I am so excited to share that I have gotten into the first wave for the Mists of Pandaria Beta. I’ll be sharing photos and videos as time goes on.
I have created a Pandarian Monk named Spicytnaroll. She’s super cute and fun to play. Just wanted to take a moment and write about my first thoughts with regards to the beta so far.
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The first thing I did upon logging in, was head to the character creation screen and create my monk and of course she’s a pandaren. Given that this is beta with a new race and class, that’s the first thing I want to try. The character creation screen has changed just a little bit, instead of doing everything on one screen we now have two screens. You select your race, class and gender, on the first screen like usual, but then click next to get to the character customization screen. For the monks we’re currently able to select Skin Color and their face. The pandaren colors range from grey, to black, to brown with varying eye colors and markings. If you choose the red panda, they get a long raccoon-like tail.
One thing you will notice is that the pandaren being faction neutral. After completing the beginning zone, you are allowed to select your faction. You will be given quests that introduce you to both the alliance and horde, after which it will be your decision which faction to side with.
Pandaren have the following racial traits:
- Epicurean – Increases 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 secret pressure point on an enemy target, putting it to sleep for 3 seconds
Available Classes:
- Monk
- Mage
- Rogue
- Warrior
- Hunter
- Priest
- Shaman
Monk Information
- Armor – cloth, leather
- Weapon – fist weapons, one-handed axes, one-handed maces, one-handed swords, polearms, and staves
All races can play a monk with the exception of Goblin and Worgen.
One really cool thing about Monks is that they have different stances and abilities vary depending on what stance you are in. I briefly discuss this in the video linked below. Monks use “chi” (similar to combo points) for different abilities and the amount of chi needed varies. Currently I have chosen Mistweaver (healer) so I have the following stances: Stance of the Wise Serpent and Stance of the Fierce Tiger.
Stance of the Wise Serpent is the healing stance, but you can still attack in this stance. Stance of the Wise Serpent uses mana instead of energy and increases healing done by 20%.
Stance of the Fierce Tiger uses energy and increases damage done by 20%.
To generate chi, the monk must use several different abilities, including clobber to generate chi. This is true even for the healers! What this means is that healers are most likely going to have do damage to generate enough chi to effectively heal. I will need to do more research to see exactly how this is going to play out, but I thought it was a pretty neat concept.
There is so much information to post about, and I will likely do it in chunks. I just wanted to give you a brief overview of the new changes, time for me to get back in and level up!
For more information visit Blizzard’s Mist of Pandaria site at http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/pandaren/
