Beta First Impressions

The Beta for Warlords of Draenor has just begun. Right now, it has spurts of stability, and in those spurts, I've been able to play around with a few things:

First off: Classes and Rotations:

Some of the classes and specs feel practically unchanged. Frost DKs, for example, work almost exactly the same, except that they no longer have Raise Dead, but we still have Army (which is now Instant! No more having to pre-Army before the pull!)

Some, however, feel different.

Enhancement felt a lot better to me, and it's largely because Flurry now lets Haste lower the cool down of rotational abilities, like Sanctity of Battle. Now that Enhancement has this and Warriors have Headlong Rush, Haste is now speeds up everyone's rotations, which is great.

On the other hand, Arms feels totally out of whack, and lacks any real feel or core mechanic. I really hope that Blizzard takes another look at the Arms rotation. I actually think the Mists version is great as-is, though I think my favorite iteration of the spec was in Cataclysm. Right now on the Beta it has no procs, and has only Mortal Strike (which now costs Rage again,) Colossus Smash (with no Sudden Death) Whirlwind, and technically Thunder Clap, but you have to switch into Defensive Stance to use it. The only good way to spin this version of Arms is that it'll make me really eager to try out Gladiator Stance.

There are new models implemented for:

Female Humans
Both Dwarves
Both Gnomes
Female Night Elves
Both Draenei
Both Orcs
Neither Troll
Male Tauren
Male Undead
Neither Blood Elf

The models look great, though the main way you'll notice it is the movement of your characters (as you don't really spend much time looking back at your own face.) But in this regard, things are improved (I love the subtle changes to the Male Draenei run.) There are a few missing options, but I suspect these are just in the works (for example, my Undead Rogue has the wrong mouth.) The new models really are a pretty direct translation of the old ones, though I would warn people that sometime the low-res characters they created originally might have been shooting for something different than what you thought they were. I am eager and anxious to see what my human looks like when they get that model in.

To get to Draenor, there is a giant Khadgar standing in the middle of the Trade District (and I assume the Valley of Strength for Horde.) The Tanaan Jungle quest chain is pretty quick - doable in an hour, or probably a lot quicker after the initial rush of players subsides, and introduces you to a lot of the major characters of the expansion.

At the end, you head to Shadowmoon/Frostfire. The quest that takes you there, but the delightful solution is that there is a tiny Dark Portal in each of the Earthshrines that will port you there.

I have only done a little of Shadowmoon Valley because of the server instability (and just as a note: this is literally day two of the Beta, so I am not complaining at all.)

What little of Shadowmoon I have done gets you started very early on the Garrison. SPOILERS... kinda: You meet up with Velen when you arrive in Shadowmoon and he takes you to the spot where you'll build your garrison. The next few quests are about securing resources to build the place, and that's where I'm at.

I currently have my graphics turned all the way down, because I have an old computer (which will hopefully be replaced by the time the expansion comes out,) but the world looks very cool.