BFA Pre-Patch Goes Live Next Week

With less than a month to go until Battle for Azeroth, it's perhaps not shocking that patch 8.0 is imminent.

So what will we be seeing with this patch?

First off, we're going to see artifact weapons brought low - having absorbed the power of Sargeras' sword, they're currently hyper-powered, but that energy is going to wind up burning out their power, and all artifact traits will be disabled - but fret not, as many of the big ones are either becoming baseline class or spec abilities or they'll become talents.

Characters leveling up through the Broken Isles in the future will now effectively use artifact weapons as heirlooms, which will power up as you level (which I believe means no relics? I could be wrong about that.)

The next big change will be the second stat squish. This one is going to be more radical than the Warlords one because we'll also see item levels get squished. Right now, 1000 is (I believe) the highest item level you can get, and a lot of players (depending on their raiding habits) might be somewhere in the mid 900s range. After the squish, we'll be closer to Wrath of the Lich King levels, around the 200s. Obviously the world is going to squish to compensate, so if all goes well you shouldn't be any less powerful than you were, but you're going to shave maybe two or three zeros off your damage. I presume that we're going to get hidden buffs in anything Warlords or earlier in order to compensate for the shrunken damage range.

Specs, they are a-changin'. As with any expansion, all specs are getting tweaks or in some cases radical redesigns. I don't think anyone's seeing anything as drastic as the Legion changes, but a few specs are getting big reworks. A lot of artifact traits and abilities are getting worked into the specs as either baseline or talents, so the specs ought to feel complete even after our artifacts get de-powered.

First Aid is GONE. Tailors will now make bandages and Alchemists will make antivenom. Achievements related to the secondary profession, such as the Field Medic title, will be unattainable.

Some other things are no longer going to be attainable. The phoenix off of Heroic Argus will no longer be attainable, and I believe the Mage Tower artifact appearances are going to be unattainable (unless that's going to wait for the expansion itself - but I wouldn't count on that if you're still working on it. I got the Prot Paladin one, so officially I'm satisfied.)

Now, let's get to the fun stuff:

The pre-patch events are also going to start. The big ones are going to be the twin scenarios: one seeing the attack on Teldrassil that leaves it burning, and the following one is the siege of Undercity, which leaves it a plagued ruin.

I don't know if there will be Bronze Dragonflight members like there are at Theramore and in Silithus, though I'd suspect there will be (for people to help out low-level friends.) Still, canonically two of the major cities that have been there since vanilla are going to be destroyed. Wait, is this the fun stuff?

At this point I think we're pretty much done with Legion stuff, but this is a good vantage point to take a moment and look back on what has been possibly the best expansion World of Warcraft ever had. BFA has plenty of new mysteries yet to be revealed. While I don't think we can reasonably expect it to top Legion (though that would be a pleasant surprise,) let's hope for something more along the lines of Mists of Pandaria than Warlords of Draenor. (Sorry Warlords lovers, if you exist.)