by Anne Stickney

Trying to head through the Black Temple for transmogrification gear? Be sure to check out the previous two  articles for the start of Black Temple. Illidan’s stronghold holds a score of villains to fight your way through, but this week we’ll be discussing the last three.

A lot of raiders mistakenly thought that Black Temple was the last raid of The Burning Crusade, until they heard news of the Sunwell patch and yet more raiding content. For many players, however, Black Temple was a disappointment, not because it lacked in stunning visual scenery or interesting boss mechanics but because despite the changes to raid size, Black Temple was still not really widely obtainable. For many players, the closest look they’d get at Illidan Stormrage was The Burning Crusade trailer — a pity, to say the very least.

Nowadays, those players at level 85 can go back and experience that content — and I suggest you do! The Black Temple contains a lot of interesting lore and events, and the Illidan fight, while ridiculously easy, does see the return of a familiar face from Warcraft III.
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by Olivia Grace

With patch 4.3 imminent and Arena season 10 due to end Nov. 29, it seems reasonable to assume the patch will appear in early December. While you’re racing to get your team into title range, get that last piece of gear, or just running laps of your capital city, you might be thinking forward to the arrival of the patch and wondering what your fate will be in PvP as the nerf bat winds up for another swing. Firstly, let’s deal with some housekeeping.

Conquest points, the PvP equivalent of valor points, will now be far, far easier to earn from ordinary Battlegrounds. The first daily Battleground win will now award 100 conquest points, up from 25, and wins after that will award 50 conquest point, up from, well, none! The conquest cap will remain, so while it will still be far quicker to reach it through Arena, it will also be attainable via Battlegrounds of the non-rated variety. This makes it far easier for solo players to build up the resilience numbers people often demand (fairly or otherwise) for access to Arena and Rated Battleground teams or just to gear for Battlegrounds.
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by Dan Desmond

This new series of heroics runs akin to the Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron, and Halls of Reflection trio of Wrath in that you must complete them in a specific order. In the interest of fitting all of these encounters in one post, I will need to truncate a lot of descriptions and irrelevant details.
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by Daniel Whitcomb

In patch 4.3, the very first new dungeon you’ll set foot in is End Time. Despite being set in the future, it’s the first dungeon the storyline takes you to, and even the Dungeon Finder won’t let you go to the other two dungeons until you have the achievement for clearing out End Time. The loot you’ll grab from here will be ilevel 378, which means it’ll be mostly sidegrades for those who have been keeping up on their valor points and/or raiding Firelands. It’s still a great chance to fill out your off-sets or gear up a newer or more casual death knight, for sure.

With that in mind, today we’re taking a quick look at the fights and loot of the End Time dungeon. This guide will focus primarily on the role of the DPS or tank death knight in the dungeon. Keep a lookout for a more complete guide for all roles, classes, and fights coming to the site soon.
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by Dawn Moore

A new patch is right around the corner, which means shiny new priest gear is on its way too! In preparation for this, I’ve made a gear list for priests to reference as we progress into the newest content in the coming months.

If you haven’t heard yet, Blizzard has tweaked the system we’ve been using for the past couple of years and will now only allow players to acquire tier gear from raiding. Valor points will still be employed to purchase certain pieces of gear, but those unique set bonuses will be reserved only for players who actually enter raid dungeons.
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by Fox Van Allen

Last time we discussed how to make money playing the glyph market. It’s hands down the most popular way that scribes try to make money. Problem is, it’s probably the hardest route to riches I know. Glyphs tend to fester on the Auction House, and most go unsold. And yet despite this, no single profession has made me more money over my WoWlifetime than inscription has.

Confused? Don’t be — I’m about the blow the lid clear off the most profitable aspect of inscription: Mysterious Fortune Cards. Yes, seriously. They’re still making people boatloads of money.
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by Chase Hasbrouck

This week, we’re going to look at concrete matters: how to improve your DPS in a raid.  I’ve compiled four helpful tips to help ferals in their quest for blood, destruction, and nice purples.

1. Work out keybindings and movement. While you’re still learning your rotation, clicking your abilities is fine. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to succeed in a raid setting as a “clicker.” Our primary DPS ability is facing-dependent, necessitating constant awareness of our position. Modern encounters are heavy on quick-reaction movement. By keybinding your main abilities, you’ll be able to free up your mouse for situational awareness and positioning.
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by Chase Christian

With patch 4.3 looming on the horizon, holy paladins need to be prepared for all of the changes that are headed our way. Both of our AoE healing options have been significantly altered, along with several of the talents and glyphs that support these abilities. Retribution paladins are also looking forward to a few buffs to their sustained DPS, but their ability to help with AoE healing is being greatly reduced.

Our core mana regeneration mechanic is about to be completely scrapped. In fact, if we continue using Judgement without making any adjustments, we’ll actually have less mana in patch 4.3 than we do today. We’ve been healing with holy power for nearly a year now, but many of the habits we’ve picked up along the way will need to change.
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by Josh Myers

At first glance, the loot lists of 4.3 make me a sad enhancement shaman. Everywhere you look, beautiful agility gear is being marred by haste and critical strike rating, often found together. Since our mastery is such an incredibly potent stat, seeing even a single slot that doesn’t have a mastery option could be disheartening. Seeing our final tier of gear have three pieces without any mastery on them is just downright depressing.

Never fear, though. Despite some really awful itemization, enhancement is actually in a really good place next patch. And by really good, I mean really, really, good. Besides some of the buffs, we’ve also got the beautiful 10% additional attack power buff, which is just some sweet icing on a delicious cake of shamanism. Combine that with a beautiful, dual-wieldable axe that has a proc that scales with our mastery, and Dragon Soul raiding shaman will be in a very nice place in 4.3. (Need some proof? Load this profile intoSimcraft to see some of our projected numbers.)

If you’re still worried about your DPS due to the amount of crit/haste on Dragon Soul gear, though, there’s no need to fear. This patch is introducing a ton of crit/haste gear in the actual raid instance, but it’s also introducing a lot of mastery items, especially as valor point rewards. It also is introducing some leatherworking patterns, but they’re also poorly itemized. The downside of this is that these items are only currently available as 397 gear, which means heroic raiding enhancement shaman will see some poorly itemized pieces when they’re in best-in-slot.
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