WoW: How to PREPARE for The War Within Release

The War Within expansion for World of Warcraft (WoW) is set to release on August 26th, so you should use the upcoming days to prepare for it.

It’s important to make sure your character is properly ready to take on the new expansion. You should clean your bags of junk and get useful consumables ahead of time, for example. Minimize having to waste time on release instead of playing the new content.

In this guide, we’ll give you tips on how to do just that. We’ll tell you how to make sure that you can be ready to fully enjoy The War Within the exact second it becomes available!

How to Prepare for WoW: The War Within

Clean Out Your Bags

If there’s one thing you’ll need once WoW: The War Within releases, it’s Gold. What you won’t need is junk items cluttering your bags and making resource gathering needlessly cumbersome. So, it’s a good idea to kill two birds with one stone: start selling all your unnecessary items in the Auction House right now.

This is doubly true if you played through the Dragonflight expansion, as the items from that expansion seem to be selling quite well currently. Either way, we also recommend taking out any useless items you have in your Warband Bank and selling them too. You want as much free space for new items as possible! Make sure to do this on all of your characters, as well.

Get Useful Items

Got rid of all the junk and earned some Gold already? Use that Gold to get any consumables that you’ll need for leveling. Remember, The War Within will raise the Level Cap in WoW to 80 upon release, so you should prepare to level up.

The main items to get are stat-raising Flasks, such as the Phial of Tepid Versatility, for example. This is especially true if you start replacing your gear with new loot from The War Within and get unfavorable stats. Use the boosting Flasks to temporarily increase any stats you need as you keep Leveling, it’ll make the whole process faster.

Make sure you get items that aid mobility, as well. Sure, Skyriding will be the main way to travel in The War Within, but it’s not always available. For those instances, you’ll want to have items like the Goblin Glider Kit and Gunshoes. We also highly recommend Light-Step Hoofplates, as they make your mount faster. You know how it is: the faster you can get around, the more efficiently you’ll be completing quests and leveling up.

For more help with leveling, check out our leveling tips for WoW: The War Within.

Clean the Quest Log

If you still have unfinished quests leading up to the release of WoW: The War Within, you might want to prepare by getting rid of them. Complete any quests you actually want to do and have the time for, but remember that the expansion’s launch is quickly approaching!

As for any quests you don’t want to bother with or simply don’t have the time for… abandon them all. Empty out your quest log so that you can fill it exclusively with quests from The War Within later. It’ll make it much easier to track your progress in the expansion. Besides, you can always return to do the quests you abandoned later.

Take Part in the Radiant Echoes Event

The War Within’s pre-patch event is currently ongoing, called “Radiant Echoes.” This event started on July 30th and will last until August 26th, ending as soon as The War Within releases.

This event is mainly meant for catching up with any alts that you didn’t play much during Dragonflight. Nonetheless, it’s worth doing even if that doesn’t apply to you. It grants loads of Veteran ILvl 480 gear, the “This Takes Me Back” Feat of Strength, the “Band of Radiant Echoes” Heirloom Ring, a couple of Warband-bound bags, and even some battle pets and mounts. Don’t miss out on these goodies, go do the event while you can.

Optimize Your Game Settings

If you’ve been playing World of Warcraft for a while, you should know what to expect once The War Within releases. The floodgates will open and lots of players new and old will start rushing into the game, causing massive lag spikes and other performance issues.

There’s not much you can do about the masses of players jumping into the game, but you can try to minimize its effects on your client’s performance. Disable add-ons you don’t really need and lower your graphics settings as much as possible. It’s better to make sure that the game runs well during the expansion’s launch, even if you’re gaming in potato mode for a bit!

Log Out at Dalaran

Once you feel you’re done and don’t need to prepare anymore for the release of WoW: The War Within, just go to Dalaran and log out there. Dalaran is the starting point for The War Within, based on the information we know from the beta and various previews. Having your character parked there will make getting into the expansion much quicker!

Additionally, we do recommend logging into all of your characters after The War Within releases and the Level Cap is raised to 80. Just log in and log out if you don’t want to play with these characters so that they start getting the Rested bonus.

Other than that, though, follow all our steps and you will be all set to play The War Within expansion for WoW on release. It’s only a few days away now, it’s right around the corner!