Mists of Pandaria Launch Date

 Mists of Pandaria  Comments Off
Jul 252012
 

As you likely know, the official launch date is 9/25/2012.

Get ready!

40 bux and comes with level 90 cap, Pandarans, new Monk class (roles of Tank, DPS, and Healer,) pet battles, new PvP, new dungeons/raids, new lands, squash 85s like bugs, and much more.

An Enhanced Version is available for $60, but doesn’t offer much (in my view.) ibtimes says there’s an $80 version as well, with DVD, sound track, art, and more stuff. Sounds a little more interesting to me.

You should be able to buy it all over the place, including the Bliz store and Amazon. Some sellers might have incentives.

Official Bliz splash page

Mists of Pandaria on Amazon
Mists of Pandaria Collector’s Edition ($80)

 

 

 

 Posted by at 12:07 pm

The Combat Rogue in Mists of Pandaria

 Mists of Pandaria, Rogues  Comments Off
Jul 182012
 

Worgen Rogue in Tier 13 with Legendary DaggersYou’re the swashbuckling master of the flashing blades and are at or near the tops of the DPS charts. Maybe not so hot as an Arena machine, that’s Subtlety’s forte, but you can do just fine in the Battlegrounds. Leveling, of course, is quick, easy, and painless for you.

Due to the complete revamping of the talent system in Mists of Pandaria the Combat Rogue just might be interesting in PvP, as well as a DPS machine.

Rogues, all Rogues, have a pretty high skill cap. This means that it will take some work to get to the top, but you’ll rule when you do.

Contents

stats weapons poisons gems enchants
race professions raid build & glyphs

 

Stats

  • Primary: Agility, and then more Agility.
  • Secondary: 7.5% Hit > 7.5% Expertise > Haste
  • Weaker Stats: Hit over 7.5% > Mastery > Crit > Hit over 17%
  • Useless: Hit over 27%, Expertise over 7.5%, Int, Str, Spirit
Hit and Expertise now use the same progression:
  • 3% for same level enemies
  • 4.5% for +1
  • 6% for +2
  • 7.5 for +3, eg: raid bosses.
Reforge weaker stats to stronger stats.
Get that Hit and Expertise, then all else goes into Haste.

 

Weapons

Once upon a time Combat Rogues had talents giving them extra stats with particular weapon types. That is no longer the case. Use the best one-hand weapons you can find, if you have a choice between available weapons then pick the one that matches your racial (eg: Human expertise with Axe and Mace.)

  • Weapon speed is no longer a factor in Mists of Pandaria. Any one hand weapon should be fine in either hand, though you could put a dagger in the off hand if you want to experiment.

 

Poisons

Poisons are abilities and buffs, you no longer have to stock them in your bags or buy them from a vendor. You can use one lethal (eg; deadly) and one non-lethal (eg: Crippling) at a time. Each “dose” lasts for one hour and is weapon independent. You can switch weapons (and poisons) at any time and you’ll still have your poisons working, without having to re-apply them.

Lethal

  • Deadly (lev. 10, ability) does damage over time. You will use this one in all PvE content (ie: dungeons and raids.) In PvP you should only use it when the opposition is not being healed.
  • Wounding (lev 30, ability) does instant damage and suppresses enemy healing, which makes it more valuable for PvP.
  • Instant poison is dead and gone.
Non-lethal
  • Non-lethal: Crippling (lev 20, ability) slows your opponent’s movement. Nice for mobs (or players) that run away.
  • Mind Numbing (lev 28, ability) slows opponent spellcasting.
  • Leeching Poison (lev 45, talent) heals you for a percentage of the damage done. Harder hits from you = better healing.
  • Paralytic Poison (lev 75, talent) stacks up and on a 5th stack stuns your opponent for a few seconds.

 

Gems

Once you get into item level 417+ gear get into the M of P gems, even if they’re grimly expensive. They’re far superior to the Cataclysm gems.

In M of P the gems for secondary stats will have higher values than those with primary stats. For example, this quick gem vs the comparable delicate gem. In Cataclysm Rogues could stick with all Agility gems and be just fine, in M of P the gemming will be more interesting. You will probably want to match socket bonuses.

 

Enchants

As with gems, the Mists of Pandaria enchants are much better than the earlier enchants. Head enchants are gone, shoulder enchants come from the Inscription profession. Go for Agility first, then Haste, then whatever looks best according to the stats above.

MoP enchants require item level 372 or better and you’ll notice that they are somewhat better than their Cataclysm counterparts. New enchants (and gems) are always very expensive when the appear, and sometimes afterwards. If you need more cash to be able to buy these things then check our Tycoon review.

 

Race Choice for Combat Rogues

Pandarens can become Rogues, Draenei and Tauren still can’t.

Blood Elf

  • Arcane torrent restores some Energy and silences opponents. Skilled with Enchanting.
Dwarf
  • Can wash away bleeds and reduce damage. Ranged expertise is mostly useless.
Gnome
  • Expertise with (small) swords is nice and their escape ability has occasional use, especially in PvP.

Goblin

  • Rocket jump is a nice leap into or out of combat (it also breaks stealth.) Vendor discounts make compulsive buying less painful. A bit of added Haste is nice.
Human
  • Diplomacy makes for easier rep grinding, Mace/Sword expertise is nice, as is their escape ability (especially in PvP.)
Night Elf
  • Shadowmeld can save your butt if things go bad, since it drops aggro and is usable in combat. S’meld to stealth to escape. Quickness makes you a bit harder to hit and you also get slightly faster movement while stealthed.

Orcs

  • Blood Fury is a great burst racial, and expertise with Axes and Fist weapons is pretty cool.

Pandaren

  • Bouncy for less falling damage, faster leveling through longer lasting Rest XP, better buffs from food, skilled with Cooking, can choose to be either Horde or Alliance.
Troll
  • Berserking is a nice racial for bursts, ranged expertise is pretty useless.
 Undead
  • Can wash away fear and such, drain life and be healed, eati dead bodies frees up a bag slot since you won’t have to carry basic food.
Worgen
  • An extra Sprint is sweet, added Crit is nice, but it’s not your best stat. Skilled with Skinning (which adds some Crit.)

 

Professions

Profession bonuses are much higher in Mists of Pandaria than previously and many crafts will requires Bind on Pickup items to create (requiring Spirit of Harmony, for example, though the finished item might well be Bind on Equip. Pretty much like the old Chaos Orbs from Cataclysm, but a lot more recipes will requires the Spirits. Maybe they’ll become BoE, like the orbs did, but they aren’t there now.

The Haste buff from Herbalism makes it worth considering.

  • Alchemy – You get better and longer effects from your own potions. For example, and extra 320 Agility and an extra hour for the best elixir.
  • Blacksmithing – Equip two more of the gems you can find.
  • Enchanting – Enchant your own rings for added agility. +40 to each ring in Cata, 160 in M of P.
  • Engineering – create useful items and equip Synapse Springs, for a big agility burst for 10 seconds. 480 in Cata and 2,940 in M of P. Beware of side-effects in PvE settings. Lots of generally useful gadgets and backfire don’t matter so much in PvP.
  • Inscription – Nice shoulder enchant. +130 Ag in Cata, 520 in M of P. In addition to making glyphs you (or some other scribe) will be making everyone’s shoulder enchants.
  • Leatherworking – The bonus is a pretty nice bracer enchant for added Agility. +130 Ag in Cata, 520 in M of P.
  • Jewelcrafting – create (and equip) better gems than otherwise available. +67 Ag in Cata, +320 in M of P.
  • Tailoring – Make your own flying carpet. Oh, you want damage. Well, you can add a nice cloak enchants that sometimes adds a nice chunk of attack power. +1000 AP in Cata, +8,000 Sp in M of P.
  • Herbalism – A small heal over time with a very nice Haste effect (+2880 Haste rating for 20 seconds at skill level 600.)
  • Mining – More stamina, 480 at max level.
  • Skinning – More crit rating, also 480 at max level.

 

Combat Rogue Raid Build

These are the abilities that you pick up from choosing Combat as your specialization (spec.)

Talents are completely revised. Take all your Cata build and throw them away. You now have six tiers of talents, gained (one tier each) at levels 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, and 90. Any spec can pick any one talent from each row. Any level 60 Rogue can now take Shadowstep, for example.

Talents and glyphs are swapped in the same way. Tome of the Clear Mind is what you use to swap glyphs at 86+.

Combat Rogue Talents

Combat Rogue DPS build for Mist of Pandaria

Talent Descriptions:

  1. Shadow Focus – Abilities no longer cost Energy while you are stealthed. Sap to Ambush (or any opener) at zero energy cost. Nightstalker might be better for leveling, with it’s speed and opening damage.
  2. Combat Readiness – Take less damage as fight gets longer. Not really a great tier for PvE and CR’s probably the best of the lot.
  3. Leeching Poison – your strikes heal you. Toss up between this and Elusiveness. Leeching might provide more general utility and take a bit of pressure off your healers.
  4. Preparation – Finished cooldowns. More vanishes to energy free Ambushes. Also resets defensive cooldowns for added survival.
  5. Prey on the Weak – When you disable an enemy with your stuns they suffer increased damage from all sources for the duration of the effect. If your opponent can be affected by Cheap Shot or Kidney Shot and and is being attacked by several people then it can take quite a bit more damage. Paralytic Poison might have value against trash that survives long enough. Dirty Tricks is more for PvP.
  6. Anticipation – Stores excess CPs on target and applies them after a finishing strike.No more wasted Combo Points. If you do a lot of target switching then Versatility might be a good choice.

Glyphs are a bit different from before. Primes are gone, Majors modify damage and effects, Minors make small changes to some effects, such as increrased range.  You can have three each, six total, at level 90. Tome of the Clear Mind is what you use to swap glyphs at 86+. Get supplies to changes talents and glyphs from your Inscription supplies vendor or off the Auction House.

Major Glyphs: 

  1. Deadly Momentum - Kills refresh Slice and Dice and Recuperate. Great for leveling and fighting trash. Leaves more Combo Points to spend on damage.
  2. Adrenaline Rush - Reduces important cooldowns by a small amount.
  3. Sprint - Faster sprinting, for the Usain Bolt Rogue, when you just have to be there right now.
Minor Glyphs
  1. Distract -  Increased range for this ability.
  2. Blurred Speed - Run on water while Sprint is active.
  3. Killing Spree - Returns you to the same spot which you started, for a bit more positioning predictability.

Blast through Mists of Pandaria to the level cap!

 Blast through Mists of Pandaria to the level cap, Click Here to Start!

 

 Posted by at 1:32 pm  Tagged with:

Touch of the Grave for Undead

 Mists of Pandaria  Comments Off
Jul 132012
 

Touch of the GraveI was browsing the character creation in the Mists of Pandaria beta and found this interesting item: Touch of the Grave. It gives Undead characters a chance to drain life on any attack and heal themselves for that amount.

I can’t say if this will survive the beta, but given the health pools for Mists (I’ve seen level 90s with over 400k HP) this won’t be a big ability. It also adds some Undead color, so I think the odds are good that it will survive.

As I write this the ability isn’t listed on WoWhead, so I might have beat their data miners. I expect that will last about another 6 seconds. :)

Comments?

 

Mists of Pandaria Expansion

 Mists of Pandaria  Comments Off
Oct 262011
 

PandarianAs everyone knows by now, the new World of Warcraft expansion has been announced: Mists of Pandaria. It brings a new race, the Pandarians, playable by both Horde and Alliance. My guess is that the Pandarians will have, at least, two internal factions that aren’t exactly compatible, hence their respective affinities for Horde or Alliance. Who knows, that could just be my delusion.

Here’s some collected info on Mists.

Among other things…

  • New talents and skills and another complete revision of the talent and ability systems
  • New class: Monk – this class looks like it will be able to heal, dps, and tank. (Drunken Kung-fu as a tanking system?)
  • Three new raids
  • Nine new dungeons
  • Some tweaks to make things easier for Pick Up Groups (PUGs)
  • New battlegrounds and a new arena
  • And so on.

Blizzard’s Official Pandaria page:

Shrouded in fog since the world was sundered more than ten thousand years ago, the ancient realm of Pandaria has remained unspoiled by war. Its lush forests and cloud-ringed mountains are home to a complex ecosystem of indigenous races and exotic creatures. It is the homeland of the enigmatic Pandaren, a race that celebrates life to the fullest even while under siege by an ancient menace.

The new continent reveals itself to a broken world just as the Alliance and Horde are spiraling ever closer to a war that will consume all of Azeroth. Will the mists of Pandaria part to reveal the world’s salvation? Or will the battle to control this rich and breathtaking new land push the two mighty factions over the brink of war and into total annihilation? The answers await within Pandaria’s mysterious shores!

Go here to check it out: Unleash the Secrets of a Lost Continent

 

Myth-Games has this to say:

The zone will start off in a similar manner to the Deathknight zone, players who create Monks willget to work through quests learning about the four elementals, the Monk philosophy, and the need to save the four fading elemental spirits: Huo, the fire spirit; She, the water spirit; Wuguo, the earth spirit and Dafeng, the spirit of air.

The Pandaria zone is gorgeous, and the Monks look like a lot of fun to play. They remind me, at first glance, of Teras Kasi in Star Wars Galaxies:

The lore for Pandaria looks pretty interesting, and I’m looking forward to learning more about the zone and the Padarens over the next few months.

Here’s the rest, including the trailer: http://www.myth-games.com/news5073.htm

Joystiq.com covers some of the background and where Bliz is going with this:

Blizzard has made the next expansion in the World of Warcraft official as Mists of Pandaria, and after conquering other planets, the Lich King, and a big bad dragon, the Horde and Alliance are headed to … China. Well, not China per se, but Pandaria, a long-rumored, Eastern mysticism-influenced realm, where panda-based humanoids roam, brew and drink beer, and offer players the next five levels in their continuing progression.

As is often the case with this game, many players have revolted. The Pandaren have long been used as a joke in the world of Warcraft, either referred to on April Fool’s Day, or showing up in the company’s parodic Christmas cards. But lead quest designer Dave Kosak says players who scoff at Pandaria should think twice. “Maybe people, because they’ve only been portrayed as cameos or only April Fool’s jokes, people think that there’s nothing to this race, and that’s not it at all,” Kozak says to us during BlizzCon last week. “I think the Pandaren are kind of fascinating — they work hard, they play hard, they eat hard, they drink hard, and they don’t do anything half way.”

Here’s the entire article: … a new direction for Blizzard’s first MMO

In a separate article, Joystiq discusses the Monk class, specifically the DPS aspect. It covers weapons, the lack of auto-attacks, and a few other items. Mostly speculation as we all know how thing might change between now and release. Also in the article is a short video with some of the Panda Monk moves. Hmmm… maybe I’ll do a Gnome or Goblin Monk…

We know the resource system has two parts: first, you have chi. Like rogue’s energy, chi starts at 100 and is consumed by using abilities. From Joe Perez’s first impressions, it looks like chi replenishes over time, and it also replenishes more quickly by completing combos. The other resource is orbs called light and dark force. These fill up by using abilities that cost chi and are then consumed to use other abilities. The light and dark force abilities don’t seem to cost chi.

The last thing we know for sure is that in current plans, monks do not have an auto-attack. Explained in the game as “needing to focus their energy between strikes,” this is the main thing that separates monks from all other melee classes. As a result, the ramifications of what this means is what I’m going to focus on first.

Read the whole thing here: Insights and observations on early Monk DPS mechanics

 

The Official Trailer:

 

Yet more links to Mists info:

 Posted by at 1:44 pm