Is it me or the Azure Span? WoW players frustrated by game-breaking Dragonflight zone lag

When we compare Dragonflight’s release on Nov. 28 with the launches of previous World of Warcraft expansions, it has been smooth sailing. That being said, players have still been experiencing bugs and performance issues, especially in the Azure Span, which has rendered the game unplayable in some circumstances.

Since the release, the third zone of the Dragon Isles, the Azure Span, has been a lag fest for many of the World of Warcraft community, with players complaining all over the official Blizzard forums, Reddit, and Twitter. 

Since there’s still no official statement coming from Blizzard, players began speculating on the exact reasons behind this lag. Currently, it’s believed that the mass lag is caused by the Cobalt Assembly. The Cobalt Assembly is a faction situated in the Azure Span that has its own sub-zone. 

When farming reputation with this sub-faction, you’ll get Wild Arcana Powers and bonuses that basically function like Anima Powers from Torghast. Blizzard servers have to, aside from the regular sharding and layering, render the zone for each player using Wild Arcana Powers in the zone. 

On top of that, the zone is brimming with players whenever the Community Feast world quest pops up. This means the lag is most likely a combination of people surging to the Azure Span to complete this world quest and to farm the reputation with the Cobalt Assembly. 

Hopefully, Blizzard will address this persistent and game-breaking lag in the near future since the game is almost rendered unplayable during peak server times.