options).

You win by killing the zone's final boss. You lose when your hero falls. Everything the run earned is kept either way: gold, gear, account experience and achievements. End Run in the Game Menu also counts as a loss and keeps what you earned.

The horde

Enemies arrive in waves that thicken with every minute, and new kinds join the waves as the clock climbs. There is a cap on how many stand on the field at once. The minimap ring that opens when you hover it shows how full that cap is, from amber to red, and its tooltip counts the horde, the elites and the awake guardians.

Now and then a wave event rolls in on top of the waves: a swarm, a wall, a pack or a stampede. The battlefield also widens slowly as the run goes on, and its edge throws you back if you try to leave.

Elites and guardians

Elites are tougher enemies that walk with the horde. Each zone has its own three kinds, and at Heroic I they come in pairs. They drop purple rift orbs that push the rift bar further than ordinary kills do.

Guardians sleep in lairs at the edge of the battlefield. The minimap marks a lair with a skull when it is in reach and with an arrow on its rim when it is farther away. A guardian wakes when you come near and calls minions. Killing one makes your hero permanently stronger for the rest of the run and offers a choice of a ring, a trinket or an amulet.

Bosses and the rift bar

Each zone has five bosses. They do not arrive by the clock. The rift bar in the run tracker fills as you kill, and when it is full the next boss steps out. Elites and guardians fill it faster. The fifth boss is the zone's final boss, and its death is the victory.

A boss that is due waits while a rift portal or a goblin treasury (below) is going on.

Rift portals and the goblin treasury

Two kinds of portal can open mid-run. Do not mix them up.

The rift portal. Four rift crystals lie scattered over the battlefield. They are not marked on the minimap, so you have to find them. In the first half or so of the run a rift portal tears open, and the minimap shows it. Step into it with all four crystals gathered and the summoning begins: the crystals rise in a ring around the portal, you channel into it, and a boss from another zone steps out, stronger than the zone's final boss. Its fall can give every hero a piece of gear, Epic or Legendary, and the rift then closes for the run. In co-op every hero has to stand in the portal.

The goblin treasury. Between two bosses a gold-coloured portal may open. Step in and the horde is held in the rift while you catch the treasure goblins before they escape. Catching every one pays extra gold and a share of the rift bar. In co-op everyone must stand in the portal ("Everyone must stand in the portal...").

Pickups

• Experience orbs from kills fill your level bar. A level-up asks you to choose a spell; its rarity decides how strong it is.
• Coins are your gold. Walking over a magnet pulls in every coin and orb on the field, and so does a boss's fall.
• Caches appear on the field now and then. Walking over one buys it for gold and offers a ring, a trinket or an amulet.
• Boss treasure is free and offers the same choice after a boss falls.
• Cursed chests are free jewelry that sets a curse off: faster enemies, a faster and thicker horde, more damage taken, or your healing cut. An ambush of elites and a swarm come with it, and the curse shows in the run tracker.
• Runes give a short boon: the Speed Rune, the Berserker Rune and the Restoration Rune.

The way on in staged zones

Four zones are fought in several arenas: Shadowmoon Valley (the Black Temple, five arenas), Azjol-Nerub (three), Pit of Saron (three) and Icecrown Citadel (five arenas, of which you visit four).

When every boss of the arena you stand in has fallen, a violet way-on portal opens near you. Step in, or wait: if nobody does, it pulls the heroes through by itself after a short while. The screen fades to violet under the next arena's name, your heroes are untouchable and rooted until the veil lifts, and then you stand in the next arena.

Each arena is a world of its own:

• The old arena's horde, its guardians and its marked ground stay behind, frozen for good. You never go back.
• Coins and orbs left on the field are gathered for you, boss treasure still standing comes along, and your rift crystals keep their places around the new centre.
• The new arena's own horde starts only after a short calm, and you stay untouchable a few seconds past the move.

In Icecrown Citadel two portals open after the Cathedral of Darkness: one to the Plagueworks and one to the Crimson Hall. You take one, and the bosses of the other wing are passed by for that run.

Only the last arena's final boss wins the run.

Endless play

After a victory the end screen offers Keep fighting (endless), Try again and Return to menu. Choosing endless keeps the run going, and it stays a won run:

• Every minute of endless play makes enemies tougher and hit harder, and the rise steepens the longer you last, so every endless run ends.
• The horde thickens and elites come more often.
• The zone's slain bosses return one at a time, each round stronger than the last.
• The minutes past the victory pay talent experience, Game Pass experience and account experience, and count for the survival achievements.

The zones

The hero menu's zone list is one chain through three worlds, twelve zones each. The title bar of the list names the world: Classic, Burning Crusade and Lich King. Click it or use the arrows beside it to turn to the next world. A fourth page after the Lich King is a teaser that says "Coming soon" and has nothing to enter yet.

Each row shows the zone's story title and its final boss with a time such as "at 16:00", the length the zone is built around. Select a row and press Enter, or double-click it.

What is open

Only Elwynn Forest is open from the start. Every later zone opens when that hero has beaten the previous zone's final boss, and a locked row tells you what is missing: "Locked · defeat Edwin VanCleef in Elwynn Forest". Progress is kept per hero, so each class works through the chain on its own.

Three classes wait for a whole world to be finished by any one of your heroes:

• The Monk opens after Kel'Thuzad falls in Naxxramas, the end of Classic.
• The Demon Hunter opens after Illidan Stormrage falls in Shadowmoon Valley, the end of the Burning Crusade.
• The Death Knight opens after the Lich King falls in Icecrown Citadel, the end of Lich King.

The other nine classes are open from the start. See Classes and Talents.

Classic

The Burning Crusade

Lich King

Every zone brings its own enemies, elites and a line-up of four bosses before the final one: Elwynn Forest's Hogger, Mother Fang, Rhahk'Zor and Mr. Smite, Karazhan's Attumen the Huntsman, Maiden of Virtue, the Curator and Nightbane, Icecrown Citadel's Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Festergut and Blood-Queen Lana'thel. Later zones pay more gold per run than earlier ones.

What each world adds

Azeroth's zones play as the plain run described above. Outland and Northrend bring their own trouble:

• Outland zones with demons in their waves: a Legion portal tears open now and then while no boss fights and lets demons through until you destroy it. Its fall pays a pile of gold.
• Hellfire Peninsula, Eye of the Storm, Blade's Edge Mountains, Netherstorm and Shadowmoon Valley: a Fel Reaver crosses the battlefield now and then. It cannot be hurt, and its footfalls strike and throw off whoever stands where it treads.
• Northrend zones with undead in their waves: a slain enemy may rise again a few seconds later where it fell.
• Northrend's cold: in every Northrend zone except Howling Fjord, Grizzly Hills and Sholazar Basin, bonfires burn around the middle of the arena. Away from them the cold creeps in and slows you; by a fire it thaws.

Weather

Each zone has its own climate: mostly fine weather with now and then a spell of rain, snow or sand, and a thunderstorm when a boss fight begins. Blackrock Mountain, Eye of the Storm, Netherstorm and Shadowmoon Valley stay clear. Weather is scenery only and changes nothing about the fight. Zones also stand at their own hour of the day, so some runs happen at night.

Difficulty tiers

There are six tiers: Normal and Heroic I to Heroic V. Pick one with the Difficulty select under the zone list: click the bar to step to the next tier, or use its arrows. Hover it to see what the tier changes.

Tiers open per zone and per hero. Win a tier in a zone and the next tier opens in that zone, for that hero ("Win this tier in this zone to open the next."). Past the highest open tier the select wraps back to Normal.

Each step up makes enemies hit harder and have more health, and in return pays more: more of the run's reward, a better chance of gear drops and more experience from orbs. The tooltip lists every factor next to Normal. Heroic tiers also add modifiers, and they add up as you climb:

The horde affixes change every week and differ per zone; the line under the Difficulty select names this week's for the zone you picked. There are three:

• Bolstering: a slain enemy empowers the enemies near it.
• Sanguine: a slain elite leaves a pool that heals enemies.
• Explosive: orbs appear, and you must destroy them before they burst.

Game modes

The Game Modes button sits in the lower right corner of the hero menu, left of Group. It opens a window with the modes in a list on the left, the chosen mode's card in the middle and your record in that mode on the right. Select a mode and press Play; the window closes and the runs you start from the hero menu play that mode. The button then carries the mode's name, and your pick is remembered.

The window also lists Endless and Boss Rush with "Coming soon"; you cannot play them yet. Endless play after a victory, described above, is a different thing and already works.

For Warband and the other multiplayer modes, see Co-op. For how runs reach the boards, see Leaderboards and Discord.

Run challenges

Under your record in the Game Modes window, a Choose button opens the run challenges: opt-in handicaps that pay a share more gold and experience for every one you take.

• Hardcore: enemies hit harder and have more health.
• One Life: no revives and no extra lives; a hero who falls is out.
• Speed Up: enemies move and spawn faster.
• Half XP: experience orbs give half as much.
• Half Damage: your heroes deal half damage.
• Glass Cannon: your health counts half, so every blow hits twice as hard.
• No Healing: heals and regeneration do nothing; shields still work.
• No Dash: your heroes cannot dash.

The Proving Grounds, the Hub and the Daily Challenge take no challenges. In co-op the host's challenges rule the run.

The daily challenge

Choose Daily Challenge in the Game Modes window and press Enter the Challenge. The window shows today's hero, zone, difficulty and affixes, and how long until the next one.

• A new challenge starts at midnight UTC, the same for everyone.
• Hero, zone, difficulty and affix are all set for you. The hero is one of the classes open from the start, the difficulty is Normal, Heroic I or Heroic II, and the day brings one of the three horde affixes.
• Everyone starts alike: no gear bonuses, talents or perks. The cards on offer are the same for everyone too.
• Practise as often as you like, but only your first run of the day counts on that day's board. The card lists gold, chests and a place on the daily board as rewards, and the Challenger, Creature of Habit and A Month of Challenges achievements count your wins.

Holiday events

During a holiday, part of every wave wears the holiday's looks, a holiday elite comes every few minutes, and kills drop the holiday's currency like gold. The currency shows beside your gold in a larger tray, with the time left when you hover it, and a click opens the Event Shop. A holiday banner also sits over your hero card in the hero menu.

The Event Shop sells cosmetics for the currency only while the holiday runs: wings, mounts nothing else sells, head pieces, name styles, trails, kill effects, emotes and spell colours. What you buy is kept for good, and currency you do not spend waits for the next year. The shop also shows a ranking of who picked up the most of the holiday's currency; spending it costs no place. See Progression and Cosmetics for the rest of the shop.

The game knows eight holidays:

Winter Veil brings snow to its runs, and the Darkmoon Faire is the monthly one. The hero menu shows which holiday is running; when none is, the Event Shop says "No holiday is running right now."

The Codex

The Achievements trophy on your hero card opens a window with three pages: Achievements, Codex and Items. The Codex is the bestiary: every creature you have fought, zone by zone, shown as a tile with its own icon and marked Creature, Elite, Guardian or Boss. A creature you have not met shows as "???": meet it in a run in its zone to learn its name.

The Codex also feeds achievements: Bestiary, Naturalist and Lorekeeper ask you to slay 25, 100 and every creature in it. Every achievement pays gold, account talent points and account experience once.