This morning we awoke to a surprise gift from the Blizzard CM team:

Thunder King Risen

The Thunder King is Risen
5.2 PTR Coming Early Janurary...

Included was this message from the Blizzard WoW team:

Happy Holidays from the World of Warcraft team! Here's a small present to tide you over until the new year.

This is an image that tells a thousand words, but you may ask yourself what does it mean? If you’re curious who the Thunder King is then you might not have paid close attention during the lore reveals in Pandaria, which is fine (we all skip quest text and cinematic in the name of advancement), but if you want to saver the uncovering of who the Thunder King is, then feel free to stop reading now because we might spoil a few things.

Possible Features in 5.2

There is a lot of rumors and speculation out there, for a more in-depth look take a look at our 5.2 teasers article. The list below is just rumors and hearsay at the moment, the only thing official is the image above.

  • Thunder King raid (now confirmed!)
  • Main hand / off-hand transmog restrictions and similar animations (2h axe to sword, etc.).
  • Improvements to Sunsong Ranch, including dealing with pests on the farm.
  • Possible new mounts (possible).
  • Lor'themar's involvement in the upcoming war.
  • The war plot line advancement.
  • Possible new world bosses.
  • Excess valor points may flow over into justice points (maybe...)
  • Maybe improvements for alts. Maybe.
  • Just throwing this one out there, but probably changes to the way LFR loot is done. Lots of discussion, but nothing about any plans. I would put money on it though.

Who is the Thunder King?

The Thunder King is actually Emperor Lei Shen, the First Emperor of the Mogu. The Mogu were a barbaric race that existed in Pandaria in various tribes, much like the Orcs. You could actually draw a solid line of distinction between the mogu and the orcs, minus the Burning Crusade’s nefarious meddling in their lives.

Lei Shen did what any powerful person would do; he united all of the mogu tribes by eradicating his rivals one by one. To the mogu he was a pretty awesome guy, even if he supposedly used an artifact to accomplish all of this, yet to the rest of Pandaria he was kind of a jerk. He went around subjugating all of the lesser races and, since he knew the mantid wouldn’t swear fealty to him, he just built a huge wall to keep them out.

He also allied the mogu with the Zandalari trolls, before his death and the eventual collapse of the Mogu Empire. That’s a critical point to keep in mind. Trolls are peculiar in Warcraft lore because they have pretty much more lore than most of the other races, they are very well fleshed out and the Zandalari have had their hands in pretty much everything up to this point. Anyway, in the quest “Lessons from History,” you, the grave adventurer, proceed into the Tomb of Conquerors where your goal is to read from a tablet. Doing so will start a cutscene in which Prophet Khar’zul rolls in and ganks the Thunder King’s corpse and proceeds to essentially walk out without much recourse. You eventually take him out in a duel to the death during the defense of Zouchin Village. He adamantly lets you know that the Thunder King now lives, they will be uniting the empires, he wants to feed you to the crows, that they need the land since the Cataclysm destroyed their homes, and things have only just begun. Standard lines, actually.

So that’s where we’re left with things. The trolls stole this dude’s corpse, are going to cast resurrection on him, and you’ll have to deal with him in patch 5.2. What is interesting to note is how the Thunder King isn’t very pervasive in Pandaria lore. The mogu vs. pandaren empire is a pretty big deal, but the Thunder King is no Arthas or Deathwing. Arthas, as we all remember, was the Team Rocket of WoW. Him, Anub, and Kel’thuzad would show up in their flying fortress and then blast off again, until their eventually, hopeful, final defeats. Deathwing was a bit different, everyone talked about him but you didn’t see a lot of him, minus his short conversation with Ragnaros and his duel with Alexstrasza.

Lei Shen will be an interesting fight, emotionally anyway, because he’s more of a cause and effect type boss. You let the trolls resurrect him and now you’ll need to kill him before he goes around subjugating people (I think subjugate is such a savvy word). Personally, I feel this style of boss reveal is refreshing and different. He’s in no way the ultimate end boss of the expansion, but he is powerful and we have lots of reasons to kill him. He hasn’t really gained our ire, sure, but who wants to let someone enslave pandas? Seriously?

Anyway, stick around as we’ll continue covering Patch 5.2 here at Ten Ton Hammer as more information is revealed.


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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

About The Author

Get in the bush with David "Xerin" Piner as he leverages his spectacular insanity to ask the serious questions such as is Master Yi and Illidan the same person? What's for dinner? What are ways to elevate your gaming experience? David's column, Respawn, is updated near daily with some of the coolest things you'll read online, while David tackles ways to improve the game experience across the board with various hype guides to cool games.

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