World of Warcraft just got its massive pre-Dragonflight expansion patch

Dragonflight is out on November 28

The time has come for the World of Warcraft pre-Dragonflight expansion patch, much to the delight of lapsed players everywhere. Let’s talk about the broad strokes before the actual expansion launches on November 28.

Here’s a quick rundown of the pre-Dragonflight expansion patch:

• The talent system has been revamped, and here’s the biggest change: “Change your talents anywhere, for free. Switching talents no longer requires being in a rested area or using tomes. However, you can’t change talents during combat, Mythic+ runs, and active PvP matches.”
• You can play Mage, Priest, and Rogue classes with all races
• Full UI/HUD customization is in, by default, without the help of mods
• Season 4 ends this week, with a “post-season” lull until the expansion arrives

After all this, the “second phase” of the pre-expansion patch will launch on November 15. At that point the Evoker class will be available, as well as a new zone (Forbidden Reach), the Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr dungeon (just in time for the new God of War), and the typical pre-expansion in-game events.

Shadowlands, the current WoW expansion, had a number of things working against it. A lot of the playerbase was fed up with WoW, fed up with Activision-Blizzard (especially when all this came out)…and of course, it was also at a time when Final Fantasy XIV was really, really good. Maybe Dragonflight can turn things around, leading into the Microsoft aqusition. Or maybe not. With modern Blizzard, you never know what’s going to happen.

If you want to dig further, you can find the full patch notes here.