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Arguably one of the most game-changingnew features added toWorld of WarcraftinThe War Withinis the Warbands system. Upon logging into theTWWclient for the first time, you will immediately notice something is different – all of your characters are listed together on the right, and four of them can be seen around a campfire, ready to be selected.
But Warbands are a lot more than just a new login screen. With this system, it’s easier than ever to command an army of Alts, as it essentially lets you share most progression and account-level features across all of your characters, and makes it easier than ever to trade items and now currencies between them. Plus, there’s anew Warband Bank featurethat lets you share reagents in a simple way.
What Are Warbands – Account-Wide Everything
The new Warband system, introduced in the pre-patch forThe War Within, completely revitalizes how the game"acknowledges the player behind the screen"and respects their time spent in-game. Before Warbands were added, the game would tie practically all forms of progression and unlocks to individual characters. For example, you couldn’t share Reputations and would have to grind them over and over again on your Alts, and typically speaking, it was difficult to trade items between Alts to catch them up.
With Warbands, though, all of that changes. With Warbands, all of your characters share Achievements (and Achievement progression), Reputations and Renown,currencies can be traded instantlywith a new UI option, and the experience of sharing other items (like crafting mats) with your Alts is made significantly easier with new Bank options.
Instead of grinding out the same things over and over again, Warbands make the Alt experience much more streamlined and significantly less painful to get them up to speed – there’s even new a new option to highlight quests you have already completed on other characters so you don’t waste time re-doing content. According to aninterviewwith chief creative officer Chris Metzen, it’s a way that Blizzard is doing more to respect the players' time as the population gets older and has less time to grindWoW.
It might seem a bit complex and hard to understand, but at its core, Warbands allow you to shareeverythingbetween characters in a way thatWoWhas never seen before. Plus, there’s a beautifully revamped character select screen that displays your top four favorite Alts in a camp, which has been compared to the character select screen fromDiablo.
Shared Reputations, Quests, Maps, & Achievements
There are a lot of progression systems that all of your characters will now automatically share, and what’s especially handy is that your characters who have progressed the furthest in a particular feature will be the baseline for everyone else. These shared progression systems include;
If you have one character at Renown 25 with a faction, and another who hasn’t evenstarted working on that faction’s Renown, that Alt will automatically be raised up to Renown 25 and can get all the rewards associated with that progression, without mindlessly repeating content. You can avoid quests you have already completed (unless you want XP), and it’s easier than ever to unlock complex Achievements as each of your Alts can contribute parts to the whole – like the Loremaster achievements.
The one thing that you do have to activate to share is Map exploration. If you want to share revealed areas of the world between characters, you have to use the new (and free) Toy called the Warband Map To Everywhere All At Once. Using this item automatically reveals zones other Alts have explored to your map, so be sure to log into each of your characters and take advantage of this new free Toy.
Warbands Allow Instant Currency Transfers
Another great aspect of the Warbands systemTWWintroduces is the ability to instantly transfer all special currencies to other Alts. This includes unique upgrade currencies like Flightstones and Sigils, tradable currencies like Resonance Crystals (used to purchase Renown items inTWW), and other items that were previously locked to each character.
To trade Currencies between characters,TWWplayers should open up their Currencies menu (in the Character screen) on the Alt who will bereceivingthe currencies. Click the currency you want to trade, then click “Transfer”. The character you are playing as will be highlighted on the right side, and you’re able to select your other Alts on the drop-down on the left side. Then, it’s a simple matter of typing in how much of that currency you want to transfer, and clicking “Confirm”.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to transfer currency the other way, from a character who has them to one who doesn’t. You must log in on the character who will receive the currency, not the one who will be sending it.
Warband Banks Let You Share Even More
TheWoWWarbands system allows you to share a lot of non-tangible things between characters, as well as currencieswhich could not previously be traded. Though it was perfectly possible to send BoEs and crafting mats to your Alts via the Mail system, the new Warband Bank feature makes the process of sharing actual items between characters significantly easier, too.
Warband Banks serve as a shared Bank betweenallof your characters, and serve as a great place to drop off crafting mats for your Alts' other professions, and items that your Alts could find useful. A new item category, Warbound Until Equipped (or WoE), has been included inThe War Withinto more easily differentiate which items you’re able to share with this feature and which are character-locked.
What’sespecially nice about Warband Banksis that you can access it at any time, from anywhere in the world. No longer do players have to run back to the bank to grab mats they forgot for crafting, now you can just pull them straight out of the bank at any crafting bench, or summon a Mobile Warband Bank to grab specific things.
With time, Blizzard plans to retroactively add more features to the Warband system, like old expansion currencies and reputations, though it is mostly locked toDragonflightandThe War Withinfor now. Spend some time getting used to the new Warband system and take full advantage of Warband Banks to have a much better time playing on your Alts.
