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BlizzCon approaches! Preparing for BlizzCon is your regular source for tips on how best to prepare for Blizzard’s gaming extravaganza.

The last time I went to BlizzCon was two years ago and I was woefully unprepared. I regretted multiple times that I didn’t have some form of business card with me. But this year I am ready if Tommy Tallarico approaches the WoW.com writers again asking for cards. Squeeeeeeee!

It was particularly silly of me to not bring any sort of card, considering I went there to work. But even if you are only going to play, a minicard or the like is a very good idea. I used moo.com because they have a good reputation and a nice interface with flickr.

Why should you get a minicard?

• It’s great for promoting your blog or other online product/service if you have one. (Captain Obvious is tapping his foot.)
• Business cards are often used as entries for contests or other opportunities at events like this.
• Networking, networking, networking. Cards as introductions and networking tools have been used for centuries. If you meet someone you would like to have contact with again, for whatever reason, having a card to hand him or her still really facilitates this.

What should you have on it?

• Your name: Real name, in-game name, blog persona — it’s your preference.
• An email address: Set up a separate email specifically for this card or use one that you check regularly. I recommend that it be permanent and belong only to you. Don’t use the same address that Blizzard has for you, however.
• Any other online contact info you want to promote: Guild/server names, blog address, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

If you have a business with a number that you want to get around, you of course already have business cards and know what to do with them. Otherwise, do not print any personal info other than the above on your card. Your phone number, physical address, kids’ names, etc. can all be used to steal your identity or otherwise con you via social engineering.

It usually takes two weeks to print and ship your cards using standard shipping methods, so getting them ordered any time this month will do. The sooner you get them, however, the larger the window you have for dealing with the unexpected.

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Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers’ Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

A little healthy competition among your raiders can be a good thing. It encourages people to push to play their best, to show up completely prepared, and to gem and enchant their gear with the most effective possible options. A bit of banter can enliven your raids and ease the tension when your run is struggling. But what if your players take it too far? What if their drive for personal accomplishment becomes detrimental to your raid? This week’s e-mail asks how to handle two healers — and officers — who are turning their personal competition into public drama.

Scott –

I’m the raid leader in a growing progression guild with some pretty hot-headed healers. While our raid healing shaman is competent and professional, I’ve started to suspect that the other healers (the paladins in particular) are engaging in behavior that hurts the raid and creates drama. As an example, one paladin healer in particular will overwrite the other paladin’s Judgement of Light at every chance to inflate his numbers on the meters. Both of them vie for having “the biggest”, whether it’s mana pool, meter numbers, or SP; it’s something new every week. This has also encouraged similar behavior in some of our other healers.

It’s a situation where I can’t just sit down and talk to them about it without hard evidence, as they are both officers in the guild. I’ve considered assigning Judgements (like I’ve had to do with Blessings and Auras) at the start of the raid, but I’d feel better knowing I could say “and this screenshot here is why.” Is there an addon or tool I can use to see them doing this? What’re your recommendations for handling the situation?

All the best!

Just Trying to Tank

You must tread carefully here, JTtT. Competitive officers like that don’t want to be shown up and they certainly don’t want to be dressed down in front of other members. So, unless you want more drama, be delicate with your approach and handle this situation discreetly among the officers.

You have a couple of different options for catching them red-handed with the Judgement situation. Recount can certainly tell you who’s casting what, as can any combat-log parser like WoW Web Stats. WWS provides more detailed information on an encounter-by-encounter basis, so it may be more helpful. The one drawback is that it requires a bit of upfront work from you to set it up.

Depending on your raid makeup, this could be a highly effective issue to confront. If overwriting Light means the boss no longer has Wisdom judged, then doing so is in fact hurting the raid’s chances to succeed. In a quick, easy fight, it might not matter. But in a tough scrap, it could lead to OOM players and enrage wipes.

Even with this evidence, however, it will be easy for a paladin to claim that he or she switched Judgements because the other paladin died or “didn’t keep it applied.” You’ll have to examine the data beforehand very carefully to counter any fabricated excuses. (By the way, does anyone else absolutely hate that Blizzard spells “Judgement” with two e’s? It messes up my macros every time . . .)

I don’t think it’s a good idea to broach the topic using this evidence as an opener. It will immediately put the accused on the defensive. The better approach is just to be honest and straightforward with your officers. They are supposed to be setting a good example. If their competition has become a big distraction, just ask them to help you out by toning it down.

Officers of all people should know how hard it is to lead raids. Hopefully, an earnest request from you should be enough. Once other healers in the guild see that the officers have taken it down a notch, they should eventually follow suit.

If you feel the need to say something to the raid, don’t point out any specific individuals. Just ask for people to stay focused when they start in with their chest-thumping contests.

In the worst-case scenario, the officers don’t listen to your request and deny everything. This is where you break out the big guns: your combat-log evidence. If they didn’t take you seriously before, this will get their attention. Just remember to remain respectful and keep your cool, even if they don’t.

Depending on your guild’s policies, you probably have no true recourse if they decide to ignore you. All you can do at that point, if you feel that you have no other choice, is to take the issue to the guild leader and ask him or her to speak with the officers personally.

With any luck, it won’t come to that. It’s hard to argue with a reasonable and respectful raid leader who has the best interests of the guild at heart. Although, as I’m sure you already know, people will try . . .

/salute

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Welcome to Lichborne, the Death Knight column, with your host, Daniel Whitcomb.

On my first read-through of the Patch 3.2 Death Knight patch notes, I had to chuckle a bit. If the theme of the Retribution overhauls was making Retribution DPS a bit more complicated, it was definitely very much about the simplification for Death Knights. Simplification is a relative term, of course, given that rune rotations are still in full effect, but there has been some streamlining of techniques and adjustment of cooldowns that will lead many of us to do some tuning up on our rotations. Let’s take a deep look at the changes and see what they’ll mean for us going forward into Patch 3.2.

General Skill Changes

Blood Strike: The bonus damage this ability receives from diseases on the target has been increased to 50% per disease. This change was probably mostly to compensate for some of the damage nerfs to other strikes below, but there’s also the possibility here that Blizzard’s looking to simplify rotations a bit. Blood Strike has become, for Unholy and Frost, mostly a way to churn out Death Runes. Bumping the damage a bit makes up for some of the other damage nerfs and has a chance to make Blood Strike a bit less of a pariah.

It’s worth noting that although the patch notes say damage is being increased “to” 50% per disease, we have to acknowledge that that would be borderline obscene, and they likely mean “by” 50% per disease to 18.75%, which is still a pretty decent increase.

Chains of Ice: Now reduces movement by 95% instead of 100%. The main effect of this change will be that targets of Chains of Ice will not have to re-issue a movement command to continue moving. This change shouldn’t be too much of a concern, really. You can technically argue that it’s not like other classes can’t root (see Druids), but since Chains of Ice is meant primarily to be a snare rather than a root, it’s not a completely unfitting change. Smart PvPers probably weren’t tripped up by it before anyway, so we haven’t lost much all told.

Frost Strike: This ability can now be dodged, parried, or blocked. Weapon damage bonus reduced to 55%, down from 60%. This was not an unexpected change. Frost Strike, especially if you manage to pick up that Sigil from Ulduar, is just plain devastating. Ghostcrawler’s been making noise about nerfing it for some time now. As it is, the weapon damage modifier is still in place, so there’s no reason to believe it won’t still be a viable runic power dump, and the frost damage still ignores armor.

Icebound Fortitude: Cooldown increased to 2 minutes. It does suck that this is getting a nerf, but the fact remains that we absolutely dominate tanking. Almost any major boss encounter is made infinitely easier when a Death Knight is tanking it because we generally always have a strong tanking cooldown ready. So while we keep getting tanking nerfs, every time we continue to dominate. Icebound Fortitude is probably one of the cornerstones of our domination, so breaking up the rotating cooldowns method of Death Knight tanking even more makes sense. It still refreshes faster than Shield Wall, at least - not that it’s always as easy as comparing two similar abilities from two different classes without context.

Frost Presence: 10% bonus health reduced to 6% bonus stamina. This nerf was probably primarily for scaling reasons. We’ve already hit Tier 8 armor wise, we have Tier 9 coming up fast, and it’ll only go up from there. Easing back on the scaling now will help keep our power in check later. Overall, Death Knight do not have a problem getting high HP totals, so this nerf, while it will hurt, will hopefully still leave us comparative healthy next to other tank classes.

Blood

Dancing Rune Weapon: This ability now has a fixed duration of 12 seconds (which can still be modified by its glyph) and a fixed cost of 60 Runic Power. This is one of those uncomplicated changes I talked about earlier. Now, instead of waiting to cast Dancing Rune Weapon, you can set it and forget and use the remaining Runic Power for Death Coils as appropriate in your rotation instead of artificially holding back until you hit the right amount of power. That said, if the Unholy Blight change noted below ends up powerful enough, especially combined with Sudden Doom procs, we may see a rise in the amount of 50/0/21 Unholy builds out there too.

Veteran of the Third War: Stamina bonus reduced to 1/2/3%. See Frost Presence. Blizzard likely believes our health stacking will just get entirely too potent in Tier 9 gear. Considering Blood Death Knight tanks have been popular for their high armor and health for ages, it makes since they’d get a bit more targeted health nerfing. As I said before, this is something we’ll probably need to test to know if the nerf’s too much or not.

Frost

Blood of the North: Reduced to a 3-point talent. Increases Blood Strike and Frost Strike damage by 5/10/15%. There is now a 33/66/100% chance whenever you hit with Blood Strike or Pestilence that the Blood Rune will become a Death Rune when it activates. This is a nice buff that is probably mostly meant to free up a few talent point for the new Threat of Thassarian (see below.)

Lichborne: Duration reduced to 10 seconds, and cooldown reduced to 2 minutes. Considering how much Will of the Forsaken was nerfed in it’s day, it’s almost surprising it took them this long to do it for Lichborne as well. It still essentially acts as a spare trinket with the added bonus of providing some temporary immunity as well, and with the cooldown reduction. It might almost be considered an overall buff unless you’ve been using it to take down Warlocks in 11-15 seconds, I suppose.

Threat of Thassarian: New 3-point talent. When dual-wielding, your Death Strikes, Obliterates, Plague Strikes, Blood Strikes and Frost Strike have a 30/60/100% chance to also deal damage with your off-hand weapon. Off-hand strikes are roughly one half the effect of the original strike. Now here’s the doozy. This is the promised returned to viability for dual wielding. While many, including myself, have been on record as saying that off-hand enabled weapon strikes would probably simply shift the balance back to dual wielding, the devs seem to be hoping that a slightly lessened effect on the off-hand damage will make up the difference. In a way, it does make sense if the combined damage manages to equal or come slightly under 2-handed strike damage instead of eclipsing it.

The murmur around the community from some is focused on the idea that the Frost tree isn’t a big white damage tree, and since dual wielding traditionally thrives in part on high white damage, this talent would have been better in the Blood tree. In this case, the Frost tree may have been a deliberate choice on the part of the developers specifically for that reason. The white damage and strike damage increasers in the Blood tree may have made Threat of Thassarian just a bit too powerful. Frost also has the advantage of having a good amount of straight up magic damage that should, in theory, help dual wielding close the gap with two handers.

One other thing to note about this new talent is that it does not include Rune Strike. This has die-hard duel wield tankers a bit concerned, as it may leave dual wield tankers without the threat they need. Of course, threat these days is not a scarce commodity, so there’s still at least some chance that the threat will be enough even without Rune Strike on ToT. It’ll be something to test on the PTR, at least.

Of course, the big question for me, as a diehard 2-hand aficianado, is this: Will this ability eclipse 2-handed DPS? Blizzard seems to be banking on the idea that the relative dearth of other strike-damage increasing talents in Frost and the half-damage restriction on the off-hand will take off the edge and leave the field mostly balanced. Of course, balance decisions like this don’t always survive an encounter with actual players, so this is probably where I’ll focus most of my attention in PTR testing. I don’t want to lose my big whomping 2-hander, after all.

Toughness: This talent now grants 2/4/6/8/10% armor instead of 3/6/9/12/15%, placing it in line with similar abilities of other classes. At this point, the tank nerfs are almost “nothing to see here, move along” proposition. But the fact remains that we dominate tanking in almost every possible scenario. At this point, nerfs are sort of expected. It is worth noting that some Death Knights think that this may drop our armor just a bit low when combined with the fact that talents such as Inspiration will turn into straight damage absorption instead of armor. This may be something that will merit further testing.

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I totally called it: the Patch 3.2 PTR notes are now available on the official forums, which means that we should expect the PTR itself to go up today. This is the patch that will bring the expansion of the Argent Tournament, with new 5/10/25-man content, and much more - see our patch 3.2 guide for an overview.

General

Construction of the Crusaders’ Coliseum is complete. Testing not yet available. New raid Normal and Heroic modes for the Crusaders’ Coliseum can be toggled using the Dungeon Difficulty setting. This applies to 10 and 25-player versions. 10-player (Normal), 25-player (Normal), 10-player (Heroic) and 25-player (Heroic) all share separate raid lockout timers.

Trial of the Champion

5-player (Normal and Heroic mode) dungeon. Daily quest added to the Heroic daily dungeon quest giver.

Trial of the Crusader

10 and 25-player (Normal mode) raid dungeon.

Trial of the Grand Crusader

10 and 25-player (Heroic mode) raid dungeon. Crusaders’ Tribute: Active on Heroic difficulty only, the tribute system will limit players on the number of attempts the raid is allotted each week. Additional rewards can be earned depending on the number of attempts left in the tribute run each week when the final boss is defeated.

Isle of Conquest, the new 40 vs. 40-player siege-style Battleground is now available for testing.

Two level brackets are available: 71-79 and 80. Defend the walls of your keep and protect your general by killing enemy players and destroying their siege vehicles. Capture the Docks, Airship Hangar, or Siege Workshop for access to destructive siege vehicles or strategic attacks on your enemy’s base. Capture the Oil Derrick or Cobalt Mine for their resources to garner reinforcements and a steady flow of bonus honor. To claim victory, bust through the enemy’s keep walls (or find other ways to get inside) and kill their general, or obliterate your opponents until their reinforcements are depleted.

The Argent Tournament Expands

All new Argent Crusader daily quests and rewards have been added for players with the Crusader title. Rewards include a new Argent Crusader banner and tabard (which can port players to the tournament grounds), a mounted squire (can periodically run bank, mail or vendor errands for the player), a paladin-exclusive Argent Crusader Charger mount, and new heirloom items.

All new Silver Covenant and Sunreaver daily quests and rewards have been added for players exalted with these factions. Rewards include tabards, new ground and flying mounts, and a new pet. Just when you thought you had seen the last of the Black Knight, he makes his astonishing return to the tournament. Wait, didn’t you kill him?

New druid art for cat and bear forms has been added. There are now five unique color schemes for each form and faction. Changing hair color (night elves) or skin tone (tauren) via the barbershop will change the look of one’s cat and bear forms.

Portals from Orgrimmar and Stormwind have been added leading players to the Stair of Destiny at the Dark Portal. Once there, players can access a flight path directly from the Stair of Destiny to Shattrath. A new zeppelin docking ramp has been added to Thunder Bluff allowing Horde players easier transport to and from Orgrimmar.

The local Postal Service has grown tired of walking so far each day to collect mail and has decided to install a large number of new mailboxes to Stormwind, Undercity, Darnassus and Orgrimmar.

Northrend Children’s Week has arrived in Dalaran! Players can find out more by visiting the Eventide District.

Copied Test Realm characters will no longer be copied with their achievement history in order to better facilitate the character copy process.

PvP

• Arenas
  • The newest season of Arena gear can only be purchased if you meet the requirements with your 3 or 5-player team rating. Rating requirements from 2-player teams can still be used to purchase the previous season of gear.
    • Dalaran Sewers
      • The entire Arena has increased in size by 25%.
      • Mounts can now be used in this Arena.
      • The position and collision of the crates on the central platform has been modified.
    • Ruins of Lordaeron
      • Alcoves have been removed from the starting chambers.
      • Two line-of-sight tombstones have been added to the slime pool on the southern side of the map.
      • The collision around the central tomb has been smoothed out to prevent players from becoming stuck on the terrain as often.
• Battlegrounds
  • Battleground experience has arrived!
  • Players will now be awarded experience for completing objectives and actions that yield honor in Battlegrounds (honorable kills not included).
  • Players who do not wish to gain experience through PvP can visit Behsten in Stormwind or Slahtz in Orgrimmar - both located near the Battlemasters in either city - and turn off all experience accumulation for the cost of 10 gold.
  • Disabling experience gains will prevent a player from gaining experience through any means available in the game.
  • Players with experience gains turned off who compete in Battlegrounds will face off only against other players with experience gains turned off.
  • Behsten and Slahtz can reinstate experience gains for players, for a 10 gold fee of course. Any experience that would’ve been accumulated if experience gains were enabled cannot be recovered.
  • Battlemasters in major cities affiliated with specific Battlegrounds have been replaced with a Battlemaster for each faction that will allow players to queue for any Battleground. Battlemasters for specific Battlegrounds will still be seen around the cities during corresponding Battleground holiday weekends.
  • When standing at a capture point that you control, you will gain a buff called Honorable Defender. This buff grants +50% honor gained from kills. This currently affects Arathi Basin, Eye of the Storm and Isle of Conquest.
  • Arathi Basin
    • The time it requires to capture a base has been reduced to 8 seconds, down from 10 seconds.
    • The game now ends when one team reaches 1600 victory points, down from 2000.
  • Eye of the Storm
    • The time it requires to capture the center flag has been reduced to 8 seconds, down from 10 seconds
    • The game now ends when one team reaches 1600 victory points, down from 2000.
  • Strand of the Ancients
    • The faction starting on attack/defense will now be randomized at the start of each match.
  • Warsong Gulch
    • There is a now a 20-minute timer on this Battleground. After that time, the team with the most flag captures wins. If this would result in a tie, the team that captured the first flag wins. If neither side has captured a flag, then the game ends in a tie.

Races: General

• Axe Specialization (Orc): The weapon bonus from this effect now applies to fist weapons in addition to axes.
• Tauren now have the option of changing skin tone by visiting the barber shop.

Items: General

• Block Value: The amount of bonus block value on all items has been doubled. This does not affect the base block value on shields or block value derived from strength.
• On-Use Block Value Items: All items and set bonuses that trigger temporary increases to block value have been modified. Instead of increasing their block value amount by 100% like other items, they have all had their effect durations doubled. This applies to Glyph of Deflection, Gnomeregan Autoblocker, Coren’s Lucky Coin, Lavanthor’s Talisman, Libram of Obstruction, Tome of the Lightbringer, Libram of the Sacred Shield, the tier-8 paladin Shield of Righteousness bonus, the tier-5 paladin Holy Shield bonus, and the tier-5 warrior Shield Block bonus.

Emblem System Changes

• Both the 10 and 25 player instances of the Crusaders’ Coliseum drop a new Emblem of Triumph.
• Any dungeons that previously dropped Emblems of Heroism or Valor, such as Naxxramas or Heroic Halls of Stone, will now drop Emblems of Conquest instead. Emblems of Conquest can still be converted to Valor or Heroism.
• The Heroic dungeon daily quest will now reward 2 Emblems of Triumph and the normal daily dungeon quest will reward 1 Emblem of Triumph.
• The existing achievements to collect 1, 25, 50, etc. Emblems of Heroism, Valor, and Conquest have been converted to Feats of Strength since Heroism and Valor Emblems are no longer attainable.
• New achievements have been added to collect various amounts of any combination of emblems.

Mounts

• The cast time for summoning any ground mount is now 1.5 seconds, down from 3 seconds.
• Apprentice Riding (Skill 75): Can now be learned at level 20 for 4 gold. Mail will be sent to players who reach level 20 directing them to the riding trainer.
• Journeyman Riding (Skill 150): Can now be learned at level 40 for 50 gold. Mail will be sent to players who reach level 40 directing them back to the riding trainer.
• Expert Riding (Skill 225): Can now be learned at level 60 for 600 gold from trainers in Honor Hold or Thrallmar. Faction discounts now apply (Honor Hold for Alliance; Thrallmar for Horde). Flight speed at this skill level has been increased to 150% of run speed, up from 60%.
• Artisan Riding (Skill 300): Faction discounts now apply (Honor Hold or Valiance Expedition for Alliance; Thrallmar or Warsong Offensive for Horde).
• In order to further equalize the number of purchasable mounts available to each race, a new 60% speed ground mount has been added for night elves, and a new 100% speed ground mount has been added for the undead.
• Flying over Dalaran and Wintergrasp is now possible so long as players keep a healthy distance above the ground.

Mana Regeneration: All items that provide “X mana per five seconds” have had the amount of mana they regenerate increased by approximately 25%.

Resilience: No longer reduces the amount of damage done by damage-over-time spells, but instead reduces the amount of all damage done by players by the same proportion. The other effects of resilience (reducing critical chance, critical damage and mana drain effects) have not changed.

Classes: General

All pets now receive 40% of their master’s resilience and 100% of their master’s spell penetration. In addition, if a player is at their appropriate spell hit chance or hit chance maximum, their pet will be at the maximum for spell hit chance, hit chance, and expertise. If they are below the maximum, their pet will be proportionately below those maximums.

Replenishment: This buff now grants 1% of the target’s maximum mana over 5 seconds instead of 0.25% per second. This applies to all 5 sources of Replenishment (Vampiric Touch, Judgements of the Wise, Hunting Party, Enduring Winter Frostbolts and Soul Leech).

Silence, Strangulate, Silencing Shot, and Arcane Torrent: These abilities will also apply a 3-second interrupt effect against non-player controlled targets, making them more versatile against creatures immune to silencing effects.

Death Knights

Due to significant talent changes, all death knight talents will be reset for players.

• Blood Strike: The bonus damage this ability receives from diseases on the target has been increased to 50% per disease.
• Chains of Ice: Now reduces movement by 95% instead of 100%. The main effect of this change will be that targets of Chains of Ice will not have to re-issue a movement command to continue moving.
• Frost Presence: 10% bonus health reduced to 6% bonus stamina.
• Frost Strike: This ability can now be dodged, parried, or blocked. Weapon damage bonus reduced to 55%, down from 60%.
• Icebound Fortitude: Cooldown increased to 2 minutes.
• Talents
  • Blood
    • Dancing Rune Weapon: This ability now has a fixed duration of 12 seconds (which can still be modified by its glyph) and a fixed cost of 60 runic power.
    • Veteran of the Third War: Stamina bonus reduced to 1/2/3%.
  • Frost
    • Blood of the North: Reduced to a 3-point talent. Increases Blood Strike and Frost Strike damage by 5/10/15%. There is now a 33/66/100% chance whenever you hit with Blood Strike or Pestilence that the Blood Rune will become a Death Rune when it activates.
    • Lichborne: Duration reduced to 10 seconds, and cooldown reduced to 2 minutes.
    • Threat of Thassarian: New 3-point talent. When dual-wielding, your Death Strikes, Obliterates, Plague Strikes, Blood Strikes and Frost Strike have a 30/60/100% chance to also deal damage with your off-hand weapon. Off-hand strikes are roughly one half the effect of the original strike.
    • Toughness: This talent now grants 2/4/6/8/10% armor instead of 3/6/9/12/15%, placing it in line with similar abilities of other classes.
  • Unholy
    • Desecration: This talent has been reduced to 2 points for 25/50% snare and no longer increases damage done by the death knight. It has also been moved one tier earlier in the tree and its spell effect has been made more transparent.
    • Desolation: New talent. This talent is in the position formerly occupied by Desecration. It causes Blood Strikes to increase all damage the death knight deals by 1/2/3/4/5% for 12 seconds.
    • Scourge Strike: Weapon damage bonus reduced to 40%, down from 45%. Damage increased by 10% per disease on the target, down from 11%.
    • Summon Gargoyle: The gargoyle now flies lower to the ground, making it susceptible to melee attacks. This ability now has a fixed duration of 30 seconds and a fixed cost of 60 runic power.
    • Unholy Blight: This talent has been redesigned. It no longer deals damage to nearby targets. Instead, when you deal damage with Death Coil, the target will take periodic damage for 10 seconds equal to 30% of the damage done by Death Coil. This damage accumulates in the same way as Ignite and Deep Wounds.

Druids

• Flight Form: Can now be learned at level 60. Flight speed increased to 150%.
• Innervate: Duration reduced to 10 seconds, and cooldown reduced to 3 minutes. This means each use of Innervate will give half as much mana as before, but it will be available twice as often.
• Lifebloom: The final heal that occurs when this spell blooms has been reduced by 20% on the base and on the spell power coefficient.
• Mangle: Ranks 4 and 5 base points reduced by about 11%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
• Rake: Ranks 6 and 7 base points on initial and periodic damage reduced by about 7%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
• Rip: Ranks 8 and 9 base points and points per combo point reduced by about 6%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
• Savage Defense: The animation for gaining this buff will no longer make the bear stand upright
• Shred: Ranks 8 and 9 base points reduced by about 10%. Scaling from attack power unchanged.
• Swipe (Cat): Percent of weapon damage done reduced from 260% to 250%.
• Travel Form: Can now be learned at level 16.
• Talents
  • Balance
    • Balance of Power: Now reduces all spell damage taken by 3/6%, rather than reducing the chance to be hit by spells by 2/4%.
    • Eclipse: The Starfire and Wrath buffs from this talent are now on separate 30-second cooldowns. In addition, it is not possible to have both buffs active simultaneously.
    • Owlkin Frenzy: Now also restores 2% base mana every 2 seconds for the duration (10 seconds) in addition to its current effects.
  • Restoration
    • Empowered Touch: Now also increases the amount of bonus healing effects for Nourish by 10/20%.
    • Improved Barkskin: No longer provides dispel resistance to all effects on the druid, but now reduces the chance your Barkskin is dispelled by an additional 35/70%.

Hunters

• Aspect of the Cheetah: Can now be learned at level 16.
• Deterrence now has a new visual spell effect.
• The time that traps will exist in the world after being put down has been reduced to 30 seconds, down from 1 minute.
• Traps now have separate 30-second cooldown categories: Fire (Immolation Trap, Explosive Trap and Black Arrow), Frost (Freezing Trap, Frost Trap) and Nature (Snake Trap). A hunter can have one trap of each category placed at one time.
• Talents
  • Beast Mastery
    • Catlike Reflexes now also reduces the cooldown of your Kill Command ability by 10/20/30 seconds.
  • Survival
    • Entrapment: This talent no longer works with Immolation Trap or Explosive Trap.
    • Lock and Load: Now has a 22-second cooldown. The Lock and Load effect cannot be obtained on targets immune to snare effects when Frost Trap is used.
• Pets
  • Roar of Sacrifice: Redesigned. This ability can now be used on any friendly target to make that target immune to critical strikes, but the hunter pet takes 20% of all damage taken by that friendly target. Cooldown increased to 2 minutes.

Mages

• Arcane Blast: Mana cost reduced by 12%.
• Invisibility: Can no longer be interrupted by a hostile action or damage done during the 3-second fade time, however an invisible mage can still be stunned or silenced.
• Talents
  • Fire
    • Empowered Fire: In addition to its existing effects, this talent now also grants a 33/67/100% chance to regain 1% of base mana each time the Ignite talent deals damage.

Paladins

• Blessing of Sanctuary: This blessing now also increases stamina by 10%. This effect is not cumulative with Blessing of Kings.
• Charger: Can now be learned at level 40.
• Exorcism: Now has a 1.5 second cast time, but can once again be used on players.
• Hand of Reckoning: Redesigned. Now does damage only when the target does not currently have the caster targeted, but damage done increased to 50% of attack power, occurring after the taunt effect is applied.
• Judgement of Light: Now heals for 2% of the attacker’s maximum health instead of a variable amount based on the spell power and attack power of the judging paladin.
• Lay on Hands: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical damage taken by the target by 10/20% instead of increasing the target’s armor.
• Righteous Fury: No longer has a duration or mana cost, remaining until cancelled or death. Also cancelled when a Paladin activates a different talent specialization.
• Sacred Shield: When a paladin casts Flash of Light on a target with this buff, they also now place a heal-over-time effect on the target, healing that target for 100% of the Flash of Light amount over 12 seconds.
• Seal of Blood: This ability has been removed.
• Seal of the Martyr: This ability has been removed.
• Seal of Vengeance and Seal of Corruption: These seals have been redesigned to deal substantially more damage. Now, once a paladin has 5 copies of the debuff from these seals on his or her target, on each swing the paladin will deal 33% weapon damage as Holy, with critical strikes dealing double damage.
• Shield of Righteousness: Now deals 100% of shield block value as damage instead of 130%.
• Warhorse: Can now be learned at level 20.
• Talents
  • Holy
    • Beacon of Light: The healing amount on the Beacon of Light target is now based on the total healing done (including over-healing) instead of the effective healing done. Radius increased to 60 yards. Multiple Paladins can now have this active on the same target. Buff indicating a player is within range of the Beacon target is no longer displayed.
    • Divine Intellect: This talent now gives 2/4/6/8/10% increased intellect instead of 3/6/9/12/15%.
    • Illumination: This talent now returns 30% of the mana cost of the spell instead of 60%.
  • Protection
    • Ardent Defender: Redesigned. Currently, any damage taken by the paladin while at 35% health or below is reduced. Instead, any attack that would reduce the paladin to 35% health or below has its damage reduced. In addition, once every 2 minutes an attack that would have killed the paladin will fail to kill, and instead set the paladin’s health to 10/20/30% of maximum.
  • Retribution
    • Art of War: Now only applies to melee critical hits, but will make your next Flash of Light or Exorcism instant.
    • Crusader Strike: Damage reduced to 75% weapon damage to match the new 4-second cooldown.
    • Seal of Command: Redesigned. This seal now deals 36% weapon damage on every swing, and deals substantially less judgement damage.
    • Vindication: Redesigned. Now lowers target attack power, is consistent and does not stack with Demoralizing Shout.

Priests

• Prayer of Healing: The percentage of spell power this spell gains in healing (per target) has been reduced from 80.7% to 52.6%.
• Talents
  • Discipline
    • Penance: Cooldown increased to 12 seconds, up from 10 seconds.
  • Holy
    • Inspiration: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical damage taken by the target by 3/7/10% instead of increasing the target’s armor.

Rogues

• After much quiet contemplation, rogues now possess the ability to learn how to use one-handed axes.
• Talents
  • Combat
    • Sword Specialization: This talent is now called Hack and Slash and applies to axes as well as swords.
  • Subtlety
    • Shadow Dance: Cooldown reduced to 1 minute. Now lasts 6 seconds, down from 10 seconds.

Shaman

• A customizable totem bar will now be available for shaman allowing the storing of 4 different totems. These totems can be placed on the ground at once in one global cooldown for the combined mana cost of all 4 totems.
• All Shocks now have a default range of 25 yards, up from 20 yards.
• Base health increased by approximately 7% to correct for shamans having lower health than other classes.
• Chain Heal: Jump distance increased to 10 yards. In addition, the amount of healing now decreases by 40% as it jumps to each new target, instead of 50%.
• Ghost Wolf: Can now be learned at level 16. While in this form, snaring effects may not bring the shaman below base normal run speed.
• Talents
  • Enhancement
    • Shamanistic Rage: Cooldown is now 1 minute, down from 2 minutes. Successful melee attacks now have a chance to generate mana equal to 15% of the shaman’s attack power, down from 30%.
  • Restoration
    • Ancestral Healing: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical damage taken by the target by 3/7/10% instead of increasing the target’s armor.
    • Cure Poison and Cure Disease: Combined into a single spell, Cure Toxins.
    • Earth Shield: Dispel effects will now remove charges of Earth Shield rather than the entire aura.
    • Healing Way: Redesigned. Rather than providing a chance of increasing Healing Wave spells on a friendly target, this talent now innately increases the effectiveness of the shaman’s Healing Wave by 8/16/25%.
    • Mana Tide Totem: Totem health now equal to 10% of the shaman’s health.
    • Nature’s Guardian: Redesigned. Now has a fixed 100% proc rate, has a 30-second internal cooldown and increases the shaman’s maximum health by 3/6/9/12/15% for 10 seconds.
    • Nature’s Swiftness: Cooldown is now 2 minutes, down from 3 minutes.
    • Tidal Waves: No longer reduces the cast time of Lesser Healing Wave by 30%. It instead now provides +25% critical strike chance to Lesser Healing Wave, along with the previous 30% cast time benefit to Healing Wave.
    • Improved Water Shield: This talent now has a 10/20/30% chance to be triggered by Chain Heal, and the charges of Water Shield are no longer consumed by this talent.

Warlocks

• Banish: Effect will now be cancelled if Banish is recast on a banished target.
• Dreadsteed: Can now be learned at level 40.
• Felsteed: Can now be learned at level 20.
• Soulshatter cooldown reduced to 3 minutes, down from 5 minutes
• Talents
  • Affliction
    • Pandemic: Now also increases the critical damage bonus of Haunt by 100%.
    • Demonology
      • Fel Domination cooldown reduced to 3 minutes, down from 15 minutes.
    • Destruction
      • Empowered Imp: The warlock’s critical hit chance is increased to 100%, up from 20% for the next spell cast after the Imp critically hits a target.
      • Fire and Brimstone: Reduced to 2/4/6/8/10% increased damage from Incinerate and Chaos Bolt on targets afflicted with Immolate, down from 3/6/9/12/15%.

Warriors

• Talents
  • Fury
    • Armored to the Teeth: This talent now provides 1/2/3 attack power per 108 armor, up from per 180 armor.

User Interface

• Character name auto-completion for the chat frame, pop-ups, and mail interface can be enabled through an interface option in the Development settings.
• Character names can now be colorized according to class in the chat frame through an interface option in the Development settings.
• Casting bars under a target’s portrait will now indicate whether or not the cast can be interrupted.
• Druids will now be able to see their mana bars when shape-shifted.
• Item Comparisons: Holding the shift key while hovering over an item will now display the stat differences with the item currently equipped in the relevant slot.
• Macros and scripts will no longer be able to target totems by name.
• Quest creatures and objects will now show on the player’s world map.
• The quest log is now double-paned for more easily viewing quest information.
• Vendor prices will now be listed on items whether or not players are at a vendor.
• For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros forum: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?sid=1&forumId=11114

Quests

The ravasaur trainer Mor’vek has returned to Un’Goro and will offer to help Horde players raise and train a Venomhide Ravasaur as a mount… if they can survive the creature’s deadly poison.

Achievements

• A Brew-FAST Mount: A new Feat of Strength achievement for acquiring any epic Brewfest mount.
• Have Keg, Will Travel: Now requires either a Brewfest mount or using Brewfest Hops to transform yours into one.

Professions

• Alchemy
  • All stackable potions now stack to 20.
  • Added a new pattern for Flask of the North, usable by players with a high alchemy skill. The recipe is purchased from Northrend trainers. Flask of the North increases your spell power, attack power or strength for 1 hour and is usable in Arenas. It is not consumed when used.
  • Endless Healing Potion and Endless Mana Potion no longer usable in Arenas. Amount of health and mana has been increased, and the cooldown reduced.
  • Five new epic gem transmute recipes are available from the Northrend trainer. The recipe for transmuting a Cardinal Ruby can be learned from a quest, given by Linzy Blackbolt in Dalaran.
  • The Mixology benefits from Northrend elixirs and flasks have been increased.
  • Rage potions can now be used by druids.
• Cooking
  • Blackened Dragonfin Recipe: Now only requires 1 Dragonfin Angelfish.
  • Chef’s Hat is now superior-quality and allows the chef to cook faster.
  • Increased the drop rate for recipes from the Outland Daily Cooking quests.
  • Increased the chance to get a bonus Dalaran Cooking Token from the Spice Bag.
  • The recipe for Captain Rumsey’s Lager can now be randomly found in the quest reward Crate, Barrel, or Spice Bag from the cooking dailies.
• Enchanting
  • Values on Northrend ring enchants increased.
• Engineering
  • Added a schematic for a Goblin Welding Beam that can heal friendly mechanical units.
  • Alarm-o-Bot functionality changed. Materials required reduced.
  • Box of Bombs no longer requires an anvil.
  • Doubled the duration on Nitro Boosts.
  • Increased benefits from Hyperspeed Accelerators, Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket and Reticulated Armor Webbing glove modifications.
  • Increased the passive bonus provided by Springy Arachnoweave, Flexweave Underlay and Nitro Boosts.
  • Increased siege damage caused by Saronite Bombs and the Global Thermal Sapper Charge.
  • The Ultrasafe Bullet Machine and Saronite Arrow Maker schematics have been simplified to create a full stack of the appropriate ammunition. No longer requires an anvil. Reduced the materials required to make this ammunition.
  • Mote Extractor now has innate tracking for gas clouds while it is in your inventory. Tracking of gas clouds has been removed from goggles.
  • Potion Injectors now increase the amount gained by 25% when used by engineers. Quantity produced by recipes for Runic Healing and Mana Injectors has been increased.
  • Significantly reduced the cooldown on MOLL-E.
  • Spynocular belt enchantment changed to a Brassbolt Rebreather, allowing engineers to breathe underwater.
  • Transporter devices are no longer classified as trinkets and can be used directly from your inventory.
  • Reduced the materials needed to create all engineering Dragonlings, and reduced their cooldowns, although they still cannot be used in Arenas.
• Fishing
  • Players with 300 or higher cooking have a chance to find a Waterlogged Recipe in the Bag of Fishing Treasures awarded by the Northrend fishing dailies. This item can be traded to other players and rewards several Dalaran Cooking Rewards when turned in.
• Herbalism
  • Increased healing from Lifeblood (Rank 6).
  • Lifeblood now scales slightly with maximum health. No longer affected by global cooldown.
• Inscription
  • Added a new Glyph of Claw for young feral druids who haven’t yet obtained Mangle. Inscribers can learn this glyph from the trainer.
  • Master’s Inscriptions increased.
• Jewelcrafting
  • Dragon’s Eye gems stat bonuses increased.
  • New recipes have been added for cutting epic gems and can be purchased using Dalaran Jewelcrafter’s tokens.
  • Icy Prism now has a chance of yielding an epic gem.
  • Raw epic gems can be obtained via the following means:
    • Prospecting Titanium Ore
    • Alchemy transmutations
    • Purchased with honor
    • Purchased with Emblems of Heroism
• Leatherworking
  • Added recipe for Heavy Knothide Leather to Leatherworking trainers (rather than a vendor recipe). Changed several recipes to use Heavy Knothide Leather instead of regular Leather.
  • Fur Lining values increased.
• Mining
  • Toughness (Rank 6) provides more stamina.
• Skinning
  • Master of Anatomy (Rank 6) provides more critical strike rating.
• Tailoring
  • Embroideries improved.

Items

• Feral Druid PvP Gloves (seasons 3 and 4): Maim bonus changed from the interrupt bonus used in The Burning Crusade Arena seasons to the cost reduction used in Wrath of the Lich King Arena seasons.
• Glyphs
  • Death Knights
    • Glyph of Unholy Blight: Changed to increase damage done by the updated Unholy Blight talent by 40%.
  • Druids
    • Glyph of Innervate: Duration reduced to 10 seconds.
  • Paladins
    • Glyph of Seal of Command: Redesigned to cause the Paladin to gain 8% of base mana each time the paladin judges Command.
    • Glyph of Seal of Blood: Changed to Glyph of Holy Wrath, which reduces its cooldown by 15 seconds.
  • Rogues
    • Glyph of Shadow Dance: Now increases the duration of Shadow Dance by 2 seconds, down from 4 seconds.
    • Glyph of Tricks of the Trade: Now increases the duration of the damage bonus effect instead of increasing the damage bonus.
  • Warlocks
    • Glyph of Lifetap: Duration of the buff from this glyph increased to 40 seconds.
• Idol of the Corruptor: The agility buff from this idol is now exclusive with the agility buff from Idol of Terror.
• Non-Combat Pets: 8 new pets have been added (not including Argent Tournament rewards). Raptor Hatchlings can be found on rare and elite raptors throughout the game world. In addition, an Obsidian Raptor Hatchling can be purchased from Breanni in Dalaran.

Dungeons and Raids

• 25-player raids will no longer be referred to as heroic versions of a raid, as there is a new distinction between normal and heroic modes for both 10 and 25-player versions of the Crusaders’ Coliseum.
• The Nexus: The Oculus & The Eye of Eternity
  • Vehicles (drakes) used in these instances now scale with item level.
• Ulduar
  • Players can now use Blink, Shadowstep, and Demonic Teleport while participating in the illusion events in the Yogg-Saron encounter.
  • Ominous Clouds in the Yogg-Saron encounter are now more vocal about touching players.
  • Winter Jormungars will no longer put everyone in the zone in combat when they emerge from a Snow Mound. Additionally, Snow Mounds will now disappear when all their jormungars have emerged.

Bug Fixes

• Corrected a tooltip issue with Pandora’s Plea.
• Randomly generated uncommon (green) and rare (blue) quality items in Wrath of the Lich King had stat values that were lower than intended. All Wrath of the Lich King uncommon and rare items with random suffixes (”of the Bear”) have had their stat values increased significantly.
• The leatherworking item Guardian Gloves is now correctly marked as uncommon quality.
• Hunter
  • All ranks of Sonic Blast now properly have an 80 Focus cost.
  • Black Arrow Ranks 5 and 6 training costs have been lowered significantly.
  • Lock and Load: The tooltip for this talent has been updated to indicate that it also works with Explosive Trap.
  • The tooltip for Improved Tracking has been slightly re-written to indicate that it only works on the hunter, and works on melee damage as well.
  • T.N.T. (Rank 3): Now indicates that the talent works with Black Arrow.
• Priest
  • The heal from Glyph of Power Word: Shield can now cause Divine Aegis.
  • Mana Burn: Fixed a bug where Mana Burn did not cause fear effects to break when the fear victim had an absorb shield on.
• Shaman
  • Fixed a bug where Frostbrand Weapon (Rank 9) was not scaling properly with a shaman’s spell power.

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“The dark times will pass.”

Blood Elf NPCs say this all the time, but how do they know? Are they just saying that to try to give us enough hope to finish the task they just gave us? Or do they actually foresee an end to the evils that we fight on a daily basis?

With 11.5 million subscribers, WoW is going to be around for a long time. Even if 8.5 million people leave for whatever reason, there will still be 3 million people left — which is great for a pay-to-play MMO. But someday it will end and when it does, it would be wonderful if Blizzard provided us with a playable end of the world.

We discussed this a couple wow goldof years ago, but WoW has changed since then. We now have new possibilities for world-ending events and there will be more expansions and major content patches giving us even more paths to complete. But will the stories end and how would you want them to?

The Spousal Unit would like to see a closing of all the instances with significant lore bosses, maybe some terrain changes, and festivals celebrating the vanquishing of the Burning Legion.

A satisfactory end and a party would be a lot of fun, but I would like to see a darker conclusion to all of our efforts. What if we become so powerful, that we are like titans ourselves? The ensuing battle is one glorious free-for-all resulting in a cataclysmic event ending all life in Azeroth as we know it. Boom! Game over.

Holy Dueg suggests that the end of Azeroth may come after killing too many of the Old Gods. Perhaps Blizzard will coincide the end of WoW with a downing of the last few in one enormous world event. And then Azeroth floats apart, ending the adventures for everyone.

Historically, games go on as normal until the very end. If the players are lucky, the developers will give them a pretty light show, but that’s it. The players of Tabula Rasa, however, were able to participate in an actual end to their story. Hopefully, the end of the World of Warcraft will be even more spectacular.

How would you like WoW to end?

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Summer is upon us — and with it the promise of plenty of sunshine, occasional bouts of heatstroke, and lots of good reasons to stay indoors where it’s cool and air-conditioned. (Anyway, in a couple of weeks we’ll be able to enjoy all the wow goldfun of the Midsummer Fire Festival from our desks, won’t we?) Our sunlight-addled brains have decided to make this week’s WRUP more friendly to our friends and allies on Twitter — sure, a lot of you follow us on @wowinsider, but if you’re really into this social networking thing, maybe you’d like to stalk er, follow our writers individually. For your stalking following convenience, everyone’s Twitter name is listed alongside their weekend plans. (Save for the clever, clever people who either don’t use Twitter or won’t confess to using Twitter.)

Onward, dear readers, into the breach! See what the WoW.com staff is up to in game this weekend — and let us know what you’re playing, too!

• Alex Ziebart (@aziebart): Summer crit my raid, so we won’t be doing much Ulduar until Monday. I’ll probably be playing a lot of Turpen this weekend, unless Mass Effect pulls me in for a second playthrough. That game is incredible, by the way. Everyone should play it at least once. And play it as She-Shepard. He-Shepard sucks.
• Adam Holisky (@adamholisky): Paladin to 80 or else I’m going to throw a Twitter fit and quit the game emo style. /wrists.
• Chase Christian (@madsushi): I have been tanking Ulduar for the first time this week, and so I’ll likely be spending all day Saturday & Sunday dying to Mimiron.
• Daniel Whitcomb (@danielwhitcomb): I’ll be honest, Sims 3 has its hooks in me. I have a really cute nerd couple going, and they have a baby who’s about to turn into a toddler. Dad’s a best-selling fantasy fiction novelist too, so I’m hoping to get him over the edge on that as well. I figure 2 or 3 more books written and they might have the cash from royalties to move into a bigger house by the time they’re ready for baby #2.
• Eddie Carrington (@brigwyn): I’ll be continuing sloshing around in the snow on my quest for obtaining my Wintersaber!
• Eliah Hecht (@eliah): Driving up to Virginia for a wedding; taking advantage of it to meet a guildmate for dinner and a raid.
• Elizabeth Harper (@faience): After a week at E3 and a week of recovering from E3, I’ll be remembering what it’s like to play video games again. Unless I get distracted by something shiny.
• Jennie Lees (@jennielees): Well, there’s nothing left to kill, so a weekend in the sun awaits. Or alt Ulduar runs.
• Lesley Smith (@LesleySmith): Depending upon how my battle with the common cold goes, I could be working, sleeping, wandering Azeroth or curled up on my sofa with feline heaters watching whatever happens to be on Sky or my new House boxset.
• Lisa Poisso (@eMused): Poking around in a beta and re-downloading an old friend.
• Robin Torres (@cosmiclaurel): I will continue leveling my druid through Northrend, in between getting ganked by Alliance. I feel like Hal.
• Matt Low (@mattycus): No rest for the weary. Lots of writing and raiding to do.
• Matthew Rossi: I’m mostly working on my book this week (can I plug my other books here? although I’ll probably be raiding Ulduar 10 at some point.
• Michael Gray: I guess I should get a Twitter account. That being said, I’m playing poker around a campfire this weekend in Frederick, MD.
• Zach Yonzon (@trymykungfu): Boy, it’s a loaded weekend… free practice, time trials, and the big race on Sunday, hoping Sete Gibernau will have a successful and safe comeback to his home track at the Gran Premi Cinzano de Catalunya. Then there’s Game 5 of the NBA Finals where Kobe Bryant and the Lakers look to close out a remarkable Orlando Magic. Oh, and I guess I’ll probably play some of that Warcraft thing in between.

So, gentle readers (Twitterers and otherwise), what are you playing this weekend?

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WoW.com decided it was time to bring back some Hunter luvin’. It was that or they just needed a new Dwarf to pick on. So now you got me Eddie “Brigwyn” Carrington from The Hunting Lodge. Make sure to drop by here every Thursday as we explore what it takes to play a Hunter.

Have you ever caught yourself wondering, “Hmm… where wow goldI should go for my next upgrade?” Or how about “I wonder what pet I should get for raiding?” Another favorite of mine is “What spec should I use for raiding?” (This is always a trap. Even if you give a solid spec, someone will always find a something wrong with it.) For these types of questions, I feel it’s always better to follow the maxim “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

What’s my point? Well, it seems that many Hunters don’t know that there is a wealth of information out there. I would bet that there is probably a resource that can help answer all of your questions. You just need to know where to look.

For solid information, we all know about Elitist Jerks. But sometimes finding you can’t help but say to yourself, “There has to be an easier way.” Believe it or not, there is. There are many other resources and sites out there.

Pet Information

We Hunters are lucky! We get to run around and quest with our best friend in all of Azeroth. No, not your guild or even your old college roommate, but your pet.

Many times people ask, “What’s the best raid pet?” or want to know about a good leveling pet. It’s easy to just shout out the common refrains, “Get a wolf for raiding, a turtle, gorilla, or crocolisk for solo grinding and spider for PvP.” That might answer their question, but then the immediate follow-up is always, “Where can I get one?”

So… what do we teach these Hunters so they don’t ask these questions again? We tell them to head over to Petopia. The one stop pet information site that is “Approved By World of Warcraft Hunters Everywhere” site for pets. Once you’re done admiring everything that Mania has done over at Petopia, be sure to check out our own “Pets for raiding guide“.

Gear Selection

Gear, lootz, or shineys, no matter what you call it, people still ask, “What’s the best PvE trinket?” or “Which is better 2-handed or duel welding weapons?” I’ll be one of the first to admit that determining which item is “Best in Slot” can be confusing. But there are a few different ways to help reduce this confusion to be sure.

For example, there’s the Armory. Right on your profile you can click the “Find and Upgrade” next to the item and it’ll give a nice orderly list of every item upgrade that has dropped in game to date.

As sweet as that is it gets even better. One of my favorite sites is Chardev.org. Unlike some other gear planning sites, this one has tons of features and is easy to use. Also, Chardev is not just for end game play. If you’re looking to twink your hunter or would like to find your next upgrade, this site can be a lifesaver.

One of the coolest things is how Chardev lets you customize your gear, buffs, enchants and talent specs, then immediately show you the changes on a paper doll model. So as your looking for gear upgrades you can also play around with your enchants and buffs to see how they impact your stats.

Unlike some sites and tools, this one is really easy to use. Just click the item slot you want to upgrade and it will give you a list of all the gear upgrades for you. If you want to see how it affects your stats, just click and it to equip and see immediately see the changes to your stats.

One of the other awesome benefits is how it lets you create a profile from scratch and save it. You don’t have to load up your armory profile. This is great for when you want to model specs and gear impacts on the fly.

About the only thing better might be having the ability to compare gear on the fly inside the game. Guess what! You can with the Rating Buster add-on. You have to trust me on this one, and make sure this is on your required list of add-ons.

If you have ever been in one of those runs where something drops and the stats look like they might be a slight upgrade, but it’s hard to tell? Rating Buster tells you on the fly just how much of an upgrade this item will be.

If you need to make some touch and quick decisions on the fly, I promise you having this add-on during your raids can cut a ton of time off of loot decisions.

If you’re in Ulduar, we’ve already put together a nice “Ranged weapons from Ulduar” guide for you.

DPS Spreadsheets

Now, if having awesome add-ons and super itemization and pet information websites were not enough. The Hunter community has super theorycrafters. As a matter of fact, I would go out on a limb and say that we Hunters have some of the best theorycrafters in the game.

One reason I feel so confident in making such a claim is the fact that we have two awesome spreadsheets. Both help model Hunter dps by allowing you to modify gear itemization, buffs, and Hunter and pet talents specs. Another great feature is how they suggest possible shot ration models.

There are two spreadsheets, the Hunter DPS Spreadsheet by Wertez and Shandara’s Spreadsheet. Both got their humble beginnings from the original Cheeky’s Spreadsheet. When Cheeky decided to retire, Wertez and Shandara both decided to step up and carry the torch. We now have two spreadsheets that are similar because of their beginnings, but also have some major differences.

The Hunter DPS Spreadsheet is almost a complete rewrite of Cheeky’s original spreadsheet. Some of the later features, like gear planning, have been removed. Don’t let this scare you away from using this great tool though. What it lacks in gear planning it more than makes up in providing solid analysis, graphs and a pretty solid shot rotation model.

Since Shandara’s Spreadsheet is hosted over at Elitist Jerks it is the better known of the two. The first thing you notice is that it offers a gear planner. This is great if you happen to be in the office and not connected to the net.

I know Hunters that use both of these spreadsheets to plan their gear or even fine tune and fix their dps problems, because each has features that the other doesn’t. The only downside I see to both of them? They are only compatible with MS Excel. Neither one has an Open Source version nor are they planning an Open Source version in the near future.
Forums and Discussion Sources

All of those tools can help you answer your questions. But where do you go to discuss ideas, strategies, and yes even those “I have a question?” questions.

If you thought the only place to go for Hunter information was The Official Hunter Forums, forced to deal with trolls and tons of QQ or Elitist Jerks, where you are forced to wade through post after post of theorycrafting, then this is great news for you.

See, there are many other solid Hunter community forums out there. There are some forums that take the deep theorycraft of Elitist Jerks, helps you break it down, then show you how it can be applied to your character. Forums like The Hunter’s Mark, Less QQ More PewPew, The Hunting Lodge Forums (Disclaimer: The Hunting Lodge Forums are ran by yours truly), and Mania’s Arcania all provide solid helpful Hunter advice, as well as providing a spirit of real community to help you learn how to play your Hunter better.

So there you have it. We’ve started you off with a pretty solid Hunter Resource Guide right at your finger tips. But I’m sure it is in no way complete. What are some of your favorite resource sites, utilities and add-ons you use to help find the answers and keep your pew-pew in top shape?

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Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider’s daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

Just gonna let this one speak for itself. Oh, and if you want to know what today’s obligatory Reading-The-Queue-Music is, it’s of Montreal.

lgnorman420 asked…

“So I’ve been wondering as my guild has been running through Ulduar about the various machine names one might encounter throughout the game. Mimiron’s creation, the V0-L7R-0N combat system or the XT-002 Deconstructor are two examples. Also the mechanical chicken quests back from mid-40s to 50s leveling also come to mind. Do these number/letter codes have any significance or are they just random sequences to give them a machine sounding kind of name?”

I don’t think there’s any naming scheme across the board for robotic things in WoW. How they got their names differs from one to the next. For example, V0-L7R-0N is just a Voltron joke. I don’t think XT-002 has any significance except that maybe (maybe) the 2 signifies that he’s the second creation of Mimiron that you fight in Ulduar. The second line of defense or what have you. Someone smarter than I am should figure out what XT stands for. The robochickens are named after the zone you find them in.

So the robots have reasoning behind their names, yes. It’s just not the same reasoning behind all of the names.

Ian R. asked…

“Does Blizzard or WoW.com ever do anything at the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX)?”

We here at WoW.com/WoW Insider don’t typically send anybody to PAX, but who knows. Maybe one day we will. It all comes down to budgeting and we need to pick our battles carefully. BlizzCon is absolutely always going to be worth it. PAX? Eh. We might send someone from WoW.com to join the greater Joystiq collective, but it’s unlikely we’ll have a presence there just for ourselves.

Blizzard does tend to make appearances at PAX. In fact, they’re slated to be there this year. What will they be showing off? I’m not sure, but if it’s anything like last year they’ll just be showing off what they showed off at BlizzCon, just in another venue. StarCraft II, maybe Diablo III or the inevitable new WoW expansion. Whatever they announce at BlizzCon will almost certainly be mentioned again at PAX, just in a much smaller capacity.

Charizard asked…

“So, I’ll repost my question from the last article because it’s still relavent. What’s up with the Mountain Dew promotion thing? Are they still doing it? When are we getting pets? How does it work? I’ve been expecting a guide to it, but there still hasn’t been one.”

We were going to write up a guide until we realized that the Game Fuel site itself is the guide. It has a checklist of ways to earn points, and it doesn’t get much easier than that. Here’s what our guide would look like:

1. Go to MountainDewGameFuel.com’s How Do I Earn Tokens section
2. ???
3. Profit!

The pet details are all laid out on the FAQ page from the World of Warcraft website. You want this bit here:

“To claim the Battle-Bot pet, visit the promotion website at www.mountaindewgamefuel.com and follow the instructions there. The exclusive pet is available only between early June and August 20, and you many only claim the Battle-Bot Ignition Key on a World of Warcraft account (either trial or full account) that is tied to a Battle.net account. The account must be in the North American region, which includes the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, and Singapore.”

Vladeon asked…

“I’ve noticed that there’s little to no Naga in Northrend. What’s up with that? I mean, they’re all over the coasts in the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. Hell, they’re even in Outland, god only knows how they made it up there. So, with Northrend being a smallish island with tons of coast-line, why haven’t the Naga ventured up there much? Perhaps they’re smarter than we give ‘em credit for.”

The Naga did have territory in Northrend, a fairly significant one according to the RPG books. Riplash Strand was dominated by Naga. However, if you quest in Borean Tundra you find that the weird seaghost vrykul have killed them all off. My personal theory is that Blizzard decided to do that because we had enough friggin’ Naga in Burning Crusade and the last thing we needed was more of them in Northrend. Especially since that if the next expansion is the Maelstrom as most of us suspect, we’ll have more than enough Naga on our hands. It was a wise, wise move to minimize their presence in Northrend.

(Psst, if you have something you want us to pick as our song of the day, feel free to post in the comments, but they’ll only be considered if you ask a good question with the suggestion. Good as in not something silly like, “What is your favorite color?”)

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Reader comments – ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week.

I titled this week’s [1.Local] on Saturday, in a fit of wow goldfrustration. At the time, it seemed more than appropriate: “BlizzCon ticket status” (sold out) was still at the top of the WoW.com posts, the comments were seething with queue rage, and I was still smarting from an epic fail at click-refresh for the concert tickets I really, really wanted to score for my vacation week this summer. Gah.

But things are looking up. As it turns out, a lot of folks had a fair bit of fun playing Blizzard’s Failoc-alypse game while they sat in the ticket queue. (Give it a try; it’s kinda fun, actually.) And speaking of queues, just as I sat down to pop [1.Local] into the post queue, I decided to hit Ticketmaster one last time – and voila! Two seats at a great price, lusciously close to the stage. Take that, Failoc!

	Get WoW status updates on Twitter Wouldn’t it be cool if you could get the game’s launcher page updates via Twitter? It looks like you can (with a few caveats – read on).Scyntinth: http://twitter.com/launcherstatusI’ve currently got it running locally … need to move it to one of my servers. Too bad people park Twitter names like domain names blkmasta55555: Made a Twitter account for the EU status using page2rss.com and rsstotwitter.com, no clue if it works or how accurate it is: http://twitter.com/WoWStatusEU Scyntinth: Changed the account name to mimic blkmasta55555’s EU account: http://twitter.com/WoWStatusUS bum: http://twitter.com/wowalert_us as well /agree with Scynthith — no good names out there. AlexW573: I just sent an @wowinsider on twitter, but in case it’s missed: http://twitter.com/wowalerts The Twitter feeds all seem to have some drawback or another. You might want to consider using an RSS feed. Check out other readers’ ideas on how to get WoW status updates.
	Bolfang and the future of the Horde and the Alliance At the Wrathgate, we know that Arthas absorbed the soul of Saurfang the Younger into his sword. Evidence also points to the idea that he stole Bolvar Fordragon’s body, leading to rampant speculation that we will eventually fight one or both as thralls of the Lich King.Here’s an altogether new idea to consider: Might we also see Saurfang the Younger’s soul in Bolvar’s body? The [1.Local] gang’s opinions were strong, to say the least; there’s a lot to think about, from all sides of the issue.Reader Codexx stepped aside from the Bolvar/Saurfang issue to offer up two thoughts on what he’d like to see in future content. Codexx: I have two hopes for the future fight in Icecrown. 1: We fight them, Twin Emperors style. 2: The one we fight will be based on our faction, and some of the loot will be like the Argent Tournament loot, same/similar stats, different name and model. Sure, they could both be separate bosses, but that’s just padding the instance with filler, though it would prevent issues in my 2nd idea, where one boss becomes a loot pinata and the other a gear check. I haven’t seen the flashbacks yet, my guild seems to quit trying/tanks can’t be online whenever we actually put a significant dent in the instance. But the “Immolated Champion” and Arthas “breaking” his Death Knights is at least consistent with the Scourge’s Death Knight lore. Not that I would have minded it coming full circle. I’d also like to point out, that while the Onyxia event in Stormwind is no longer possible, it hasn’t been retconned. Phasing would be nice, however. Let lower level players see Bolvar there and let the Masquerade continue until they hit 78. So, getting back to Bolvar and Saurfang – a plausible connection in the future, or no? Add your two copper to the debate.
	Ghostcrawler on the future of five-mans No matter where five-man instance design is headed, reader Lemons waxed nostalgic for the dungeons of old.Lemons: Vanilla dungeons just felt a lot more … like a dungeon! A dungeon doesn’t simply have one path to follow; a dungeon has lore and quests and crazy hoops that you have to jump through if you want to make it to the end. And, god forbid, it’s actually possible to become lost and frustrated in a dungeon!Today’s dungeons are essentially a short gauntlet. They even managed to make the the massive underground city of Azjol Nerub feel like a claustrophobic hallway. Sadly, in 3.2, dungeons will take the final step in their devolution: a single room with boss fights. “So uh…what’s the lore here? Any keys I need to open secret doors? Should I equip my Onyxia Hide Cloak?” “No, you fight boss now.”
	New Druid form art in the next patch New Druid forms! Rejoice! Amidst all the squeezing, Cat noticed a small detail that caught her with her mouth open.Cat: AND! AND! AND Nethaera posted just after that one confirming that the bears will be able to CLOSE THEIR MOUTHS! Here’s the quote, btw:Also, in the screenshots the bears are roaring, but when just sitting normally, their mouths will close in a toothy grin, so to speak.
	Heirloom excitement Heirloom items are pretty darn cool — so goes the general opinion. Readers came up with several neat little ideas for possible heirloom item tweaks. Are any of these something you’d like to see?Benny: Personally I’d like to see an option to make items into heirlooms. We’ve all got a piece of gear that’s our favourite from a lower level that’s just useless to use now. I still keep my Sin’Dorei Warblade as a ceremonial sword in my backpack, but it would be nice to get it so its stats scale up to something similar to a low-level 80 item Legendary items should scale as well so that they maintain their awesomeness even with new content patches coming out I just overall feel the scaling mechanic has further use outside of how it’s currently being used .Realmreaver: I agree! mostly … Legendary should NOT be heirlooms because as they scale they would scale as green level items meaning the next level you’d lose stats not to mention there is no developer in their right mind that would want a legendary weapon scale cause they would make other legendary weapons obsolete. But yes I’d love to turn an old set of greens (dear ord did some of them look awesome) into heirlooms. kvanje: I wish they could be transferred to the other faction, or even another server - in other words, that they were truly account bound. I level alts for three reasons: to experience a different race, to experience a different class and to have “insurance” against server downtime. Heirlooms lose a lot of their usefulness in this scenario. Neyssa: I very much like the idea of scaling whilst leveling. However, for non-alts I would make a leveling dungeon set. Like, you pick up the level-scaling legs in some heroic version of Deadmines (make it so that you cannot do the heroic mode with high level character in team). Then, you get the shoulders in Scarlet, etc. It would be a kind of quest line spawning from lvl1-80, and I wish the design could be different my races (I know, making BE hunter / Tauren hunter /troll hunter gear sucks, but wouldnt it be awesome?). It should also provide some advantage for lvl 80 characters, to show off that they did go extra rounds whilst leveling. Some quests could involve using your character skills to the limit, and it would also show that you learned your class in and out while leveling. What do you guys think?
	Why Varian Wrynn is a fool If you care about lore, you owe it to yourself to read the comments following this post (as well as “Why Varian Wrynn is right“). Here’s why.Gryph667: Both articles make solid points. Another instance of Kenobi’s “point of view” argument, in that multiple views are “true.”Nellisynthia: There are, of course, two issues at play here. First, the metagame issues — the story that Blizzard is sharing with us, the mechanics of a World of Warcraft. And this they’ve done right proper — we’ve now got two major powers with firebrands in high leadership positions, and within each a fragmented set of factions with their own agendas. That manner of environment, when it comes to developing story and questlines is extremely rich. Instead of a limited of conflicts and intrigues to choose from there is now more potential directions to develop than you can shake a gnoll at. Second, once again Blizzard has done a wonderful job at painting everything in shades of gray. Which, again, is a wonderful environment for storytelling. Truth be told stories told in blatant black and white, good and evil, right and wrong tend to not only get stereotypical very fast but they simply tend to be preachy and downright boring. The fact that the current Thrall-Garosh-Saurfang-Wrynn-Jaina-Rhonin conflict has raised so much commotion, with loud, hyperbolic and passionate polemics on all sides of the argument is a testament to Blizzard’s storytelling skills. They’ve managed to get folks to make a some manner of major personal/emotional investment in their story, and not from just from one point of view but on many different fronts. Don’t believe that? Read the responses to this thread. It’s right there in black and white. Caught and landed, Hook, line and sinker. Which, all in all, is a very good thing when it comes to a game, especially one that has that oft scorned word “roleplaying” in it. All that said, of course, doesn’t stop the King of Stormwind from being BOTH a strong and vibrant warleader, able to rally a kingdom against the baddies … AND an idiot who needs someone to stand behind him and clobber him with a two by four every time he opens his mouth.
	WoW on Windows 7 RC And finally, we leave you with a post packed with techie advice on tweaking your system’s performance for a better WoW experience. Questions were asked; advice was given. We couldn’t possibly pick one single tip to highlight. If you’re a tech geek (or if you’re looking for advice on cranking up your system), go read.

Remember, don’t post your comments here — visit the original threads to keep the conversation flowing. Until next week!

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Aww, come on, you knew this was going to happen … Yup, Skadi the wow goldRuthless spared nothing for poor Dalronn and Skarvald of Utgarde Keep. It was a landslide victory for the PuG-intimidating boss — although a few readers did think the matchup could offer a few twists. “I’m going to give it to D/S here,” nodded Nizari. “Dalronn would eat it from the adds, being the squishier one, and Skarvald makes it to Skadi. Skar has two stuns to Skadi’s one, and remember that even after Dalronn goes down, he still can use all his abilities. So the summoned skellies eat the whirlwind, and more importantly, Debilitate nerfs Skadi’s DPS.”

“I gotta say the duo,” agreed Meethan. “If they could get through the harpoons, then Skadi would be cake for them. It seems like he has almighty attacks — but again, this is on the theory, not on the actual damage. They would go through the adds badly damaged but not dead. When Skadi came down, Skarvald would begin to engage him, while the necromancer began to summon his minions. In the event Skarvald did die, Dalronn would have enough knowledge to outlast Skadi in a battle perspective, because necromancers aren’t complete idiots.”

“They enter the gauntlet, and Skadi’s adds enter the fray. After some bickering about how they were going to get Skadi down while trying to defend themselves, Dalronn summons a bunch of skeletons to take down the adds while Skarvald mops up. Meanwhile, Skadi starts pelting the dynamic duo with Frost Breath. After more aggroing, Dalronn has Skarvold start collecting harpoons, while Dalronn’s skeles deal with the adds.

“If they’re lucky, Skarvold is able to shoot down Grauf, bringing Skadi to the ground. But Skadi is a well organized fighter. He’d go after Dalronn, with Skarvold blindly following him, and Whirlwind them both so they both die at the same time. They’d get a few hits in, but that would end it.

“If they’re unlucky, Skarvold doesn’t realize he needs to get out of the Frost Breath, and between that, the adds and Dalronn yelling at him, he gets confused and ends up dying. Leaving Dalronn to try to bring down Grauf, which he does, now that Skarvold is now able to easily take on the adds. But when Skadi comes down, he yells and one-shots Dalronn, and they both lose.”

So Skadi’s off to the next round. Surprised much?

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