Patch 5.4: Siege of Orgrimmar

Note that this information is preliminary and subject to change. It was gleaned from the 5.4 PTR and the 5.4 PTR patch notes.

This is a major patch. The scheduled release date for 5.4 is now Tuesday 9/10.

• New Raid: Siege of Orgrimmar -
  There will be 14 new bosses. The LFR (and Flexible raids, see below) break this down into 4 instances:
  ◾Vale of Eternal Sorrows (4 bosses)
  ◾Gates of Retribution (4 bosses)
  ◾The Underhold (3 bosses)
  ◾Downfall (3 bosses)
  
  The entrance to the Siege of Orgrimmar raid is in northeastern Vale of Eternal Blossoms, in the exposed foundations of the Mogu'shan Palace. There is a staircase descending towards an instance portal. The various raids will be released over a six week period. Here's the current release schedule. Note that the SoO LFR requires an average item level of 496 or higher.
  


• Flexible Raiding System -
  ◾This is a new raid difficulty designed for pre-made groups of 10 to 25 players or any number in between. Difficulty will adjust automatically based on the number of players present with encounters intended to provide a challenge roughly between Raid Finder and Normal difficulty.
  ◾Flexible Raid difficulty requires a pre-made group to join but has no minimum item level requirements or role restrictions. Both BattleTag™ and Real ID friends are eligible to participate.
  ◾Loot quality will be between Raid Finder and Normal difficulty and awarded through a personal loot system (similar to Raid Finder). Bonus rolls and loot specialization will also be supported.
  ◾Players will be able to earn raid achievements just like in Normal or Heroic difficulty.
  ◾Flexible Raid difficulty has a lockout that is separate from Raid Finder and Normal difficulty.
  ◾It would appear that Flex raids will only be available for Siege of Orgrimmar raids and not older content. Once you have built your group and decided on what wing of SoO to run, you will use the Dungeon Finder interface to queue for the Flexible Raid.


• New Area: Timeless Isle. This is off of the southeast coast of the Jade Forest. When you log onto 5.4 for the first time you'll pick up a quest that you can use to teleport to the Timeless Isle. Once you're there, you can pick up the flight path.
  ◾Here's an excellent introductory video. Be sure to watch all three segments.
  ◾You won't be able to fly on the island. However you can catch a ride on a Highwind Albatross as it tours around the Island.
  ◾Quests, kills, mining and herbing will earn you Timeless Coins. You can turn 500 of these into Master Kukuru at Kukuru's Grotto (58,42) for a key to the various chests in his grotto. Most of these just give you more Timeless Coins (often less than the 500 coins that the key cost) but a few will give you ilvl 496 BoA gear.
  ◾There are also numerous chests on the island that will give you the 496 BoA gear (and Timeless Coins). Here's a good guide and a treasure map. Note that the chests marked "D" (daily) are actually weekly. Hopefully they'll fix the guide and the map.
  ◾Similar to the Isle of Thunder, there are many rare spawns. Here's a map showing their locations.
  ◾The Timeless Isle is home to five new world raid bosses! Players may face each of the four Celestials in a trial of combat (but you can only get loot from one of them each week).
  ◾Heroes who have earned the legendary cloak from Wrathion may access the sanctum of the fiery Yaungol demigod Ordos, atop the Timeless Isle. Ordos drops 7 pieces of ilvl 559 gear.


• New Faction: Shaohao
  You gain rep with him (the last Pandaren Emperor) by completing his quests and by killing members of the Ordon tribe on the Timeless Isle. This can be a slow process so it's best to group up for farming the Ordon. A good place for this is the area before the first bridge. At various levels you can buy some 496 BoA gear such as a Timeless Plate Armor Cache for 7500 Timeless Coins. For 50,000 Timeless Coins you can also buy a Burden of Eternity. The Burden of Eternity can be used to upgrade the 496 timeless armor tokens found in chests to level 535. At honored you can buy a Pouch of Timeless Coins (3500?) for 500 Valor Points. Also you can buy 1 Mogu Rune of Fate for 1000 Timeless Coins, or at exalted, you can buy the Reins of the Heavenly Golden Cloud Serpent for 100,000 Timeless Coins.


• Wrathion's Legendary Questline
  ◾The first eight bosses in Siege of Orgrimmar have a chance to drop a Sigil of Power, Sigil of Wisdom, Secrets of the Empire, or Titan Runestone in addition to their normal loot for players on the appropriate step in the legendary questline.
  ◾If you already have your celestial cloak, visit Wrathion at the Tavern in the Mists in the Veiled Stair to pick up a new quest.
  ◾Complete Wrathion’s final tasks on the Timeless Isle and upgrade your celestial cloak to Legendary quality!
  ◾Only players equipped with a Legendary cloak can reach the Sanctum of Ordos atop the Timeless Isle. (This privilege extends account-wide.) So all of your characters will be able to reach the Sanctum of Ordos even if only one has completed Wrathion's quest chain. The cloak allows you to fly off the end of a bridge and into the Sanctum of Ordos. SPOILER: if you don't have the cloak I think you can still get to the Sanctum of Ordos by taking a ride on a Highwind Albatross.


• All enemies in ToT now have a debuff called Shado-Pan Onslaught which reduces their health and damage by 20%.


• Tier 16 gear is being introduced. While still preliminary, it would appear that the item levels will be 528 for LFR, 540 for Flex, 553 for Normal, and 566 for Heroic. Season 14 PvP gear will also become available. The Season 14 Conquest gear is ilvl 522. The Honor gear is ilvl 496 and the crafted PvP gear will be ilvl 476. When you get one of the tier armor tokens you can turn them in to one of four vendors on the balcony in the Shrine of Seven Stars (near the bank). The four vendors (LFR, Flex, Regular and Heroic) also accept these: Essence of the Cursed Vanquisher, which can be exchanged for any of the 5 tier armor tokens. According to Wowhead they drop from Garrosh Hellscream.


• There's a new coin to be used to roll on gear in SoO and the Celestial Challenges - Warforged Seals. Like the current Mogu Runes of Fate, you can get 3 of these per week for 50 Lesser Charms of Good Fortune from the same gal in the Shrine of Seven Stars.


• Prior to the patch release, don't spend a lot of valor on 522 gear. As was the case in patch 5.2, the valor gear will go on sale (1/3 off). VP will not be converted to JP at the start of 5.4. So, should you try to max your VP prior to the patch? Maybe. Note, however, that there will not be a new valor vendor for tier 16 gear, so the only real use for valor will be to upgrade the new gear that drops from raids or that you farm on the Timeless Isle. Note, too, that there are not a lot of opportunities to earn valor on the Timeless Isle (I've only seen one group daily that awards 50 valor for killing 20 elite creatures). So it sounds like the game has changed and, instead of maxing out valor at 1000 per week, you should spend your time farming Timeless Coins.


• In the PTR, the central part of the Vale of Eternal Blossoms has been destroyed. The story behind this will likely appear at the start of 5.4.


• There are numerous class changes, including new glyphs. Click here for the complete PTR patch notes


• New Feature: Proving Grounds -
  ◾Proving Grounds is a new feature for individual players to test and improve their combat skills.
  ◾At the Proving Grounds, players may undertake trials, designed for Damage, Tank, or Healer roles.
  ◾It provides a great opportunity to learn how to Tank or Heal, without the need of a group.
  ◾Each trial is available in four separate difficulties: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Endless. Harder difficulties include more difficult and varied enemies.
  ◾Endless mode allows you to test your mettle against increasingly difficult enemies. Compare your best scores to friends and guildmates!
  ◾There's a quest you can pick up inside the Shrine of Seven Stars to get you started with the Proving Grounds. The contests take place at the Temple of the White Tiger in Kun-Lai Summit. Upon entering the Proving Grounds, your gear will be scaled down much like it is in Challenge Modes.


• New Feature: Connected Realms -
  ◾Connected Realms are sets of realms that are fused together, and will behave exactly as if they were one cohesive realm. Players on the same Connected Realm will be able to join guilds, access a single Auction House, join arena teams and raids, as well run dungeons or group up to complete quests.
  ◾I believe that Blizz is just merging some low-population realms in an effort to save on servers. But it would be nice if Alexstrasza was merged with another realm or two so that queues weren't so long and so that it would be easier to recruit raiders. It also might be a way to have more than 11 characters per "realm", if that's of interest to you.


• Item Enchantments -
  ◾All permanent item enhancements provided by Enchanting, Engineering, Leatherworking, Tailoring, and various vendors and quests are now able to be applied to items of any level. This means all enchantments can now be applied to heirloom items.
  ◾High level enhancements applied to items equipped by low level players have their power scaled down to be similar to enhancements intended for that level range.
  ◾Low level enhancements applied to items equipped by high level players do not grow further in power beyond their intended level range.


• New Engineering Mount - Sky Golem
  ◾Engineers should start stockpiling living steel as these take 30 bars to make, but I think the Jard's Peculiar Energy Source is new and it may well require 30 days to accumulate these. I expect the mounts will be pretty expensive.


• New Crafting Material: Spirit of War -
  ◾These are acquired by DEing raid quality (553) gear similar to Blood Spirits and Haunting Spirits.
  ◾Unlike previous patches, it looks like the Spirit of War will be used to bypass the daily cooldown on the new crafting materials for 553 gear. In particular:
  ◾Blacksmiths can make Balanced Trillium Ingot for one Spirit of War and one Trillium Bar.
  ◾Tailors can make Celestial Cloth for one Spirit of War and ten Bolts of Windwool Cloth.
  ◾Leather workers can make Hardened Magnificent Hide] for one Spirit of War and two Magnificent Hide.
  ◾The new crafting patterns drop from mobs on the Timeless Isle.
  ◾All of the above can be made once per day without the use of Spirits of War. So the Spirits of War merely accelerate the process. For example, Blacksmiths will be able to make a Balanced Trillium Waistplate (ilevel 553) for 21 Balanced Trillium Ingots which will take 3 weeks without the Spirits of War.
  ◾In the process of making the Balanced Trillium Ingots, Blacksmiths can learn to make new ilevel 476 PvP gear like Crafted Malevolent Gladiator's Scaled Helm. The Blacksmith can also learn to make a total of 3 different Balanced Trillium belts and 3 different Balanced Trillium leggings (each of these require 28 ingots) for a total of 41 new patterns (the one that dropped plus 40 "discoveries").
  ◾Editorial: Even the poorest Blacksmith will be able to make the belt in 21 days with 0 out-of-pocket cost if he's a miner or for maybe 60g/day if he has to buy the trillium bars at the AH. So how much will people be willing to pay for the Spirits of War just to save one day of fabrication time? Not much I suspect. So there goes a major source of income for the top raiding guilds!


• So what should you be doing prior to the 5.4 patch release?
  ◾I would accumulate some valor (at least 1000) so that you can upgrade any new gear that drops. Note that if you typically farm the stones, oil, meat and lumber for the Battlefield: Barrens quest with the intention of turning it in on Tuesday for a quick 200 valor, that won't work once the patch hits as the quest no longer exists in 5.4.
  ◾If you normally convert your Justice Points into Honor Points, do so before the patch hits as the conversion rate is going up to 500 JP for 250 HP. Alternatively, if you can still use some 489 gear, that will be sold for Justice Points rather than Valor.
  ◾Clean out your bags to make space for all the loot you'll find on the Timeless Isle.
  ◾Stock up on bandages. You'll get a lot of cuts and bruises fighting the elites on the Timeless Isle.
  ◾Study the patch notes to see what class changes affect you and to see if any of the new glyphs are of interest.
  ◾Study the Icy Veins strategies and videos for at least the first two fights in SoO (Immerseus and The Fallen Protectors).


• Patch Day!
  ◾Update your addons (especially DBM) and see if they'll work with 5.4.
  ◾Visit the Shrine of Seven Stars and pick up 3 Warforged Seals from the vendor.
  ◾Pick up the quest to take you to the Timeless Isle and the quest to visit the Proving Grounds if that interests you.
  ◾If you have the celestial cloak, visit Wrathion at the Tavern in the Mists to pick up the next stage of the legendary quest chain.
  ◾Use your watch to port yourself to the Timeless Isle (and be sure to pick up the flight path there).
  ◾Pick up a couple of starter quests on the Timeless Isle and start farming Timeless Coins and hopefully the new patterns for Leatherworking, Blacksmithing or Tailoring. You can group up to farm the Timeless Coins and each party member can loot the coins from the same kill. Note that while you can probably solo 90 and 91 elites, you will likely need to group up to kill the 92 and 93 elites.
  ◾Join the raid at 8 PM server where we may attempt the Siege of Orgimmar raid on regular difficulty. If that raid proves too difficult or if we have more than 10 people wanting to raid, we can try the Flexible raid. We could also fight one the Celestial world bosses on the Timeless Isle (they drop 522 PvP gear and two pieces of 553 PvE tier gear, hands and legs).

Thanks for sifting through all the changes & posting up these items.

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Wowhead's 5.4 patch guide:
http://www.wowhead.com/news=219437/wowheads-patch-5-4-guide