5.4 PTR Starting Soon!

Well, as usual for this expansion, the PTR for the next, and likely final patch of Mists of Pandaria is already getting underway, a mere three weeks or so after 5.3 hit.

First off, some disclaimers. The PTR does not guarantee the arrival time of 5.4, and in fact, it's highly unlikely we'll be seeing the patch go live for three months at the least. Also, this is not just the PTR, but the very first build of the 5.4 PTR, and thus you should regard it with great skepticism. Much of this will change.

One huge thing is that they will be introducing "Virtual Realms," allowing basically entire battlegroups to function as realms, allowing mail and guilds and all manner of interaction to occur between them. What this means for, say, CRZ in high-level zones remains to be seen, but it should help a lot with underpopulated realms.

The two biggest features are not detailed very much - those being the Siege of Orgrimmar and the "Timeless Isle," which appears to be the new outdoor zone.

What we do know is that there's a model for the Sha of Pride - that most insidious of Sha that Emperor Shaohao warned us about - as well as what appears to be a Sha-Corrupted Garrosh that looks a little like Cho'gall. Interestingly, there also seems to be a model of a ragged and worn-out looking Garrosh. Could this be a post-corruption, cleansed Garrosh who we can send back to Nagrand to repent? Or is that just wishful thinking?

There also appears to be a pair of cool new mounts - one a Forsaken Skeletal Horse and the other a Sentinel's Nightsaber with all the cool new hi-res textures and look. I'd assume this is some kind of reward either for a daily grind or some achievement (please, please no more pet stores mounts. I was so sad about the bat.)

There's also a bunch of new armor models, mostly for PVP (the Paladin one is ridiculously badass, with a more traditional medieval armor look than you tend to see in this game) but also some Pandaria-themed tier sets for Mages and Warlocks.

Proving Grounds will finally be coming to the game, allowing some safe, audience-less training for healers, tanks, and yes, DPS as well.

Likewise, there appears to be a Battle-Pet-based Scenario (that I believe happens on the Timeless Isle.)

Flex Raids are of course a big announced feature, but whatever thing they were talking about that would "breathe life into old content" escapes me. Hopefully they just haven't put it up on the PTR yet.

To reiterate, we've heard very little about the raid itself (though there are some models that fit very well with Garrosh's industrial Horde War Machine theme) and we know next to nothing about the Timeless Isle. There's a lot more to come, but for a first PTR build, there's a lot to get excited about.

Oh, and at least for now, Pierre and the Skyclaw are back.