Fated Raids Explained: Everything You Need to Know for Raiding in Shadowlands Season 4 (9.2.5)

As part of the experimental nature of Shadowlands Mythic+ Season 4 and Shadowlands PvP Season 4, Blizzard has also taken the opportunity to try something new with raiding during the final stretch of the Shadowlands expansion in Patch 9.2.5. This new system of Season 4 is known as Fated Raids.

Starting with the Dragonflight Pre-Patch, every one of the three major raids of Shadowlands — along with the world boss released during its patch — will be featured as a "Fated" version, with higher item level loot and a couple of additional mechanics on each fight that are meant to make things easier if executed correctly. In addition, bosses within a Fated raid will drop Cosmic Flux and reward reputation for a relevant faction! These Fated Raids are Castle Nathria, Sanctum of Domination, and Sepulcher of the First Ones. Do not forget to check out our guides to any of these raids or bosses if you need a reminder or have never faced them before!

In addition to being tuned for players with higher item levels, Fated Raids also feature a unique affix, similar to Mythic+ dungeons; their effects are listed below. Keep checking our guides to Castle Nathria, Sanctum of Domination, and Sepulcher of the First Ones to see which encounters feature each of these new challenges.

• Fated Power: Chaotic Essence
  • A Chaotic Essence will appear and cast Chaotic Destruction until it is interacted with. Once you do, you have 15 seconds to kill as many Chaotic Motes as possible to receive a stacking buff to your group's damage and healing for the next 25 seconds. This buff caps out at 40 Chaotic Motes.
• Fated Power: Creation Spark
  • Periodically, a player will have a damage-over-time (DoT) effect applied for 30 seconds. When this DoT expires, Creation Sparks will fly toward spots on the floor. Players must "catch" these Creation Sparks before they hit the ground to gain a stacking buff to their casting/attack/movement speed and cooldown reduction for 20 seconds. Failing to catch a Creation Spark will apply a stacking DoT to the raid for 20 seconds.
• Fated Power: Protoform Barrier
  • A boss in the encounter will temporarily gain a damage absorption shield and radiate additional damage until it is removed. Simultaneously, a new enemy will spawn and apply a massive, shared barrier to all enemies in the encounter for 15 seconds. Players must attack this new enemy — or heal an additional friendly target with this barrier — to break the shield in time. Successfully breaking the barrier will apply all the damage dealt directly back to the enemies and empower the raid with 25% bonus damage and healing for 40 seconds. Failing to break the barrier in time will instead cause it to explode and apply a powerful DoT to the raid for 8 seconds.
• Fated Power: Reconfiguration Emitter
  • An additional enemy will spawn at times during the encounter and will initially be immune to damage as it attempts to cast an ability that damages the entire raid. If this cast is interrupted, a smaller pulse of damage will instead occur. The longer this enemy lives, the stronger it will become. However, upon defeat the raid will be empowered with additional secondary stats based on how strong the emitter enemy was allowed to get.

When a raid is Fated the higher item levels awarded from encounters as follows:

• Fated Raid Finder — 265/272
• Fated Normal — 278/285
• Fated Heroic — 291/297
• Fated Mythic — 304/311

The higher item levels shown for each difficulty are exclusively obtained on equipment dropped by the final 2-3 bosses of each Fated Raid, and items obtained from the Fated version of each world boss will be only be 285.

Fated Raids will continue to drop Conduits, but will do so at the item level of Conduits from Sepulcher of the First Ones. This means that Conduits within Fated Raids will appear at the following item levels:

• Fated Raid Finder — 239
• Fated Normal — 252
• Fated Heroic — 265
• Fated Mythic — 278

It should be noted that Conduit item levels are otherwise not going up in Season 4.

So as to not create an imbalance that heavily favors players who have been raiding throughout the entirety of the Shadowlands expansion, there are a few restrictions regarding Fated Raids. Although the item levels of the pieces have increased, it should be noted that Shards of Domination will not work in any form within the Fated Sanctum of Domination raid.

Bonuses from Tier Sets are not active in the Dragonflight Pre-Patch, but tier tokens will still only drop in the regular and Fated versions of the Sepulcher of the First Ones raid.

Finally, if you are looking to fill out the raiding slots in your weekly Great Vault, be aware that you will need to specifically kill bosses from that week's Fated Raid for it to count, with the rewards in the vault being chosen from the loot tables of all Fated bosses you have ever defeated.

As of the Dragonflight Pre-Patch, there is no longer a rotation between the fated raids. Instead, all raids and world bosses of the Shadowlands will simultaneously be in their fated variants.

While a raid is Fated, any unlocked skips (those earned with Sludgefist's Head, Phylactery Shard, or Mourne Fragment) are still usable, allowing players to potentially bypass many of the encounters in the Fated Raid if they desire.

Since Fated Raids initially existed on a rotation (for now), it would prove very frustrating to seek out a particular item you desire if you only had a few chances in the season. To that end, Blizzard also introduced a way to obtain the exact weapon or trinket you want from any of the raids in Shadowlands. However, there is a price to be paid, and regular gold will not be enough. Instead, you will need to seek out Puzzling Cartel Dinars.

To start out, you will need to enter any of the Shadowlands raids while they are in their Fated versions. Once inside, you will automatically be given a quest to first kill 30 Fated Raid bosses on any difficulty, including LFR — defeating the same boss on multiple difficulties in a week will still only count as one kill, however. This quest has three parts — with each part requiring fewer boss kills to complete — and is the only way to obtain Puzzling Cartel Dinar, meaning you can only earn three Dinar across the entire season.

Initially in Season 4, it is expected to take around 5 Fated Raids cleared to achieve all 3 Dinars, though this amount of time will be reduced later. Knowing all this, Use your Dinars wisely!

Once you have earned at least one Puzzling Cartel Dinar, you will want to visit Ko'ropo, So'turu, and Ta'choso. These three vendors can be found next to the Great Vault in Oribos and will sell you any weapon or trinket — or the Soulwarped Seal of Menethil/ Soulwarped Seal of Wrynn for Death Knights and Priests, respectively — from Fated Raids at their Normal Fated item level (278/285) for one Dinar each. Although they will not sell Hunters Rae'shalare, Death's Whisper, this item will be dropping at a higher rate from Sylvanas, along with a new set of items to upgrade its item level for players that already own it. With all this in mind, be sure to check out your specialization's gear guide for recommendations on what to purchase!

As a final bonus, in Fated Raids you also have the opportunity to upgrade your items to their Heroic or Mythic versions! This is done by receiving cyphers from Heroic and Mythic Fated Raid bosses, with one cypher always being given per boss killed. Note that Heroic and Mythic cyphers are separate currencies, but you can upgrade an item immediately from its Normal item level to Mythic without first upgrading to Heroic!

Once you have acquired 20 Heroic or Mythic cyphers, you can combine them into a Cosmic Creation Impetus or Sacred Creation Impetus, respectively, and use one on any item from Fated Raids (including those purchased with Puzzling Cartel Dinar) to upgrade it.

There are special achievements tied to completing all three Fated Raids at a certain difficulty level, each with their own additional reward:

• Normal — ( Fates of the Shadowlands Raids) — Jigglesworth Sr. mount;
• Heroic — ( Heroic: Fates of the Shadowlands Raids) — "Hero of Fate" title;
• Mythic — ( Mythic: Fates of the Shadowlands Raids) — teleports to all three Shadowlands raids:
  • Path of the Sire
  • Path of the Tormented Soul
  • Path of the First Ones

These rewards are still obtainable up until the launch of Dragonflight on November 28th, 2022.

Note that both Ahead of the Curve: The Jailer and Cutting Edge: The Jailer are not obtainable in Season 4. Mounts that drop on Heroic and Mythic difficulties (including the Fractal Cypher of the Carcinized Zerethsteed from Heroic The Jailer) will continue to do so at their 100% drop rate until the launch of the upcoming Dragonflight expansion.

There are also no hall of fame achievements for Fated Raids (eg: Hall of Fame: The Jailer (Horde))!

Overall, Fated Raids represent an interesting idea for raiding going forward, allowing players the opportunity to see raiding content in an expansion that they may not have had the chance to try out before increasing item levels made it irrelevant. In addition, the ability to know that you will eventually get the exact weapon or trinket you want with Puzzling Cartel Dinar and even be able to upgrade it as you defeat Heroic and Mythic encounters should remove some of the pain if you are normally unlucky. If this test of the system goes well, then there may even be a chance for this system to be carried over into the upcoming Dragonflight expansion!

If you would like to see other changes occurring in Mythic+ or PvP for Shadowlands Season 4 or to catch up on the most recent patches of Shadowlands, be sure to check out our overviews below.