World of Warcraft: Patch 5.4 Siege of Orgrimmar

 

Highlights of Patch 5.4: The Siege of Orgrimmar:

• Vale of Eternal Blossoms is destroyed.  Taran Zhu warned long ago that the new visitors to Pandaria would permanent change the land and he was right.  The newly opened Vale of Eternal Blossoms will be destroyed with the live implementation of the patch.  The achievement for opening the Vale will become a Feat of Strength and will no longer be obtainable.
• ALL water is gone from the Vale
• A new raid, Siege of Orgrimmar: 14 bosses, including Garrosh Hellscream—> will raiders kill him, dethrone him, or what?  So far, Blizzard has kept that secret but we will all know shortly
• A new type of raid: Flex Raiding: raids are now capable of scaling in difficult based on the number of people in the raid.  Raid sizes of anywhere between 10 to 25 players are available for flex raids.  Flex raids DO NOT replace normal and heroic 10 and 25 man raids, or LFR.  Loot quality will be a step above LFR and a step below Normal.
• Proving Grounds: just switch specs, just coming back and skills a little rusty?  Proving Grounds are solo instances in four varying degrees of difficulty designed to test the players skills as tank, healer, or damage.  The four modes are Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Endless and the Proving Ground is located at the Temple in Kun-Lai Summit.
• Timeless Isle: new adventuring zone to be found just off the coast of the Jade Forest.  There will be no new dallies or quest chains to be found.  However, the braver explorer will be rewarded with tokens to allow for faster gearing of alts and gear with an ilvl high enough to get into LFR for the Siege of Orgrimmar raid.
• Legendary quest chain concludes – lucky you, my poor priest is far behind on this one.
• Gear that previously cost Valor points, except for Shado Pan Assault gear, will now cost Justice Points and are no longer locked behind a faction reputation grind
• Valor is not being reset
• Connected Realms are coming but will not be available when the Patch goes live
• Usual number of class changes and balancing changes:
• Taunt type abilities all now increase threat generated by 200%
• Vengeance has multiple changes
• All area knockback effects share diminishing returns
• Spinning Crane Kick, Holy Radiance, Light’s Hammer, Holy Word: Sanctuary, and Healing Rain are now smart heals, healing the six lowest health friendly targets in range but will not heal minor guardian type targets (i.e. wild imps, snakes from traps, etc.)
• Base Resilience increased to 72% up from 65%
• Conquest Points awarded from winning a Random Battleground or Call to Arms increased to 150 for the first win and 75 points for each subsequent win that day.
• Balanced Trillium Ingot plans will drop throughout Pandaria, ingots are required to make the new Raid and PvP Blacksmithing plans
• New cooking recipes have been added
• New enchanting reagent: Sha  Fragment –> come from disenchanting gear that was previous obtained using Valor Points
• Crystals can be combined to make a Sha Crystal
• Engineers can obtain the plans to craft Jard's Peculiar Energy Source from creatures throughout Pandaria, it is required to make new schematics
• Blingatron now has a chance to drop a Lil’Blingatron pet
• All enchantments can now be applied to Heirloom Items but will scale down to a level appropriate for the player
• Cash shop goes live in game

Servers come down at midnight 10 September 2013 Pacific Daylight Time and are anticipated to be live at ten o’clock PDT.  I will post updates if anything major changes.

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