Scenario Preview Now Live!

You can now read more about the Mists of Pandaria Scenarios feature in our updated expansion preview website! Check out our sneak peek at two of the scenarios you and your friends will be able to play in Mists of Pandaria: A Brewing Storm and Greenstone Village.

What’s a “Scenario”?
Scenarios are short, instanced adventures for three players that directly follow the stories and events in the open world. In a scenario you’ll be presented with a number of goals you need to achieve in order to progress. So instead of “clear trash, kill boss, rinse, repeat”, you will be given objectives you have to complete to move the scenario’s story forward. Yes, that’s right – scenarios are heavily story-driven, much more so than dungeons.

A Brewing Storm

Greenstone Village

You’ll be able to queue for scenarios, dungeons, raids, and battlegrounds all at the same time in Mists of Pandaria. Scenarios share a common UI with dungeons and raids as part of the Dungeon Finder, and you can check your queue statuses by clicking on the LFD icon next to your minimap.

Check out the previews now for more info and screenshots, and make sure to check back often as we’ll be adding info for more scenarios soon. Stay tuned!

Patch 5.3 Scenario Preview

Patch 5.3 introduces four new Scenarios and Heroic modes for six Scenarios including two previously released encounters. Whether you’re Horde or Alliance, you’ll be able to get in on the action with the use of the Dungeon Finder or by queuing (in the case of Heroics) with two of your friends.

New Scenarios

Blood in the Snow

There is a clear and present danger to the dwarven capital that Varian Wrynn isn’t going to let slide due to dwarven infighting. It’s ultimately Moira and the Dark Irons—along with the aid of some Alliance heroes—who step up to the plate to defend their new home, teaching the Wildhammer and Bronzebeard clans a lesson in loyalty and the value of fighting together for a common cause. You’ll be asked to step forth to aid Moira in this story-driven Scenario.

 

This Scenario is a part of the Battlefield Barrens storyline.

Dark Heart of Pandaria

Something’s afoot in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Garrosh has sent Goblin engineers to excavate a mysterious artifact. However, their efforts seem to have stirred up more than the crew can handle on their own. Your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to go into the Vale and do a little much needed clean-up. Things aren’t quite right in the Vale and it seems Garrosh is looking for more leverage in the battle with the Alliance.

 

This Scenario is a part of the Battlefield Barrens storyline.

Secrets of Ragefire

Concerned with the recent disappearance of his scouts, Vol’jin has recruited the Bilgewater Cartel’s elite Gob Squad unit to investigate. Having tracked the culprit to an abandoned section of Ragefire, you’ll assist the Gob Squad in their search and help put a stop to whoever is behind these abductions. Doing what Goblins do best, you can bet there will be plenty of explosive action. You know it’s serious business when they even call a pool pony into play!

 

Battle on the High Seas

The war between the Horde and Alliance isn’t confined to land. You’ll need to take to the High Seas in this Scenario and fend off enemy forces to prove your faction’s naval might isn’t to be trifled with. Once you’ve made sure the ship is safe, you’ll need to swing into action (watch out for rope burns) and make sure the enemy doesn’t have a chance to send another boarding party or take another shot. There’s more at stake than pride.

 

New Heroic Mode

A Heroic difficulty option has been added for Scenarios, allowing those who have the right stuff to ramp up the challenge. This mode is available for the four new Scenarios—Blood in the Snow, Dark Heart of Pandaria, Secrets of Ragefire, and Battle on the High Seas—and two previously released Scenarios—Crypt of Forgotten Kings and A Brewing Storm. To queue for this new mode, you’ll need an item level of 480 (ilvl 480) and some well-seasoned (but not too salty) friends to join you.

Taking on Heroic Scenarios will award Valor Points and a chance to obtain Raid Finder-quality items. You’ll also be able to complete a bonus objective for additional Valor. It’s important to note that you’ll only be able to earn bonus Valor within Normal or Heroic, but not within both on the same day. Random Heroic Scenarios will reward a Heroic Cache of Treasure and 120 Valor Points for successful completion of the instance.

Item Upgrades in 5.3

As you’re probably aware we introduced a new system in 5.1 which allowed you to upgrade some gear a few items levels at a time by paying with the PvE (Valor/Justice) and PvP (Conquest/Honor) currencies. In 5.2 the Voidbinders (NPCs who perform item upgrades) took a break to let people focus on just acquiring new items with their points. It also gave us time to evaluate the system, and decide how we want to continue supporting it.

 PvE Item Upgrades in 5.3:

• Voidbinders will return to their places in capital cities and shrines.
• Items upgradable by Valor now require 250 Valor to upgrade per 4 item levels, for a total of 500 Valor for 8 item levels per item.
  • This is retroactive to all items that use Valor.
• 5.2 Justice items now require 750 Justice to upgrade per 8 item levels, for a total of 750 Justice for 8 item levels per item.
  • This is retroactive to all items that use Justice.
  • This is higher than Valor to account for the increased acquisition rate of Justice since patch 5.2.

We still like the upgrade system for PvE as a way to make steady progression against bosses you can’t quite kill yet. You very predictably earn Valor every day, and use that Valor toward increasing your character’s power and overcoming an obstacle. It’s also good that Valor always has a use; it’s a currency we always want to be valuable regardless of where you are in progression.
 

"...go ahead and fully upgrade that new belt for only 500 Valor..."

The thing we didn’t like about item upgrades previously was that it created these rather brutal decisions where you were essentially betting against yourself, or having to offload large sums of Valor to keep from capping. If you just got a belt, but next week you’re going up against a Heroic boss that drops a best-in-slot belt for you, you might bet that you’ll get that belt and so you’d wait to upgrade it. But that’s complicated by the issue of being Valor capped and needing to spend some. So you dump Valor on upgrading a different slot and just hope you don’t replace that one instead.

In 5.3 the costs are dramatically cut to the point that these decisions are far less brutal, and you can pretty easily upgrade every slot instead of hedging bets against specific slots being replaced or not. In the example above you could go ahead and fully upgrade that new belt for only 500 Valor, as opposed to the 1500 it would have cost you before.

PvP Item Upgrades in 5.3:

• Malevolent Gladiator’s Conquest (Season 12) items that have upgrades available are still upgradable at their original costs.
• Dreadful Gladiator’s Honor (Season 12) items that have upgrades available are still upgradable at their original costs.
• No other PvP items are upgradable, and no new PvP items for the foreseeable future will use the upgrade system.

"...no new PvP items for the foreseeable future will use the upgrade system."

It shouldn’t be too surprising, given that we’ve already come out and said it some weeks ago, that item upgrades are essentially not coming back for PvP. It’s something a lot of PvPers asked that we remove, it’s something we didn’t feel worked out too well, and so unsurprisingly the result is that it isn’t coming back. We’re still probably going to allow the Season 12 items that had previous upgradability to remain upgradable, as noted in the bullets above, but it’s not something we’re absolutely certain about at this moment. We’ll let you know if that changes.

Because gearing in PvP is based almost entirely on currency purchases, Conquest and Honor already always have a use, and we ask players to amass a lot of them to continue gearing. Honestly it was fairly unanimous that balancing the means of gear acquisition against upgrades just didn’t make good sense, at least with the current systems.

Let us know what you think in the comments, or on Twitter @Warcraft.

Pet Battle Accuracy Changes in Patch 5.3

Greetings, trainers!

We wanted to take a moment to discuss some of the broad accuracy changes we’re making to Pet Battles in patch 5.3. The overarching goal behind these changes is to provide transparency to reduce the amount of uncontrolled randomness, where one miss often makes or breaks a match. Once patch 5.3 is live, you’ll see “hit chance” listed for all abilities, and this value will update if the pet is affected by abilities that increase or reduce the chance to hit.

In addition, we’ve removed the base 5% chance to dodge, and reduced the chance to miss opponents of higher levels from 5% per level to 2% per level. The end result should be that your attacks that should hit, willhit, and there’s greater incentive to get out there and fight higher-level pets for greater experience rewards.

In a turn-based game, randomness can be a lot of fun if handled correctly. Without a little randomness, the outcome of a match could be predicted to a high degree of certainty before the first swing, and that’s no fun. Randomness often works best when it is opt-in, often in exchange for greater attack power, longer duration, etc. In fact, many higher-damage battle pet abilities already had a reduced chance to hit, which will now be visible.

With the removal of the base dodge chance, we were left with a large number of abilities that now had a 100% hit chance. We’ve made a handful of minor modifications to some of these abilities, giving them greater damage in exchange for a reduced chance to hit. It’s worth noting that every battle pet type (e.g. Dragonkin) have at least one ability that hits 100% of the time, allowing you to opt-out of the randomness if you prefer a less risky strategy. (Check out the full list of basic abilities that have gained additional damage in exchange for reduced accuracy below.)

Finally, we’ve left the base 5% chance to gain a critical strike (for 1.5x damage), and +/- 10% damage variance on all abilities, at least for the time being. We believe that getting a crit generally feels good, and the damage variance is often enough to make a match a bit less predetermined without swinging the match heavily in one player’s favor.

We also wanted to thank the community for the great feedback we’ve gotten so far about Pet Battles. Keep it coming!

As noted earlier, the following basic attacks have had their damage increased by 10-30% and accuracy reduced by 5-15%:

Beam Bow Shot Breath Broom Burn Chomp Claw Creepy Chomp Crush

Diseased Bite Emerald Bite Feedback Frost Breath Frost Spit Gauss Rifle Holy Sword Hoof Infected Claw

Jab Jade Claw Metal Fist Missile Onyx Bite Railgun Scratch Shadow Shock

Shadow Slash Shadowflame Smash Snap Stone Shot Strike Sulfuras Smash Water Jet

Catching Up to 5.3

There’s a ton of content worth experiencing in Mists of Pandaria—but if you’re leveling alts or just looking to get to the highest gear levels to see the newest content, the “best” route is not always clear. We get a lot of questions on what to focus on, so hopefully this article can provide some helpful guidance.

Back in the Day

In the initial months after Mists of Pandaria launched, the primary method to gear up a new level 90 was to run Scenarios and Heroic dungeons, and then do daily quests (beginning with Golden Lotus and Klaxxi, and then progressing to Shado-Pan and August Celestials) to earn reputation to unlock the vendors that sold higher-level epics. Along the way, players would qualify for the Raid Finder version of Mogu’shan Vaults, and then eventually the Raid Finder versions of Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring, supplementing the gear they unlocked and purchased with Valor Points.

"The core of the new gearing system revolves around the new Isle of Thunder"

While all of that content, along with the original reputation vendors and associated progression, remains in the game, patch 5.2 introduced several new, more efficient ways to get a fresh level 90 caught up and ready to jump right into theThrone of Thunder raid.

Get to ‘da Island!

The core of the current gearing system revolves around the new Isle of Thunder, and the vastly accelerated rate at which Elder Charms of Good Fortune can be obtained on the Isle. Elder Charms are used for bonus rolls when defeating raid bosses from the expansion’s first set of raids—Mogu’shan Vaults, Heart of Fear,Terrace of Endless Spring—as well as Mists of Pandaria’s original world bosses, Sha of Anger and Galleon. By obtaining Elder Charms, defeating bosses, and using bonus rolls, you’ll receive more chances to acquire upgrades, helping you gear up at a faster pace.

The Isle of Thunder also offers other ways to acquire Elder Charms. By defeating rare-spawn enemies on the Isle of Thunder, looting a Trove of the Thunder King, or defeating common enemies, players can receive aKey to the Palace of Lei Shen (one per week, with a small chance at extras from the coffers awarded at the conclusion of daily quest arcs). Players can take the key to Taoshi in the Shado-Pan encampment located in the swamp at the center of the Isle for a chance to do a Treasure Room run. In these runs, players have 5 minutes to open as many chests as possible and make it as far as they can through a dangerous, trap-laden vault. These runs are not only a ton of fun, but can be extremely lucrative in providing gold and Elder Charms. Foregoing a race to the finish line and instead systematically opening every chest you can get your hands on will likely yield a significant number of Elder Charms—it’s not uncommon to emerge from a single run with over a dozen. Additional Elder Charms can be obtained by using Incantations that also drop from creatures on the Isle and taking them to the graveyard in the mogu ruins on the west side of the Isle.

In 5.2, we significantly increased drop rates in the Raid Finder versions of Mogu’shan Vaults, Heart of Fear, and Terrace of Endless Spring, so it’s quite possible to walk into the Raid Finder and have enough Elder Charms to use a bonus roll on every boss you kill (with greatly increased drop chances) for a tremendous loot yield. You can also run Raid Finder more than once per week if you have more Elder Charms. You won’t receive normal drops from the boss, but your bonus rolls will have a chance of rewarding an item.

Misc. Stuff We Couldn’t Think of a Title For

If you’re into PvP, recent changes have made PvE gear pretty decent in PvP, and vice-versa. Outside of sockets and set bonuses, you can get a bunch of Honor (or Justice Points, and covert them to Honor at the Justice Trade Good vendors in Orgrimmar and Stormwind) and buy Item Level (ilvl) 476 PvP gear to help fill in any gaps and help you get into the higher rungs of PvE content.

An adventurous player should be should be able to walk right into Throne of Thunder LFR within a week or two of hitting 90

Like Sha of Anger, the world boss Galleon now respawns much more frequently. The world boss Nalak is also now accessible on the Isle of Thunder, and the Shado-Pan Assault vendor is selling a neckpiece for Valor Points with no additional reputation requirements. In addition, the Isle of Thunder factions sell an ilvl 476 belt for gold at Honored reputation, which makes doing their dailies pretty enticing.

What the Future Holds

In Patch 5.3: Escalation, you’ll head to the Barrens and participate in an uprising that will lead to the ultimate challenges in 5.4, and a variety of patch 5.3 content will award ilvl 476 to ilvl 489 items for participating in and completing quests. It’s important to note that the 5.3 world event will only be available for a limited time, as the story continues in 5.4. In addition, the XP required to level from 85 to 90 is being reduced by 33% in patch 5.3. If you’re looking to level and gear up alts, patch 5.3 may be a good time to do so with these additional options.

Between all of these sources, an adventurous player should be should be able to walk right into the Raid Finder Throne of Thunder within a week or two of hitting level 90, even without touching any of the mainland reputations.

Content ilvl Requirements

• ilvl 440 required for Heroic dungeons
• ilvl 460 required for Mogu’shan Vaults
• ilvl 470 required for Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring
• ilvl 480 required for Throne of Thunder

Your characters average ilvl can be found in the Advanced section of your Character stats in-game, or by searching for your character on WorldofWarcraft.com.

Gearing for Throne of Thunder

 XP required to level from 85-90 reduced by 33% in patch 5.3

 ilvl 440 required for Heroic dungeons. Quest rewards from Townlong Steppes as well as Dread Wastes will bring you up to 440. It may be worthwhile to begin these zones earlier in the leveling process

 At 90 head to the Isle of Thunder and progress through the quests each day and hunt for a Key to the Palace of Lei Shen each week. The portal to the Isle can be found at the Shado-Pan Garrison in western Townlong Steppes

 The Arena of Annihilation scenario has a mini-quest inside that rewards an ilvl 450 weapon

 Key to the Palace of Lei Shen looted once per week from rare spawns, Trove of Thunder King chests, or by defeating common enemies on the Isle of Thunder

 There’s a small chance for Throne of Thunder LFR gear to come from the chests after you’ve completed your run

 Loot run provides Elder Charms of Good Fortune

 Elder Charms provide bonus rolls when defeating bosses in Mogu’shan Vaults, Heart of Fear, Terrace of Endless Spring, as well as the 5.0 world bosses Sha of Anger and Galleon

 You can run LFR more than once per week if you have more Elder Charms. You won’t receive normal drops from the boss but your bonus rolls still do have a chance of rewarding an item

 With Elder Charms of Good Fortune acquired, and an average ilvl of 460, head into Mogu’shan Vaults, you can queue using the Raid Finder (default shortcut key: i)

 Crafted PvP items (ilvl 458) can help get you over the hump into Heroic dungeons

 Crafted ilvl 476 items (Gloves/Chest/Weapons/etc.) can help jumpstart you into LFR

 5.3 Battlefield Barrens quests will award ilvl 476 and 489 items

 476 belt is purchasable from the Isle of Thunder Kirin Tor Offensive (A) or Sunreaver Onslaught (H) for gold

 476 Epic boots available from a quest received by killing Sha of Anger (loot Claw of Anger)

 476 PvP items purchased with Honor can help fill in any gaps and raise your average ilvl with little negative effect to your overall ability in raids

 Shado-Pan Assault ilvl 522 neck available at Neutral for 1250 Valor Points

 Lesser Charms of Good Fortune can be exchanged at your faction’s shrine in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms for Mogu Runes of Fate. Mogu Runes provide bonus rolls for 5.2 bosses including those in the Throne of Thunder, and world bosses Oondasta and Nalak

The New Battle

Preparing for Patch 5.3: Escalation

Now that the patch is on the horizon, we’ve narrowed down some of the key things you might want to know before big day. If you want to find out more about everything that’s coming, you can check out the latestPublic Test Realm patch notes, or even download and play on the PTR itself.

Be Prepared
Hold on to some of those currencies you’ve been earning over the course of patch 5.2. The gear-upgrading Void Binders are returning in patch 5.3, but it will be cheaper to upgrade items using Valor and Justice Points. Upgradeable PvP items from Season 12 will be eligible for upgrade once again at their original costs. In addition, Heirloom items will be cheaper to upgrade, whether you’re using Justice Points, Honor Points, or Darkmoon Faire tickets. We’re also speeding up the leveling process from 85 to 90. Here are the details:

• The experience required to level from 85 to 90 will be reduced by 33%. Time to dust off those alts!
• The Void Binders are coming back!
  • Items upgraded with Valor will now cost 250 Valor Points to upgrade per 4 Item Levels, for a total of 500 Valor for 8 Item Levels per item. This applies retroactively to all items that can be upgraded using Valor.
  • Items upgraded with Justice will now cost 750 Justice Points to upgrade for 8 Item Levels. They can only be upgraded once, for a total of 750 Justice and 8 Item Levels per item. This applies retroactively to all items that can be upgraded using Justice.
  • Malevolent Gladiator’s Conquest (Season 12) items that have upgrades available will still be upgradable at their original Conquest Point costs (750 Conquest Points per 4 Item Levels, with two upgrades possible).
  • Dreadful Gladiator’s Honor (Season 12) items that have upgrades available will still be upgradable at their original costs (one upgrade at a cost of 1500 Honor Points for 8 Item Levels).
  • No other PvP items will be able to be upgraded.
• The amount of Justice, Honor, and Darkmoon Faire tickets needed to upgrade Heirloom items will be reduced by 60%.

Item Level Requirements
Are you ready to face the Raid Finder, Heroic dungeons, and new Heroic Scenarios? Make sure that you’re geared up to dive right in:

• Heroic Scenarios require an average Item Level of 480; unlike normal Scenarios, you’ll need a pre-made party to enter.
• An average Item Level of 440 is required for Heroic dungeons.
• An average Item Level of 460 is required for the Raid Finder version of Mogu’shan Vaults.
• An average item level of 470 is required for Raid Finder versions of Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring.
• An average Item Level of 480 is required for the Raid Finder version of Throne of Thunder.

Lesser Charms of Good Fortune
We’re adding more ways to acquire Lesser Charms of Good Fortune in patch 5.3. In addition to the changes that took effect in patch 5.2, which reduced the number of Lesser Charms of Good Fortune required to purchase three Mogu Runes of Fate from 90 to 50 and allowed players to earn Lesser Charms from Pet Battles, these new sources of Lesser Charms will be available in patch 5.3:

• Outdoor world creatures level 90 and above now have a chance to drop Lesser Charms of Good Fortune.
• Rare spawns in Pandaria (except Zandalari Warscouts and Zandalari Warbringers) and bosses encountered as part of the Battlefield: Barrens quest event in Kalimdor will drop Lesser Charms of Good Fortune.

PvP Season Update 
PvP Season 13 is still in full swing. We discussed many of the changes coming to PvP gear in our PvP Gear in 5.2 and Preparing for PvP in Patch 5.3 blogs, and the changes below are explained in greater detail there. As a reminder, the 7,250 Conquest Point requirement to purchase non-elite Conquest Point weapons is being removed with patch 5.3.

A number of significant changes are coming to PvP and PvP gear:

• All characters now have a base Resilience of 65%.
• Battle Fatigue now reduces the effectiveness of healing and absorb spells and abilities by 45% (was 30%).
• PvP Power bonus to healing is now based on class and specialization.
  • Healing specializations receive a 100% bonus to healing from PvP Power.
  • Damage specializations for Druids, Monks, Paladins, Priests, and Shaman receive a 70% bonus to healing from PvP Power.
  • All other specializations and classes (including tanking) receive a 40% bonus to healing from PvP Power.

Patching Smoothly
It’s easy to make sure that you’re ready to play when the realms become available on patch day. If you haven’t played in a while, one of the simplest things you can do is open the World of Warcraft launcher and allow the updater to download the latest available game files. If you use user interface add-ons, make sure you have the latest versions and that they’re updated and ready to go for the new patch. This is also a good time to update your video card’s drivers.

If you experience any patching issues, there’s a technical support forum thread all about patching that could help. You can also follow @BlizzardCS on Twitter for the latest support-related news.

Getting Additional Account Help
If you’re having an issue with your account, a number of resources are available to you. If other players are experiencing a similar issue, they may have already posted about it on the Customer Support forum locatedhere, so that can sometimes be a good first stop. If you need more information or direct assistance, theBattle.net Support site will allow you to search through available solutions, submit a support ticket, or contact customer support directly.

A compilation of resources and information can also be found on the Customer Support forum, including information on in-game support, reporting bugs and cheats, submitting suggestions, reporting forum violations, and sharing forum feedback.

Good luck, and we’ll see you in Azeroth!