The PTR has changed once more. Sure, the star changes are rollbacks on the Life Tap nerf and Flametongue buff, but there is at least one other change that I think is highly significant. Expect a Patch Note Watch soon exhaustively detailing every change that made it into the patch notes. Until then, however, enjoy the following:

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Sometimes, in all the drama of raiding and arenas and new patch days, we forget that not all rogues are 70 and geared out the watoozle. A lot of rogues -- whether they be alts, new players, or just seriously behind the times -- are still struggling through the levels. And with the myriad number of quests out there for levelers, it can be hard sometimes to figure out which ones to focus on. Will skipping this quest leave me out of a fantastic chain quest reward, or just save me hours of searching through fel droppings?

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Warlocks rejoice, Kalgan has just officially confirmed that previously mentioned removal of the Lifetap nerf was intentional. While they were originally concerned that Warlocks were still too overly represented in the arenas, he said, a recent downtrend in their numbers convinced them to withdraw the nerfs, at least until the numbers settle down again. He also shared a chart that revealed Blizzard's analysis of the number of a class in each arena type vs. their desired numbers for the 2200+ and 1850 score ranges. The numbers are shown as a percentage by class and team type. A Percentage of 100% means they're at Blizzard's expected representation level. Above that means they outpace it, below means they're below it.

We'll show you the charts here after the break.

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Don't get me wrong here, Karazhan's generally a pretty fun dungeon, aside from the odd incredibly annoying trash mob, but when you've run it time and time again, it's always nice to find a twist or a new way of doing stuff to spice things up again. The Senatus Redux guild of the Kul Tiras EU run have done just that, clearing most of Karazhan with a group 10 paladins, most of them in no better than T4 gear or lower, on a run done on March 1st. They managed to get down all the bosses but Prince Malchezaar and Nightbane - and they have pretty good reason to believe that they could have had the Prince, having him to 15% on their last attempt of the night.

It certainly sounds like a lot of fun. I know I'd be cackling maniacally as I watched 10 consecrates and 10 holy wraths mow Illhoof's Imps down. I also have to give them a lot of credit for sticking it out through Opera. They got Romulo and Julianne, and despite having no way to dispel the Daring or Devotion buffs and no reliable interrupt for Julianne's heal, they got them down. Aran went down in 1 try despite no interrupts, which is another thing I have to give them a lot of credit for. Netherspite sounds like it was an intense fight - they had some trouble with the green beam, and it ended up healing him for over 25%, causing the battle to drag on long enough for him to enrage. They finished him off by bubbling up and burning down. Maiden was no trouble, unsurprisingly. 10 cleanses means her Holy Fire isn't a problem for long!

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The Tournament Test Realm or TTR is now live and it's where players can create up to three max-level (70) characters of any class and have a cool selection of epic gear. Some readers have written in about having a little trouble actually getting on the server itself. It's really a simple process, and we'll show you how. In order to access the TTR, you first have to download the PTR client on Blizzard's download page. You don't need to have copied any of your characters over to the test realms -- the TTR is a completely different realm with various armor and other item vendors located at each race's starting area. As long as you have the PTR client, you should be able to access the TTR (although all test realms are down as of this writing).

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Quote from Blizzard staffQ: Will the ratings requirements be removed on the s3 weapons and shoulders next season?

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Lore-wise, I can't say I understand the direction they've taken with a number of characters from classic Warcraft games in BC, but I suppose that's the reason that the term "lorelol" was coined in the first place. Mike Schramm's pointed out that the canon can probably take the abuse, but there's one character in particular whose upcoming story arc kind of appalls me.

If you're trying to stay unspoiled for patch 2.4 -- why are you reading WoW Insider anyway? -- I'll slap the rest behind a cut.

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Here's an interesting observation: after patch 2.4 drops, Onyxia will be the hardest attunement in the game. BT and Hyjal dropped, SSC and TK dropped, and even the Karazhan attunement got removed, so the hardest attunement now left in the game (does the AQ gate opening count as an attunement?) will be the long quest chain to attune to Onyxia's Lair.

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While the PTRs are still down to apply the latest round of changes, World of Raids has already sniffed out a few changes and additions to the latest patch files.

Possibly the most interesting change is the fact that the Warlock Life Tap nerf seems to be currently completely reversed. The spell is restored to its 2.3 status, with the highest rank swapping 580 health for 580 mana at the base value.

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Today's the day for Blizzard art news, it seems -- next Saturday, Blizzard is holding that Art of Blizzard benefit show, but this past Saturday, Samwise Didier and a few other Blizzard artists stopped by the Barnes and Noble in Huntington Beach, California to sign copies of Upper Deck's The Art of the Trading Card Game book.

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Who knew that all we had to do to solve Blizzard's communication problems was, y'know, ask? Azarialle puts out the idea of what you'd ask a CM if you were sure the question would be answered fully, and lo and behold, Drysc appears in the thread actually answering questions. Of course, he strays away from the big stuff (he adeptly dodges a question about Tseric), but he does provide some pretty honest answers on everything from the ghost wolf problem to the voice chat implementation in patch 2.2 and what classes he likes the least as a player (pet classes -- he doesn't get them). Very interesting stuff.

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Wrocas let us know that the PTR servers are currently getting another patch applied to them. They will be down for maintenance between four and six hours today. This means that they should be up around 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. EST.

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I have once again managed to steal the Light for another week, as regular columnists Chris and Elizabeth are off on their own epic quests while I am left to tend to the shop, so to speak. For today, we'll take a closer look at how the class is designed and its inherent ironies.

When I first rolled a Paladin, I didn't know what I was getting into. I rolled it mainly as a companion toon for my playing partner, my wife, who was elated at the Horde finally getting a 'pretty' race and promptly rolled a Warlock. As I leveled with her demon-enslaving new main, the experience challenged and frustrated me and it soon became apparent that Blizzard had designed the Paladin under a completely different design perspective. I was hooked. If there are any perceived failures about the class, it is largely because Blizzard had a vision for the Paladin class that was different from traditional class designs.

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Moving onto the south-western corner of Kalimdor, today's Around Azeroth screenshot of the day takes a look at the bugged tower found in what looks like Cenarion Hold in the Silithus region. The image taken was credited to player Vexxia of The MishMash Crew on the Velen realm.

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Blizzard QA Hortus has announced that both the World of Warcraft Public Test Realms and Tournament Test Realms will be down today, March 5.

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A new build has been deployed on PTRs, as usual the post will be updated if anything new is found on servers.

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A new build is being deployed on PTRs and TTR, and what a build it's a 84 mb patch. As usual, we will update this list several times with changes coming from the game files and PTRs.

Class Changes

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Blizzard community manager Vaneras has announced that the free character migration on the World of Warcraft European servers has been extended until March 11. This means that those who plan on moving their characters to a different server might still have a chance to do so for free.

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Arena enthusiasts might be elated to hear that the personal ratings required to purchase weapons and shoulder pieces will remain for the current Season 3 items even as Season 4 will introduce new items into the game. According to Tharfor on the European PvP forums, in response to a question as to whether the ratings will be removed from items as soon as the new season starts, the ratings requirement will still exist (to purchase but not to use) the item but will likely be lowered. It's highly likely that Season 4 weapons and shoulder pieces will retain the 1850 and 2000 personal rating requirements. Exactly how much of a ratings reduction Season 3 will see remains to be seen.

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Our good friends at Massively beat us to the punch on this one: as seen on Gabe's (of Penny Arcade) little blurb yesterday, Gallery Nucleus in Alhambra, California is holding an "Art of Blizzard" Benefit Show for Child's Play, the charity started by Penny Arcade to buy and donate videogames to children in hospital. Additionally, Blizzard artists and developers will be in attendance at the event, and Upper Deck will be there demo-ing the WoW TCG (which is probably where some of the art comes from) as well. And the art is going to be from all of Blizzard's different games, not just World of Warcraft.

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Fenrix of Bloodhoof was nice enough to ping us and say that the next two installments of Gank Frank -- his awesome little graphic novel about a gnome with a taste for vengeance -- have been posted on the Funkytown forums. As before, the storyline continues to follow the movie Kill Bill, with a few extra gnomey (and WoW-related, although there's a Simpsons reference in there as well) twists and turns. And the graphics look terrific. Along with our own Tales from the Lion's Pride Inn, those crazy machinimists ain't got nothing on these graphic artists.

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Fishface is becoming quite the machinima addict! Less than two weeks ago, I featured his very first creation, StreamLine. Through trial and error, he is experimenting with different genres. Let's hope he finds a niche!

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Galstaff of Durotan believes so, and put his money where his mouth is, so to speak, by doing it. (Warning, the movie is 20 minutes long.) While anyone can 'tank' Shade of Aran, I was pretty impressed by his tanking of Malchezzar, especially when he admits in the thread (and his armory backs him up) that whole he's achieved immunity to critical hits by a combination of resilience and defense, he's still taking crushing blows. He also says he chugs Ironshield Potions which makes sense, as his armor is low for the instance (in my opinion as a tank, anyway) which is not surprising since he's in mail. He claims 17.7k health for the Prince Malchezzar attempt, which is certainly within the ballpark. (I've done it with about 1k less on my warrior, although nowadays I'd never have less than 18.5 k for any boss.)

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Every new patch to World of Warcraft brings buffs, nerfs, new content, and sweeping changes. The game has evolved tremendously from when I first started playing two years ago. I was thrilled with Hunter changes and leveling tweaking in patch 2.3. Sure there are plenty of things to be unhappy about, but I'm a "glass is half full" kind of girl. Read on for a roundup of the top ten changes I'm most excited about.

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One more great Silithus shot, then no more. I promise. No, really. Ok, we'll see. This one was too cool to pass up. Player Vexxia of The MishMash Crew on the Velen realm risked life, limb and repair bills to get this great screenshot. And right after she got it, the miniboss spawned and her pet ate it for lunch and whined for more. Well, not so much with the repair bills, I guess.

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"Where did my 900 honor points go?" That was the question that World of Warcraft forum member Iamonfire threw at Blizzard recently. Apparently, the player checked honor point panel and was surprised to see 4100 honor points there, when there should have been 5000 instead.

Forum members Kerathalas and Palpatina briefly explained the mechanics and the limitations of the WoW PvP Honor System. Iamonfire, however, insisted that  the honor points only disappear with the Daily PvP quest. If the quest isn't turned in, no points disappear.

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Without a doubt, the community of World of Warcraft is greatly interested in the World PvP and the Halaa PvP. Since Blizzard has said they were looking for intersting screen captures, players have relentlessly submitted their own work.

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At the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference, Activision's CEO, Bobby Kotick, was able to speak words regarding their plans for the company. In his talk, Kotick actually included their famous games such as the Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, PC) and World of Warcraft.

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Participating in raids can be fun and rewarding. For the 40-player raid Ahn Qiraj in World of Warcraft, the Red Qiraji Resonating Crystal is one good reward which players can mount in the game.

Mmazing from the Detheroc realm wondered if there's any chance that he could ride this mount in the regular zones. He added that it was technically useless in the game.

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As you are all aware, Blizzard has decided to open another test realm for the MMORPG World of Warcraft to focus on the game's Arena Tournament changes. The realm is aptly called Tournament Test Realm or TTR.

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Here's a quick heads-up for the guys who may have had trouble logging into their World of Warcraft server. Blue-poster Drysc dropped by the WoW forums earlier to announce that they've initiated rolling restarts for some of the MMO's servers to address an issue that kept some instances from starting properly.

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Isn't it ironic that the guilds who always brag they don't have drama... seem to have drama? Today we've got a great story of drama, and the best thing about it is that the guild who went through it.. actually called themselves No Drama. Trust us -- Murphy wasn't kidding around.

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For those of us not playing on Blizzard's World of Warcraft Playtest Realms, here's the rather epic find: Shaani, the level 70 draenei jewelcrafting vendor, has been updated to sell raw epic gems for the measly (but definitely hard-earned) price of only fifteen badges each. That's fifteen badges for every time you buy a raw, epic gem for your slotted gear. That's a very, very good deal, if we do say so ourselves.

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