Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Wowhead's Patch 5.4 Guide and Official Patch Notes

Original Link: http://www.wowhead.com/news=219437/wowheads-patch-5-4-guide-and-official-patch-notes

Wowhead's Patch 5.4 Guide and Official Patch Notes

posted 19 hr 24 min ago by perculia

Table of Contents

Patch 5.4 goes live on September 10th and we've got you covered so you can kill Garrosh in the (Zone #6738) and get some epics in style! The Alliance and Horde have had enough of Garrosh's poor leadership and are storming the gates of Orgrimmar.

Besides a new 14-boss raid with a new mode of difficulty, Flex Mode, players can explore the Timeless Isle for vanity items and BoA epics. Plus, there's a new PvP season and players can finally finish their legendary questline to get a powerful cape!

We've got summaries of all the new content below, as well as links to blue posts and Wowhead's comprehensive PTR coverage.

Patch Notes and Overview


  • Players can finally kill Garrosh in the new raid, (Zone #6738). There are 14 bosses and LFR loot is ilvl 528, Flex 540, Normal 553, and Heroic 566.
  • Flex mode is a new raid type, in which players form a raid with 10-25 players and the bosses' health and damage will scale up or down. The difficulty is easier than Normal, but as it's intended to reward players for social interactions instead of randomly queueing, the rewards are better than LFR.
  • The Timeless Isle is a new zone filled with rare spawns, world bosses, and secret events--plus there's hardly a daily quest in sight. Players can obtain BoA epic tokens and vanity items from participating in this outdoor group content.
  • On the Timeless Isle, battle pet enthusiasts can participate in the Celestial Tournament, a weekly challenge to pit your best pets against Pandaria's toughest pet teams and legendary elite pets for prizes.
  • Season 14 has begun for arena and rated battlegrounds. There is new faction-specific Grievous Gladiator's gear, new crafted PvP gear, and mounts and cosmetic armor for dedicated PvPers.
  • The new legendary questline reward for 5.4 is a legendary cape with unique procs and visual effects.
  • Some professions are getting major additions: Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, and Tailoring are getting new PvP and epic BoE recipes, Engineering gets a lot of fun vanity toys, and scribes can make tons of new glyphs.
  • Proving Grounds are a new solo scenario where beginner players can learn how to tank, heal, or dps better in a safe environment--or seasoned players can test their skills by queueing up for the most difficult challenges.
  • Below you'll find Blizzard's latest Patch Notes for 5.4, updated September 9th.
Originally posted by Blizzard (Official Post | Blue Tracker)Expand

New Raid: Siege of Orgrimmar and Flex Mode


  • (Zone #6738) is the final raid of Mists of Pandaria. In it, players work to free Orgrimmar from the clutches of Garrosh and his Kor'kron regime.
  • Gear item levels: ilvl 528 from LFR, 540 Flex, 553 Normal, 559 Warforged, 566 Heroic, and 572 Heroic Warforged. Warforged items work just the same as Throne of Thunder's Thunderforged ones--they have a small chance to drop and are 6 item levels better than the expected loot.
  • All database pages currently show loot drops for Tier 16 bosses, organized by LFR, Flexible, Normal, and Heroic. We also show loot specialization details for LFR, Flex, and bonus rolls. To see an overview of the Dungeon Journal and each boss' drops, check out our Siege of Orgrimmar Loot Preview. We will be updating our loot tables with changes as the week progresses.
  • Tier gear drops from the following bosses: Legs from Klaxxi Paragons, Shoulders from Siegecrafter Blackfuse, Helm from Thok the Bloodthirsty, Gloves from General Nazgrim, Chest from (NPC #71734).
  • Players need ilvl 496 gear to queue up for LFR, and the first LFR wing unlocks on September 17th. Flex mode has no item level requirement and the first wing opens on September 10th. Check out the complete 5.4 raid schedule.
  • To see what all the gear looks like, check out our Tier 16 Armor Preview, and 3D Weapon Models. We also have a detailed look at the new trinkets and their scaling details in our Patch 5.4 Trinket Preview.
  • There are also several vanity items tied to this zone. Several bosses have vanity pets, like (Item #104165), Shaman can collectKor'kron Dark Shaman transmog gear, and killing Garrosh rewards titles on Normal and Heroic, special heirlooms, and mounts (Reins of the Kor'kron War Wolf,  Kor'kron Juggernaut).
  • Players can raid (Zone #6738) in Flex Mode, a new type of raid difficulty that has a different lockout from Normal/Heroic and LFR. This is intended for social players that enjoy raiding together and dislike the anonymity of LFR. The rewards are better than LFR, and players can complete achievements in this difficulty as well.
  • Loot in Flex mode is personal, and is affected by Loot Specialization. Players can also win additional loot via Bonus Rolls.
  • Flex Mode requires anywhere from 10-25 players and the mobs' health and damage will scale based on the number of players zoned in. To learn more about Flex Raiding, check out Blizzard's preview A Raid For All Seasons
Vale of Eternal SorrowsGates of RetributionThe UnderholdDownfall
ImmerseusGalakrasMalkorok(NPC #71504)
The Fallen ProtectorsIron JuggernautSpoils of PandariaParagons of the Klaxxi
NorushenKor'kron Dark ShamanThok the BloodthirstyGarrosh Hellscream
(NPC #71734)General Nazgrim

New PvP Season and Changes

Season 14 is the latest PvP system, with tons of new PvP gear and rewards.
  • There are many ways to get PvP gear in 5.4.
  • Crafted Gear: There are two tiers of Crafted gear available now. The first, added in Patch 5.2, is for ilvl 458 armor sets and look like the initial Season 12 honor sets. The new set of crafted gear, ilvl 476 Crafted Malevolent gear, is learned from the set of new daily transmutes and resembles Season 12 conquest gear.
  • Honor Gear: Players can purchase ilvl 496 Tyrannical Gladiator's gear for honor. These new items look exactly the same as Season 13's Alliance and Horde Conquest gear.
  • Conquest Gear: Season 14 Grievous Gear is ilvl 522 and comes in different colors for Alliance and Horde players. Players that have earned  Grievous Conquest and a high personal rating can buy these items for  Honor Points instead.
  • Elite Gear: Season 14 Grievous Elite Gear is purely cosmetic and has no stats. Purchasing these items requires players to complete  Grievous Conquest and achieve a high personal rating.
Check out our visual previews of the Season 14 Armor Sets and Season 14 Weapons, including 3D models of the faction-specific gear.

A new mount reward has been added for players of all ranks who consistently enjoy PvPing. Winning 100 3v3 matches or 40 RBGs in Season 14 awards  Grievous Combatant/ Grievous Combatant and a  Vicious Saddle.
Some general changes are also coming to PvP in 5.4:
  • The item level ceiling is still in place for Arenas, Rated Battlegrounds, and Battlegrounds at ilvl 496, but Grievous Gladiator gear is exempt from this scaling. The item level ceiling will increase by one level each week until it hits ilvl 512.
  • You don't need to create or join an Arena team to compete anymore. Only personal rating remains, which increases or decreases based on rated matches. Personal rating now affects the conquest gear, gear requirements, and PvP enchantments.
  • Similar to Rated Battlegrounds, arenas will now be region-wide instead of being sorted by Battlegroup.
For a complete look at PvP changes and Season 14 gear, check out Wowhead's Season 14 PvP Preview.

Timeless Isle

The Timeless Isle is a unique zone filled with exploration rewards and rare spawns--a far cry from the daily hubs of MoP's launch. In the style of the Isle of Thunder and Battlefield Barrens, players can group up with friends to kill mobs and hunt rare spawns for vanity items without having to worry about grinding out epics for progression raiding.

We'll have a complete guide up when 5.4 goes live, but for now here's the highlights:
Check back for a complete Timeless Isle guide when patch 5.4 goes live!

New BoA and Heirloom Gear

Players can get two new types of BoA gear in Patch 5.4.
  • Timeless Isle gear: On the Timeless Isle, there are Timeless armor tokens, which are BoA and can be turned into a spec-appropriate ilvl 496 item based on your character. These armor tokens can be acquired several ways: killing mobs, looting chests, and purchasing caches for 7500 each. You can upgrade armor tokens to ilvl 535 epics with (Item #103982).
  • Siege of Orgrimmar Heirlooms: These heirlooms drop from Garrosh Hellscream on Flex, Normal, and Heroic difficulty--another incentive to run raids besides LFR. These items have interesting models as well--they are based on Horde PvP weapons from classic WoW. If you check them out in the Dungeon Journal (and Wowhead tooltip mouseover), they display their heirloom data, instead of epic information. The first heirloom you get will be spec-appropriate.
For more details on both Siege of Orgrimmar and Timeless Isle BoA gear, check out our 5.4 BoA Gear Guide.

Proving Grounds

Proving Grounds are solo challenges that both allow new players to learn a new role in a comfortable setting, or seasoned players to try something difficult and competitive.
  • Proving Grounds allow users to select Tank, Healer, or DPS challenges. You can queue up from class trainers, or Trial Master Rotun by the Temple of the White Tiger.
  • Proving Grounds come in Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Endless difficulties. In Endless mode, you simply go on until you fail the challenge.
  • In addition, gear plays much less of a role in Proving Grounds success--all gear is scaled down to ilvl 463, like it is in Challenge Modes.
  • There are three types of Challenges--Tank, Healer, and DPS.
  • Rewards include achievements for completing various difficulties and spec challenges, as well as titles (The Proven Assailant,The Proven Healer, The Proven Defender) for beating Wave 30 on Endless.
We will have a series of walkthroughs for every role and difficulty up later on patch week!

New Faction: Shaohao

Emperor Shaohao is a new faction on the Timeless Isle. There are no daily quests or "mandatory" epics to grind out for this reputation--it's all about killing Ordon on the Timeless Isle for vanity loot.

Vanity loot costs  Timeless Coin to purchase and ranges from  Reins of the Heavenly Golden Cloud Serpent to the teleporting trinket  Time-Lost Artifact.

For more details, check out Wowhead's Shaohao Reputation Preview.

Battle Pets and Celestial Tournament

Patch 5.4 introduces many new battle pets, as well as a pet tournament for players that have been dedicated to pet battling.
  • The Celestial Tournament is open to players that have 15+ max level pets. Players fight three teams (randomly selected from nine preset ones), and then move onto fighting the four elite Celestials. Players also cannot heal their pets, or else they will be disqualified. For winning the weekly tournament, players get a  Celestial Coinwhich can be used to purchase special battle pets and supplies.
  • Many new battle pets are coming in Patch 5.4--check out our preview for their unique abilities and models! Many are fromTimeless Isle, but others are from (Zone #6738).
  • Battle pets from Throne of Thunder can now be one via bonus rolls in LFR.
  • Several battle pet families have had their passive effects buffed.
  • For more information, check out our battle pet tools, or check out the great collection resources at WarcraftPets!
We've also recently added a new battle pet tool, the Battle Pet Team Calculator for players to import their in-game pet teams, create their ideal teams, and compare their teams against other player and trainer teams! The Celestial Tournament teams will be added when 5.4 goes live.

For more details on new battle pets and the Celestial Tournament, check out Wowhead's 5.4 Battle Pet Guide.

Legendary Chain

The 5.4 reward for  Chapter V: Judgement of the Black Prince is alegendary cape with a powerful proc and unique visual effect.
  •  Qian-Le, Courage of Niuzao,  Qian-Ying, Fortitude of Niuzao,  Endurance of Niuzao: The Endurance of Niuzao fully absorbs the damage of one attack that would normally kill you. This effect has a 2 min cooldown. Does not function for non-Tank-specialized characters.
  •  Xing-Ho, Breath of Yu'lon,  Essence of Yu'lon: Your damaging spell casts have a chance to empower you with the Essence of Yu'lon, causing you to hurl jade dragonflame at the target, dealing 1 (+ 200% of Spell power) damage over 4 sec. This damage also affects up to 4 other enemies near the burning target. (Approximately [2.61 + Haste] procs per minute)
  •  Jina-Kang, Kindness of Chi-Ji,  Spirit of Chi-Ji: Your helpful spells have a chance to grant you Spirit of Chi-Ji, increasing all healing done by 5% and causing all overhealing on players to be redistributed to up to 5 nearby injured friends, for 10 sec. (Approximately 0.58 procs per minute)
  •  Fen-Yu, Fury of Xuen,  Gong-Lu, Strength of Xuen,  Flurry of Xuen: Your damaging attacks have a chance to trigger a Flurry of Xuen, causing you to deal 1 (+ 20% of Attack power) damage to up to 5 enemies in front of you (hunter: current target and up to 4 enemies around them), every 0.3 sec for 3 sec. (Approximately [1.74 + Haste] procs per minute).
If you have previous capes upgraded to 2/2, your legendary cape will automatically be ilvl 608. In addition, the cape's RPPM details change per spec, which we display as radio buttons underneath the tooltip on item pages.

As for older parts of the legendary chain,  Eye of the Black Prince will not be usable on (Zone #6738) weapons, but the legendary meta gem will work on Siege of Orgrimmar helms.

Patch 5.4 also introduces a catch-up mechanism for players behind on the legendary questline. The first eight bosses in (Zone #6738)have a chance to drop a  Sigil of Power,  Sigil of Wisdom,  Secrets of the Empire, or  Titan Runestone. In addition, all bosses inThrone of Thunder can drop  Sigil of Power and  Sigil of Wisdom.

For more details, check out Wowhead's Mists of Pandaria Legendary Quest Guide.

Class and Glyph Changes

Each class has ability changes coming in Patch 5.4, as well as some new glyphs.
  • For a look at the most interesting cosmetic glyphs coming in 5.4, check out our 5.4 Cosmetic Glyph Preview.
  • Shamans also have a neat perk in the form of Kor'kron Dark Shaman cosmetic armor they can loot from (Zone #6738) mobs in Flex, Normal, and Heroic difficulty.
  • In the tabs below, we have also linked to noxxic and other fansite resources.

Patch Notes

  • All fear and horrify effects can no longer cause targets under the effects of a movement speed buff to move faster than normal run speed.
  • All taunt type abilities now increase all threat generated against the target while the taunt is active by 200%.
  • Vengeance has received several changes.
    • Characters in a tanking specialization now generates 40% more threat.
    • Vengeance now grants Attack Power equal to 1.5% of the damage taken, down from 1.8% (The tooltip said 2% but it was actually 1.8%).
    • Tanks no longer receive Vengeance from many persistent area damage effects (standing in the fire) or from missed attacks (dodging and parrying an attack will continue to work as it has before).
    • Vengeance gains from being critically hit have been reduced by 50%.
    • There are now diminishing returns on Vengeance gains while tanking multiple targets. Each additional target grants progressively less Vengeance.
    • So as not to affect Challenge Mode leader boards, the above Vengeance changes will not apply there. For Challenge Modes, Vengeance will continue to work as it did in patch 5.3.
  • Area knockback effects now all share a diminishing return category. After a player has been moved by one of these spells, the player will be immune for 10 seconds. This new category applies to:  Fellash,  Gorefiend's Grasp,  Glyph of Explosive Trap,  Thunderstorm,  Typhoon,  Ursol's Vortex, and  Whiplash.

Currency Changes

For more details, check out Wowhead's Currency Changes Guide.

Transmogrification

There are dozens of new transmog sets players can acquire from PvE and PvP.
Our transmog set database is updated with all new 5.4 sets, including recolors and lookalike sets without class restrictions.

Professions

Some professions are getting significant additions in Patch 5.4.
For a complete list of new recipes, vanity items, and new reagents, check out our 5.4 Profession Preview. You can also see how much these items are selling for on the AH by checking out the "Buyout" information in Quick Facts, which updates AH data from The Undermine Journal.

Achievements and Rewards

Many new achievements are coming in Patch 5.4. Of particular note:
  • (Zone #6738): This raid has the usual achievements for killing each boss on heroic difficulty, clearing each raid wing, and quirky achievements for  Glory of the Orgrimmar Raider. Unlike past meta achievements, this one does not require you to kill bosses on heroic difficulty to get your  Reins of Galakras.
  • Ahead of the Curve achievements for (Zone #6738) are split up between 10 and 25 player difficulty now, and reward the mount Reins of the Kor'kron War Wolf.
  • PvP:  Grievous Combatant for winning 100 Areans or 40 RBGs rewards  Vicious Saddle that can be redeemed for new mounts. There are also World PvP achievements tied to farmimg  Bloody Coin.
  • Proving Grounds: There are achievements for beating every difficulty and role in the Proving Grounds, a new single-player challenge where players can either test out learning a new role in a safe environment, or challenge themselves with a familiar role on high difficulty.
  • Timeless Isle: Numerous quirky exploration achievements, which user Voxxel has provided detailed comments for.
  • Getting the fastest Challenge Mode time on the realm in a guild run rewards a Feat of Strength and unique title.
To learn more, check out Wowhead's 5.4 Achievement Preview.

Media

Click the image to get Blizzard's official 5.4 wallpaper in multiple sizes!



Wowhead has an exclusive interview with Lead Game Designer Tom Chilton in which we discussed:
  • What Timeless Isle has to offer and how the Timeless Isle is so unique and a departure from previous content hubs filled with daily quests.
  • The goals of Proving Grounds and the appeal for players both highly skilled and new to a role.
  • The decision to make MoP's legendary a cape instead of a weapon.
  • Target audiences for Flex Raiding.
  • The increased incentives and rewards for participating in the (Zone #6738).
Blizzard also went out of their way to schedule a ton of interviews for Patch 5.4--check them out below!
Originally posted by Blizzard (Official Post | Blue Tracker)Collapse

Blizzard

Patch 5.4: Siege of Orgrimmar introduces a ton of exciting new content and features, including Flexible Raiding, a new solo Pet Battle Scenario, the Timeless Isle, Proving Grounds, a new Raid dungeon, and more.

To delve further into what this patch brings to the game, we’ve reached out to many influential fansites and players in the community for the biggest round of developer interviews to-date! As we're already well underway, you can use the list below to track the latest information straight from our developers.

"Audio" and "Video" designations below define the format in which the interview was conducted.

Ion Hazzikostas & Greg Street

Greg Street & Brian Holinka

Tom Chilton, Game Director

Dave Kosak, Lead Quest Designer

Cory Stockton, Lead Content Designer

Greg Street, Lead Systems Designer

Ion Hazzikostas, Lead Encounter Designer

Helen Cheng, Quest Designer

Marco Koegler, Technical Director

Making of "The Burdens of Shaohao"
  • The Instance with Chris Metzen, Doug Gregory & Laurel Austin (Audio)
  • WoW Insider with Micky Neilson & Doug Gregory (Transcript)
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