Back when the COVID-19 pandemic was first ramping up, Blizzard decided to give a few incentives to World of Warcraft players. Mostly intended to help encourage players to stay at home and socially distance, both ended up extremely popular.
The first was the Winds of Wisdom buff, which doubled all experience gained. This made leveling characters extremely fast, especially paired with other experience-boosting sources like heirloom gear and the Darkmoon Faire buff.
Second was the Impressive Influence buff, which doubled all reputation gained (with limits). While not focused on every source, the buff was useful for the most important and relevant ones, namely those in Legion and Battle for Azeroth.
Now, though, the development studio has had to make the choice to push back the release of World of Warcraft: Shadowlands. With the expansion delayed, Blizzard is searching for ways to keep the player base satisfied.
With prepatch on the way, the developers also decided to bring the Impressive Influence buff back for players, doubling experience once again. This is useful for paragon rewards, transmogs, and capping out reputations as the expansion ends.
Blizzard has announced that the #Shadowlands expansion for #Warcraft will be delayed until later this year. https://t.co/y0Yx0u86jA pic.twitter.com/bflMq6NkYY
— Wowhead💙 (@Wowhead) October 1, 2020
Alliance players have the following reputations affected:
- Waveblade Ankoan 7th Legion Storm’s Wake Order of Embers Proudmoore Admiralty
Horde players will receive the buff to the following reputations:
- The Unshackled The Honorbound Zandalari Empire Talanji’s Expedition Voldunai
Neutrally affecting both races, the following reputations are doubled:
- Rustbolt Resistance Tortollan Seekers Champions of Azeroth Uldum Accord Rajani
Closing out the list of affected reputations, the following Legion:
- Armies of Legionfall Army of the Light Argussian Reach Court of Farondis Dreamweavers Highmountain Tribe Nightfallen The Wardens Valajar
And those are all of the reputations affected by the buff! The Impressive Influence buff will be continuing on through October, and with the prepatch dropping ten days from now, it’s unlikely that the developers will feel the need to extend the buff.
Still, the buff will be active for quite some time after prepatch launches on October 13th, meaning that the powerful buff will overlap with all of the bonuses that the prepatch launch will bring.
Given that we also still don’t have an exact release date for Shadowlands, there’s no telling what sorts of plans Blizzard has to fill the gap. While they’ve already begun offering refunds to those that were optimistic enough to preorder, it seems like it may be best to simply keep the preorder of the expansion on hand.