hi all, i have just returned to game, purchased the complete edition that comes together with pre-order shadowlands. I had a 110 mage at around 200 item level, so i guess im pretty backwards after almost 3 years away (last played was Oct 2017).
So i logon to game, and completely lost not knowing what to do (forgot most things about WoW unfotunately 
) , standing in Dalaran, with full of questions on items, quest, gearings, new systems (i read/youtube and see a lot of new terms like conduits or etc which is total foreign to me).
also, am i actually playing BFA or SL right now? 
would appreciate any help/suggestions/advise on what i should be doing now (or reading to get more info etc), thanks!
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Welcome back! First bit of advice is to forget all the terminology for now. Itâll just needlessly overcomplicate things for the time being. All that can come later. The next time you visit your faction capital city (Stormwind or Orgrimmar) you should get a quest popup that will start you into BFA leveling zones. Youâll unlock an artifact neck piece called the heart of azeroth along the way and begin to learn basic BFA systems. (You are still playing BFA right now, Shadowlands wonât be til closer to the end of the year)
Once you hit lvl 120, then you can start to worry and learn about things like Essences and Corruptions. Just use the leveling process to re-acquaint yourself with the game for now. If the character youâre leveling is Alliance like the toon youâre posting from, Iâd suggest checking out Drustvar as your first leveling zone. Itâs my personal favorite zone storyline to play through in BFA zones. 
thanks! i think i was also confused coz when i logon to my mage, i had a bunch of quest on the side (from before), making it more confusing for me to catch up BFA quest/new quests), my mage is an Orc (horde) and im not sure how to switch character in the forums .
Iâm definitely going to Orgrimmar to check out the quest to start BFA leveling zones now thenâŚ
can i remove all the quests i had from before? (this is to minimize complications between old and new quests)⌠tyvm
Removing them shouldnât cause any issues. If thereâs ever anything you want to go back to complete down the road youâll be able to pick them back up again. Just make sure youâre not accidentally removing new quests that you may have already picked up and not realized and you should be fine.
yeap i should be careful with removing quests or itâll further complicate things down the road.
i see some quests with the red symbol at the side, are those the new BFA quests i assume?
If you havenât started anything in the new zones yet, the new quests will be listed under âHorde War Campaignâ in your quest log.
thanks, yep just checked there is only 1 war campaign quest, which has a red symbol next to it
so im getting new gears along the quests, what do i do with the old ones from previous expac with lower item level? trash them?
also, iâve been lvling artifact power and unlock azerite powers on blue gears, should i keep artifact power for higher level gears or im free to use them on current lower lvls?
Yeah, you can just vendor any old gear you have as itâs replaced. The exception to this is your artifact weapons which you canât vendor or destroy, so you can just store those in your bank once you replace them.
AP that you collect just goes into leveling your Heart of Azeroth. Azerite gear that you get has traits that unlock as your Heart levels. So youâre not spending AP in that sense, youâre just leveling your neck piece. Any azerite that you collect is automatically applied to your HoA, so itâs really a hands off system. Just choose a new trait on your Azerite gear when they unlock.
Cool, thanks a lot for all these helpful infoâŚ
How about my old leggos? Should I replace them with new gears? Those leggos are only 245 item levelâŚif I get any higher gear levels, should I replace em?
Yeah, those are replaceable as well. Their effects stop working after level 114 anyway.
Ahhh so basically everything from my inventory have to be replaced 
I know it could be still early but what are the new systems I need to read on? Corruption? Essence?
You wonât be able to unlock essences and corruption until youâve done enough in BfA to unlock world quests, so it wonât hit you right at 120. Iâm not sure thereâs enough time before pre-patch to worry too much about them anyhow. The basics will be pretty obvious as you start unlocking stuff, and the min-maxing doesnât really matter this close to the pre-patch. (Corruptions will be going away altogether with pre-patch.)
Probably the most important thing to worry about is that once you unlock world quests, items you get will all have a chance to be corrupted. Aside from the bonus that these corrupted items get, they also have a corruption number. Higher corruption means more bad stuff you have to deal with. The cloak questline gives you ways to mitigate corruption (through corruption resistance on the cloak or the ability to just cleanse it off and not deal with it at all) so itâs generally a good idea to beeline for the quest ASAP once world quests are unlocked as otherwise youâll end up getting gear you canât use due to too much corruption.
To start the cloak quest chain:
- Unlock World Quests
- Unlock Nazâjatar. The quest should pop up once world quests are unlocked. If not, you should be able to get it on the boat. The quest to start it is âThe Wolfâs Offensiveâ (A) / âThe Warchiefâs Orderâ (H).
- Complete the quest chain to unlock essences. Magni will show up with the quest âEssential Empowermentâ in Nazâjatar once youâve established your base there. The final quest needed in that chain is âHarnessing the Power.â
- The start quest for the 8.3 questlines should pop up the next time you enter Boralus/Zuldazar (or relogging can trigger it.) The quest is âAn Unwelcome Advisorâ (A) / âReturn of the Black Princeâ (H).
On your first character, you may want to spend some time gearing up in Nazâjatar before you start the 8.3 stuff. (Fortunately, the Nazâjatar gear wonât corrupt.) The main questline in Nazâjatar also gets you a second essence with is helpful.