Mists of Pandaria Beta

[The Stig]

Woohoo Paladins get:

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__...flare_tien.jpg

[fantasticdan]

Well they had it in cata beta too.

[The Stig]

Ah my bad, at that time I didn't play any class but DK

But now since I play all 3 plate classes regularly, that caught my attention. Lemme see if I can find why it was removed.

[Clemz]

I'm okay with the glyph not making a warlock a tank in the literal sense, read: being able to queue as, and tank progression content. From the videos and streams I've watched, the glyph is allowing a lot more solo capability than what a warlock currently has, and I'm absolutely looking forward to that. In much the same way that I'm looking forward to leeching poison for rogues, recuperate is grand and all for soloing, but that poison should really kick it up to a whole 'nother level.

[Correction]

and 3 seems the least likely judging by the dev response, and the fact that it's already beta.

Agreed. I don't see them introducing a new tank spec to Warlocks when they've already given one to Monks. That's 5 tanking classes as is.
It actually looks more like Blizzard is trying to reduce the number of total tanks required for progression content by allowing 'taunt the boss' mechanics to become 'use a DPS to temporarily soak damage' mechanics. This will help fill out 10 mans with a more variety and give you more room under the enrage timer than we presently have in present level 85 content.

[Kaylia]

Bonus Roll

We have one other new system that will use part of the personal loot model. This is what we're calling the bonus roll.

Once upon a time, raiders had to invest a lot of time and effort every week preparing for a raid. This felt kind of cool in the abstract because it built anticipation, rewarded players who prepared for raid night, and otherwise just added a little more ceremony to the act of entering the dragon's lair to seek glory and treasure. The reality is that you spent your time killing mobs to farm flask materials or gathering Whipper Root Tubers. The reality didn't match the fantasy and we eventually greatly minimized the need to farm consumables altogether. Of course, that led to another problem, as raiders would log on for raid nights, finish, and then have nothing to do the rest of the week. The bonus roll is intended to give those players something to do that is hopefully more enjoyable than grinding elementals or Blasted Lands boars. We want to see players out in the world doing stuff, and we want that stuff to be a little more interesting (if not downright fun) than farming mats.

The Future of Valor

The second change I want to mention is that we plan to adjust the role of Valor points. Valor (or the various other names that the currency has had over the years) was originally added to WoW for two reasons: it helped to mitigate really bad luck, for those times when the boss just refused to drop the item you wanted, and it helped encourage players to stay with the group even if they didn't need anything off the next boss.

Over time, we have felt like Valor has taken on too prominent a role, to the point that it risks becoming more important than actual boss loot. This is particularly the case when the tier sets are available on the Valor vendors. We think killing dragons and ransacking their hoard is more epic than shopping at the magic armor store, so we want to shift back toward boss kills being the primary source of epic PvE gear.

In Mists of Pandaria, Valor will be used to power a new feature that allows you to increase the item level of your existing epic items. This means that each week, you can become a little more powerful, hopefully allowing you to kill that boss that has eluded you thus far. There will be a bit of a game in trying to decide when to upgrade your gear versus hoping for a new piece to drop from a raid boss, but our plan is that even heroic gear can be upgraded slightly in this way.

We won't allow you to upgrade Raid Finder gear so much that it becomes better than normal gear, but imagine if you can increase your item level by around eight points. At this time, we're thinking there won't be gear on the Valor vendors at all, but we'll see how that shakes out. Valor will come primarily from dungeons (including challenge modes) and scenarios. You might earn a little from daily quests and raiding as well, but that won't be as efficient.

I like these ideas. Getting a 2nd roll on the elusive piece is going to be nice, and the change to valor point isn't a huge deal if it make it easier to get group for time challenge.

[Correction]

I can get behind the Valor Change, but I hope this means Blizz is about to add a ton of new BoE gear to the game since my primary use of Valor is to gear Alts these days.

[aurik]

I think the intention is that alts can gear through LFR and dungeons. Valor will simply be used to pimp your gear.

[Katlan]

VP change is awesome. It means I don't need to tediously grind dungeons and stuff for certain gear that I can't get through the main raid. Not saying it's not nice to be able to get some gear w/o needing to worry about RNG loot, but I grow tired of dungeon grinding so fast.. and wanting to make sure I stay capped for the first few weeks of every new tier (when your not killing all the raid bosses in one week) sucks when I know I'm gonna have to resort to dungeon grinding

[Kaylia]

You will probably want these valor point if you're serious about progression tho. Pimping a few ilvl is going to help as much as gemming and enchant.

[Correction]

I imagine VP will only pimp your gear up to just before the point where it would be as good/better than the next difficulty or ilvl tier. And even then only on certain slots, kind of the way Crystallized Firestones work. I would fucking hate to have to churn out enough VP to 'enchant' all of my gear slots.

[aurik]

You will still need to grind valor to pimp your heroic PandaSoul drops.

[Kaylia]

. I would fucking hate to have to churn out enough VP to 'enchant' all of my gear slots.

It will depends how fun the rest of the game is. If everything you do outside ride give valor point, it might not be too bad to "farm" while playing.

[Correction]

There's just too much incongruity between 'Valor plays too much of a role' and 'ok grats on clearing all Heroic PvE content now grind Merit Valor Points to make yourself 0.3% more powerful after one week.'

[Meresgi]

Here's how the new Raid Finder system will work in Mists of Pandaria:

The boss dies.
The game automatically decides who won some loot, and gives those players a spec-appropriate item.
Some players may still get mad, but hopefully they are mad at the laws of probability and not at the rest of the raid.

lol that 3rd step, i'd be fucking pissed at YOU blizzard, not the raid, especially if that person is sitting there wearing the item. I wonder how they are factoring that in, does it look at what items you have and auto pass you? Are all raid items going to be unique now so you can't have more then one?

And weapons can't be unique for anyone who dual wields any sort of weapon.

[niwaar]

VP change is awesome. It means I don't need to tediously grind dungeons and stuff for certain gear that I can't get through the main raid. Not saying it's not nice to be able to get some gear w/o needing to worry about RNG loot, but I grow tired of dungeon grinding so fast.. and wanting to make sure I stay capped for the first few weeks of every new tier (when your not killing all the raid bosses in one week) sucks when I know I'm gonna have to resort to dungeon grinding

They did say that they were giving daily quests, and other activities Valor Points, but they seemed to be saying that Valor would mostly come from Challenge Dungeon rewards and Heroic Dungeon rewards with it still coming from raids but not at the same level of acquisition as today.

Meaning that they want to focus players into not just doing LFR for Valor and loot, but also to give a better reward for participating in Heroic/Challenges as well. What GC did not discuss and what is more important is what they are doing with the Valor point cap and the rate at which Valor is gained. It really needs to be at a point where the average player is not forced to grind their weekly 7 dungeons in order to cap out, but I am going to assume they are going to make you have to complete a combination of more than just 1 activity in order to maximize your Valor each week.


The new system is awesome. But it also will probably be a max of 2/3rds of a tier gain. I was really hoping to be able to upgrade something that was better itemized from the previous tier to be viable in the next. It would have made the system that much better. Yet, that is not their intention so ...

[Kaylia]

There's just too much incongruity between 'Valor plays too much of a role' and 'ok grats on clearing all Heroic PvE content now grind Merit Valor Points to make yourself 0.3% more powerful after one week.'

Is anyone complaining about "gimps" wearing blue gems right now? It's not going to be very different. Most are just going to spend as much point as they have and leave it at this.

Some people racing for world first might end up grinding more, but we're talking about the same people who were running 25 LFR a week.

lol that 3rd step, i'd be fucking pissed at YOU blizzard, not the raid, especially if that person is sitting there wearing the item. I wonder how they are factoring that in, does it look at what items you have and auto pass you? Are all raid items going to be unique now so you can't have more then one?

And weapons can't be unique for anyone who dual wields any sort of weapon.

Do you rage at the game everytime someone win something in their bag? In your case, probably, but eh....


Considering it prevent people from being douchebag (loot on shit they don't need , loot to give to a friend...), it's already a big improvement over what we have right now. It's still a random chance to get loot, but with the griefing component gone, it shouldn't be as frustrating as it is now.

You can argue that the drop rate will be "too low", but that's another topic. FFXIV had something similar for ifrit battle, but with the 5% drop rate on weapon (or w/e it is), it was just alienating people to see random rare loot get wasted. However, if it's anything like that current drop rate, it's more than reasonable. You have essentialy a 16% chance of seeing a pieces of loot per fight. Divide that by the number of pieces that you can equip (usually 1 or 2 at best)

[Meresgi]

Do you rage at the game everytime someone win something in their bag? In your case, probably, but eh....


Considering it prevent people from being douchebag (loot on shit they don't need , loot to give to a friend...), it's already a big improvement over what we have right now. It's still a random chance to get loot, but with the griefing component gone, it shouldn't be as frustrating as it is now.
You can argue that the drop rate will be "too low", but that's another topic. FFXIV had something similar for ifrit battle, but with the 5% drop rate on weapon (or w/e it is), it was just alienating people to see random rare loot get wasted. However, if it's anything like that current drop rate, it's more than reasonable. You have essentialy a 16% chance of seeing a pieces of loot per fight. Divide that by the number of pieces that you can equip (usually 1 or 2 at best)

The fuck does this have to do with my post? I'm wondering how exactly the system works, because if it doesn't even allow the chance for people to pass if they have the item, it's even worse then the current system by a large margin. Unique tags on gear would make it work ok, but again, weapons that would be dual wield viable couldn't have a unique tag to them. Perhaps the system looks at the ID code for all the gear? I don't know...but I would sure like to know before making a solid judgement.

[Kaylia]

lol that 3rd step, i'd be fucking pissed at YOU blizzard, not the raid, especially if that person is sitting there wearing the item

Your previous post sounded like you were saying that you will be pissed at Blizzard when someone is going to waste a piece that you wanted. At least, that's what I got from it, and it's what I addressed.


I don't understand why you say it's "worse" if nobody can pass. Most players are complaining that people roll regardless of the item being useful or not to their classes. If 10 rolls on an item that only 5 "need", the chance of getting the gear you "need" is actually lowered. In the end, you will end up with the same amount of loot, but it will be shit that you didn't really want. It's particularly true if a premade group decide to gank your loot, if people loot on everything to exchange it..etc

If you're assuming that your chance is increased because more people get geared...this is right..partially, but keep in mind they will stop farming LFR once they get geared, and will be replaced by someone who need gears. In the end, the acquisition rate is probably pretty constant after the first couple of week.


If Blizzard decide that your chance of winning a specific slot is 1/25, then yes, it's probably slightly worse statistically, but it still is a lot less frustrating than to know that some fucker stole your loot to vendor it. However, they could make it slightly higher to represent the current rate of acquisition and call it a day.

[Kaylia]

News raid look amazing (posted on mmochamp). The layout doesn't seem as interesting tho.