Question about some of the changes in Mists of Pandaria

[Tyranader]

Okay so I haven't played WoW since Mid way through Dragon Soul and quit and didn't keep up with any of the changed for Mists of Pandaria and I am leveling myself a Mistweaver/Brewmaster Monk to raid with. So I have a few questions on things that are baffling me a little.

Why doesn't Intellect increase mana pools anymore. That decision seems a little odd.

Why does all the Valor gear have reputation requirements? Because I thought that Valor points where to get you gear from doing raid dungeons. For example, if I kill a boss, say 20 times and he doesn't drop the Ring I want I knew I could replace the crappy blue items with one from the valor vendors and now I can't because I HATE daily quests. Not moaning, if need be I will grind the rep and I know I can get crafted epics, do LFR and LFG I just kinda wish I at least had a tabard like in Cataclysm, I just don't understand why they did that.

Finally. What was the point behind this whole, every 15 levels you get a talent point thing. As I am leveling I feel like my character isn't getting any stronger because I would always get a talent point every few levels instead of 15 and once I hit level 15, 30, 45 etc I'm now like "Oh, yay >> finally a damn talent point to spend" and it makes me feel like my character is just drifting along and not advancing. Kinda killing my immersion a little bit.

Anywho, Thanks.

[Darsithis]

Why doesn't Intellect increase mana pools anymore. That decision seems a little odd.

Because Intellect was a too powerful stat. It increased your mana pool, your spellpower, and your spell crit. It was a lot in one, and it made it far more attractive over other stats than it should have been. As well, by stacking it you could, by the end of the expansion, ignore other useful stats in favor of a nearly infinite mana pool that required little thought, strategy, or conservation. By lowering the mana to a set number, you now can choose: throughput or regen? Both? You have to be careful of what spells you use, and when. It makes it more engaging and challenging for a healer (or a dps'er) to manage mana now.

Finally. What was the point behind this whole, every 15 levels you get a talent point thing

To do away with cookie-cutter specs. Everyone had to take the correct talents in order to raid. No one was going to skip straight damage increases. So they changed it to where each tier gives you something useful, but no one item is supposed to be the end-all, be-all. You can swap out talents as necessary for fights or give your spec cooldowns it might not usually have depending on your current task. It bakes in all of the required and necessary components of your spec so you don't have to mindlessly choose.

[LocNess]

Okay so I haven't played WoW since Mid way through Dragon Soul and quit and didn't keep up with any of the changed for Mists of Pandaria and I am leveling myself a Mistweaver/Brewmaster Monk to raid with. So I have a few questions on things that are baffling me a little.

Why doesn't Intellect increase mana pools anymore. That decision seems a little odd.

Why does all the Valor gear have reputation requirements? Because I thought that Valor points where to get you gear from doing raid dungeons. For example, if I kill a boss, say 20 times and he doesn't drop the Ring I want I knew I could replace the crappy blue items with one from the valor vendors and now I can't because I HATE daily quests. Not moaning, if need be I will grind the rep and I know I can get crafted epics, do LFR and LFG I just kinda wish I at least had a tabard like in Cataclysm, I just don't understand why they did that.

Finally. What was the point behind this whole, every 15 levels you get a talent point thing. As I am leveling I feel like my character isn't getting any stronger because I would always get a talent point every few levels instead of 15 and once I hit level 15, 30, 45 etc I'm now like "Oh, yay >> finally a damn talent point to spend" and it makes me feel like my character is just drifting along and not advancing. Kinda killing my immersion a little bit.

Anywho, Thanks.

The reason about Intellect is because healers would just stack tons and tons of INT so they wouldn't have to worry about mana pools and could just spam spells. Now it requires a healthy balance of spirit and intellect (to boost the strength of the heals) for healers to manage it correctly. I don't like it either (hate seeing everybody at the same mana baseline) but w/e.

I agree on Valor to an extent, but it was changed as people wanted something to do when not raiding so BAM, tons and tons of dailies. Blame the community for that one.

I thought the same of the talent points, but honestly for the first 50 or so levels, you are still getting new abilities or passive talents (usually based off old talent trees) so you don't even notice it too much. Yeah after you hit 60 and have to grind to 75 it is kinda meh, but overall it actually works out decently.

[TheWindWalker]

Why doesn't Intellect increase mana pools anymore. That decision seems a little odd.

Because most healing classes could ignore Spirit rather early in the expansion and simply spam their best heals repeatedly. Blizzard wanted healing classes to require more skill and, most importantly, planning with use of their various spells. Same with casters.

Why does all the Valor gear have reputation requirements? Because I thought that Valor points where to get you gear from doing raid dungeons. For example, if I kill a boss, say 20 times and he doesn't drop the Ring I want I knew I could replace the crappy blue items with one from the valor vendors and now I can't because I HATE daily quests. Not moaning, if need be I will grind the rep, I just don't understand why they did that.

First, valor gear is now tied to factions so you have a legitimate reason to go through their storyline. Second, good news, you don't have to do a single daily if you don't want to. Just treat it like you did 4.3. Run dungeons. Run LFR. Use the Auction House. Ignore them completely if you really feel that way. They're designed to be an alternate.

Edit: For your knowledge, I do dailies on my Monk to earn my 90 coins to get three extra loot rolls from raids. Best part is, he hasn't even earned his first revered status to buy valor gear but he's ilvl470 and able to get into all five LFRs. You may "hate dailies" but it's honestly worth seeing if you like any of the factions. Klaxxi are a big favorite for this with their ridiculous "DPS" buffs you have just for questing there.

Finally. What was the point behind this whole, every 15 levels you get a talent point thing. As I am leveling I feel like my character isn't getting any stronger because I would always get a talent point every few levels instead of 15 and once I hit level 15, 30, 45 etc I'm now like "Oh, yay >> finally a damn talent point to spend" and it makes me feel like my character is just drifting along and not advancing. Kinda killing my immersion a little bit.

You need to understand what the new talent system actually is and what happened to your old talents. All those points you used to put into "optionals" in your spec's tree? Now you get them as you level up. Check your spellbook, you're now aiming for certain levels to get those.

The talents that are left are meant to be utilitarian. You aren't putting points into a tree and (hopefully) following someone else's example of what's best and never changing them again. You now have the ability to change a single talent in any tier that you've unlocked whenever you feel like it. (With a cheap vendor item, unfortunately) This means that you actually have good reason to care what's in your talents from boss to boss. As Monk this is going to be a big deal to you. Almost every row contains something you'll want to experiment with.


Seriously though, just keep leveling and keep an open mind. You're going through what a lot of us did back during the pre-patch. Now I much, much prefer it and maybe you will too.

[Tyranader]

Okay so the intellect and talents do make sense now. What would of seemed like a better alternative to get gear instead of daily quests would of been to make better use of the Scenarios feature and have 3 or 4 Scenarios per faction and if you do them while wearing their tabard you gain a bunch of rep with them at the end. I would of rather had that then daily quests.