Mists of Pandaria Hacks: WoW Secrets

Today we will be looking at the new Symbiosis spell for Druids and what it will bring to the game, assuming that it keeps the form it currently has in the Beta test. You’re right that it will affect every class, and everyone should learn about it because it means that grouping with a druid, whether for a raid, a 5-man heroic instance, or a PvP battleground, now offers you the possibility that your character can acquire powerful new abilities while the druid gains some of yours.

This adds another level of complexity and decision-making to the game – which has already increased the number of elective and RNG effects involved in an end-game rotation to about twice the number used at the end-game in “Wrath of the Lich King” – but it also opens up many possibilities for exciting, unexpected combinations and more tactical thinking, which translates into more versatility, power, and most importantly, fun.

Bear in mind, though, that the Symbiosis I’m describing here may not appear in the retail version of the expansion. The odds are that some tweaks, changes, nerfs, and buffs will be applied as a result of Beta testing feedback. It’s even remotely possible that Symbiosis will be scrapped entirely from the game, though this seems unlikely at this stage.

Still, what I’m telling you isn’t the last word on Symbiosis and will likely be slightly inaccurate as a guide to this new spell. This is a teaser and general introduction, not a writ-in-stone pronouncement.

The basic idea behind Symbiosis

The idea behind Symbiosis is that a druid can cast this spell on a friendly character (only player characters are eligible – this does not work with NPCs). This gives the druid a new spell based on the class of the target (but not their specific talent spec), while at the same time, the character who is sharing Symbiosis with the druid gains a new ability, power, or spell in exchange. The exact benefit gained depends on both the class and talent spec of the character involved.

For example, if a druid applies Symbiosis to an Arms warrior or a Fury warrior, the warrior gains Stampeding Shout, a shout that gives an area of effect (AoE) speed boost to all friendly characters in a 10 yard radius. The speed increase lasts for 8 seconds, increases speed by 60%, and removes all snares on affected characters – this powerful effect has a 10 minute cooldown, so it should be used prudently, as when the crucial flag of a battleground is being run. Protection warriors, on the other hand, gain Frenzied Regeneration, which has a 1 minute cooldown and allows the warrior to covert rage into health, with 3 rage buying 1% of health (a maximum of 60 rage, or 20% of total health).

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In return, the druid gains various abilities depending on their talent spec.

Balance druids, in this instance, would be granted Intervene, which permits them to dash forward towards a friendly character in their party or raid and take the next melee or ranged attack aimed at them.
Feral druids obtain Shattering Blow, an instant cast attack with a 5 minute cooldown, which either removes an invulnerability effect, such as a paladin’s “bubble”, or else lessens the target’s armor by 20% during a ten second period. It also inflicts damage and causes the druid to switch into cat form.
Guardian druids (yes, there is a new classification for tank-specced feral druids in Mists of Pandaria) gain Spell Reflection, an instant-cast, 2 minute cooldown spell that does exactly what it advertises – reflect one hostile spell cast on the druid within 5 seconds of us.
Last but not least, Restoration druids can buy themselves some elbow room in a fight with Intimidating Roar, which causes a paralyzing fear effect on 6 foes within 8 yards, so that they cower harmlessly for 8 seconds, giving the healing druid the opportunity to make a clean getaway.

Other details of Symbiosis

The effects described above only scratch the surface of the possibilities offered by Symbiosis. Some classes gain only one effect for all three of their specs, while others gain a different effect for each. Druids receive different powers for each spec, however. Some of the more spectacular examples include:

Becoming Symbiotic with a paladin gives a Balance druid Hammer of Justice, the paladin class’ signature six-second stun.
Symbiosis with a mage grants a Restoration druid Ice Block, the invulnerable, ten-second ice sheath that frost mages now sport when they are near the end of their health.
On the flip side, Discipline and Holy priests gain Entangling Roots, while Elemental and Enhancement shamans obtain Solar Beam, an AoE silence and interrupt.

The system is clearly a very intriguing one and greatly changes druids’ role in both PvE and PvP content. It also gives all classes more flexibility. No longer is the Mage facing off against you in the battleground incapable of healing himself if he has a druid ally who cast Symbiosis on him, while a rogue may now have Growl, granting her 330% extra armor and a taunt, making her capable of briefly tanking when the tank has bitten the dust (or making her less “squishy” in the battleground).

Learning how your class can benefit from Symbiosis if you are not playing a druid, and what kind of benefits you will gain from other classes if you are playing one, is destined to be one of the keys to play success in Mists of Pandaria if Symbiosis remains largely unchanged from its current form.

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The way the game is set up now helps out with that, since 10-man raids provide good loot, and it is much easier to build a viable 10-man raid group for infrequent raiding than it is to build a 25-man. The lack of 40-man raids is a Godsend to people like you, who only have limited time to raid – building a limited-raiding guild on that scale would be painful, if not impossible.

If you want to build a good raiding guild for limited raiding (once, twice, or perhaps three times per week), then you want to seek out people who have time constraints on their WoW playing. If you recruit a gung-ho college raider with 8 hours of free time every evening, they will soon become bored with your sparse raiding schedule. This, in turn, will cause them to leave, putting a hole in your guild lineup, possibly prompting other defections, and forcing you to recruit a replacement.

Therefore, the guild needs to be made up of like-minded people who want to raid, but only have a little time to do so, thanks to the demands of work, family, pets, other activities, or whatever else takes up their time. These are typically adults in their late 20s or early 30s, or possibly even older. Of course, these people often make fine, mature guild members as well. Your guild is likely to be more peaceful, harmonious, and pleasant than those full of hormone-riddled teenagers, though mature-minded youngsters should obviously be welcome as well if they can contribute to your guild.

Another advantage to older players is that many of them have been playing since the game’s launch, and possibly since Beta. They are extremely experienced in the game, even if they have never raided before. Though previous raiding experience is not absolutely needed – everyone started somewhere, after all – they should be skilled in playing their class and prove it before being recruited on more than a probationary basis.

It is worth repeating that you should not recruit people unless they are fully in agreement with your limited raiding schedule. This is of critical importance to the long-term stability and viability of your guild.

Patience and persistence are key to building a limited-raiding guild of high enough quality to tackle the toughest endgame content. You will likely find yourself, initially, with something of a mixed bag of players, and it may take some time to smooth out their performance together and make the small number of replacements that will probably be required.

Your guild should consist of 11, or perhaps a maximum of 12 people, to carry out this kind of raiding. This will create a sufficient pool of people to handle the sparing number of raids that you undertake each week, and if several people are unavailable, someone is likely to know an “outsider” who can fill in for a raid as a guest participant.

By building a small group of people who have the maturity to avoid pointless friction and a desire to raid at exactly the chosen, limited level that your guild is founded around, you will likely see a much lower turnover than most raiding guilds experience. The fact that gear has been largely equalized means that your raiders will not be drawn away by the magnetic lure of better gear from 25-mans. A limited-raiding guild today is capable of just as “serious” raiding as a guild that runs nightly, except for the once or twice a week scheduling of raids.

Remarkably good results can be achieved raiding only a total of seven to eight hours per week. If your guild is made up of people whose raiding schedule is circumscribed not only by personal preferences, but also be real-world responsibilities, it is usually a good idea to set a firm time limit to raids and schedule them so that they can be completed before a reasonable bedtime for all players. Nobody wants to be exhausted and muzzy at work because they stayed up until 2 A.M. the night before in order to avoid being ejected from their raid guild.

In short, the changes to WoW’s raiding dynamics offer a splendid opportunity for people with limited time to play to enjoy the challenge and rewards of endgame raids in a 10-man environment. Though that might sound unnecessarily pompous, it’s also true – if you set up your guild right, you can squeeze in a couple of satisfying raids each week despite a schedule full of work, kids, and quality time spent with your spouse or significant other.

Mists of Pandaria is one of the major upcoming news items about World of Warcraft’s near future, and there are plenty of things to be excited about – the addition of new levels, so that maximum character level will now be 90; a whole new region of Azeroth, Pandaria, to explore; and a new class, the Monk, to be added to the roster, though the details about this class are still sketchy and seem to indicate no more than that it has hints of unarmed combat about it, and has DPS, healing, and tanking specializations, making it a true hybrid class.

People are always most interested in the new races and the changes to the talent trees when a new expansion is coming out, however, so your questions are probably shared by many other members of our readership.

Pandaren are among the most contentious races ever to be announced for a World of Warcraft expansion, with many people expressing outrage over adding them to the game as a “joke race” and others defending the choice. At this point, though, the black and white creatures look like they’re here to stay, so we should take a look at the interesting things they have to offer.

Whether you plan to play one, or just want to know what to expect when you square off against one in the battlegrounds, read on to learn more!

Pandaren and inner peace

Pandaren are unique among the World of Warcraft races thus far introduced to the game in that they begin the game neutral, and the player chooses which faction to join only when the character completes the quests in the starting zones. Thus, there will be both Alliance and Horde Pandaren, and members of the same race will, for the first time, go head to head in the battlegrounds.

From a PvE perspective, Pandaren will likely make decent tanks, since their Epicurean racial trait gives them double the normal effect from stat boosting food. This means that they can gain significantly more health from Stamina foods than other tanks, giving them a slight but definite statistical edge in survivability. The Gourmand racial trait, adding 15 to Cooking skill, will probably ensure there are many Pandaren cooks.

PvP Pandaren will benefit from Quaking Palm, a 3 second “sleep” effect (that is, a stun which is broken by damage). This will be useful for interrupts, slowing flag carriers, and so on. The racial trait Bouncy, which halves falling damage, will give Pandaren in Arathi Basin and Eye of the Storm a bit more survivability when blown off a cliff by knockback effects.

Finally, Inner Peace (which also sinks any hopes that players might have that the Kung Fu Panda cartoons will not be frequently invoked in the game depiction of Pandaren) gives twice the normal length of rested experience, meaning Pandaren characters will probably achieve the level 90 realm first achievement in record time.

Talent tree changes in Mists of Pandaria

Changes to the talent trees always cause alarm among long term players who have grown accustomed to their play style, and there is no denying that Mists of Pandaria includes another strong change to the way talents are handled. However, this time, your overall playstyle will be little affected, and there may even be slightly more flexibility in the new system.

You will still pick one of three talent specializations to pursue, with each offering unique abilities and a focus on one or another roles or approaches to a role. These remain the familiar roles that we are used to. For example, Holy Paladins are still good at healing, Protection Paladins are AoE tanks, and Retribution Paladins are melee DPS.

However, the talent trees are largely gone. Most of the talented abilities have now been folded into the spell lists for each talent spec, and are learned from the trainer at the appropriate level rather than being talented. The talent trees were already so limited that practically everyone was forced to take these talents, anyway, following the Cataclysm changes, so the effect is basically the same. Your Subtlety Rogue will still gain the same abilities at roughly the same level, just that now they are bought from the trainer rather than with talent points.

The spell lists for each class therefore have some spells which are trainable for any talent spec, and some that are only trainable for those who have chosen a specific specialization. Each class now has 18 Talents, arranged into 6 Tiers of 3 Talents each. These Tiers are unlocked at levels 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, and 90 respectively. You can choose one talent from each tier, regardless of your character’s overall specialization.

These talents are some of the choicest talents from the current talent trees, with the addition of some new talents as well. For example, Presence of Mind is now a first tier talent equally available to frost, fire, and arcane mages. By contrast, Sickly Polymorph (reduces health regeneration of the polymorphed target to 10% of normal), Heavy Polymorph (causes the target to be stunned for 3 seconds when damaged), and Double Polymorph (a ¾ length polymorph that affects two targets), are examples of the new talents added for the expansion.

This change still does not provide you with much customization, but there will be more than the complete cookie-cutter effect currently used for talents in the game, which is a welcome change for those who want to develop their own individual play style to some extent at least – yet another exciting detail offered to those who venture into the mysterious Mists of Pandaria.