When Ascension's WoW realms went offline on September 4, the quiet casualty was Conquest of Azeroth — its realm of 21 custom classes built from Warcraft lore, distinct from the better-known classless Wildcard experiment. On October 16, that content came back: GrimfallWoW, the 3.3.5a custom server that launched the day after Ascension closed, opened Conquest of Azeroth as its second realm.

Original editorial illustration by RealmList, generated for this article. This is artwork, not game footage or official promotional material.

What Phase 1 looks like

The realm is a progressive, phased release. Phase 1 caps characters at level 20, and the cap comes with its own endgame: scaled Heroic and Mythic dungeons and other tuned content at 20. Later phases will raise the cap step by step and open more of the expanded world, but the announcement gives no dates for them. GrimfallWoW's wider design keeps the level 60 ceiling permanently and expands horizontally instead, folding scaled TBC and WotLK dungeons and quests, the Cataclysm dungeons The Stonecore and Lost City of the Tol'vir, and Tol Barad into the endgame pool as phases advance.

The headline draw is the class roster — 21 new classes, each with its own abilities, expanded talent trees and specializations. Per Private Server Hub's summary of the project's class pages, the roster is: Barbarian, Bloodmage, Chronomancer, Cultist, Felsworn, Guardian, Knight of Xoroth, Necromancer, Primalist, Pyromancer, Ranger, Reaper, Runemaster, Starcaller, Stormbringer, Sun Cleric, Templar, Tinker, Venomancer, Witch Doctor and Witch Hunter. The official announcement highlights Necromancer, Chronomancer and Runemaster as examples.

Beyond classes, the realm inherits GrimfallWoW's broader feature set: more than ten extra playable races with Kezan and Gilneas as rebuilt starting zones, Prestige (reset to level 1 for cosmetics, pets, heirlooms and Chrono Fragments), transmogrification with no gold cost and no class or armor-type limits, a bracket-free scaled Dungeon Finder from level 10, and refer-a-friend rewards.

Not the only survivor

Worth knowing if you liked Ascension's classes: GrimfallWoW is not the only place they still exist. Conquest Reborn, a small free realm run by a single developer, has kept the Conquest of Azeroth classes playable since September 9 — five days after Ascension went dark. And GrimfallWoW's first realm, the Classless Wildcard server Whisperwind, is still running, with its timeline putting 10-player Heroic Molten Core, Naxxramas, Gruul's Lair and Obsidian Sanctum on October 28.

How to get in

Playing is the standard 3.3.5a path: create an account on the GrimfallWoW site, download the game client from the website (the project distributes its own modified client rather than expecting a clean retail install), and pick the Conquest of Azeroth realm at login. Registration and the download are on the official site.

::note Verified on October 18, 2026 against GrimfallWoW's official Phase 1 announcement (October 16), the project's website, and Private Server Hub's coverage. The full 21-class name list is transcribed from Private Server Hub's summary of the official class pages; the official announcement itself names only examples. No dates have been announced for Phase 2 or the level cap increase, and no population figures exist yet — Phase 1 opened two days before this article. ::