Despite Shadowlands getting delayed until later this year, its pre-expansion patch will go live later today. We have just pushed out a new update for the Zygor Guide Viewer that adds compatibility for the pre-patch, as well as guide changes to address the level squish, and updates for the new content added. Below you’ll find a summary of the major new things and how they affect the guides:

General Game Changes

New abilities and talents have been added for your character. Some class defining abilities, like Shaman’s Healing Stream Totem, and all of Rogue’s poisons, are now available regardless of spec, but you can make certain abilities that are closely associated with your spec more powerful as you level up.

All characters have undergone a “level squish” that changes the former leveling range of 1-120 down to 1-60. The max level will be 50 in the pre-patch, with 50-60 being achievable in the Shadowlands content releasing later this year.

Numerous new cosmetic options are now available for every race, like tattoos for Dwarves, and being able to control the level of decay on Undead characters.

Exiles Reach Starter Guide

The Shadowlands pre-patch has introduced the first of new changes to the leveling system. For all new players starting their journey in Azeroth for the first time you will now begin in a new starter zone shared by all races called Exiles Reach. You can use our Exiles Reach guide to complete this. Once you’ve done so, you’ll have the option in the future to choose either Exiles Reach or your races traditional starter zone.

Leveling Changes

With this pre-patch all characters have undergone the first-ever “level squish”, which has converted the 1-120 level range down to 1-50. The default leveling progression beyond level 10 will now have you pick a single expansion and it will scale to level you all the way from 10-50. You can also choose to level through all the expansions like before. As a result, guide names and step conditions have been updated to reflect the new level ranges.

However, as this change is extensive and it’s not entirely clear how all former requirements have been converted, you may encounter some issues. Please report any problems over on our official forums.

Shadowlands Launch

The official release date of Shadowlands is unknown but is said to be later this year.

We will be releasing Zygor’s Shadowlands Guides shortly before the release of the new expansion, but well in advance to make sure everyone has plenty of time to sign up for Zygor Elite and download the new guides.

In the lead up to our release we will have more announcements to make regarding what content you can expect on day one of the release as well as what new features and improvements will be coming in Zygor Guide Viewer 8.