by Tyler Caraway

This week, we’ll be going over some of the common mistakes that balance druids make (and sometimes those who think they know balance druids). I’m not entirely sure how the weather is related to this topic, but I promise you, the correlation is there. Prepare for a mildly exciting read that’s also rather informative — like a science textbook only better, and it doesn’t cost you several hundred dollars.
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by Matt Walsh

Here we are, finally at the block cap. It’s been a rough few months, but the dream first conceived when the paladin mastery was announced has finally been realized. All that Firelands gear has left us fat with mastery and finally reducing all melee hits taken by 30%. And it feels so good.

Some of you might now be asking yourselves — where do I go from here? (Ditto the folks who are within striking distance of this lofty perch.) Once you’ve hit the block cap and are overflowing with combat table coverage, you’ll need to get proactive when it comes to managing your stats. Every point of mastery rating that carries you past 102.4% CTC is a point wasted, just cast right out into the Twisting Nether. We’ll need to prevent all this horrible waste with efficient reforging and regemming and with an unhealthy amount of gear juggling.

Quick digression for new tanks and folks not yet at the cap: I’ve written in this space columns about what combat table coverage/the block cap is and tips on how to hit it efficiently. If the following seems to be little more than Greek (or random trumpet noises) to you, I recommend checking out those columns.
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by Chase Christian

World of Warcraft is more than just a game. Over the years, an entire ecosystem surrounding the game has developed, created by the gaming community. I’ve read a few WoW novels and comic books, seen fanfics and fan art featured on the community portal, and I’ve enjoyed so many awesome pieces of WoW machinima. It’s actually quite common for the community to influence the game itself, as we’ve has seen countless changes implemented after community demand. The fan-created Leeroy Jenkins video, for example, still represents WoW for most of the world.

When I first started playing the rogue, I watched a lot of rogue-centric machinima. Boss encounter videos weren’t very popular then, and so most of the machinima was based in PVP. I watched in awe as Grim annihilated everything in his path. I laughed as Happyminti stomped on characters who were 10 levels higher than himself. I sat agape as Hector leaped off of the tower of Karazahn after a mage who tried to escape. My style of rogue PVP has always been colored by the finesse and grace of these rogues, and that still holds true today.
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by Fox Van Allen 

I’m a sucker for collecting in-game pets. Maybe it’s because I like having someone following me around, even when I’m soloing content. Maybe it’s just because of the obsessive-compulsive Pokemon instinct, where I gotta catch em all regardless of the consequences. Maybe it’s just because I like tiny animals that depend on me.

I’m far from alone — collecting pets in WoW is serious business. There are achievements involved. Exclusive bonus pets. People have even created websites devoted to the hobby of collecting vanity pets.

People love pets. And people will spend lots of money on the things they love, which makes making, buying, and reselling pets a very profitable endeavor indeed.
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by Daniel Whitcomb

So recently, Lead Systems Designer Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street posted a new Dev Watercooler discussing the ins and outs of the new active mitigation tank philosophy. Since he dedicated a whole section to proposed death knight changes in patch 4.3, I figured it would be a good idea to take a look at the stuff and see what it does.

My preliminary verdict would be pretty simple: It’s a pretty big help. It fixes or mitigates a lot of our quality of life issues, it makes a little less squishy, and it nullifies rune tetris nicely. I can’t really disagree with the individual changes or the rationale behind them. That said, it doesn’t completely solve our problems, and there are probably one or two more little things to be done before stuff looks really good. Let’s take a look at the specifics.
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by Chase Christian

Of the three roles in WoW, healers are the odd man out. While mages might call it damage and a warrior might call it threat, the fact is that DPSers and tanks both excel at hurting their opponents. One of my guildmates often refers to tanking as “just DPSing from the front.” Healers, on the other hand, have nearly no offensive capabilities. The developers were nice enough to give every healer a cheap spell or two to spam to make us feel like we’re contributing, but our DPS is abysmal. Healers, more than any other role, are pointless without a group to support.

Throughout the years, we’ve heard the legends of the shockadin – the holy paladin build that doled out merciful healing and wrathful judgement in equal doses. While offensive builds for the holy tree have always been around, they’ve never been truly viable in any serious situation. I love the thought of Holy Shocking some hunter right off his high horse, but the numbers just don’t add up.
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by Josh Myers

I really like Tauren. If I had my way, the Horde would be comprised of six different tribes of Tauren who spent most of their days participating in competitive flower picking and saying “Walk with the Earthmother.” Unfortunately, the Herd is not a real faction, and most people aren’t Tauren.

While some players make racial choices for game immersion or fun, there are players who choose their character’s race for the best performance. A tank might choose Tauren for the 5% base health bonus, a PVPer might choose human for the extra trinket slot, and a healer might choose Blood Elf for the 2-minute cooldown mana return. For Horde elemental shaman, there’s a reason to play any of the four available options, but the choice is largely up to your playstyle.
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by Matthew Rossi

I do PVP quite a bit. The problem is, I PVP as either protection or fury. I do a lot of battlegrounds, I hit Tol Barad about once a day, and I do rated BGs fairly frequently. What have I learned from all this?

• Fury is a surprisingly viable PVP spec. My raiding spec has room for mobility and versatility talents, so I don’t even have to respec to PVP effectively. If I were a PVPer primarily instead of secondarily, I’d probably tweak my build for Furious Attacks, but I do fine without it.
• I prefer Titan’s Grip to SMF for PVP use. I also raid with TG, but I’ve tried both and I just prefer being able to pop my cooldowns and throw a Bloodthirst/Raging Blow combo on someone after an intercept and get the burst potential of TG.
• Fury does lack some of the tools arms or protection can bring. If you’ve PVPed as arms lately, you’ll know how addictive Charge/Throwdown/Bladestorm can be. Prot has a lot of tools for stunning, silencing, interrupting and otherwise hindering casters. Fury lacks these tools. If you’re doing fury PVP, you’re basically hoping to do as much damage as fast as possible.
• Doing as much damage as fast as possible is ludicrously fun. I’m going to be honest here: The reason I like fury PVP is because it’s all or nothing. In an Arena setting, I expect I would just get burst down every time, but in the mad chaos of group PVP fury has the potential of doing sudden, savage damage to a single target or even a group, interrupt flag capture, hinder base turnover, and in general just be a gigantic prickly ball o’death at the worst possible time for the enemy.

So let’s talk about fury PVP.
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by Josh Myers

With the introduction of patch 4.3, collecting old armor styles has become one of the most productive ways to spend your free time in World of Warcraft. As an added bonus, soloing old content (or going in very small groups) can be very lucrative. I made 2,400 gold tonight from soloing Karazhan, Gruul’s Lair, and Magtheridon’s Lair and grouping for Sunwell Plateau, Tempest Keep, Serpentshrine Cavern, and Caverns of Time: Mount Hyjal.

Both specs of DPS shaman bring some excellent soloing utility to the table. As mail wearers, we have some solid physical damage mitigation. Wind Shear is an incredible utility ability that will be used on bosses in nearly every tier of raiding. Earth and Fire Elemental Totemsprovide a second target and work especially well for pulling council fights, so that you can pick off one target and kill it while the rest attack your elemental. Tremor Totem is useful on fights like Lady Vashj. Grounding Totem can be used to absorb direct damage spells your interrupt is down for or catch boss CCs that are headed your way. Bloodlust is great for burst DPS, and especially helpful on fights that have a soft enrage. And, of course, being a hybrid class means that both of our DPS specs have some amount of self healing to bring to the table.
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