With the upcoming AQ patch, we are going to start by taking a trip back in time. The year was 2006, and for the first time, the AQ war effort was live in Azeroth. Players got together in a cross-faction race to gather materials from all over Azeroth, which, once completed, allowed players to start the scepter of the shifting sands quest. During this epic quest, players had to group up for all 4 dragons of Nightmare, among other raid-related quests. This all culminated in the gong being rung and the gates of AQ 40 being opened.
This original event saw completion in the middle of the night, allowing very few players to obtain the Scarab Lord title and the AQ black battle tank, a super rare mount.
The War Effort
The war effort resource gathering – since this is server-wide, there is quite a bit to gather, and not all servers like mine have everything saved up to be complete on day one. The materials that need to be gathered can be found here.
| Material | Qty Needed | Faction | Amount per turn in | Token Reward |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Linen Bandage | 800,000 | Alliance | 20 | 1 |
| Silk Bandage | 600,000 | Alliance | 20 | 5 |
| Wool Bandage | 250,000 | Horde | 20 | 3 |
| Mageweave Bandage | 250,000 | Horde | 20 | 7 |
| Runecloth Bandage | 400,000 (per faction) | Both | 20 | 10 |
| Rainbow fin Albacore | 14,000 | Alliance | 20 | 3 |
| Roast Raptor | 20,000 | Alliance | 20 | 5 |
| Lean Wolf Steak | 10,000 | Horde | 20 | 1 |
| Baked Salmon | 10,000 | Horde | 20 | 10 |
| Spotted Yellowtail | 17,000 (per faction) | Both | 20 | 7 |
| Stranglekelp | 33,000 | Alliance | 20 | 3 |
| Arthas’ Tears | 20,000 | Alliance | 20 | 10 |
| Peacebloom | 96,000 | Horde | 20 | 1 |
| Firebloom | 19,000 | Horde | 20 | 5 |
| Purple Lotus | 26,000 (per faction) | Both | 20 | 7 |
| Iron bar | 28,000 | Alliance | 20 | 5 |
| Thorium Bar | 24,000 | Alliance | 20 | 10 |
| Tin bar | 22,000 | Horde | 20 | 3 |
| Mithrill bar | 18,000 | Horde | 20 | 7 |
| Copper bar | 90,000 (per faction) | Both | 20 | 1 |
| Light Leather | 180,000 | Alliance | 10 | 1 |
| Medium Leather | 110,000 | Alliance | 10 | 3 |
| Heavy Leather | 60,000 | Horde | 10 | 5 |
| Rugged Leather | 60,000 | Horde | 10 | 10 |
| Thick Leather | 80,000 (per faction) | Both | 10 | 7 |
The Scepter Of The Shifting Sands
As mentioned, once the war effort is complete, then you need to embark on the epic quest to obtain the scepter of the shifting sands. This scepter is required to ring the gong to unlock the gates of AQ.
Resist Gear
There are a couple of fights within AQ that will require you to build some resistance sets. Right now, with some of these fights not testable on PTRs, it is not 100% confirmed you will need this. However, it is better to have and not need it, rather than not to have it and have to rush to farm it.
Princess Huhuran is one of the more famous resistance fighters, as she uses a poison that needs to be soaked. This is mainly required by melee classes and hunters if you are alliance or shamans if you are horde, depending on how much melee you have in your raid. A list of Nature resist can be found here.
In the other fight, you will need a warlock with Shadow resist gear for Twin Emperors. For this fight, you have a warlock tank for one of the bosses. A list of shadow resist gear can be found here.
Consumables
 AQ 40 consumables will be super helpful to keep your raid progression through those first weeks. Greater Nature Protection Potion will be super beneficial for mitigating damage on some of those more intense fights. For warlocks, having Greater Shadow Protection Potion probably wouldn’t hurt either. If you guys are anything like our guild, you will want to invest in your normal raid consumables as well as flasks, at least for the first weeks. Specifically for the next boss, we will talk about, you will also want to invest in Frost Oil.
Viscidus
This is an optional boss in AQ 40, which has a pretty unique mechanic that requires you to hit him with frost attacks to freeze him first, then continue physical damage to shatter him in order to defeat him. One important thing to note is that the amount of damage being done by frost is not what matters, but the number of frost attacks is the most important. Any frost wands or weapons are a huge help; one that is easy to farm is the dagger from Razorfen Downs dungeon, Coldrage Dagger. Some other options are a BOE world epic Hammer of the Northern Wind and Scholomance quest chain item Darrowspike. If you are Horde, you also have the option with AV rep Glacial Blade (Horde only).
Rep Grinds
With the launch of AQ, there are 2 reps that start to become more important, which are The Brood Nozdormu and the Cenarion Circle. Cenarion Circle rep is all farmed by farming mobs for Twilight Encrypted Text, which can be turned in for rep. You can also get other tokens in the zone from different mobs that allow you to summon bosses, who will drop gear and tokens that get turned in for rep. You will want to grind this rep at least on leatherworkers in your guild as they sell patterns for nature-resist gear, which is super important for the raid, and they go for quite a bit of gold. There are also patterns for Blacksmiths and enchanters as well (all nature resist related) and a trinket that is BIS for Rogue and Hunter into Phase 6. Lastly, there are bracers that are good for mages, warlocks, and balance druids at revered.
The Brood Nozdormu rep has ring rewards, which are great for Shadow priests, Feral (cat) druids, and Ret and Prot Paladins. You can farm this rep by killing mobs within AQ 40 as well as there are token hand ins and quests within the raid that can give you rep.
That’s everything you need to know about the AQ 40 War Effort in WoW Classic. You can check out our Guide Hub for more news and articles on the game.