WoW BfA Patch Notes: What Has Changed and Expectations

It’s already been several months since we witnessed the official release of World of Warcraft’s 8th expansion and Blizzard already treated us with one major patch. After the all-about-BfA patch 8.0.1, there was the massive 8.1.0 patch that introduced a number of changes and additions to the game. And now we’re going to take a closer look at the related WoW BfA Patch Notes and what to expect from future patches.

Now, even though Battle for Azeroth is still in its infancy, we can rest assured that there will be more major patches coming our way in the near future. There’s just so much potential in both Kul Tiras and Zandalar, the two new continents in BfA and it’d only be logical for Blizzard to implement more gameplay changes before the next expansion (assuming there’ll be one).

So, let’s kickoff be taking a look at what changes the first major patch of Battle for Azeroth brought to the game…

What was added according to the WoW 8.1 Patch Notes?

Patch 8.1.0 a.k.a. Tides of Vengeance introduced a bunch of new content, most notably a brand new raid – Battle of Dazar’alor, the Battle for Azeroth Season 2, various class changes, a new Warfront, and War Campaign modifications. Basically, it’s safe to say that 8.1 had the task to keep the initial excitement of the new expansion, mainly by bringing forth the second raid encounter in BfA.

The patch itself was officially released on December 11th, while the initial announcement by Blizzard was made during the Dev Live Stream that you can see above. What’s interesting though is the timeline of the official 8.1.0 release and the Battle of Dazar’alor one, since the actual rate came over a month later. In fact, here’s a more in-depth description regarding the first thing courtesy of 8.1 that went live and when the associated raid encounter got released:

• December 10, 2018 – The brand new Warfront – The Battle for Darkshore went live, signifying a more intensified world PvP scenario across Azeroth.
• January 22, 2019 – This is when the Battle of Dazar’alor raid was finally released (as well as the BfA Season 2 PvP), located in Zuldazar, the seat of the Zandalari Empire in the Zandalar continent.

Changes and Additions

And now let’s dive into a general outline of all the changes/additions under the WoW 8.1 patch notes:

• War Campaign – New missions, new questlines, faction assaults added
• Island Expeditions – Two new Island Expeditions destinations
• Warfront – A new Warfront added – The Battle for Darkshore in Kalimdor
• Heritage Armor Questlines – Brand new questlines for new Heritage Armor were added
• Achievements – New ones added and several adjustments to how current one’s work were made
• Dungeons & Raids – Battle of Dazar’alor was added, as well as a few tweaks to other instances
• Items & Rewards – New follower equipment, Azerite gear vendor, Heart of Azeroth changes, gold rewards, new heirlooms, Paragon reputations
• Professions – Additions and changes
• PvP Brawl – New PvP brawl title Cooking: Impossible
• Battle Pet Dungeon – New battle pet dungeon in Gnomeregan (Eastern Kingdoms) called the There’s Gnome Place Like Gnomeregan
• Group Finder – A few fixes and tweaks
• Character Appearances – New transmog and cosmetic mod options
• Mobile Companion App – Several fixes and additions
• User Interface – Numerous improvements and tweaks
• World & Questing – Various changes including a 25% reduction in the time it takes to level from 1 to 110
• Classes – Huge amounts of changes, additions, and whatnot
• Game Client – A few minor improvements

And since the 8.1 Battle for Azeroth patch feels like half an expansion was added to the game, let’s now check out the next scheduled patch for BfA – 8.1.5!

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What does Patch 8.1.5 have in store for us?

Although the next and upcoming Battle for Azeroth patch, the 8.1.5, in early Jan 2019 Blizz has announced that the related PTR of 8.1.5 will be commencing. Probably the most notable thing of this patch would be long-awaited addition of arguably the most sought after of the new Allied Races – the Kul Tiran Humans and Zandalari Trolls.

Of course, this patch is yet to be released and it’s still in its early, PTR stages so this is a compilation of the most important and intriguing information that we have so far:

• Both the Kul Tiran Humans and Zandalari Trolls Allied Races will finally be unveiled
• A new Raiding with Leashes battle pet achievement will be added
• 3 micro holidays will be added to the game – Free T-shirt day, The Wanderer’s Festival and Vash’jir Diving
• We’ll get World Quests about a Naga invasion
• The AB and WG battlegrounds will get cosmetic upgrades
• New portal rooms will be added to faction capital cities (Orgrimmar and Stormwind)
• Time walking for Warlords of Draenor dungeons will be introduced
• Kul Tiran and Zandalari kids will now be part of Children’s Week

Obviously, this patch will also bring a bunch of other new and cool features like Wintergrasp finally earning its place among the Epic BG list and new questlines centered towards Hati and Magni. But we still have no clue when patch 8.1.5 will be officially released, although we can speculate that Blizzard will probably release it sometime in the early spring of 2019… hopefully!

Conclusion

As you can see, according to the WoW BfA Patch Notes of the first major content patch in BfA (8.1.0), an awful lot of gameplay changes, tweaks and additions were made. Blizz is clearly doing their best to keep this expansion as fresh and interesting as possible and future patches like the 8.1.5 one will definitely continue to raise the bar further and further.

What are your thoughts on all the past, present, and future BfA patch notes btw? Feel free to let us know by leaving a comment in the comment section below!

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