World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth is the seventh expansion pack for the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft, following Legion. It was announced at BlizzCon on November 3, 2017. In contrast to previous expansions, which went live at midnight in each time zone, Battle for Azeroth had a simultaneous release for all regions, corresponding to midnight Central European Summer Time on August 14, 2018.
In addition to raising the level cap from 110 to 120, the expansion introduces the Kul Tiras and Zandalar continents and four races for both the Alliance and the Horde, while also adding dungeons and raids, warfronts, and uncharted islands.
Gameplay
The expansion allows players to level up to 120, an increase from the level cap of 110 in the previous expansion Legion. Initially, there will be ten dungeons included with 8.0 with Mythic Plus versions of the dungeons and the first raid, Uldir, being available soon after the game's release. Following the beginning of preorders and the release of four allied races in January 2018, the number of character slots per server was raised from 12 to 16; with the launch of the expansion in August, it was raised to 18, to make room for the two additional races unlocked with initial content. The number of available bag slots in the player's backpack, which has been fixed at 16 slots since the game's release in 2004, will also receive an increase if an authenticator is attached to an account.
Changes to gameplay A "stat squish" and "item squish" were implemented to lower the numbers used in the game, e.g. a legendary item previously with a level of 1000 reduced to 265. Unique class-specific buffs were added back, i.e. mages' Arcane Brilliance and priests' Mark of Fortitude. Titanforging—a random event that raises the initial item level of an item gained via drops or rewards—is still in the game; however, if the item is one of those affected by the Heart of Azeroth, then that item cannot be titanforged.
Changes were also made to leveling in earlier content with Legion'''s 7.3.5 patch. The level-scaling tech introduced in Legion was not only be continued in the new continents of Kul Tiras and Zandalar, but was also applied to content from prior expansions, allowing larger level brackets for lower level zones. Further, as previous expansions are now included in the base game, the level ranges for those expansions are now broadened, allowing players to spend more time leveling in preferred expansions and avoid others entirely. Some examples include a zone like Westfall having its level bracket (at 10–15 as of Legion) increased to 10–60, whilst continents such as Outland and Northrend sharing a 60–80 level bracket. The aim of this change is to encourage more player choice whilst leveling and to allow players to experience the full story of a particular zone without overlevelling the relevant quests.
There were not as many class changes in Battle for Azeroth as there were for Legion, although Ion Hazzikostas noted, "Not all experiments were successful (i.e. Demonology Warlocks). Survival Hunter execution needs work but we're committed to the melee Hunter."
Heart of Azeroth The Heart of Azeroth is an artifact given to the player character from the world soul via Magni Bronzebeard. It is a necklace that can use the power of Azerite, the lifeblood of the embryonic titan Azeroth (See Plot, below). Azerite is similar in function to Legion's artifact power, in that it is gathered normally from playing the game and is used to upgrade an artifact; likewise, the Heart is similar in function to Legion's artifact weapons by having the capacity to be constantly upgraded. Unlike artifact weapons, however, the Heart is shared with all of the player's specializations and can empower all eligible pieces worn simultaneously.
Valid pieces for Azerite empowerment are available for the chest, shoulder, and head slots of all classes. This equipment has multiple tiers of that can be unlocked, represented by a series of concentric wheels with icons representing individual powers; as individual powers are selected, they rotate into slots at the top of the interface, activating the selected benefit and locking out the others unless the player pays to reset their decision. Outer rings offer multiple choices, some based around the character's class and specification, others around the zone or circumstances in which the gear was acquired. The innermost circle offers no such options, instead of being a boost to the level of the item itself, and thus providing a flat all-around benefit.
Allied races The allied races, who were formerly neutral factions or newly introduced, can be recruited by completing quest chains. Four of these races were unlocked when the expansion became available for preorder in January 2018, and four more will be added after the game's launch.Allied Races Blizzard Entertainment, Retrieved November 4, 2017.
The Alliance are able to unlock the void elves (exiled blood elves who can tap into shadow magic, trained by Alleria Windrunner after her experiences on Argus), Lightforged draenei (veterans of the Army of the Light, who fought the Legion on Argus), Dark Iron dwarves (fire-blooded cousins of the dwarves of Ironforge), Kul Tiran humans (larger, more heavyset versions of the in-game humans of Stormwind), and mechagnomes (cyborg gnomes from the lost city of Mechagon).
The Horde has access to the Nightborne (former Night Elves from Suramar), the Highmountain tauren (moose-antlered cousins of the tauren of Mulgore), the Mag'har orcs (survivors of the Iron Horde from Warlords of Draenor), the Zandalari (progenitors of all of the trolls of Azeroth), and the Vulpera (diminutive fox-like people from the deserts of Vol'dun).
When an allied race has been unlocked for a player, new characters from that race will start at level 20. If a player levels an Allied race from 10 to level 50 without using character boosts, they will be rewarded with a unique "Heritage Armor" for transmogrification that reflects the unique lore behind the race but is limited for use to that race. Doing the quests to unlock the allied races will also unlock the races' unique mounts for use by the characters of their faction. The void elves, Lightforged draenei, Highmountain tauren, and Nightborne, as races tied to the storyline for Legion, were made available with the preorder on January 30, 2018. The Dark Iron dwarves and the Mag'har orcs are made available upon completing the "War Campaign" in Kul Tiras and Zandalar and reaching exalted with one faction's War Campaign reputation (7th Legion and The Honorbound, respectively). The Kul Tiran humans and Zandalari were made available in patch 8.2, unlockable by completing the story quests in all three zones of their respective home continents and exalted reputation with their faction (Proudmoore Admiralty and Zandalari Empire, respectively). The mechagnomes and the vulpera were introduced in patch 8.3, unlockable by completing the story quests in their home zones (Mechagon and Vol'dun, respectively) and reaching exalted with their factions (Rustbolt Resistance and Voldunai, respectively).
Warfronts Warfronts will be a new form of 20-player PvE content. They will function similarly to battlegrounds but with more focus on base building, capture and control of territory and resource control to focus on Warcraft's RTS roots. The warfronts will not always be active on a regular basis since there will be a build up to each one. Heroic warfronts (a more difficult version of a normal warfront) will be released in Patch 8.2: Rise of Azshara.
Island expeditions Similar to the 3-player scenarios in Mists of Pandaria, island expeditions are a new form of 3-player content that will provide dynamic challenges that involve battling against a group of either advanced AI NPCs or players in order to gather Azerite for their faction's war effort.
PvP ruleset The expansion brings a major change to the PvP ruleset on each realm. Every realm by default only allows players to attack NPCs in the open world; players who wish to engage in world PvP now have a setting called "War Mode" that can only be toggled on or off in their faction's capital city (i.e. Stormwind for the Alliance and Orgrimmar for the Horde). While in War Mode, players have access to new talents and abilities, as well as a slightly accelerated rate of XP gain. Characters with War Mode activated are only able to see other players with War Mode, unless in their own capital cities.
Players who engage in War Mode and are successful at killing multiple enemy PC's without dying in exchange receive an "Assassin" buff that increases their damage and healing. Eventually, such a character gains a bounty on their head, giving other players a reward for killing them.
Roleplaying (RP) servers do not behave the same way as the regular servers. The game director said, "The default behavior for RP servers in Battle for Azeroth will be that PvP flagging people would see other flagged players on that same server. We don't want to split up RP communities."
A new battleground called Seething Shore was previewed in Legion's patch 7.3.5. It is located in Silithus and set after the events of the Antorus raid; it involves players battling to take control of Azerite resources in randomized locations. It was the first battleground added to the game since 2012's Mists of Pandaria.
Art Warlocks have received new spell effects; all the other classes received new effects in Legion. Male orcs are now able to toggle between the initial hunched posture and standing upright by using a barbershop, but the other races are not able to toggle between two postures. There are new druid forms for the allied races, i.e., Zandalari troll forms are all dinosaur-based, while the Kul Tiran humans take forms made of wood and bone as their teachings come from the Drust people who populated the land before them rather than the Cenarion Circle.
Plot War of the Thorns At the end of Legion, the mad titan Sargeras was imprisoned, but not before he plunged his sword into the planet Azeroth. This not only devastated a massive area (much of the desert zone of Silithus is now cracked and scorched), but badly wounded the gestating titan inside. While the heroes managed to ablate the worst of the damage (at the cost of the majority of their artifact weapons' mythic power), the world is still wounded and bleeding a substance called "Azerite," which has great magical potential. The Horde Warchief, Sylvanas Windrunner, attempts to consolidate Horde power on Kalimdor and gain a monopoly on Azerite (which is primarily found at the southern end of the continent). Her campaign to do so formed a pre-launch event for the expansion and ends with the major Night Elf holdings on the continent seized or destroyed, including the Night Elf player starting zones of Teldrassil and Darnassus. Two supporting tie-in novellas were published by Blizzard, both in hardcover and on the World of Warcraft website:A Tale of Two Factions: Elegy and A Good War Now Available! on August 6, 2018 by Blizzard Entertainment. Elegy, by Christie Golden, tells the story from the Alliance perspective; and A Good War, by Robert Brooks, tells the story from the Horde perspective.