Mogu'shan Palace and Shado-pan Monastery Preview, Arena Pass, Blue Posts, Comics

[Boubouille]

Mogu'shan Palace and Shado-pan Monastery Video Previews
Two new instances are available on the beta since last night's patch, and we have video previews for you!

Arena Pass - Rated Phase Imminent

Last week the 2012 World of Warcraft Arena Pass kicked off with the Practice Phase, but it is almost time to really get your game on! Only one week remains in the practice phase, so get in now to brush up on your skills before the Ladder Phase launches on May 8.

If you’d like to know more about the phases of the Arena Pass, read about it here.

To learn more about the Arena Pass, visit the Arena Pass information page, or check out the FAQ. GL HF!

Blue Posts

Entering/Testing the new instances
Not being able to zone into the Shado-pan Monastery after you die will be fixed in a newer build. =/

As for Mogu'shan Palace, since the normal entrance is in Vale of Eternal Blossoms (which is closed for beta testing) there's an NPC in Dawnblossom that can port you there or you can use LFG. You also end up in Dawnblossom when you die, and the same NPC can port you back as a ghost. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Mogu'shan Palace Dungeon Flow
Yep, we know we need to improve the dungeon flow after the first dungeon event so it's more obvious that you're not supposed to kill the 8251043 Mogu and there are stairs to take. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Monk (Forums)
Upcoming Mistweaver Changes (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

• We're still planning on adding a Mistweaver "chi dump," hopefully within the next two builds. It will probably cost 3 Chi, and interact with Soothing Mists somehow.
• We're going to be diminishing the interaction between Uplift and Renewing Mists. The gameplay at the high-end becomes nothing but keeping all of your Renewing Mists refreshed on as many targets as possible, in spite of everything else. We found ourselves using Surging Mist just to gain Chi for Uplift, to keep Renewing Mists rolling on a 10-man raid, which was overpowered, but definitely wasn't fun if we missed that refresh. Our current plan is to cause Uplift to only extend the duration of your Renewing Mists by a 6 seconds or so, rather than refreshing it completely.
• We're probably going to be moving Chi Wave out of the Mistweaver spec, and put it as a talent choice with Zen Sphere and Chi Burst, then balance those as interesting choices for all Monks.
• We're going to be adding spirit to expertise conversion to the stance as well.
• We may re-design how the statue works, removing the on-click effect as it steps on Lightwell's toes a bit.

Upcoming Brewmaster Changes (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

• We've been doing a slight rework of some of the Brewmaster's mechanics. In an upcoming build all attacks done to the Brewmaster will be staggered, and we're adding UI to show you the "level" of your stagger (high, medium or low), so that you can know when you should use Purifying Brew. This design will give you the choice of clearing your stagger stack with Purifying Brew, or continue to push damage into your Stagger stack using Blackout Kick.
• We're going to attach the Brewmaster to Parry more. Parry will passively cause a counterattack effect causing damage, and using Blackout Kick will now cause your Stagger % (as in, the amount of damage being staggered) and Parry % to increase.
• We still need to give the Brewmaster better defense against magic. This will either be a passive damage reduction or some rework of an ability.
• We're going to make defensive cooldowns all "Chi-free", including the talents.
• We're going to change Spinning Crane Kick to not cost Chi, but Energy/Mana over time.
• We will do a polish pass on the interrupt (Spear hand strike) and snare (Disable). That said, Disable is a bit superfluous for the Brewmaster because of Dizzying Haze.

Brewmaster Energy Regeneration
In an upcoming build, we're boosting the passive regeneration rate for Brewmasters in the stance. We reduced the energy rate because it was too much for Windwalkers (since they gain 2 Chi from Jab). (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Keg Smash Bug
I noticed that Keg Smash doesn't have a range assigned to it, therefore I pretty much have to be inside the mob for it to be "In range" instead of melee range
This is indeed a bug. The range is not intended to be that short. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Chi Burst
The balance on these spells is not yet complete. We intend for Chi Burst to be worth the cast time for all 3 specs. The spell effects for Chi Burst should also be in the next build. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Paladin (Forums)
Sanctity of Battle "change"
Many of our tooltips have conditional clauses that are apparently difficult to data mine. Thus we see a lot of "changes" reported that aren't changes at all.

In this case, we added a couple of spells to Sanctity of Battle, that then made the tooltip hard to read because it was just a random list of spells. So we made the tooltip conditional for each spec to only list spells and abilities relevant to them. Holy doesn't see Hammer of the Righteous for Sanctity of Battle because they don't have that ability.

I point all this out just to say that you shouldn't jump to conclusions when you read data-mined patch notes. Verify how the mechanic actually works in beta before heading for the forums. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Warlock (Forums)
Affliction UI on Beta
The UI for Affliction has been missing completely in recent beta builds and the UI for Destruction has not been updating correctly. These should both be fixed in a future build. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Comics - Dark Legacy Comics #337
Someone pointed out that we've been slacking on the Dark Legacy Comics updates lately, and he was right!

[moveth]

That place looks great.

Nice to know the warlock UI is just a bug. Was confused.

[Slavemaker]

Outstanding! Looks great.

[Farath]

<3 Dark Legacy.

[Strafer]

lol, we must wait for another build for the UI to get fixed? Why not hotfix it? Lazy ass Blizzard.

[Deleted]

lol, we must wait for another build for the UI to get fixed? Why not hotfix it? Lazy ass Blizzard.

Hotfixes are server-side. UI fixes are client-side.

[drukai]

lol, we must wait for another build for the UI to get fixed? Why not hotfix it? Lazy ass Blizzard.

Because hotfixing takes time and energy, and I remember them saying they are like 3-4 builds ahead of PTR immediately after a build push. Going back and hotfixing would set them back a HUGE amount of time on a PTR, its easier, cheaper, and more efficient for them to just fix it internally and push it out next PTR push.

[Asur]

Looks great! Wish my beta would stop crashing so I could go in there...

[taylor20k]

lol, we must wait for another build for the UI to get fixed? Why not hotfix it? Lazy ass Blizzard.

another idiot talking out his ass that doesn't know the first thing about software engineering but yet apparently he knows more than a multi billion dollar corporation. welcome to the mmo-champion forums.

[evilgnomey]

Xin the weaponmaster is going to grief a lot of LFG groups :P the place feels so massive that you feel like you're in a raid.

[Deleted]

I hate to be the one to say this but don't you think Blizzard is reaaaaally lazy with these instances? They are small with low amount of bosses and quite a lot of the fights are just a plain "arena" (Violet Hold) thing.

They show off with numbers a lot (we will have x 5mans, y bosses, z raids) but the quality kinda isn't what one would expect from an expansion that should be about the same at size as WotLK was (no redoing the old world, all work is aimed at Pandaria).

And yea, beta is beta blah blah but don't tell me they will just completely redo these, add new rooms and bosses.

[grexly75]

Thing being is that you may find most want short instances. I mean look at Halls of Origination first time you went in there it was fun and you wanted to kill the 7 bosses in there but pre 4.3 most parties make for the last boss as soon as they can for the VP's so after Temple Guardian Anhuur you would kill Anraphet in the vault and straight for Rajh.

In the long run you would bypass 4 bosses to get your VP's and get out of there. Same with Grim Batol everyone would bypass Drahga Shadowburner to get to Erudax in the end having more bosses does not always make a good dungeon.

[evilgnomey]

the instances feel big but doesn't take too long to get through which is really nice especially when the content gets cleared over and over again.

[chaud]

I hate to be the one to say this but don't you think Blizzard is reaaaaally lazy with these instances? They are small with low amount of bosses and quite a lot of the fights are just a plain "arena" (Violet Hold) thing.

They show off with numbers a lot (we will have x 5mans, y bosses, z raids) but the quality kinda isn't what one would expect from an expansion that should be about the same at size as WotLK was (no redoing the old world, all work is aimed at Pandaria).

And yea, beta is beta blah blah but don't tell me they will just completely redo these, add new rooms and bosses.

You aren't seeing all the trash and other areas associated with it.

[evilgnomey]

also, why isn't the elevator boss in the mogu'shan palace video? :P

[Deleted]

also, why isn't the elevator boss in the mogu'shan palace video? :P

I have that in a blooper reel if you really wanted to see. Funny thing being my whole group said "Another easy elevator boss" before getting on it only to find at the top there is a gap between the evevator pad and the next walkway for them to all fall through... which they did. Much laughing from me followed.

[greyghost]

And yea, beta is beta blah blah but don't tell me they will just completely redo these, add new rooms and bosses.

There are bosses and they are in rooms. RIFT CLONE.

[Dragonshardz]

I love the theme and the mobs models... looks incredibly refreshing and kinda high def

[Skorpionss]

Very very nice zones damn this expac looks better and better

[Deleted]

no changes to warrior guess 30 sec spell reflect is gonna go live in mop then