World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth arrived about a month ago, bringing with it a whole bunch of new new regions to explore, some interesting new dungeons to delve through, as well as the entirely new Island Expeditions, Warfronts and Azerite Armor. Unfortunately, due to what appears to be rush to release the expansion on time, a good few of these features have ended up falling short of what they originally promised.

Thankfully, there is hope on the horizon for them as Blizzard has just announced Patch 8.1 - Tides of Vengeance. The first major update will focus mostly on correcting the issues from launch, both balance and design related, as well as on adding a seemingly massive amount of new content to play around with. So if you're curious about what exactly the future brings for Battle for Azeroth, allow me to give you my summary of the most recent developer stream:

First and foremost, we will be getting a bunch of new story-focused quests with the Tides of Vengeance update. Expect to learn more about Saurfang, Tyrande and even Vol'jin! Furthermore, Blood Elves and Dwarfs will be getting their own Heritage Armor alongside a race-specific questline, which should be quite an interesting experience.  Personally, I'm hoping for Spellbreaker themed armor for Blood Elves!

Now that is a sweet piece of armor!

As expected, there will also be a new Troll raid coming. What you might not have expected, however, is that the raid will be the Siege of Zuldazar! Alliance players will need to kill the Troll king Rastakhan, while the Horde will need to defend him and push back against Jaina. Once you complete 3 faction specific bosses and 3 neutral bosses found throughout the raid, you will also be given a chance to swap sides and experience what happened to the other faction - a first for World of Warcraft if memory serves.

There will also be another raid coming shortly after the Siege of Zuldazar - Crucible of Storms. It'll be a small raid with only two bosses, though it will have some story-heavy elements as it will include the Naga and the Old Gods. Not much else is known about it so far, but two new raids in one update is definitely a welcome addition.

Is there a single Troll city loot-hungry adventurers haven't ended up ravaging?

Since we're already talking about the whole Alliance vs Horde war, it's also worth mentioning that we will be getting a new Warfront - Battle for Darkshore. There will be new buildings to construct and units to recruit, bosses to slay and rares to hunt, and perhaps most importantly of all, it appear that it will actually affect Darkshore outside of the 'instance' itself.

When it comes to Island Expeditions, you'll be glad to hear that Blizzard is working on making them less formulaic. The two new islands Jorundall and Havenwood will feature new types of enenemies, events that you can trigger for extra Azerite upon completion, extractions that will give you a slow influx of Azerite, as well as much more sensible enemy placements.

As previously announced, the update will also bring with it a couple of class overhauls, new profession recipes, as well as new Azerite Armor traits. For those of you that love pet battles, I'm also glad to say that there will be a brand new Gnomeregan pet battle dungeon as well!

Here's to hoping the new islands will be a lot more dynamic than the current ones

And last but not least, reputation-locked transmogs will finally be getting their character-specific requirements lifted. So if you've grinded out the Laughing Skull Tribe rep to get that sweet mask, you'll be happy to know that once the patch drops all of your characters will be able to equip it.

On a similar note, the benefits from the Champions of Azeroth reputation will now apply to all characters on your account. In other words, if you're revered and you've received the item level boost twice already, all your alts will have that boost as well. A minor quality of life improvement in the grand scheme of things, but one I am definitely thankful for as it saves me a lot of grinding!

That's pretty much it for this update, but there is one more thing I need to mention: Zandalari Trolls and Kul Tiran Allied Races will not be coming with this update, but they will be coming "soon". Thankfully, you will not need any new reputations to unlock them! So for example, if you have Exalted with Zandalar right now, you have everything you need to start the new quest chain as soon as it arrives.

If Blizzard announces anything else I'll make sure to let you know, but I doubt we'll be getting any more details before this update drops onto the PTR. Until then, make sure to check out Uldir as it's pretty darn enjoyable raid!