Mists of Pandaria’s buffs and debuffs outlined

Blizzard outlines some of its general buff and debuff plans for the World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria expansion, and invites feedback from fans.

March 12, 2012 9:00 AM4

World of Warcraft is preparing to release its panda monks, and all the tweaks that come with it. Those come with buffs and debuffs, and Blizzard has opened up with its design plans so far to invite feedback from fans.

Blizzard is careful to note in its blog that none of these changes are final, especially since the expansion hasn’t even hit a beta yet. Instead, it serves as an extremely early look at what the company is trying to accomplish.

To that end, the company outlined some design goals. The team wants to make you feel more powerful when grouped with other players, give more freedom to invite whoever you want without giving too much incentive to class-stacking, and reducing the need to switch specs in the same role for different buffs. The buff and debuff list as it stands so far is available at the blog, and Blizzard is inviting feedback on its forum.

For those who’d rather have a peek at Blizzard’s doings after-the-fact, the company has also published a nifty post-mortem on Cataclysm. Systems designer Greg Street says that expansion is informing the decisions being made for Pandaria, with four main lessons being learned.

First and foremost, Blizzard wants to get players out into the world and seeing other players while traveling. It also aims to give players more to do and find beyond achievement-gathering, appeal to a broader audience than the WoW faithful, and as we’ve heard before, push out new content faster.