WoW: Shadowlands’ Pre-Patch is Imminent

Join me in rejoicing, my fellow denizens of Azeroth! The two-year-long saga that has been World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth has finally concluded and made way for new content. I’m positively ecstatic to report that as part of the Shadowlands pre-expansion update, new content is coming in droves quite soon. I think I can say that with some degree of confidence because, assuming nothing cataclysmic has taken place between writing this and the time this article is posted, the new pre-expansion update is scheduled to reach live servers sometime today on North American servers.

This news comes according to Blizzard’s typical weekly “breaking news” notifications that can be seen in the Battle.net desktop application and on World of Warcraft’s character selection screen. The Shadowlands pre-patch will be live and playable as soon as scheduled maintenance completes. Blizzard estimates that this week’s scheduled maintenance will last from approximately 7am to 3pm Pacific time. This comes with one major caveat attached, however.

I would advise against doing something so drastic as perhaps disregarding your normal daily obligations in order to devote more time to the game. That reasoning is simply because there’s no guarantee that this period of maintenance will actually adhere to that schedule. That is to say, maintenance could be over as early as, say, 9am Pacific time for all we know. Alternately, it could just as easily require a few additional hours past the three o’clock mark currently estimated by Blizzard. I can only trust that Blizzard will let its player base know the moment the patch is live and playable, no matter how long this week’s scheduled maintenance may take.

With all of the disclaimers and caveats out of the way, I’d like to quickly go over some of the more significant things that will be included in this patch for those of you who may not have kept up with the news about this update. The first thing you’ll likely notice upon logging in is that the levels of most (if not all) of your characters have been drastically reduced. Don’t worry, this (probably) isn’t another situation like the recent “Cataclysm bug” which temporarily saw characters on certain accounts strangely reverted to exactly how they were at the end of 2010’s expansion.

Instead, this drop in character levels is due to one of the major aspects of Shadowlands, namely the game’s first-ever level squish. The game’s maximum character level has been reset to 60, with all characters that are currently sitting at level 120 having had their level reduced to 50. This is done so that all level 50 characters can jump directly into Shadowlands content when the expansion releases and subsequently reach level 60 from there.

The second noteworthy thing about this massive update is a system which Blizzard has officially entitled “Chromie Time.” That is, with the aid of the bronze dragon colloquially known as Chromie, player characters who are at least level 10 may ask to be sent to any past expansion’s content so that they can experience their chosen expansion’s story at an appropriate pace until they reach level 50.

This change was made so that players who may have missed out on any parts of an expansion’s story can go through everything the expansion has to offer. They can do so without fear of reaching too high a level for quest rewards to be meaningful in terms of experience gains and rewards. However, if the game designates you as a “newer” player, which is reportedly based on whether or not you’ve got at least one level 50 character after the level squish, you won’t be able to choose any expansion you desire at first. Instead, you’ll be guided through Battle for Azeroth content until you attain your first level 50 character.

Thirdly, upon visiting a barber shop in any city that has one, you’ll likely notice that you more than likely have a metric ton of new customization options available to you based on your current character’s race. For one thing, you can now change your character’s gender at will right from a barber shop. That’s right, folks – you no longer have to pay real money to do that, and you can alter your character’s gender as often as your heart desires.

To name a couple of other examples, Dwarves can now have tattoos that make them resemble members of the Wildhammer clan, and Forsaken characters can now choose precisely how decayed they look. As I alluded to, all core playable races, races that don’t need to be unlocked, received tons upon tons of new customization options to choose from with this patch. If you find yourself interested to see what new options are available to your main character’s race, I suspect you’ll be pleased to know that Wowhead has you covered.

The final thing I want to mention in this brief discussion of the Shadowlands pre-patch is the fact that virtually every class and specialization has received many significant changes, additions, and improvements. Allow me to list off a few of my personal favorites from this massive list of class changes to give you a general idea of what I mean by that.

Firstly, all three combat specializations available to Rogues will now be able to apply poisons to their weapons. This capability has long only been available to the Assassination spec. Secondly, all three Death Knight specs will regain access to abilities such as Raise Dead, Summon Gargoyle, and Anti-Magic Zone. Furthermore, Frost Death Knights will also be allowed to choose between using two-handed weapons or continuing to dual wield one-handed armaments.

Lastly, the Monk ability known as Touch of Death has been changed so that it once again instantly kills any enemy afflicted by it who has less health than the Monk at the end of the ability’s timer. You might be aware that this is a significant change compared to how the ability in question currently operates. Unfortunately, I don’t have nearly enough time to even briefly mention each change coming to every class. Thankfully, though, Wowhead saves the day once again.

There’s a whole lot more coming in today’s patch that I omitted for brevity’s sake. Once again, I wholeheartedly recommend that you check out Wowhead if you’re curious about what else this update contains. For now, though, I want to conclude this article by passing on a side note. If you’re more of a visual learner and you want to see exactly what this patch has to offer in action, I’m planning to make an entire video guide to this update over on our YouTube channel sometime in November. I humbly suggest checking out our channel when that time rolls around so you don’t miss anything.