In this WotLK Classic Pre-patch Guide, from good items to hidden stuff to fun interactions, we go over the best limited-time things you need to get in Classic Wrath of the Lich King Pre-Patch!

Best Limited-Time Things & Items To Get in WotLK Classic Prepatch

The Classic Wrath of the Lich King prepatch is right around the corner, and with it comes a bunch of time-limited content for you to enjoy, some of that stuff will disappear eventually, but some of it you will get to keep forever, and there's definitely a lot of stuff that you'll want to obtain before it's gone here. So in this WoW WotLK Classic Guide, we'll go over all the content that the prepatch has to offer and what to can do to take full advantage of it. From crazy good items to hidden stuff to fun interactions, we're exploring all the things that the prepatch will bring for you once it releases and how you can obtain all of it in the limited time it's going to be up for.

1. Rewards from Zombie Invasion Event

First and foremost, when you think Wrath prepatch, you obviously think zombie invasion, this event is the headline of this prepatch, and you may know it as the one and only period of time in WoW where devs intentionally tried their hardest to make the game unplayable for players. The way it works is that at first, those conspicuous crates start to appear in booty bay and in most capital cities, at first the only way to turn into a zombie is to intentionally click on those crates, for the first few days you won't be able to spread the plague to other players but you'll still be able to attack them and cause mayhem. And then as the prepatch progresses, new phases will start and each phase makes the world more and more chaotic by making the zombie plague bigger and harder to contain, and easier to spread, notably by biting other players. And the thing is, this plague doesn't just affect capital cities, but also the outside world, including most starting areas and even Shattrath.

So that's why this event is so infamous, back in the day in 2008 players complained at lengths for not being able to level their characters, use the auction house, or simply get anything done at all in the game, it was pure chaos and looking at the PTR now, it seems like Blizzard  is bringing that back exactly the way it was.

2. Necrotic Runes from Scourge Assaults Events

That's the prepatch, there's some fun to be had of course but in terms of actual rewards, other than the satisfaction of killing your fellow faction members, you're not going to get anything from this in particular, the real rewards will come from the plague assaults around the world. So if you've been around a couple of years ago when Naxx came out in Classic, you probably know all about this, if not, the scourge invasion is a series of mini-events that will take place around the world, every now and then one of 6 zones will be attacked, those being Blasted Lands, Winterspring, Eastern Plaguelands, Tanaris, Burning Steppes and Azshara. 

When one of those zones is attacked there will be a series of crystals around the zone that you will need to destroy, the way you do that is basically by killing the scourge that spawns around these crystals, until four cultist engineers will appear, you can disturb those which will then turn into a Shadow of Doom, a powerful elite enemy and defeating that will reward you with a bunch of Necrotic Runes, you also get Necrotic Runes by killing the smaller enemies too. 

3. Limited Items To Buy from Argent Quartermaster With Necrotic Runes

Similar to WoW Classic gold, those Necrotic Runes are the main currency of this Scourge Invasion event because with it, you'll be able to buy a bunch of items from the Argent Dawn quartermaster, which is where most of the time-limited items available with this event will come from. Now, to be honest, if you're not specifically into collecting stuff, most, if not all the things here will be completely useless for you, that being said, if you have a bunch of level 70 ungeared characters, getting them the undead slaying sets is going to be the easiest way to gear them. This gear is comparable with Karazhan gear, so nothing really special here, but it's definitely going to help you when leveling throughout WotLK, both the shoulders and gloves are obtainable from here, but the chest and legs drops from the elites that appear in the scourge invasions around the world that we talked about a second ago, the chest drops off the Shadow of Doom and the pants from some rare elites that appear randomly around those crystals too.

The other noteworthy items from this vendor are the trinkets, Argent Banner, Argent Tome, and probably the coolest of them Argent War Horn, both the Banner and the tome are pretty boring, they do a bit of AoE but they're definitely not worth equipping over any other trinket. The War Horn however will summon a paladin NPC that will fight at your side for 30 seconds, now this NPC looks badass, especially for horde, it's basically a blood elf wielding Ashkhandi and a fitting transmog, the alliance version is just the grand marshal set and sword, and the fun gimmick that this NPC has is that once the 30 seconds run out, he will cast bubble and start hearthing away, pretty cool and fun interaction. Other than that, unless you're a collector who wants to get everything from here, there isn't anything else important to get, we suggest you try to get everything from this vendor because why not, but if you're not after gear or the fun war horn trinket, you can just skip this all together, it's up to you.

4. Tabard of the Protector from TBC Prepatch

For whatever reason, on the PTR,  along with the Wrath prepatch, we also have the Burning Crusade prepatch active, not the whole kruul invasion thingy but just the dark portal demon invasion event. And from this you'll be able to get the Tabard of the Protector, now back in the day, the TBC prepatch was the only time you could get this item, but for whatever reason, Blizzard seems to have brought it back for the Wrath Classic prepatch. We thought it might be a bug, but it's still active now, so if you don't have this, make sure to go and do the quest near the Dark portal to obtain it. All you need to do is kill a few demons which you'll probably obliterate now and you'll get this cool looking time limited tabard in no time.

5. Vampiric Batling & Arcanite Ripper from Unique Boss Tenris Mirkblood

Other than the scourge, the Lich King also sent a few of his lieutenants around the world too, inside dungeons and raids specifically, from Shadowfang Keep to Scarlet Monastery to Karazhan, most of those bosses are not very much worth doing, unless again you're a completionist who wants everything, that being said we don't think any of those appearances are unique, with the exception of one, which is the one you get from the boss in Karazhan, Tenris Mirkblood. In fact Tenris is the only boss who has his own quest which you can pick up from your capital city, you'll find him in one of the rooms above attumen, he's not very hard but obviously, it's Karazhan so you'll be bringing 10 people anyway here. 

Now he drops two items, the first and least important of which is the Vampiric Batling, a pet, which actually everyone in the raid will be able to get, so this is quick and easy to get and remember there's a pet tab now so this is not going to take bag space, so you're better off learning it, why not. But the second, coolest, and most important item to get is the Arcanite Ripper, this, is a freaking guitar axe that can turn you into a guitar playing undead for 10 seconds, this is one of those items which is extremely rare on retail nowadays and that everyone wants because it looks so cool and has such a unique effect. Unfortunately, even if it's 100% drop chance, only one person in the raid can get it, and raids reset every week, and the prepatch will only last for 4 weeks at most, so there's a reason why this axe is so rare, wish you good luck on getting it.

6. Leveling Up Character in WotLK Prepacth

The WotLK prepatch is the perfect time for you to level your characters, because on top of the already active Joyous Journeys 50% experience buff, levelling through Azeroth and Outland is also going to get way faster in the prepatch. The moment the prepatch drops, you'll notice that the XP required for every level has been reduced by an incredibly big amount, your character will start doing way more damage overnight, and you'll also notice that a lot of quests are way easier to do around the world, so really, you would take this opportunity to level as many characters as you possibly can. We can't give you an exact number of how long it's going to take to get from 1 to 70, but we bet you'll be done with it in 1st of the time it used to take you before, so take advantage of it.

With that, that's everything for you, those were all the things coming with the WotLK Classic Pre-Patch that you can take advantage of, as you can see,  a lot of this is optional and only there for the sake of collection, however a lot of these items are really cool and unique and even if you're not a collector yourself, you might want to have them to show off with in the future.