Challenge Mode Season 1 Ending and Rewards

[Kaivax]

Patch 5.5.3 is on the horizon, and Challenge Mode Season 1 officially ends on December 9 with the launch of The Thunder King. During maintenance on that day, the rewards for Season 1 will be given out and the leaderboard will be reset.

Challenge Mode Season 2 will begin immediately with the patch on December 9.

Previously we mentioned that players would need to obtain a single newer, much faster time in any dungeon to earn the achievement Mistwalker and be awarded one of the celestial mounts. Based on feedback and data we have adjusted the time and requirements for obtaining Mistwalker and changed it to the following.

Players must complete each dungeon listed below within the time limit to be a Mistwalker.

• Temple of the Jade Serpent: 8m 30s
• Stormstout Brewery: 6m 30s
• Gate of the Setting Sun: 5m 30s
• Shado-Pan Monastery: 10m 30s
• Siege of Niuzao Temple: 10m 15s
• Mogu’shan Palace: 6m 45s
• Scholomance: 7m 15s
• Scarlet Halls: 4m 15s
• Scarlet Monastery: 5m 30s

For completing the above, players are awarded the title of Mistwalker, and a new and unique mount: The Celestial Riding Tiger. Soar through the skies atop an avatar of Xuen!

Season 2

Season 2 brings new Challenge Mode specific toys. Completing each dungeon will grant you a new and unique toy themed around that dungeon.

• Temple of the Jade Serpent: Platinum Boots of Expeditious Retreat
• Stormstout Brewery: Platinum “Little Ale”
• Gate of the Setting Sun: Platinum Rod of Ambershaping
• Shado-Pan Monastery: Platinum Potion of Invisibility
• Siege of Niuzao Temple: Platinum Amber
• Mogu’shan Palace: Platinum Battle Horn
• Scholomance: Platinum Vial of Polyformic Acid
• Scarlet Halls: Platinum Battle Banner
• Scarlet Monastery: Platinum Sacrificial Dagger

These are popular items that are used within Challenge Modes but are now earnable by earning Platinum Times. In addition, these now all reset every time a Challenge Mode is started.

Realm First!

New Realm First! achievements are awaiting for the fastest group of challengers. Season 2 and Season 3 have two new titles waiting for players who are the first to complete Challenge Conqueror: Platinum when the season is live.

• Season 2: the Thundering Stampede
• Season 3: the Momentous Terror

Platinum Coins

A new currency has been added to Challenge Modes that players may use to purchase new toys, mounts, and transmog sets. These are all sold by new vendors in Shrine of Seven Stars and Shrine of Two Moons.

Players earn Platinum Coins per dungeon completed if it is within the Platinum window. In addition to this recurring reward, players can earn a one time bonus for each Challenge Conqueror: Platinum meta achievement.

• Jaelof Ironhart is in Shrine of Seven Stars
• Viktor Felhallow is in Shrine of Two Moons

[Snipy-faerlina]

@Kaivax

The Celestial Riding Tiger

Cool mount!

[Stfumajesty-area-52]

unreal requirements for these times, 3 weeks before end of season a dev invents these times requirements in a private (community) discord channel based off of the thoughts and input of the absolute top players in Cmodes largely using exploits and an extremely strict meta

will this be one of the rarest mounts ever put into game?
you can have a top 30 in the US time and still not receive this - .001% of gamers convinced a dev only they should get it lol

no way this is based off of any sort of CM statistics, just pure vibes and wanting to be liked by the “cool kids”

[Blazinarrowz-cenarius]

Tropikal in his secret secret secret secret secret twice removed discord, discussing with the “Community(Tradias)” about these times and how ridiculously exclusive this will be. Also helps that the community(tradias) wanted the mount to change from celestial serpent to tiger.

[Boomaro-galakras]

Absolutely insane decision to implement this last minute with a mount that will be unobtainable locked behind it in a 3 week window.

For the love of god take internal input instead of just the people in the CM discord and hidden CM discord.

[Blazinarrowz-cenarius]

2 Week window

[Deos-nazgrim]

Who cares! What’s going on with Grobbulus!?

The sabotage MoP strategy seems to be working!

[Lynris-galakras]

Thanks for the 2 weeks notice and thanks for doing 0 class balance regarding healer damage in CMs so the ladder is nothing but disc priests.

[Blazinarrowz-cenarius]

Well the Community(Tradias) in the secret secret cm discord said you don’t have to have any specific classes or bug abuse to get these times. The times were vetted by the same community(tradias) too.

[Arkalith-lei-shen]

This is a joke and an insult to the entire community, where was this information months ago? There is no way you just came up with this in the last 3 weeks.

[Mezx-turalyon (Mezx)]

lol absolutely terrible communication

[Eccles-mankrik]

Hey just an idea for mop classic anniversary edition in 2030 maybe even less people could earn this if it was announced as late as possible.

[Emv-kiljaeden]

Here’s some more “feedback and data” - this is a stupid idea influenced by the best dozen players and is too outlandishly difficult to even influence participation and gameplay. Tone the times back a minute, or extend season one further. What a waste of a good opportunity

[Spriggs-nazgrim]

I’m excited to ride my vibe tiger

[Igor-emerald-dream]

People been playing this for 21 years and this is the crap you pull on them.

[Jaldaboth-dalaran]

can non meta classes even make this timer ?

[Basskip-arugal-au]

Cool initiative and looking forward to season 2, but can’t help but wish that we had more and earlier communication about season 1 - it wasn’t really clear that we were even in season 1 currently

My group saw that the platinum times were implemented on live and decided to do them ahead of the ToT patch launching since we wanted the recoloured CM sets and figured it was something to do other than raid logging

We saw the PTR notes announcement about realm first times but didn’t try for one since we didn’t think they were really within our grasp, but after hearing about and joining the CM discord we became aware of the tentative plan to convert the mount + title rewards to a fixed cutoff

Since then we’ve been working on the title times but it really would have been great to know earlier

Side note: The scarlet monastery and halls timers stand out to me as pretty massive jumps from the platinum cutoffs, needing to shave 3m30s or more off of each dungeon when they’re already among the shortest platinum times

[Dekunut-lei-shen]

Is this an out of season April fools joke?

[Linilinia-daggerspine]

I don’t even know where to begin with this entire unprofessional display from Tropikal but here’s a highlight reel:

-Creates Platinum timers, achievements, and rewards. This is only posted to his discord. 99% of the people I approach to accomplish this last minute goal are not aware of it’s existence. The playerbase has one month to accomplish this.

-Somewhere at this time the mount rewards are quietly swapped from Tsulong first to Xuen first. The playerbase has 3 weeks now.

-Retreats to a private discord/channel with the top timer runners in the world and creates a new timer based closely off WR times. These times are heavily dependent on comp and practice. I believe at this time one timer was required to be met in one dungeon to receive the mount. The playerbase has 3 weeks.

-The next few changes are all a blur and happened in rapid succession over the course of a few days. Almost immediately the one timer requirement is walked back. Timers are lowered further towards WR, then bumped up slightly. The playerbase has less than three weeks and the onslaught of changes is constant.

-Rather than alert anyone in the wider community to the above rapid fire changes and incredibly tight restrictions, the above information is all relayed in a channel 99.9999999999999% of the playerbase has no awareness of. In an effort to scour various discords and old guilds for anyone interested in pushing the timers, this poster found that at this time there was still no one that even knew Platinum timers were available, or in the game. Others in specific discords did know there were platinum timers, but had no idea that this time period was considered season one, or that it was ending in a matter of weeks, or that the mount rewards had been switched around. The playerbase has than two weeks.

-The only sources for this information in this time period are leaks from whatever privated discord or discord channel Tropikal is using to spitball his ideas and collect feedback from the select few. When confronted with these leaks, Tropikal mocks the playerbase: “Damn, can i get invited to the secret discord”. The playerbase has a little over two weeks at this point. As a reminder, no one in the wider player population knows this is even happening unless they have some sort of discord access to see these leaks.

-Today this information is finally shared, during a holiday week for American players, with less than two weeks remaining to accomplish. There will still be people that do not know this is even a reward they could have worked for. My time searching for people to create a group to accomplish this has yielded the opposite of what I assume is Blizzard’s desired results - many longtime friends from 2019 to present have finally decided to quit.

It’s been pretty discouraging watching some of the few people that do know this is happening try to provide feedback and get shouted down in the CM discord, and it’s pretty demoralizing that some of the few people I’ve enjoyed time with have decided this is the straw for them, and it’s also pretty frustrating to not be heard in any official channels discussing these leaks. For some reason it seems Tropikal does not understand that the issue people are having is of a time sensitive nature. The timers would have been quite fun to push for, but at this stage in the game there’s not enough time for us to create groups to accomplish this. It’s so disappointing and insulting and Tropikal should be ashamed of himself for the blatant collusion and favoritism shown here. I’m astonished he was allowed to push this.

The playerbase has less than two weeks.

[Stfumajesty-area-52]

they’re all just made up – dev was literally live updating his imagination process on the cutoff times saying “is this too unrealistic?” to the #1 and #2 groups in the world, then making memes like “send me your guys emails and i’ll make sure you get your mount for helping”

then people were like “hey having a secret channel with like 15 people that’s invite only for the top players where you make decisions for the playerbase at large is sort of.. wrong..”
and the replies were all “SUUUURE there’s a super secret discord… and thats only the one everyone knows about; you should hear about the SECRET secret discord!!!” to deflect from the fact that there is a direct and private line to the dev.