Faction Change Effects

Updated: 3 months ago
Article ID: 281027
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Common Problems

  • What happens to quest progress, items, achievements, collections?
  • I want to Faction Change my character on my WoW Classic account but it won't let me.
  • Will I have to start from the beginning in the Covenant Campaign if I change factions?
  • What will happen to my reputations if I transfer to the other faction?

A Faction Change allows you to change a World of Warcraft or WoW Classic Progression character's faction. To complete the faction change, you will need to select your character's new race, appearance, and name. The Faction Change service is not available in WoW Classic Era.

You can purchase a Faction Change on the Battle.net shop or in the World of Warcraft in-game shop. You can access the in-game shop from any realm. If you are in a queue because your realm is full, remove yourself from the queue and select a different realm.

Below is the list of restrictions for this service. Customer Support cannot bypass any of the below restrictions.

 

Restrictions

Restrictions

Service Restrictions

  • You cannot faction change a character on a Starter Edition account.
  • You cannot faction change a Class Trial character.
  • You cannot faction change a character that has another pending character service, for example, a character that started a race change and did not yet complete it.
  • You cannot faction change a character that completed a character boost in the past 72 hours.
  • You cannot faction change a character that completed a race or faction change in the past 3 days.

In-game Restrictions

  • You cannot faction change a character that isn't at least level 10. In addition:
    • Demon Hunter and Dracthyr characters must have completed their starting zone quest lines.
    • Worgen characters must have left Gilneas and Goblin characters must have left Kezan.
    • Any character that starts at Exile's Reach must have left Exile's Reach.
  • You cannot faction change a character with active auctions on the Auction House.
  • You cannot faction change a character with heirlooms in your inventory or equipped.
  • You cannot faction change a character with mail in the mailbox.
  • You cannot faction change a character that has a WoW Token.
  • You cannot faction change a character with caged battle pets.
  • You cannot faction change a character that is a Guild Master. You can either give the leadership to another member of the guild or buy a Guild Master Faction Change service.

 

Consequences

Service Consequences

  • You cannot change the faction of the character again for 72 hours.
  • You cannot change the race of the character for 72 hours.
  • You cannot restore items that you destroyed, vendored, or disenchanted before the faction change.
  • If you change the name of your character, its original name will be reserved for you on the realm for 30 days.

In-game Consequences

Social

  • If you belong to one, you will leave your guild.
  • Your World of Warcraft friend list and ignore list will be cleared (not your Battle.net friends list).

Quests, questlines, and missions

  • Your quest log is cleared: all your quests are abandoned and all quest items in your inventory are destroyed. If you want to complete a quest you had in progress prior to the faction change, you must visit the quest giver to pick up the quest again and start it over.
  • Faction-specific questlines do not convert, specifically, the Battle for Azeroth War Campaign. If a questline unlocks certain game content, that content won’t be available in the new faction either (see Game Content Unlocks).
  • Follower, Shipyard, Champion, or Companion missions in progress are abandoned.
  • Covenant Progression is entirely independent from factions and will not be impacted in any way if you faction change.

Achievements

  • Completed achievements which are both faction and character specific will convert to their cross-faction equivalent. If the achievement is not yet completed, any partial progress will reset. For example, Nemesis achievements.
  • All Argent Tournament achievements (whether in-progress or completed) will reset.
  • Other achievements are account-wide and remain unaffected.

Collections (Titles, Pets, Mounts, and Transmogs)

  • Faction-specific titles convert to their cross-faction equivalent.
  • Faction-specific pets convert to their cross-faction equivalent: guild page and guild herald, moonkin hatchling, etc.
  • Mounts do not convert. Mounts are account-wide which means faction specific mounts are faction-wide.
  • Transmogs remain unaffected.

PVP

  • Currencies (honor and conquest) remain unaffected.
  • Progress towards the Season Rewards bar is unaffected because it is account-wide: all your characters regardless of faction contribute to the Season Rewards bar.
  • After a faction change, you will not earn Hero of the Alliance or Hero of the Horde unless you obtain 50 wins in your new faction.

Reputations and Allied Races

  • Faction-specific reputations will convert to their cross-faction equivalent if one exists.
  • Faction-specific reputations which do not have an equivalent in the new faction will reset back to Neutral.
  • Reputations with races and factions that have no allegiance to the Horde or to the Alliance remain unaffected. Allied Races have no allegiance to either faction. This means that reputation with an Allied Race will not convert to the new race. Likewise, having unlocked Heritage Armor with the original race will not unlock the Heritage Armor of the new race.
  • Progress towards a faction-specific Paragon Chest will reset.
  • Visit our Faction Change Reputation Conversion page for a conversion breakdown.

Game content unlocks

  • Flying, Flight Paths, Portals, and Ferries
    • Pathfinder is an account-wide unlock: if you have the achievement, your character’s ability to fly remains unaffected.
    • When you change factions, you retain all the neutral flight paths you already discovered, and you automatically unlock in the new faction the basic flight paths that are equivalent to the one you discovered in your original faction.
    • Transports which are tied to a specific questline must be unlocked by completing the questline, even if you already completed the faction equivalent on the original faction. For example, the portal to Silithus and the ferry and portal to Boralus or to Dazar’Alor are all unlocked by the War Campaign.
  • Account-wide unlocks remain unaffected (remain available in the new faction). This includes:
    • World quests.
    • Battle for Azeroth
      • Heart of Azeroth Essences.
      • Access to Island Expeditions, Siege of Boralus, and Kings' Rest.
    • Shadowlands
      • Memories of the Runecarver (legendary power recipes).
      • Threads of Fate.
      • Access to Torghast and Twisting Corridors.
  • Faction-specific mission tables will convert to their faction equivalent, including:
    • Warlords of Draenor Garrison and Shipyard (completed buildings only).
    • Battle for Azeroth Horde Banshee's Wail and Alliance Wind's Redemption.
    • Faction-specific followers, crews, champions, or companions of any expansion.
  • Other game unlocks that are faction specific will not be unlocked in the new faction. This includes Battle for Azeroth Warfronts (unlocked by War Campaign) and some transports (see Flight Paths, Portals, and Ferries).

Raid lockouts transfer with your character. You cannot continue mythic raids started prior to a faction change.

 

Restrictions

Service Restrictions

  • You cannot faction change a character on a Starter Edition account.
  • You cannot faction change a character that completed a character boost in the past 72 hours.
  • You cannot faction change a character that completed a race or faction change in the past 3 days.
  • You cannot faction change a character that exceeds the gold limit for its level.
    Character LevelMaximum Gold
    10-30500g
    31-502,500g
    51-8025,000g
    81-8550,000g

In-game restrictions

  • You cannot faction change a character that isn't at least level 10.
  • You cannot faction change a character with active auctions on the Auction House.
  • You cannot faction change a character with mail in the mailbox.
  • You cannot faction change a character that is a Guild Master, you must transfer leadership to another member or disband your guild.

 

Consequences

Service Consequences

  • You cannot change the faction of the character again for 3 days.
  • You cannot change the race of the character for 3 days.
  • You cannot restore items that you destroyed, vendored, or disenchanted before the faction change.
  • If you change the name of your character, its original name will be reserved for you on the realm for 30 days.

In game Consequences

Social

  • If you belong to one, you will leave your guild.
  • Your World of Warcraft friend list and ignore list will be cleared (not your Battle.net friends list).

Quests, questlines, and achievements

  • Your quest log is cleared: all your quests are abandoned and all quest items in your inventory are destroyed. If you want to complete a quest you had in progress prior to the faction change, you must visit the quest giver to pick up the quest again and start it over.
    • Quest items from legendary quests such as the one to obtain Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings will not be destroyed, but the quests must be picked up again before you can continue progress.
  • Completed achievements which are faction specific will convert to their cross-faction equivalent. If the achievement is not yet completed, any partial progress will reset.
  • All Argent Tournament quests and achievements (whether in-progress or completed) will reset.

Reputation

  • Faction-specific reputations will convert to their cross-faction equivalent if one exists.
  • Faction-specific reputations which do not have an equivalent in the new faction will reset back to Neutral.
  • Reputations with races and factions that have no allegiance to the Horde or to the Alliance remain unaffected.
  • Visit our Faction Change Reputation Conversion page for a conversion breakdown.

Other

  • Faction-specific mounts convert to their cross-faction equivalent.
  • Faction-specific titles convert to their cross-faction equivalent.
  • Honor and Arena rating is unaffected.
    • To be eligible for arena points you must have played at least 10 matches in a single faction.
  • When you change factions, you retain all the neutral flight paths you already discovered, and your discovered flight paths are converted to the equivalent basic flight paths of your new faction.
  • Raid lockouts transfer with your character.