10 Best Changes Warbands Are Bringing To WoW: The War Within

World of Warcraft: The War Within is the 10th expansion coming to the MMORPG, and will bring with it many quality-of-life improvements that can make the game better for those who relish trying out multiple characters. 2024 marks the 20th anniversary of the game and the team is celebrating by releasing the first of a trilogy of expansions that will make up The Worldsoul Saga. WoW: The War Within will usher in the beginning of a massive narrative that looks at the lore of the entire world of Azeroth but also includes many other changes to some of the mechanics and systems of the game.

For several years, the WoW community has requested ways to make the game more alt-friendly, and it sounds as though developers have been listening and looking at ways to do just that. Alongside the new campaign narrative, WoW devs are introducing a new feature called Warbands that is designed to add interconnectivity for the various alts on one account. Below are some of the best ways that Warbands will bring a better experience to the gameplay mechanics of World of Warcraft.

10 Updated Look For The Character Select Screen

Multiple Characters Shown

The first, and most obvious, change that Warbands improves on with World of Warcraft is seen immediately on the character selection screen. In WoW: The War Within, players will not have to spend time jumping around different servers to see their characters, but rather will have them easily viewed in one location. Also, a select number of favorite characters can be chosen to form a visible representation of the Warband on the main screen by having a few of them all hanging out together in one area.

9 Account-Wide Banks

Share Items Between Characters

For as long as players have been creating alts, they have wanted a way to give their other characters things. Currently, this involves a complicated and time-consuming practice of mailing things using the in-game mail service and waiting for them to show up in the other character’s mailbox. With Warbands, Banks will now offer a shared Warband Bank that all the characters on a Battle.net account can access immediately to easily share items. Twenty years ago this was not technologically feasible, but, nowadays, this is something that feels long overdue.

8 Achievements Will Be Shared Across The Warband

Progress Counts For All Alts

In recent years, many of the Achievements in the game have been made to be account-wide unlocks already. With WoW: The War Within, even more of the Achievements will work across the Warband. There will likely still be some locked to a certain character or faction, but the concept will continue to be expanded on. As was stated during the BlizzCon 2023 Deep Dive Panel for WoW (via the official World of Warcraft YouTube channel), the developers are “continuing to build upon the philosophy of respecting the player’s time behind the keyboard,” which includes reducing the number of times a player feels they have to grind for an achievement.

7 Collections Are Shared For The Account

Collect Them All

Similar to the above-mentioned Achievements, items that a player unlocks in their Collection will also work across the Warband. Many of these are already account-wide, but with WoW: The War Within, this will include even more items. Collections in WoW can include mounts, pets, toys, and many more items that can take a long time to collect. In the past few years, there has been an increase in making these items account-wide, and Warbands will ensure that this trend continues.

6 Special Warbound Items Drop For Loot

Easy To Give Loot To Alts

Some items will have a new designation of Warbound Until Equipped after WoW: The War Within releases. This new item type will not be able to be sold on the Auction House or traded to other players but can be shared with any character on the owner’s Battle.net account until it is equipped. Once a character equips the item, it will become Soulbound to that character.

5 Delve Companions Will Keep Progress Across A Player Account

Brann’s Gear Won’t Reset

In WoW: The War Within there will be new Delves that can be run either solo or with small groups and have the benefit of an NPC companion along to assist. This companion can have gear and skills of their own and essentially be tweaked to be as useful as possible in complimenting the player’s style of gaming. The first companion will be Brann Bronzebeard, and with the Warband feature, Brann will only have to be geared up once for him to be ready to tag along with any of the characters on one account.

4 Transmogs Are Available Across Warbands

Transmogs Unlock For Accounts Regardless Of Armor Type

Transmogs will also be account-wide after WoW: The War Within‘s new Warband feature debuts. They are even more special, however, as there will not be as much difficulty in farming specific armor types. Transmogs will be able to be unlocked by a character even if they are not able to use the armor type that is looted. For example, if a Priest loots a transmog that is Plate armor, which they are unable to use, a Warrior that is on the same Battle.net account will be able to access it.

3 Flight Paths Are Shared Across A Player Account

No More Running

Creating new alts will be much less burdensome with Warbands, as Flight Paths across Azeroth will be unlocked for the account as long as they have been discovered by another character on the Warband. This will significantly reduce the amount of time spent running around trying to get flight points for an alt. Of course, anyone who wishes to run around to each area is still welcome to do so.

2 Reputations From WoW: The War Within Will Be For All The Warband

Eventually, More Reputations Will Also Work

One of the most time-consuming aspects of grinding in World of Warcraft is endeavoring to earn Exalted Reputation or Renown with various factions in the game. In WoW: The War Within, the Reputation earned in the new areas of the game will be counted across the Warband. Developers stated that they are looking at how to make this retroactive for past Rep/Renown as well, and will be working on doing so with Dragonflight content and work backwards from there.

1 Reagents Can Be Shared Across The Warband In WoW: The War Within

Easier Crafting

Tied into the new Warband Bank tab that lets all the characters on an account access items placed there, the Bank will let crafting materials and reagents also be shared. Using this reagent tab, any alt or main character can craft using the materials inside it easily. This, along with the other features listed above, would make the entire experience of playing World of Warcraft much more conducive to experimenting with playing multiple characters.