Posts with tag 5.4

Every other week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week, the torch is passed to a new mage who fully intends to light as many things on fire with it as possible.

Almost a year ago when the esteemed Christian Belt had to stop writing Arcane Brilliance, first I was sad. Then I said to my husband, "Wow, I don't envy the person that has to fill THOSE shoes." The irony of writing that here is not lost on me! But it would be wrong not to acknowledge that my predecessor, Archmage Pants, was a great mage and I used to look forward to reading what he had to say.

I've been in the business of using magic to rearrange enemy faces since 2008. I started playing WoW by rolling a priest, and somewhere around level 30 our small leveling group realized that two holy priests, two protection warriors and a protection paladin wasn't really a good composition. I rerolled as a mage and never looked back. It was love at first fireball.

We're Going To Need A Bigger Bag. Yes, Blizzard, we do need a bigger bag. Thank you for pointing out the startlingly obvious. Instead of giving us bigger bags, you decided to compound the problem by giving us new and awesome toys. What am I supposed to delete to make room for my Falling Flame? It certainly won't be my Golden Banana or Rainbow Generator. I guess I'll just make do with only having 3 free bag slots.

Before this turns into a rant on bag space, let me get right down to it: Falling Flame is just awesome. It's one of the many new vanity items available on the Timeless Isle.

Patch day is finally upon us! Soon enough, patch 5.4 will be here to bring a world of exciting new content on our virtual doorsteps. So the question of the day, as we wait out the downtime, is just what are you looking forward to in this patch? There's plenty to chose from, with the Siege of Orgrimmar (and potentially a new leader of the horde), the new flex raiding system, connected realms, and the mysterious Timeless Isle.

So tell us, readers -- what are you most looking forward to? What are you going to jump into as soon as the servers come back online?

Tomorrow -- that's Tuesday, September 10th -- U.S. realms will be going offline for maintenance at midnight, Pacific time and are scheduled to come back up by 10 in the morning. This downtime is, of course, for the launch of patch 5.4: so by tomorrow afternoon the Siege of Orgrimmar should be upon us. We think the schedule is on the optimistic side for a patch roll-out, but here at WoW Insider, we'll keep our fingers crossed for servers popping back online quickly so we can all get back to gaming.

Not sure what all the fuss is about? Blizzard posted a roundup of patch 5.4 info to catch you up on all the news, but if you need to go more basic than that you can also check our rookie writeup on what WoW patches are.

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There's more raid testing on the PTR for the Siege of Orgrimmar as the release date for patch 5.4 creeps steadily closer. Coming up this week is Heroic, 25-man testing for Galakras, Malkorok, Paragons of the Klaxxi, Sha of Pride, Spoils of Pandaria, and Thok the Bloodthirsty. So if checking out new raid encounters is your idea of good fun, there's plenty coming up in the next couple of days. Here's the current schedule:

Tuesday

• Galakras: 10:30 PDT (13:30 EDT, 19:30 CEST)
• Malkorok: 13:30 PDT (16:30 EDT, 22:30 CEST)
• Paragons of the Klaxxi: 16:00 PDT (19:00 EDT, 01:00 CEST)

Wednesday

• Sha of Pride: 10:30 PDT (13:30 EDT, 19:30 CEST)
• Spoils of Pandaria: 13:30 PDT (16:30 EDT, 22:30 CEST)
• Thok the Bloodthirsty: 16:00 PDT (19:00 EDT, 01:00 CEST)

But the schedule is subject to change. According to Watcher:

Watcher

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, change the boss being tested, or cancel a test entirely, due to bugs, server hardware issues, etc.

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For more details, head to the PTR forums. Happy testing!

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You've heard about Shaohao, the last Emperor of Pandaria, and patch 5.4 brings us an Emperor Shaohao faction on the Timeless Isle. No, this isn't another painful series of daily quests you'll have to grind through: instead Emperor Shaohao faction will be gained by killing things on the Timeless Isle and offers vanity loot in exchange for Timeless Coins, which you also collect by killing things on the Timeless Isle.

For those hungry for more info, Wowhead has posted a guide to Emperor Shaohao reputation as it exists on the PTR. So check it out and be ready to dive into Timeless Isle grinding when patch 5.4 hits the live realms on September 10th.

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Looking to finally be finished with Wrathion's lengthy quest chain and walk away with your legendary reward? When patch 5.4 hits the live realms, you'll have your chance with Judgment of the Black Prince. If you've kept up with the questline, CM Lore has already told us that anyone who's caught up with the quest should be able to grab a legendary of their own fairly quickly, but if you aren't caught up now's a good time to get working on it. Wowhead's quest walkthrough will guide you through the quest chain from start to finish, including the latest patch 5.4 steps as they currently exist on the PTR.

So what do you have to look forward to? Hitting up the Timeless Isle to collect 5000 Timeless Coins and then defeating 4 world bosses. While we wait for patch 5.4 to arrive, why not get ready to pick up your legendary by catching up on the legendary questline? Your own legendary cloak will be a big help through the Siege of Orgrimmar.

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We've been talking about patch 5.4 for a good while now, but with frequent changes still happening on the PTR it doesn't seem likely to be heading our way just yet -- especially with Ghostcrawler commenting that the "tuning phase" on the PTR is yet to begin. However, Blizzard does love to surprise us, so it's hard to say with any certainty when patch 5.4 will appear on the live realms... well, at least any certainty beyond Blizzard's trademark promise of soon.

But when do you, dear readers, expect patch 5.4 to grace the live servers? This week? Next? Even later? Let us know what you think in our poll and explain why in the comments!

Wowhead's brought us more details on the Celestial Tournament and legendary questline. The tournament, live on the patch 5.4 PTR now, has some added details: the stands are full of spectators and decorated with banners, vendors sell booze and noodle bowls, and brightly-colored Sky Lanterns are available for purchase for the steep cost of 7500 Timeless Coins.

In legendary questline news, Wowhead has compiled some useful updates from Lore that clarify questline questions. The most interesting, we think, is that players who have been keeping up with legendary questline from patch to patch should be able to quickly complete it to get their legendary cloak once 5.4 has been released. This will let players use the cloaks to progress through the Siege of Orgrimmar raid. Handy!

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If you're one of the many players who don't like to spend real cash on virtual items (like Blizzard's recently added cosmetic helms), you'll be glad to know that patch 5.4's Timeless Isle is packed with cool cosmetic items that won't cost you anything but time. And by time, we mean grinding -- though with the array of interesting events and rare spawns to be found on the Timeless Isle, it could be more entertaining than your average grinding experience. So what's on offer? Mounts, pets, vanity gear, disguises, and odd gizmos of all sorts. There's so many, in fact, that it's hard to narrow the list down to our favorites, but these are some of the most interesting:

• Weather stones -- which come in sunset, rain, blizzard, and ashen varieties -- can be used to change the weather in the area.
• Cauterizing Core, an item with 20 charges which allows you to resurrect on death with 20% health and mana.
• Pi'jiu Brews, which summon a spectral monk -- mistweaver, windwalker, or brewmaster -- to fight for you for 10 minutes.
• Faintly-Glowing Herb, which restores 50,000 health per second for 10 seconds. If that sounds overpowered, it's probably because it's a BoA and has a duration of only a day -- so if you want them, you'll have to farm them yourself.

As to how to get this gear, a lot of it comes from rare drops, rare spawns, or events, but some is bought with Bloody Coins or Shaohao reputation. And this list is only scratching the surface -- check out Wowhead for the full list of vanity items you're likely to find on the Timeless Isle as well as how to get them for yourself come patch day.

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Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Protection specialist Matt Walsh spends most of his time receiving concussions for the benefit of 9 other people, obsessing over his hair, and maintaining the tankadin-focused blog Righteous Defense.

One of the most monumental changes that protection paladins will be facing in the upcoming patch will be a simple nerf to one of our favorite glyphs. Since just about the beginning of Mists, protection paladins have uniformly equipped the Glyph of the Battle Healer to great effect and, alas, the devs have finally decided to step in and put a stop to our shenanigans.

You can't really blame them, Battle Healer was brokenly good -- free heals that were augmented by Vengeance, and while they weren't a gamechanger by any means (thanks to overheals), it was still an advantage that paladins had over any other tanking class. It was a needed change.

Regardless, the change to Battle Healer has a ripple effect for protection paladins as it makes Battle Healer a purely situational glyph for fights where the raid needs your Seal of Insight procs more than you need them for yourself. Which means, for probably the first time in many, many months, we will have an open glyph slot. Let's take a look at what could possibly fill that empty space, both in our hearts and our glyphs tab.

PTR files are the gift that keeps on giving: today AdriaCraft posted videos of two mounts from the patch files, which we expect will be drops in the Siege of Ogrimmar raid. On show are the Kor'kron Proto-Drake and the Iron Juggernaut. The Juggernaut may actually be the Kor'kron Juggernaut Wowhead lists as dropping from Garrosh, but we can't yet say with certainty where either of these drop, so if you're desperate to nab one, stay tuned for more info.

If you're in this post for the eye candy, check the videos embedded after the break for a close look at what could be your next mount!

Blizzard Lead Encounter Designer Ion Hazzikostas has already told us that the Timeless Isle, coming in patch 5.4, is meant to be a different sort of experience for gamers:

Watcher

Note that the Timeless Isle is largely a self-directed experience, which diverges somewhat from our recent practice. You aren't going to find a hub of daily questgivers or NPCs who will assign you specific tasks to complete. There is a ton to do on the Timeless Isle, and countless secrets to discover, so go explore!

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But that begs the question of what exactly we should expect on the Timeless Isle -- and, fortunately, Wowhead has come to assuage our curiosity with a look at the rare spawns and events to be found in this strange new place. So far they've found more than 20 rares as well as a number of events. The island has a heavy pirate focus, with plenty of spectral sailors as well as the ability to summon the Dread Ship Vazuvius and help the ghostly Tomb "Tom" Bone Apart find his body. But pirates aren't all there is on the Timeless Isle and, if we trust Hazzikostas about there being tons to do, we may find even more before 5.4 launches.

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I have to admit, even as a gamer who doesn't typically tend towards PvP combat, the recent news that Blizzard was removing the arena team requirement from participation has piqued my interest. I've played a bit of arena before, with a small team of friends, but we were never serious about it -- or particularly good at it -- and our mutually busy schedules didn't give us much time to play together. But now, participating in an arena battle looks like it will be as simple as queuing up for a battleground or dungeon run.

On the plus side, that makes it easier for newbies (like me) to give the system a try. And, who knows? Perhaps arenas will become my new favorite thing. And on the down side, it might mean arenas will be flooded with newbies like me, who will be a nuisance to everyone (possibly including ourselves). But dangerous flood of newbies are not, will the patch 5.4 changes be drawing you into the arenas?

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Looking forward to patch 5.4? You're definitely not alone, with this patch shaping up to be an interesting one for PvE and PvP. Coming on the heels of the team-free, cross-realm arena announcement, we have updated 5.4 patch notes for all to enjoy. These changes should be live on the PTR now, so get testing! (If you don't know where to start, Blizzard has instructions on how to copy your character and download the PTR client.) In addition to the big changes for arena players, there are a smattering of class tweaks and adjustments to Mists quartermasters. A complete list of patch note changes is after the break and you can find the full patch notes on Battle.net.