mists
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Totem Talk: The state of Telluric Currents and speculating for Mists
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and cohost of the For the Lore and Raid Warning podcasts), shows you how Time to revisit this topic again. You're probably asking yourself why we're talking about this again. Well, to be honest, it's because it's the end of an expansion cycle. While we're prepping for the next expansion that will shake up mechanics and stats, we find ourselves at a point of speculation -- and therefore, things like Telluric Currents find themselves back in the crosshairs, so to speak. The talent itself is something you use, or you don't use. There are some hard facts about the talent. You do not need to stack hit to make it useful, only to make sure every bolt hits. It is not mana neutral, using the talent and casting Lightning Bolt will indeed fill up your mana bar. It can be used to supplement low spirit totals for beginning healers, and can be used in certain phases on raid bosses to maintain healing mana totals. Whether it is optional or mandatory depends on a lot of factors up to and including the team you're healing with and the content you're healing through.
Beta Testing 101: Good group etiquette
The most crucial piece of information for you to remember while beta testing is that the process can be grueling and frustrating. Servers will go up and down, instances will crash, and above all, the people playing the expansion's beta will be just as inexperienced as you are with the content. Here are some etiquette tips on how to stay calm during a productive group session during beta. Be patient. Patience is essential to the beta process. Flaws in the software or gameplay are not discovered without time for those problems to manifest. Be a good tester and log on to WoW with the mindset that you might not be in for the smoothest run. As a beta tester, your patience will be tried. You'll wipe, fail, screw up, die, whatever. It's a game that you're helping to make just that much better. Put aside the gung-ho group attitude and talk to your team about testing -- that helps me focus on the task at hand.
The Queue: Come to me, Pandaria
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. The beta does not currently allow questing on Pandaria, and it is driving me batty. It's so close! Let me quest, dang it! bethontheharbor asked: So has anyone bothered to get shots of the Theramore area, or is it blocked off. I haven't seen anything from that town posted anywhere.
Mists of Pandaria Beta: Livestreaming the Wandering Isle
We've rounded up a few of our Mists of Pandaria beta testers, and we'll be rocking the Wandering Isle, the pandaren newbie zone, live on Twitch.tv for the next couple of hours. You can watch us via the video embedded above (with the chat channel behind the break below), or join us over on Twitch. Enjoy! Update: The stream is over, but you can still watch the recording of the session, which is now embedded at the top of this post. Matthew Rossi, Mathew McCurley, Anne Stickney, and myself completed the entire pandaren starting experience together.
Mists of Pandaria Beta: Challenge Mode armor sets revealed
During the Mists of Pandaria press event, Mike Sacco and I had our fancies tickled by what little we saw of the upcoming Challenge Mode armor sets. They're vanity-only items meant for use with transmogrification, and they looked way awesome. Thankfully, we have Wowhead and Wowhead News around to show us most of the sets we didn't get to see. I'm a sucker for winged armor, so the paladin set (embedded above) is my favorite by far. The shoulders on the rogue set are fantastic, and the shaman set seems tailor-made for trolls. Unfortunately the mage, warlock, warrior, and monk sets are still missing from the lineup, so we'll need to keep an eye out for those in future beta patches. You can see a sampler of the currently available armor sets in the gallery below, but I do highly recommend checking out the 3D model viewer over at Wowhead as well. Wowhead has a whole slew of other models you should check out at the same time, such as mounts, more weapons, and miscellaneous quest reward gear sets. %Gallery-151335% 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 Ragefire Chasm video
Ragefire Chasm, the low-level instance beneath the Horde capital of Orgrimmar, has undergone sweeping changes in the Mists of Pandaria beta. New quest NPCs, a new story, new enemies, and interesting clues to the grand finale of Mists of Pandaria's campaign are all buried beneath one faction's very own feet. It could be that these new objectives in Ragefire point to Garrosh's fall from ... I guess I'd use the word grace here, but ... you know ... Four new bosses now reside in Ragefire Chasm, including: Adarogg, a nasty flamehound that has eaten his captors Dark Shaman Koranthal, who is performing a creepy ritual Slagmaw, who is Magmaw, but not; name potentially not final Lava Guard Gordoth, a caged experiment that breaks out just as you arrive
23 images of the female pandaren customization
The female pandaren was finally revealed earlier this week for the world to see, and reaction has been fairly positive. Pandaren in general are sharply modeled and animated, and players have been asking for as much information on character customization as possible. We've put together an awesome gallery showcasing many of the female pandaren facial styles and markings, as well as the alternate red panda style with matching tail. As goes the community, so too I go -- I was worried about the female pandaren model. The male pandaren looked so great at BlizzCon that I really didn't think Blizzard could surpass it. Personally, I think it works and fits well. Check out our gallery for lots of shots of the female pandaren. %Gallery-151235% 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!
Pandaren lore and what we know so far
The pandaren are a nation unto themselves. Their history has played out for 10,000 years behind a shroud of impenetrable mist, one that has allowed them to develop their own culture free from interference from outsiders. Now, after 100 centuries, the mists have receded and Pandaria stands revealed. At present, the peoples of Pandaria, from the mogu to the mantid, the virmen and the hozen, are mostly unknown to us. Of these races, the pandaren are most familiar, and even then this is purely due to the actions of one pandaren who came to Kalimdor and walked alongside Rexxar and his allies, Chen Stormstout. But what do we know about the pandaren and their ancient homeland of Pandaria?
Mists of Pandaria enchants revealed
Dataminers have been hard at work combing through the Mists of Pandaria beta client that became available tonight. The new enchants coming for weapons and armor have names -- and here they are, courtesy of WoWDB. Enchant Weapon - Pandamonium Permanently enchant a melee weapon to sometimes grant 1,000 attack power for 12 seconds. Can only enchant a level 92 weapon. Enchant Weapon - Windsong Permanently enchants a melee weapon to sometimes increase your critical strike, haste, or mastery rating by 1,500 for 12 seconds when dealing damage with spells and melee attacks. Requires a level 384 or higher item. Enchant Weapon - Jade Spirit Permanently enchants a melee weapon to sometimes increase your intellect by 1,650 when healing or dealing damage with spells. If less than 25% of your mana remains when the effect is triggered, your spirit will also increase by 750. Requires a level 384 or higher item.
Mists of Pandaria Beta: New glyphs
Not much else to say here, folks: On top of the warlock tanking glyph, there are a ton of other new glyphs in the Mists of Pandaria beta that we found via WoWDB. Blizzard has gotten really creative with a lot of them. There are a bunch of really awesome minor glyphs and some incredibly useful major ones. Check out a sample below and the rest after the break! Glyph of Animal Bond While your pet is active, all healing done to you and your pet is increased by 10%. Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell Causes your Anti-Magic Shell to absorb all incoming magical damage, up to the absorption limit. Glyph of Armors Reduces the cast time of your Frost Armor, Mage Armor, and Molten Armor spells by (1500/-1000) seconds and increases the defensive effect of each Armor by an additional 10%. Glyph of Aspect of the Pack Increases the range of your Aspect of the Pack by 15 yards. Glyph of Avenging Wrath While Avenging Wrath is active, you are healed for 0% of your maximum health every 4 seconds. Glyph of Beacon of Light Removes the global cooldown on Beacon of Light Glyph of Blade Flurry Your attacks have a 30% higher chance of applying Non-Lethal poisons while Blade Flurry is active. Glyph of Blessed Life While Seal of Insight is active, you have a 50% chance to gain a charge of Holy Power whenever you take direct damage or are Stunned, Feared, or Immobilized. This effect cannot occur more than once every 20 seconds.
Mists of Pandaria beta opt-in and official FAQ
It's 10 p.m. Pacific, and the fine folks have a little surprise for us all of a sudden: the Mists of Pandaria opt-in and FAQ has just been posted on the official Battle.net blog. While there are over a million Annual Pass subscribers eagerly awaiting their chance to get into the beta, the developers may still need a more diverse spread of testers throughout the beta. To opt in, you will need a Battle.net account with at least one Blizzard game attached to it -- I'm sure everyone reading this has one of those, right? You can read the full FAQ on Battle.net or behind the cut below. This FAQ does detail how and when Annual Pass holders will be entering the beta, so those of you who have signed up for that should take a look.
Totem Talk: Getting resurrected restoration shaman back to speed, and level 90 talents
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and cohost of the For the Lore and Raid Warning podcasts), shows you how The Scroll of Resurrection revamp has been a topic of hot debate recently. Whether you love it or hate it, the feature's still an opportunity for our healing brethren to come back after a long break. To be honest, one of my friends has done just that. But being away from the game for any period of time, whether it is an entire expansion or just a content patch, can be jarring. So when my friend reactivated, I asked him what his most pressing concerns were coming back to Cataclysm. What did he want to know the most to get back up to speed? I thought that were probably quite a few number of folks coming back to the game who might have the same questions, so I figured now would be the perfect time to talk about that, as well as some news regarding the new level 90 talents that we just received. Oh, and the video has nothing to do with today's post ... I just had that song stuck in my head.
Breakfast Topic: Pandocalypse Now
Boy, yesterday was exciting, wasn't it? We all knew what sorts of features were coming our way in Mists of Pandaria -- we've known that since BlizzCon -- but yesterday was the first day we were actually able to discuss the content that will be utilizing those features. What do you think? Are you looking forward to seeing it all in action? Are you still ambivalent on the whole thing? Personally, I can't wait until the beta rolls around. What was playable at the press event seemed pretty darn far along in development, so that beta can't be very far away. I would be surprised if it there were more than a month between now and the beta testing, and I would even expect it sooner than that. Mists of Pandaria already seems much further along in development than Wrath of the Lich King or Cataclysm were when they entered beta. The sooner the beta rolls along, the better. I'd love to take another crack at the Temple of the Jade Serpent and show the Sha of Doubt what's what. 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: Ray Cobo interview
Ray Cobo, one of WoW's senior producers, sat down with us at the Mists of Pandaria press event to discuss the development process, new game features, and more. Check out how an expansion like MoP gets made quickly! WoW Insider: Mists of Pandaria, from everything we've seen, is on an accelerated time table. How do you, as a producer, make sure the process is going forward? Ray Cobo: We 've learned a lot over the years about how to make expansions and how the game development of WoW has kind of evolved over the years, and so with each expansion, we get better at what we do. Our tools get better, our muscle memory from the team gets better in terms of how to make stuff. We have such a huge library of things now that we've built and content that we've made that we can actually pull from and figure out how to make that better or how to not do that again kind of thing and learn from those pitfalls or successes and try to get more efficient every time. I think that's something the team has done for this one specifically is that each time it seems to get a little bit faster and get a little bit easier to some degree. There are still a lot of challenges in terms of curve balls that you get halfway through -- like in this one, it was recently decided to have two more zones. So it's like, OK, well, didn't have that in the plan but we'll figure out how to kinda get that in. Everyone on the production side and definitely on the dev team is very committed to make sure the content is great, so we want to make sure we give the devs time to iterate and explore and try to figure out what's going to make this game great and going to make the expansion great, because that's a core philosophy at Blizzard.
Mists of Pandaria: Dave "Fargo" Kosak interview
Dave "Fargo" Kosak, lead quest designer for World of Warcraft, sat down with us at the Mists of Pandaria press event for an interview. We talked about the Horde/Alliance conflict, voice acting, pop culture references, Mists' accelerated production schedule, and more. Check it out! WoW Insider: I guess I'm just gonna start off with some basic stuff. Dave Kosak: Basic stuff is good! Let's start with your overall philosophy for Mists of Pandaria. Well, we're constantly experimenting with quests, and in Cataclysm, we created some pretty linear zones, as I'm sure you might've noticed. Some really big story arcs and big finishes. Certainly like in Mount Hyjal, we phased a huge amount of the zone, which worked because it was a pretty linear zone. A couple drawbacks, though: It was a shame that on your second or third time through, you had to play it exactly the same way. You know, you kinda lose some of that open-world feeling, you lose a little bit of that exploration when it's linear like that. But we loved the storytelling, so what we wanted to do with Mists was keep that kind of storytelling but make sure that you have the opportunity to go out and explore and experience the expansion differently, so ... let's see.
Mists of Pandaria: Raid Finder loot system changes clarified
If, like me, you heard about the upcoming changes to the Raid Finder's loot system and were a little confused, then this post by Zarhym clarifying what exactly will be changing is a useful read. Basically, rather than rolling against people in the raid (as is the current system), you roll and the chance that you will or won't get loot will have nothing to do with other players at all. Zarhym -- The new LFR roll system First, other players will not affect your loot in any way. Another player winning will not cause you to lose. Another player winning a mace will not mean that she took your mace. If there are many rogues in the raid, your chance of winning a rogue item is not diminished. We may decide that each player has an X% chance to get loot, or we may decide that X number of players get loot, and then randomly determine who those lucky players are. Second, the item you win will be "useful" in the sense that it's potentially usable by your current spec. This does not mean that warriors will get leather because warriors can equip leather (at a huge stat loss). It also does not mean that the game will always give you an item you want or an upgrade for the items you have. It just looks and says "You are a Holy priest, so here is a random item chosen from the Holy priest-appropriate items that this boss can drop." source You'll still have a chance to not get the item you want and have to come back again, but at least this will curb that hideous sinking sensation of seeing Gurthalak drop and knowing yet again that someone else is going to get it instead of you, leading to hostility. Zarhym then goes on to explain the bonus roll system, which is a roll you can effectively trade in for a guarantee of some kind of reward, be it extra gold or a random drop from the boss. At present, this is all only for the Raid Finder, with a possibility of seeing the systems in dungeons if it works 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!
Mists of Pandaria: Siege of Orgrimmar
Chris Metzen kicked off the Mists of Pandaria press event by explaining the tone and narrative goals of the expansion. Players have voiced concern because Mists of Pandaria does not have a clear, global threat in the vein of the Lich King or Deathwing. Rather, the conflict in this expansion is war itself. We will see the war between the Horde and the Alliance boil hotter than it has in years, and we will see the repercussions of that war, whether they be physical, spiritual, or something else entirely. The format of how Blizzard tells its story will change in this expansion, too. Mists of Pandaria itself, the game that comes in the box, will be a full, contained story. The entire arc of Mists of Pandaria will be there when you install the game, before any content patches at all. The content patches will be treated as sequels to that story. We will arrive on Pandaria when we install the game, have our adventures, and then see that story end. When the first patch hits, we will see Pandaria begin to be truly ravaged by our war. While the steps taking us there are still unknown, Metzen did reveal that the war waged in those patches will reach a massive conclusion: We will lay siege to Orgrimmar to remove the mantle of warchief from Garrosh Hellscream's shoulders. It didn't sound as if it would be an Alliance-only venture, so it seems the new Warchief of the Horde will get a little too Old School Grom for their taste. However, there is a possibility that the Horde will get to deal a similar blow of their own ... Knowing the fate of Garrosh Hellscream, it's possible nobody is safe this expansion.
Mists of Pandaria: Yes, you get another character slot
You people are strange. The #1 question we've seen regarding Mists of Pandaria is: Will we get an 11th character slot for our monk? How will I have every single class on one server? Do I need to delete my bank alt? As initially stated by Bashiok and confirmed by J. Allen Brack, production director of World of Warcraft, you will be getting an 11th character slot for your monk. Players without the Mists of Pandaria expansion attached to their account will be restricted to only 10 characters. You must upgrade to Mists for #11. Rejoice, fellow nerds. Rejoice. 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: Dungeons and challenge mode
Mists of Pandaria will launch with nine heroic dungeons, four of which were previewed to one extent or another at last week's press event: Temple of the Jade Serpent, the Stormstout Brewery, the updated Scholomance, and the updated Scarlet Monastery. Temple of the Jade Serpent Blizzard is taking a new approach with its introductory dungeon of the expansion. Rather than starting you off in instances that are entirely secondary to the expansion's story arc and saving the dungeons that tie closest to the plot of the expansion for the level cap, the very first dungeon you run in Mists of Pandaria will set the story's tone. The Temple of the Jade Serpent will display the expansion's villainy right up front. The sha, as you've heard by now, are the core external villains in the land of Pandaria. They are the manifestation of negative emotion. The Temple of the Jade Serpent will be your introduction to the sha. The Temple is where, once upon a time, an old emperor of Pandaria beat down the Sha of Doubt and saved the entire empire. Unfortunately, the war that the Horde and the Alliance have brought to Pandaria's shores has rekindled the Sha of Doubt and the temple has fallen under its influence. We did get to tackle the Temple hands-on at the press event, so we can provide a few concrete details about the bosses within and their abilities.
Mists of Pandaria: Pet Battles
For one reason or another, there was some fear recently that the Pet Battle feature announced at BlizzCon wouldn't make it into the release of Mists of Pandaria. Good news: It's in. We saw Pet Battles in action during the developer presentation at the beginning of the press tour. The feature isn't complete, but it has been implemented in-game in a playable state. We watched a Pet Battle showdown between Illidan Stormrage and the Lich King. Each pet that you own can learn up to six abilities, but only three of them can be used in the turn-based battle, so you need to carefully assign which you plan to use. Pet Battles will have a queue system just like dungeons and Battlegrounds, with one small difference: you will never see the name of the player you're facing off against. Blizzard wanted to minimize the "shame of defeat" that tends to be a barrier to entry in PvP -- nobody likes feeling bad when they lose. You will never know who you've lost to, and they can't trash talk you during or afterwards. While your statistics page will keep track of your number of wins, it will not track your losses.
