WoW Preview Panel Breakdown

A tremendous amount of info came out of the WoW Preview Panel, here’s the bullet points from the panel if you missed it:

- Reintroducing outdoor raid bosses
- Will let players quest, run dungeons, and raid to earn Valor Points for progression

PANDARIA:
- Five new zones, all of which are nearly twice the size of Twilight Highlands
- Continent will have AH, bank and central questing hub
- No flying until max level
- Pandaren starting zone will be on the back of a giant turtle
- Pandaren will be neutral races until they’re level 10 where they choose their faction.
- New creatures include the Jinyu, Hozu, Verming, Mantid, Mogu and the Sha
- First level 85 zone is called The Jade Forest where the Alliance and Horde wash-up on the island of Pandaria and will include the Temple of the Jade Serpent for the first dungeon.
- Second zone is Valley of the Four Winds, featuring a northern farming zone and a southern jungle area where you can choose which area to quest in.
- Dungeon in second zone will be Stormstout Brewery.

PANDAREN:
- New race, can be Hunters, Mages, Monks, Priests, Rogues, Shamen or Warriors.
- Racial abilities feature double stat bonus from food, +15 cooking, double rested XP, 50% less fall damage and a crowd control ability called Quaking Palm.

MONK:
- New class, three specs. Brewmaster is tank spec, Mistweaver is healer spec, Windwalker is melee DPS class.
- Not a hero class, starts at level 1.
- Alliance races can be Draenei, Gnome, Human, Night Elf and Pandaren.
- Horde races can be Pandaren, Orc, Tauren, Troll and Undead
- Monks will focus on hands and feet but have weapons for finishing moves; wear leather armor as agi or intel-based depending on spec.
- New resource mechanic: Similar to energy, used for Jab and Roll attack. Called light force and dark force. Some finishers take light, some take dark.
- No auto attack

TALENTS 2.0:
- Will still choose core spec at level 10
- You’ll get spec-based abilities at level 10 and many levels later down the line
- Some spec abilities are old core abilities that not every spec needs.
- There are no longer talent points or ranks
- Only ONE talent tree per class
- New talent chosen every 15 levels from a list of 3 talents.
- No mandatory talents and they can be changed as easily as glyphs

PvE SCENARIOS:
- Scenarios will reuse parts of the world in new ways
- Are scalable dungeons in which small groups of players can complete objectives without requiring specific group makeup (i.e. tank, healer, dps, etc)
- Will offer a very short queue system due to no makeup requirements
- Can earn valor points

CHALLENGE MODE DUNGEONS:
- Speed-challenges for dungeons
- You will earn Bronze, Silver or Gold medals depending on performance
- Gear levels are normalized for these dungeons, meaning you cannot overgear them
- Gear rewards will be aesthetically pleasing but not provide any stats and valor points
- Will also feature leaderboards

PET BATTLE SYSTEM:
- Collect, level, customize and fight with companion pets.
- Accessible to all players of any level
- You can hunt and fight wild pets and collect them
- Some pets are exclusively found in only specific conditions – night or day, raining, snowing, certain zones, etc.
- Pet Journal will let you manage the pets and combat details and show you where to find certain wild pets.
- Pets are also tradeable – you can skill up a pet, gear it out and sell it on the AH
- Will also introduce account-wide pets
- Level by fighting other pets.
- You will learn abilities and can use any of 3 at a time
- Leveling pets also earn stats
- You will want to build a team of pets, up to 3.
- Can compete against same-faction players or against cross-faction PvP battles.
- Combat is turn-based
- There are also Masters and Master Abilities. You find Masters, fight them and get abilities by defeating them.

DUNGEONS/RAIDS:
- 9 new dungeons in the expansion, six in Pandaria.
- New heroic mode classic dungeons: Scholomance, and Scarlet Monastery Wing 1 and 2.
- Will launch with three raids, all with three difficulty levels – Raid Finder, Normal, Heroic.

QUESTING:
- Increased focus on max-level content to get Valor Points
- Multiple quest hubs
- Incentive for raiders/dungeoners to run these quests in the form of special buffs that, for example, would unlock hidden gear that only players with that buff can roll on.
- More quest choices, less linear
- Improved faction system, allowing access to the same gear with different faction paths.

PVP:
- Stranglethorn Diamond Mine will be a payload-style BG, requiring players to actively move resources to a hub to win over a cource of rails.
- Valley of Honor BG is murderball-style, involving holding an artifact for as long as possible. Earn points by standing in certain areas, the more open the better, and it will damage much more viciously as time goes by.
- Tol’Vir Proving Grounds: Located in Uldum, new arena. Modelled after Nagrand Arena

ACHIEVEMENTS:
- Introducing some account-wide achievements

MAJOR CLASS CHANGES:
- Ranged Weapons: No more Hunter minimum range, no more Hunter melee weapons, no ranged weapon slot for any other class, no more relics. Rogues and Warriors will throw their weapons for those abilities. Wands will be come main hand weapon options.
- Warlocks: Unique resources for each spec. Soul Shards for Affliction, Demonic Fury for Demonology which will build up and turn you into a demon form, Infernal Embers for Affliction which will build up and proc into major damage.
- Shaman: Buffing totems are gone, totems will be utility and provide abilities like Earthbind, Repulsion and Shields.
- Druids: Will have 4 specs. Feral for Cat DPS, Guardian for bear tank and Resto and Balance. There will be some overlap in the Feral/Guardian specs and all Druids can go into either form.
- All Classes: Spell books cleaned up, rotations improved, automatically learn spells and no need to visit trainer to learn, new spells, specs more developed, and talent trees will be more fun.

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