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Mists of Pandaria beta: Aysa Cloudsinger and Master Shang Xi speak
Tipster Sylier emailed us a clip we had to share. If you're wondering what pandaren sound like, here we go. I think these may be very specific character voices for Master Shang Xi and Aysa Cloudsinger, rather than generic pandaren, but you still get a sense of how the voices will be accented and words pronounced. I like Aysa quite a bit, and Master Shang Xi sounds exactly how I suspected he might. I'm glad they didn't go with a heavily accented and somewhat cartoonish voice for the pandaren, especially these highly representative figures we're all going to meet when we level on the Wandering Isle. [Thanks, Sylier!] 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!
Datamining hints at Mists of Pandaria Collector's edition mount
A new round of datamining has uncovered an interesting string and spell in the new code pushed with recent updates to the beta -- specifically, a reference to a placeholder for a Mists of Pandaria collector's edition mount. Here's the string/spell change, courtesy of MMO-Champion: [PH] MoP CE Mount - [PH] Summons and dismisses a ???. This mount changes depending on your Riding skill and location. Traditionally, collector's editions of World of Warcraft expansions included a pet, usually a whelp that resembles a key figure or theme of the expansion. The original collector's edition of WoW included three pets, the Zergling, the panda cub, and the mini Diablo. No collector's edition has ever shipped with a mount before. Here's the kicker: There is also a string and spell in the new build for a collector's edition pet as well, which means more stuff packed in to this next release's premium package. Does upping the ante on cool in-game stuff, from pets to mounts, put the collector's edition of Mists of Pandaria closer to your shelf? As a consummate purchaser of Blizzard collector's editions, I will be shelling out the cash notwithstanding. However, it would be nice to see a bevy of new rewards in the collector's editions other than just the whelps. They will, however, be excellent editions to my Pet Battle Army. What do you think the collector's edition mount could be? 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!
Warlock green fire spells spotted in MoP beta files
Green fire is coming, again! Maybe. Side effects of speculation may vary. Not only has the Codex shown up in recent datamining, but curiously also warlock spells with green fire as icons. Conflagrate, Fel Hellfire, Rain of Chaos, and Fel Immolate all have minimal descriptions and could very well be just creature or boss spells. But Fel Incinerate gives me hope, for it has not only the range and cast time, but the base mana that the real warlock Incinerate does. What boss would need to know the base mana cost, hmm? After the original flurry of excitement, Wryxian noted in the subsequent denial of green fire implementation that the devs wanted green fire "to be an epic accomplishment" for players. With the beta appearance of The Legacy of the Masters (Part 1), players are speculating among other things about a Quel'Delar-like quest line again. In the end, nothing might happen and green fire will stay unfulfilled on our warlock wish lists. But I for one haven't been so excited since I got my Dreadsteed the old way. 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: Learn new lore from in-game book Legacy of the Masters
If you're on the Mists of Pandaria beta, you might have heard about one of the cooler new bits of lore, the in-game text Legacy of the Masters. This book contains lore about new warlock abilities, where they came from, and who developed them and how they did it. There are all sorts of neat implications in the text. For one thing, the mortal races of Azeroth seem to be meddling with great powers more than ever before after the fall of Deathwing, and the warlocks of Azeroth are afraid of being eclipsed by other rivals (like, say, mages and their weird time magics). In addition to the mention of figures like Ritssyn, it creates the idea of a secret warlock super-cabal that dispenses fel magics to other groups of warlocks and ties in events from the death of Illidan to the recent destruction of Deathwing as teachable moments that gave various warlocks eureka moments. "So that's how you turn into a demon! I get it!" It's definitely worth a read, so go check it 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!
Serpent racing in Mists of Pandaria?
So there I was, exploring the beta, just going around looking for cool things, and I found this! What is it? Well, it certainly looks to me like a racetrack in the sky, so I had to go and gather further evidence. I went to the top of the hill where the finish line is and found a bunch of pandaren NPCs who were race spectators. This, I thought, looked promising. And then I headed to the bottom of the hill and saw a few NPCs hanging around with Serpent mounts. A few of them could be interacted with, so I spoke with Big Bao, who said, "Don't worry, kid. Riding's not as hard as it looks. You should get a few more notches on your belt before attempting this, though." Interesting, Big Bao, very interesting! So then, dear reader, I found my best clue: Toudu Tigerclaw, who is a race officiator. He was rather rude to my little level 85 pandaren lady, though; he didn't think I was mature enough to race just yet and made it very clear to me. So I am fairly convinced that, in a few levels time, players are going to be taking to the backs of serpents and participating in an exciting air race around the eastern edge of the Jade Forest. Will you be taking up the challenge? 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: Rage forever changes in 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. Remember when I argued that rage should work more like the Diablo 3 barbarian? Well, it totally will in Mists of Pandaria. Battle and Defensive Stance will mean that your rage is purely determined by your active use of rage generation abilities. Your shouts and active rage generation attacks like Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst, Shield Slam and Charge will be how you generate rage, along with normal melee attacks. You will only generate rage from damage you take by switching into Berserker Stance, which will reduce your rage generated by attacks since you'll lose the new bonus to rage gen Battle Stance provides (100% more rage from normal melee attacks), and you'll lose threat and your 6% critical strike removal from Defensive Stance. This means that you won't switch to zerk anymore for AoE; you'll switch to zerk if you expect to take a lot of damage and want to generate rage for it. My greatest fears are that this will render zerk almost unused except for when we're running from point A to point B and expecting to take a lot of damage while we do, since Battle Stance doubles the rage generated by auto-attacks. I'm also concerned that warriors have absolutely no direct damage increases anymore. Stances don't give damage multipliers; enrage just increases rage generation. While these caveats concern me, I do think I enjoy the idea of rage being built up by your actions rather than just being a sponge for incoming damage. I do seriously worry about tanks, however.
Skill Mastery: Dragon Roar a crit among new level 60 warrior talents
Dragon Roar is the new talent in the level 60 tier of Mists of Pandaria talents for warriors. As such, you won't be able to take it and either Bladestorm or Shockwave; you have to pick one of the three. That being said, it's not an easy decision. Dragon Roar has several significant benefits. For starters, it's a guaranteed critical hit. You can have no critical strike rating at all, and you'll know that Dragon Roar is going to crit. This means that it's a dynamite AoE threat move if you want an ability you can save for emergencies instead of using on cooldown the way you will Shockwave. In addition, Dragon Roar's damage is substantial, and it combines an AoE knockback with a full 5-second stun, making it very potent for PvP as well as for dealing with sudden adds or keeping adds under control longer. And while it has a 1-minute cooldown, making it longer than Shockwave, it's a full half-minute shorter than Bladestorm, meaning you can use it more often. Also, it's bloody awesome to yell and see an expanding blast of damage flow out from you in all directions. It's hard to catch a good screenshot of that, though. Dragon Roar combines good damage with excellent short-term control, and I have a very hard time deciding between it and its rivals. 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!
Encrypted Text: Crimson Tempest revitalizes the rogue AoE game
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here. For rogues, enemies come in one of three group sizes: a single enemy, two enemies at once, or several enemies at once. Subtlety rogues love to focus on a single opponent, combat rogues absolutely soar when destroying two targets, and assassination rogues are the kings of sustained damage on multiple targets. Combat's AoE damage to a group is pitiful, while subtlety rogues start falling behind the instant there's more than one target on the field. The balance of rogue AoE today is determined by two abilities: Blade Flurry and Fan of Knives. These are currently our only two multi-target abilities, and so each spec's AoE potential revolves around these two moves. Mists of Pandaria is changing everything we know about rogue AoE by introducing a brand new AoE finisher, Crimson Tempest. In addition, the AoE hierarchy is also being shaken up via the revamping of Fan of Knives. The days of mindless FoK spam are over.
Mists of Pandaria Beta: New mounts video shows off your awesome new rides
Honestly, mounts are my favorite thing in World of Warcraft. It pains me every day of my life that I will never get those damn Naxx meta-drakes. Whatever. I'll learn to deal with this pain one day. In the meantime, check out this video from WazVids showing off the new mounts coming in Mists of Pandaria. You'll immediately notice that the Dragon Turtle mounts have a much-expected kodo feel to them, mixed in with some raised-platform, elekk-style riding. There is even a keg on top and pandaren emblems on the turtle knee pads, signifying that these will more than likely be the racial mount of the pandaren.
Encrypted Text: Bringing fun back to the rogue class
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here. The amount of fun that you can have on a rogue has been steadily declining since WoW's release. The original stunlock is gone, Swirly Ball was removed without any warning, and the Dungeon Finder effectively killed stealth boss runs. There are no more random chests for us to unlock, and our lockpicking levels up automatically. In Cataclysm, for the first time since launch, there was no epic weapon to look forward to through pickpocketing. Mists of Pandaria is bringing fun back. With just three little glyphs, I've had more fun in the past 48 hours than I've had in years. Glyph of Detection reintroduces Swirly Ball to our arsenal, after years of fervent lobbying for its return. Glyph of Decoy leaves a copy of you behind when you Vanish to distract your enemies, just like our old friend, Archmage Vargoth. Finally, Glyph of Disguise allows you to copy the appearance of any humanoid that you use Pick Pocket on. There is nothing more fun than flying around, looking for new appearances to steal. I will never forget the first person I ganked while disguised as Durn the Hungerer. %Gallery-152755%
Mists of Pandaria Beta: New jewelcrafting panther mount models
MMO-Champion has unearthed the new models for the four new jewelcrafting panther mounts -- the Sapphire, Emerald, Ruby, and Dawnstone Panthers. Each new mount can be learned on its own and ridden, or a jewelcrafter can take one of each and combine them into a new mount, the Jeweled Onyx Panther. We are anticipating the cost of these panthers to be very high. Also, they totally look like Voltron. Since Mists of Pandaria will be forcing players to use their ground mounts for a great deal of the content, having awesome land mounts available will set new cool standards for hanging out at your new favorite bank or Auction House. These new models look really cool, with bright colors that really stand out. I'm really loving the Mists of Pandaria art direction -- this whole expansion looks unlike anything Blizzard has ever done, and it's a gamble that's paying off so far. 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!
Totem Talk: First impressions of restoration shaman in Mists of Pandaria
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 Well, I finally got my hands on some beta access for Mists of Pandaria, and the first thing I did was make sure good old Lodur got copied over for some healing experimentation. I mean, after all, that's what I live for. Before doing any healing, though, it was time to poke around and see how things have changed. And boy, have they! Even though I expected it, it was quite jarring to log in to Mists and see that Lodur had a measly 100,000 mana to work with. Any of you out there would probably notice that this is almost half of what we're sporting on our final run-through of Dragon Soul. While it is daunting, it's something that we have to keep in mind will be compensated with mana regen and increasing the mana pool as we level up to 90.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Protection Warriors in 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. Remember what I said last week? About how the beta is not in damage balancing mode? That goes double for protection warriors right now. Along with feral druids, protection warriors are doing substantially low DPS on the beta. How low? Low enough that threat's a real issue. This low, to be precise. Ghostcrawler - Protection Warriors & Rage As I mentioned recently, Prot warrior damage is probably 50% of where it needs to be. When we have that adjusted, your threat will be higher and those Shield Slam and Revenge hits in particular should feel meatier. source When they come right out and tell you you're at 50% of where Blizzard expects you to be, you know it's bad. But again, this is a beta and not one intended to balance our DPS yet. In fact, those prolific data miners over at MMO-Champion have already found signs in the next beta patch that the damage balancing is beginning.
Mists of Pandaria Beta: Beware of Darkmoon Rabbits
DeGei of Dragon Roar (also a participant of a few PTR and beta runs with us here at WoW Insider) has found the infamous Darkmoon Rabbit. What's the Darkmoon Rabbit, you may ask? Other than being the objective of an achievement in Mists of Pandaria, apparently it's bad news. According to DeGei, it has 72 million health and an attack called HUGE, SHARP TEETH that, well, lets the rabbit jump onto your neck and chew through it. You run around uncontrollably, taking a lot of damage, and you can't be healed while said rabbit is chewing through your neck. Effectively, what we have here is a tiny, rodent-shaped world boss, folks. A world boss the potentially drops itself as a pet. If you're dying to solo him, DeGei reports that pets don't get the debuff, so it's feasible for a warlock or hunter to pull it off ... but that 72 million health means you should bring something to read if you intend to attempt it. Huge, sharp teeth, people. You have been warned. Speaking as a man who has a rabbit, you do not trifle with them. 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 Light and How to Swing It: Major AoE healing changes in the Mists beta
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome. Blizzard has been deploying beta patches at a record pace, which has a lot of stale info being bandied about as fact. The official Mists of Pandaria talent calculator is wildly out of date, and much of the commentary made over the past week is now superannuated. The developers haven't been shying away from making major class changes in these early days of the beta, and so everything is still up in the air. What we do know for sure is that there's work being done to modify our holy AoE arsenals specifically. First, Holy Radiance still generates holy power points for us. The holy power generation mechanic was moved from Tower of Radiance and placed directly onto Holy Radiance itself. Other than that, every other piece of our holy toolkit has been updated, and for the better.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Fury in 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. Now that we've had a week to play around with the Mists of Pandaria beta, I've gone ahead and done some dungeons and played around with specs. This week, I'm going to look at Single-Minded Fury and Titan's Grip fury warriors as they're currently shaping up. Some caveats: This is not a damage pass. The beta is not balanced yet, so aside from some general "This feels underpowered" or "This is brokenly good" if I think it warranted, I won't be talking much about DPS or damage. Emphasis is on rotation, how the spec feels to play, and how hard or easy rage is to come by. Right now, I'm more interested in discussing how the experience is playing as fury in the beta, not trying to argue for buffs or nerfs when it's simply too soon. With the new talent system, there's simply not a cookie-cutter build yet for either. Since all fury warriors can go TG or SMF depending on what weapons they have (both are baseline abilities fury warriors all get) and any warrior can take any one of three talents per talent tier, there's no right or wrong yet. While familiar, there's enough changed to make the fury priority system require relearning. It's not alien, to be sure, but the addition of Wild Strike, the removal of Slam, and the changes to rage generation and stances have altered the spec. So, let's talk about how fury plays out in Mists.
Another 100,000 Mists of Pandaria beta invites arriving tonight
Blizzard's developers are like monks. They are on a roll today! Earlier this evening, they fired out 100,000 beta invites after last night's set of 100,000 invites. Several minutes ago, Bashiok announced that yet another 100,000 invites have just been sent out. We heard you like invites so we put an invite in your invite so you can beta while you beta. This is a short but sweet update that we're sending an additional 100,000 invites out tonight, for a total of 200,000 Mists of Pandaria invites being sent out today. Again, it will take a while for the invites to process so we recommend keeping an eye on your games list through Battle.net Account Management, as we expect invites to continue going out into the wee hours of the night and into tomorrow. For more information on the invite process as a whole, please refer back to today's earlier announcement. source Keep an eye on your Battle.net Account Management and be wary of any email scams! Good luck on your invites! 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!
Next wave of 100,000 Mists of Pandaria beta invites sent out
If you remember yesterday's mass invite of 100,000 beta testers, well, welcome to déjà vu -- because Bashiok just announced another wave. Yes, that's right. In addition to yesterday's 100,000 beta invites, today has another 100,000 on the way for a grand total of 200,000 beta invites this week. That's pretty darn amazing, in my opinion. Remember to check your account management page directly to avoid email scams. Yesterday's 100,000 Annual Pass-holder beta-test invites ran through the night, and we're still in the process of notifying the invitees by email. Those selected for yesterday's wave of invites should all have the Mists of Pandaria beta client available for download through Battle.net account management, and they should all receive the email notification by end of day today. If the beta client shows up for you in Battle.net account management, you don't need to wait for the email in order to download the client and begin testing. We're off to a solid start with the beta test, and things are looking good in terms of realm stability, so we're ready to invite another wave of Annual Pass holders. A second wave of invites is going out to 100,000 more Annual Pass holders today, starting right now. If you're added in this or any subsequent wave, access to the beta client will show up in Battle.net account management as discussed above. Please check there today and tomorrow, as today's wave of invites will be processing throughout the day and likely into early tomorrow morning. Notification emails will also be going out, but again, no need to wait for the email if the beta client is available to you through Battle.net account management. source Good luck to everyone -- and if you get in, wave at the tauren warrior, or the worgen warrior, or the night elf warrior, or the draenei warrior, since he or she might be me. 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: Vendor filters make sorting items easier
The newest Mists of Pandaria beta patch has brought an unexpected new feature: vendor filters. Players are now able to set which items they would like to view on any vendor by selecting a filter near the top right of the window. You can set which items will appear based on spec or whether the item is bind on equip, making searching through heirloom or valor point vendors for items to send to your alts easier than ever. This is another great example of Blizzard's looking at the addon community, seeing an easy solution to a quality-of-life fix, and adding to the default user interface. Frankly, this type of interface creation and tinkering has kept WoW at an interface advance, even eight years down the line. I hope that Blizzard continues to add more filters to the new vendor filter system and maybe even gives us a way to set our own filters. Maybe we'll soon be searching by slot, class, affordable, level required, etc. There are plenty more filter options to include if Blizzard is so inclined. 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: Pet Battle system details revealed
Wowhead News has done what many voices crying out in the wilderness demanded and gone through the Mists of Pandaria database, collecting details for the upcoming Pet Battle system. If you're eagerly, perhaps even impatiently waiting for information about what's coming, you can sate some of that curiosity with this guide covering new pets, pet abilities, and locations for collecting new pets in the wild. The folks at Warcraft Pets helped, too. There's a lot of detail to be had, including details on how the Pet Battle abilities are broken up (it's not quite grass type vs. fire type) and how to command your pets to be the very best. So head on over and check it 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!
