World of Warcraft has introduced a few new events in the last year, including Plunderstom. For the next 90 or so days, we have access to the Mists of Pandaria Remix event, and having played quite a bit of it myself, I can say that it has a few hits and a few misses in terms of how it works and what it is.
The update went live on May 16th and will conclude on August 19th, giving everyone plenty of time to dive in and timerun the expansion before it disappears into the ether.
But what exactly is the event, and how is it different than a classic version of the expansion?
What is MoP Remix?
The event is simple in terms of what it is and how it works, as we go back to Pandaria and complete the original questline or dungeons to level up. But, there is a significant twist; instead of gaining rewards as we did in the past, we earn a new currency and gems to slot within our gear to give them some insane powers.
The dungeons are the same in terms of length and mechanics, but bosses can now drop Tinker Gems, Cogwheel Gems, Metas Gems, and Prismatic Gems rather than just gear. These gems can only be slotted in their respective armor pieces, such as Cogwheel Gems, which can only be placed into Boots, or Meta Gems, tobe slotted into your Helm.
The cloak is the star of the show, as you will receive threads that automatically weave themselves into your cloak as you loot them. These threads are almost like the Heart of Azeroth from back in the day since they give you powers at random from defeating enemies and bosses and looting chests.
The main thread you want to get excited about is the experience-boosting threads, as they give you a certain percentage of extra experience per kill or for turning in quests. While this is an amazing feature, it fell short for me as these threads were said to be account-wide, and they are, but with a major caveat.
You have to complete a certain achievement before the experience portion of the threads goes account-wide, and it isn’t 100% of the experience gain either; it's only a certain percentage of the maximum amount you have on your main character cloak. Initially, I expected the Cloaks XP boost to be account-wide automatically, which ended up not being the case. This was compounded by the fact Blizzard mentioned that this would be an “Accelerated” leveling experience. I also thought the entire percentage of the XP boost would be available to alt characters, which isn't the case.
Though the achievement isn’t too difficult to acquire, if you don’t know you need to complete it, you won’t realize your other characters aren’t getting the extra experience from your mains cloak.
You will also receive Bronze Coins for literally anything you do, whether it's killing enemies out in the world, running dungeons, completing quests, or opening chests you receive as a reward.
The Overall Experience
The gems are interesting, as they come with some insanely strong powers, but there is one major complaint that I and many others have when it comes to the gems. Scaling seems to be off, as lower-level characters are out damaging max-level 70s in dungeons and raids.
This is coupled with the “Enhanced” leveling experience that doesn’t really seem that enhanced. Getting from 10 to 70 feels identical to retail until you get into the 60s, as that is when threads drop more often and give you more of an experience boost. With that said, it is fun to see what gems you can collect, watch the threads on your cloak pile up and give you fun bonuses, and run the old dungeons and raids you either know and love or didn’t miss as much as you thought.
Another major downfall of this entire event is the way you acquire gear. Getting gear from dungeons is, of course possible, but the drops are very few and far between. If you are running the same ones over and over – which is very likely the case, given the Random Dungeon Finder tool and the fact that there aren’t too many MoP dungeons – you’ll get the same drops over and over.
While this usually wouldn’t be an issue since there are plenty of armor and weapon drops in Retail dungeons, these drops are very rare in the MoP Remix dungeons. You will mostly get different gems or threads with which to slot your gear. The issue arises when you get one or two shot by a singular mob in a dungeon because you decided not to get gear from the questline, which is the main reliable source of gear.
If you decide to only do the opening quests and get the cloak and then move onto Heroics which are available at level 10, get ready to die over and over again and have people kick you or leave themselves because you’re too “squishy.” The only sure way to get decent gear is by doing the questline, and if you hop into dungeons as anything more than a DPS when you first begin, you’ll have a rough time.
What Are The Positives?
There are still some amazing things to come from this event, even though there are a few balancing issues and the way you acquire gear is slightly different than we are used to. The game mode itself is super fun when it comes to the bare bones of things, as we get to travel back in time to a world long forgotten through many expansions that came after it.
Pandaria is hit or miss for some people, but I absolutely loved the idea of the area being this Zen and peaceful place that has been defiled by the Sha. The fact that these Sha are just the negative energies we hold within ourselves was a really cool story arc for its time, and the dungeons were always so pretty to me.
The mounts are and always will be some of my favorites, like the Thundering Cloud Serpent that literally looks like a giant thunderstorm embodied inside of this long dragon. When we got to raise our very own Serpent mount from a baby and finally get the reward at the end of all of the feeding and playing with said serpent as a young one was extremely rewarding and just plain fun.
Timeless Isle is still one of the coolest places to me, with the rares scattered all over the place, the pets that can be looted from random mobs, and the fact that time stands still here and flying mounts weren’t initially useable. The entire zone is just stunning and fun to be in.
Another positive is the fact that we can acquire some of the most iconic gear, like the Shaman set from Siege of Orgrimmar, without having to rely on raid lockouts or dungeon spamming solo to attempt to get one piece at a time. With the Bronze Coins, you can buy entire sets of transmog that will be account-wide in retail, which is an extremely nifty feature. Personally, I finally got my hands on a set that I have wanted for my Druid for about six years, and it was super easy with the Bronze Coin system.
There are other things to get with the Bronze Coins as well, including pets, mounts, and even gems to put into your gear to make you stronger than ever. Some people have gotten so powerful they can basically solo rare spawns and dungeons at this point, which is really cool in itself.
Yes, the Mists of Pandaria Remix event has its pitfalls, but it also can be very fun and rewarding if you give it some time and patience to get your gems and threads where they need to be. Will it come back around sometime in the future? Only time will tell.
