Pandaria Speculation Part One

Pandaria, as I've said before, at first appears quite separate from the rest of Azeroth. No one here has ever seen humans, dwarves, gnomes, draenei, orcs, undead, blood elves, worgen, or goblins. The only version of the Tauren they know split off thousands of years ago and are not remotely the kindhearted, peaceful people we know. The trolls exist to them only in distant mythologized legends, as the bogeyman or the thing that goes bump in the night, and they don't appear to have much of a record of the night elves - even before the sundering, it appears the night elves did not hold sway over what would become Pandaria.

And yet, you scratch the surface and the connections begin to appear. The Mantid are, in fact, another branch of the Aqir, like the Qiraji and the Nerubians. The Mogu appear to be of Titanic origin, like many of the playable races. The Jinyu are transformed Murlocs, changed by the waters of the Vale of Eternal Blossoms just as the Dark Trolls became the Night Elves after they were affected by the Well of Eternity. Even the Grummles are, as you can find out through the book "The Mogu and the Trogg," re-engineered troggs.

And the Sha - the horrific corruption that embodies negative emotions - is the remnant of a dead Old God.

Pandaria is, in a way, a bit of a time capsule. Perhaps that is not exactly the way to look at it, though. Pandaria was isolated from the War of the Ancients, and has not been a part of any of the events running through the last 10,000 years.

Let's break this down, piece by piece:

The Mogu and the Zandalari:

One discovery we make is that the Mogu were actually allies with the Zandalari back in the day. When we first came across the Zandalari, they appeared friendly, even as late as 4.0, as you will encounter friendly and seemingly well-intentioned members of the tribe in Stranglethorn Vale. Yet they have been overtaken by a prophet who wants to return them to their glorious, bloody past, when the trolls ruled the world. Ten thousand years (if not more) is a lot of time for things to change. It's possible that the Zandalari really were good guys when we were fighting on their behalf, but it certainly appears that their past was not so bright.

Either that, or the Zandalari are the most reliable, loyal allies one could ever ask for. In fairness, we do not know that the Mogu were always this cruel and evil. If the Mogu are Titan constructs, one might ask what their specific purpose was. The Earthen (who later became Dwarves - and Troggs, and thus Grummles) were there to work underground, to dig and excavate. The Mechagnomes (who, obviously, became the Gnomes) were there to maintain the sophisticated hidden machinery that kept the planet's facilities running. The Tol'vir were there to guard Uldum and the Reorigination Device. (More on Uldum below.)

That leaves us with the Mogu and the Vrykul. We don't really have a specific purpose for either of them. The Vrykul are certainly important to three of the playable races, as they were the ancestors of humanity (and thus Undead and Worgen.) In the visions of the distant past, we do see Ymiron talk about (and reject) the Titans as their gods. Both the Mogu and the Vrykul seem to have been in a kind of stasis for thousands of years (the Mogu resurgence is a recent thing, if I recall correctly.)

The role for the Mogu seems to have something to do with shaping flesh. They do it easily to themselves, extracting souls and placing them in new bodies, such that death is more of an inconvenience than anything else. Perhaps the Mogu, in their original intended role, had actually been in charge of creating the other Titanic races? I draw the line at them actually being Titans themselves, but if their powers were not granted to them willingly, they certainly seem to have figured out how to use them just fine.

The Trolls are one of the few races we tend to assume pre-dated Titanic arrival. (And as the Old Gods and the Titans seem to disagree over who got there first, they may have even been there before the Old Gods came. So, I suppose it was just Trolls and other various creatures and the Elemental Lords running rampant - though perhaps less stirred up without the Old Gods to egg them on.) They don't seem to be Titanic in any way, yet they also had what now turns out to be a many-millenial alliance with the Mogu. Think about that:

The Zandalari have known about the Mogu, and thus Pandaria, all along.

The Uldum Connection:

For a long time, all we could see of Uldum was a closed off gate in southern Tanaris. When Deathwing broke everything, it included the protective cloaking device that hid the entire region away from the world. Uldum probably serves many purposes, but the key aspect of it is the Origination Device within the Halls of Origination. If we hadn't beaten some empathy into Algalon when he was in Ulduar, he would have sent back his Reply Code Omega and then either he or a similar construct would have headed down to Uldum, pressed a few buttons, and then all of Azeroth would have been atomized.

So it makes sense that the Titans would not want this to be the sort of place someone could just stumble across.

They create this cloaking device, as well as the entire Tol'vir race (some of whom were used in a metallic yet corrupted state by the Aqir, which explains their appearance in Anh-Qiraj and among the Nerubian Scourge forces in Frozen Throne.) (Incidentally, this example of corrupted Titanic races will probably be the subject of another article about how the Curse of Flesh might be the exact opposite of what we think it is.)

Anyway, they make quite the big effort to close the place off.

Now let's look at Pandaria. Through Blue posts and some dialogue with the Klaxxi, we discover that the Sha are actually the remnants of a dead Old God. Not "in a deathlike state," like Cthulu or the states we presumably beat C'thun and Yogg-Saron into. Y'shaarj is dead-dead. And the result is that anyone in the continent in which he resided (/made up the bulk of) who experiences a negative emotion too strongly will actually summon forth a hideous monster that can then corrupt them further or just outright stab them to death with their tentacle spikes.

Remember in Halls of Stone, when we found out that the Titans chose not to just kill the Old Gods because it would destroy the host (you know, the planet?) We didn't really get the specifics on what would happen. Now we know. It's the Sha.

The narrative of Mists of Pandaria is that we lousy brutes show up in the tranquil, peaceful land and ruin it with our imperialist tendencies. Yet I think that's only true if you look at the surface. In reality, Pandaria is the worst place in Azeroth - a giant HazMat area that normal, unsuspecting folks should stay away from.

The legends say that Shaohao, the last Pandaren Emperor, became one with the land in order to hide it away from the War of the Ancients. What if there was a mechanism in place to do that, rather than just the willpower of an extremely potent, magical emperor? Perhaps when the Titans saw the mess they had made killing Y'shaarj, they put together a system to close off the area from the rest of the world - the Mists.

Much as Uldum remained undisturbed for countless eras, Pandaria became stable in isolation. The Pandaren created a society built around avoiding the negative emotions that could summon the Sha, and created the Shado-Pan in order to have a sufficient defense against the regular Mantid swarms that would not allow their emotions to do harm to the land. In other words, the people of Pandaria became the caretakers of the waste facility. And now, after this massive earthquake that broke everything, the mechanism that kept the facility protected is gone, and a bunch of people who have no idea what it is have just blundered in and started playing with levers and dials.

Ten Days + and an announcement of 5.1

Holy crap, Blizzard is really trying to live up to their promise of more content, faster.

A mere 10 days after the expansion's launch Blizzard has announced patch 5.1, when many people (all but three members of my guild, for instance) are not yet level 90, and we've only just been able to scratch the surface of the various daily reputations (which I'm finding a bit better than older ones, particularly Tillers, but ask me again in a couple weeks if I'm not exalted - Golden Lotus, I'm looking at you in particular. Though the one-shot quests at each rep-level are a very welcome punctuation.)

Anyway, they've announced that 5.1 - which does not include new raids, which is a good thing - is hitting the PTRs soon. Who is going to be playing on the PTR this early in an expansion, I don't know, but there's some cool stuff, like the Brawler's Guild, which will allow you to test your soloing capabilities in solo instances (something I always thought would be cool. Man... I just realized I have not really done any Scenarios. There's SO MUCH STUFF TO DO in this expansion.)

Also, the promised Horde and Alliance armies are going to land. Now, I assume this will either be phased for level 90 people, or it will take place on that mysterious big island off the coast of Townlong Steppes.

There's also some new ways to both improve the quality of captured battle pets as well as using Valor Points to upgrade gear (apparently even in quality. At this point I'm not even thinking about that so much as "oh hey, heroic quality piece. Automatic upgrade!")

Mind you, this is not a raid patch. Nor is it a dungeon patch, like 4.1's Rise of the Zandalari. The new philosophy seems to be more patches, more frequently, but doing smaller bursts of content. Think of it as if Trial of the Crusader and Isle of Conquest were separate patches, or if Transmogrification/Void Storage had been a separate patch from the Hour of Twilight.

I think this is showing that Blizzard didn't really lose their touch in Cataclysm as much as they were just spread too thin. It's easy to remember Cataclysm for the endless months of running Zul'Aman'Gurub over and over and over, or the hours-long slogs through Grim Batol, or those dull, personality-less Tol'vir, but when you look at the amazing effort they put in to revamping the entire 1-58 experience, you have to give credit where credit's due.

Now that the 1-58 climb is in good shape (Outland's probably the weakest step now, but it's not terrible) they can focus on the endgame, and boy howdy did they do their work.

Admittedly, 6 new dungeons and 3 revamped ones is a little on the small side, but then we've also got a bunch of scenarios, and finally another big raid tier. (Tier 11 only had 12, or 13 if you counted Baradin Hold, which I don't really. I consider that to be a medium sized tier.) Mogu'shan Vaults and Heart of Fear each have 6 bosses (they really seem to be sticking to this "multiple small raids" thing, which I still don't like) and Terrace of Endless Spring has 4. Then there are the world bosses, though those are something slightly different from conventional raiding.

Anyway, in the just-over-a-week of Mists of Pandaria, Blizzard has earned back a lot of credibility (not to mention subscriptions.) I encourage them to keep things rolling.

Difficulty and Complexity

I've now run a few heroics on my main, or at least I've finished a few. I got in a Scholomance run right before Gandling and I got into Shado-Pan Monastery after the first boss (still have a heroic sword and shield now, which is a load off my mind for now.)

It's clear that they've swung way back in the direction of Wrath's dungeons - in fact, they swung past it. Wrath of the Lich King, despite how we remember it (which was when we were decked in at least 232 epics, running dungeons designed for people in 187 blues) was a bit challenging. You could usually be relatively confident you'd finish a heroic early in the expansion, but there were definitely some fights and some dungeons where you'd wipe or at least lose a couple people on boss fights. Heroic Loken was a real killer (back when healers hadn't gotten to infinite mana situations) and I remember how I would dread to see Ahn-Kahet, The Old Kingdom, because I knew we'd be in for a wipefest.

Now, admittedly, Heroics are not really what you have known as heroics in Mists. There are no level-cap dungeons (such as the four for Wrath: Old Stratholme, Oculus, Utgarde Pinnacle, and Halls of Lighting, or the three for Cataclysm: Lost City of the Tol'vir, Halls of Origination, and Grim Batol.) Yet perhaps that isn't accurate. It's more like there aren't heroics, and that there's simply another version of the four level-up dungeons (and the revamped Scarlet Monastery and Scholomance) in addition to Siege of Niuzao Temple and Gate of the Setting Sun, which serve as the level-cap dungeons.

So what does this mean? Well, you're going to have a much easier time running 5-man content for now. Heroics are quick and easy (well, Taran Zhu is still a bit of a pain in the ass, but when we get the dps decent gear, expect it to be dropped with no problem as well.)

I generally err on the side of easy. While I know endless grinding of trivial content is not exactly fun, I've always been more interested in achieving perfect execution than the mad scramble to eek a victory out (though I love when I do achieve such a thing.) These dungeons are quite easy. In many ways, this is probably for the best. Most 5-mans are done through LFD, and Blizzard made a good point: With a guild group, you know that mistakes will serve as lessons, and that the people are going to stick with you and figure things out more with each failure. Many people go into LFD, on the other hand, expecting things to be quick and easy (and, I would add, not really bringing their own personal responsibility to the group) and if they see any sign that the group is not going to be perfect for them (like that healer needs, god forbid, mana, or the tank actually needs that piece of tank gear, or someone dares to ask how the next boss fight is going to work) they'll drop, and the group just gets another person who doesn't have the experience to learn from. So, by making the dungeons easier, it makes it more likely the group will finish.

Opinions will differ on whether they took it too far. To me, the problem is not ease of content. It is the culture that this breeds. And no, I'm not talking about "casuals" being coddled. The thing about super-easy content that pisses me off is the abdication of responsibility to the group. In late Wrath, if you were tanking and did not chain-pull (except maybe on the Frozen Halls dungeons) the dps would do it for you. Now, as someone decked in ICC gear, this was not a problem for me. But if I wanted to play, say, my newly-80 warrior tank, I would find myself basically unable to establish any threat or do my job.

I worry that the "GoGoGo" mentality is bound to return. Do I wish that we would go back to Cataclysm's extremely punishing 4.0 dungeons or the Zuls? No. Actually, while I did get a bit tired of them (not End Time, though. I seemed to get that about a quarter as often as the other two,) the Hour of Twilight heroics I think struck a decent balance. There was real danger of getting splatted if you didn't do the fights right (I don't care how hardcore you are. You had to focus fire one of the ghouls on Echo of Sylvanas,) but if you were decent and paying attention, you were going to be fine. They were also not too long (unlike the endless Grim Batol or Zul'Gurub slogs,) a quality I see in Mists heroics that I am very happy with.

There is an interesting question. What is the future for Mists 5-man content? Blizzard has said that they want to put more emphasis on LFR as the continual gearing option for those without a regular raid group. They were unhappy that things like the HoT heroics allowed you to skip past Firelands and go directly to DS, and would prefer that people work their way through the Raids, at least via LFR, to gear themselves.

Does this mean no new 5-mans in the expansion? That I find a little troublesome. 5-man dungeons are a cornerstone on which WoW is built. But without raid-level rewards, there will be little incentive for people to run new dungeons.

I realize that Challenge Modes will certainly provide some extra-challenging 5-man content, but only with cosmetic rewards. It strikes me that this strategy is ignoring a portion of the playerbase that doesn't only run 5-mans because they are quick and easy, but runs them because that's how they like to play the game.

Next I'll talk about the Reputation and Daily Revolution and imagine how these will look in a few months.

What if the Pandaren are Wrong? And other Lore Thoughts

Despite the fact that Pandaria's swarming with 85+ monsters everywhere, compared to the rest of Azeroth, story-wise, the land is fairly safe and idyllic. Sure, the Yaungol make trouble for people and the Mantid are a bit on the terrifying side (even the ones that are... friendly, for lack of a better word.) The Hozen aren't so much evil as just crazy and chaotic and very, very stupid. The Mogu are certainly dangerous, but their reemergence is a recent thing.

The only real big, cosmic-level threat in Pandaria is the Sha. The literal embodiment of negative emotions. These things can possess people who are overwhelmed by emotional states, and corrupt the land itself.

The last Pandaren Emperor, Shaohao, defeated these Sha by burying them underneath the land.

Let's think about that: They literally bury their emotions.

We've seen how that works out when they falter. The Shado-Pan are conditioned in training to repress emotions so as not to let the Sha overwhelm them as they fend off the Mantid and the Yaungol. Yet something happened at Shado-Pan Monastery, and even Taran Zhu himself is overwhelmed (he gets better after the dungeon, though, as he's part of the Townlong Steppes quests.)

I don't remember a concrete explanation for why Zhu was corrupted, but he sure seems very pissed off at both the Alliance and the Horde for taking their war to his shores, and escalating the minor skirmishes between the Hozen and Jinyu into a full-scale proxy war that totally ruined the Temple of the Jade Serpent with Sha energy.

Here's an interesting thought, though. If Sha are beings of pure emotion, is it such a good idea to repress them, and bury them underground and just try to not feel them? The Pandaren lifestyle has become very jovial and serene, which is fine, but they're not exactly good at dealing with situations when such emotions arise.

Another question: the Mogu ruled over Pandaria for millennia. They're not exactly peace-and-love types, yet they did not seem to be overcome by the Sha.

Ok, one last thing. Supposedly the Mantid were created by an Old God named Y'shaarj, much as the Qiraji were created by C'Thun and presumably the Nerubians were created by Yogg-Saron (or something like that.) Unlike C'Thun or Yogg-Saron, the Titans literally did kill Y'shaarj, rather than just chain him up. The result appears to be the Sha. (Not sure if this is explicitly said, but they did point out that Sha is part of the name Y'shaarj. Still no word on N'zoth.)

This opens up a whole can of lore worms. The Sha are not exactly easy to control. We have heard that the planet would be destroyed if the Old Gods were truly killed. Is Pandaria's uniqueness due to their resident Old God's death? Would they have been better off if Y'shaarj had been left alive, but trapped?

One of the things I'm having a lot of fun with in Pandaria is seeing the ways in which this very unique land, that at first glance doesn't seem to have anything to do with the rest of Azeroth, is actually more closely related than you would think. Reading through some of the lore books and watching Lorewalker Cho's shows, we discover that, for example, the Jinyu were originally Murlocs, who were then transformed by the waters in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, almost exactly the way the Dark Trolls were transformed into Night Elves by the Well of Eternity (they even have the same wireframe skeleton.) The Grummles, as it turns out, were originally Troggs, reshaped by the Mogu into their present form to serve as scouts, meaning the Grummles are actually distant cousins of the Dwarves.

And the Mogu language is Titanic in origin. These are people who seem to be made of stone and metal (or at least they can turn the flesh of the dead into it, which is exactly the opposite of the Curse of Flesh.) If you ask me, I think this points to the Mogu being created by the Titans, presumably with the purpose of either guarding the waters in the Vale or assisting in the creation of new creatures. The Mogu have spirit and flesh-manipulating magics. Perhaps this power was originally intended for a more noble purpose, and something within Mogu society changed eons ago to turn them into brutal oppressors.

90 + 1 Day

If you were worried there would not be enough to do at 90 (for some reason) think again. A huge number of reputation factions open up, with both one-shot and daily quests.

Jarsus hit 90 yesterday, and I've been taking him around to various factions and such. The first thing you'll want to do after hitting the cap is to head to your respective Terrace (the absolutely beautiful mini-cities in Vale of Eternal Blossoms - that count as contested even on PvE servers, though you don't get flagged, so... yeah, I don't get it.) Talk to the dude on the cloud serpent for your Pandaria flying (no way to get the cost down via rep, as he belongs to a faction you need flying to level... I think. Anyway, don't be cheap.) Then you're going to get an absurd number of breadcrumbs quests. The first is from a guy who hands you a Legendary envelope with an invitation to talk to a certain non-corrupted black dragon. I'd recommend picking this up first, as he'll give you a couple quests to do while  you do other things. One of them is to get honored with his own personal faction by killing level 90 Mantid and Mogu in certain areas, though you might get the rep before the quest anyway.

You actually won't be able to get August Celestial or Shado-Pan rep until you're revered with Golden Lotus, so this is probably a good place to start. I think they've gotten rid of the daily quest cap, so feel free to work on any of the reputations you want.

Lorewalkers are actually quite unique among the reputations. You do not gain any rep from daily quests or killing things. You get them by completing the "lore object" achievements. Searching the continent (perhaps with some help from Wowhead...) you'll see little scroll containers with some neat lore about one of the Pandarian (as opposed to Pandaren) races, or specific characters. Reading all of these (or at least clicking on them) will have Lorewalker Cho send you a message in the mail, net you an achievement, and get you a bunch of rep. Turn the letter in and you'll get more rep and a cool little show talking about the subject you researched.

I love this feature, incidentally. I always complained that I knew nothing about the Tol'vir, even after they had been set up to have some really cool lore. With this, I now know more about basically all the races in Pandaria than I do about even such awesome people as the Vrykul. I really hope this becomes a recurring thing in every expansion. Imagine a wizened old Broken telling us the history of the Eredar! Lorewalkers also gets you a really cool magic flying disk, which is very different from the typical "ooh, another dragon" (though cloud serpents are very cool, and I'm definitely getting one. Already working on it. Thinking of calling him Whiskers.)

I've done one scenario (I actually don't recall the name, but it involves helping a brewmaster create a new beverage while fending off Hozen pirates... which is fantastic.) It really is a very different take on the instance, being more objective based, which allows for serious variation.

I've also done my first heroic dungeon, the Siege of Nizauo Temple (no idea if the vowels are in the right order there.) Considering I was just barely at the right iLevel, I was surprised at how easy it was, with us wiping only once on the third boss due to my not knowing where the adds were coming from (we almost did again when my keyboard locked up, a new feature I've noticed since Mists came out.) My understanding is that they really want to make dungeons an easy, casual thing, as they were in late Wrath (other than Halls of Reflection) and to put more of an emphasis on raid finder. I'm a little worried my computer is going to explode (it's... three whole years old!) from the effort, but Challenge Modes (which are like... Heroic Heroic mode?) are there for the hardcore 5-manners. Not sure if this is the direction I'd like to see them take, but for now, it's nice to have some easy, simple 5-mans. We'll see how I feel when we're all geared to the teeth in Tier 16 or whatever it is and every dungeon is "gogogo." (Someone literally said that to me on the first boss of SNT - can we call it that? - after I asked how the fight worked.)

Mists will probably be labeled as "casual friendly," which some consider a derogatory term. I'd agree with them that it is casual friendly, but I think that's good. As we come to know further patches and see how the expansion evolves, we'll get a better idea of where the game is at, but for now, I think it's a resounding success.

Random Notes:

-Mogu might be evil, but damn if their architecture ain't pretty. Terrace of Seven Stars is truly opulent!

-Both Execution Sentence and Light's Hammer have very cool visuals (even if they reuse art assets.) I absolutely love Light's Hammer for Protection. It's a Death and Decay in addition to my Consecration that also heals my buddies. It might be less powerful on single targets for threat/damage, but then I get to help out the healer! And Execution Sentence might just be a DoT with a fancy visual, but it's really, really fancy.

-The Disk of the Red Cloud is the kind of mount I'd like to see them make more of. I hate how often people park their enormous dragon mounts on top of quest givers and flight masters. The Disk is totally unobtrusive, barely increasing your real estate. Plus you get to look like Kit Cloudkicker! (Yes, I was born in the mid-80s, as this reference demonstrates.)

-The cloak engineering tinker Goblin Glider is one of the best things ever. Not only do you get to play around, like jumping off the peak of Mt. Neverest and seeing how far you can get, you can also use it as an escape plan in any area with lots of hostile enemies and a handy cliff-side.

-The Klaxxi - they might be... slightly evil, I think... but they're really badass. Anyway, they're less evil than the rest of the swarm, which is nice.

-One of the amazing and awesome revelations from the Lorekeepers is that the Jinyu were once Murlocs. The waters in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms transformed them... which is what happened to the Dark Trolls and the Well of Eternity to create the Night Elves. So, there must be a Titan influence here. Also, some archaeology finds suggest that Mogu language is related to Titan. My theory is that the Mogu were created by the Titans, but like the Vrykul, they weren't exactly nice people (either by design or corruption.) Remember the army of Iron Vrykul in Halls of Lighting? Well, there's a Terra Cotta army of Mogu in their raid. Who are the Mogu? Were they created as they are by the Titans? Were they a local species that was transformed by a Well of Eternity-like source? This is, I think, the most compelling mystery of the expansion. So much of Pandaria is new and unfamiliar, but when you are hit by those subtle connections, it's quite the source of excitement.

What I Always Forget About Leveling Up Your Main

For those of us with many alts, the early days of a new expansion can be quite a shock. Leveling your main up takes a LONG TIME.

It's good, though. The process is never going to be tougher or more demanding, and it's good to do that on your main character. It's a combination of things: you don't have the professional support of your alts, so crafted gear and all that good stuff is nowhere to be found. You also don't know the quests yet. Now, I was able to speed through Jade Forest a bit because of the Beta (I did stop to read all the quest text, because there's some cool stories in there.) Jade Forest is also the most linear zone. It does have a couple places to go off and do side-quests, but if you follow the basic path from Stormwind/Orgrimmar, you'll get through the major story of the zone.

Now, I also have a tradition to always run the dungeons the first time with a guild group including a real-life friend, and because I have way too much free time on my hands, I tend to level up faster than him, so I've only done one run, Temple of the Jade Serpent. Annoyingly, my computer still seems to be running into overheating issues (I hope it's because of some crappy add-ons I squashed.) So, despite a disconnect here and there, the run was quite fun, and way easier than I remember it from early in the Beta.

Jade Forest is solid, and I moved on to Krasarang Wilds, rather than Valley of the Four Winds. I'm not sure this was the best idea. While KW has some good quests and a very cool vibe, it's somewhat rare to come across a zone as cheerful as Valley of the Four Winds. For once, the stakes are relatively low, and you can just chill out in a nice farming area.

From there, I went to Kun-Lai Summit. I'm somewhat conflicted on this zone. I was hoping for more Mountaintop Monastery action, but most of the time you spend in the steppes, and the promising Mogu-themed quest chain led down the mountain to a very remote, kind of dreary village that was being attacked by... oh, I won't spoil it. I understand there's a quest chain that leads into the non-instanced version of Shado-pan Monastery, which I'll have to do on my next toon.

From there, I went to Townlong Steppes, which is pretty cool. There is a major quest chain where you spend a lot of time with the Shado-pan, who are not exactly the bundles of silly, cheerful, gluttonous joy that most Pandaren are.

So, I'm currently sitting at 88 with a bar and a half to go.

Gearing: You're only going to get one quest reward per quest before Townlong Steppes. If you are a mainspec tank or healer, but are leveling in a dps spec, you can probably just ignore quest rewards until then. The "Adventuring Supplies" guys give you some decent stuff to get something resembling the average person who was max level in Cataclysm, so you'll be able to handle it with the gear provided.

Vale of Eternal Blossoms can actually be accessed as early as 87, and I've got to say the place is gorgeous, especially the mini-city (I assume the Horde one is similar in appearance.) Actually, it's this kind of ornate, Imperial Mogu look that I wouldn't mind seeing more of in other parts of the continent.

I expect I'll be hitting 90 some time this weekend (busy for much of tomorrow, and then I'm going to start working on factions and bringing the Core Five to the continent. Just logged in on all of them to train up professions and get their rest experience started. On my main, I'm cool with the long slog, but the others I think I'm going to want to get up there a bit quicker.

A critique: Alliance and Horde have somewhat different quests in Jade Forest (I know the Horde is different from the Beta,) and at least different settlements in Krasarang and parts of Kun-Lai. Hoping to see more of that in Dread Wastes (but not that hopeful.) There's actually some great characters, like Sully and Amber Kearnen (from Westfall!) who I wouldn't mind seeing again. Guess we'll have to wait for 5.1 to see the serious influx of Horde/Alliance folks.

Oh, and the engineering tinker, Goblin Glider, is maybe the best thing ever. I crossed about a third of the continent after jumping off the peak of Mt. Neverest.

Oh! And the Monk:

Gaotso, Brewmaster tank, is now level 23. I actually deleted him at 5 and made a Draenei to break the mold, but realized I'd never play a Pandaren character if I did so, so I went back (so long Isodin, we hardly knew ye.)

Anyway, so far tanking is ridiculously simple - Keg Smash, Breath of Fire, Jab, Jab, Blackout Kick. Repeat. Toss Dizzying Haze around if you need to round things up. It'll be nice to get Brewmaster Training at 34. Can't believe Purifying Brew doesn't come until 75. Doesn't that seem like something they should have you training to use from early on?

I'm finding the major pitfall of leveling up through dungeon runs is that you will have a hard time leveling professions.

Zero Day! Monks!

Well, you’re probably playing right now rather than looking at the blog, so enjoy this message from the past! (Cue spooky music, and imagine that last sentence spoken in a spooky ghost voice.)

Monks are the new class to come with Mists of Pandaria. Is your Monk a Pandaren? I don’t blame you for answering yes. Is it not? Holy crap, well done, sir. You will certainly be among the rare elite.

Monks are the third “Jack of All Trades” hybrid class. They are able to heal, tank, or do melee dps. Monks will use leather armor, and can dual-wield Axes, Maces, Swords, or Fist Weapons as well as using Staves and Polearms. Unlike other classes, your auto attacks will use your unarmed attack animation. Only the ability Jab will actually use the weapons you are holding. What this means for hit rating when dual-wielding versus using a 2-hander is sadly unknown to me.

Monks have a passive called “Way of the Monk,” that increases damage done while dual-wielding and haste while using a 2-hander, which I understand is there to balance the two, making it more of a cosmetic choice (or simply getting the piece that gives the best stats.)

Monks use Energy, much like Rogues and Feral Druids, but rather than Combo Points, Monks build up Chi. Mistweavers (the healing spec) use Mana instead of Energy, but they also build Chi. Energy is pretty much only used for Jab (with a couple of exceptions.) Jab will, baseline, generate one Chi. Chi is then spent on your other abilities.

Monks are very mobile, and make use of spheres that will pop up to heal or restore Chi, but require you to actually move into them to gain the benefit. Their “signature move,” like a Death Knight’s Death Grip, is Roll, which allows you to roll quickly in the direction you’re currently running.

So, let’s go spec-by-spec:

Brewmaster: The tanking spec, this is also the spec that lets you get your enemies drunk. Brewmasters have a unique defensive mechanic called Stagger. When you are hit with an attack, 20% (and more as your mastery goes up) gets prevented, and instead turns into a DoT called Stagger, which effectively spread out the damage over a period of time. You then have an ability called Purifying Brew, which is cheap and has only a 1-second cooldown, and will allow you to purge the Stagger damage – sort of forgiving your damage debt. Damage reduction is mainly handled by Purifying Stagger and using Blackout Kick to gain Shuffle, which is a buff to maintain that increases your Stagger amount. Threat-wise, you have an effect put on enemies by various abilities called Dizzying Haze (it used to be Drunken Haze. Never forget!) that slows enemies and gives them a small chance to hit themselves instead of you. Breath of Fire can then ignite those under its effect, though you might be too busy spending Chi on defensive abilities to take advantage of this.

Mistweaver: The healing spec, this one works in kind of two different ways. You can stand at the back, tossing heals like any other healer, or you can go on the offensive. One of the passive effects of Stance of the Wise Serpent is that a portion of the damage you do is converted to healing for nearby allies, using a similar “smart healing” system that Smite healing has. I don’t know if you’ll literally be able to just ignore your allies under this method, but it’s certainly a new take on it, and might finally be the spec that gets me to try healing.

Windwalker: The melee dps spec, Windwalkers gain an extra Chi on each Jab, which should allow them to fight with more fluidity. One highlight here is Flying Serpent Kick, which allows you to shoot through the air at epic-flight speed and crash down for an AoE snare and damage blast. Did I mention Monks had good mobility?

So, of course the nuances and subtleties of the Monk class are a little tough to figure out. We’ve had access to them on the Beta for a while, sure, but this is a brand new class. Expect big changes over the course of Mists. Also expect to be absolutely detested by Druids, especially if you roll Mistweaver, for stealing their gear.