So, my last expansion played is Shadowland before taking a hiatus in 2021. Recently, I just bought War Within pre-purchase and not sure what to expect. Many things had changed since. I need advice on how to prepare myself for War Within, at the same time, what do I need to look out for in Dragonflight? I do not want to expend so much effort on DF if War Within beta is over and some things will be rendered useless. It is a little overwhelming right now.
Welcome back!
Sorry to hear you feel overwhelmed. Really, it’s not that bad.
Of course, coming back after a couple of years is a bit disorienting, but that passes pretty quickly.
Nothing much has changed. Dragonflight is a more neutral expansion than SL. We’ve got big, pleasant zones. We have the new Dragonriding (which is actually more like gliding). We have a story that is pretty lacking in the big things, and awful in the small ones, but coming after Shadowlands, even that feels inoffensive.
The War Within Beta is just about to start, and Pandaria Remix has almost three months left in it, so TWW is at least three months away. I’m inclined to think it is not more than 4 months, but who knows with development schedules?
So you have 3-4 months of Dragonflight left. Enjoy it! Nothing is important at this stage of the expansion, so just foof around as you feel.
If you’ve bought TWW, you have a Level 70 Character Boost available. You can use it now, or not.
IF you use it now, you will skip right over the levelling campaign, which in this expansion makes you quest your way around the zones - like Shadowlands, but feels a little less rigid. On hitting 70, whichever way you choose to do it, you will be assaulted by a maddened mob of yellow exclamation points all demanding that you follow THEIR new quest chains! 
Yeah, don’t worry about that too much. 
Dragonriding is a thing. You get Dragonriding almost immediately in your quest chain at 60, and you can’t do normal flying until you get a kinda-sorta new Pathfinder. Utterly silly and unprincipled, but get used to Dragonriding, both because it’s all you got until you earn normal flying and because, once you learn all the Talents to make Dragonriding functional, it’s better and three times faster than normal flying. Until you have all theTalents, though, it’s a misbegotten, dysfunctional fail.
If you boost your first character to 70, your Dragonriding Talents will all be available, and you can immediately get started on that. If you decide to quest through, I advise you to collect all your Dragonriding Talents as soon as the quest introduces you to Dragonriding. It takes an hour or two to fill them all in, and much better to so that at the start than to limp your way around the expansion with a semi-functional mount.
Apart from that, it’s The Usual. Quests. Dungeons. BGs. M+. Raids. LFR.
Levelling Scaling is pretty off in the late '60s. Not that it’s ever right, but a bit more wrong than Shadowlands, so if you are questing around the Isles, expect the going to slow down towards the end.
Do you remember your WoW references?
Wowhead wowhead.com
Curseforge for your addons https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons
Icy Veins for class builds and play https://www.icy-veins.com/wow/
and of course YouTube for everything!
I don’t know how to advise you on preparing for The War Within. Honestly, there won’t be much preparation needed. Blizzard will launch a pre-patch that I’m sure will offer excellent gear and levelling speeds for alts before TWW proper starts.
Do you want to level alts? Seek out a progression guild? Anything special you want to prepare for?
Do please ask any more specific things we can help you with. 
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