So the announcement went out today that the Mists of Pandaria patch 5.0.4 is officially launching on the PTR. Also, the new Warcraft book, "Tides of War" is being released in August. Both these events happen pretty close to the pre-launch events for the next expansion.
With that being said, I have had access to the Beta and have been messing around with class design. I am not going to speak specifically about class changes, but more about the overall picture.
As you can see from my handy screens, all your abilities are breaking down into your three specs via tabs on your spellbook. Looking at figure "A", we can see that Melikar (er, "Rakilem" in this case) is spec'd as Arms. Notice the colored "Battle Shout" icon. On figure "B" I have highlighted the "Fury" tab. We see that Battle Shout is still in the spellbook, but grayed out. You will have three specs with copies of the same abilities instead of having abilities all be "spec specific".
In figure "C", we have a list of Core abilities. This is to simplify the user interface and so the learning curve isn't so high (because it was so high to begin with). These change depending on what spec you are. And, looking at figure "D", we can see a list of changes. Whether Blizzard will keep this in live is unknown to me. Would be nice to see class changes update with patches so one can view these changes in game without having to review third-party sites.
Figure "E" and "F" are just me highlighting some things. The new statue in "E" is what the Monk will place on the ground in order to preform certain abilities (almost like shaman totems). And figure "F" is a new warlock demon!
Figure A:
http://i.imgur.com/QnoIZ.jpg
Figure B:
http://i.imgur.com/YeVnU.jpg
Figure C:
http://i.imgur.com/wdvya.jpg
Figure D:
http://i.imgur.com/QhLvU.jpg
Figure E:
http://i.imgur.com/FLl3s.jpg
Figure F:
http://i.imgur.com/fjaYE.jpg
With that being said, I have had access to the Beta and have been messing around with class design. I am not going to speak specifically about class changes, but more about the overall picture.
As you can see from my handy screens, all your abilities are breaking down into your three specs via tabs on your spellbook. Looking at figure "A", we can see that Melikar (er, "Rakilem" in this case) is spec'd as Arms. Notice the colored "Battle Shout" icon. On figure "B" I have highlighted the "Fury" tab. We see that Battle Shout is still in the spellbook, but grayed out. You will have three specs with copies of the same abilities instead of having abilities all be "spec specific".
In figure "C", we have a list of Core abilities. This is to simplify the user interface and so the learning curve isn't so high (because it was so high to begin with). These change depending on what spec you are. And, looking at figure "D", we can see a list of changes. Whether Blizzard will keep this in live is unknown to me. Would be nice to see class changes update with patches so one can view these changes in game without having to review third-party sites.
Figure "E" and "F" are just me highlighting some things. The new statue in "E" is what the Monk will place on the ground in order to preform certain abilities (almost like shaman totems). And figure "F" is a new warlock demon!
Figure A:
http://i.imgur.com/QnoIZ.jpg
Figure B:
http://i.imgur.com/YeVnU.jpg
Figure C:
http://i.imgur.com/wdvya.jpg
Figure D:
http://i.imgur.com/QhLvU.jpg
Figure E:
http://i.imgur.com/FLl3s.jpg
Figure F:
http://i.imgur.com/fjaYE.jpg
![[Image: AWOeJWn.png]](http://i.imgur.com/AWOeJWn.png)