It has been brought to my attention that the quality of my writing improves enormously after humiliating BG defeats, so on your behalf, dear readers, I went out and lost three Alterac Valleys in a row. My future on this website may very well depend on my battlegroup's Horde PuG's continuing to suck. Lifetime employment isn't only for the Japanese, it would seem.

/frown

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It lives! Yes, indeed. As promised in my recent appearance in About the Bloggers, the leads of WoW Insider and I have finally worked out scheduling and the like to bring back two of the posts you've been asking for -- Reader UI of the Week and Reader WoWspace of the Week! From now on, you'll see Reader UI appearing on Sunday, and Reader WoWspace coming to you on Tuesday, just in time to help shake those downtime blues. But enough with the promotion, let's get on with the show!

This week's Reader UI of the Week comes to us courtesy of Adoru, level 60 Night Elf Rogue of "It Hurts when I PvP" on Sen'Jin. (Bonus points for the lolworthy guild name!) Adoru not only sent in a fantastic breakdown of all the mods involved in this week's Reader UI and the reasons for building it, (hint, hint) but additionally sent us a bunch of screenshots to choose from! So without further ado, here's your long-awaited (and hopefully welcomed-back) Reader UI of the Week.

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Okay, so back when the old Grand Marshal and Warlord PvP sets were scrapped in favor of Gladiator gear for honor, I was actually pretty dismayed, but not for the same reason as most others. I wasn't really concerned about "Welfare Epics" or "AFKavers" simply standing at the entrance of AV and getting good gear because of it. I was sad because the look of the sets was going away!

Yeah, that my sound a bit crazy, but bear with me for a bit, let me explain myself.

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Englewood, a GM on the Tournament Test Realm, poised for some pictures today with the WoW Insider Arena Team covering the event. We were all pretty psyched to find us all teleported right outside Dalaran, with Englewood, to pose for some pics. He was in his Brutallus getup, and was lookin' pretty sweet.

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Lifebloom took a small final bloom hit, ticks are normal.
Life Tap changes reverted.
Flametounge reverted to no MS.

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Well, World of Warcraft gamers asked for it, so they're getting quite a load of it. Here is the latest update (in a long string of recent updates) for the Public Test Realms' Patch 2.40. It's not as long as the others, but we can expect even more in the future.

This update includes even more class changes for the Druid. Other classes that have changes are the Hunter and Paladin. Another thing to note in this update is the removal of the Essence of Immortals Quest Chain. Here are the updates:

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You may remember the raiding guild Risen, from the Alleria server, for their work in Naxxaramas back before The Burning Crusade, being among the first to grab Atiesh and the Corrupted Ashbringer. They're back at the forefront of WoW news again, but this time for a different reason. They've decided to tap out of raiding until WoTLK, and they aren't being very shy about telling us why, with a post on their website under the oh-so-witty title "World of Casualcraft."

The announcement post on their website starts suspiciously like your classic general forums rant posted by a level 5 anonymous alt: They're mad that any level 70 scrub can waltz in and grab t6 gear from badges come 2.4. They say that all the time they spent farming instances has been for "nothing." Failure (the poster of the entry) continues on to say that "about 2 weeks ago it became official. No, Risen is not a dead guild. We are a group of gamers that likes being the best we can be. Well, WoW isn't about that anymore, so we are taking WoW for what it is - casual."

He goes on to rant a bit more, saying that he's seen the decline of the game since Black Temple itself, calling the encounters there (which he admits other guilds such as Nihilum praised) overly easy, and calling the Sunwell encounters more of the same. He says that since they will have "nothing to show" for all their farming of BT, just as they have "nothing to show" for all their farming of AQ and Naxxaramas, it's not worth going on.

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Marking targets is an art form, one that requires tactical know-how of whatever instance or raid you happen to find yourself. This duty can fall to your raid leader, your tank or some other designated distributor of raid markers. Of course, the exception is often the Protection Paladin who often requires no crowd control and lets DPS go to town on whichever target they want. But, eventually, even a great multi-target tank needs to establish a kill order. Regardless of who does the job, LuckyCharms2 can provide an easy-to-use raid marking interface.

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We've been preparing for the stress test, are mostly gemmed and enchanted up, and are looking to fight! I'll be updating this post as things happen, hopefully with riveting tales of victory and triumph over Alliance Care Bears. (Kidding of course, my main is an Human warrior.)

Read on after the break for the updates! We'll keep this front page only for things that are affecting everyone.

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WoW Insider's Arena Team is getting ready for battle right now! Come on over to the Tournament Test Realm (TTR) and join us and thousands of other players as we prepare for battle against each other and even Blizzard's CMs and Devs!

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Though everyone talks about it a lot, raiding or even grouping isn't the only way to achieve something in the World of Warcraft. There's something for everyone.

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Reader Andy wrote in this morning to tell us about what he read while having his morning cup of joe. From the The Guardian's article on The world's 50 most powerful blogs:

"46. WoW Insider"

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Trivia time! You guys know Wikipedia? Largest wiki in the world. Can't miss it. Now, did you know World of Warcraft has its own wiki? Well, it's the second largest wiki in the world, with 3 million unique users per month. That's a lot of WoW gamers.

But what's the point of that piece of info? Well, it gives you and idea of how games are becoming more and more complex that MMO communities actually need an encyclopedia wiki to keep track of what's what. This was the point of discussion at one session in this year's SXSW Interactive.

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A few days ago, Allison posed an interesting question: Why is Kael a bad guy? The answer is pretty clear to me, there's a definite path you can follow to Kael's corruption and downfall. It isn't very well laid out for you in the World of Warcraft, there's some connect-the-dots you need to do, but I think the answer is there. Be warned, there are some spoilers for patch 2.4 ahead, so be careful if you're trying to dodge them.

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Shagatrog has put together a short trailer of an upcoming WoW based movie he is making. For his very first try at editing I was impressed with his story telling, music selection and use of the Model Viewer. He needs voice actors for his production so take a look at the trailer and if you're interested in helping him out, check out a forum thread he started about his movie.

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Whether it's the need to press the big red button, or the urge to throw insults at your least-favorite NPCs, we have your weekly dose of WoW comedy for you every Sunday morning, and this weekend is no exception.

• The Decurse from Dark Legacy Comics.
• LFG #128.
• Noobcow and the Next Next Patch from Manic Graffiti.
  
• From Ding! we have a comic about your mom.
• Be Right Back! from Monkey Punchers.
• Gnomination from Shakes and Fidget.


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The Horde base in Blade's Edge has a few reminders of the dangers of the Outland. As if the skewered dragons on the mountain spines weren't enough of a warning. Player Luesarim of The Hammer of the Ancient guild on the Thorium Brotherhood server stumbled upon this unlucky fellow. Never make a bet with a cross-eyed sword-thrower, eh?

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The World of Warcraft PTRs have brought some interesting new class changes for the Druid, Mage, and Shaman. Blizzard seems to have changed the Druid's Regrowth, the Mage's Blink, as well as reworked the tooltip description on Shaman's Toughness.

Druid
Regrowth mana cost has been reduced, the new values are (from rank 1 to rank 9):           
rank 1 - 80 (was 100)
rank 2 - 135 (was 170)
rank 3 - 185 (was 230)
rank 4 - 230 (was 285)
rank 5 - 275 (was 345)
rank 6 - 335 (was 420)
rank 7 - 405 (was 505)
rank 8 - 485 (was 605)
rank 9 - 575 (was 720)
rank 10 - 675 (was 845)

Mage

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Many Protection Paladins voiced their disagreement with my recent post to Hybrid Theory, my weekly column on Hybrid classes. The complaints were many, and the flames burned bright. Thus, I'll clarify my stance a little more. Oh, and the title up there? It's a joke. Seriously.

First off, let me say that my recent Hybrid Theory had a lot of sardonic, cynical little jokes. In all seriousness, I would not tell a Balance Druid that I raid with to "go be useful and Moonfire spam something." I don't think that you're viable Main Tanks for a progression oriented 25-man raid, but if you can have fun with something and your raid will actually let you do it, more power to you. That doesn't mean you should advertise yourself as a tank when applying to a raid group, but there you go.

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