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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.
How to defeat the saurok rare spawns
When a couple friends of mine in high school would talk about the lizard-people living underground, controlling the world's governments and manipulating our society, something tells me they weren't talking about the saurok. Much like the grummles (a miserable race of gnome-like Sherpas, though some people are quite partial to them), the mogu shaped the saurok through the powers contained within the waters of the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Their intention was to make the saurok their enforcers, their troops, their battle-worthy servants that would reinforce borders and protect the mogu empire. Instead the saurok grew out of control, so much so that the mogu emperor lead a campaign to rip the souls out of the rebellious reptiles. Now, you may be thinking about that old saying, "my enemy's enemy is my friend," right? Well, unfortunately that's not true all of the time -- in this case we just have two enemies, much like that one Shado-Pan daily. While the saurok don't have the resources or power of the mighty mogu, they are still quite the nuisance. There are a number of saurok champions scattered across Pandaria, all of which share the following abilities: Grappling Hook Much like Rushing Charge, Grappling Hook will prevent you from straying farther than 20 yards away from the target, at least for more than 5 seconds at a time. Vanish The saurok sheds all DoTs and disappears into the shadows. Don't freak out like I did the first time I fought one; it didn't evade, it just took the cowardly rogue's way out. You do have a shot at hitting the saurok before he disappears, so make it count. Smoked Blade If you failed to bring the saurok out of stealth, he will use Smoked Blade which hits for 55% of your health. Vicious Rend A stacking bleed that deals moderate damage, Vicious Rend also functions to provide a sort of soft enrage for the saurok rares -- you need to kill them before the damage from the bleed, in addition to other sources, becomes unmanageable.
Know Your Lore: The meddling of the Mogu Part 1 - Saurok
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. Our arrival on Pandaria is the first time we've encountered a race like the mogu. Not only have they displayed an alien and sinister form of magic that can warp flesh and impart life to inanimate objects (twisting and recombining souls in the process) but they've created at least two races to serve them. While we still don't know the origins of the pandaren (were they always there, were they created or twisted by the mogu, did their ancestors also stumble into the Vale of Eternal Blossoms) or how they ended up as slaves to the mogu, the grummle and saurok peoples and their origins are known to the Lorewalkers and can be found on shrines and in books throughout Pandaria. What's fascinating to me is how the origins of these races demonstrate not only their own natures, but those of their creators. The mogu made the saurok as a caste of slave soldiers, yet failed to conceive of the notion that making a race of bellicose reptiles and arming them could possibly backfire on them. When the saurok eventually rebelled, the mogu were forced to destroy them by the scores, wiping out every saurok stationed in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, but in the end the saurok survived and their war against their creators weakened the mogu. Even more interestingly, the mogu created the grummles as a wide ranging servitor race, demanding that they toil as conveyors of goods and serve as observant spies for their masters, yet never bothered to explain to the grummles exactly what spying entailed and who they should be watchful for, believing these things to be self evident. The creation of the grummles reveals that the mogu are incapable of understanding outlooks that are not their own, and automatically assume that their way of looking at the world is the only way of doing so.
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.
Mists of Pandaria Beta: The Veiled Stair
In Mists of Pandaria, once you hit level 87, you can head north from the Valley of the Four Winds into Kun Lai Summit. But before you get to Kun Lai, you must travel through the Veiled Stair, a small sub-zone nestled in the mountains high above the Valley of the Four Winds. The grummle pictured above will give you a quest to head up the stairs and see what there is to see -- and surprisingly, there's actually quite a bit hidden away here. The Veiled Stair is also where Wrathion is making his temporary home in the Tavern of the Mists. Nearby, the Black Market Auction House waits for travelers with particularly heavy pocketbooks and a need to dump some gold on unique and hard-to-find items. The path to Kun Lai Summit is littered with wildlife and teeming with saurok who aren't particularly happy about the increased foot traffic in the area. And tucked away in the caverns and mountain peaks are a few hidden areas with no real purpose at this time. These hidden gems are pretty fascinating, provided you can get by the saurok brutes that patrol the paths and block the way. Alternatively, you can simply take a look at the gallery below, which offers a sneak peek to this sub-zone and the hidden mysteries it has to offer. %Gallery-158970% 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!
