Patch 10.1.5 just hit live servers with a bunch of new content for you to enjoy, but this content train just doesn't stop because patch 10.1.7 was just announced, we have an updated roadmap going over the main features being included in this patch and it's already up on the PTR for testing, they're really pulling out all the stops with this expansion. In this post, we go through all the major features coming in patch 10.1.7 WoW Dragonflight. From new character customization options, mounts, upgraded models, new heritage armor sets for the Forsaken and Night Elves.

WoW Dragonflight 10.1.7 PTR Fury Incarnate Features - Ping System, Heritage Armor Sets, New Quests, Events

Patch 10.1.7 looks to have plenty of features to get excited about, including a new gear catch-up system that will let you get item level 415 gear super easily and quickly. It's basically free loot right now, so that will be great for gearing up any lower geared characters like your alts and maybe even that you upgrade your mains gear too. If you're a big fan of Dragonflight, you're not going to want to miss this sneak preview of patch 10.1.7.

1. New Open World Events

The largest new feature coming with 10.1.7 seems to be a new open world event the Dreamsurges. This is a zone-wid event that will affect one of the four Original Dragon Isle zones. So for the PTR right now, it's currently in Thaldrazus. The main parts of this event are the dream surge buffs and the waking dream portals. The Dreamsurge is a zone-wide buff that you can basically vote on. There are two different Buffs that can be active and players contribute to one side or the other to push the bar in either direction. The side with the most contributions will be active for everyone in the zone which can make a big difference to your overall experience during the event, with straight damage increases, huge damage procs, movement speed buffs, experience bonuses and even reputation bonuses, there's a lot going on here. So while the zone is under the effects of the Dreamsurge, you're going to be quite a bit more powerful while in that zone, no matter what kind of content you're actually wanting to take part in. The waking dream portals are the big new event that pops up in these zones, they spawn every 30 minutes and it's a large group objective type of event. So everyone contributes towards the progress, you work through a few stages and eventually a boss will spawn. With this being the first PTR build for 10.1.7, the rewards are definitely not final yet, but these bosses look to be dropping gear tokens that can be traded into a vendor for item level 415 gear of your choosing. 

2. New Gearing Option

We're also going to have some weekly quests to complete, one of them will ask you to collect 100 dreamsurge coalescence, you get this from the various activities within the dreamsurge zone including World quests from rares and from taking part in the waking dream portal event. The coalescence is actually the currency that you use to vote on the dreamsurge buff, so everyone is going to want to get it to make sure they can get the buffs that they really want to use. 

The other one is basically just complete various activities within the zone like quest’s rares. Both of these quests will reward you with a token that you can trade in for the same item level 415 gear. The vendors are not active just yet, so we can't see the exact pieces of gear we'll be able to obtain. But the reward description does say we can exchange it for a piece of 415 gear for our class in a slot of our choosing. So we get to choose the piece of gear and what slot it would go in which means this should not end up being another random gear token, we should have full agency of how to use these items to buy gear. 

So we already have two different ways to get these gear tokens, the Dream portal events and the weekly quests, but there is another source as well. Every rare monster marked on the world map in the dreamsurge zone becomes empowered, they have more health, they deal more damage and get some special abilities, so they aren't going to be a bit more of a challenge to take down, but they also have increased rewards. They will drop the coalescence currency for the event, but they also seem to drop the very same gear tokens that you can trade in for item level 415 gear. So you can guarantee that the rare farming trains will start up yet again making these rares very easy to kill as a mass group, giving you very easy access to farmable item level 415 gear just from the open world. 

3. New In-Game Ping System in 10.1.7

Another huge feature coming with 10.1.7 that actually isn't listed in the roadmap is a Ping system. You'll be able to send a ping to your party or raid by using a new keybind. The default is going to be G, but if you already have G bound or you just want to change it, you can assign whatever keybind you want in the key bindings menu. The ping will let you do 2 things, you can send a quick general ping by holding your keybind and clicking, this would be great for a general purpose ping that doesn't require a specific response, or you can hold down your keybind, hold down your left click and drank to bring up a few different options. So we've got assist warning attacking on our way pings, you just need to hover over the one you want to send and release the click, you can also cancel the ping by hovering over the middle cancel area just to make sure you're not spamming anybody. So you can specifically present your intentions in game without needing any voice chat and even if you are in voice chat, the Ping system can be used to emphasize a call out in whatever group content you're doing. 

If you're worried about people spamming pings, there is a limit on how many you can send and how quickly and if you send them too often, you'll trigger a cooldown. Only your party and raid can send pings too, so it's not like random people out in the world will be able to send you annoying pings, it should be group mates only.

4. New Heritage Armor Sets

This patch also brings another round of heritage armor sets. For 10.1.7, the dev team are introducing the Forsaken and Knight elf Heritage armor sets. Some parts of these have been data mined already, so we have a little glimpse of what these could eventually look like, but they aren't fully in the game just yet. So these are subject to change and we won't get the full picture for a few more PTR builds most like likely especially for the Night Elves. We might have to get a night elf leveled up to earn the heritage armor, get an alliance character all geared up since the cross-faction restrictions were removed and this might just be the push.

5. New Storylines & Quests

There are also a lot of new story quests coming in 10.1.7, the roadmap includes a sub header that says reforging tyr and more, so expect to see the Valdrakken storyline with tier continue onwards. The PTR patch notes also mention various other questlines, will be able to follow Velen's Prophecy to reveal a new future for some of the draenei people. This one isn't available just yet by the looks of things and Draenei have been disabled for right now, but the Draenei will get a special storyline to work through. Then we also have questlines for the 2 Heritage armor sets coming, so one for the Night Elves and one for the Forsaken, and they will not be appearing on the PTR. So these will be unspoiled brand new questlines when the patch hits live servers. 

6. New Character Customization Options

Some of these story quests are also linked to the next big feature, new character customization. The Draenei ones will unlock the ability to use Man’ari Eredar skin colors for your Draenei. So anyone who wished they could play as a red Draenei, your wish will finally come true in 10.1.7. Right now we can preview the various red colors as well as a dark gray skin color, there are also going to be new hair colors as well as eye colors. Some of those eye colors are going to work so well with the red skin Draenei. Red Draenei looks pretty awesome, we should also see some new skin colors for the Forsaken and the roadmap had night elves under this section as well. 

7. Megadungeon Split into 2 Wings and Heroic Mode

Patch 10.1.7 will also be breaking up the dawn of the infinite Megadungeon and opening up the heroic mode, so you'll be able to cue into the two wings on an easier difficulty. So if you don't think you can make your way through the dungeon on Mythic, fear not, you won't have to wait too long until it becomes cueable content, so everyone can hop in on their own time schedule. Breaking the dungeon into two wings also makes it easier to get through the entire wing in one sitting, instead of needing to work through all age bosses at once which can be difficult if you have restricted game time. This will allow everyone to see the story first hand and see how everything progresses. So no one gets left behind when 10.1.7 picks up and continues the story even further.

8. Holiday Event Updates & Rewards

The last big feature coming with the new patch is an update for various holiday events. From the PTR build Dev notes, we can expect to see new rewards for Brewfest, Day of the Dead, Hallow’s End and Pirate’s Day, it might go even further than that and include some Winter Veil updates as well, or at least the current data mining info points towards that. We don't have too many items or rewards to preview just yet, but Wowhead did manage to find some holiday dragon riding customization options. There are new armors for various strikes to show off the Pirate's Day, Hallows End, Brewfest and then the Day of the Dead event. Each armor has a little decoration for the event. The only other datamind reward we have is totally for Winter Veil, because it's a freaking candy cane sword. A candy cane staff is a must include if we're getting candy cane weapons, this makes me really excited to see what other rewards are getting updated. 

So that's all the major features in patch 10.1.7 including a new gear catch-up option to quickly get you up to item level 415+ in WoW Dragonflight!

When is the Dragonflight 10.1.7 Release Date?

If we look back to patch 10.0.7, that patch went live just two months after 10.0.5, which means we could see 10.1.7 as early as September and probably within the first couple of weeks of September. 10.1.7 has some updates for Brewfest and that event will start on September 20th this year. So for this year's festivities to include all of the updates, the patch would have to go live before September 20th at the very latest and then we also have 10.2 to look forward to after that. sSo this next patch will probably be in our hands sooner rather than later because there's a whole other patch planned for the end of the year.