There were a lot of good questions and almost an equal number of not so good questions asked at this year’s World of Warcraft Open Q&A panel at BlizzCon. There was a lot of interesting tidbits released by Blizzard during the panel and some of it may have a major impression on future gameplay.

Below you’ll find a summary of the questions asked (not word for word) along with the answers Blizzard gave and our own commentary on what their response means.

Will there be a change to the difficulty between 10 and 25 player raids, hopefully increasing 10 player raid’s difficulty? Will we ever see 10 & 20 player raids?

Blizzard gave a non-answer to the first question, stating that Korea finds 10 man raids to be the hardcore ones. The second question was answered with a resounding no. This means that we can expect the numbers to stay the same, but the difficulty, as always, will probably be a per patch basis.

Will spectator mode be added to World of Warcraft?

They answered yes, but anytime soon. An answer like that means we could see something like this during a downtime between expansions when they’re looking to push some kind of “hook” to pull players in until they have more substantial content.

Will there be more options to the guild leader’s UI to give other players more control over the guild?

This is where another answer was a “maybe” for a lot of reasons. First, let’s say you give officers control over who can use the guild bank and one of the officers go rogue, then Blizzard will need to go in and fix it even if the guild leader gave him permission.

If you’re a guild leader and if this is ever implemented, be sure to check out PlayerScore so you can see who you can and can’t trust in your guild.

Will epic (purple) items be replaced with uncommon (green) items on the first day of Mists of Pandaria?

The answer was, of course, yes. They also talked about adding in more features so you can track your progress during the last expansion, but with dating on achievements and the general apathy people have with that sort of thing I wouldn’t expect anything anytime soon.

How will Draenei and Blood Elves become Monks?

They said it’ll be like they always were Monks, so we can always just guess that it’ll be business as usual in the starting flavor text. They shoehorned in Goblins / Worgens into classes, so it wouldn’t be hard to just assume these races were always Monks from the start.

Will Hunters get a way to remove the Wyvern Sting DoT so they can crowd control better?

We won’t be seeing this in 4.3 but 5.0 will probably change a lot of the talents. I can only guess this is something they’ll look at during the expansion.

The Wind Shear change wasn’t designed to hurt enhancement shamans, but most enhancement shamans don’t put points into the Reverberation talent, and it also hurts Restoration Shamans, any plans to fix this?

They said that the cooldown increase of Wind Shear shouldn’t hurt people in Raids, because there are enough people with interrupts. PvP may force you to make the choice, but it’s still an interrupt, just a longer cooldown.

Does blizzard hate enhancement shamans? Their DPS sucks, in PvP they suck, any plans to fix that?

They admitted this was a problem, just like how frost mages don’t do well in PvE, but the difference is, they said, is that you can’t tell an enhancement shaman “hey just go elemental”, because enhancement gear doesn’t support that spec.  In PvP it will be much easier in 5.0, but for PvE they said they were going to address some of the issues in 4.3.

Any plans for Illidan to come back?

They asked us, if we wanted Illidan to come back? And that they will think about that.

Does blizzard want combat rogues to use cooldowns more often? Or hold off until 30% and use all of their cooldowns at once?

They told us to follow the guidance from Restless Blades.

Are we going to see the guild name change service in patch 4.3 or 5.0? And will it fall to the wayside like Dance Studios did?

They said that they are going to release the new guild services within two weeks, and that they will release Dance Studios one day, and it will be fantastic.

Blizzards design in Mists of Pandaria suggests that we will need to be bringing more healers into 25 man raids, because there is a new healing class as monk healer, and 25 man guilds will usually have two people per class. Is there going to be an increase of healers needed for raids?

The answer was no, they do not think they will change the number of healers needed for a raid.

Will challenge modes put us under the hit cap or affect core stats when the gear is tuned down?

They said that there are some details to work out, but people should be able to do the same DPS and healing as everyone else, and all classes should be affected the same way by the gear.

Are we going to see account bound mounts?

Hopefully someday, they said. They don’t think it will happen in 5.0 but somewhere down the line is likely.

Can we have an option to require authentication on login every time?

This feature will be added soon, because it’s something a lot of people would want if they play at home and don’t want their little brother to snag some time on their account. Here is a neat trick, did you know as a parent you can use the authenticator as a way to keep your kid off of WoW as another layer beyond the parental controls?

What are your plans for the Moonkin form?

They said they are going to update the art on the moonkin form as they see fit. And that it’s too early to tell what they will exactly be doing.

Race changing breaks quest progress for some quests, any plans to fix this?

Seems like they might white list important quests, but I doubt this will see much attention in the future.

Will we see account bound items transferable across battle.net / account wide?

Continue to the next page to see the answer.

The databases apparently don’t like talking to one another, so it’ll be awhile before we see something. I can’t wait for it to come though.

This question is a bit tough to translate, but basically it asked if Monks would be more than a two button class like Arcane Mage and Feral Druids.

Blizzard will make sure to mix up the gameplay a bit, like Arcane Mages will put Arcane Missiles into their rotation again.

Will Arcane Mages see something like a DoT to mix things up?

Yes, Living Bomb will be available to all Mages in 5.0.

Will enchanters be able to make epic wands in the future?

Yes.

Will there be bonuses for gathering professions on par with crafting professions?

They’ll look into it. As you know, gathering professions don’t have NEARLY the bonus that crafting professions do, making it kind of a bad tradeoff unless you’re uber rich with WoW gold.

Will we be able to craft quivers for the cosmetic side of things?

They are going to try to add some neat visual stuff into the game, but as far as it looks there won’t be anything anytime soon.

Will people lose the prestige of older prestige items with transmogrification. Say a benediction staff

No, it appears they’ll do texture swaps on any items they bring back.

Any chance to balance the level 90 talent trees better for Ret Paladins?

Seems like those numbers aren’t final, as usual, so no one should be affixed to them yet.

You’re nerfing wind shear for PvP resto, will there be a trade off or do you not want them to have it?

Blizzard seems to not want Shamans to have it in PvP, so we will see where that goes.

Will there be mounted combat in Mists of Pandaria?

Nope. I think it would be a neat feature, but I guess we won’t be seeing it just yet.

Will Mists of Pandaria bring in a craftable mount?

Jewelcrafting might see a craftable mount, but as we all know it’ll probably be pricey.

Will Heroic Leap be fixed?

A non-answer was given, which is that it’s a big buggy and people keep trying to exploit it in the battlegrounds.

Will there be a representation of the LGBT community in the WoW lore?

The answer is maybe, if it can fit into the storey.

Will there be 15-man raids so that so much loot isn’t wasted or a better loot system?

They may upgrade the loot system but no-go on 15 man raids.

Will there be more cosmetic items for Druid forms like Fandral’s Flamescythe?

They’ll look into it. They don’t want you to collect forms in the future.

Will it be possible to use any pet, even without Beast Mastery in the future?

The answer is no pretty much. They’re going to let you switch between specs on pets soon, so they’d much rather see Beast Mastery do more DPS (which apparently just isn’t being played right).

Will there be anything else with Gallywix?

Not anytime soon, but they’d like to.

Is Blinding Shield coming?

Yes, at level 87, not set in stone though.

There doesn’t seem to be many talents outside of resto for shamans, where are the talents for DPS?

It seems like there are some talents in there for DPS.

Will Murozond be the last we see of the Infinite Dragonflight?

Yeah, for now, but they might come back in the future. I could see this playing into the Caverns of Time for some of the neat events we haven’t dealt with yet.

Any plans for Player Housing?

The stock answer was given; “yes but the resources aren’t available” is a pretty good summary of it.

Will there be anything added to Jewelcrafting like trinkets?

Another maybe answer was given.

Will you be able to tell the different factions apart for the Pandarens?

Outside of the U.I. it looks like no.

Will raid leaderboards be coming?

Another maybe was given, they track the data. If you’re curious for some awesome WoW rankings check out PlayerScore.

Will we see the old races reskinned?

Another maybe, but this is where I’ll throw in a “probably not” since a lot of people will not want to see their characters drastically changed anytime soon.

What will the theme for raid art and gear be?

Well, it seems the obvious answer is: pretty Asian.

Well that is the Q&A Panel. Got any questions or comments be sure to leave ‘em below!


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our World of Warcraft Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

About The Author

Get in the bush with David "Xerin" Piner as he leverages his spectacular insanity to ask the serious questions such as is Master Yi and Illidan the same person? What's for dinner? What are ways to elevate your gaming experience? David's column, Respawn, is updated near daily with some of the coolest things you'll read online, while David tackles ways to improve the game experience across the board with various hype guides to cool games.

Comments