If you play Blizzard's World of Warcraft, then you probably know that not all the changes made in every patch is documented in the patch notes. Blizzard QA Hortus explained that adding all the changes would make the list of changes far longer than necessary.

Blizzard Tech Support Datth dropped by to confirm what "the gnome" (Hortus) said. To further illustrate the point, he mentioned that there are "a number optimizations in the game engine that may help with overall performance and FPS" but the changes are too numerous to list.

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A little while ago, Drysc said in a post that "a prot warrior or shadow priest or what have you should though be able to jump into a battleground or arena and be able to do something with some small amount of success." This hasn't gone over well with many shadow priests. Even with Drysc trying to correct himself in multiple threads and insist that he doesn't mean that the class will never get more viable, a lot of shadow priests are up in arms.

It's probably pretty understandable. After all, before Burning Crusade, a Shadow Priest was pretty much universally feared upon the field of battle. They seemed to take almost no damage in Shadowform, and their DoTs tore through you with ease. Even in the early days of the Arenas, you saw quite a few Warlock/Shadow Priest teams tearing up the charts. These days, Shadowform doesn't really absorb damage like it used to, Psychic Scream doesn't really cut it as CC, and resilience makes sure that their DoTs are blunted quite handily. So what DO you do when you chose a class and spec to PvP, only to have that spec suddenly become lackluster in PvP? This isn't like Protection Warriors, who have known from the start they'd be good as tanks, and tanks alone.

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Now's a good a time as any to talk about a "husky loot" item (one that anyone can get) that will give you the luck o' the Irish, and one that has a pretty good quest story behind it too.

Name: Felstone Good Luck Charm (Wowhead, Thottbot, WowDB)
Type: Uncommon Amulet
Armor: N/A
Abilities:

• +13 Shadow Resistence, which was pretty good back when this was gear you picked up right before the endgame. But not so much anymore.
• A leprechaun did tell me that this thing will grant you good luck, though.

How to Get It: This is the fun part -- this is actually the quest reward at the end of a fun little self-contained questline that will take you from either Stormwind (for Alliance) or Undercity (for Horde) into the Plaguelands. Yes, the Plaguelands -- it's that little lobby right before you enter the Ghostlands. Just look for those poor, lonely Argent Dawn questgivers (or just follow the sounds of them whining under their breath that the expansion isn't here yet).

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It seems like the trials and tribulations experienced by Mac users playing Blizzard's World of Warcraft aren't over just yet. The latest bug found was tied to the game's combat log which incorrectly registered the exact timing of events as they were being played out.

WoW forum poster Shamanaut explained the details of the bug as he noticed a delay with the combat log not properly incrementing the seconds when registering an event. He mentioned that there was an eventual delay that occurred after the first couple of milliseconds, with each entry afterwards erroneously reported as the previous one.

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Player Housing has been a hoped for (and downright demanded for) feature by the playerbase of World of Warcraft for a long time now. Unfortunately, requests for this feature has always been met with a response of "not yet" (more or less, at least).

The idea has been suggested numerous times to the devs before. The usual (probably a standard response by now) is that player housing is not an idea they are closed to, but it isn't an idea they'll be pursuing right now.

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With 2.4 looming, many of you are on the verge of an addon crisis. With most major content patches comes the horror of watching your lovingly crafted UI crumble into out-of-date obscurity. Amidst the chaos, some crusade to protect us addon pilgrims on our journey to updated bliss .

These brave souls have developed addons that automate the updating process, and they just save your soul in the coming weeks when we face the Sunwell. Many of you already use programs to manage this process, but for those of you doing it addon-by-addon there are some other options.

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Between Arenas, V'Ming spends his time as a lock laughing ominously in AV, tanking Olm with his own minions and pondering troll fashion from Zul'Aman. He's recently started to plumb the depths of SSC with his 0/21/40 build and bragging about 8k shadow bolts.

One of the most enduring and fiercest rivalries in WoW is the bitterness between mages and warlocks. I'll like to characterize my relationship with Mage friends to be one of friendly, respectful rivalry. In fact, Christian Belt - our Mage columnist - will be my guest here today to offer his side of the story in beautiful italics.

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Yes, indeed, after a short trip away from the podcast, I will be back on tomorrow afternoon, live on WoW Radio at 3:30pm EST. Turpster is supposed to be there as well, and both John Petricelli (the Big Bear Butt blogger) and Matthew Rossi (who, I hear, once wrestled a bear and won) will be on the show with us. It'll be a rip-roaring adventure as, I'm sure, we'll chat about all the recent changes in patch 2.4, as well as all the kerfluffle over tanking and protection specs, and why Blizzard is banning a famous Arena hunter. We'll also hit on when patch 2.4 might go live, and of course we'll be reading listener email (which you can send to us at theshow@wowinsider.com).

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Wednesday's TTR stress test was far, far more calm than Sunday's test. Lower Blizzard activity and the population levels seemed vastly lower than before. The lag was minimal, maybe nonexistent. Definite improvement from Sunday, but that probably has something to do with the much lower population.

I have no fantastic tales of speaking to Nethaera or private photoshoots with GMs, but I actually got quite a few arena games in. The WoW Insider gang didn't have a 5th for 5v5s, so I decided to let Adam, Zach and Amanda M. have the Hordeside fun in the 3v3 bracket, and I'd make waves on the Alliance-side. Many lamented my departure when I logged off of my Tauren Warrior, but the Alliance needed love, too! Sorry guys!

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No, seriously, behold Frostmourne! (Block of ice trapping the undead soul of Ner'zhul sold separately.) Now, I generally don't collect mechandise. I ignored the t-shirts, I didn't get the toys, I only read the comic book because I'm a lore geek.

But look at it.

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Great news for compulsive /inspect-ors from the new patch -- Hortus confirms that in neutral areas and out of combat, players will be able to do a little cross-faction inspecting. No more will you have to wonder what kind of helmet that dirty Human Warrior is wearing around Shattrath -- you'll be able to pull them right up and check out all of their gear.

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This week, The Care and Feeding of Warriors tells you warriors that you are awesome. Matthew Rossi has a Tauren, Orc, Human, Draenei and Night Elf warrior at level 70. So you know he means it. Seriously, the dude loves the warrior class. Don't make the mistake of mentioning it around him, because that guy will latch onto you like a facehugger and he won't stop until love for the warrior class has burst out of your chest and sprayed the acid blood of its delight all over the room.

He's also incredibly, incredibly bad at metaphors.

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If you've been waiting for yet another performance upgrade, you might not have to wait too much longer -- the kind folks on the test realm forums have confirmed that patch 2.4 will bring both audio and video performance upgrades with it. As we've said before, Blizzard is usually pretty kind to system requirements, but players are reporting that graphic and audio glitches are fixed when you load up the PTR for 2.4, and CMs say that those changes will move to the live realms as well.

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If you're a fan of Blizzard's World of Warcraft, then you've probably heard something about the Great Dragonblight in Northrend. In case you need a little refresher on the history of this landmark, you might want to know that the official website has opened a page discussing the location.

According to the website, the Great Dragonblight is a place where wyrms go when they are about to die. At the center of this bone infested area is Wyrmrest Keep, a citadel surrounded by five dragon shrines.

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Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.

If you have ever rolled a druid, rogue, shaman or hunter, it is quite likely that you ended up choosing leatherworking as one of your professions. Because it can be a valuable source of gear for the leather and mail-wearers, it is a common choice. If this is the case, you are going to want to hit 375 skill in order to make your end-game epics.

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We've covered the topic of family members gaming together before, but Sonya Smith, Gadgetress of the OCRegister, brings an interesting story about it to light, which she learned about on her tour through Blizzard's new HQ.

Like our own Amanda Dean, J. Allen Brack, senior producer over at Blizzard Entertainment, plays World of Warcraft with one of his parents. Unlike Amanda Dean, his relationship is paternal. Brack relocated to California from Texas two and a half years ago to take his position at Blizzard, moving away from his family. Interested in the work his son had taken up, Brack's father began playing the game himself, having never been a gamer prior to that. Now they use the game as a way to spend quality time together, half a country apart.

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While I generally subscribe to the "happiness and puppies" method of blogging, certain videos send me into a homicidal rage. Crank Dat OP Rogue is one of them. As the one commenter on the WCM page noted, this video is a "bag of fail."

I don't know why people are so crazy about this Soulja Boy song. I'd rather hear Linkin Park than the billionth variation of this. The other bits are just too easy to pick on. His microphone is horrible and the video work isn't that great either.

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Most people love good stories. If you're a fan of good stories and a World of Warcraft player as well, then Blizzard has a treat for you. Actually, Blizzard has two of them in the form of two new WoW player stories.

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As Billee reported over at the World of Warcraft forums, there seems to be a bug that's affecting the shaman class' Bloodlust spell.

Bloodlust, or Heroism if being cast by an Alliance player, grants a 30 percent boost to the melee, ranged, and spell casting speed of all members of the party. The buff is most visible by an overall size increase in whoever is affected. 

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As I posted yesterday, the Dragonblight has been revealed. As a lore nerd and someone fascinated with Northrend, I am stoked. What kind of person uses the word stoked? I have no idea, but it sounded good.

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Player Gloop of the Silent Minority guild on the Hakkar server has a devious plan to surprise his opponent. Hiding in an open grave at Sorrow Hill, he waits until the run by, then pops out to ambush them. Guess it's not a secret anymore.

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Wrath of the Lich King zone preview: Dragonblight




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Wrath of the Lich King - Dragonblight
Here dense forests surround a vast arctic wasteland littered with the massive, gleaming bones of perished dragons. In the center of this frozen expanse lies Wyrmrest Keep, a structure believed to be built by the world-shaping titans shortly after Azeroth's creation. Many legends hold that the five great Dragon Aspects were blessed within this fortress and given their charge to watch over the budding world. Perhaps it is for this reason that dragons nearing the end of their lives come to the Dragonblight to enrich the land with their passing.


Surrounding Wyrmrest Keep are five majestic dragon shrines: red, bronze, green, blue, and black, each blessed with the powers of its respective flight. In recent times the undead Scourge has laid siege to these shrines in an effort to further its attempts at raising terrifying new variations of undead dragons to serve the Lich King.

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In the World of Warcraft, there are heroes -- that's us, supposedly -- and then there are the bit players. These are the vendors, the quest givers, or even the random mobs or raid bosses who are really only there for us, the heroes, to kill and loot. We don't pay them too much attention. In fact, there are very few NPCs whose names we remember. Do any of you Horde players know who Kaja is? I'm willing to bet very few can answer the question but at the same time I can assure you you've visited her more than a few times -- she's the Guns & Ammunition merchant in the hut beside the Auction House in Orgrimmar, and every Hordie has gone to her for repairs.

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This has been one of the most-requested Know Your Lore subjects over the months we've had this feature, but I've held off because until recently there just wasn't that much information about the Grimtotems. With the new Dustwallow Marsh content in 2.4 and the revelations in the WoW comic book, it's finally time to explore one of the most mysterious factions in the game -- Magatha Grimtotem and her tribe of tauren outcasts.

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Even now that the Blizzard's World of Warcraft has established itself as a social game with raids insisting that players partake their roles for the Alliance or Horde, some are still mindful of the numbers they see in terms of damage they deal or health they heal. This raises the question: Are damage and healing meters really necessary? A blue poster thinks so.

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