So speculate how long until MOP? June, August, October, December or ?

[chaos5061]

90	You Have to Burn the Ropes	Burn 6 Kunzen Ropes.	Ella + The Tillers	250 + 250
90	The Lesser of Two Evils	Slay the Springtail Warren-Mother.	The Tillers	250
90	Stealing is Bad... Re-Stealing is OK	Re-steal 16 Stolen Vegetables.	The Tillers	250
90	Stalling the Ravage	Slay 12 Kunzen Hozen.	The Tillers	250
90	The Kunzen Hunter-Chief	Slay the Kunzen Hunter-Chief.	The Tillers	250
90	Simian Sabotage	Use the Barrel of Fireworks near the Pile of Stolen Weapons, the Pile of Stolen Tools, the Pile of Stolen Beer, and the Pile of Stolen Grain.	The Tillers	250
90	A Gift For Tina	Obtain an Uncut Chrysoberyl.	Tina Mudclaw + The Tillers	250 + 250
90	A Gift For Chee Chee	Obtain an Authentic Valley Stir Fry.	Chee Chee + The Tillers	250 + 250
90	A Gift For Sho	Obtain a bowl of Yu-Ping Soup.	Sho + The Tillers	250 + 250
90	A Gift For Fish	Obtain a Yak Statuette from the inside of a Kunzen hozen hut.	Fish Fellreed + The Tillers	250 + 250
90	A Gift For Ella	Obtain Spicy Shrimp Dumplings.	Ella + The Tillers	250 + 250
90	A Gift For Fung	Obtain a Bloody Plainshawk Leg from a Monstrous Plainshawk, and then bring it to Kol Ironpaw in the Halfhill Market.	Farmer Fung + The Tillers	250 + 250
90	A Gift For Old Hillpaw	Find a Blue Freshwater Pearl.	Old Hillpaw + The Tillers	250 + 250
90	A Gift For Haohan	Obtain an Enormous Cattail Grouper Tooth.	Haohan Mudclaw + The Tillers	250 + 250
90	A Gift For Jogu	Obtain 8 of Yoon's Apples and 50 of Yoon's Craneberries, then bring them to Bobo Ironpaw to brew into Apple-Berry Hooch.	Jogu the Drunk + The Tillers	250 + 250
90	A Gift For Gina	Obtain a Goldenfire Orchid.	Gina Mudclaw + The Tillers	250 + 250

[chaos5061]

90	The Cabbage Test	Plant a Green Cabbage in Sunsong Ranch. You can purchase seeds from Merchant Greenfield in the Halfhill Market.	The Tillers	250
90	That Dangling Carrot	Plant a Juicycrunch Carrot in Sunsong Ranch. You can purchase seeds from Merchant Greentill in the Halfhill Market.	The Tillers	250
90	Why Not Scallions?	Plant a Scallion in Sunsong Ranch. You can purchase seeds from Merchant Greenfield in the Halfhill Market.	The Tillers	250
90	A Pumpkin-y Perfume	Plant a Mogu Pumpkin in Sunsong Ranch. You can purchase seeds from Merchant Greenfield in the Halfhill Market.	The Tillers	250
90	Red Blossom Leeks, You Make the Croc-in' World Go Down	Plant a Red Blossom Leek in Sunsong Ranch. You can purchase seeds from Merchant Greenfield in the Halfhill Market.	The Tillers	250
90	The Pink Turnip Challenge	Plant a Pink Turnip in Sunsong Ranch. You can purchase seeds from Merchant Greenfield in the Halfhill Market.	The Tillers	250
90	The White Turnip Treatment	Plant a White Turnip in Sunsong Ranch. You can purchase seeds from Merchant Greenfield in the Halfhill Market.	The Tillers	250
90	Squash Those Foul Odors	Plant a Jade Squash in Sunsong Ranch. You can purchase seeds from Merchant Greenfield in the Halfhill Market.	The Tillers	250
90	It's Melon Time	Plant a Striped Melon in Sunsong Ranch. You can purchase seeds from Merchant Greenfield in the Halfhill Market.	The Tillers	250
90	Which Berries? Witchberries.	Plant Witchberries in Sunsong Ranch. You can purchase seeds from Merchant Greenfield in the Halfhill Market.	The Tillers	250

[chaos5061]

Further Friendship

Each of the NPCs that you can become friends with have some quests that do not reward Tiller's rep, but will help you to become better friends faster. You can find the list of these quests on WoWDB. Upon becoming better friends with the NPCs,

they will mail you drinks, seeds, and a few items like the Straw Hat and Red Cricket!

• Sho
• Ella
• Tina Mudclaw
• Gina Mudclaw

• Haohan Mudclaw
• Chee Chee
• Fish Felreed
• Farmer Fung

• Old Hillpaw
• Jogu the Drunk

Rewards

After all this work, there are rewards for you! The seeds will grow into a plant that collects profession materials, something we can confirm after Revered is possible.

1	Consumable			Pandaren Scarecrow	The Tillers	Revered	250
1	Consumable			Snakeroot Seed	The Tillers	Revered	1
1	Consumable			Enigma Seed	The Tillers	Revered	1
1	Consumable			Magebulb Seed	The Tillers	Revered	1
1	Consumable			Windshear Cactus Seed	The Tillers	Revered	1
1	Consumable			Raptorleaf Seed	The Tillers	Revered	1
1	Consumable			Songbell Seed	The Tillers	Revered	1

[chaos5061]

1	Consumable			Spring Blossom Sapling	The Tillers	Revered	10
1	Consumable			Winter Blossom Sapling	The Tillers	Exalted	10
1	Other			Gin-Ji Knife Set	The Tillers	Exalted	Free
90	Mount			Reins of the Brown Riding Goat	The Tillers	Exalted	500
90	Mount			Reins of the Black Riding Goat	The Tillers	Exalted	1500
90	Mount			Reins of the White Riding Goat	The Tillers	Exalted	3250
90	Cooking Recipe			Recipe: Spicy Salmon	The Tillers	Exalted	??
90	Cooking Recipe			Recipe: Spicy Vegetable Chips	The Tillers	Exalted	??
1	Miscellaneous		Tabard	Tillers Tabard	The Tillers	Exalted	10

[chaos5061]

[chaos5061]

Beta Class Balance Analysis

Is it intended that secondary stats now have twice the itemization budget of primary stats in terms of gems
Yes. With the possible exception of Spirit, there is little decision in choosing red gems in the live game. Secondary stats are often more interesting in general because there are break points, hard caps, and personal preferences. Any Agi user who eschews Agi is doing it wrong.

Let me throw some numbers at you
Sadly those aren't the kind of numbers that support compelling arguments. Classes can be overpowered with only a few abilities or have dozens and still be underpowered. If there are situations where you feel helpless, let us know. If you disagree with a design direction, let us know that too (though this thread is not the right one for that).

We understand not every player has the ability and/or inclination to come up with numbers such as healing per second or the effectiveness of cooldowns. But this one thread is for those who can. It has been enormously beneficial in helping us catch bugs or design problems as well as helping players calibrate their sims and spreadsheets. Please help us keep the signal to noise ratio strong.

This point is directed the blues (and no one else)
Sorry, these are public forums. We like and encourage players to talk to each other. The echo chamber effect is strong in our forums, so we think it's actually very healthy when players can disagree with you, provided they can do so in a constructive manner. If someone's just trolling you, ignore them and we'll take care of it. But someone disagreeing with you is not the same as trolling.

Druid
To provide an update on tanking mechanics, I want to comment on Mastery for Guardians and Brewmasters. This is somewhat of an over-generalization, but tanks typically care about 4 things when gearing in decreasing order of importance:
Survive the maximum burst damage of the encounter (aka Effective Health)
Minimize healing needed (aka Damage Reduction + Self Healing)
Hold aggro on whatever you’re needed to hold aggro on (aka TPS)
Maximize damage dealt (aka DPS)
#4 is generally much less important than #1-3, and overlaps with #3 heavily when considering gear. And #3 is relatively easy these days anyway. So, usually it just comes down to #1 and #2.

Stamina primarily helps with #1. Dodge primarily helps with #2. Most other stats help with resource generation, which typically translate into #2. Mastery for Guardians and Brewmasters is in the somewhat unusual place of helping with both #1 and #2 significantly.

If you compare Mastery to Dodge for a Brewmaster, as a few theorycrafters here have done, you can see that, purely in terms of how much they reduce your damage taken, Dodge wins by a considerable margin. We balanced it that way, because we give value to how much it helps with #1 as well. Obviously, helping with #1 has some value, because you care about Stamina. We see Mastery for Guardians and Brewmasters as sort of a hybrid between Stamina and Avoidance, in terms of how it helps improve your character.

It’s easy to objectively compare the value of two stats in terms of how much they help with #1, or how much they help with #2. But comparing some amount of help with #1 to some amount of help with #2 is much more complex and subjective. It’s an interesting choice that tanks have to make all the time, and one of the most successful choices in gearing that the game provides (Stamina vs. Avoidance being the primary way that choice is expressed). So, that means balancing a stat that provides a mix of both can be complex and subjective as well. After much deliberation, we’re going to try valuing the effective health benefits of Mastery for Brewmasters and Guardians significantly lower than the damage reduction benefits, and adjusting the Mastery conversion rates to reflect that.

Hopefully this provides a bit of background and perspective about the complexities underlying even the simplest of changes: In the next build, you’ll find Mastery for Guardians providing 1.25% Armor per Mastery (up from 0.65%), and for Brewmasters providing 0.5% Stagger per Mastery (up from 0.3%).

Hunter
While doing hunter ability testing I noticed that Wild Quiver looks to be doing only about half the damage of an autoshot (possibly a bit less). Historically Wild Quiver has been roughly the same damage as autoshot. Was this changed deliberately or is it a bug?
Yes, Wild Quiver does 50% weapon damage now, but we’ve increased the proc rate substantially to compensate. Also, the next build you get should include a significant number of changes to hunter ability damage, so it’s probably best to wait until then for really detailed investigation of their damage formulae. Super brief and incomplete summary of changes include nearly doubling Wild Quiver’s proc chance; doubling the damage of the level 90 talents; buffing BM’s Mastery considerably; Master Marksman reduced to 3 stacks; doubling the damage of Black Arrow and Serpent Sting for Survival; significantly nerfing Beast Cleave; nearly halving the cost of Explosive Shot; buffing Aimed, Arcane, and Chimera Shot noticeably; nerfing Cobra shot noticeably; nearly doubling the damage of Kill Command; reducing the cost of Arcane Shot; nerfing Focus Fire and Frenzy somewhat… There have been a lot of changes to Hunter damage.

[chaos5061]

Shaman
My question is, how is this talent intended to work? How much is the heal supposed to be? 25% of base maximum (which would be 20% of new maximum)? 25% of new maximum? Are health percentages supposed to remain constant through its effect? Where does this 15% come from?
We weren't able to reproduce the results you mention, but this is the intended functionality of Nature's Guardian: When it is triggered, 25% of your current maximum health is calculated. Your current and maximum health is then increased by this value. When it wears off, it reduces your current and max health by that value. It should never actually kill you, but it can reduce your current health to 1.

Is it intended for Healing Stream and Healing Tide to not benefit from mastery on the first ticks or is it just a technical limitation from totems? If so does this mean that crit does not benefit on first tick either for HTT(Have yet to see it but didn't do extensive testing on it).
Fixed for next build. It also dynamically adjusts with your mastery instead of snapshotting it.

Speaking of ICDs and Enhancement, could you clarify how Windfury is working for MoP?

Historically, Windfury has had a 3 second ICD between procs with a shared lockout between hands. It would also proc from white hits along with Stormstrike and Lava Lash. So my questions are this:

1) Is the 3 second ICD still the plan for MoP. I just did some initial testing against a training dummy, and that still seems to be the case.
2) Is the ICD still supposed to be shared between both hands for MoP?
3) Is this ICD a fixed 3 second ICD for MoP, or is it effected by Haste at all?
4) Is Windfury supposed to proc from Stormstrike and Lava Lash? From my testing, I didn't see a single proc when just isolating Stormstrike and Lava Lash attacks. On Live, I'm seeing both yellow attacks proc Windfury. I'm assuming this is just a bug, but I want to confirm if this is by design for MoP
Windfury should be mostly the same as on live. 1) Yes. 2) Yes. 3) Fixed. 4) White attacks and Wind Lash only. Other than adding Wind Lash to being able to proc it, it doesn’t look like it’s changed in quite a while; are you sure that yellow attacks trigger it on live? (Easy way to test just yellow attacks: Turn 90degrees away from a target dummy. White attacks won’t hit, but yellow attacks can, at exactly 90degrees).

- Do you meet #1?
- If yes, then any further value in this category is 0.
- If no, then get more stuff that increases your #1 value (primarily Stamina).
It’s not that simple though. Meeting #1 is somewhat binary, like you describe, somewhat not. If you beat an encounter without dying, obviously you had enough effective health. But more effective health would still be useful; it’s definitely not without value. Healers can use slower, more efficient heals on you if you have more of a health cushion. You can tank more mobs at a time. You also may have gotten lucky with avoidance, and never took a special attack and an undodged auto attack at the same time, or perhaps never got 5 undodged hits in a row. Every pull is different. There are definitely diminishing returns on the value of more effective health, but it doesn’t instantly diminish to 0 at some magical ‘enough’ point.

Warlock
I was looking at the warlock changes in the upcoming beta build and noticed a few things. Why are you nerfing affliction so much? I agree it needed a nerf, but so much that it will go below the other 2 specs by a large amount?

Not to mention destroying a glyph and adding a new ability that kills clipping. People will just ignore the glyph and Pandemic and just refresh dots right after they fall off to do max dps. Clipping with or without the glyph is useless now, but with the glyph it's like nerfing yourself. Drain Soul is barley better than MG under 20% today, now with it getting a HUGE nerf it will be completely useless as an execute.
We encourage you to try out the changes and see what has changed rather than relying on information that has been datamined. To help further explain, we’ll briefly summarize what has changed with Affliction damage.

We noticed (thanks to the community interaction in this thread) that the Everlasting Affliction glyph was providing a huge DPS increase, but as we’ve said, we don’t want huge DPS increases to come from glyphs. Instead of simply nerfing the glyph, we baked the benefits that the glyph provided into the entire class via Pandemic, a level 90 passive ability, and changed the glyph to something completely different. We also changed the design of Malefic Grasp to, hopefully, make the ability more reliable and simple; our intention was not to nerf it. It’s important to note that we reduced the base period of Unstable Affliction and Corruption from 3 seconds to 2 seconds, so both Malefic Grasp and Drain Soul should give you the same additional DoT damage now as they did before.

One other clarification about the warlock changes: Drain Soul still deals double damage under 20%. It being missing from the new tooltip is just a tooltip error and has been corrected for the next build.

Now onto what some others have brought up. Does the MG/DS under 20% effect count as the dots themselves ticking? Considering how that would nerf shard regen if not, I personally believe it does. Since I can't test it yet, some clarification would be wonderful.
Yes. In all ways, the additional ticks of the DoTs provided by MG/DS should function as additional ticks of the respective DoTs. For example, the extra Corruption ticks that occur (for 50% damage) from MG are able to proc Nightfall. This means that you’re actually getting *more* Corruption ticks than before, so we reduced the proc chance per tick of Nightfall to compensate; you should get the same number of Nightfall procs per time as before.

The Malefic Grasp mechanic change should not be a nerf at all. However, the 25% nerf to most Affliction-specific abilities should amount to a ~20% (very ballpark number, don’t hold us to that number if you model it as 21.8% or something) nerf. This is indeed a rather extreme amount, because they really were that extremely overpowered. We had been balancing them previously based on not having that glyph (and so when I said that we were seeing Affliction only a little ahead of Destruction, that was based on Affliction not having that glyph).

My personal testing on target dummies and every sim i've seen is now hoping Affliction at the bottom of the warlock heap
Any sources for this so we have something to actually go on? As we said above, Affliction damage was too high. Not every damage adjustment needs to be greeted with sky is falling rhetoric or the discussion quickly loses its benefit.

[chaos5061]

New Level 75 Talent
The perception was that Deadly Brew was essentially a mandatory PvP talent, which runs against our overall goal of creating choices, while at the same time being highly situational in endgame PvE.

When the new build hits the servers, take a look at the new set bonuses on the Mists PvP sets. We've added new bonuses alongside the existing ones in most cases, and for Rogues, that's where Deadly Brew has gone.

Oh okay that makes sense, but that still begs the question why remove that from PvE rogues? That entire tier has literally no options for me. The talent it self is extremely situational, however I can see its uses on boss adds that need to be burned. If you don't want to make mandatory talents why is prep still an option? Any word on how sap, blind, and gouge benefit from this talent?
A couple of points here: First off, regarding the functionality of Prey on the Weak, the primary benefit is going to come on Cheap Shot and Kidney Shot. Blind, Sap, and Gouge are included as a minor ancillary benefit -- there may be situations where you use an Incapacitate to pool energy and prepare a burst, and a bit of increased damage on your opening attack (or a teammate's Chaos Bolt...) would be helpful.

Second, regarding the usefulness of the tier as a whole in PvE, what you really are questioning is its usefulness in raiding. Any of the talents in that row are going to be quite impactful in scenarios, dungeons (and if you scoff at the idea of using any sort of crowd control in dungeons, check out our Challenge Modes), outdoor solo gameplay, etc. So let's be clear about that. But the criticism regarding raiding is a fair one.

The majority of our raid bosses do not involve enemies that can be stunned or incapacitated, and I'm not going to try to argue to the contrary. And ideally, a talent tier like the Rogue level 75 would be universally appealing, and present compelling choices, to all types of players who do all types of content. Here are three possible approaches to solving that problem:

Add a clearly raid-useful talent to the tier in place of Deadly Brew; something that increases your DPS, or gives you more movement or survivability. The problem? Every raiding rogue will take that talent, and ignore the other two.
Redesign the whole tier, moving away from a control theme entirely. The problem here is that we'd essentially be abandoning the design space of ever having talents that improve or rely upon crowd control effects.
Attempt to incorporate more opportunities for crowd-control effects and short-duration effects like Stuns and Incapacitates to shine in our raid encounters. In general, the most interesting raid encounters are the ones that involve movement, control, coordination, and aren't just a matter of making your DPS number as big as possible. We're not there yet, but I think we'd like to be.

Brewfest in Mists of Pandaria
Brewfest will be updated for Mists of Pandaria. This means that you will have approximately 10 days after the release of Mists of Pandaria to reach level 89 in order to queue for the Brewfest dungeon boss. Luckily though, a lot of the content does not have a level requirement so you will still be able to participate in a lot of the fun even if you are not level 89.

Will be Brewfest's part before 25 september be for 85; and then change for 90 levels when 25 september hits? We will not rule out the possibility of this changing, but currently the level requirements will remain the same through the entirety of the event. So you will not be able to access Coren Direbrew until Mists of Pandaria has been released.

[chaos5061]

Question about early NPC Trainer battles
The first Trainer battle on the horde side is against a trainer who has a level 5 team (Dagara the fierce). Meanwhile on the alliance side, the first trainer battle is against a trainer with level 2 pets (Julia).
This was just a bug. The trainer levels will be mirrored on both sides in the next build.

Need More Level 22 Pets
There are a lot of 23 -24 level pets in cataclysm and Pandaria, and plenty of level 21 pets in Sholazar Basin. The only zones that have level 22 pets seem to be Icecrown and Stormpeaks, but there are very few to battle. Adding more pets to those zones, and/or making Mount Hyjal level 22 would help fill the gap.
We are making adjustments to the leveling flow that you should see in the next build. Should alleviate this problem. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

UI Improvements
I just started testing pets, but one thing I noticed is that its pretty frustrating not to be able to select a pet to view their stats from the slot they occupy.
We intend to make the entire battle slot clickable to show the pet details. Should see it in a future build.

PvP Vulnerability
The fact that players are vulnerable to PvP attacks while in a pet battle is intentional. However, a couple features that go along with this are not implemented yet.

First off, the exact pet you were fighting when you were broke out of pet battle will be respawned. Same quality, stats and skin color. Second, you will get a 3s damage shield that absorbs 50% of incoming damage to help negate the fact that you need time to recover after exiting the pet battle interface. Both of these will be in for the next build.

We feel its very important to keep the PvP aspect of the game intact and if you choose to play on a PvP server, you will certainly be fighting for those rare spawns. (This rule effects PVE servers as well but only in contested areas.)

Eternal Striders not in Pet Journal
The Eternal Striders in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms are able to be battled, and they are able to be trapped, but they do not show up in the pet journal at all.
It's a bug and its fixed in the next build. Thanks for the report.

Why restrict Argent Squires?
I like how we can battle with Balloons but not Squires.
Balloons, Kites, Argent Squire/Gruntlings and Guild Pages/Heralds will not be able to pet battle. This may change with time, but this is the current plan.

Lack of Stable Masters in Pandaria
I have been all around looking for a Stable Master who can help my poor babies in Pandaria, Alas there is but one and he is VoEB
Most of these were bugged and have been fixed for the next build.

Questions about Pets I already have.
If I have three of the same pets that I bought or traded for before MoP and they are not WILD Pets, would I be able to learn all three in my pet book, just like if I caught three wild pets of the same kind, or is the 3 pets maximum reserved only only for the wild pets?
Yes, you will be able to have 3 of almost every pet. Certain pets are unique since they are attached to a Wow license, granted from an achievement or earned from TCG codes.

Pet Battle Zone Change
did a find pet battle in ruins of lorderon, fought, found myself in front of Stormwind being killed.
We randomize your fight location to mix it up. It's no different than queuing for a random BG/Dungeon.

Strand Crab Doesn't Count on Achievement
Caught a Strand Crab and it seems to not check off on the Eastern Kingdom Safari achiev. Is there something I did wrong?
Just a bug, thanks for the report. We will get it fixed up.

Triangles in Front of Names
So when I roll over the paw icons in my minimap, and it shows what the animal/pet/whatever is, occasionally there is one that has a triangle/arrow in front of its name pointing either up or down.
That indicates if the pet is above (like up on a hill) or below (in a cave) you.

[chaos5061]

With the launch fast approaching, Blizzard Insider sat down with Lead Encounter Designers Scott Mercer and Ion Hazzikostas to get an inside look at the expansion’s newest raid instance -- Mogu’shan Vaults -- and the ancient secrets and epic encounters that await players inside.

Before we dive into the details, can you give us a quick overview of the lore behind the Mogu’shan Vaults? How does the raid fit into larger story of Mists of Pandaria?
Scott Mercer:
The mogu are an ancient race of evil, ogre-like sorcerers who once dominated Pandaria. At some point in the distant past, all of the warring mogu factions were united by a single tyrannical warlord known as the Thunder King. The Thunder King rose to power the “the mogu way,” namely by eliminating his rivals one by one. According to legend he was able to accomplish this with the help of a mysterious artifact that he found in the depths of a mountain. After his rise to power, he built the Mogu’shan Vaults to contain and protect this secret, and converted the surrounding structure into a sort of shrine dedicated to the mogu empire. The complex houses many of the empire’s lost artifacts and is the resting place of the spirits of old mogu kings.

Ion Hazzikostas:
At the time Mists of Pandaria begins, the Thunder King is long gone and the mogu empire has crumbled into isolated factions. As great and powerful secrets are wont to do, the Vaults have attracted a number of interested parties, including Zandalari trolls who are trying to enter the Vaults to get at the ancient source of mogu power, which is the key to their tribe’s survival. When the players arrive, they join forces with a pandaren Loremaster who knows of a way into the Vaults. The Loremasters are a new faction dedicated to learning and retelling the oral history of Pandaria, so the Vaults are naturally a place of tremendous interest to them.





What’s in store inside the Vaults from the gameplay side?
Scott Mercer:
We’re building an epic new raid that includes 10- and 25-player versions with both normal and Heroic modes, as well as another 25-player version available exclusively via the Raid Finder. The Vaults contain six encounters with a wide variety of mechanics.

What kinds of encounters are planned for the Mogu’shan Vaults?
Ion Hazzikostas:
The players’ characters are the first living beings to set foot inside the Mogu’shan Vaults in a few millennia,and the experience plays out as a classic “tomb raid” adventure, with mystical defenders and guardians emerging to protect the place’s secrets. In fact, the first boss encounter involves a pack of giant quilin -- magical, lion-like stone constructs -- that have stood motionless since the Vaults were sealed but awaken as fierce defenders once the players intrude upon their lair. The four quilin statues have different abilities based on the type of stone from which they were carved, and players will have to experiment to uncover their weaknesses. As players venture deeper into the Vaults, they’ll encounter other protectors, including a celestial dragon and the spirits of the mogu kings from ages past.

Scott Mercer:
It’s important to note, too, that the Thunder King doesn’t make a direct appearance in the Vaults, though his presence is certainly felt. His original source of power lies hidden deep within the Vaults, and the mogu have learned to use that power to create most of the guardians that the players fight in the Vaults. Observant players may even notice a certain “titanic” influence in lair’s defenses.





What details can you share about the final boss encounter?
Ion Hazzikostas:
The core chamber of the Vaults contains an army of terracotta warriors that are built into recesses within the walls. If players look up, they’ll see these statue-filled niches stretching above them into the distance. When the players enter, the statues begin animating and attacking in huge waves, and the fight quickly turns into a free-for-all. There will be certain heavy-hitting statues that require tanking, and many of the other statues have special abilities to keep the non-tanks busy. It’s going to be a crazy fight that requires lots of crowd control.

Scott Mercer:
The encounter as a whole is known as the “Will of the Emperor,” and it represents the Vault’s last line of defense between the players and whatever mysterious power source originally allowed the Thunder King to rise to power. By the time players complete the raid, they should have a clear understanding of how the mogu were able to dominate Pandaria for so long.

What design challenges have you encountered during the development of the raid so far?
Ion Hazzikostas:
In past raids, we’ve worked with a lot of the established races from Warcraft lore. For example, when we sit down to design a troll dungeon, we have a pretty clear idea of what that’s going to look like and what kinds of creatures the players are going to find there -- you know, besides just trolls. Pandaria offered us a blank slate of sorts, as the continent has been alluded to in Warcraft lore, but we’ve never really fleshed out the details until now.

Scott Mercer:
This meant we’ve spent a lot of time and energy on building out what we call the “kit” for each of the expansion’s new races. A kit includes all kinds of things, from the armor and weapons used by the race to the architecture and environmental themes that go with the race. Part of the “kit” includes what kinds of monsters are found together; for example, the mogu are fond of using quilin statues as guardians, so those two monster types are often seen together. Our primary goal was to make sure the mogu felt visually and thematically distinct from the other Warcraft races, while still making sure they fit into the larger world of Azeroth. Establishing the kit for the mogu, and indeed all of Pandaria’s races, has been a fun challenge.

Let’s talk loot! What rewards await players who are strong enough to take on the raid?
Ion Hazzikostas:
The raid rewards players with powerful epic items, depending on the difficulty setting: item level 476 for Raid Finder, 489 for normal mode, and 502 for Heroic. There’s also a new mount that can be obtained by defeating Elegon, a celestial dragon found deep within the Vaults. The mount looks a bit like the Celestial Steed, but in the form of a serpentine dragon.

How does Mogu’shan Vaults fit into the larger raiding plan for Mists of Pandaria?
Scott Mercer:
There will be two outdoor world bosses, along with the Mogu’shan Vaults raid instance, available when Mists of Pandaria first launches. One idea we’re considering is to delay opening Mogu’shan Vaults until a week or so after the expansion’s release, similar to how we’ve always handled the start of the PvP season, just to give players a little time to reach level 90 along with their friends and get acclimated to Pandaria’s new 5-player dungeons, daily quests, and scenarios. In any case, Mogu’shan Vaults is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the raid content we have lined up for Mists.

Ion Hazzikostas:
Mists of Pandaria will also include two other raid zones, which we plan to make available a few weeks after Mogu’shan Vaults: the Heart of the Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring. These two raids feature 10 bosses between the two of them and play out as a two-part story. In the first raid, the Heart of Fear, the players fight the mantid empress who has been possessed by the Sha of Fear. Sha, for those who don’t know, plague Pandaria as physical manifestations of negative emotions, like fear, doubt, and anger, and they tend to have a corrupting influence wherever they take root. When the players defeat the possessed empress, the Sha flees her body and hides elsewhere. In the Terrace of Endless Spring, the next raid instance, the players track down the fleeing Sha and finish it off. Both of these instances are a higher tier than the Mogu’shan Vaults and are designed to be tackled using gear obtained in the Vaults, which is why we plan to make them accessible a few weeks after the Vaults unlock.

Scott Mercer:
Yup, and all of this is just the raid content coming before our first major content update. We’ll be announcing even more raiding details in future when we start discussing patch 5.1.





Thanks for your time. Is there anything else you’d like to share before you go?
Ion Hazzikostas:
I just wanted to say thanks to all of our beta testers. We’re very proud of our dungeon and raid content so far, and we’re looking forward to getting it all out there when Mists of Pandaria launches.

Scott Mercer:
Yeah, we have big plans for Pandaria’s encounters, and it’s great to see it all starting to come together. Keep the feedback coming!

[chaos5061]

Mists of Pandaria Beta Launcher Updated

The launcher received yet another graphical update tonight, making it

the third version so far.

[chaos5061]

We are aware that many of you are concerned about not having enough time to level up and such, which is a concern we fully acknowledge, as we know that many of you would like to enjoy and experience the new areas and content at your own pace, and not feel like you have to rush through things and level up as fast as possible just to have a go at the Brewfest dungeon boss.

Therefore, In order to make sure you guys have some more time to prepare for this year's Brewfest, we have pushed the whole event forward by just over a week, stopping short of overlapping with the Hallow’s End event.

[chaos5061]

Horde Pandaria Introduction Quest Line

The latest beta patch updated the Horde introduction yet again and reopened Jade Forest, now with a new starting quest line for the Horde and Alliance, as well as new and reworked quests throughout the zone. Today we are taking a look at the first few quests in the new Horde Introduction.

[chaos5061]

[chaos5061]

86	All Aboard!		98	Speak to General Nazgrim aboard Hellscream's Fist.
86	Into the Mists		98	Speak to General Nazgrim on Hellscream's Fist.
86	Paint it Red!	Dynamic Rewards	980	Use a Gunship Turret to kill 80 Thunder Hold troops and destroy 9 Thunder Hold cannons.
86	Touching Ground		980	Use a Rappelling Rope to reach the ground.
86	Finish Them!		980	Slay 15 Thunder Hold troops.
86	Fire Is Always the Answer		980	Destroy 10 Stacks of Thunder Hold Munitions.
86	The Final Blow!		980	Slay Captain Doren in Thunder Hold.
86	Face to Face With Consequence		980	Kill 20 Sha Haunts and 7 Sha Harbingers.
86	You're Either With Us Or...		980	Attempt to enlist the help of Mayor Honeydew in Honeydew Village.
86	Higher Ground	Dynamic Rewards	980	Rescue Shademaster Kiryn, Rivett Clutchpop, Shokia, and Sergeant Gorrok from Honeydew Glade.