With 7 Weeks Until Shadowlands, When Does 9.0 Drop?

 I suppose in part because I got into the Beta only pretty late, it's a little shocking to think that we're under two months out from the drop of World of Warcraft: Shadowlands.

Overall, the state of the beta is mostly good, though there are a few systems that I hope will be better tutorialized - particularly soulbinds and conduits. There are a few bugs that pop up, and I do wonder a bit whether the impact of the quarantine (which has no really obvious end, though I'm hopeful we'll get a viable vaccine either this year or early next year) has slowed work on the expansion.

I'll be frank: this is an expansion that I really want to like, because the concept of it (namely, it's high concept) is really exciting. While the grounded stories of clashing armies are important to set the stage in WoW, I think the best expansions have been the ones where they swing for the fences and give us big, cosmic reveals. Is that a coincidence of good gameplay matching exciting stories? Or is it that one feels much more motivated to play when the plot is a big deal?

So while I'm slightly trepidatious about the implementation of some of these systems (and the overload of new systems to learn, between Torghast, Soulbinds, Covenant abilities, and the various covenant management things) I think the backdrop and lore reveals for this expansion promise to be very exciting. (Also, even though they aren't class sets, Castle Nathria is the first raid since Antorus that has gotten me excited to collect armor appearances - I mean, leather gets Solomon Kane-style witch hunter garb and cloth gets freaking plague doctors!)

We're not getting a massive, Legion-style class revamp, but we are getting a fair number of abilities and bonuses back that were pruned in Warlords and Legion, and a few specs are going to play quite differently. For one thing, I'm going to have to get used to once again needing to generate Holy Power on my tankadin. I'm also really excited for Two-handed Frost returning (though I'm also worried a bit about its power being a bit low - I'll have to see what Icy-Veins and such have to say about it.)

Anyway, with the expansion itself coming so soon, I have to imagine that the pre-patch will be here shortly. Historically, the pre-patch for an expansion tends to come 6-8 weeks before the expansion drops, which would put its release likely at next week.

What to expect with 9.0?

Well, the big thing is going to be all the system changes. You'll be able to do Exile's Reach and everyone will drop down to a lower level - with current 120 characters going to level 50, and I believe everyone else getting proportionately dropped down.

Leveling should be much, much faster, as you should be able to do the whole 10-50 climb in a single expansion's content.

Another thing to be excited about is the new character customization options, which are really great.

Of course, we'll also be getting the story quests that lead us to the expansion proper, including the return of the Zombie Plague. I haven't played much on the PTR since getting into the Beta, but when I was, the zombies were really not messing around. It's possible that they've been nerfed, but when I was playing, it was really difficult to avoid dying to swarms of them - but hey, it's an event, it should be scary.

If I recall correctly, corruption on gear will cease to have an effect - both positive and negative - but we'll continue to get bonuses from azerite armor and our Heart of Azeroth essences until we actually enter the Shadowlands proper. (At which point those effects are turned off and gear just becomes gear.)

There will be a couple oddities - for example, while Paladins are all getting Hammer of Wrath, the ability to use it against targets at any health level when Avenging Wrath is up is actually going to be taken away - only to be regained while leveling in Shadowlands (which... I'm not crazy about, but at least it won't be gone for long.)

In most cases, though, abilities will be regained rather than removed (or delayed,) so it'll be a good time to figure out your actionbars and keybinds - though make sure to leave room for your two new covenant abilities!