5 things you need to know about the Temple of the Jade Serpent

So, last time on 5 Things You Need to Know, we took you on a rollicking, barrel-rolling, beer-spewing adventure through the Stormstout Brewery. Many laughs were had at the adorable kitty-esque bosses, many a hammer was clicked, fruit and vegetables were hurled, and much drunken japery was had by all.

If the Stormstout Brewery was the chirpy cheerleader, then the Temple of the Jade Serpent is the emo sister, the one with the funky hair and the slightly offbeat jewelery. This is the Daria to Stormstout's Quinn. (Am I showing my age by referencing retro MTV cartoons? You bet I am!)

So just like last time, this is definitely not a full, step-by-step guide (but of course, we already did one of those for you). This is a set of simple facts that will arm you with just enough knowledge to tackle this second dungeon with the panache we expect of our dashing, well-read audience.

Let's get on with it!

1. You can go either right or left at the start. You start in a room with some quest givers, and in beta, the eminent Flaskataur, Esq. fulfills all your needs for glyphs and Tomes of the Clear Mind-- and frankly, your needs for tauren in adorable hats. From there, you have two corridors leading to the first two bosses through some trash. You can go either way. After killing whichever boss you kill second, you will be guided via a ramp to the next stage of the dungeon. I reckon right is easier than left. You may disagree. After you've killed whichever side you start with, you'll need to go back from whence you came and do the other one.

You'll get a speed boost after you kill whichever boss you're after first, so zoom back to the start room and get cracking on the other side.

2. Don't stand in bad. This may seem like the most obvious tip you've ever heard. It is? Well, OK then. But in this dungeon, standing in bad doesn't mean take your time to finish the cast you just started, then consider moving -- it means get the hell out, or you're probably going to die.

Priest healing is great in this place, simply because of Leap of Faith. It will definitely get easier as you level up and your gear improves, but as 85s, the bad will kill you in the face until you die from it. This is especially pertinent in the corridor down toward Wise Mari, where the elemental trash you're murdering drop puddles of bad on the floor, and when fighting the third of the four bosses. Standing in that bad will kill you so fast you won't know what hit you. (It was the bad, by the way.) Nothing hits that hard until the last boss, so if you're dying fast, you're in something bad.

3. Water is bad. Speaking of Wise Mari, this boss is in two phases. In phase 1, the eagle-eyed player will notice that the adds drop puddles of pain on the floor and that your healer will be trying to type "please don't stand in that" (but since they're probably also trying to keep your ass alive, it'll come out as "pleskg dot sntpjw"). If your healer's typing, move.

The tip, though, relates more to the second phase. All the water in this section is very, very bad. You need to not be in it, or you may well die. Easy? Well. Come phase 2, Wise Mari basically starts blasting a water cannon out of his head, while rotating in a slow circle. You'll need to stay out of the cannon by running in a circle around him while jumping from platform to platform to avoid the watery death between them. He will keep doing this until he's dead, without a break, so you'll need to DPS and heal at the same time as circling the platform and not falling in the water. Fun times!

4. There is a ramp through that door. You see that door in the picture above? Well, after this boss is down, it'll open, and there's a ramp. You could be forgiven for thinking that it opens onto just an empty balcony, but you'd be wrong. Hidden among the pretty vegetation is a ramp down to the next boss in her courtyard -- and when I say hidden, I really do mean hidden. I ran back and forth a good few times before I realized where the ramp was, so believe me when I say it's there.

The exact same thing applies if you start on the side pictured above and kill Wise Mari second. WoWPedia havsa great map of the instance to aid you in navigation, and of course, there's a map in there.

5. Stack up and kill the adds. OK, bear with me. The last boss -- the one in the header image, the Sha of Doubt -- has an ability where he shifts you into something resembling the twilight plane, and five ever-growing shadows latch onto you. If you're a healer, you definitely won't be able to kill yours; if you're a tank, you might be able to. The easiest way I've found to do this it is to stack up on a pre-agreed point and AoE the adds down.

Of the two level 85 dungeons, this is definitely the hardest boss. You could get three phases of adds, depending on the DPS output of your group -- so healers, save your healing cooldowns for the latter phases, if you can keep your group up through the first one.

And, sneaking in a sixth thing you need to know just for healers, there's a dispellable magic debuff in this fight that inflicts huge damage on the group if you don't get rid of it as soon as possible. You can thank me later.

All in all, this is a beautiful dungeon, with a mixture of mechanics that are pretty obvious, ones that will be familiar to players who've been playing a little while, and ones that are fun to work out. It's definitely not Zandalari levels of difficult but a shade harder than the Stormstout Brewery.

It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!