mists-of-pandaria-beta
Latest
Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War excerpt
Simon and Schuster has posted an excerpt from Christie Golden's upcoming World of Warcraft novel: Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War. Like The Shattering did for Cataclysm, Tides of War is expected to be the story that sets the foundation for the Mists of Pandaria lore. As we've reported before, Blizzard announced the book will be released at the end of August, which coincides with Simon and Schuster's release date of "on or around August 28th." You can preorder Tides of War now. We've reprinted the entire excerpt and description after the break.
Mists of Pandaria Beta: The best Brann Bronzebeard appearance ever
Ordinarily, an appearance by Brann Bronzebeard is a recipe for disaster. The dwarf with a penchant for pursuing the past has a habit of meddling with artifacts and devices that simply shouldn't be touched. And although Brann always seems to set matters straight in the nick of time, it's usually a hassle to get him to that point. Well, Brann's back in Mists of Pandaria, but this time he's not meddling with Titan computers or even out roaming Pandaria. Instead, he's waiting for you in the Lorewalkers area above Mogu'shan Palace, and he's out to make archaeology far less annoying. In Mists of Pandaria, players can collect either pandaren or mogu fragments. More fragments are available per site, and occasionally you'll spawn an Ancient Haunt that will give you even more fragments as well. You can solve the fragments to create various items, including plenty of gray-quality vendor trash -- but you don't want to vendor these items. They also include an on-use effect. When you click the item, you can crate the restored artifact. Each archaeology puzzle you solve will give you a new artifact that you can either vendor or crate. But what's the point of all these crates? Well, that's where Brann steps in. Brann is selling crates of archaeology fragments from every other section of archaeology. You can purchase them for one crated artifact apiece, provided your archaeology level is 600. Want more Tol'vir fragments? Solve puzzles in Pandaria and buy them from Brann. In other words, you can solve puzzles from Azeroth, Northrend, and Outland simply by solving puzzles in Pandaria and purchasing fragments from Brann. Sound good? Well, it gets even better. If you aren't happy with where your dig sites are located in Pandaria, Brann sells an item called the Lorewalker's Map. This will randomize your digsites to new locations. And if you're tired of flying around looking for digsites, you can pick up the Lorewalker's Lodestone, which will teleport you to a random active digsite in Pandaria. Both of these items cost five crated artifacts each, and you can carry up to 20 at a time. Between the speed boosts, the fragment boosts, and now the additional methods of gathering fragments, archaeology in Pandaria is going to be a painless process -- with the added bonus of helping you nab all those rares you're missing from other archaeology areas, too! Check out the gallery for a look at Brann's list of wares. %Gallery-159577% 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!
Mists of Pandaria Beta: The Dread Wastes
Taking a marked departure from every other zone in Mists of Pandaria, the Dread Wastes presents an alien, twisted, unnerving landscape that is more than a little disconcerting. Stir in a giant helping of mantid, and you've got an entomophobe's worst nightmare. The Dread Wastes is home to the mantid, who generally stay behind the great wall built between the Dread Wastes and the rest of Pandaria. However, the wall doesn't really bar the mantid from flying over. Each mantid generation results in a massive swarm that assaults the rest of Pandaria, devouring everything in its path. Only the strongest mantid return from the journey. In Mists of Pandaria, the mantid are swarming a full 100 years too early, and it's up to the pandaren and players to fight off the swarm while trying to puzzle out exactly what caused the change in the mantid routine. In addition, players will get to interact with the Klaxxi, the elders and keepers of mantid culture. The Klaxxi are oddly enough just as unhappy with recent mantid events as the rest of Pandaria, and they're determined to identify the problem and eliminate it, with player help. Players will likely still be working through this zone at level 90, and frankly it's well worth the time involved. Between the alien landscape and off-putting residents is a zone with a bizarre and fascinating story to tell. Take a look at our gallery for a sneak peek of what the Dread Wastes has to offer. %Gallery-159520% 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!
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Once more into the Mists of Pandaria
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host. And back once more, my friends, into the breach in the Great Wall of Pandaria. The Mists of Pandaria beta has seen another patch, this one with gear and everything. So what do we think of it so far? Well, they buffed Bladestorm up to being a worthwhile DPS ability again, and that's nice, but otherwise DPS warriors didn't get a lot of change. Prot saw some changes, with a small but incremental increase in rage generation in Defensive Stance and some other adjustments aimed at keeping us in Defensive Stance. Some of these seem more like tooltip changes (and confusing ones, like the change to Charge that removes the cooldown entirely), but I do think it's worth chatting about them, especially the change to defensive stance. I've scraped together a set of 483 PvP gear for use in BGs and running scenarios and dungeons. One of the things I'm noticing is that since your special attacks only need to be capped to 7.5% hit and since you generate your rage from Bloodthirst primarily, once you get to that 7.5% hit, you might as well stop entirely. With the hit cap so far out of your reach at level 90, while you certainly would like to cap all of your white hits, I think stacking haste is going to end up being a much more sustainable approach for rage generation, especially for fury. Arms can easily cap hit. It's strange to actually want some haste, but that does seem to be where we're going.
Mists of Pandaria: Wowhead previews Vale of Eternal Blossoms
The Vale of Eternal Blossoms is the zone for max-level players to hang out and get their endgame faction work done. The Alliance and Horde each have their own settlements, which have every thing you would look for in a major city while also including many level 90 faction hubs. The catch is that the only way to get into the vale is to complete a quest chain for the August Celestials, A Celestial Experience. At the Kun-Lai Summit, you must complete the trials of Xuen the White Tiger in order to gain access. Other points of interest: Mogu'shan Palace, a 5-man dungeon and home to the Lorewalkers Golden Lotus, the faction that continues the quest chain begun with A Celestial experience, while helping to protect the pandaren from the mogu Gate of the Setting Sun (located at The Great Wall), another 5-man dungeon Wowhead News has screenshots and more details in their preview. 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!
Ghostcrawler briefly discusses PvP power and PvP healing
Just a short while ago, everyone's favorite blue crab, Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street, posted briefly on the U.S. forums in response to a thread regarding the function of PvP power and PvP healing. This certainly makes for interesting reading and may allay some fears of the PvE community regarding the use of PvP gear in dungeons and raids. Is this testing or speculation? Because PvP Power and PvP Resilience should work anywhere with regard to DPS, but of course only when you are attacking or being attacked by other players. The only thing that doesn't work is PvP Power-fueled healing. At the moment, you only gain the healing benefit when in BGs and Arenas. The reason is because that we don't want PvP gear to be super effective for PvE content (useful is fine, but super effective is not). That design goal is easily met for damage dealers, because they won't benefit from PvP Power when damaging creatures. Unfortunately, there isn't a simple check for us to determine if a healer is healing damage done by PvP or PvE. In an Arena or BG you can make that assumption, but in the outdoor world you may be engaging in world PvP, or you may just be questing. We are considering just letting PvP Power affect healing everywhere but dungeons and raids. That would solve world PvP and only risk unbalancing group questing and world bosses. Even the world bosses probably don't represent a huge game balance risk, given that the option always exists to get tons of players together to zerg them. source So to sum up, PvP power is easily developed to work exclusively in PvP scenarios for DPS and tank specs, as the game can easily tell what you're hitting. Healing is far harder, as you're always healing people wherever you are, so the game has to test for PvP scenarios before employing the PvP power. To me, as a PvPer, the second option that GC mentions sounds far more appealing. For the PvP healing buff were to only apply in Arenas and Battlegrounds seems quite contrary to Blizzard's desire to reignite world PvP. It would also leave PvP-geared healers rather defenseless outside of the Arena and Battlegrounds, were they to be attacked on PvP servers or similar while out farming, etc. I don't think that unbalancing world bosses is a huge price to pay, particularly considering Blizzard's earlier comments regarding the likelihood of world PvP taking place around world bosses. However, I'm sure PvEers will take comfort in the knowledge that Blizzard is taking steps to keep PvP gear from becoming too powerful in PvE scenarios. 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!
Mists of Pandaria Beta: New mounts in the latest build
Wowhead has unearthed more than 1,000 new items in the latest Mists of Pandaria beta build, including some new mounts, that will all be account-wide. The Blue Shado-Pan Riding Tiger is a ground mount that requires exalted with the Shado-Pan, as do the green and red tigers. You can get the Thundering August Cloud Serpent, a flying mount, as long as you are exalted with the August Celestials. The Crimson Pandaren Phoenix is another flying mount, but it's unclear how this is obtained. The Shado-Pan are a faction in Townlong Steppes along with The August Celestials, who also reside in Krasarang Wilds. 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!
Mists of Pandaria Beta: Townlong Steppes
The Townlong Steppes to the southwest of Kun Lai Summit and the west of the Vale of Eternal Blossoms is the next stop while leveling through Pandaria. The problems of the pandaren grow far more dire in Townlong Steppes, where the displaced yaungol's struggle becomes even clearer. Along with the yaungol, players catch their first very real glimpse of the mantid threat that encroaches from the Dread Wastes to the south. Townlong Steppes also features the efforts of the Shado Pan, one of several groups available for reputation gain in Mists of Pandaria. The Shado Pan are beset from all fronts by the yaungol, the mantid, and the mogu. Townlong Steppes is formed by the western side of Pandaria and a series of small islands off the western edge of the continent. Twisted trees and strange constructions eerily reminiscent of Ahn'Qiraj litter the gorgeous landscape, making this one of the first zones to feel truly alien. Townlong Steppes is a level 88 to 89 zone for leveling players; however, after hitting level 90, you'll want to pay the place another visit, as the Shado Pan offer a series of dailies for reputation gaining purposes. Take a look at the full gallery for a preview of this peculiarly beautiful zone. %Gallery-159375% 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!
Mists of Pandaria raid testing schedule for June 28
Blizzard is opening up two more encounters for testing tomorrow: Garalon and Amber-shaper Un'sok. In order to participate, you need to be level 90 and have Mists of Pandaria gear in every slot. Watcher gives us the schedule details. Watcher On Thursday, June 28, we'll be testing two encounters. Each encounter should be available at approximately the listed times below for all Beta Test Realms, regardless of suggested geographical region. Garalon - 10 Player Normal 10:30 PDT (13:30 EDT, 19:30 CEST) Amber-Shaper Un'sok - 10 Player Normal 16:00 PDT (19:00 EDT, 01:00 CEST) As always, this testing schedule is very fluid and subject to the realities of a beta environment. We might have to change the time of a testing session or cancel it entirely, due to bugs, builds, server hardware issues, etc. Keep an eye on this forum for the latest information, and thank you in advance for testing and providing feedback. source If you do join in on the testing, Blizzard always sets up a feedback post for each encounter on the Beta Dungeons forum. Or you can just lurk there and see the responses from teams that participated. They often give their raid lineups and the tactics they used. Go check them out. 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!
UI addons will be enabled in the next Mists beta patch
Lovers of addons, rejoice! Blizzard blue Vaeflare has confirmed that UI addons will be enabled in the next beta build. Finally, you can reincorporate your favorite addons into your Mists gameplay. Starting with the next Mists of Pandaria beta build, we plan to enable the use of UI addons. So whether you're a savvy addon author or the most discriminating player, there's no time like the present to start planning out your perfect UI. Addon authors should also make sure to check out prominent addon sites such as WoWInterface and Curse for a chance to apply for a Mist of Pandaria beta key. These sites have recently been given a lot of beta keys to distribute specifically to active addon authors. We likewise strongly encourage authors who have access to the beta to start testing out and fine-tuning their addon updates in the beta as soon as possible. If you use an addon and start seeing errors, try downloading the most recent version of it. If you are still having errors, you may need to turn off the addon until it has been updated. source As Vaeflare hints in this blue post, do bear in mind that addons that work beautifully on live servers will likely not work in beta. Mists reworks a great number of game mechanics, so the addon creators are working almost as hard as Blizzard themselves at getting their programs up to scratch. If you're trying out an addon and it's not working, first make sure that you have downloaded the Mists beta version, not the live version. Second, make sure that you have downloaded the latest beta version from the developer's site, or check Wowinterface or Curse for the latest versions. Remember that these addons are in beta themselves and that any bugs you find should be reported to the addon developers via the appropriate channels, not to Blizzard. 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!
Mists of Pandaria Beta: Kun-Lai Summit
Kun-Lai Summit is the fourth zone in Mists of Pandaria. Located north of the Veiled Stair, Kun-Lai Summit holds tons of questing hubs, a unique world boss, and a dramatic variation in scenery along the way. The zone is huge -- it feels just as massive, if not more so, than the Jade Forest. Both Alliance and Horde will filter in through the same entrance, but where you go from there is completely up to you. There is both an Alliance and a Horde settlement of sorts in Kun-Lai, but you'll find you're doing far more for the locals than you are for your respective factions. As far as the story is concerned, Kun-Lai Summit has a ton of different quest chains to choose from, and the stories behind the chains are just as varied as Kun-Lai's scenery. Whether you're exploring the secrets of Pandaria's past, gaining favor with the Shado Pan, checking out the majestic Temple of the White Tiger, or just helping the friendly and charming grummels, Kun-Lai Summit should keep you more than occupied until at least level 88, if not all the way to 89. For a sneak peek of Kun-Lai's scenery, take a look at our preview gallery. %Gallery-159217% 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!
Two more Mists of Pandaria beta test raids scheduled
If you have a level 90 character in the beta fully decked out in Mists of Pandaria gear, you can participate in another round of raid testing today. (Your ilevel will be adjusted automatically so that you can enter the raid.) The encounters scheduled are Imperial Vizier Zor'lok and Will of the Emperor. Watcher On Wednesday, June 27, we'll be testing two encounters. The encounter should be available at approximately the listed times below for all Beta Test Realms, regardless of suggested geographical region. Will of the Emperor - 10 Player Normal 10:30 PDT (13:30 EDT, 19:30 CEST) Imperial Vizier Zor'lok - 10 Player Normal 16:00 PDT (19:00 EDT, 01:00 CEST) As always, this testing schedule is very fluid and subject to the realities of a beta environment. We might have to change the time of a testing session or cancel it entirely, due to bugs, builds, server hardware issues, etc. Keep an eye on this forum for the latest information, and thank you in advance for testing and providing feedback. source As Watcher suggests, these sessions can be beset by problems that can make the experience very frustrating. If you are interested in being one of the first to see the new encounters and are willing to spend the time giving feedback, putting up with the issues may be worth it. [via Wowhead] 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!
Enter to win a Mists of Pandaria beta key
Let's cut right to the chase: We have Mists of Pandaria beta keys. You want a Mists of Pandaria beta key. We would like to give one to you, but we don't have enough for every single member of our audience. If you'd like a chance to win one of twenty (20) Mists of Pandaria beta keys, leave a comment on this post within the next 24 hours. At 5:00 p.m. EDT on June 27, we will select 20 winners and announce them right here. Good luck! Update: The winners have been chosen! They are as follows: hypatia999 QuintinCrabb Szymon tj.brandhorst MattDye MatuMikey tomwiener SirBroose hussamshabi JenniferSiciliano GamerKingFaiz Leviatharan fdaapprovedd TheLandingMan Niaca sharkie35 Warsongraven Corndogfairy BapoThe-Paladin jayesh If you're on this list, contact me via email at alex@wowinsider.com for further instructions.
Lichborne: Death knight DPS presences get some major changes
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. If you've been following death knight news at all, you know that presences -- specifically, the interplay between Frost Presence and Unholy Presence -- have been a hot button issue for some time now. The flames only got hotter in the Mists of Pandaria beta, as massive changes to presences caused severe issues in our class mechanics and rotations. Luckily, Blizzard's heard our pleas and recently released a huge overhaul to the DPS presences on the beta. This week, we'll take a look and see what they did. The basic rundown The base global cooldown for all death knights is now 1 second. As a result, Unholy Presence no longer provides this bonus. Unholy spec death knights now get Improved Unholy Presence, which provides an extra 10% rune regeneration and attack speed when in Unholy Presence. Frost Presence lost a good chunk of its extra runic power regeneration (it's down to 20% from 100%), as well as the extra 30 base runic power. Frost spec death knights now get Improved Frost Presence, which reduces the cost of Frost Strike by 15 runic power when in Frost Presence. Might of the Frozen Wastes no longer generates 15 runic power per a hit but does make your Obliterates cause 50% more damage while using a two-handed weapon. Threat of Thassarian no longer has an off-hand damage bonus but does increase your Frost Strike damage by 50% Improved Icy Talons is now Unholy Aura, and both DPS specs gain use of it.
Mists of Pandaria Beta: Pet Journal marks the return of flavor text
Pet Battles is one of the more eagerly awaited new features to come with the Mists of Pandaria expansion. Non-combat pets have been around since the beginning of World of Warcraft, and players have been quietly collecting them as the years have gone on. But there wasn't really anything to do with the non-combat pets. They didn't have a purpose beyond following your character around. Pet Battles gives us something to do with our pets, finally making them an interactive part of the game itself. I've been collecting pets since the very beginning, in the days when pets weren't listed on a tab, they were physical items that took up space in your bank. While I was incredibly happy when the pet tab was introduced in The Burning Crusade, there was a part of me that felt slightly nostalgic for one particular reason: the flavor text. Some pets had neat bits of flavor text included on the items used to summon them, and once the pet tab was introduced, all that flavor text went away. In Mists of Pandaria, the pet tab has been changed to a full-on Pet Journal, complete with lists of pet abilities and types. I was delighted to see the Info tab, which not only lists where and how you can get the pet but includes some of that flavor text I'd been missing. Take a look at just a scant handful of the hundreds of new pieces of pet flavor text from the Pet Journal, including some new pets available with Mists of Pandaria, in the gallery below. %Gallery-158968% 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!
More Mists of Pandaria Beta raid testing scheduled
Hot on the heels of Friday's raid testing, we have another round of raid tests for Monday, June 25. If you're one of those people who loves to suss out new fight mechanics, you could be of use in testing out two fights, Gara'jal the Spiritbinder and The Spirit Kings. Daelo - Raid Testing Schedule - June 25 For Monday, June 25 we'll be testing two encounters. The encounter should be available at approximately the listed times below for all Beta Test Realms, regardless of suggested geographical region. Gara'jal the Spiritbinder - 10 Player Normal 10:30 PDT (13:30 EDT, 19:30 CEST) The Spirit Kings 16:00 PDT (19:00 EDT, 01:00 CEST) As always, this testing schedule is very fluid. We might have to change the time of a testing session due to various issues with bugs, builds, server hardware issues, designers being sick, class issues, etc. Keep an eye on this forum for the latest information. source Remember to keep in mind what Daelo said last time: You can test these encounters with whatever Mists of Pandaria gear your beta characters happen to have as long as you're at level 90, thanks to their ability to raise or lower your ilevel in order to match the raid difficulty. So get in there and test some raids. 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!
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!
Arcane Brilliance: Which spec will be best in Mists of Pandaria?
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week, we endeavor to answer that age old question: Which spec will other people insist my mage needs to be? We will try not to resort to that age old response to that question, which tended to involve punching those other people in the mouth. One constant, no matter how hard I've tried to ignore it, that has always existed in WoW is that one spec is always "best." The class designers are constantly tweaking the numbers and trying to keep things balanced, but once we all sit down with our collective calculator and spreadsheet, one spec always emerges to rule them all. It has been a sad reality that while we have always had freedom to choose a spec and personalize it to fit our preferences, when it comes time to raid at high levels or take part in PvP at high levels, that freedom essentially vanishes. You can make arguments for utility over damage or for certain specs in certain fights, but in most cases, under most circumstances, you're going with whatever cookie-cutter spec the internet has agreed upon that week, or you're not getting an invite. Well, now we have a fresh expansion to leverage our calculators and spreadsheets upon. It's still early in the beta process, and hard numbers are in short supply. Still, the overall design of the specs seems to be fairly well-defined, even if the actual percentage points are still in flux. What conclusions can we draw at this stage? Which spec looks to put out the best damage? And most importantly, which spec will let us kill warlocks most efficiently?
Mists of Pandaria Beta: Krasarang Wilds
Krasarang Wilds is the sister zone of Valley of the Four Winds to the north. The two zones are interlinked, but the order in which you complete them really doesn't matter one way or another -- the subplots and stories littered all over both zones eventually come together in a really amazing finish. There are several quest hubs in Krasarang, and working your way into the zone is simple. All you have to do is look for either of the couple of intrepid explorers from Valley of the Four Winds, both of whom headed in a southern direction. Horde and Alliance players may have crash landed headlong into the Jade Forest, but they are not the only visitors to hit Pandaria's shores. Contingents from both the Alliance and Horde have also made their way to the southern shores of Pandaria, and neither of the groups seems to be working with the best interests of their leaders in mind. No, they are there for a distinctly different purpose, making Krasarang Wilds and the zones that follow even more intriguing. Take a look at the full gallery for a sneak peek at the gorgeous scenery and mysterious creatures that await you in Krasarang Wilds. %Gallery-158946% 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!
Which race has the creepiest-looking children?
In preparation for Friday night's raid testing, I started leveling a second character to 90 on the Mists of Pandaria beta yesterday evening. I had only progressed a couple of quests into Valley of the Four Winds when I noticed Chen Stormstout and his little niece Li Li were talking at me with recorded dialogue. When I had done these quests a few weeks earlier, neither NPC had made a peep, so the voices caught me off guard and quickly drew my attention and focus. This was when I realized for the first time that Li Li has been given a new character model. Previously, Li Li had been nothing more than a shrunken version of an adult female pandaren; now, she's taken on the form of a glossy-eyed, ever-smiling child. I immediately recoiled at the sight, shrank back in my chair, and clawed blindly at the keyboard in an effort to tab out of the game so I could console myself with pictures of kittens and Ryan Gosling's beard. I barely survived. So maybe it's just me, but nothing haunts me more than the soulless, unblinking eyes of Azerothian children. Anyone else share my sentiment? If so, which of the kids do you think are the creepiest? %Poll-75949%
