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Are You a Rare: Reader requests edition
WoW Insider posted recently about rare race-class combinations, and received several reader requests for further data manipulation, so like the Korune Spellweavers of Kun-Lai Summit, we have returned to RealmPop, and recommenced decanting their data into lists for your delectation. The top request, from several commenters, but also the Editor-in-Chief of WoW Insider, was to lose the monks. He, and several readers, commented that they were skewing the list thanks to their newness, and while the original list was interesting to me, thanks to how it highlighted the dominance of pandaren and human monks, I rather agree. So, first up, the top ten most underplayed class-race combinations, excluding monks, but including pandaren. I've also added male and female character stats, thanks to the requests of commenters. The run-down is after the break, but first, a few other observations that might pique your interest. Please do note, as before, that this is based on RealmPop's data, which, while good, is never going to be perfect! One thing I noticed on comparing the EU data and US data is the differing overall class numbers. Hunters are the most numerous on both sides of the Atlantic, followed by paladins, then druids. On the NA side, the rest went, in descending order, DK, warrior, mage, priest, rogue, warlock, shaman, monk; while on the EU side we have warrior, mage, DK, priest, rogue, shaman, warlock, monk. Now, the difference is not huge between these classes, so small variations could move the positions around, but both data sets noted a large drop-off for warlock and shaman, while the other classes hovered around similar numbers.
Are you a rare?
Inspired by a thread we found on the EU forums, which in turn is inspired by a thread on the US forums, WoW Insider began thinking about rare class-race combinations. It's interesting, really, in a world where you can be anything, how many people all choose to be the same thing. Doubtless, there are reasons behind it, more than just preference. Racial skills, for example, are likely a huge influence, but maybe others surface, as, with a little investigation, excluding Pandaren as they're very new, it seems that the three least popular races are also the ones that don't show off transmogs so well, and are perhaps less conventionally "pretty": gnomes, goblins and dwarves. We headed over to RealmPop to check out their statistics and see what was the most popular and what was the least. Of course, no resource is completely perfect, and a few sites exist, but alas, the other well-known resource, WarcraftRealms, was offline. Looking at the US statistics, the least popular race, including pandaren, but by a narrow margin is the dwarf. The EU stats tell a very similar story, with dwarves outpaced by everyone, even pandaren. Why is that? So, it makes sense that dwarves make up the race element of some of the rarest race-class combinations. Notably, however, although their total numbers are higher overall, the huge proportion of pandaren monks (64-65%) means that they're among the very rarest of combinations when playing anything but a monk. Hit the break for the top 15 underplayed class-race combinations! Or should that be the bottom 15?
Know Your Lore: The lore so far -- leading into patch 5.2
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Patch 5.2 is almost here, bringing new stories and development to Mists of Pandaria. The story presentation in Mists so far has been a vast, vast improvement on the convoluted storylines in Cataclysm. While Cataclysm left many players wondering what, exactly, was going on, Mists has been by and large a seamless storytelling experience integrated into questing, raids, dungeons, scenarios and daily quests. But not everyone participates in everything. Sometimes all you want to do is raid or PvP -- but you want to know the story, too. If you've been looking for details on lore you may have missed, lore that is important as we move to patch 5.2, we've got you covered. Don't worry, there are no patch 5.2 spoilers in here. But there are plenty for everything that's happened in 5.0 and 5.1, so reader beware.
New short story, The Trial of the Red Blossoms, now available
It appears that Blizzard is far from done with short stories on the official website -- and that seems to be a pretty good thing. The Trial of the Red Blossoms, written by Cameron Dayton, is the latest offering to hit the official website. And for those wondering, there isn't a Li Li in sight in this tale. Instead, we get a tale highlighting just what it takes to become one of the Shado-pan, woven through the eyes of a young, scrawny pandaren thief simply named Ten. If you thought that Pandaria and its residents were all about good cheer, food and drink, it's time to think again. The Shado-pan are among the least sociable of the pandaren, and are quite vividly illustrated as a group of warriors that you really, really don't want to mess with. It's a dark, grim tale about some of Pandaria's darkest, grimmest citizens -- and it absolutely shines. Ten is nothing like the sometimes too-precocious to handle Li Li, and his past and future hang in the balance of the Shado-pan. Whether or not he can rise to the occasion is entirely up to him. The Trial of the Red Blossoms appears to be the first of what may be the next collection of short stories. Cataclysm saw the Leader Short Story series, and Trial is filed under Faction Stories on the Expanded Universe page, suggesting there are more tales of other factions to come. If they are even half as good as Trial, I suspect we're in for a treat this expansion. And frankly, I can't wait to see if we're finally going to get some dirt on the August Celestials. You can read The Trial of the Red Blossoms on the official website, in the Destination: Pandaria section of the Expanded Universe guide. And as an added bonus this time around, the story is available for download in multiple formats -- choose from PDF format, ePUB format for the smartphone, tablet or Nook, or mobi format for the Amazon Kindle.
WoW Brewmaster: Dumping Ziebart into a glass bottle
Work Warning: No cursing or nudity or sex or anything like that. But this is a column about beer and brewing, so that's somewhat an adult theme. When last we left our noble brew, I'd just talked a bit off the top about how I was making Ziebart Stout. Long story made short: I was brewing a relatively basic oatmeal stout but putting some Scotch in it. The Basics Let's talk first to the totally new folks. The ones who know WoW Insider is writing about brewing beer, and wants to get involved in their own Pandaren hijinks. After all, if we can do it... so can you! (I'm not being snarky. Seriously, trusting me around open flame is a little like trusting your lasagna to Garfield.) How tough is extract brewing? It's not. If you can navigate a canned soup recipe, you can handle extract brewing. Assuming you arm up with the basic supplies, all of which can be had relatively inexpensively, the entire process is mostly about thoroughly cleaning and watching a timer. The step-by-step works something like this.
Where does he get those wonderful toys? Pandaren rares and loot
If there is one thing I have perfected in eight years of playing this game, it is filling my bags with useless stuff. I'm not talking about armor bits and pieces for transmog, or weapons with pretty glows, or bags full of crafting material like cloth or leather. No, I'm talking random baubles that will make you look like your neighbor. Or fling you in the air, without worry of what happens when you eventually hit the ground. You know, stuff. Everybody likes stuff. And who has the best stuff in Pandaria? Rare mobs, of course! But which rares have the good stuff? Which ones will let you summon a fleet of angered puppies in party hats to fight at your side? Or inexplicably get you ready for a day at the beach in the middle of a raid? Or turn you into a statue with no apparent purpose other than sitting there pretending to be a statue? You want useless stuff? Oh we've got all kinds of useless stuff for you, sorted by category.
It came from the Blog: Pandamonium snapshots
Once upon a time, there were many, many pandaren. They loved to play and kill and put wild creatures in cages. Then one night, they had an idea. It wasn't an original idea. Everyone has it at one point or another. But it was an important idea that was to shape their destiny forever. And that idea was "Party!" Now, you know what happens when you get a bunch of pandas together to party: you get Pandamonium! First thing they did was get nekkid. Oh did I mention these pandaren were from the It came from the Blog family of guilds? That's an important detail, as those are a rowdy, drunken bunch who like to take their clothes off and/or run into dangerous territory and/or jump off of things. Spoilers. The story continues ...
It Came From the Blog: Join us for Pandamonium
Pandaren. Many pandaren. Many pandaren running. Many pandaren dying. Many pandaren corpses. Pandaren. When: Thursday, Nov 29 at 10:30 p.m. EST (7:30 p.m. PST, 8:30 p.m. server time) Where: Meet in front of Garrosh's room in Orgrimmar on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H) Who: Any Horde pandaren who is off the island and has already been yelled at by Garrosh How: Ask Crikkit or any It came from the Blog member for an invite What: Pandamonium I (Crikkit) am not saying what exactly we're doing because we know some of you are Alliance spies. Of course, if you were to make a pandaren to infiltrate us, we probably wouldn't notice. You might even have fun. I'm sure your allies will forgive you some enjoyment while you spy on us evil Horde pandas. If you don't already have a pandaren on Zangarmarsh, you should have plenty of time to make one before Thursday. Then you'll have a level 10+ character to join any future events, as they all require the ability to join a raid. So bring your pandas and get ready for some Pandamonium. Please join us on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H) in It came from the Blog. Any guild rank can invite, so /whisper Crikkit or any online member. You are all welcome as long as you play by our simple rules -- basically, don't be a funsucker! Visit the guild FAQ for more details.
Mists of Pandaria gets in on the Cyber Monday action
Sure, you could be blowing all your cash on any number of delectable offerings on Steam's ridiculously tempting Autumn Sale, but why would you want to do that when there's a whole world of pandas waiting to be explored? That's right: Pandas. Ain't a game yet made that can compete with pandas, and you know it. Blizzard is offering Mists of Pandaria at a 50% discount in honor of Cyber Monday. Not wanting the rest of the weekdays to feel left out, however, Blizzard is making this deal available until 2:59 a.m. EST on Friday the 30th.
Know Your Lore TFH: The origins of the pandaren
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Last week, I mentioned how little we know about the pandaren. This week, we're going to speculate on what that could mean. Like all speculation, this is not meant to be taken as established game lore. This is just us playing around with some what if's based on the few things we do know. We all know how the Tinfoil Hat works by now, yes? So let's put it on and start speculating. We're told that the pandaren (along with the jinyu and the hozen) revolted against their mogu masters and overthrew them in a long, protracted series of horrific battles that cost many lives on both sides. Eventually, despite the mogu having access to ancient and terrible magic and fearsome weapons, their society (dedicated to slavery and domination) was simply too rigid and dependent on others to perform the tasks the mogu did not wish to and it could not adapt to the new reality of all of its slave races attacking it. As we saw when the mogu created the saurok, their arrogance led them to be unable to perceive how other people thought. Instead, they assumed all peoples thought as they did. Cooperation in a mutual goal instead of dominance baffled them. In the end the mogu lost, and were cast down from their seats of power. But for two thousand years after that, the pandaren held control over the architecture of dominance that the mogu created. It was not until the reign of Shaohao, the last pandaren emperor, that the true nature of the sha was understood and Pandaria was sealed behind its mists for 10,000 years. What were the pandaren before that?
WoW Moviewatch: Pandaren Style
We've seen a couple of Gangnam Style parodies on WoW Moviewatch at this point. They all had their charms but personally, I'm still holding out for a Gangnam Style parody which combines a perfect execution of lyrics, music, and machinima .... One parody to rule them all, you could say. (23 days left, by the way!) For now though, we must wait. But in the interim, we have today's machinima, which I think is a step in the right direction. The music from the original song has gone mostly untouched, but the accompanying animation is astonishingly well-done. Who knew a pandaren could show so much expression when screaming at a girl's butt? I'm no 3D animation expert, but I'd guess this is the work of all those extra "bones" the pandaren models have. Amazing stuff. It may also be of some interest to know that the creator of today's machinima, Animpinabox, also made the old video World of Warcraft: Dancing. If you've never seen it, World of Warcraft: Dancing features the dances of several character races and NPCs alongside the footage that may have originally inspired Blizzard developers. It's a classic machinima, so be sure to check it out if you've never seen it. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go dig out my old Alizée albums.
Know Your Lore: The mysteries of the pandaren
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. What do we actually know about the pandaren? We simultaneously know a great deal and very little about them. Even now that we've passed through the mists that once veiled their homeland from the rest of Azeroth and explored these lands, we are far from knowing everything about them. We know they helped overthrow the mogu who once ruled their continent, but while we know the origins of the saurok, the grummles, and the jinyu (and to a degree even the origins of the mogu) we do not know if the pandaren are a natively evolved race or one uplifted by the waters of the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, or even one forced to change by the mogu. We know they existed in other parts of Azeroth - there were feral pandaren in Northrend, after all - but how closely related the pandaren are to other similar races like the furbolg of Northrend and Kalimdor is also unknown. We know of how the last Emperor, Shaohao defeated the Sha and his own emotions to prepare to defend all of Pandaria against the Sundering, but we know little of what the Pandaren Empire itself was like before Shaohao vanished into the same mists that have but recently parted. The pandaren of today, both the ones of the Wandering Isle and the ones on Pandaria itself, seem to exist in a stasis, neither stagnating nor changing very much for thousands of years. We know them, and yet we do not know them. Furthermore, their very land seems to force the pandaren to be somewhat inscrutable - a continent infested by the Sha causes its people to behave in a specific way, thus skewing our impressions of them.
Know Your Lore: Why do we fight?
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Azeroth is a volatile land fraught with conflict. In recent years of history, this conflict has been highlighted by the battle between Alliance and Horde, a seemingly never-ending struggle that began the moment the orcs made their way through the Dark Portal and began attacks on the Eastern Kingdoms in earnest. But prior to the orcs, there were still wars to contend with. In early days, pandaren rose up against mogu, troll against aqir. Kaldorei against Burning Legion, and against each other in the process. It almost seems as though Azeroth's destiny is one that is irrevocably tied to war -- we're destined to fight, regardless of who we are, or what we happen to be fighting. But why do the Alliance and Horde continue to fight? They've worked together in the past, and yet it seems that every time they are close to some sort of peaceful resolution, they are drawn once more to war. What's making the Alliance and Horde so aggressive this time around?
Know Your Lore: 5 frequently asked Mists lore questions
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Mists of Pandaria contains an utter truckload of new lore. Pandaria has been hidden behind mists for ten thousand years and the elusive pandaren were little more than a myth to most, a rare sighting to others. Because of this, there was little to no record of anything related to the lost continent of Pandaria or its history. And because of that, Pandaria is packed with tons of new stories and information regarding the continent and the races that live upon it. Even to someone familiar with lore, that overload of information can be a little overwhelming. We're all starting out at the same point in Pandaria, a point where we know nothing at all. So I find myself frequently getting asked questions about what's going on in this strange new world, and why we're doing what we're doing. As I answered the questions to various friends and guildmates, I thought perhaps I should share the answers to the most frequently asked of these questions with you all.
Know Your Lore, TFH Edition: The dark secrets of the mogu
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. They were once rulers of an empire that rivaled the Zandalar in size and scope, but they possessed powers far greater than the trolls could ever dream of. They used their power to shape the grummels and saurok from the lesser races of Pandaria. They enslaved the pandaren race as a whole, using them to build structures and gather supplies all under threat of their iron fists. Their great empires trace back to thousands of years ago, before even the War of the Ancients, and possibly before the rise of the kaldorei race. The mogu are one of the clear villains of this expansion, and our arrival denotes the sudden uprising of this strange, curious, violent race. While the mogu may have been relatively quiet for centuries, they are certainly far from it now. And as we make our way through Pandaria we see more and more evidence that these violent beings are on the move -- something that disturbs the gentle pandaren greatly. The mogu hide secrets, and over the course of raiding, we uncover a few. But their greatest secret may just be something so unfathomable, so bizarre, that it shakes the roots of everything we currently know and believe. Today's Know Your Lore is a Tinfoil Hat edition, meaning the following is a look into what has gone before with pure speculation on why and what is to come as a result. These speculations are merely theories and shouldn't be taken as fact or official lore. Please note: This post contains some content spoilers from Mists of Pandaria.
People live in Pandaria; or, our house in the middle of the sea
"And that night, her mom said that the two of them and the now-dead guy were the only 3 people who ever lived in Las Vegas. Everybody else just arrived, ate their complimentary shrimp cocktails, and left." Blizzard's focus is, as they've repeatedly professed, "to create the most epic gaming experiences ever." But for all the world-ending threats we've encountered in the last few WoW expansions, Azeroth just isn't that big. The entire Eastern Kingdoms are about the size of the island of Manhattan. We're made to believe that hundreds of thousands to millions of people of various races inhabit the planet, but examining the amount of residential space in each zone shows us room for far, far fewer. Now, yes, the Azeroth we see could simply be an abstraction of some other, larger, "real" Azeroth that doesn't tangibly exist. But this one is the one we get, and it seems sillier and sillier each time when you ponder things like where exactly King Wrynn managed to find a hundred thousand troops to send to Northrend, or where night elves have lived for the past ten thousand years. The same goes for Azeroth's endless supply of doomsday villains and the cultists they inevitably find to do their bidding. They had to come from somewhere. And they definitely don't live in Stormwind. But the problem isn't even really where they live. It's how they live. It's where they come from. Outland presented a unique opportunity to show us the how and why of the many strange alien races on an entirely new planet, but we learned more about how they died than how they lived -- the fate of most non-player races in World of Warcraft. Their homelands were a theme park, a casino, and we run through pulling levers, grabbing drinks, buying t-shirts. Nobody lived there. Pandaria, though? People live there. The continent feels more like a brand new planet than even Outland ever did.
How to defeat the pandaren rare spawns
One thing I noticed while leveling was how much of my inventory was being filled with zany flavor items and mountains of random stat food. Between that and the pandaren racial bonus, Epicurean, I formed this preconception that all panda-shaped people loved to eat food and do kooky things, so imagine my surprise when NPCScan informed me that a pandaren rare was within my scanning range just waiting to go toe-to-toe. I like to believe that maybe these particular pandaren are just looking for A Worthy Opponent (see what I did there?), and that I just get so caught up in the exchange of punches and blows that I forget not to kill them. Like the jinyu, and the rest of the rare spawns, the pandaren rares all share the same set of abilities: Spinning Crane Kick - A whirlwind of feet and pain, the 3-second cat for this attack can't be interrupted, but the target can be stunned or crowd-controlled during the animation. Just to be safe, make sure that you don't engage the pandaren in an enclosed area. Chi Burst - The pandaren will only use this ability if you are more than 15 yards away from them, a mechanic surely designed to force you to deal with Spinning Crane Kick in some fashion. And at over 200,000 damage per cast, I would say it's pretty effective. Healing Mists - The one ability you will want to save your interrupt for, Healing Mists heals the pandaren for 30% of their maximum health. Stuns and crowd control should also work if you find your spellbook lacking a reliable interrupt. The main strategy here is to stay close to the target for the most part, only moving away from it during Spinning Crane Kick. Also, interrupting Healing Mists will prevent you from dulling your blades against the bears' furry backside while you race to outpace the healing.
A quick guide to archaeology on the Pandarian continent
Archaeology on Pandaria starts out much like you'd expect. At around 525 archaeology, you'll start seeing dig sites appear on Pandaria, 4 of them spread out over the continent. You'll head to each one, start surveying, and get some archaeology fragments. Sometimes, you will get a Pandaren Pottery Shard or Mogu Statue Piece, which serve as the keystone for those race's projects and can be used to solve a piece faster. Things change a little bit when your digging digs up an Ancient Haunt. This is a Sha mob that sometimes spawns when you successfully dig up some fragments. If you kill it, you'll be able to loot more fragments.
Pandaren roleplay from 1-85
All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. In World of Warcraft, that player is you! Each week, Anne Stickney brings you All the World's a Stage with helpful hints, tips and tricks on the art of roleplay in WoW. Roleplay can be tricky in a game like WoW, particularly when new races or classes are introduced. In Cataclysm, we had the conundrum of worgen and goblin death knights to contend with -- how did they become death knights, if they weren't fighting with the Alliance and Horde until after Wrath was launched? This was explained in a relatively tidy fashion, leaving those roleplayers with reasonable options for a plausible backstory. With the pandaren of Mists, the story is slightly more complex. Not only are the pandaren that we play significantly different than the pandaren we encounter in Pandaria, they're also available to both Alliance and Horde. This makes that clear line between factions slightly muddled, and it's a challenge for a roleplayer to find a plausible reason for choosing one side over another. But there are a myriad of other unique challenges that face pandaren roleplayers during the course of their travels.
Mists of Pandaria rare spawns offer unique challenges
Mists of Pandaria asks the ambiguous question, "What are we fighting for?" In the case of most players, it's loot and gold. There's a lot of fighting to be found in Mists, but in the case of Pandaria's rares, they offer something along with the gold and loot, something far more valuable -- experience. Not experience points, although you'll get it if you're in the process of leveling. No, the rares of Pandaria offer experience playing your individual class, and playing it well. There are several different types of rare champions scattered all over Pandaria -- hozen, jinyu, mantid, mogu, saurok, yaungol and pandaren. But these champions aren't like any rares you've seen on Azeroth. Rather than allowing players to simply stand there and beat the stuffing out of them, these rares have unique abilities that require tactics and skill to counter. Are they impossible to beat? Absolutely not, once you've figured out how to counter their bag of tricks. But you cannot simply stand and beat them up anymore. Movement is absolutely key, and so are stuns, interrupts, and other abilities that define a class. Rather than allowing you to just spam your main attack, you're forced to practice moving out of the way of attacks, which are clearly defined on the ground. You can't let them cast every spell, or you'll certainly die. And kiting is definitely helpful in most cases as well.
