WoW Midnight Pre-Patch Breakdown — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:07] Hello internet, Tal Essen here and welcome to another episode of the weekly welcome to another episode of the weekly reset. Talas inevitell's wondrous wisdom show in a week where we're getting a midnight 2026 road map finally where the

[00:23] pre- patch event launches and where we are still complaining about all of the are still complaining about all of the disappointments of 12.0. Yeah, that's right team. Today we are looking back on the launch of pre- patch

[00:35] and everything that came with it. new housing neighborhoods and endeavors, new transmog, a whole ass new demon hunter spec, and less add-ons, and more lovely, wonderful Blizzard UI. We're going to be talking about what we like and how it

[00:49] went down, but also the biggest complaints and disappointments from across the community because, well, there have been some issues. Some of which have already been fixed. Some of which have promised fixes pending. And

[01:03] some of which don't look like they will be fixed, which look like maybe Blizz meant for them to be this way. We'll be rating everything. A big juicy win or a

[01:15] serious because we've got the graphics and the sound effects out. Okay, go go go go. >> Welcome to Ey's preatch disasters rundown. Let's get on with it. This is a very

[01:30] short one, don't worry. But the very first thing I noticed about the patch was the new gaping void hole login screen. Like I just been sat on by expecting this. [music] The gaping void hole has been present on

[01:45] beta for a while now. And for those of you who aren't huge fans of gaping void holes with void shards being sucked off into the void within it, I would say why? What is your problem? But also, don't worry, because upon midnight's

[02:00] real launch, this gaping crevice will expand and open even more to reveal Silver Moon. It was Silver Moon all along. Look. So, I expected all this,

[02:13] but I'm going to be honest. I also expected the new WoW title music, you expected the new WoW title music, you know, the midnight version of

[02:56] get that with the new login screen and instead got a weird variation of the Zalat theme has made me get a little worried that for some reason they just forgot to do a new title theme for Midnight. I know that's silly. I'm like

[03:11] 95% certain we'll get the new theme soon, but I was 100% certain before the pre- patch hit. I'm not really worried. I'm a bit worried. 12.0 saw the release

[03:23] of the new transmog system that we have talked about at length on this show before. And if you missed any of those episodes, well, don't worry, cuz you absolutely could not miss the most obvious immediate impact of the new

[03:37] feature. The fact that every single one of your characters had their transmogs wiped off of the face of the earth and presented unfiltered in 4K wearing the

[03:49] actual gear that they have equipped. Like that scene in the witches where like any point during the Burning Crusade. We were not warned this was going to happen. And for me at least, it was a proper jump scare. But it's no big

[04:03] deal. We'll just log in and put them back into their classy duds using the brand new Transmog system that we've heard so much about and that we are so looking forward to. And this is where it started to get really rough for lots of

[04:15] people because this new system is famously chock full of awesome features like situational automatic transmog and ignore slots which I think make it ignore slots which I think make it mechanically a huge improvement on what

[04:29] we had. But there's also no denying that as far as initial outlay goes, it does cost more gold to engage with, especially if the first thing you have to do is a full gear set rework just to get back to what you had, which on pre-

[04:42] patch day was likely to cost you anywhere between 1,400 to apparently 3,000 gold [music] times however many ults you have. And that's before you even get started with all those new slots and outfits. The good stuff. Not

[04:57] fun. Well, that's not fun. All my gold is gone and all I did was put what my characters were wearing yesterday back on. The greed is insane. Midnight killed by transmog. This is basically a shakedown. They took my transmog from me

[05:09] and are charging me to get it back. This is some mafia But at least you transmog an artifact appearance into a different weapon type because you can't anymore. Whereas before the patch, artifact looks could be applied to any

[05:22] equipable weapon type. The obvious example being claws of urso. You used to be able to transmog them onto whatever dagger or staff you were rocking, but not anymore, you leafy You better find yourself some awesome maxle fist

[05:35] Midnight Land. Obviously, both of these things, the transmog confiscation and the artifact looks were bugs. And Blizzard has since put out clarification that the artifact thing will be fixed with an upcoming hot fix. And to make up

[05:49] for the clown suit debacle, they have pinky promised swear that at some point before midnight launches, every character will get one free transmog to make up for the one that they had to pay to get back, which okay, I guess. I

[06:05] mean, I've already paid to get them all back now, but fine. And as for those incredibly expensive feeling transmog costs themselves, Blizzard have already reduced [music] those by 50% since the patch launched, which does make them

[06:19] more manageable. I think that's the right move and a predictable move. And would I like it if they were cheaper still? Yes, absolutely I would. But this at least brings them into the realm of being on the higher end of what they

[06:32] were pre-changes. Although, and I don't want to be pedantic about this, okay, my lady, but that one free transmog we're getting, it's worth less now, isn't it? I paid to get my character's transmogs back at full price, and you're giving me

[06:46] a free transmog after the prices have been h haveved. So, I'm actually going to need two free transmogs to properly cover the value of the gold that I've spent here, aren't I, Bla Lady? All of this aside, I'm still a huge fan of the

[07:00] new system. although I don't think it's the most intuitive. So, here are some top tips from me after a week of use. One, install Plumber. Okay, it's a great add-on anyway, but on the new Transmog UI, it will automatically suggest icons

[07:16] for the sets that you create from the items in that [music] set, which is a godsend. That's enough by itself, but it also gives you an icon in the menu that you can drag onto your bars to allow instant access to your entire outfit

[07:30] menu for instant look changes at any time, which is great. Obviously, two, do not underestimate the power of the single piece outfit. All slots are specifically save something to that slot, and that includes saving nothing.

[07:46] So, [music] something I've been doing is saving like a flying hat or a hood or a diving helmet or different weapon looks into a single outfit slot and leaving everything else blank so that when I swap into that outfit, it leaves

[08:01] everything else that I'm wearing at that moment exactly the same and only changes that one item. So, I'm going flying. Put my flying hat on. I'm going into my become tiny little daggers that you can

[08:14] transmoging weapons off for some unknown reason. This method is also very cheap on creating outfits because you're only paying to transmog that one item into an outfit. That's my top tips right there. Housing for all. Everyone [music] gets

[08:27] housing now as long as they own Midnight. Plus the launch of charter neighborhoods and endeavors, meaning more house XP to level up your pad to the new max of renown 9. Except if [music] you were one of those charter

[08:42] at launch they couldn't select endeavors charter neighborhoods for a couple of days while they fixed it. Now it's fixed and genuine win here. There are five different endeavors live right now that

[08:57] either got automatically assigned to your public neighborhood or was chosen by your guild leader or charter boss. The mecha gnomes get you charging all over the map, carrying rocket chickens, and doing dailies and rares in Mechagon

[09:10] for steampunky animated decor rewards. The Niffin have like bee hurting and snail delivery quests. And you have to go to Zerilch, too. But on the plus

[09:22] side, you can get the official best decor item ever made, the mound of dirt from their vendor. The Atherealss have a really cool jump puzzle and also the

[09:34] most satisfying combat quests in Outland to [music] take part in. The Drathier send you to the Forbidden Reach for rare killing fun. But the best of all is definitely the Grummels because fighting hosen and picking herbs and lumber and

[09:48] hosen and picking herbs and lumber and Kunai Summit is just the most exquisite vibes imaginable. And at the end of it all, you get to buy the Grummel rewards, which are all coffeebased, like a little French press and a cafe sign and an

[10:02] espresso machine and this thing that Walter and Gail make their coffee with in Breaking Bad. Seriously, what's not to love about Endeavors? I'm glad you asked. So, all that housing XP I mentioned, people noticed pretty quickly

[10:17] that they were capping out on it and unable to gain any more from any activity. Housing lead Jesse Kurlandic later confirmed on Twitter that XP was hardcapped at 1,000 per endeavor, which in this first instance [music]

[10:31] in this first instance [music] is 40 days. That should really be 1,250 XP. Since when your neighborhood reaches the end of their bar and completes the endeavor, you get an extra 250, as well as unlocking the final [music] decor

[10:44] items on the vendor for purchase. It begs the question, why would I bother XP? [music] This renown is going to grind to a halt once everyone realizes they don't get anything for it past a point. It's

[10:57] endeavors when none of it progresses your house level anymore. Perhaps it would have been good to have had a blue post on Endeavors before they went live to explain all this because a cap is one thing. Discovering the cap yourselves

[11:12] somehow seems worse. Before I give an opinion on this, I just want to address [music] Why would you want to continue doing Endeavor activities when you've hit XP cap? Well, the coupons you earn that you need to buy the decor rewards

[11:26] from Endeavors [music] do not appear to be capped, even if they are rewarded with diminishing returns for repeated activities. So, that's a pretty good reason. You have an espresso machine to buy after all. Another reason

[11:39] is that extra chunk of house XP you get when your town fills its bar. And the third reason is just because you will anyway. Everyone appears to be focusing on the in neighborhood and zone activities like they're the only thing

[11:54] that fills the bar, but completing mythic plus dungeons fills that bar. Completing delves fills that bar. Killing raid bosses and doing quests and world quests fills that bar. Maybe this month there should have been an endeavor

[12:08] progress awarded for sort out your completely UI too for good measure. You and the other players in your neighborhood will be filling that bar naturally through just playing the game normally. It doesn't really matter

[12:20] if they don't feel like doing home stuff because they've hit XP cap. And that's an especially important point for those mostly public neighborhoods that aren't very [music] active with endeavors. It might be scary to look at that bar and

[12:33] think your little town will never fill it in a million years because you never see anyone in the town square. But if none of your residents care about fixing fence posts and petting dogs because they're too busy running dungeons and

[12:47] doing PvP, that's actually going to help fill up the bar plenty. I'm in three neighborhoods, and granted, they are very engaged communities, but we are well over halfway on our progress in every case after just [music] six out of

[13:02] 40 days. So, I don't think that will be changed. But I think after this outcry [music] and because the housing team seemed very eager to please, I think done about the house experience situation. Maybe the cap gets raised by

[13:17] a token amount because it does definitely seem like a pretty meager [music] cap right now for sure. I promised an opinion and my opinion is that whereas a cap seems like the only realistic way to run this system, yes,

[13:31] it does feel like [music] the cap is a bit low right now. I would definitely like to see it higher. >> I would definitely like to see it >> Oh, hey, Tally from the future here. And you'll never guess what, but just as we

[13:45] were rendering this video, Jesse Kenic put out a tweet with loads of changes importantly for what we're talking about here, the house XP cap from Endeavors is here, the house XP cap from Endeavors is going up from 1,00 to 2,250,

[14:00] diminishing returns will be less on repeatable tasks and repeatable tasks diminishing returns will reset every week. And with general buffs across the board, this is just good. This is just excellent stuff. This is just a big old

[14:14] win. Thank you, Jesse. Well done, mate. Oh, maybe they could introduce a new mow your suddenly weirdly overgrown lawn activity. So glad Tal's least favorite bug made it over from the beta with the patch.

[14:27] >> What's going on with the weirdly overgrown plots? It's normal. And then I I'm like, I need to mow the lawn. But I can't mow the lawn. There's no way to >> No, that's just a bug. >> Or maybe we could do dragon races for

[14:39] more experience. Data mining has uncovered strings that look suspiciously like there might be races planned [music] for the Horde and Alliance neighborhoods in the near future. So, I'm thinking like 100 XP per hoop more.

[14:53] I just want to remind everyone that all this talk of capped house XP only applies to experience gained [music] from endeavors. You still get experience from buying or crafting new decor for your collection. And there's new decor

[15:06] available right now with the patch like the garden clusters and actually like all the decor you can buy from the endeavor vendors. Reason [music] number three, it's in your house leveling interest to unlock them. do a completed

[15:20] neighborhood tour and buy one of each item and that's over 750 extra house XP there. In fact, reports are that there are people hitting level eights and unlocking medium-sized houses, which should probably be called absolutely

[15:34] [music] massive houses right now. Hey, it's me again. Have I mentioned Squarespace recently? I feel like I haven't. Anyway, Squarespace is sponsoring today's video, and we will be talking about Squarespace

[15:47] to celebrate. The thing that I love most about Squarespace is how many features it has now integrated into itself, like a friendly, super massive black hole of integrated feature is [music] Squarespace payments. If you're selling

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[16:31] around your page. Some of these are pretty wild. Apparently, Tally and I are roommates and raid buddies, but it can identity if [music] you're into that sort of thing. And I mean, where's the

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[16:57] favorite site styles. Look at that. are once generic emails have been instantly t&ified with a single button. So much of running a website can extend beyond the website. So I love features like this that [music] keep things feeling inhouse

[17:12] and on brand. And you know what else is very much on brand for Squarespace? The 10% you can get off your first website or domain when you head to or domain when you head to squarespace.com/taliasenevatel

[17:26] in the description below. That's squarespace.com/taliusel. >> So, I know the class guides aren't ready yet, and I'm sorry about that. In fact,

[17:38] I'm extra sorry because if I had just managed to finish the range DPS one before pre- patch, my comments about the new demon hunter spec, devourer, that I've put in there would have looked especially clever and precient. Because

[17:52] now everyone has access to the newest swoopy void boy. It's becoming pretty clear that it's got some glaring issues. Now, don't get me wrong. Overall, it's a very fun spec, or at least it is at level 90 with Apex talents. The pre

[18:07] patch version, though, is in my humble opinion, Nion unplayable. Let me hits things to make soul fragments appear and then reaps up the soul fragments, like Demensius's gaping hole, sucking in void shards. And then once

[18:22] you've got 50 of those souls, you get to enter void form where you get beefier collecting souls again, but [music] against the clock now to cast collapsing stars, the big chuck a comet on their head ability, which is the cool thing

[18:36] you've seen in all the promotion. It's the big damage ability for devourer. It's basically the whole point of the rotation. It is impossible for me to emphasize just how important this ability is to this spec. So, in an act

[18:50] of almost masochistically punishing gameplay, Blizz gave this ability a long cast time during which you have to stand still. But if you have to interrupt this cast to move or cuz you get knocked back like a millimeter or whatever, you lose

[19:04] the 30 souls you would have spent on the ability. Now, this is not usually how form window where you're lucky to get off three casts of collapsing star before having to farm the 50 souls again to get into void form again. This is

[19:18] to get into void form again. This is wild. And luckily Blizz too finally and are putting out a hot fix to not spend the souls if the cast is canled like every other ability in the game. The obvious right thing to [music] do

[19:30] enable which we are not going to get into right now. So problem solved. A win for Devourer, right?

[19:43] probably the most important talent available to Devourer is the one that gives them an instantly available collapsing star on entering void form. I You've just built up 50 souls to enter void form. Having to then straight away

[19:57] build up another 30 to cast collapsing star for the first time would blow. for entering void form. Much of the time you'd never even be able to get off a single cast of star before the mob is dead. Obviously, you are going to take

[20:11] this talent which stops devourer being a joyless climaxless suck machine. That talent, by the way, is the final apex talent only available at level 90. apex talent only available at level 90. So most players trying out Devourer, the

[20:24] new spec, which is there instead of a new class, don't forget, will rarely if new class, don't forget, will rarely if ever get to cast the main ability central in its toolbox, the ability that the entire rotation is based around and

[20:37] leads up to until midnight launches proper in a month and you hit max level. dungeons. If you're mostly playing in the open world, forget it. You are not seeing a star collapse at all, ever. All stars are in one piece and in their

[20:51] rightful place. And that's a shame, isn't it? You kind of want people to pick up the new spec, which you put in the expansion instead of a whole ass new class, and be like, "Oh, wow. What a cool fun spec." Which, I mean, it is

[21:05] overall quite fun and cool. But the majority of the feedback I'm seeing about it is that it's generally considered to be missing something. And like, yeah, no It's missing the main ability, fam. It's supposed to be

[21:18] right now. I don't really know what to suggest here. I don't think Blizz are going to suddenly make the final Apex talent a level 80 thing. So, at the talent a level 80 thing. So, at the moment, sadly, I think the launch of

[21:32] Devour at least is underwhelming and therefore a big L. I want to be clear though that I think in its true form, this is a really cool spec. You know, I'm not just being a doomer here. It's just frustrating how this has played

[21:47] out. One great thing about Devour is how all its abilities are very easy to track on the new base UI. We're not going to get into that subject too much today cuz I think it's going to deserve a closer analysis in the weekly reset segment,

[22:00] especially when it comes to healing frames, which okay, people tried to tell me about tracking healing stuff on the raid frames, and I was like, "Ha, I've been healing raids and mythic plus using the base UI for non 10 years now, and

[22:13] it's easy. you're all just babies. But no, 12.0 has actually made the base UI actually, I totally understand a lot of the complaints. Now, we're going to link topic that we think you might like, as well as other articles on everything

[22:27] that we've covered today so that you can peruse them at your leisure. Check them out. This week, we have a pre- patch event launching. We have a midnight road map dropping on Thursday and we'll be live streaming our reaction to that from

[22:39] a hotel room somewhere because we're hosting the Warcraft Homes event in London on Friday. Please come and join [music] us if you're in London town. There's a link in the description below. And thank you for joining us today. If

[22:51] Thank our patrons who [music] give their actual real life money to make all of our work happen. And seriously patrons, thank you. Cuz if it weren't for you, [music] and Never Tell. If you didn't like it, downvote the out of it.

[23:07] Remember, my name is [music] Avaline. No, my name is Talasin from me and Eie. No, my name is Talasin from me and Eie. Until next time. Cheerio.