Episode 265, "New horde profession-back surgeon"

World of Warcast: A World of Warcraft Podcast

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Our talk about WoW Classic will be on Thursday's episode.

Incoming for 7.3.5 - (no release date; not even up on PTR yet)
Timewalking Ulduar, new battleground
Event in Silithus to herald in the start of expansion
Leveling Improvements (yay!!!!!)
All content previous to Warlords will SCALE TO LEVEL - within ranges
Classic starting zones: 1-10
All old world vanilla zones: 10-60
Burning Crusade and Wrath zones: 60-80
Cataclysm and Pandaria zones: 80-90
What this means: You can actually complete zones without leveling out of them and feeling forced to move on and you can choose where you level up
Dungeons will also scale accordingly - so will loot drops (yes, run Wailing Caverns at 60 and you’ll get level 60 mobs and level 60 gear)

Incoming also - no release date
Accounts with an authenticator attached will get a “small increase” to the size of their standard 16 slot backpack - may be connected to WoW’s upcoming 13th anniversary event (Nov 16-30)

Expansion: Battle for Azeroth (not Tides of Vengeance) - also no release date
Basics:
Level to 120 (one instant boost to 110)
Return to faction based play areas
Bye-bye Teldrassil and Undercity (but not Silvermoon and Exodar) -- hello each faction controlling their own continent
Does the zone control mean no leveling zones for the opposite faction?
New island zones Zandalar and Kul Tiras with three areas for each
Horde: Zandalar - obviously troll focused
Alliance: Kul Tiras - naval power (which we’ve never seen because apparently they’re so good they can hide the most powerful navy in the world from everyone until now)
New subraces: the four we mentioned on the last show plus two more (Horde: Highland Tauren, Nightborne and Zandalari Troll. Alliance: Void Elf, Lightforged Draenei and Dark Iron Dwarves).
Will get 6 new character slots on each server
You have to open these subraces via quests -- once opened it’s accountwide
Subraces start at level 20. You can race-switch into them using Blizzard game services, but if you run one from 20 to 120 you get an achievement plus special heritage armor transmog
3-person Island Cooperative challenge gameplay
Changing mini scenarios on islands
Would like to have seen this scalable to other size groups - 3 is awkward
20-person raids called Warfronts to claim strategic locations
this is a PvE system, not PvP, “inspired by classic Warcraft RTS battles”
(Ren: Damn good thing or the Horde on Whisperwind is screwed)
Artifact amulet (Heart of Azeroth) instead of an artifact weapon - a system with a sort of mini-talent tree used to select and empower abilities - replacements for the Artifact, Artifact Power and Netherlight Crucible systems from Legion
Powered by Azerite, will automatically absorb Azerite when it’s nearby
Helm, chest, and shoulders will be empowered through Heart of Azeroth
Probably will need an entire episode just on this - but practical upshot is the artifact weapons are going away and this is the replacement
PVP/PVE server distinction is going away - now it will be selectable
Internal sharding allows PVP-flagged players to see/group with only one another, and PVE-unflagged players to see/group only with one another
All servers will run under same rules of engagement
Only place you can flag PVP is in capital cities - can’t flag PVP on the fly
No randomly flagged people running around
PvP gives added bonuses in addition to added risk
Item level decrease incoming
Not exactly the warlords “stat squish” where numbers were reduced across the board
Numbers from the Dungeon Journal in the demo at Blizzcon - 880 items were showing up as 215, 900 as 235, 1000 as 335
Basically trying to make numbers a bit more meaningful
Presumably mobs and such will be scaled as well -- functionally should not change, just how it’s displayed
New model changes incoming for several character races - Orcs and Trolls were demoed to choose between a hunched or upright character). Mostly focused on original races, plus blood elf and draenei. Goblins and Worgen will get makeovers later.

Beta Opt-In for Expansion
https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/battle-for-azeroth - scroll to the bottom of the page if you want to get into the beta