Warlords of Draenor was announced last month, and as tends to happen with a new expansion, we got a big flood of information. The folks at Blizzard have kept in touch with the community, largely clarifying things (like the new secondary stats, and the way that gem sockets and such will work.) But there are some questions that they haven't really touched on.
Final Boss:
This one's frustrating because someone (I want to say Kosak) said flat-out that Grommash was going to be the final boss, but someone else said that the boss would not be an Orc (hoping for the latter, personally.) There's been a lot of debate about whether that comment was just a joke (if it was, it was the most deadpan delivery I've ever heard,) but most notably, Blizzard has not weighed in at all after the fact.
The first three expansions were all built around ramping up to a final confrontation with the primary villain, though admittedly, Burning Crusade's true final raid was a bit of a twist - we didn't really know that we'd be fighting Kil'jaeden. Mists of Pandaria was a little odd in its structure. While they were up front about the fact that Garrosh would be the final boss, the expansion as a whole very gradually turned its focus away from the exotic locales of Pandaria and toward the Horde's Warchief. In a way, the real "main villain" of Mists was, collectively, the Sha and the remains of Y'shaarj, and in Garrosh, the Sha had found someone to wield their power effectively. There was only really one "Sha" raid, which was Terrace of Endless Spring, but the Sha's presence could be felt throughout the whole expansion (obviously the first wing of Siege of Orgrimmar was also heavily Sha-themed, even mirroring Terrace in several ways.)
So it is possible that the Iron Horde, with Grommash at its head, could be defeated in Blackrock Foundry, but nevertheless remain a constant presence, and also remain a threat that ties into whatever the final boss is.
Class Changes:
Beyond the level 100 talents and a few examples of the spell-upgrades we'll be getting from 91-100, we don't really know anything about how classes are going to change.
Every expansion has seen serious changes to how various classes work, whether it's something as simple as when they made Energy regenerate smoothly instead of in big chunks, or the huge overhaul of the Warlock we saw in Mists. While it does actually sound like they're pretty satisfied with how things are working out for the eleven classes these days, the fact that there is no new class and no new talent/ability system this time around actually gives them a pretty good opportunity to do some real house-cleaning.
The new goal seems to be a reduction in ability bloat, and while some of that can be achieved by making certain abilities passive (so excited about Assassination getting Slice and Dice passive,) we can also probably expect a few abilities to just get cut.
There's been very little talk about any philosophical shifts on various classes. Of particular interest to me is how they're going to make stats like Haste, Crit, and Multistrike useful to all five tanks.
Profession Details:
Obviously jewel crafting and enchanting are getting some changes, but we also don't know much about what they're going to do with the other professions. We saw Cooking and Blacksmithing get a lot of great catch-up mechanics in Mists, and I'm sure they'd like to expand those to the other professions, especially given the new level 90 boost.
We also don't know much about the resources we'll be getting. It's clear that things like Felblossom and Fel Iron wouldn't be in Draenor just yet, but might we see some thematic connection between the herbs and ore we get on Draenor and what we got in Outland?
Also, with the gear changes, what does that mean for all the armor-producing professions? As a personal note, is there any chance that Engineering could make weapons other than ranged?
Zone Levels:
Beyond knowing that we'll start briefly in Tanaan Jungle and then get shuffled off to Frostfire Peaks or Shadowmoon Valley*past, we don't really know where Talador, Nagrand*past, Gorgrond, or even possibly the rest of Tanaan Jungle fit within the leveling process.
Does the Alliance get to do anything in Frostfire Peaks, and does the Horde get to do anything in Shadowmoon Valley?
We know that Farahlon (known today as Netherstorm) will be added in a later patch, but do we have the slightest inkling of what is going on over there?
Other Enemies:
Every expansion has had a variety of enemies. Even though they are sometimes connected or allied, they tend to have different flavors to them. We know that the intro raid (what I assume will be the kind of Mogu'shan Vaults of the expansion) will be the Ogre-themed Highmaul, what other things might we have to deal with? Clearly, the Arrakoa pose a threat, and it's not unthinkable that we'd get a raid involving them (perhaps with their Old God connections?) The Ogres apparently once had a vast empire, so Highmaul might not be the last we see of them. It also stands to reason that the Burning Legion, while not central, will have a role to play (they must be pissed that Garrosh stopped the Orcs from drinking the blood.)
I would love to see the Infinite Dragonflight play a role, but Blizzard seems to be shying away from the trickier time-travel stuff (which I really hope is because they plan on doing something bigger with it later.)
Stat Changes:
With hit, expertise, dodge, and parry going away, what stats will we see replace them? Obviously this will be a short-term issue, as players who get to Draenor will only have the new array of stats to deal with, but for all the many items that still have those on them, what will we see? When they switched over from Wrath to Cataclysm, we saw Armor Penetration turn into crit, and we saw Defense turn into Dodge, if I recall correctly.
It might be cool if they brought in some of the new stats to replace the old ones, but that could be tricky, given that the new stats do wildly different things than the ones they'd be replacing. But given that there will be nothing like hit or expertise to replace them with, and nothing like dodge or parry to replace those with, it raises the question of what they'll do to adjust that gear.
Tons More:
There are many, many things that we have yet to find out about. I realize it's still quite early in the process to know a lot of these things. Really, we aren't guaranteed a big flood of information like we got at Blizzcon until the Beta test begins, and who knows when that will be? (I would love it if it came some time this month, though I realize that's pretty optimistic.)
In the meantime, we can only speculate.
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