World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria (0)
New Features
- Level cap raised to 90
- New class: Monk
- New race: Pandarens - Playable by both factions
- New continent: Pandaria
- PvE Scenarios
- Pet Battle System
- New talent system
- Challenge mode dungeons
- Character slots raised to 11 per server
- AoE looting
Pandaren
were first introduced as a neutral race in , and in that game acted as vendors for your heroes. They have been unseen in the World of Warcraft until now. In Mists of Pandaria, Pandarens begin on Wandering Isle, a large island shaped in the form of a turtle. New Pandaren characters start off as a neutral race, and over a questline take them to Level 10 which involves helping save the Wandering Isle being sucked into the Maelstrom. Once they complete the questline Pandaren characters are forced to choose a faction, either the or the .
Pandarens are be able to choose Hunters, Mages, Priests, Warriors, Rogues, Shamans or Monks as their class.
Pandaren racials
- Bouncy - You take 50% less falling damage.
- Inner Peace - Your rested experience bonus lasts twice as long.
- Gourmand - Cooking skill increased by 15.
- Epicurean - Increase the stat benefits from food by 100%
- Quaking Palm - You touch a secret pressure point on an enemy target, putting it to sleep for 3 sec.
Pandaren race mount is the Dragon Turtle.
Monk Class
All races except Goblins and Worgen are able to be monks.
- Uses Chi as its resource
- Uses stances, like Drunken Tiger/Ox
- Monks start at level 1, they are not a Hero class.
- Martial-arts based
- Uses Leather Armor (Agility or Intellect)
- Uses staves and fist weapons for finishing moves, but also be able to use 1H swords, axes and maces.
The three talent trees allow players to assume any role in a party:
- Brewmaster - Tank spec
- Mistweaver - Healing spec
- Windwalker - Melee DPS
Pandaria
- 7 new leveling zones to explore
- Single unified continent
- Influenced by Asian landscapes
- Auction House, Bank and Central Questing Hub
- No flying until max level
Challenge Dungeons
Challenge dungeons allow players to attempt to speed run dungeons, earning either a bronze, silver, or gold medal based on your completion time. Player's gear will all be scaled down to a set level to make sure that everyone that tries to speed run a dungeon are on an equal playing level.
Challenge dungeons reward valor points (which are used to buy high end gear from vendors) but also rewards unique looking pieces of gear that have no stats on them.
New Talent System
With Mists of Pandaria the talent system in World of Warcraft recieved a major overhaul, even larger than the changes that came with Cataclysm.
All classes are lost the three talent tree system. Roles are no longer be determined by your talents but by your class specialization which is be chosen at 10th level.
The new talent trees offer one talent point every 15 levels that you can put into one of three talents at that level. For example, a Paladin at level 15 receive one talent point that they can spend in one of three talents, Speed of Light, Long Arm of the Law, or Pursuit of Justice. Then, at level 30, you receive another talent point that you can spend in the next tier of the talent tree, and only in the next tier. So at level 30, a Paladin could spend his one talent point in either Fist of Justice, Repentance, or Seal of Justice, but could not spend it in any of the tier 1 talents (Speed of Light, Long Arm of the Law, or Pursuit of Justice.)
Many abilities that was considered staples to a talent tree for a class became core class abilities, became class specialization abilities, or became talents in the new trees; meaning someone of that class regardless of specialization gained access to the ability.
PvE Scenarios
PvE scenarios will function as sort of mini-instanced-open-world-dungeons. Unlike public quests in other games, PvE scenarios will be instanced group quest chains that can be completed at any level. It was suggested that you can come back to scenarios even after you have far out leveled the area the scenario is featured in, and the scenario itself will scale to the level of you and your party. Meaning that if you skip a PvE scenario in a level 10 zone, you can still complete it at level 90 and it will scale to level 90 for you.
The scenarios themselves were presented as instanced multi-part quests. The example they gave would be along the lines of Goldshire being under attack by kobolds, so the first step would be to kill X number of kobolds attacking the town, then once that is complete you would need to rescue X number of children from the town, and then would finish with fighting a "boss kobold" Goldtooth.
The other proposed use for this would be to create PvE PvP experiences. The example here was for a PvE scenario set in "Grizzly Gulch." Players would take part in a three part quest series revolving around the opposing faction having taken control of Grizzly Gulch and the players trying to take it back for their faction. Step 1 would be to kill 50 NPCs of the opposing faction, which would lead to the players needing to destroy six towers and a barracks, and would end with defeating the boss, General Drake (for the Alliance side.)
Pet Battle System
With Pet Battle System Blizzard makes it possible to fight with companion pets against other companion pets. The fights will be turn based with a team of 3 pets. Players will also be able to fight alone against different NPC masters around the world, and when defeated, will earn players new abilities for their companion pets. Winning battles will earn players experience and level the pets. For battle against other players there will be a queueing system much like the dungeon finder and the upcoming raid finder.
Other aspects of the pet battle system includes the ability to rename your pets or give an item to them as the pets will be recieving an item slot. There will also be pets in the wild to catch for use in battle or trade with other players. Pets will also be able to be sent to other characters on the same account. Some pets will be special in that they will only appear during certain conditions such as a rainy day or when it's spring. Every pet caught and owned will be shown in the new pet journal along with their abilites and level.
Dungeons
Mists of Pandaria will add 9 new instances upon launch. 6 located on Pandaria and 3 on Eastern Kingdoms.
Temple of the Jade Serpent
Temple of the Jade serpent will be the first dungeon encountered while leveling and is located in the Jade Forest zone. In this dungeon players are to defeat the Sha of Doubt, one of many elemental enemies.
The Stormstout Brewery
The Stormstout Brewery is the second dungeon players will come across on their journey. In here players will assist in reclaiming his family heritage, the brewery, from Verming and Hozu who has overrun it. The dungeon is located in the Valley of the Four Winds zone.
Shado-pan Monastery
In this third dungeon players are tasked to help the Shado-pan clan kill any Sha that threatens the base. The base is located on the Kun-Lai Summit.
Mogu'Shan Palace
A dungeon found in Vale of Eternal Blossoms.
The Gate of the Setting Sun
A dungeon that takes place at the Great Pandarian Wall with the Mantid attempting to break down the wall and the Shado-pan defending.
Siege of Niuzao Temple
A new dungeon located on the western side of Townlong Steppes.
The rework of Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep in Cataclysm was really popular so Blizzard continues on that path and redo 3 more dungeons for Mists of Pandaria.
Scholomance
Scholomance is being reworked, rooms will be better placed to easier walk around and find where to go.
Scarlet Cathedral
Graveyard and Chapel will be combined into one dungeon.
Scarlet Halls
Library and Armory will be combined into one dungeon.
Ragefire Chasm
Blizzard have reworked this dungeon, adding quests and lore to go with Garrosh's new way of ruling.
Key changes
- Heroic dungeons will be tuned to the Wrath heroic level so players can easily clear bosses in PUG's to get Valor points.
- Dungeons will have a sense of place in the world. The dungeons will be 1:1 scaled when you see it from outside.
- The boss fights will be easier to understand.
Raids
Along with the new dungeons there will also be 3 raids launching with the game. Each of them can be run in three different difficulty modes: Looking for Raid, Normal, and Heroic. Looking for raid which was first implemented in the final patch of Cataclysm allows players to run a raid instance with a random group of 24 players. The difficulty of LFR has been tuned accordingly.
Mogu'Shan Vaults
This is a six-boss raid located in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms zone on the Kun-Lai Summit at the center of Pandaria. Here players will explore the hidden secrets of the Mogu empire.
Terrace of Endless Spring
A Sha-themed raid located at the midpoint of the Veiled Stair, a mountain pass between the northeastern corner of the Valley of the Four Winds and the southern part of the Kun-Lai Summit.
Heart of Fear
A mantid themed raid, the seat of the Mantid dominion, and a place where the Queen of the Mantid currently resides, possessed by the Sha of Fear.
Patch 5.2: The Thunder King
New Raid: Throne of Thunder
A new Raid instance containing 12 encounters and one heroic only boss that can only be fought when the other 12 have fallen on heroic difficulty.
New Daily Quest Hub: The Isle of Thunder
New quest hub for Alliance and Horde where they can assist the members of the Kirin Tor or the Sunreaver factions in the Defeat of the Thunder King Lei Shen.
Patch 5.3
Patch 5.3 was a non-raid patch, focusing on the conflict between the Darkspear Rebellion of the Horde Trolls, led by , and 's Korkron Guard as Garrosh's behavior becomes increasingly erratic. It added four scenarios, an arena, and a battleground, as well as new daily and weekly quests in .
Patch 5.4
New Raid: Siege of Orgrimmar
Patch 5.4 adds the final raid of the Pandaria expansion, as both Horde and Alliance players assault Orgrimmar to end the threat of Garrosh's insanity.
New Features
5.4 also adds a number of new features and tweaks.
- Flexible Raid Difficulty: Groups can join raids with any number of players between 10 and 25, and the raid will automatically scale its difficult to adjust.
- Proving Grounds: Level 90 players can take on predetermined challenges to gauge their skills as a healer, tank, or DPS.
- Virtual Realms: Low-population realms will not be merged, but will see multiple realms function as one. You will be able to join guilds, browse the auction house, and join raids as if all realms in the Virtual Realm were the same one.
Beta
During BlizzCon 2011 added the option to buy an annual pass for World of Warcraft which was a 12-Month subscription. With the annual pass players recieved a spot in the Mists of Pandaria beta, a free digital copy of when it released and an ingame mount, Tyrael's Charger. The option to get an annual pass was removed May 1 2012.
March 22nd - The Mists of Pandaria beta testing officially started.
System Requirements
Minimum:
- Dual core CPU
- NVIDIA® GeForce® 6800 GT or ATI Radeon™ X1800 Pro or better
- 1 GB RAM (XP), 2 GB (Vista/7)
- 25 GB available HD space
- Broadband Internet connection
- 1024x768 minimum resolution
Recommended:
- Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 X2
- 4 GB RAM
- NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800 GT or ATI Radeon™ HD 4830 or better