New Pandaria Timerunning Spell in Patch 10.2.5 - Dark Heart & Worldsoul Saga Ties?

16.01.2024 - 10:31 / wowhead.com

With the unveiling of the 2024 WoW roadmap, we speculated about the potential return of Challenge Modes with the Timerunning Pandamonium event coming in the Patch 10.2.7: Dark Heart update later this spring.

We've since discovered a new spell in Patch 10.2.5 related to Timerunning that could shed some light on what we might expect from the new event and how it could have potential ties to the greater Worldsoul Saga.

WoW 2024 Content RoadmapTimerunning Challenge Mode Speculation

New Timerunning Spell

At first glance, Pandaria Event Shard Active and its subsequent buff don't appear to offer a lot of additional information, but let's deep dive.

'Pandaria Timerunning' does confirm that the spelling of Pandamonium was not accidental and would likely involve Mists of Pandaria content. That was practically a given in my last speculation, but it's good to get some actual evidence of that.

Content Tuning Spells

'Content Tuning Aura' suggests that either the player or the existing content is being retuned via this spell for this Timerunning event. While that's not particularly shocking since that's the exact nature of Timewalking, the method by which they do is via 'Effect — Apply Aura: Modify Raid.'

You might be thinking that has to be a fairly common spell effect, but actually it's quite limited to 20 or so spells most of which are fairly new. The most similar to a content tuning aura would be Fated Raid which was the buff introduced in Shadowlands Season 4 that indicated a Fated Raid or world boss.

There are other 'Modify Raid' auras in the above list related to world content like Dreamsurges (Dreamsurge Learnings/Dreamsurge Defenders), so it is possible this Timerunning event could be reprised world content. The above spell does reference 'shard' which usually refers to a new copy of an area used to prevent overcrowding. Many have speculated that this could be an evergreen update to one of WoW's most popular zones, the Timeless Isle, which could offer a continual stream of outdoor content for players.

But let's follow the 'raid' aspect a bit further.

Siege of Orgrimmar Returns?

We previously speculated that perhaps Timerunning would just be additional difficulties of the suspected Mists of Pandaria Timewalking raid, Siege of Orgrimmar, and the above aura would lend credence to that speculation. Farming an iconic WoW raid for leveling gear and those sweet updated Garrosh heirlooms as players await the launch of The War Within seems like a credible event to head into the next expansion.

But is it better than challenge modes? Perhaps there's more to it than that?

Xal'atath & The Worldsoul Saga

Timerunning Pandamonium appears in the Patch 10.2.7: Dark Heart content update alongside Harbinger Quests.