World Of Warcraft Patch 5.4 Goes Live

Today Blizzard implemented patch 5.4 for World of Warcraft. The update, entitled "Siege of Orgrimmar," provides a number of reasons for players to log back into the MMORPG.

The patch is named after a new raid zone. Siege of Orgrimmar pits players against Garrosh Hellscream, the leader of the Horde who recently came down with a case of the crazies. The raid zone has 14 bosses to defeat. It's the first instance to support the new Flexible Raid difficulty, which automatically scales based on how many players you have.

If you're looking to sharpen your skills in between raids, you can head to the Proving Grounds. The Proving Grounds are solo challenges that train you to perform DPS, tank, or healing roles in raids or dungeons. They're a great way for beginning players to get acclimated to these roles. Advanced players can test their skills to the utmost with three difficulty levels and an Endless Mode with leaderboards.

It'll be easier to find other players for raids and other group activities due to the new Connected Realms feature. Under the new Connected Realms system, two or more servers will be tied together. Players from realms that have been connected can join the same guilds, run raids and dungeons together, shop at the same auction house, or team up for quests. That should make life much more pleasant for players on underpopulated servers.

If solo questing is your thing, you can travel to the new Timeless Isle. The Timeless Isle is an open-world environment with dynamic events including rare spawns and epic loot chests. Through your adventures here, you'll earn Timeless Coins that can be used to purchase numerous rewards including Mogu Runes of Fate, mounts, pets and more.

The Timeless Isle is also home to a Celestial Tournament for pet battle enthusiasts. Players with a roster of level-25 pets can challenge seasoned masters like Chen Stormstout and Shademaster Kiryn. Participants in the tournament will earn Celestial Coins for purchasing Celestial Battle Pets.

Patch 5.4 also makes a long list of balance changes to each of the classes. It also introduces an end to the legendary questline which, if completed, gives players new cloaks. You can read all of the exact changes to the game in the patch notes.

Blizzard is celebrating Patch 5.4's release with a discount on the Mists of Pandaria expansion pack. From now until September 17th, you can purchase the digital version of Pandaria through the Blizzard Store for $20 instead of the usual $40.