While a lot of people are currently waiting in anticipation for the upcoming release of TBC Classic, a big part of the World of Warcraft community is more focused on the first big patch for Shadowlands. The latest WoW expansion launched in late November of 2020 and hasn’t received any major updates so far. Sure, we got 9.0.5 but that was a minor update in the grand scheme of things. Shadowlands Patch 9.1, on the other hand, is going to be huge, bringing with it a new zone, raid, story quests, items, and so much more.
Even though we don’t have a set release date for Shadowlands 9.1 just yet, the new patch is expected to land sometime in late June or early July. Since there’s not much going on in the current patch, now would be the perfect time to start preparing for the upcoming one. Especially if you haven’t played a lot during 9.0 and 9.0.5. There are plenty of things you can do to prepare for Shadowlands patch 9.1 so we’ve put together a handy list that contains the most essential ones.
Start Banking Soul Ash
Some of you have probably already been doing this but there are plenty of people who stopped stockpiling Soul Ash once they finished upgrading their legendaries. And, quite frankly, who can blame them? Torghast is the primary way of acquiring Soul Ash and Torghast isn’t exactly the best use of anyone’s time. Sure, the first couple of runs are fun but things get awfully tedious shortly after that. Despite this, however, it is highly recommended that you continue to do your weekly Torghast runs and stock up on Soul Ash because it’s going to be very important in 9.1.
With the introduction of the first major update to Shadowlands, we can expect new legendaries as well as new ranks for existing legendaries. Plus, there will be balance changes to a lot of legendaries, which means you may end up needing to replace the ones you have right now. Of course, all of that costs Soul Ash. And since you can’t simply buy WoW gold and exchange it for Soul Ash, you’ll have to spend time in Torghast and grind it the old-fashioned way.
Finish Twisting Corridors
We already discussed Torghast but we also have to mention the Twisting Corridors version because a lot of players still haven’t completed it. Finishing all eight layers of Twisting Corridors takes a lot of time but doing so will award you with the Corridor Creeper, one of the only mounts you can currently use in the Maw.
Blizzard said that regular mounts will be available to use in the Maw in Shadowlands 9.1 but they haven’t mentioned if the feature will be unlocked from the start or if there will be any requirements to unlocking it. It’s worth picking up the Corridor Creeper now so you won’t have to worry about mounting in the Maw in 9.1, just in case the process of using other mounts will be more complicated than expected.
Stock Up on Stygia
Stygia is another resource you should seriously consider stockpiling in preparation for WoW Shadowlands 9.1. There haven’t been a whole lot of interesting items to purchase with the currency in 9.0 and 9.0.5 but that’s going to change in the next patch. The gear, in particular, is very noteworthy as it starts at ilevel 200 and can be upgraded up to ilevel 233. Stygia provides a fantastic catch-up opportunity for alts and might also come in handy for your main character too.
Gear aside, Stygia will also allow you to buy a number of collectibles like mounts and pets. In order to buy these collectibles you will also need to raise your reputation with a new Shadowlands faction but simply having the Stygia ready will bring you much closer to acquiring them. If you’re not particularly keen on spending a lot of time in the Maw farming Stygia, you can just do the weekly activates on a single character. That should allow you to bank more than enough Stygia by the time Shadowlands patch 9.1 comes out.
Covenant Followers
If you’ve been ignoring the Covenant mission table before, now is your chance to make up for it. Maxing out your Covenant followers is a very simple process but requires a lot of waiting around, which is why you’ll want to get started as soon as possible. The reason for that is because the mission table can net you some surprisingly good rewards at higher levels but for that you will need strong followers. Gear, Soul Ash, Stygia, and even amount or two are just some of the rewards you can look forward to.
Mission tables are also a pretty good way of making a fair amount of gold believe it or not, especially if you have multiple characters. Some of the missions reward straight-up gold while others give you Augment Runes, which can sell for up to 1000 gold on some servers. Of course, that amount of coin is less relevant if you buy WoW EU gold in bulk from websites like LootWoWGold, but hey, every little bit counts, right? Especially now that game tokens are getting crazy expensive, as they always do before a new major patch or expansion.
Covenant Swapping and Renown
Swapping Covenants is a bit of a pain but it’s sometimes necessary if you’re looking to optimize your character as best as you can. Switching to a different Covenant will reset your Renown level to 1 and it will take you around two weeks to get it to max levels. Renown can be earned in a wide variety of ways but you will need to go through at least one weekly reset in order to finish the Covenant campaign. On the bright side, completing all the quests for the campaign will be very easy if you’re on a character with decent enough gear. It’s definitely going to be easier than when you did it on your first character.
Covenant-specific rewards will not follow you when you make the switch but you will get to keep all your Conduits and some of the followers; the ones that aren’t tied to a specific Covenant. You won’t have to start completely from scratch but swapping Covenants does require a time investment. If you do decide to make the switch, remember the previous point we talked about related to followers. While you won’t lose some of your followers during the switch, most of them will be gone and you will need to unlock and train a brand new set of followers for your mission table.
Defeat Sire Denathrius
A lot of people reading this have probably already defeated the final boss of Castle Nathria but there are still plenty of players who haven’t. Even if you’re not a particularly big fan of raiding or PvE content in general, we still recommend completing Castle Nathria because there is a very important quest associated with it. In fact, slaying Sire Denathrius is a requirement for unlocking the first chapter of the new storyline in Shadowlands 9.1. This requirement may change at some point further down the line but it seems like Blizzard will be sticking with it at least for the start of the new update.
Some players may take issue with the fact that killing a final raid boss is a requirement for unlocking story missions in the next campaign, but it’s genuinely not that big of a deal. The requirement doesn’t specify that you need to kill Sire Denathrius on a specific difficulty, so you can simply queue up for LFR if you just want to get it done as quickly as possible. Once Shadowlands patch 9.1 launches players on EU and NA servers are unlikely to want to do Castle Nathria anymore as everybody will be focused on the new raid. So if you still haven’t defeated Sire Denathrius now would be the time to do it.
Level Up New Alts
If you already did everything else on this list there’s still one important thing you can do to prepare for WoW Shadowlands patch 9.1. That’s right, level up some new alts. Whenever a major new update launches the meta in WoW has a tendency to change, sometimes in a drastic way. That makes it difficult to say beforehand which classes will be overpowered and which will be underpowered in 9.1. Ideally, there should be a perfect balance between all classes but we all know that’s never been the case in WoW, and probably never will be.
If you want to avoid a situation where you’re playing an underpowered class make sure to max out as many alts as possible for Shadowlands 9.1. The best-case scenario would be to have a character of every class but obviously, not everybody can afford to spend so much time on leveling alts. Try to have at least two or three max level characters of different classes to increase your chances that at least one of them will be among the strong classes in 9.1
Keywords: Shadowlands patch 9.1 (main), WoW Shadowlands, Shadowlands 9.1, Soul Ash, Stygia, Torghast, Covenants, Castle Nathria.
