Watching Blizzard: Someday soon (Patreon)

Patch 8.1, Tides of Vengeance, will be hitting the PTR in just a few days, and that means patch day is coming to the live servers soon. With Blizzard, Soon™️ can mean a lot of different things… so we’ll have to wait and see just what happens. But let’s run down what we know about the patch and everything else from the day.

All things patch 8.1

• This is what you’re waiting for, right? Patch 8.1 is headed to the PTR by the end of the week — check out Ion’s explanation and our summary of the features. Among the highlights are…
  • A Darkshore Warfront, complete with a redesign of the zone.
  • Not one, but two new raids, starting with the Siege of Zuldazar, which will present a different experience for each faction. Later in the patch, Blizzard will add a smaller raid with Crucible of Storms.
  • Blizzard is bringing Heritage Armor to some classic races — complete with new story quests to play through. Plus reputation changes will make it easier to get reputation rewards and achievements.

Heroes of the Storm’s latest event is on the PTR

• The Halloween-themed event is based on the game’s attempt to patch together a canonical Nexus story… and it comes with some sweet new skins.

We continue to be all about the cute

• And this Hammond Easter egg is heavy on the cute.
• Also, sorry, he will always be Hammond to us.

Is it possible to balance Azerite Armor?

• Blizzard rolled out a balance hotfix, but we’re not sure it will work.

Battle for Azeroth isn’t always Battle for Azeroth

• This game is different things for different people. Rossi has thoughts on the malleable nature of the game.

That’s all for today — and isn’t that enough? We’ll see what’s in store for us tomorrow. Until then, this is Liz, signing off.