Today, Blizzard entertainment has scheduled maintenance to apply the World of Warcraft: Legion Pre-Expansion Patch 7.0.3 to live servers. The servers are expected to be down from 5am PDT (8am EST) to 11am PDT (2pm EST). Keep in mind that these are estimates and anyone who has played World of Warcraft can tell you that the servers could come up early or, most often than not, additional time will be required to apply today’s patch.
The Legion pre-expansion patch introduces us to a lot of the system, UI and class balance changes as well as begins a chain of invasion events. These events will unlock in stages over time as we get closer and closer to the release of Legion on August 30. Be sure to participate as you are rewarded with a Feat of Strength achievement for completing all of the events and you will not be able to obtain this achievement once the Legion launches next month.
Below are the official Legion Pre-Expansion patch notes from Blizzard:
New Transmogrification Collections System: Appearances
- New Collection tab: Appearances
- Unlock new appearances by collecting Soulbound weapons and armor your character can equip.
- Unlocked appearances are account-wide and usable for transmogrification by other characters that can equip the item.
- When first logging into a character after Patch 7.0, the appearances of appropriate items in your bags, bank, and Void Storage are learned automatically. Additional appearances will be unlocked based on previously-completed quests.
- Transmogrifiers located in most major cities have been improved with additional features.
- Got a look that you like? Save the entire transmogrification set as an outfit. Create and swap between outfits at the Transmogrifier.
- Additionally, transmogrifications can now be associated with your current specialization. Your outfit automatically changes when switching specializations if you so desire.
- Added a new option to hide shoulders.
- The option to hide helmets, cloaks, and shoulders has been moved into the transmogrification system.
Revamped PvP Progression and Honor System
- The PvP Reward System will now provide appropriate items for players level 100 and below.
- Honor Points and Conquest Points have been removed as a currency.
- Items that were purchased using Honor or Conquest are now available for purchase with Marks of Honor that can be earned from Battlegrounds, Arenas, and Skirmishes.
- Learn more about upcoming PvP changes in our Legion PvP Preview.
Equalized PvP Gear
- Gear has been normalized in PvP combat. Characters entering a Skirmish Arena, Battleground, Rated Arena, Rated Battleground, or Ashran now receive an aura calledPrinciples of War.
- Principles of War removes all stats gained from gear (Strength, Stamina, Haste, etc.), disables gear related bonuses (like trinket effects and set bonuses), and gives the character stats based on their specializations, and increases based on overall item level. The goal is to provide a much more finely tuned and balanced PvP experience.
Arenas
- The pennant attached to the back of characters now changes its appearance based on the player’s best rating in the Arena bracket.
- The 5v5 Arena bracket has been retired. “Arena Master” achievement has been converted into a Feat of Strength.
Battlegrounds
- Winning a Battleground with characters below level 110 now awards a Crate of Battlefield Goods. Players on the opposing team also have a chance to receive a crate with an increasing chance based on team score at the end of a match. The crate contains a piece of armor appropriate for the character’s level and specialization with a chance for the crate to contain additional rewards such as weapons or relics.
Raids and Dungeons
Hellfire Citadel
- Enemies on Normal, Heroic, and Mythic difficulty now deal roughly 30% less damage.
Legacy
- Normalized gold from Legacy raids prior to Warlords of Draenor. Heroic difficulty Cataclysm Raids now award less gold than before, while raids from Mists of Pandaria and Wrath of the Lich King will now award more gold.
- Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj now resets daily instead of every 3 days.
Quests and World
Legendary Ring Quest Line
- Players can no longer start the quest line for the legendary ring. Players currently on the legendary quest line have until the launch of Legion to complete it; at which point uncompleted quests will be removed from the quest log.
Tap Changes
- All creatures and NPCs can now be tapped by up to 5 other characters.
World Events
- The Brawler’s Guild is taking a break and will return at a later date.
- The Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza has taken a temporary hiatus while the fish are restocked.
Items and Itemization
Itemization
- In an effort to reduce the amount of gear swapping between specializations, the following changes have been made.
- Legion cloaks, rings, and items worn on the neck are no longer tied to a specific primary stat, and will remain relevant between specializations.
- Spirit and Bonus Armor have been removed.
- Multistrike has been removed. Items that had multistrike have had it replaced with another secondary stat.
- Trinkets obtained from Raids, PvP, and world drops in Warlords were overtuned and have been brought back to intended power levels.
- Set bonuses for item sets from expansions prior to Warlords of Draenor have been deactivated, though the text describing their former function still remains.
- Spell Power on all caster weapons have been consolidated into Intellect to make it easier to compare item power between two caster weapons. Overall weapon power remains unchanged.
Items
- Equipment limits on the amount of crafted gear that can be worn have been removed.
- Potion of Luck and Greater Potion of Luck no longer have an effect.
- Gladiator’s Distinction set bonus has been removed from all PvP trinkets.
Character Changes
Specialization System Changes
- Characters can now change between any of their specializations while out of combat. Action bar configurations and talent loadouts are saved for each specialization. As a result, Dual Specialization has been removed.
- Characters can queue up as any role that is available to their class and will automatically switch to the suitable specialization when entering the Dungeon, Raid, Battleground, or Arena without any gold cost. For example, a paladin might be questing as Retribution but queue up in Dungeon Finder as a Tank. When the paladin enters the dungeon, they will automatically switch to Protection.
Updates to Combat Visuals and Audio
- Updated and improved on the animations, visual effects, and audio on core combat interactions like auto-attacks as well as many melee class abilities.
Talent System Changes
- Players may now change talents freely when in any rested XP area. The Inscription profession can craft consumable items that allow for this to be done in the field. In addition, after queuing into an instanced dungeon, raid, or PvP content, players have a grace period during which they may change talents freely.
Glyph System Changes
- The Glyph panel has been removed from the game. Some minor glyphs that had a cosmetic effect that does not apply to a specific spell have been converted into cosmetic items that provide the same effects as before.
- Some minor glyphs that made cosmetic alterations to a specific spell have been added to the spell itself in the spellbook.
Draenor Perks Removed
- Draenor Perks have been removed from the game.
Armor Changes
- Hunters and Shaman can now equip Mail armor from level 1 (down from level 40).
- Warriors and Paladins can now equip Plate armor from level 1 (down from level 40).
- New Mail and Plate reward options have been added to low level quests.
Racial Abilities
Human
- Every Man for Himself now removes all Stun effects and shares a 30-second cooldown with other items or abilities that have a similar effect.
- The Human Spirit has been redesigned. Human characters now gain 1% more of all secondary stats (Haste, Critical Strike, Mastery, and Versatility) from all sources
Garrison
- Many sources of gold from the Garrison has been reduced or removed.
- Newly obtained salvage from the Salvage Yard no longer contains equippable items. Salvage obtained from before the patch remains unaffected.
Collections
Toy Box
- A number of items with novel effects have been converted for inclusion in the Toy Box.
- Orb of Deception now lets the character retain features like armor that’s worn when transforming.
- New toy: Soft Foam Sword, sold by Jepetto Joybuzz. The toy mortally wounds (but does not kill) an enemy of trivial difficulty.
Professions
Inscription
Major glyphs, along with many minor glyphs, have been converted or removed from the game.UI
- Character nameplates have been reworked and have been upgraded to show class resources. Players may select a larger version of these nameplates from within the Interface Options menu.
- Enemy nameplates now provide additional information on status effects.
- Added class resource bars that display directly underneath your character.
- The character sheet has been trimmed down, though fully verbose stats are still available via the API.
- Interface options have changed and been further streamlined.
- Tab targeting logic has been reworked, and should now behave in a more consistent and predictable manner.
- A buff icon has been added to make it easier to tell when a character has XP gain disabled.
Account
- The maximum amount of gold that can be held at once has been increased to 9,999,999 gold. Guild bank maximum has also been increased to 9,999,999 gold.
- Maximum number of characters on a realm has increased to 12.
Graphics Engine
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Maximum draw distance has been extended greatly for all world content.
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5 additional levels of graphics presets have been added with 3 above the previous ‘Ultra’ setting.
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More advanced rendering techniques for fog have been added.
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Modern techniques for rendering color and other post-effects have been added.
