Surroundings too pretty? Head south to the Krasarang Wilds for lots of sinister purple swamps and what’s hands down Pandaria’s least interesting zone. While the Valley is mostly just greenery, at least it’s sunny and scenic, with lots of rolling hills and ambient wildlife trying to murder you. Here, things are dark, murky, and while there’s plenty to do, there isn’t the same immediate hook as most of the other zones.
The Dread Wastes! With a name like that, you know it’s going to be worth a visit. There’s a big wall in your way, but you can swim round it if you like, and explore a horrific world of darkness with a sky swirling in ghostly doom. Areas with names like ‘Heart of Fear’ await you at Levels 89-90, along with – somewhat less dramatically – ‘Soggy’s Gamble’ and ‘The Horrid Marsh’. That sounds very horrid. Not scary though.
Townlong Steppes is more civilised, with colour-coded grass on its towering islands. Beyond that, it remains a mystery. Between it and the Dread Wastes is your main goal here: a giant door under siege by locust men that protect Pandaria’s Level 90 zone, the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Amusingly, this sealed-off land that nobody ever sees already has flight points on the map. Try not to notice that. It’s only polite…
Finally, there’s the snowy mountain of Kun-Lai Summit. It’s for Levels 87-88, although Monks will be familiar with it before then – it’s where their special training monastery is, atop the Peak of Serenity. If you need a reason to return here every now and again, defeating trainers gets you an hour-long XP boost – 50% from both quests and enemies.
Not everything in Pandaria is as it appears though. Early on, you visit the Temple of the Jade Serpent – where you shoot fireworks for a little panda cub, smash bookworms in the library, and do all the usual questing stuff. Later though, it becomes one of Pandaria’s first dungeons. It’s the map you know, only now it’s fi lled with vengeful ghosts.
