Watcher
Iron Qon
Legends speak of the brutality of
Qwon de fer and his quilen champions. The fearless mogu commander was dubbed "
Qwon de fer" by the Thunder King for his unrelenting resolve to claim victory after victory for the empire regardless of the cost.
Ion:
Qwon de fer is one of Lei Shen’s elite personal guard, and a master of mounted combat. An original concept for this fight was inspired by the Three Kingdoms warlord Lu Bu, a fierce warrior renowned for his skill in fighting with a spear from horseback. Though Qwon de fer does have some very cool and unique mounted attack animations, in the end we found it more interesting to explore gameplay via the different abilities of his mounts instead. Thus, the encounter involves Qwon de fer switching among different magical quilen, each of which is empowered with vicious elemental attacks, creating a four-phase encounter that is almost like four separate intense fights rolled into one.
The Twin Consorts of Lei Shen,
Lu’lin and
Suen, are said to be greatest of the Thunder King’s treasures. Rumored to be the only known female mogu in existence, Lei Shen keeps his trophies close, and their combined arsenal against interlopers closer.
Ion:
Players may have noticed the complete absence of any female mogu in their exploration of the continent of Pandaria. Players who look closely at the models of these celestial twins will note that they seem quite literally carved out of stone. Indeed, these were specifically created by Lei Shen and empowered to serve and guard him, and they are a direct reflection of his will rather than any broader sense of mogu culture as a whole. An earlier version of the concept for the fight had them actually being spirits of the Sun and Moon, but that didn’t feel quite right (and we all know that the only true spirit of the Moon is Elune, and clearly she was not locked away by the Thunder King).
Tyrant, Dictator, Conqueror, Emperor. The Thunder King’s numerous titles were earned by bringing absolute misery to the races of Pandaria. Resurrected into a world where his people no longer rule,
Lei Shen is bent on ending the farce and bringing the land under his heel once more.
Ion:
The core concept for the Lei Shen fight developed during a brainstorming session as members of the encounter design team were throwing around ideas for potential fight mechanics, trying to see if anything would stick. A popular idea was for him to need to pause and recharge periodically, but someone suggested an interesting twist on that idea—the Thunder King isn’t just a battery that needs to recharge; he’s actually a power source himself. So instead of him drawing power from his citadel, the citadel draws power from him. He is a mighty warrior in his own right, with distinctive weapon and lightning attacks, but his mere presence energizes and activates portions of his citadel’s defenses, and managing those becomes a central element of the encounter. With a wide array of incredible visuals provided by our effects artists, and an awesome dungeon backdrop (those walls aren’t entirely decorative . . .), Lei Shen is an epic final encounter to wrap up an epic raid zone.Ra-den
Lei Shen’s life changed forever when he stumbled into a dark chamber below what are now the Mogu’shan Vaults. Legend has it that he found an ancient titan keeper guarding a miraculous device known as the Engine of Nalak’sha. No one knows what transpired between the two beings, but Lei Shen later emerged from the site bristling with the power to forge an empire. The keeper’s fate—and his current whereabouts—remain a mystery.
Ion:
This is the “Algalon” of the zone; a bonus boss for the high-end raiders who have finished the main zone progression. Lei Shen is the true final boss of the zone, and we wanted to make sure that he still feels that way—unlike Sinestra in Bastion of Twilight, there’s some backtracking involved to reach Ra-den after he’s unlocked. The mechanics of the fight are deliberately obscured in the Dungeon Journal for now, so I won’t say much more. The primary purpose of the Dungeon Journal is to provide an in-game resource to players who are trying to learn an encounter, instead of making them feel like they have to Alt-Tab out to read an online guide. In Ra-den’s case, we know that those of you who face him at first are also the same people who often write those online guides, so hopefully you’ll enjoy a sense of discovery when you first reach him.
