When do you expect to see Dragonflight patch 10.2? And how does BlizzCon play into your prediction?

Patch 10.1.7 for Dragonflight will be releasing the week of September 5 and that gives us an opportunity to deduce when patch 10.2 may be arriving later this year. There are two factors however complicating a normal prediction: BlizzCon is scheduled for early November, and the maintenance of two PTRs allowing for patch 10.2 to begin testing even before patch 10.1.7 is released.

The impact of BlizzCon on the schedule can not be understated, as there’s a solid likelihood that the next expansion will be announced that weekend. This begs the question: Do they release 10.2 before BlizzCon or afterwards? I’m thinking beforehand, and here’s why:

Patch 10.1 — the previous tier patch — arrived on the PTR ten days before patch 10.0.7 and was tested for 52 days before release. If patch 10.2 is loaded to the PTR ten days before 10.1.7 then it will become available for testing starting on August 26. 52 days from August 26 is October 17 which conveniently enough is two and a half weeks before BlizzCon, allowing both the patch arrival and Season 3 to start and the inevitable “World First” race to end before the festivities.

The problem with patch 10.2 essentially being over before BlizzCon is that it only leaves the next expansion to discuss. Sure, that’s where the hype is mostly going to go, but you’d think they’d want to put some focus on Dragonflight to remind players they don’t have to wait until late next year to play World of Warcraft. If patch 10.2 doesn’t arrive until after BlizzCon, they can do a deep dive on those features as a way of building interest before the patch is live on November 7 or 14. It’s still a little odd though that we won’t necessarily know the end of the current expansion before we see the next expansion.

There is a third option, which is for the development team to have their cake and eat it too — although I don’t understand the point of having a cake you can’t eat — and that’s to release the patch before BlizzCon but to not start Season 3 and the World First race until after BlizzCon. This could be accomplished by an October 21 patch date and then a November 7 start to the Season. While recently Seasons have tended to start one week after the patch an extension to accommodate BlizzCon shouldn’t be met by too much grumbling from the community. This doesn’t quite solve the problem of not knowing the end of the current expansion before seeing the next expansion; however, if as expected a patch 10.2.5 and 10.2.7 are released early next year, those could tie a bow on Dragonflight‘s story that’s independent both of the final raid and the new expansion.

That third option is what I tend to think will happen, but what do you think? Will the current patch cadence of Dragonflight be maintained and patch 10.2 arrive in October, or will it be purposely delayed until after BlizzCon in order to give the team a chance to enjoy the festivities?