Health Buff to Low Level Enemies

Since around Cataclysm, and particularly since then (especially with heirlooms,) there's been this issue with leveling up through low-level areas. Things die at an absurdly quick pace.

Now, on one hand, this makes the process go quickly and smoothly - we've come a long, long way since the days of Vanilla, when I felt the need to heal up and drink mana-replenishing stuff after every couple fights just out in the world (dungeons used to take a lot longer because you would generally want all the mana-using classes to drink after nearly every pull.)

But one of the problems with the swiftly dying foes is that you don't really get much of a sense of a rotation. Even dungeon bosses go down so quickly that if you're playing, say, a Demonology Warlock, you probably won't even get to Hand of Gul'dan unless you skip summoning your Dreadstalkers.

The level-scaling revamp is going to slow things down by giving enemies more health, relative to the damage output of the players.

So what does this mean? We're getting six new playable races with Battle For Azeroth (and potentially four of those six before the expansion,) with a specific incentive not to level-boost or race-change the character, as you'll get unique transmog gear for that race (only usable for that race, mind you) if you level them up "manually."

That means a big incentive to roll new characters.

One of the problems WoW has had as it has gotten older is that, while places like Outland and Northrend still exist, and are still important steps to leveling up a new character, the scaling of damage and health and such has been knocked pretty seriously out of balance. Leveling might be "easier," but it's more mindless than it used to be.

Obviously people are going to have mixed opinions on this: I'm sure a lot of people like leveling up super-fast so that they can get a new character to endgame. But something that I think used to be more true of the game was that the endgame was important and fun, but it wasn't the whole game.

The lower-level zones provide opportunities for you to get engaged in the world, and also allow for you to have more of a heroic arc - as cool as it is that I'm now Highlord of the Silver Hand, it feels that much cooler knowing that eleven years ago, I was some little punk running around fighting (and getting murdered by) Murlocs in Elwynn Forest.

Yes, it's an intermediary step, but I think it's important to have some time to really feel and work your way through becoming the Titan-stomping badass that you become at level 110.

To an extent, players like me, who have leveled up an embarassingly large number of characters over the years, are always going to be a little itchier to get to endgame, as we've done the old world, Outland, Northrend, etc. several times before.

But I think that both level scaling and this slight (and it's not huge) buff to enemy health is going to make the journey when I level up by new characters more engaging and fun.

Now, what I need to figure out is if I can do all of my 58-80 leveling in Wrath content. I love Outland for its alien landscapes, but its quest content has not aged so well.