Mists of Pandaria Expansion

Pandaren Racials
Like the other races of Azeroth, the pandaren have their own unique racial bonuses:

• Epicurean: Increase the stat benefits from food by 100%
  
• Gourmand: Cooking skill increased by 15
  
• Inner Peace: Your rested experience bonus lasts twice as long
  
• Bouncy: You take 50% less falling damage
  
• Quaking Palm: You touch a pressure point on an enemy target, putting it to sleep for 3 seconds.
  

Monk

Mists of Pandaria also introduces a new class, the monk. This class is deeply rooted in the martial arts and while they use weapons such as staves, fist weapons, one-handed axes, maces, swords, and more, their true strength lies in their hands and feet. This new class will feature unique animations, will shun the use of auto-attack, and will start at level one.

They can take on one of three different roles:

• Brewmaster: Tank
  
• Mistweaver: Healer
  
• Windwalker: Melee DPS
  

The pandaren have paved the way for the following races to learn the ways of the monk: draenei, dwarf, gnome, human, night elf, blood elf, orc, tauren, troll, and undead.

Much like druids, monks will benefit from leather armor with agility or intellect, depending on their build, and will depend on Chi (energy) for class-specific moves such as Jab and Roll. Jab will generate either Light or Dark Force, which can be expended to perform other moves.

New Talent System

Mists of Pandaria will take classes to the next level by offering choices that are more meaningful, starting with more flexible builds and true specializations.



Specialization

Players will be able to choose a specialization at level 10, giving them a new spec ability and opening up new options within that spec. As a character progresses, additional spec abilities will become available. Some of these may be existing talents, while others may be older core abilities that are more situational.

Example: Protection Paladin

• Level 10: Avenger’s Shield
  
• Level 20: Hammer of the Righteous
  
• Level 30: Judgments of the Just (Passive)
  
• Level 40: Shield of the Righteous
  
• Level 50: Grand Crusader (Proc)
  
• Etc…
  

Starting with Mists of Pandaria, players will no longer spend talent points. The current three-tree talent system will change into a slim single talent tree per class in which players will earn talents every 15 levels. Each talent opens up one of three different available options within the tree for further specialization within the chosen spec. By trimming down the talent trees, the development team intends to create a system in which there are no mandatory talents or cookie cutter specs. Talents will also be easily changed, much like glyphs.

*For additional information on the new Talent System design, see the World of Warcraft Talent Panel blog.

Scenarios

Scenarios will allow small groups of players to adventure together in short instances, with progressive objectives and a story arc. Scenarios are completely role-less, meaning tanks or healers aren’t necessary to succeed -- any class combinations can work. Queues will be fast! Smaller scenarios will play similar to group quests and will help players earn faction reputation, while larger scenarios will play out like epic PvE battlegrounds with major objectives and plenty of scripted events.

Dungeon Challenge Modes

Heroic Dungeons will become easier for pick-up-groups (PuGs) to take on, but that won’t leave players who are looking for a more difficult path out in the cold. Dungeon Challenge Modes will let those looking for a deeper challenge take on dungeon runs with specific goals (complete dungeon in X minutes) and reward players who accomplish these goals with Bronze, Silver, or Gold medals. Challengers will also find their gear scaled to equalize the difficulty of the encounter for all players, creating a level playing field. To the victor will go the spoils, in the form of uniquely designed statless gear that can be utilized with Transmogrification to further define the look of a character.



Pet Battle System

Another new exciting feature that will be introduced with Mists of Pandaria is the Pet Battle System. This system will work much like a Secondary profession and any player can participate. Players will be able utilize their current non-combat pets or capture new non-combat pets to level them and battle them against others.

Dungeons & Raids

The new expansion will introduce three new Raid dungeons and nine new dungeons with six of these being located within Pandaria. Scholomance and Scarlet Monastery will attain level-90 Heroic status, much like Shadowfang Keep and Deadmines, with Scarlet Monastery becoming two separate dungeons.

With the addition of the Raid Finder in patch 4.3 and the new Challenge modes, the intention is to open up multiple opportunities for max-level players to take part in a variety of progression options.

*See the Dungeons and Raids blog for more information after the panel.

Quest Content

With Mists of Pandaria, the focus will be shifting to creating more repeatable max-level content while providing incentives for all players, including those who take part in dungeons and raids. Quests on Pandaria will provide a less linear experience, with multiple quest hubs to choose from, but don’t count on flying until you reach max level.

The developers are also taking a hard look at factions and future faction reputation will be earned through gameplay, without the need to utilize a tabard to grind rep. Opportunities similar to the recent Molten Front quest dailies will provide rich max-level solo content in Pandaria.

PvP

Mists of Pandaria will be adding three new Battlegrounds and a new Arena to World of Warcraft.

New Battlegrounds

Stranglethorn Diamond Mines: “Payload” gameplay
Valley of Power: “Murderball” gameplay
Azshara Crater: DOTA-style gameplay

New Arena

The Tol’vir Proving Grounds will utilize the sweeping vistas of Uldum and the Tol’vir art style with a simple layout based on Nagrand Arena.

Account Wide Achievements

Achievements will now become available at the Battle.net account level. Many achievements will be shared among characters, including those for raiding and maxing out professions.

Major Class Changes

Here’s a brief look at some of the planned class changes:

Hunters: Hunter minimum range (including the dead zone) and melee weapon use will be removed.

Warlocks: This class will be gaining a unique resource for each spec type in their arsenal.

Shaman: Buff totems will be removed and all totems will become utility totems.

Druids: This class has always felt as if it had four specs, so now it will.

For All Classes:

Spell books will be cleaned up
Rotations will be improved
Spells will be automatically learned
Several new spells will be added
Specs will be more developed
Above all, talent trees should be FUN

We’ll be revealing more details over the course of the development of this exciting new expansion and we look forward to sharing this information with you in the months ahead.

Q: Are any changes in store for dungeons and raids?

As with the upcoming patch 4.3, Mists of Pandaria will include a third difficulty level for raids. Expect one difficulty to be roughly equivalent to the current normal mode, one to be about on par with the current Heroic mode, and one to be much more pick-up-group-friendly. Our goal is to allow more players to be able to experience the content -- especially the climactic boss encounters that are a part of each expansion’s story arc -- while still satisfying players looking for the most epic challenges and rewards.

Touchi wrote:
btw will the pandas be horde or alliance?