One of my favorite new features in the 5.0.4 patch is a NEW COSMETIC DISGUISE ITEM! As everyone knows, I love that blue backpack and wear it on almost all my characters. But what I have really wanted is the sinister green plague backpack.

Well, now I can get it! And it comes with a full undead Plague Scientist look, to boot!

You get it from the new Scholomance. Without going into spoiler-laden descriptions, you have to kill the first four bosses to get to the boss who provides the buff, Professor Slate. The bosses don't do anything dangerous for a higher-level character, so I'm not going to go into any detail here. (I will say though, just kill them, don't mess around - some of them can get bugged and trap you in the instance. :\)


See this guy? This is what you'll look like. :D

Kill him, then loot the Empty Polyformic Acid Vial from his body. Now, look at the table he was standing in front of. You'll see a sparkling green "Polyformic Acid Potion" that you can use. (It's the thin, dark green bottle in the picture above.)

Use it, and presto, you'll transform into an exact replica of Professor Slate! Undead male (and all of their animations), taller/larger than normal characters, and has an awesome plague canister backpack! The only pieces of your actual gear that will still show up are your weapons.


The buff lasts for an hour, and isn't removed by combat! You can cast, you can mount up, you can do anything, really. The disguise even persists through death! This is AMAZING.

So, you've all undead and plague-y. Great! But what's that empty vial for? Well, this is actually the best part - the vial lets you store up to three charges of the disguise!

Once you've used the potion on the table to turn into Professor Slate, you can now use the empty vial to remove and "store" the buff. The vial will transform into Nearly Full Vial of Polyformic Acid. The item doesn't expire, so you can keep it in your bags for as long as you like. (It's soulbound, mind you.)

When you do use it, you get the Plague Scientist buff again, for another entire hour, and the vial reverts back into an Empty Polyformic Vial. You can repeat this process a few times, as long as you remember to store the transformation into the vial before it expires. The second time you recycle the buff, the empty vial becomes a Half Full Vial of Polyformic Acid. The third time, it becomes a Nearly Empty Vial of Polyformic Acid.

Sadly, after you use the Nearly Empty Vial, that's it - you can't store the buff again. However, all it takes is another trip back to Scholomance and you can walk out of there with another Nearly Full Vial (ie, three charges) to use at your leisure!

Oh and, don't forget that you can get the full buff, stash it in your vial, and turn back to the table and drink the potion, and get a bonus buff while you're there! So you can actually get the buff for FOUR hours!

...actually, let's get a little creative with it. With some effort, you can have one hour of active disguise and SIX stored hours.

You see, the Empty Vials are unique. You can only have one in your inventory. However, you can have one of each type of the filled flasks!

Here's how you do it:

- Kill Slate, get the Empty vial
- Use the table potion and get the buff
- Store the buff, making a Nearly Full vial
- Drink the Nearly Full vial, then store the buff again, making a Half Full vial
- Drink the Half Full vial, then store the buff AGAIN, making a Nearly Empty vial
- Leave and reset Scholomance
- Kill Slate, get a new Empty Vial
- Use the table potion and get the buff
- Store the buff, making a Nearly Full vial
- Drink the Nearly Full vial, then store the buff again, making a Half Full vial
- Leave and reset
- Kill Slate one last time, grab your last Empty Vial
- Use the table potion, get the buff
- Store the buff, making a Nearly Full vial



Now you have three vials - one Nearly Full (3 charges), one Half Full (2 charges) and one Nearly Empty (1 charge.) Use the table potion once more, and you've got seven hours (1 active, 6 stored) of being a plague scientist to enjoy!