Celestial Steed

How could I not cover the Celestial Steed for this week's Phat Loot Phriday? My Starry Pony has absolutely been the talk of the town ever since it went on sale this week. I went into a Warsong Gulch today . . . and my entire team was riding one.
What's so cool about My Starry Pony? First, it's full of stars. I mean, look at that. It's made of stars. Of course, this was a model technique made popular by Algalon, who's all about warning the Titans that we mortals have totally run amuck. But the design is absolutely awesome. It's made of stars!
What else is cool about My Starry Pony? You never have to buy another mount. It scales from level 1 all the way through level 80. (No way to know yet whether or not the mount will do whatever cool trick mounts do in Cataclysm.) The Celestial Steed will automatically become the context appropriate mount for your character, moving at the appropriate speed according to your level and training. It will even switch between being a normal ground mount for old Azeroth, or an airborne princess in Northrend. You will only need a single action bar button for your mount -- it'll fly or fall appropriate to the area you're in.
The last thing that's cool about it is that it shows up in your mailbox, even for character you've created. That makes it the single, easiest mount to get. Warning, though: you do still have to train the riding skill, just like you would have to with a normal, mundane, boring, not-full-of-stars mount.
While requiring the training skill means that the Steed doesn't vastly change gameplay, its one-size-fit-all nature definitely makes it the most convenient mount, especially since you won't ever need to spend gold on another mount. (At least, not until Cataclysm changes the rules again.)
All you have to do to get it is head over to the Blizzard Store, and pick one up for 25 bucks.

New spells and abilities coming to our favorite class

Every one of us has been sitting at our computers with bated breath, eagerly waiting to see the new spells and abilities coming to our favorite class in Cataclysm. The truth, however, is that we've already seen many of these before. Some of these class previews started in Icecrown Citadel, not on the forums.
What are we talking about? In Icecrown Citadel, there's a mob in the Upper Spire region of the raid zone called Val'kyr Heralds. They summon other mobs called Severed Essences, which are clones of members of your raid. They don't use all of your exact spells, but they fit each class. With the exception of one (Focused Attacks), each of the unique spells Severed Essences possess have ended up being a new spell for their class in Cataclysm.Heroic Leap appeared in the warrior preview. Necrotic Strike appeared in the death knight preview. Replenishing Rains appeared in the shaman preview. While it isn't the exact spell warlocks are receiving, Rain of Chaos was the herald of green fire. There's only one unique spell left on these Severed Essences, which is the paladin's Radiance Aura. Focused Attacks didn't make it into the rogue preview, so there's no guarantee paladins will be getting Radiance Aura, but chances seem very good that they will. It's not the most exciting spell in the world, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be useful. A decent aura option in situations with multiple paladins on an encounter with no need for resists. One paladin puts up Devotion, the other puts up Radiance. You're good to go!
Unfortunately, the Severed Essences didn't hold any hints for today's hunter preview, and they don't have much to say about druids or mages either. We'll have to wait and see if Radiance Aura finds its way into the paladin preview.

Theorizing

Theorizing that one could shadow priest within his own lifetime, Dr. Fox Van Allen stepped into the Shadowform accelerator ... and vanished. He awoke to find himself the Spiritual Guidance columnist, facing mirror images that were not his own and driven by an unknown force to change shadow priests for the better. His only guide on this journey is his Gnomemuncher, an observer from his own time who appears in the form of a Shadowfiend that only Fox can see and hear. And so, Dr. Van Allen finds himself leaping from column to column, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next column ... will be filled with dead gnomes.
I am the most awesome shadow priest of all time.
Okay, so maybe that's a severe exaggeration. Still, I'm starting to max out on my gear and I feel increasingly out of place in Northrend heroics. It's hard to run them without pulling aggro off a tank simply by virtue of being there.
As time goes on, more and more of you will find yourself in a similar situation: You're exceptionally geared. You know your class and your spell priorities. You churn out rockin' DPS. You keep getting better, but the tanks and healers you're thrown into random groups with don't.
The random dungeon finder relies a lot on luck. Sometimes, you wind up with a bad tank. Sometimes, you wind up with a bad healer. Worst-case scenario, both are going to stink. Unless you like running back to your corpse, these situations require you to use your brain and adjust your play.

Tankfails
I've been cheating on you, my dear shadow priest followers, with a level 67 elemental shaman. It's been a long time since I've had to play around in Outland, and it's nice to revisit every now and again. I've been refamiliarizing myself with the instances there, especially in Hellfire Peninsula.
I have a definite love-hate relationship with the Outland. I love the great blue drops in the instances, especially compared to the old-world greens they sometime replace. I hate, hate, hate the death knights who tank 95% of the runs there. It's not that there's something wrong with the class itself, it's just that most people who are playing DK tanks in Hellfire Ramparts just started their character that day. Weak equipment plus unfamiliarity with tanking plus lack of knowledge about the class equals one heck of a big mess for the janitors at the Ramparts to mop up after.
There are a few simple guidelines for dealing with situations where you have an underperforming tank.
Slow it down. There aren't any enrage timers in heroic trash pulls, so don't race into the fight like you're trying to set a world record time. Give your tank -- especially an underexperienced tank -- a few seconds to build aggro, and start your rotation with an aggro-light blast of Vampiric Touch (rather than something like Devouring Plague with an upfront damage component). Remember: The best way to survive a tankfail is to prevent a tankfail from happening.
Attack what the tank is attacking. Don't be a multi-dotting jackass when the tank can barely hold on to one mob. There's a simple macro you can use: /assist [tanknamehere]. Or, if the tank marks a mob with the traditional skull, that's your sign to focus fire on that target. Stay focused on what the tank is focused on (or what your tank tells you to focus on), and you'll avoid most problems.
You can spec for heroics. If you notice an increasing disparity between your gear and skill and that of your tank, you may need to go the extra mile to protect yourself. Putting three talent points into Shadow Affinity would never be recommended for hardcore raiders, but for those who choose to level through instances or spend the bulk of their time running level 80 heroics, being able to reduce your aggro by 25% is quite valuable.
Bubble yourself out of battle. Starting out every battle by casting Power Word: Shield on yourself is a good way to attract early attention from the bad guys. If you're a fan of keeping yourself protected (and if you have a bad tank, you should be), cast PW:S before the pull, not after.
Keep Fade at your fingertips. If the tank is bad, get used to using Fade. A lot. Put it on your cast bar and memorize the shortcut number. If you've redone your talent tree for a "heroics spec," you may want to consider glyphing for it too. Just keep in mind that Fade doesn't always work the way we'd like it to, and we'll sometimes keep aggro even after using it.
Healfails
In my experience, a vast majority of preventable instance wipes happen in the following order: healer dies, then tank dies, then everyone else dies. Rogues and fury warriors can't do much put pray they take out the baddies in time to prevent the full wipe (or at least, prevent their own repair bill). Shadow priests, however -- we get to be the heroes.
We pay an ugly little hybrid tax because we have access to heals. We may as well get some use out of it, right? And besides, there is nothing more satisfying than stepping in during a "sure wipe" and saving the day. We look awesome, get a +50 buff to our egos and make a Dawn Moore groupie feel inadequate to the might of the glorious shadow priest.
Always keep an eye on your party. This part should go without saying, but it's important: Keep an eye on your party. You're not the healer, but you can always become one on short notice, so it's important to know exactly when your healer dies. You may also find it useful to experiment with addons that announce party deaths, such as RaidBuffStatus, or an addon that makes it easier to monitor party health at a glance, like Healbot.
Keep the "oh $#!* emergency macro" handy. I've mentioned this macro before in our Blood-Queen walkthrough, but combining Inner Focus and Divine Hymn is even more powerful in the heroic setting. It gives a mana-free, channeled multiheal with a 25% buff to your crit -- a godsend for a troubled heroic party under siege.
#showtooltip Divine Hymn /cast Inner Focus /cast Divine Hymn /run UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
Even without the talent point in Inner Focus, Divine Hymn remains a great last-ditch cast to save the party. Keep it on your quick cast list. Press it whenever you feel it's needed to save the party. And use those few seconds of channeling to plan and ready your next heal.
Consider a special "heroics only" cast bar. If you don't have a quick cast heal spell at your literal fingertips, fooling around with finding the right spell to switch from "face melt mode" to "lovey-dovey Dawn Moore heals crap mode" could waste valuable moments that you'll need to keep the tank alive. Put a quick-acting heal like Divine Hymn or Flash Heal on your shadow bar for emergencies.
Once you send off that initial heal (to the tank, please!), you'll automatically drop out of Shadowform and gain access to your standard casting bar. This would be a good time to remind you that, yes, you should make sure your non-Shadowform default quick cast bar is in shape for these kinds of emergency situations.
Speed (and priority) matter in a clutch. Act fast. When the healer of a heroic dies, the party is generally in pretty bad shape to begin with. You'll need to rely on "quick" spells, at least at first. If you're a troll, this would be an excellent time to initiate Berserking. Prioritize your tank over the other slackjawed, non-shadow DPSers. Tanks are sort of a big deal to have around. When the tank is low on health, focus on fast-acting spells like Flash Heal, Prayer of Mending and Power Word: Shield. I know Renew is an instant cast, but the tank could be dead before it has time to tick. Cast Renew when the tank is back in good shape. While the HoT keeps the tank's health buoyed, drop heals on the rest of the party. Holy Nova is an okay instant cast if everyone is together, but Prayer of Healing will do a lot more healing. Watch the mana! The biggest downfall of the shadow-specced healer is the low mana pool and weak regen ability. Once the most dire part of the emergency has been averted, be very cautious about each cast. You need to make it through the end of the fight, so be careful not to overheal too much. Don't be afraid to use cooldowns like Arcane Torrent (for blood elves) or drink a Runic Mana Potion to make it through. The latter is still cheaper than a repair bill.
Finally, regardless of whether or not the tank is failing the group.

Unless you've been living under a rock

Unless you've been living under a rock you know that Blizzard is getting set for a major Cataclysm info dump over the next week. This kind of information sparks a lot of comments and intelligent discussion, and WoW.com wants to feature it prominently. To that end, we're looking for short guest posts on what you think about the changes to your class.
We're going to operate this guest posting opportunity much like we did our BlizzCon 2010 opinions. Write a paragraph or two, sign up for Seed, and then go and submit it on the Seed project page. If it's something we like we'll post it and you'll get paid $10! Easy and awesome.
You can find out more about the guest writer program in our announcement post and at our Contributing to WoW.com page.
A couple things to note:
If you write a really great comment here, feel free to submit it through our Seed page too! No penalty for leaving a comment and submitting it through Seed. We're expecting to get a ton of submissions for this, so we're not going to be able to publish all the great thoughts and opinions we get, even though we want to. If you'd like you can include a short bio about yourself, things like your character name, guild, server, blog, etc... Totally optional, though. The sooner you get these in the better! We'll be publishing our first batch of guest posts in the next day or so, and will continue to do so every couple days for the next week or so. This project closes on April 19th at 11:59 p.m. EST. We hope that you all keep this in the back of your mind in the next few days as all this info gets released. So many of you know this game so well, we're excited to be able to feature your knowledge and opinions to the masses!

Axe of sweet skull-face

This axe of sweet skull-face love drops early in Icecrown Citadel (10-man) as a prize from the defeat of Saurfang. Ramaladni's Blade of Culling has a couple noteworthy things. First, the weapon is named from this legendary bit of warrior history called Indalamar Warrior Power. The legend of Indalamar has it that many of the earlier warrior nerfs were because of this player.
Second, Ramaladni's axe sports two blue sockets, making it a singularly excellent death knight tanking weapon. While any DPS class who uses two-handed weapons will appreciate the axe, it's relatively rare to find this much blue gem opportunity on a weapon. The expertise on the weapon also recommends it for tanking, which tends to be a fairly valuable stat for death knight tanks. (Really, any melee, sure, sure, but I'm making a death knight argument here.)
Name: Ramaladni's Blade of CullingType: Two-Hand AxeDamage: 748 - 1123 Damage, 267.3 damage per secondSpeed: 3.50 Attritbutes: 148 Strength 164 Stamina 2 Blue Sockets Socket Bonus: +6 Strength Increases your expertise rating by 91 (11.1 @ L80) Increases your armor penetration rating by 83 (5.93% @ L80)

Two Bosses Enter ...

Two Bosses Enter ... but only One Boss Leaves, in WoW.com's series of fantasy death matches. It's a brand new season and a brand new format, introducing judges from WoW.com and the WoW community at large -- and of course, your votes. Grab a seat, and let's get ready to rumble!
Last week's matchup between Marwyn and the entire ToC PvP Champions team was a good set-up for this week's deathmatch between Eadric the Pure and the Lich King (5-man version). It's all about balance. Yes, lore comes into play. But inside the Thunderdome, lore isn't the only factor. Every point must be balanced against the others.
This week, a group of five adventurers -- the ToC Grand Champions -- made short work of Marwyn (just as your own groups probably do whenever you face Marwyn in a random). Step into the Thunderdome with us after the break, where we'll hear the judges' decisions and consider what many of you have been waiting for: the first of many bouts involving some version of the Lich King himself. Oh yes, it's finally time ... And in the words of Dr. Dealgood: "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls

The priest

Welcome back to Spiritual Guidance, hosted by the spectacularly dark Fox Van Allen. Though he should be preparing for his final showdown against gnome-sympathizer and lolsmiter Dawn Moore, he has chosen to instead pop a few Flasks of Vodka Tonic (with that sweet Mixology bonus) and spend all night kareoke-ing with Mike Sacco. He's not afraid of those sick 4000 damage crits that a holy priest can score with Smite! What's that? Casting smite *again*? Hard to do when your mind is flayed into pudding.

We've bested Sartharion on a three-dragon run. We've looked into Sindragosa's icy maw and laughed. None of that is especially impressive if we're still living in our parents' basement cause we can't find a job.
It's time to put that shadow priest of ours to work. The number one rated profession for shadow priests is being the WoW.com columnist, but since that job's already taken, the rest of you will have to settle for standard Azerothian fare. And, ideally, you're going to want the one that makes your pew pew skills look all the more impressive.

When I was leveling my shadow priest, I wasn't thinking much about the end game. I grabbed a pair of professions as soon as the game would let me: Tailoring and Enchanting. They served me well through leveling. But a few months into level 80, I got to thinking -- did I make the right choice?

Turbine on renting vs. owning in the MMO market

Blizzard's presence at PAX East 2010 was even smaller than I was expecting, with two or so Community reps there to oversee the StarCraft II tournaments going on. Boston-based Lord of the Rings Online developer Turbine, though, had a very large demo area which saw a lot of traffic over the course of the three-day event. Con-goers could stop by and demo LotRO, as well as Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited, and hobnob with the Community reps and developers present.
With the WoW-specific news at the event registering somewhere between "literally nothing" and "nearly nothing" on the newsy scale, I decided to stop by Turbine and ask them a few questions about their MMOs. I ended up speaking with their Design Director, Ian Currie.
"I'm from WoW.com," I said, "so obviously I don't normally do a lot of reporting on your games. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever even played DDO, and I've only played a little bit of LotRO."
Currie, the gentleman in dead center of the photo above, smiled and said "You really don't know what you're missing, then, do you!"
"Apparently not," I acquiesced, "but maybe you can help fill in the blanks."
I asked Currie how DDO and LotRO differ from WoW in design philosophy, though we didn't stay on the topic for long.
"Well, DDO differs a lot more from WoW on fundamental levels than LotRO does," he said, "so I'll be talking about DDO in this case."
He brought up a number of points that made DDO different from WoW -- its combat is more action- and skill-based, letting you move to dodge attacks and missile spells, for example, offering a different fighting experience than WoW's more "turn-based" combat. He went on to praise WoW for its sheer amount of content but pointed out that a lot of the quests were what are termed "Fedex" quests early on -- the kind that send you off to distant areas with a package for someone, or a note, or a particular item. "We wanted to avoid that kind of thing, so from the beginning, quests were tailored to be very different from one another, to keep the experience fresh."
Probably anticipating that I'd bring up the upcoming Cataclysm expansion that'll retool most of WoW's early content, including quests Blizzard considered clunky, antiquated, or just not fun, Currie quickly noted that DDO didn't necessarily do everything right at launch either and that, like Blizzard, they've learned a lot since their respective games launched. The biggest change to the game since its launch in 2006, though, had nothing to do with gameplay.
"DDO went free-to-play late last year," I said. "Can you tell me a little about how that's going, for you and for the players?"
Currie seemed excited to talk about it, which surprised me. When I hear that an MMO that was originally subscription-based is going free-to-play, I tend to consider it banshee keening. For Turbine, though, DDO's new payment model has been an enormous success, both in terms of subscriber growth and financial gain. Currie stated that and that they had gained over a million new subscribers (effectively doubling their player base), and revenues from the game had increased by an astounding 500% since going free-to-play.
"You'll have to forgive me," I said, "but that almost doesn't make sense to me."
He laughed. "I know, it sounds crazy. How can you make money on a free game? We wondered that, too. We debated long and hard over the change to the payment model, but it's paid off big-time for us. And for the fans, too." Then he gave me a quick primer on how the system works: anyone can download and play the game for absolutely nothing. Everyone has access to basic content, but those who choose to pay a monthly fee get perks, such as VIP titles. Additionally, the game is supported by the DDO Store, which allows you to buy content packs, vanity items, potions, and other non-essential items.
Currie said that the store was intended to be mainly for convenience. The free-to-play genre is notorious for games that are nearly impossible to enjoy without pumping money into them -- many Korean import games fall into this trap. Yes, you can play for nothing, but you can't have fun or compete. "We wanted to make sure that the play experience wasn't cheapened by the store being there. Nothing you can buy gives players a concrete advantage over others in terms of progression." I pointed out that not many free-to-play games follow this model and he agreed that Turbine was in a rather unique position in the genre.
"Everyone can play through the content without ever getting anything from the store, and they'll have a fine time of it. What we're pretty proud of with the whole system is the fact that the player owns any content they buy."
I pressed for a bit of clarification. He obliged by likening most subscription-based games, like WoW, to renting something. When you buy an expansion pack for WoW, you only have access to that content, or any content, while your subscription is active. If your subscription lapses, you can't play what you bought anymore. "If you buy a content pack from the DDO store, on the other hand, it's yours forever, regardless of whether you're currently subscribed or not. If you're normally a VIP and have a rough month financially, you can go back to the free-play model and still play what you purchased in the store," Currie said.
It's unlikely that Blizzard will ever go for a free-to-play payment model for WoW -- they make billions on subscription fees -- but the effects of the switch for Turbine have been undeniable, and my interest was piqued when the renting-vs.-owning comparison was made. Save for social connections, players have very little they can take away from WoW when their subscription lapses. They've left no real permanent mark on Azeroth, they have no free pass back in when they want to come back, and their content purchases mean nothing when they have to pinch pennies for a while. It occurred to me that perhaps Blizzard could make the 1-60 game free-to-play, with Outland and Northrend being subscriber-only, but with Cataclysm hitting shortly, that's looking less and less likely.
I've understood for a long time -- since before I worked at Blizzard explaining this kind of information regularly -- that WoW is conditionally licensed to you (the condition being that you pay the fee and follow the rules). This is the same for many MMOs, of course, but Turbine appears to be trying to buck that trend by at least giving players a permanent foothold in the world of Eberron. You'll always have a home there no matter how much money you're making. You can't really say the same for Azeroth. Maybe Turbine is on to something.

All the World's a Stage: Roleplaying the wolf

Friday night was a special evening for me, as I finally got around to watching New Moon. I admit that the movie really wasn't my cup of tea, and I mostly watched it out of a sort of morbid curiousity. I felt a clear, unnatural compulsion to see what Dakota Fanning's performance was like, and I will report that she was definitely a shining point for the movie. The Volturi portions of the movie were fairly cool, but the rest of the movie really didn't work out for me. I don't know, just not my thing.Ironically, one of the biggest issues I had with New Moon was the performance of the werewolves. I'm sure there's a few dozen people who will tell me that they're not technically werewolves or whatever. But as a relatively uninitiated viewer, Jacob and his pack were indistinguishable from your general furry, toothy werewolf. But they just didn't act that way. Nothing about the pack really struck me as wolfish, and the lack of that canine behavior totally kept me from buying these guys as lupines. So, of course, I couldn't help but think about our own upcoming Worgen in Azeroth.There's already a few different avenues built into the lore for roleplaying "beasts." The longest standing option, of course, is roleplaying a druid who spends a lot of time as a cat or bear. But, even aside from that, you can assume some hunters probably spend more time with their pet wolf than other humanoids. And you always have the odd baby lost in the woods who ends up raised by the local pack. (It's amazing how many character one comes across who's raised by wolves.)So, ultimately, if we're going to roleplay canine-like characters, here's some tips on how to make it a little convincing. I think we can do better than Twilight. I'm not claiming to be a wolf expert here, I'm just talking about the literary and connotative ideas of playing a wolf-inspired character.

Spiritual Guidance: Benediction

Though temporarily bested by Sindragosa's Ice Tombs, a well-timed Renew and some gnome mages have freed Dawn Moore just in time for her to wrench back Spiritual Guidance from the shady clutches of Fox Van Allen; just as she does every Sunday. After she finishes advising her fellow healing priests on the ways of the light this week, she will be waiting for a duel in Zangarmarsh atop the highest mushroom with a Flag of Ownership and Medallion of the Horde. Bring it!

I've had a lot of requests recently from readers who want a leg up on gearing out their soon to be level 80, or fresh level 80 priest for raiding. This is certainly a worthwhile topic, one I intend to get to, but not this week.

We get a lot of mail at WoW.com and this past week we got an e-mail from a player named Nemikahn who wrote a WoW version of the song Sunscreen. The various staffers read through the e-mail, groaned in realization at how old they were (the original song came out in 1998) before the e-mail got lost in the jumble of BlizzCon 2010 news. I really enjoyed the rewrite though, and thought it rather timely given we are nearing the end of this expansion. Cataclysm is coming, and it's supposed to change everything we've become familiar with. So, this week my fellow priests, my guidance is this: stop and smell the flowers. WoW operates at such a hurried pace these days. Don't feel like you always have to rush off to the next raid or complete another alt. Take more screen shots, visit your favorite zones, make sure you can contact your closest friends in the game outside of it, and most of all: create Benediction. I will, of course, help you with that last part.

Profession Rewards

In World of Warcraft there are many different professions and bonuses that they provide. Which one is best for which class though? Which bonuses will make your character the best it can be in the end game? That is what Byron “Messiah” Mudry looks at in this new guide to Profession Rewards.
Blacksmiths get the ability to add two extra gem sockets to their equipment, one to their gloves and one to their bracers. This means that they can further customize their gear as required. This works out to a bonus of +46 Spell Power, +40 Strength, or +60 Stamina due to the extra slots. You could put any number of other bonuses into the slots instead.

Big Guide to WoW Tanking

In World of Warcraft there are three primary roles that you can fill as a player. These roles are that of a damage dealer, healer, or tank. In this writers opinion no role is more important than the tanks, since they tend to have more control over the groups success of failure than any other player. Knowing this is such an important role, how do players get ready for it if they are new to it? Don't worry, Byron "Messiah" Mudry is here to walk you through all the basics you need to know to tank in World of Warcraft.
Since in most cases you are going to be in charge of a group’s pace, in addition to your base responsibility of their survival, you need to pay attention to them. This means that you need to pay close attention to all of their health and mana bars, and their threat status. During a fight this is critical as you need to know if your healer is about to go Out of Mana (OOM) or if your group’s top DPS player has drawn aggro and needs to be saved.

Warlock Guide

Our Warlock guide for World of Warcraft has been updated with a ton of new content. We've got two new pages that go over what Warlocks are and how to use 'em in combat along with a brand new landing page. If you're one of those who have an affinity for the demonic side of magic then this is the guide for you.
Warlocks are practioners of demonic magic. They make a pact with the demons to bring them under their control and use magic that’s long been forbidden in Azeroth. In the game they use a mixture of damage over time (DoT) spells alongside their somewhat faithful demonic pets in order to leave a wake of destruction behind them. They are a very versatile class, but are primarily damage dealers (DPS).

Wireless Headset Available for Pre-Order

You can now pick up a pre-order for one of the World of Warcraft wireless headsets. The headsets come in Alliance or Horde flavors (the interchangeable lenses allow you to choose on the fly) and come with a $159.99 price tag currently over at Amazon.com. Some of the neat features of this headset include color changing side lenses, removable microphone, and a ton of sound enhancements. Plus they're wireless, so you won't step or roll over your cord and can move them between computers easily. Pretty neat stuff!

Warsong Gulch Battleground Guide

Warsong Gulch is one of the Battlegrounds in the World of Warcraft that is available very early on while leveling a character. In fact starting at level 10, you can join the Warsong Gulch queue and see what PvP is all about. While taking out opposing faction members is fun, the main objectives in WSG are capturing your opponent's flag, defending and retrieving your flag from the enemy, and winning the first to three competition.
As of patch 3.2 you have been able to gain experience in Battlegrounds. This means that if PvP is your thing, you can do it almost exclusively and still level up a character. The experience you gain is based on the level bracket you are in and is granted for different accomplishments. For example in the level 70 bracket you gain about 6,000 experience for capturing a flag. This obviously is less at lower levels. You also gain experience for killing flag carriers and winning the battleground.

Love is in the Air 2010 Guide

World of Warcraft's Valentine holiday "Love is in the Air" has gotten a revamp for 2010. There are all new quests, bosses, and items to obtain. Ten Ton Hammer is on the scene with a revamped guide of our own covering everything you need to know, including boss strats, for this brand new holiday.
Buffs can be dispelled, but sockets are forever. That was the line from the Valentine’s Day World of Warcraft commercial that aired during the days of WoW: The Burning Crusade. Now the holiday has come back around but this time with a vengeance. No longer do you pick up chocolates from the guards or find out who’s spiked the perfume. A mysterious group of Goblins called the Crown Company has taken over the holiday and the Steemwheedle Cartel is none too pleased.

Guide to Running Chain Heroics

One of the major ways for characters to gear up in World of Warcraft is through badge rewards. Badges are earned by running heroic instances or raids. Many players however do not have ready access to raids since their guilds do not run them or they do not have the time to dedicate to them. This leaves running many heroics, or chaining heroics, to earn as many badges as possible. Join Byron “Messiah” Mudry as he walks you through some of the best ways to earn massive numbers of badges. He also delves into how to have some fun if the task of farming for huge numbers of badges becomes monotonous.
If you are a class that can not tank or heal, or if you could but you choose not to, the next best thing is to make friends with a tank quickly. Join as a group with a tank in it and when you queue you get their short queue time as well. This makes getting through heroics all that much faster. Failing that you can queue in the LFG tool and simply go and farm something while waiting for the group to form. I find that I can get a lot of mining, skinning, herbing, etc done on my various characters as I wait for a group.

Guide to Ice Crown Citadel

Since the release of Patch 3.3 many players have had one single thing on thier mind, the defeat of Arthas, the Lich King. To many Arthas is the tob bad guy in the game and people have been itching to fight him. Now that you have battled through everything leading up to him in Icecrown Citadel, what do you need to know about him? Join our very own Byron “Messiah” Mudry as he runs you through the basics.
In the transitional phase there will also be three raging spirits summoned, one every 20 seconds, that silence anyone in their front arc, these need to be DPSed very quickly. Also frost orbs will be launched at you from the center of the room, and need to be DPSed before they reach the group or they explode knocking players off. Lastly Arthas applies a DoT called pain and suffering to a random player and it does damage to that player and spreads to anyone close by each time it ticks. It also stacks, so staying close together can lead to wipes very quickly. The transition lasts for one minute.

A Viable New Method for Distributing Raid Loot?

The new fad sweeping World of Warcraft servers is an Asian inspired loot system that demands that you have gold to buy the gear that drops in raids. While it ensures that everyone gets something out of a raid is it fair to have to buy loot? There are some advantages and disadvantages to this system, and our very own Byron "Messiah" Mudry looks at them in this guide to the system. He then continues on to give his own opinion on it at the end of the guide portion with a mini editorial.
There are several good things that come out of running GDKP runs. The first is that it keeps overgeared players running old content, which helps more undergeared players see the content. This is good because if those highly overgeared players were not running the content, many of the runs would fail and more players could not see the content and gear up from it.

Cataclysm Stat Changes In-Depth

Since Blizzard started discussing the possibility of massive changes to the character stat system coming in Cataclysm way back at Blizzcon players have wondered exactly what was changing and why. While there have been several posts by Blizzard employees talking about some of the changes and what they will mean, Eyonix has posted a new message on the forums that contains a wealth of information. Now that we know a bit more about some of the changes being planned and more about why they are planned, how will they likely effect your gaming experience.
The block value change has been a long time coming, since two block stats confused many beginning tanks anyway. Also when tanks with shields stacked block value for trivial content like instances and heroics they could essentially run the instance without taking any damage other than on bosses. On the flip side on hard hitting raid bosses, a few thousand damage less meant next to nothing compared to higher dodge or parry values. Now that block will always mitigate 30% damage, there really is no need for block value.

ICC Guide Update - Heroic Modes Part

Now that the Lich King has been defeated on normal mode in Icecrown Citadel, the player base has moved into attempting Heroic modes on the bosses in the Citadel. For players that found some of the early bosses easy, moving up to heroic mode is no joke, the bosses get much harder and provide more of a challenge. While some of the early bosses do not change significantly, the extra incoming damage and boss health is enough to cause serious issues.
The biggest change to the Festergut fight is that Professor Putricide gets involved in it. Roughly every 30 seconds he will throw a Malleable Goo into the fight. This does big damage if it hits the player and slows them down greatly for 15 seconds, the same as it would in the Professor Putricide fight. Players need to watch for who is targeted and ensure they get out of the way.
The first two sections of our Icecrown Citadel guide has been update to include descriptions and basic strategies to deal with the changes in the fight when attempted on heroic mode. You can find the guides here: Lower Spire and the Plagueworks.

Ten Easily Obtainable Achievements

Frustrated by those hard to get achievements, out of money, or just want some easy achievement points? Looking for some easy achievements to pass the time? Then look no further! This week Mem shares some cheap, easy to do, but often forgotten achievements that will allow you to relax while still collecting those achievement points.
Explore Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor, Outland, and Northrend to gain this achievement. This may seem like a lot of work, but it’s really very easy to complete. Parents, you may even be able to teach your children to do this achievement as all it requires is for you to mount up and ride, enjoying the sights throughout the various zones.

How to run a Loot Council

With so many players raiding in World of Warcraft there is also a greater necessity for a solid loot distribution system. Many guilds feel that DKP or EP/GP is too much overhead to run or that it is just for hardcore guilds. Therefore many turn to a loot council to distribute gear. While in theory a council is easy, in actual fact there is a lot that goes into it to make everyone happy and ensure that your guild does not disintegrate over loot distribution.
The ideal group to use loot council is a group of players that knows each other and wants to work as a group to get through and defeat new content. While wanting to experience new content they also do not really care if they are personally 1st or 15th on the damage meters, or 1st or 5th on the healing meters, or if they are the main or off-tank is the ideal group for using loot council.

The Basics to Guild Leadership

Guild leadership can be tough in World of Warcraft. Not only is it hard to get a guild off the ground but it can be even harder keeping the guild happy and drama free. We've got a ton of helpful tips for both casual/social guilds and hardcore guilds in our latest article on guild leadership. Want to start or run your own guild? This article is definitely for you.
Generally you’ll want to spam guild recruitment at first to get people into your guild. It’s a bit sleazy, but you’ll often find a few people who are legitimately interested and make wonderful additions to your guild. My best advice is to screen people by having a bit of a chat with them. If they don’t want to talk to you about what they’re looking for in a guild then just /ignore them and move on. That’s the best way to weed out the strange idle people who randomly join and leave.

ICC Heroic Mode Strategy Updates

Now that the heroic modes are available on all the bosses in Icecrown Citadel, many guilds are trying to work through them. In this second update to our ICC guide we provide the basics on the heroic modes for the bosses in the Crimson Halls, Frostwing Halls, and Arthas himself. Check out all the basics in our guide, and help others out with your exploits in our forums.

Top 5 Gold Farming Techniques

Having trouble filling your pockets full of gold in World of Warcraft? Don't fall for the gold sellers scams or work hard when there is easy and fast ways to bring in the cash. We're willing to get you started by sharing our five best gold farming techniques. Need to fill your pockets up before Cataclysm? Start here.
We have a big tip for you. If prices on high level materials are plummeting on your server then you should consider farming in lower level zones. On some servers you can see stacks of Sungrass move for 80 to 100 gold if there is any even on the auction house. Always keep in mind that lower level areas can be worth a lot more than higher level areas even if you can’t fly to farm.

Recon PvP Guide

Unlike other stealth classes in MMOs today, the Recon of Global Agenda isn't any more frail or less resilient to damage than the other soldiers. Normally that'd be enough to make people cry about it being overpowered, but it's also the most dangerous class in the game, capable of killing a target in less than a second from seemingly miles away. Welcome to the life of the Recon in PvP, and with our guide on how to excel at it, life is good!
When your offhands are recharging, scout out your enemy's Respawn Beacon and neutralize it. Offenses love to hide them on the rooftops or behind boxes or around corners, defenses love to hide the respawn beacon in corners behind walls of Robotics equipment. Often times these defensive beacons will be impossible to assault with standard means when there are 3-4 Robotics on defense set up near them. It falls on you to EMP bomb them back into the stone age!

WoWReader Issues & Help (v.2009)

This is the main thread for help and issues regarding WoWReader. The previous threads can still be found v.4,v.3, v.2 and (older) v.1.
If you just need general usage instructions, be sure to check the Readme.txt included before asking any questions. If you have any problems, or run into any bugs, post here. If you encounter an error message that mentions error.txt, post it's contents here. If you have trouble patching, post the contents of patch.log and startup.log here.
"After entering my login info, I get an invalid-password error when I try to upload, and if I go back, my pw changed to a long string of ***'s."
- Ensure that you actually entered your correct login and password for this website. Be sure that both the login AND password are correct. They are both case-sensitive. If in doubt, or the error persists, try changing your password on the website, then entering the new one. The number of ***'s shown on the login screen is not related to the length of your password. The extra stars shown are not causing your problem.
"Profile not updating"
- Verify the Wr UI Addon is loading within the game. You can type /wver in game to confirm it's running. If it's not loaded, exit out of WoW and go to character select, then click on the "Addons" button and make sure its not disabled. If you've checked this, please mention it in your post so we can save some time.
- Ensure you're having WoWReader upload successfully after you've logged out from the game world on the character you wish to update.
- It can take a couple minutes between a successful upload and your profile reflecting the changes.
- Stats on profile search are updated hourly, not instantly, so if your profile shows the correct stats, but search doesn't, just give it some time.
"The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135). Click on OK to terminate the application."
- Fix this by installing the newest version of .NET
Error message: "Application has generated an exception that could not be handled. Process id = 0x??? (????) Thread id = 0x??? (????)."
- This can be caused by a few different things. . First, make sure that you installed WoWReader to a local hard drive, and not to a network share. . Next, try uninstalling, downloading the installer again and reinstalling WoWReader. . Finally, try deleting the WoWReader SavedVariables file and WoW's WDB directory. By default, this would be the file "C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\WTF\Account\\SavedVariables\Wr2.lua", and the directory "C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Cache". Log in and out of WoW after doing so, and they'll be recreated.
One final note: Off-topic posts in this thread will be deleted. Please don't use this thread for general questions.

More Cataclysm precursors found in Patch 3.3.3 PTR files

While we haven't heard much new Cataclysm news lately, the Patch 3.3.3 PTR files have provided some pretty tantalizing hints as to what may be to come, including some new models associated with the Twilight's Hammer cult.
First off, we have a series of portals. These portals are topped by a crystal that looks very similar to the wind stones of Silithus, and in fact, each portal and crystal seems specifically marked to summon a specific element. There's also a bloodstained sacrificial altar and a couple of banners, all of these have a very specific dragon-like motif.
The Twilight's Hammer has already been confirmed to be working with Deathwing in Cataclysm, and since they're an elemental doomsday cult dedicated to bringing about the return of the Old Gods, busting Deathwing out of prison is right up their alley. We should probably expect to see these models in game relatively soon, and probably as part of a plot by the Twilight's Hammer to summon Deathwing back into the world -- a plot which will, of course, eventually succeed.
Stayed tuned for more coverage of Patch 3.3.3 and the Cataclysm opening event as it develops!

Running daily quests

Running daily quests is a great way to make gold, especially for folks who have non-gathering professions or classes that don’t kill fast enough to make farming profitable.
The advantage of daily quests is three-fold:
1) completing them earns faction reputation, which usually provides high-level rewards,
2) they are a consistent way of earning a known amount of gold (and the gold earned is usually at a higher rate for the time invested in it), and
3) they are repeatable (obviously), so you can master the techniques needed to complete the quest quickly, and earn good gold (and rep rewards) over and over.
Technically there is a fourth advantage: many of the quests can be lumped together and done at the same time. This REALLY ups your gold-per-hour rate.
There is a new Daily Quest addon that tells you exactly how to complete each quest. It provides map waypoints to point you in the right direction, and it teaches you how to group the quests so you can run them concurrently.
If you find yourself either needing to farm up some reputation for a reward you’re after, or you just need good, consistent gold at level 80, you need this addon.
It literally puts a waypoint arrow on your screen when you select the dailies for a given zone (or for a given faction), and you simply follow the on-screen instructions. It is as close to automatic gold as you can get without using a bot.

Profession Addon to Find Profitable Craftable Items

There’s an easy-to-use addon called “Lil’ Spark’ys Workshop” that lets you find profitable recipes that you have.
It calculates cost of materials based on either Auction House or Vendor prices (or can pick the best of the two). It adds up the cost of all the materials and then compares it to the Auction House sale value of the crafted item. It flags items that can be crafted and sold for a profit.
Obviously this requires that you also have an auction house mod that captures average prices. It can use the AH prices from Auctioneer, AuctionLite, AuctionMaster or Auctionator. As long as you have one of those, it can correctly identify profitable recipes.

Storm Peaks Farming Spot

I recently learned from somewhere on the internet about this ‘really hot spot’ in Storm Peaks where you can farm 1000 gold per hour.
The location is 77,63 in Storm Peaks, and it’s called Fjorn’s Anvil.
I should have known better, but I decided to give it a good, honest try.
It seems that the location has been nerfed in several ways. The drop rate is somewhat nerfed. Mainly the respawn rate is nerfed. Not to mention all the elite level 80 mobs walking around among the Revenants (which is what you’re trying to farm).
Now, the elites drop over 1g each, but they have 50K hp. If you can cruise through those with ease, this might be a good spot for you. As a mage, I can kill them, but I have to burn cooldowns, which means I can’t just melt through them.
So, once again a gold-farming ‘hot spot’ turns into a myth. I firmly believe that Blizzard is constantly monitoring areas like that. They are striving to keep the game balanced…the minute a ‘hot spot’ appears, they find out about it and make the change.
UPDATE: This post = teh FAIL! So…I never completed the quest chain here…I had moved on to Icecrown. Thanks to the folks who submitted the comments letting me know that the elites go away once the quest chain is done.
So I spent two hours completing the quest chain to get it clear. Here’s what I discovered:
1. the respawn rate is, indeed, insanely high. You can chain pull non-stop. Very nice.
2. they do, indeed, drop a decent amount of Crystallized Fire and Relics of Ulduar. Nice.
3. they are not immune to fire. Nice.
I’ll go back and do an actual test (30 minutes speed killing, total up the loot drop), when I get a chance. For now, I retract the ‘Nerf’ cry…it seems like a decent place for people who can kill fast and don’t have gathering professions.
UPDATE #2: 30-minute test.
I did straight killin’ for 30 minutes. I’m a mage, so I can kill fast and furious. A few times I had some down-time due to having killed everything and no respawns. For the most part, though, the respawns were so quick that it kept me killing non-stop. There was one other player there…a hunter. We pretty much just left each other alone. He kept to the path leading to the anvil, and I worked the anvil and surrounding area. That just adds realism to the test, I think.
After 30 minutes I had 29 Crystallized Fire, 26 Relics of Ulduar, 22g in gray vendor trash, and about 30g in DE-able greens. (The DE value of the greens is about 30g total.) Prices will vary according to your server. On my server, that’s about 100g in Crystallized Fire and 30g in Relics. So…160g-ish in 30 minutes, or 320 gold per hour.
It seems reliable, consistent, and that was, as I said, WITH someone else there. A couple of other people dropped by and left. I’ve seen 3 people farm it…the respawns seem to speed up.
It’s not as good as gathering professions, but if you can kill fast and don’t want to give up your other professions, you might take a look. Just be sure to do the quest chain (starting at K3 – check WoWHead) to clear out the elites.

Blacksmithing and Enchanting Gold-Making Tip

If you are stuck with Blacksmithing and Enchanting, you probably don’t have much luck making gold, and you should go level two gathering professions.
That being said, I know of one guy who makes a little with the following strategy.
Buy:
1x [Eternal Earth] 5-8g1x [Eternal Water] 4-6g1x [Eternal Shadow] 4-6g4x [Saronite Bar] 1.5-2g (total 6-8g)
= [Eternal Belt Buckle]
you buy mats for 19-28g and the buckle sells for a minimum of 50g going up to 100g on weekends.
Thats up to 81g (-auction fee) profit per buckle.
Here′s another one, buy:
7x [Saronite Bar] 1.5-2g (total 10.5-14g)2x [Crystallized Air] 0.5g (total 1g)
= [Deadly Saronite Dirk]
disenchanting this gets you 1x [Dream Shard]
you invest like 11.5-15g and the [Dream Shard] goes for like 19-29g on my server
So, typically Blacksmithing and Enchanting are horrible for gold-making, but this tip might at least help you make a little with it.

WoW Gold Guide Review

This site provides a lot of free tips on making gold in World of Warcraft.But for some people this isn’t enough information. I work a full-time job, and play WoW in my spare time…and I focus most of my WoW playing on learning gold-making techniques.
But honestly there are some folks out there who do this for a living, and they create some really fantastic guides. They spend WAY more time on it than I do. (I like to think of it as the fact that I have a life!)
Anyway, for a while I’ve provided links to most of the major gold guides out there. Some are better than others, but they all provide mostly the same information in the gold-guide itself. (Several include other bonuses, like leveling guides, etc.)
But there’s one that members of MakeWoWGold (folks that subscribe to the newsletter) actually provide feedback to me about. It’s the one by Luke Brown, “Gold Secrets“.
I’m not sure why they seem to like that one more than the rest, but Luke does seem to add a bunch of bonuses that no one else has, including a forum with folks sharing tips with each other. And his product is guaranteed, which is really cool.
So, if you want to learn a ton about making gold, keep browsing this website. If you want a separate guide with all kinds of printouts and bonuses, check out the Gold Secrets Guide. Like I said, it’s the only one that I have heard great things about (even though it’s not mine!).

Each team has a Team Rating

From Team Ratings to Arena Points The Arena System is meant to primarily reward competitiveness and player skill, and this is reflected in the way Team Ratings, Arena Points, and Arena Rewards tie into each other.
Each team has a Team Rating. This rating reflects how well your team is doing in the Arena System; the higher your rating, the better. When you queue up for a fight, the matchmaking system uses your rating to find a suitable match if the average personal rating is a 150 points range of the team rating. Every time your team wins a match, your rating goes up, and every time you lose a match, your rating goes down. The amount by which your rating changes depends on your team's rating compared to the other team's rating – if you win against a higher ranked team, your rating will improve more than if you steamrolled a weaker team. Similarly, losing against a weaker team will hurt your rating more than losing against superior enemies. The exact formulae are a bit more complicated than that, but the basic idea is similar to the Elo ranking system used for professional chess.
At the end of each week, your Team Rating is used to calculate how many Arena Points your team will receive for the week. Your team must have fought a minimum of ten matches per week to be rewarded with Arena Points, and a player must have been in at least 30% of all your matches to be eligible for that week's points. It is important to note that the points you receive in a given week is determined by only one team, and not from a combination of all your teams. Whichever team you are a member of that would receive the most points after accounting for Team Rating and team type becomes the sole source for your points for that week.
The transformation from your Team Rating to Arena Points starts off as a linear function, but once you go beyond a certain rating threshold, the function becomes logistic. This means that you will see a significant payoff increase once your Team Rating goes beyond a certain point, but the high-end spectrum of the ratings will eventually notice a decrease in how much bang they get for their buck. In addition, 2v2 and 3v3 teams are subject to a handicap where they receive less points than a 5v5 team with the same Team Rating.

Ultimate Index Of Guides, Links, And Posts 3

- Warlock - (WoW) Warlock Forum (Allakhazam) Warlock Forum (Elitist Jerks) Warlock Forum The Warlocks Den: A Warlocks resource (Allakhazam) Warlock Guide, FAQ, Read This First! By Kiggulak (WoW-EU) Informative and useful Warlock threads - Warrior - (WoW) Warrior Forum (Allakhazam) Warrior Forum (Elitist Jerks) Warrior Forum (Allakhazam) Warrior FAQ By RPZip (WoW-EU) Informative and useful Warrior threads Group Mechanics and Etiquette (WoWWiki) Instance Grouping Guide (WoW) Party Etiquette (Allakhazam) Pars Guide to Building Good PUGs Guide to Grouping (WoWInsider) WoW Rookie: Knowing your place in an instance (WoWWiki) Instances By Level (Blog) Guide to Building Groups By Trixie of Lethon (WoWInsider) The Art of War(craft): Healing rules in PvP Guild Mechanics and Etiquette (WoWWiki) Guild Overveiw (WoWInsider) Officers Quarters: A column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. (Allakhazam) New to a Guild? Some Tips. By Celcio (Blog) HOW TO: Have Fun and Be Successful in a Guild (WoW) Guide & FAQ to In-Game Guild Creation By Ashling (WoW) Creating Useful Guild Ranks: a FAQ By Anaea WoWVaults Guild Tabard Viewer Leveling and Daily Quest Guides (WoW Pro) Jame's Alliance and Horde Leveling Guides (Allakhazam) Azuarc's Leveling Guide for Alliance (Allakhazam) Ravennus' Horde Guide Book (Allakhazam) Outland Daily Quest Guide (Allakhazam) Northrend Daily Quest Guide Battleground Guides (WoW) World of Warcraft Battlegrounds (WoWWiki) Battlegrounds (Allakhazam) Lake Wintergrasp: A Guide By Quor Arena Guides (WoWWiki) Arena (PvP) Description Arena Junkies: For all your Arena needs. Arena Arc: Find Teams or Check Stats (WoW) Fields of Honor: The Arena (Allakhazam) Arena: All you need to know By Shaolinz (WoW) Arena Tournament Forum (WoW Armory) Arena Calculator Crafting Crafter's Tome: World of Warcraft Tradeskills Compendium (Allakhazam) Trade Skills FAQ By thermalnoise (WoWWiki) Professions WoW Professions - 1-450 World of Warcraft leveling guides for every professions El's Extreme Anglin' - A guide to fishing in the World of Warcraft. Gem Finder: A Gem Finder Achievements (WoW) Achievement (WoWWiki) Achievement Wow-Achievements.com: Your one stop for Achievement based competition! Macro and UI Guides (WoWWiki) Macro Description (Allakhazam) Macro Guide By RPZip (WoW) Cogwheels Complete Macro Guide (WoW) World of Warcraft Macro Guide (Allakhazam) PsiChis UI Customization Guide Add-On Sites (WoWWiki) AddOn Description Curse WoW Interface WoW UI Basic Add-On's (Interface) LightHeaded: Displays quest information (Interface) TomTom: Personal navigation assistant (Curse) Atlas: Instance Map Browser (Curse) Cartographer: A Manipulated World Map Gatherer: For Herbalists, Miners and Treasure hunters Auctioneer: A Auction House Tool (Curse) Omen: A Threat Meter (Curse) DamageMeters: A Damage Meter Titan Panel: A User Interface Ace / Ace2: A User Interface Minipets and Mounts WarcraftPets.com - Database of Warcraft Minipets & Companions WarcraftMounts.com - We'll help you find the perfect ride! Veiwers, Calculators, and other Gizmos! WoW Model Veiwer WoW Juju: Reputation Calculator WoWVault's Guild Tabard Viewer - Talent Tools - (WoW) Talent Calculator WoWhead's Talent Calculator WoWhead's Pet Talent Calculator TalnetChic: Displays The Most Popular (or Chic) Talent Builds - Raiding Tools - After-Battle: Combat Log Analyzer WoW Web Stats: Create, Host, and Share Rich Raid Statistics for World of Warcraft MMO Champion's Raid Comp: Raid Building Tool Loot Council: Help Distribute Loot (WoWInsider) Ready Check: Raiding Blog Interactive Character Sheets Be Imba! Character Auditor: PVE tuning hints and tips for every level 70 WarCrafter: Interactive Character Sheet 3D Armory Gear Wishlist: Generates a list of upgrades Rawr! A program for comparing and exploring gear for certain classes Loot Rank: Make choosing an upgrade easier! Max DPS: Helping to maximize your capabilities Path of a Hero: Create a Blog of your Journey WoW Hero's World Events and Holidays
(WoW) In-Game Events (WoWWiki) Gates of Ahn'Qiraj (WoWWiki) Scourge Invasion (WoWWiki) Opening of the Dark Portal (WoWWiki) Opening of the Sunwell Gates (WoWWiki) Zombie Infestation - Ongoing World Events - (WoWWiki) Argent Tournament (WoWWiki) Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza (WoWWiki) Darkmoon Faire - Holidays - (WoW) New Years (wowwiki) (WoW) Lunar Festival (wowwiki) (WoW) Love is in the Air (wowwiki) (WoW) Noblegarden (wowwiki) (WoW) Children's Week (wowwiki) (WoW) Midsummer Fire Festival (wowwiki) (WoW) Harvest Festival (wowwiki) (WoW) Pirates' Day (wowwiki) (WoW) Brewfest (wowwiki) (WoW) Hallow's End (wowwiki) (WoW) Winter's Veil (wowwiki) (WoWWiki) The Spirit of Competition Miscellaneous Lootables: A World of Warcraft Item Database Blizzplanet: World of Warcraft Easter Eggs! MapWoW: It's like Google maps, but for WoW. The Daedalus Project: The Psychology of MMORPG's - Census and Relam Information - WarcraftRealms: World of Warcraft Census information Realm History: Guild Index and Progression site Role Playing RP Made Simple: The RP Survival Guide (WoW) Role-Playing FAQ By Chro (WoW) World's End Tavern Forum (WoW EU) Role Playing Forum (WoW) RP Thread Collective By Flamehawk (WoW EU) Informative & Useful Threads for Roleplayers (WoWInsider) All the World's a Stage Column (WoWInsider) Know Your Lore Column Blogatelle's Race Play Files (WoW EU) Roleplaying AddOn List By Stormina Comics and Web Shows (WoW) World of Warcraft Community Comics Dark Legacy Comics Looking For Group Get Buffed Ding! Order of the Stick Girl Genius The Noob Flintlocke's Guide To Azeroth Flintlocke vs The Horde Goblins World of Warcraft, Eh? The Adventures of Blanc By Way of Booty Bay (some are adult themed: NSFW) Video Game Cats The Guild Multimedia (WoW) Welcome to the Movie Making in the World of Warcraft Machinima 101 Forums Myndflame Warcraft Movies Machinima.com : World of Warcraft The Rumor Mill (Allakhazam) Future expansions planned by Blizzard, from late 2003. By Reinjin Technical Support (WoW) Blizzard Support (WoW) PC: Technical Support Forum (WoW) MAC: Technical Support Forum (WoW) User Tips and Tricks (Allakhazam) Making Warcraft Run 110% By inforce Allakhazam World of Warcraft Admins Wordaen Azuarc Tyrandor Fewyn Cafeen Staff Bio's .

Ultimate Index Of Guides, Links, And Posts 2

Class Information
Kalibans Class Loot List Gem Finder (WoWWiki) Enchantments by Slot Head Enchantment By Beast Shoulder Enchantment By Beast
- Death Knight -
(WoW) Death Knight Forum (Allakhazam) Death Knight Fourm (Elitist Jerks) Death Knight Forum (Allakhazam) Death Knight DPS FAQ By Theophany (Ten Ton Hammer) Death Knight Class Guide (WoWInsider) Lichborne: A Death Knight Blog
- Druid -
(WoW) Druid Forum (Allakhazam) Druid Forum (Elitist Jerks) Druid Fourm The Druids Wiki Emmeralds Druid Info Center (Allakhazam) Read Me: Druid 202 By DruidSock (Allakhazam) Druid Resources (wiki link) By GryphonStalker (WoW-EU) Informative and useful Druid threads
- Hunter -
(WoW) Hunter Forum (Alakhazam) Hunter Forum (Elitist Jerks) Hunter Forum The Hunters Wiki Petopia: A WoW Hunter Pet Database TKA Something: A Hunters Resource (Blog) Big Red Kitty (Allakhazam) The WotLK Hunter FAQ By Aethien (WoW-EU) Informative and useful Hunter threads
- Mage -
(WoW) Mage Forum (Allakhazam) Mage Forum (Elitist Jerks) Mage Forum Vontre's Magegraf (Allakhazam) WotLKs Greatest Mage Post Ever! By Filterspawn, Anobix, and Poldaran (WoW-EU) Informative and useful Mage threads
- Paladin -
(WoW) Paladin Forum (Allakhazam) Paladin Forum (Elitist Jerks) Paladin Forum (Allakhazam) WotLK Paladin FAQ By toolofjesus (Allakhazam) Wrath of the Paladin: Tanking in the Expansion By Losie (Allakhazam) Retribution Guide By toolofjesus (Allakhazam) Holy Paladin Guide By YJMark (WoW-EU) Informative and useful Paladin threads
- Priest -
(WoW) Priest Forum (Allakhazam) Priest Forum (Elitist Jerks) Priest Forum (Allakhazam) The Ultimate Healing Priest Guide By Mozared (Allakhazam) Shadow Priest FAQ By RedPhoenixxx Shadow Priest.com (Blog) A Dwarf Priest (WoW-EU) Informative and useful Priest threads
- Rogue -
(WoW) Rogue Forum (Allakhazam) Rogue Forum (Elitist Jerks) Rogue Forum (Allakhazam) The Rogue Compendium By Theophany Shadow Panther: World of Warcraft Rogue Info - Charts, Articles, Guides & more! (WoW-EU) Informative and useful Rogue threads
- Shaman -
(WoW) Shaman Forum (Allakhazam) Shaman Forum (Elitist Jerks) Shaman Forum (Allakhazam) Comprehensive Shaman FAQ/Guide By Paracleets (WoW-EU) Informative and useful Shaman threads

Ultimate Index Of Guides, Links, And Posts 1

Evening Forum Folks, Welcome to "Ultimate Index Of Guides, Links, And Posts: Wrath Edition" As always this is not a final product, and I will add new sites, posts, etc as I find them. If you know of an excellent guide or website I have missed please free post in this thread or PM me, so I can add it. Happy Hunting in the snowy north! Edit: I would just like to make something clear, I will not be adding any links to this post that are for Hacks, Cheats, or for Guides you have to pay for. Please do not post them, if it is a suspicious link I will notify a Admin to remove it. *Work in Progress* - Last Updated 5/17/09 Link Legend Links marked with (Allakhazam) are linked to the "Allakhazam" Site. Links marked with (WoWWiki) are linked to the "WoWWiki" Site. Links marked with (Elitist Jerks) are linked to the "Elitist Jerks" Forum. Links marked with (WoWInsider) are linked to the "WoWInsider" Blog. Links marked with (Curse) are linked to the "Curse" AddOn Site. Links marked with (Interface) are linked to the "WoW Interface" AddOn Site. Links marked with (WoW) are linked to the "World of Warcraft Community Site" (Also known as the Oboard aka Official Boards) Links marked with (WoW-EU) are linked to the "World of Warcraft Europe Community Site" Official World Of Warcraft Sites World of Warcraft Community Site World of Warcraft Armory World of Warcraft Community Forum World of Warcraft Community Site: Events Calendar World of Warcraft Community Site: Realm Status World of Warcraft "TERMS OF USE AGREEMENT" World of Warcraft (Blizzard Support) Client Software Download World of Warcraft Community News Alert Official Europe World Of Warcraft Sites (EU) World of Warcraft Community Site (EU) World of Warcraft Armory (EU) World of Warcraft Community Forum (EU) World of Warcraft Community Site: Events Calendar (EU) World of Warcraft Community Site: Realm Status Main Community Sites Allakhazam (Zam.com) WoWWiki Thottbot WoWhead Elitist Jerks MMO-Champion (Blog) WoW Insider Allakhazam Forum and Wiki Information (Allakhazam) Forum FAQ v2.0 - PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING! (wiki link) By ohmikeghod Allakhazam's Forum Help File Frequently Asked Questions (Support) Wiki Guidelines Wiki Frequently Asked Questions World of Warcraft Newbi Compilation Guides (Allakhazam) The unwritten (until now) rules of Warcraft. By Shamibell (WoW) World of Warcraft Game Guide (WoWWiki) Newbie Guide (Allakhazam) Allakhazam Guide Database (WoWWiki) Guide Database (Allakhazam) WoW Tips and Tricks By TheMirth (WoWInsider) WoW-Rookie Blog (Allakhazam Wiki) Common Courtesy (Allakhazam Wiki) Player Interaction (WoWWiki) Terminology: list of terminology and acronyms.