Progression & Leveling · By mogdone · Updated 2026-10-26
In this guide
Restored article · archive captured 27 October 2026. Historical game facts and recommendations await current-patch review.
The Ancient Lands are a new PvPvE activity designed for solo players, small groups, and large parties. Players explore floating islands, complete PvE objectives, compete with other groups, and push towards valuable rewards such as the Dragon Sanctuary Waystone and Firewing Drake Egg.
The Ancient Lands combine exploration, PvE, and PvP into one interconnected experience where players must decide whether to secure their rewards or continue pushing deeper for greater treasures.
Entering the Ancient Lands
Look for Ancient Lands portals on the World Map. There are Small, Medium and Large variants; check the portal panel for the supported party size and remaining entry time.
After Dragonfire Patch 3, Small portals in Yellow Zones appear much more frequently, with a five-minute lock and a ten-minute entry window. Small portals in lethal zones remain less frequent opportunities with higher rewards. Do not apply the Yellow Zone timings to every portal type.
Parties are matched with groups of similar sizes. Read the portal's entry panel before committing your group.
Ancient Lands have two rulesets:
Orange Zone - accessed through Yellow Zones. Equipped gear is protected, but loot collected during the run can be lost. Check which carried-in items are protected by Item Freeze.
Black Zone - accessed through Red Zones and the Outlands. Equipped gear and carried items are at risk.
Dragonfire Patch 3 changed portal availability. The October development update explains Item Freeze: protection for items brought into the applicable instance does not make newly acquired loot safe.
Exploring the Floating Islands
Once inside, each party starts on its own outer island, initially separated from other groups.
Your goal is to complete the island quest by defeating Keeper mobs and completing the local Fame objective.
Islands also contain camps, small points of interest, and occasional relaxing activities such as fishing.
Once the island quest is complete, a Keystone appears. It can activate one of the island's teleporters, allowing players to travel to a neighbouring island.
Group size Ruleset
Maeve, the Unfettered Oracle
Azaryon, the Fire Dragon
Dragon Sanctuary Waystone
Firewing Drake EggGrow time Daily nurture Space Diet
Drake Egg Biscuits
Waystone FragmentPurpose Origin
Dragonslayer Armor
Potent Dragon Blood
Leyfin Omelette
Major Lifeward Potion
Keystones can also be removed and placed on another teleporter, allowing groups to redirect travel routes.
Shared teleporters
Once a teleporter has been activated, it can be used by every group in the
Ancient Lands. The group that activated the route does not have exclusive
ownership of it.
Initially, all connections are inactive. As groups complete their objectives, more routes open towards the centre of the Ancient Lands, where Drakes and greater rewards await.
Visible Connections and PvP
Teleporter connections created with Keystones are visible to other players.
On the map:
Inactive connections appear faded.
Newly activated routes are highlighted.
Established routes remain visible with lower emphasis.
At the beginning, groups are easy to track because everyone starts on separate outer islands. As more connections open and groups begin using paths created by others, their positions become harder to predict.
PvP-focused groups can follow connections to find opponents, while groups avoiding PvP can monitor the map and move away from approaching players.
Keystones can also be removed after being placed. For example, a group being chased can cross to another island and remove the Keystone behind them, forcing the pursuing group to find another route.
Lore Fragments and Ashborn
The Ancient Lands contain more than Keeper camps and marked Drakes. Lore Fragments are additional objectives discovered while exploring the islands.
Deeper exploration
Deeper routes also introduce Ashborn mobs,
adding another layer of PvE danger as groups push deeper into the Ancient Lands.
Leaving the Ancient Lands
Players can leave through entrance portals, either the one they originally used or one used by another group.
Regardless of which portal you use, you return safely to your original entry position in the open world.
Leaving also grants a temporary protection buff that makes you invisible, giving players a safer opportunity to extract with their rewards.
Drake Spawns
A Drake can potentially spawn on every platform, but only four marked Drakes count towards the global objective.
Each marked Drake has three starting islands around it, meaning each can become a contested objective between up to three groups.
The marked Drakes provide some of the best Ancient Lands rewards, including full chests, Potent Dragon Blood, and Waystone Fragment items used to create Waystones for the Dragon Sanctuary.
The Global Objective
The main objective is located in the centre of the map: the Ancient Spire.
The Spire remains closed until the global objective is completed:
Defeat all four marked Drakes.
Once all four marked Drakes have been defeated, the Fire Drake appears in the centre. It guards the Ancient Lands' largest reward and can provide complete Waystones. See the official Ancient Lands overview for this progression.
The Dragon Sanctuary is a separate raid, accessed by using a Waystone in the open world. It is not the central island encounter. Keep the two activities separate when planning your group and equipment.
Dragon Sanctuary and Waystones
Ancient Lands rewards can help you obtain access to the Dragon Sanctuary, a separate 20-player PvE raid. Waystones can also be bought from the Marketplace. Using one in the open world reveals the party entrance, as explained in the official Dragon Sanctuary overview.
Dragon Sanctuary access
A Dragon Sanctuary Waystone reveals a hidden
Dragon Sanctuary and is consumed when used successfully. The Waystone can
only be used successfully in the Outlands within range of a region of the
corresponding tier.
One party, up to 20 players
PvE
Waystone Fragments are shards of an ancient Keeper navigation tool. They are used to create Waystones and can be found while progressing through the Ancient Lands.
Maeve, the Unfettered Oracle and Azaryon
Inside the Dragon Sanctuary, groups face high-level PvE encounters before reaching the final boss.
Maeve, the Unfettered Oracle is the Sanctuary boss encountered before
Azaryon.
Forced movement
Maeve's encounter includes forced-movement mechanics. Distinguish ordinary
crowd-control immunity from effects that explicitly provide immunity to
forced movement.
Azaryon, the Fire Dragon is the ultimate PvE encounter at the end of the
Dragon Sanctuary.
Dragon Attacks
Dragon Attacks are separate open-world Dragonfire events from the Dragon Sanctuary.
Event timing
On the Royal Continent, Dragon Attacks can begin spontaneously. In the
Outlands, they are announced several hours in advance, giving groups time to
prepare.
Players do not need to be part of a large organised group to benefit from
these events. Solo players can also participate and receive rewards for
contributing to the fight.
Lingering Dragon Spirit
One-week debuff
Defeating Azaryon applies the
Lingering Dragon Spirit debuff to every
party member for one week. The debuff makes the Dragon Sanctuary more
difficult during its active period, so groups should consider the timing of
their next attempt.
How to Fight the Drakes
Drakes use large AoE attacks primarily against the player holding aggro.
The safest setup is to have your tank hold aggro with the Drake facing away from the rest of the group.
The rest of the party should stay behind the Drake and avoid standing beside the tank.
The Drake will occasionally attack the entire party, but these attacks are generally easier to avoid.
Main rule
Keep the Drake's back towards your group.
This makes map awareness and movement control an important part of PvP.
Bleedout and Reviving
The Ancient Lands introduce a new Bleedout knockdown state in both Orange Zone and Black Zone versions.
When defeated, players enter Bleedout instead of immediately dying. They slowly weaken while their party continues fighting.
If the party abandons them, the Bleedout ends faster. If allies remain nearby, the player can survive longer.
Party members can revive fallen allies, but revived players receive a debuff that persists inside the Ancient Lands, making them weaker.
Ancient Lands Rewards: Waystones, Firewing Drake, Dragonslayer Armor and Lifeward Potion
The Ancient Lands offer several valuable rewards, including Dragon Sanctuary Waystone items, Waystone Fragment items, Dragonslayer Armor, Major Lifeward Potion, Leyfin Omelette, and Drake Egg Biscuits.
The Dragon Sanctuary Waystone reveals a hidden Dragon Sanctuary and is consumed when used successfully.
The large-group Waystone can only be used successfully in the Outlands within range of a region of the corresponding tier.
The Firewing Drake Egg is placed in a Kennel, where it grows into a Tame Firewing Drake. The tame drake can then be trained into a Firewing Drake mount.
27 days, 20 hours
126 Focus
36 m²
Mounts
The egg is also used to craft the new Drake Egg Biscuits.
Firewing Drake movement
The Firewing Drake's glide-speed bonus cannot be interrupted by normal
damage. Stuns can still interrupt it.
The Drake Egg Biscuits are new TierT8 food that can only be crafted using a Firewing Drake Egg.
They increase Combat and Gathering Fame by 5% for 25 hours.
Drake Egg Biscuits do not remove combat food buffs, allowing them to be used alongside other combat food effects.
The four marked Drakes provide Waystone Fragment items. These fragments are shards of an ancient Keeper navigation tool and are used to create Waystones for the Dragon Sanctuary.
Waystone fragments
Create Waystones
Ancient Keeper navigation tool
Killing Drakes can provide materials used to craft the new Dragonslayer equipment set. The supplied item data shows Elder's Dragonhide Padding being used to craft an Elder's Dragonslayer Jacket of the same tier.
The set includes the Elder's Dragonslayer Hood, Elder's Dragonslayer Jacket, and Elder's Dragonslayer Shoes.
The Dragonslayer Armor has three abilities:
Wings of Fire
Wings of Fire conjures a pair of dragon wings, allowing the player to fly through the air while becoming immune to CC.
It creates an area with a 5.5m radius at the landing position that lasts for 6 seconds.
While inside the area, enemies outside cannot affect you, while your damage and cooldown rate are increased by 15%.
Flare
Flare shoots a flare towards a targeted position that grows from Radius4m to 7.5m over Duration5 seconds.
Enemies inside the area are revealed, cannot become invisible, and have their Cooldown Rate decreased by 50%.
Burning Momentum
Burning Momentum grants Charges4 charges of Burning Momentum.
Each charge grants 18% movement speed for up to 6 seconds.
Each of the next 4 abilities refunds 15% of the cooldown of all weapon ability slots and removes 1 charge of Burning Momentum.
Drakes can provide Potent Dragon Blood, a rare alchemical ingredient used to brew powerful potions such as the new Major Lifeward Potion.
Fishing in the Ancient Lands can provide Leyfin, a new type of fish available in three tiers:
T3 Curefree Leyfin
T5 Brightsoul Leyfin
T7 Dragonbound Leyfin
Leyfin can be used to craft the new Leyfin Omelette.
The Dragonbound Leyfin Omelette increases Cast Speed by 9.5%, Cooldown Rate by 7.6%, and Healing Cast by 6.6% for Duration30 minutes.
The new Major Lifeward Potion is crafted using Potent Dragon Blood and comes in T4, T6, and T8.
The potion is thrown at a targeted position, releasing leyline magic in a 4m radius. Allies in the area gain Lifeward for 4 seconds.
The first time a Lifewarded ally reaches 1 Health, they are stunned for 2.5 seconds and recover 26% Health instantly, followed by 21% over the duration.
While reviving, their Healing Received is reduced by 80%.
Revived allies cannot gain Lifeward again for 3 minutes.
The Ancient Lands Progression
Enter the Ancient Lands.
Start on your outer island.
Defeat Keeper mobs and complete the Fame objective.
Obtain a Keystone.
Activate and manage teleporter connections.
Explore neighbouring islands.
Track or avoid other groups.
Defeat the four marked Drakes.
Collect rewards and Waystone Fragment items.
Challenge the central Fire Drake.
Extract, then prepare a separate Dragon Sanctuary raid.
Use a Dragon Sanctuary Waystone.
Enter the Dragon Sanctuary.
Defeat Maeve and Azaryon.
Hunt for the extremely rare Firewing Drake Egg.
The Ancient Lands combine PvE progression, open PvP, group coordination, map control, extraction, and valuable rewards, with players constantly deciding how far they are willing to push before leaving.
