WoW: Escalation (Patch 5.3) Made Easy
The new World of Warcraft patch, Escalation (5.3) was released Tuesday and there are quite a few changes and additions to be mindful of. To do you a favour, here is what you need to know about the new patch that is easy to digest.
CAUTION: CONTAINS SPOILERS
Lore/Story Changes
If you have completed your Dominance Offensive quest chain you are up to date on the current state of affairs within the Horde, but just to recap:
– Garrosh sent someone to kill Vol’Jin
– Vol’Jin didn’t die, Garrosh is unaware of this
– Garrosh is using the sha to corrupt and empower his Kor’Kron army, and eventually the Horde
– A rebellion within the Horde is brewing
You start the new quest line in Pandaria, where you listen to Lorewalker Cho’s and his observations of the actions between the Horde and Alliance. This is where you go through 2 of the new scenarios, Blood in the Snow and Dark Heart of Pandaria, to flush out his story thus far. Once completed you are sent to Sen’Jin village where the fun begins. Meeting up with Vol’Jin, Thrall and Chen Stormstout you become a part of the Horde rebellion and work with Vol’Jin’s forces to put a spoke in the Kor’Kron collection of resources and recapture the gruesome Razor Hill.
Once this is completed, players are sent back to Pandaria to assist the Old Seer (who was actually the Emperor of Pandaria) and find out about the last – and most powerful – sha: Pride.
This story is fairly exciting, with the Northern Barrens now a relentless resource farming zone (that doubles as gank-fest 2013 if you’re on a PvP server).
SPOILERS HAVE ENDED. IT IS SAFE NOW.
Class Changes
(If you want a specific breakdown of the changes you can find them here.)
Hunters: Some of your pet’s crowd control abilities had a minor nerf to their cool down, but you have been buffed slightly overall. (Not that you even pay attention to anything to do with your class mechanics outside of pure facerolling…)
Monks: Buffed, but nothing outrageous. (Not like you need it… at all.)
Death Knights: Your damage has been nerfed slightly, with a minor absorption buff to Necrotic Strike. (If you know your class you can still rock though. THERE IS HOPE.)
Druids: Buffed. Again. (Noooooooo…)
Mages: You have been buffed. I am strangely not mad at this, there hasn’t been a mage buff in a while.)
Paladins: Healing and Prot Pallies have been nerfed, while Retribution has been buffed slightly. (I can’t say I’m upset about this.)
Priests: Slight nerf overall with the exception of healing. Healing has, once again, been buffed for Priests. (SERIOUSLY?! AGAIN?!)
Rogues: Finally seeing a buff this patch. (Now you all can go back to raising the blood pressure of every player in Azeroth.)
Shamans: You get a general buff. (Shamans never really cause trouble, right?)
Warlocks: Look forward to a slight buff. Again. (Because a class with 600k health that can survive a 5-on-1 attack needs a buff. Really.)
Warriors: Slightly nerfed. (I wish I could hug all of you.)
PvP Changes
(a.k.a THANK YOU BADDIES FOR CRYING TO BLIZZARD, THANK YOU. Jerks.)
– Battlegrounds, Rated Battlegrounds, and Arenas now have an ilevel cap – all players will have their ilevel scaled down to 496 and will have a base resilience of 65%. (Really Blizzard? Is this what we are doing now?)
– Battle fatigue reduces a players amount of healing and absorbs received by 45%, up from 30%.
– Healing specializations see 100% bonus healing from PvP Power, damage classes see a 70% bonus, and all other classes (tanks) receive a 40% bonus.
– RESILIENCE HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM GEAR. PvP POWER AND RESILIENCE HAVE BEEN CUT IN HALF ON ALL PvP GEMS. (*aneurism*)
– Current Honour requirement has been lifted from PvP weapon purchase. (I farmed the 7k requirement on Monday. No lie.)
– Roles have been implemented in Battlegrounds to help balance teams. (Yeah, right. 1 day out and there is already an exploit.)
The addition of Deepwind Gorge.
This Battleground has 2 main objectives:
– Hold as many of the 3 available mines as possible. Once a mine has been captured, NPCs will mine resources for your team. The first team to reach 1600 resources wins.
– At the opposing base, players are able to attach a cart to themselves and “pull” the mining cart back to their base in the same fashion you capture a flag in current Battlegrounds. Players attached to a card will be reduced to normal running speed. Your team’s cart does not have to be present at your base in order to cap the opposing team’s cart, and each cart capture grants you +20 Honour, your team gains 200 resources while the opposing team loses 200 resources.
Brawlers Guild Changes
– Brawlers Guild shirts have been added into the game, granting players a buff when the shirt is equipped. Defeating all bosses awards players with an epic shirt.
– There is now a V.I.P. lounge in the arena: a floating zeppelin for the Horde and a balcony for the Alliance. Only accessible by players at Rank 8 or above.
– Ranks 9 and 10 have been added to the festivities. (There has been no nerf to Epicus Maximus.. sorry.) At Rank 9 players receive a second Bind-on-Use account-wide invite to the Brawlers Guild, and at Rank 10 players receive the new Brawlers Burly Mushan Beast mount.
Pets and Mounts
Players can now farm new pets from Karazhan, Serpentshrine Cavern, Isle of Thunder/Isle of Giants, Throne of Thunder and achievement rewards (full details on pet abilities and stats are available here.)
Also, battle pet spectating has been included into the game allowing players to peer into the private phase of another player’s pet battle. This is actually quite convenient, especially for those who farm the rare battle pets, because players have a more accurate idea as to when the pet is up (and in battle) as opposed to being on respawn.
New mounts have been added into the game! The Iron Hitching Post has also been included (looks like it will come from the WoW TCG, but this has not been confirmed) allowing party or raid members to transform their mounts into an Iron Warhorse.
The other new mounts are the Enchanted Fey Dragon, the Hearthsteed (looks amazing!), the Armoured Red/Blue Dragonhawk (faction specific) and the incredibly fun-to-say Brawlers Burly Mushan Beast.
Other Changes/Additions That Don’t Have Sub-headers
– The experience required to level from 85 to 90 has been reduced by 33%. (YEESSs)
– Players are now able to SAVE GOLD by transmogrifying gear directly from Void Storage, a total of 50g per item in savings.
– New scenarios have been added, such as Battle on the High Seas, Blood in the Snow, Dark Heart of Pandaria, and The Secrets of Ragefire.
– Gamon is now a Rare Elite with 39 million health, and is perpetually surrounded and antagonized by Kor’Kron guards in Orgrimmar.
– Tigers Peak arena has been added.
– Several new achievements have been added, with my personal favourite being the title earned for completing all the Deepwind Gorge achievements. (Your characters name becomes “Gorgeous [name]”)
– Herbalists and miners are able to level their professions STARTING in Pandaria. Determined by the skill level of the profession upon beginning, players will receive a nugget of ore/torn shred of leaf that can be combined in various amounts to create a level 525-600 ore/herb. This is going to create even more traffic to the currently sparse Pandaria nodes, decreasing the amount of low level crafting materials on the Auction House, and driving gatherers crazy.
(via MMO Champ and WoW Armory)
