Filed under: Mists of Pandaria

• Every taunt ability now increases all threat generated against the target by 200% while the taunt is active.
• Those who participate in PvP Pet Battles should happily note that round timers will get progressively shorter for a player who takes more than 15 seconds to issue a command during their turn.
• Any battle pet that could be rewarded from a Throne of Thunder boss in LFR will now be able to be won from a bonus roll as well.

Gamon, Orgrimmar's resident punching bag, has gone through a lot over the years. He began life as the target of a low level rogue quest, being robbed and brutalized day after day. In Wrath of the Lich King, Gamon grew tired of the constant crime and violence, deciding to take a stand against the corruption in Orgrimmar and fend off the death knight menace encroaching on its gates. Unfortunately, still a lowly level 12, he was no match for his level 58 opponents.

After an intense training montage, Gamon was reborn as a level 85 elite in Cataclysm. Over the course of Mists of Pandaria, he has been one of the proud citizens of Orgrimmar to stand up to Garrosh Hellscream's oppression, engaged in a months-long stand-off with a number or the Warchief's Kor'kron enforcers.

Finally, in patch 5.4, Gamon will fulfill his dream. He will be a hero. Gamon will save us all.

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Okay, before we get into it, always remember this is datamined information from the next PTR and none of it is guaranteed to make it live. That being said, there are some interesting changes in the pipeline for tanks in patch 5.4, not the least of which is the creation of Riposte, an ability for warriors and death knights. The reason Riposte is interesting is because it seems to be a means to convert parry and dodge into critical strike, which means several things. First, you'll be less likely to stack critical strike as a tank (warriors were at least thinking about it with the change to Enrage, including Shield Slam and Devastate) and secondly, it makes those purely defensive stats work as threat generators, increased the low tank DPS of the warrior tank (and perhaps the DK tank as well, although I'd not heard any complaints about low DK tank DPS) and it must be noted, is not an ability that druid, paladin or monk tanks will be getting.

I find this very interesting, especially combined with the changes to Dark Command, Reckoning, Growl and Taunt. All of these abilities will now not only force a target to attack the tank in question, but will also increase her threat by 200% for 3 seconds. This means that, even if you are tanking a boss or mob that you already have threat on, these four abilities will still increase your threat overall when used, meaning that if you hit a taunt while tanking it will still have a positive effect on your threat. It's worth noting that hunter pet Growl works exactly the same - hunter pets will also get the extra 200% threat over the three seconds.

We're clearly not even remotely done with tweaks and fixes in patch 5.4, but by themselves these changes suggest that tanking is definitely going to see its fair share. The change to taunts is the biggest change to how taunting works that has ever happened, and the inclusion of Riposte goes one step further towards making avoidance also provide threat.

The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

So I was going to write about Med'an again this week, but with patch 5.4 on the horizon it felt like now was the time to talk about Y'Shaarj, the single most active dead god we've ever seen. In case it needs to be said, yes, there's going to be spoilers and lots of spoilers too. We will be talking about the patch 5.4 storyline, and pretty much everything other patch since Mists of Pandaria debuted.

It has been a presence in Pandaria since before it was Pandaria. The mantid served it - indeed, they still revere its memory. The Sha are a result of it. The Titans destroyed it, yet it will not be destroyed. Ancient and terrible, its seven heads proved immortal, its dread essence exhaled out across the very land, bringing the darkest emotions of the mortal heart into stark existence. It is Y'Shaarj. It is dead. And being dead has proved no hindrance. One of the Old Gods, Y'Shaarj has shaped the land in death, and even now, it threatens to return to life.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Seasoned ret paladin Dan Desmond is here to answer your questions and provide you with your biweekly dose of retribution medicine. Contact him at dand@wowinsider.com with any questions, concerns, or suggestions!

Earlier last week we got our first glimpse of the 5.4 PTR as Wowhead and MMO-Champion mined a massive amount of data from the latest update to the test realms. With new features like virtual realms, proving grounds, and flex raids, it's easy to be overwhelmed. As for myself, the first thing I did was hit Ctrl+F and searched for "Paladin" to see what, if any, changes we were due. Truth be told, I wasn't expecting a whole lot of changes for retribution -- we seem to be in a nice place, comfortably in the middle of the pack for DPS with heaps of utility to boot. Boy, was I mistaken.

Before we get into the discussion, do remember that none of these proposed changes are finalized. The "test realms" aren't named that by chance; the developers want to see how things like this play out on a large scale, larger than their internal testing can accommodate, and sift through player feedback from the community. So while we shouldn't get too worked up over one thing or another on the PTR, it's always beneficial to react to changes, at least in a civilized and logical manner.

Warlocks around the world have been weeping at the Patch 5.4 PTR intended nerf to Kil'jaeden's Cunning and Mannoroth's Fury. Blizzard Community Manager Lore had already posted an explanation for the tier 6 talent nerfs and some unseen PTR mechanics that were not in the patch notes to help aid warlocks in recovering DPS lost to movement.

CM Lore is back tonight with another post of spell changes in the next build for warlocks in the continuing discussion of the Kil'jaeden's Cunning and Mannoroth's Fury talent nerfs. After the break, you may read about a minor note about Rain of Fire generating less embers (specifics currently unknown), so that the developers can further discourage use of the spell in single-target situations.

Fel Flame is being reworked entirely: it will no longer extended DoTs and it has a 1.5 second cast time instead of being instant-cast. In return, Fel Flame will be castable while moving and has received a small damage buff. Haunt, in return, will go back to being interrupted by movement. Affliction is being further compensated for the loss of Malefic Grasp while moving by expectedly moving the damage done power back into Haunt and the three DoTs.

Finally, Kil'jaeden's Cunning and Mannoroth's Fury are both on a 1 minute cooldown (down from 1.5 minutes) but also a lowered duration of 10 seconds (down from 15 seconds). Mannoroth's Fury applies to only the main AoEs but it provides a 100% damage increase to the specific AoE spells as well as the expanded area.

Testing for the big bad raid of the Mists of Pandaria expansion is not quite ready to begin, Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas tells us, but we're getting close. There will be a few more PTR patches to take care of some stability issues, and then Blizzard will be ready to open up the Siege of Orgrimmar to testing groups. Blizzard is going for two major schedules for SoO testing: one at 10:30 am Pacific time, aimed toward EU players, and one at 4:00 pm Pacific time, aimed toward North American players, though all regions will be open to testing during both scheduled windows.

Normal and heroic 10-player modes will be tested first before proceeding to 25-player normal and heroic modes. LFR and flex raiding will be available for PTR testing as well, and will be unlocked once a raid wing has completed testing in normal mode, with a longer time frame for testing as well.

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One of the questions I see asked often is "Are patches coming too fast" and I'm not sure that they really are. Considering that the Dragon Soul patch (4.3) came out almost exactly a year after the pre-Cataclysm patch The Shattering (Patch 4.0) then we're on pace for Patch 5.4 to come out roughly a year after patch 5.0. If we get patch 5.4 in three to four months, which would fit what we've seen with other patch releases this expansion, then we're looking at one more patch per cycle this expansion than last, and both patch 5.1 and 5.3 brought content outside of new raids. So yes, the patch cycle is slightly faster now, but those patches tend to vary between large patches with lots of raid content and smaller patches with quest hubs or PvP changes.

Looking at previous expansions, I was struck by how little the cycle has changed between Cataclysm and the current expansion. The only real difference is that Cataclysm had one patch (patch 4.1) that was a smaller patch with dungeons and world changes, whereas Mists of Pandaria has had two, patch 5.1 and 5.3. (I say smaller, but that's not really an accurate term - it's simply more convenient than typing 'focused on non raid content' over and over again.) So when we talk about the rapid patch cycle of Mists, we're basically talking about one patch.

So, therefore I wondered to myself - why does it feel like we're getting patches fast and furiously? Why do I hear and see people discussing patch burnout and talk myself about feeling totally overwhelmed by patch changes? If, as we've demonstrated, Mists of Pandaria is in fact more or less on par with or at best slightly ahead of previous expansions in terms of patch frequency (to go back to Wrath of the Lich King, patch 3.3 came out roughly a year after patch 3.0, although we then had a full year before Cataclysm) then why does it feel so much faster?

Making sure to keep things up to date as we rush towards patch 5.4, the official site has not remained idle. If you're interested in the lore of the game and what's been going on, there's now three new features to take a look at. There's this synopsis of Patch 5.2's Thunder King storyline, which gives players an outline of why the Horde and Alliance forces are taking part in the operation. Then there's a round up of patch 5.3, explaining the Darkspear Rebellion and the Alliance's intelligence operations in Durotar.

Finally, if you're interested in the lore, there's this new character page which gives you a brief rundown of the various figures of import. Especially nice is that each individual's page has links to related characters and content that can tell you more about them. So head on over to the official site and take a look.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill thinks it's too difficult to convey moving while casting in a static screenshot, so, instead, have the Scholomance potion guy in front of a Demonic Gateway.

We covered Karazhan's pets, mounts, and fun last week, so this week, we'll cover Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep in the continuing quest to colle--

No. Sorry. If you really thought I was going to skip this past week's bombshell of warlock PTR patch notes for collecting pets from retro raids, I will scold you later for having no faith in me. Let's talk level 90 talent problems.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host.

Okay, so let's look at what we're getting as of the most recent Patch 5.4 PTR build. What stands out?

Patch 5.4 PTR Patch notes

Warrior

General

• Enrage now also triggers on critical hits from Devastate and Shield Slam.
• Shattering Throw no longer costs rage.

Talents

• Enraged Regeneration now instantly heals the warrior for 10% of their total health (up from 5%), and an additional 10% over 5 seconds (up from 5%).
• Vigilance no longer transfers damage to the Warrior. The talent now reduces amount of damage the target takes by 30% for 12 seconds.

Arms

• Slam now does an additional 10% damage to targets affected by the warrior's Colossus Smash.

Fury

• Titan's Grip now works with polearms.

source

There are actually some other changes if you log onto the PTR itself that aren't in the notes: Bladestorm is down to a 1 minute cooldown on the PTR, for instance. I like to call this the Christmas in Pandaria. In fact, if you look at these spell changes on Wowhead, you'll see that a lot of spells got buffed - Storm Bolt's damage got increased, Impending Victory's heal got doubled to 30%. So now that we've looked at the changes, what do they mean?

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Matthew Rossi will be your host today. Don't worry, this will be the last Queue he does for a while.

It's just occurred to me that I've never seen a Robin Hood MMO, or even really a Robin Hood CRPG of any kind. I mean, I don't have a universal knowledge of gaming, it's certainly more than possible that such a thing exists, but I don't know about it. There's been a fair number of Camelot/King Arthur games, but a surprising dearth of games about Robin Hood. It could be because the character has a fairly convoluted origin with a lot of interpolations, or maybe the idea of a heroic outlaw is too far outside of vogue nowadays. WoW has the Defias Brotherhood, but it's less the Merry Men and more guys who build a giant ironclad warship to blow up Stormwind.

I may be bringing this up because both Kevin Costner and Russel Crowe have played Robin Hood, and they were both one of Superman's dads in Man of Steel. I'm not saying I am, but it wouldn't surprise me. Anyway, on with the Queue! Some of these questions will undoubtedly contain spoilers for Patch 5.4.

Electresserin asks:
Question for the queue- I'm not sure if this has already been answered elsewhere: does Vol'jin want to be warchief? I understand that he wants revenge for the attempt on his life, and of course he wants the trolls to get out from under Garrosh's rule. But does he really want to take on the responsibilities of being the warchief? If he defeats Garrosh, does he automatically become warchief or could he refuse the title?

Well, one of the problems here is, there is no mechanism for determining who is the Warchief. Thrall appointed Garrosh, and Thrall himself was simultaneously appointed by a dying Doomhammer and acclaimed by the orcs at Hammerfall (which wasn't named that yet, of course). Doomhammer got the job by killing Blackhand and anyone else who might stand in his way, and Blackhand got it because Gul'dan manipulated the orcs into accepting him. So basically, in the history of being Warchief, murdering the dude before you has been the method of succession once out of the four times the job got passed down. So if Vol'jin is seen as having defeated Garrosh in battle, then yes, he may well become Warchief. Now, I don't see any reason he couldn't refuse the title if it was offered to him.

As to whether or not he wants the job, so far in game he hasn't said. I suspect we'll find out once Shadows of the Horde comes out. My suspicion is no, he's not really keen on it, but he'll do it if he thinks he has to. I wouldn't be surprised to see him and Baine try and create some kind of Horde Council to replace the position.

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Matthew Rossi will be your host today.

I have absolutely no Danish heritage. Well, I might from my English ancestors, but none of my relatives that I can trace are from Denmark, so when I say I'm fascinated with Valdemar Atterdag aka Valdemar IV of Denmark, you know it's not out of any nationalist pride. My reasons for being fascinated with Valdemar Atterdag are threefold - first, that he came to the throne as a relatively young and untried man and through ruthlessness, guile, economic brinksmanship and naked war effectively reconquered Denmark. Second, he did so at a time when Denmark had been effectively parceled out and in the face of plague and powerful neighbors like Sweden and the Hanseatic League. Finally, he's become almost mythic as a consequence - Valdemar's name is actually used in connection with the Wild Hunt as the hunter himself, meaning that some people think Valdemar Atterdag was Woden.

What I'm getting at is that Warcraft needs more people like this, who achieve conquest through every means at their disposal and who create something when they're done. Also that name kicks ass - not many people get a last name that means 'day again'. Why doesn't WoW have a Wild Hunt yet?

Anyway, World of Warcraft questions! There will be Patch 5.4 spoilers in these questions. As a result, I'm putting the first question behind the break.