Posts with tag challenge-mode

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.

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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!

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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.

When we saw that Blizzard had registered the Mists of Pandaria trademark back in August, no one was sure what to think. Was it a sign of the next expansion, a WoW Trading Card Game pack, or simply Chris Metzen playing an elaborate prank on us all? It turns out that the first option was the correct one, but big fat pandas are not the only things we have to look forward to next year. Huge talent changes, the WoW version of Pokemon, scenarios and challenge modes, a new class (the monk), and even a free copy of Diablo 3 (with the new WoW annual pass) are all bundled into the next expansion. Which one of these interests you the most?

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The news is out -- we'll be playing Mists of Pandaria! Find out what's in store with an all-new talent system, peek over our shoulder at our Pandaren hands-on, and get ready to battle your companion pets against others. It's all here right at WoW Insider!

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