Mists of Pandaria Talent Page Updated

We’ve updated the Mists of Pandaria talent page with all of the latest improvements you’ll find when you dive into the game’s next expansion. Take a look at the wide range of skills and talents that your new monk heroes will unleash on their foes, add glyphs to your skills, and link to and discuss your builds on the forums with your fellow theorycrafters.

Check out the newly updated Talent page to start exploring.

WoW Summer Challenge: Karazhan

Every week this summer, we’re challenging you to get together with a few friends to explore a part of Azeroth that you may not have seen in a while, or perform a feat that you may have never done. We’re calling them World of Warcraft Summer Challenges, and we’re going to be playing along with you as we hunt down rare achievements, get screenshots of amazing bosses, and try to find some rare gear for our transmogrification sets.

This week’s challenge is: Karazhan.

Medivh, the Last Guardian, made his home in Deadwind Pass, in the bright tower of Karazhan. Though he was the greatest wizard of his day (and humanity's intended custodian) Medivh was secretly possessed by the dark spirit of Sargeras, the Destroyer of Worlds. Through Medivh, Sargeras opened the Dark Portal and allowed the orcs to wage war upon the kingdoms of Azeroth.

Originally opened for raids of 10 players at level 70, Karazhan is teeming with a dozen bosses, many with unique events, ending with Prince Malchezaar. There are a number of reasons to explore Azeroth's original haunted castle.

Notable achievements

• Karazhan -- Defeat Prince Malchezaar
• Karazhan Guild Run -- Defeat Prince Malchezaar while in a guild group of at least 8 people
• Outland Raider -- Complete this and the other seven Burning Crusade raids.
• Fiery Warhorse's Reins (feat of strength) -- Obtain this mount from Attumen the Huntsman

Desirable gear

• Arcanist Regalia
• Bold Armor
• Beast Lord Mail
• Bloodfang Armor
• Righteous Armor
• Aldor Regalia
• Big Bad Wolf's Paw
• King's Defender
• Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix
• Steelhawk Crossbow
• Legacy
• Despair

Other odds and ends

• Some bosses in this dungeon drop rare Enchanting Formulas: Enchant Weapon - Mongoose (Moroes),Enchant Weapon - Sunfire (Shade of Aran), and Enchant Weapon - Soulfrost (Terestian Illhoof).
• The rare Engineering Schematic - Stabilized Eternium Scope has a chance to drop when you kill Attumen the Huntsman here.
• Players seeking The Violet Eye reputation will want to kill everything in the zone, and complete the epic questline that starts with Arcane Disturbances or Restless Activity

As the war progressed, Medivh fought against Sargeras' control. The raging conflict within him finally drove the wizard irrevocably insane, until his childhood friend, Anduin Lothar, aided Medivh's young apprentice, Khadgar in storming Karazhan and slaying their former comrade. Since that day, a terrible curse has pervaded both the tower and the lands around it - casting a dark pall over Deadwind Pass and the region that is now known as Duskwood.

Please join us in this discussion thread, where we’re talking about this week’s challenge, and looking forward to your stories about how it went for you this week, your screenshots, and your suggestions for other fun reasons to take on Karazhan

Around Azeroth Beta Edition: The world is yours

This yeti is feeling pretty good about its position in the world. It would like to cross its arms and smoke a cigarette while looking down from a New York City penthouse, like a boss. But sadly, it lives in the wrong universe. So it has to settle for chilling on a mountaintop and staring out at the pagodas of Pandaria. It's hard to be cool in a preindustrial world. (Thanks to Vephriel of Nesingwary [US-H] for the screenshot.)

Encrypted Text: Preparation vs. Shadowstep

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtletyrogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here.

The new Mists of Pandaria talent calculators are designed to promote tough choices. None of the new rogue talents are awful, and all of them will see play at some point. Deadly Throwand Shuriken Toss could be useful to attack distant targets. Paralytic Poison and Nerve Strikecould allow us to reduce our target's outgoing damage significantly. The battle betweenVersatility and Anticipation will likely be decided on a fight-by-fight basis.

The truth is that all of these choices pale in comparison to the ultimate decision in the new rogue talent tree: Preparation or Shadowstep. Burst of Speed is certainly interesting, but it doesn't have the history of Prep or ShS. Subtlety's two signature spells are facing off in a battle of utility abilities. Putting both of these abilities on the same talent tier is sadistic, but we have to cope with the reality of this decision.

Shadowstep's new design

In order to make this decision even more difficult, Shadowstep is undergoing significant changes in Mists of Pandaria. The percentage-based damage bonus that it currently grants our next finisher is disappearing. That doesn't mean that Shadowstep doesn't help our DPS, as it does allow us to increase our uptime in melee range. The impact is that our openers have lost some of their burst potential. In addition, the 70% speed boost after using Shadowstep is being cut from 3 seconds to 2 seconds.

To compensate for the drop in offensive power, Shadowstep will be able used on friendly targets. With this new feature, we can use Shadowstep defensively to avoid being trapped, and we can also use it to quickly assist another friendly player. Shadowstep is shedding its previous damage bonus in favor of additional utility, which unfortunately increases the commonality it shares with Preparation.

It's not about damage

With Overkill gone, assassination and combat rogues won't gain a single point of DPS on most encounters via Shadowstep or Preparation. Our decision will be based purely on the utility of each ability. Unfortunately, rogues don't have much experience in this department. The vast majority of our talent, gear, and character choices revolve around damage. DPS is the constant that we can always align our decision-making compass to.

In fact, this choice probably won't involve PvE at all. We can always swap between Shadowstep and Preparation on a per-encounter basis. There's plenty of downtime between bosses, and it's common for players to optimize their setups for any given boss. If you need defensive cooldowns, then Preparation is your best bet. If there's lots of running around or target swaps, then Shadowstep becomes more valuable. I don't think we'll have much trouble picking the right talent for PvE.

Utility and PvP

The problem with trying to make objective decisions about PvP is that it's so nebulous. You never know what classes you'll run into at the Lumber Mill or which specs you'll be facing in an Arena match. PvP fights are anything but scripted. While we can explicitly plan to useShadowstep to counter a boss' particular ability, there are so many abilities and counters in PvP that we're incapable of solving every possible outcome.

If we take Preparation and Shadowstep at face value, we can find the utility of both abilities.Preparation allows us to front load a ton of offensive and defensive cooldowns, but only every five minutes. Shadowstep gives us a much more modest boost to our mobility, but we can Shadowstep more than twice a minute. The key value of Shadowstep is that it allows us to close gaps constantly, while the value of Preparation is the ability to exploit multiple cooldowns to overwhelm our opponents.

Melee and ranged

Against melee classes, Preparation is the clear victor. An extra Dismantle and Evasion can easily turn the tide of an encounter, and that's not even the potency of a second Vanish-based opener. If we're facing off against a single melee opponent, chances are that neither one of us will be running away. Shadowstep's key function is to increase mobility, but that's not a major concern of ours when fighting other melee classes.

The value of Shadowstep is seen when facing ranged opponents. Their first priority when fighting a rogue will be to run away, since rogues are only effective when in melee range. They'll try to kite us with every snare, stun, and speed boost in their toolbox. Shadowstep allows us to close that gap quickly and repeatedly. Fighting a ranged class is a constant positioning tug-of-war, with Shadowstep tipping the scales in our direction.

Preparation is still quite valuable when fighting a ranged class. While Dismantle and Evasion are obviously nearly pointless, Preparation also resets the cooldown on our Sprint and Cloak of Shadows abilities. Sprint and Cloak are two of the most important tools when it comes to handling ranged classes, and Vanish is similarly valuable. Preparation is versatile enough to provide value against opponents of any type.

Burst vs. sustained

While Preparation might look like the obvious favorite over Shadowstep, it does suffer from one key drawback: We can only use it every five minutes. It's only one extra Sprint and Vanish, or one more Evasion and Dismantle. In a short battle, that type of cooldown saturation can be very persuasive. If healers aren't involved, it's likely that the fight will be over before you can even use all of those CDs. However, if your opponent handles your barrage of CDs with ease, then you're left without that talent's benefits for five long minutes.

Shadowstep, on the other hand, can be used regularly. If you're playing a long game of cat-and-mouse with your opponent, then you're going to need multiple gap closers. With healers supporting both you and your targets, you'll be able to use Shadowstep multiple times, while Preparation would simply sit on cooldown. Shadowstep allows you to constantly be attacking your opponents.

I think Preparation is going to give us the biggest benefit in most PvP situations outside of Arenas. Shadowstep is definitely a contender, but will probably be saved for specific situations where a barrage of cooldowns won't turn the tide of a battle in our favor. I'm still upset that rogues have to choose between these two iconic abilities. We've been asking for Shadowstep to be universal for years, and it's bittersweet to see it available in the talent tree but placed on the same level as Preparation.

Did You Know...?: World of Warcraft: Trading Card Game -- Loot Cards

Do you know about the plethora of World of Warcraft in-game items, mounts, and pets featuring unique visual effects available exclusively from the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game? Each Trading Card Game set offers three unique loot cards. Each pack of cards you purchase from a set has the possibility of including one of these loot cards. For the rarest loot card in the set, the chances you’ll find one in a single pack are slim, while the chances are much better for the more common loot cards in the set.

You can learn more about the loot cards available in each trading card set on Cryptozoic Entertainment's official WoW TCG loot web site. You can also check out our screenshot gallery to take a peek at some of these much sought-after collector's items.

New Warcraft Art & Comic

The World of Warcraft Fan Art Section has been updated with three new pieces of fan artwork by Breathing2004.

  

Would you like to share your artistic talents with the community? Submit your fan art today!

ART GALLERY UPDATE

We've updated our Trading Card Game art gallery to feature ten new pieces. Each image is taken directly from the official World of Warcraft Trading Card Game.

  

  

  

NEW WORLD OF WARCRAFT COMIC

Last but not least, we've added a new community comic to our gallery. This one was submitted by Kalah Anderson (OceanDeepFall). 

We've spent eight years adding awesome community comics to our Comics section, but we're far from finished. We're looking for the best new World of Warcraft comics to become front page news on our site, and we’d love to have your help, whether you're a seasoned contributor or a first-time cartoonist. If you’d like to have your comic displayed on our website, submit it here.

Did you know?... Submitting Media. Many of the best updates found on our website each week were created by you! Fan Art, Screenshots, Wallpapers, and Comics all come from player submissions, and we want to thank you for your wonderful contributions.