World of Warcraft
Cologne, GermanyPeople pose in front of one of the characters from the "World of Warcraft" game during the Gamescom 2015 fair in Cologne, Germany August 5, 2015. The Gamescom convention, Europe's largest video games trade fair, runs from August 5 to August 9. Reuters/Kai Pfaffenbach

World of Warcraft’s huge pre-expansion patch for the upcoming Legion expansion pack is set to launch this week. The patch offers the changes to the mechanics to prepare players for the release of Legion on Aug. 30. WoW players have around six weeks to settle down with the new patch.

The Legion pre-patch features changes and revamps across the board. Transmogrification, the ability to change your item’s appearance to another’s, has a new collections system. A new collection tab labelled as “Appearance” is added. WoW’s new system borrows from GuildWars 2’s similar dressing room system.

The Player versus player progression and honour system in WoW has been revamped. Players below level 100 are now rewarded with appropriate items. Honour and Conquest points were removed and items are now bought with Marks of Honour.

The bigger change in PvP was the Principles of War mechanic. This mechanic removes gear advantage by removing gear stats whenever a player enters a PvP area. Players receive stats from their current specialisations instead. This was added in hopes to bring a more even playing field in PvP.

Itemisation changes were made to ease changes in gear between different specialisations. Neck, ring and cloak items are no longer focused to a primary stat or function that is tailored for a certain specialisation.

Changing specialisations and talents in WoW are made to be done more freely. Specialisation swapping can be done while not in combat, while talents can be changed when in areas that give rested xp. Players are also able to change their talents for a certain period of time after entering an instance.

All classes receive various and significant changes. Hunters and Shamans are no longer limited to leather armour before level 40. Similarly, the Warrior and Paladin class had their armour restrictions removed as well. Hunters and Shamans can now initially equip Mail armour, while Warriors and Paladins can equip Plate.

Rogue’s Combat specialisation was replaced with the Outlaw specialisation. The new Outlaw specialisation hopes to add in the “pirate like” combat style abilities such as Saber Slash and Pistol Shot.

A more in depth look into the extensive changes available in the WoW Legion pre-patch can be viewed here.

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