Valley of the Four Winds Rare Champions

Moving out of The Jade Forest and into Valley of the Four Winds we step away from weapons as special drops and get our first taste of vanity items, trinkets and other fun (and quite useful) drops from rares. To see these special items in action check out this post: Sneak Peek: Special Drops from Rare Champions of Pandaria.

All of the rares in this zone are level 86 with health pools around 1.5M. Naturally they hit a little harder than those in The Jade Forest. They each have a 100% chance to drop an item level 410 pair of bop gloves of a random armor type as well as a Small Bag of Goods.

In my long and frustrating camp for Sulik'shor also I found out a lot more about how the spawn timers work on these rares. First of all, it seems that they typically all spawn in around the same time. A friend and I were camping both Sele'na and Sulik'shor and witnessed them spawning in at the same time. On many other occasions I've noticed others throughout the same zone either alive or as corpses while doing flyovers. This seems to hold true for each zone in Pandaria. The average spawn time seems to be around an hour, but I've seen them respawn in under and hour and up to almost 2 hours as well.

Click map to Enlarge

Nasra Spothide (Pandaren)
Nasra Spothide spawns under a small Pandaren structure on the far northeastern end of the zone just before the bridge leading into The Jade Forest.

Like other Pandaren her three abilities are Chi Burst, Healing Mists and Spinning Crane Kick. The most important thing to know when taking her down is to interrupt Healing Mists, and run away from Spinning Crane Kick. Ranged players should also stand within 15 yards of her to avoid his Chi Burst which deals some pretty massive damage.

Nasra has a small chance to drop a trinket called the Seed of Tranquil Growth. This trinket summons a cute little flower that looks just like the Ammen Vale Lashling.

Patrannache - Trackable Hunter Pet (Crane)

Patrannache is a level 86 pink crane, and one of the new rare elite trackable hunter pets introduced in MoP. Judging by his name, color and the fact that he is also a bird; it seems that he is somehow related to the well known Mazzranache found in Mulgore. Personally, I'll be looking for this guy first when MoP hits for obvious reasons.

Unfortunately Patrannache can be quite difficult to track down. I definitely found him to be the toughest of these new hunter pets to find without a doubt. He has an incredibly long and windy patrol route through a very good portion of The Valley of the Four Winds. (See map below for exact path.) Luckily he can be tamed by hunters in any spec, and once found he makes a unique pet that really stands out.

How to track: Like the other trackable hunter pets, you will not be able to see him when he's up. He is completely stealthed. In order to locate him, you will need to find and follow his tracks - tracks that thankfully only hunters can see. Once you've found his tracks you'll need to follow them until you don't see any more. This is where I like to wait and watch where I think that he'll be walking next. Often times you'll see a new track appear right in front of you - this means you've found him!

Once you find him, the only way to see where he is, will be for him to walk through a flare. Don't throw your flare down on top of the track he just left, throw it a little further out in front of where you think he is. When he walks through your flare he will become visible. You can take this opportunity to tame, or you can throw a Hunter's Mark on him - which will keep him visible to you when he goes back into stealth. Hunter's Mark will make him visible to you, but only you when he's in stealth.

Patrannache's tracks are called "Barely-Visible Tracks", and they are very aptly named. Patrannache's tracks are incredibly difficult to see. They are very small, and blend right into the ground for most of his path. If you want any hope at all of finding these tracks it is an absolute necessity to turn ground clutter down to a minimum. I also found it helpful to hover my mouse over different anomalies in the terrain that I was scouring over so that the name of his tracks would pop up if I'd come across one. Like other beasts' tracks they do not stay up indefinitely; the furthest ones behind disappear one by one as new tracks are created. The best advice I think I can give when looking for his tracks is to take it slow, and check each area thoroughly. It is very easy to scan the terrain with your eyes and miss his tracks entirely - which may actually be right in front of you.

Salyis' Warband & Galleon - MoP World Boss

(Updates toward bottom of post.)

Chief Sayis' Warband, Blizzard did a wonderful job on this model!

After maintenance this morning I logged into the beta to do a few quests in the Valley of Four Winds before going to work. The moment I logged in I noticed people in general chat looking for more to help down a rare world boss. Naturally I was curious and offered to join in.

It turns out this boss is actually an entire war party called Salyis' Warband. The party is made up of several saurok (reptilian humanoids) who man two huge cannons on top of a kodo-like beast called a mushan named Galleon. The party is led by Chief Salyis (seen standing on Galleon's head).

I'm not sure yet if the War-band spawns in any other locations, but when our group attempted downing them we found them on the Rumbling Terrace shooting cannonballs over the river. I put a red dot on the map below to show where we found them.