What to expect from the World of Warcraft Midnight pre-patch event

Blizzard Entertainment has revealed the Midnight pre-patch content updates coming. With the end of The War Within, retail World of Warcraft will enter that transition phase, with pre-patch content helping to bridge the expansion to the upcoming Midnight launch.

The content will cover a few of the system changes, along with some other story content and other features.

Midnight pre-patch launch time

For player curiosity, pre-patch begins when weekly maintenance resets. This should be sometime around 

• January 20th in North America
• Jan 21st for Europe

It is typically sometime around 12 PM EST time in NA, and around 11 AM CET in Europe. Though extended maintenance could delay that, as we have seen with previous major content patches for both regions.

World of Warcraft pre-patch content

The main focus of the new content drops the class changes for Midnight. The spell pruning and class changes are here. The simpler Fire Mage arrives, alongside the major Healing changes for most classes. We also get the system in place for the Necromancer Unholy Death Knight, and other new talent tree changes for the classes.

The big one here is the Demon Hunter changes. That’s right: the third spec is here, with the Devourer spec becoming available, along with the Annihilator Hero talents. Players will also gain access to the new Void Elf Demon Hunter combination via a short questline for those who own the Midnight Expansion.

The new transmog system also comes into play. You will now transmog time slots, rather than the currently equipped gear. It should make transmogging between time sets much easier. And it also means you don’t need to transmog new items you get via raids, weekly chest or M+ drops.

For fans of housing, the fabled Neighbourhood Endeavours launch. You will also find the Night Elf and Blood Elf outside aesthetics go live too. Endeavours add in key community updates for housing, which should help get new items and a community engagement and feeling for both guild and public neighbourhoods.

Also, with Midnight here, the UI gets its major changes. The Midnight changes offer players lots of what were UI addons into the base game, with the backend no longer letting most combat addons work now. So, there will be some changes for players, but the base UI and some minor addons should get your UI to a good spot without much third-party assistance as it previously needed. The new changes add in Boss warnings, Cooldown trackers, and built-in damage meters.

As for the minor content, there’s some story content, alongside the Winds of Mysterious Fortune buff. As of the week commencing January 27, the pre-expansion event Twilight Ascension starts.

The Winds of Mysterious Fortune buff also returns, offering all adventurers a chance to reap bonus experience from level 10-79. It should let you prepare a new main if you didn’t bother with Legion Remix power leveling, and to test out the new class changes and get used to them through the new class changes ahead of the expansion launch in March.