Patch 3.1 - PTR Build 9767
An exciting new build has been deployed on test realms! Stay tuned for a news post of epic proportions with hundreds of additions! Thousands of new changes! Cookies and milk! No seriously, we're getting close to a release of Patch 3.1 on Live servers and this build was merely here to fix some bugs.

Engineering

• Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket now deals 1440 to 1760 Fire damage (Up from 1035 to 1265), cooldown lowered from 1 min to 45 sec.


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We're very excited to announce this special contest in tandem with Blizzard's own contest to give away 5 hardcover copies of Arthas: Rise of the Lich King -- Christie Golden's new novel coming out on April 21st that tells the story of Arthas, and how he slowly crept into darkness and became Azeroth's greatest villain yet.

From April 8th, 2009 to April 20th, 2009 you'll be able to submit your entries, and on April 21st -- the day the book is released -- we'll be selecting the winners to receive their very own copy.  The reviews thus far have been excellent; many proclaiming it as the best Blizzard novel yet, so even if you're not a book-lover, this is certainly a collector's piece you'll want to own as a World of Warcraft fan.

What is The Lich King's Cache Contest?

We want you, the WoW player, the eventual end to Arthas's reign of terror, to come up with the 10 items you think the Lich King would have in his backpack.  Any sort of supplies, equipment, consumables, etc. that you think he'd need to fight off the onslaught of angry guilds who want their epics!

These items don't have to be in the game -- they can be of your own creation.  If you think it's something that would aid the Lich King in his battles, then it's fair game.  Be creative; be humorous; but remember, the items will need to make sense in the grand scheme.  Would the Lich King have Pink Bunny Slippers in his backpack?  Probably not... well, at least not when he's heading out to war.

How do I enter?

To enter, send an email to worcontests at gmail.com with the following information-

• World of Raids Username:
• Contact email:
• List of 10 items the Lich King would have in his backpack (explain the items; effects, any background on them, etc.):

It's that simple!  If you're chosen as a winner, we'll contact you to get the remaining details so we can get Arthas: Rise of the Lich King shipped to you.  So hurry, get those entries in by April 20th, 2009 for your chance to own the latest novel in the storied Warcraft franchise!

An Excerpt from Arthas: Rise of the Lich King - Chapter 4

Thanks to our friends over at Sneak Attack Media, we have an excerpt from chapter 4 for you; we hope you enjoy it.  Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more information on Arthas: Rise of the Lich King!

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Chapter Four

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We here at WoW Insider are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.

• Honor's Code takes a look at how they'll be utilizing the dual spec system as a Protection Paladin in Ulduar and begins assembling a patch 3.1 talent build.
• Do you enjoy Buddhist's over-the-top PvP videos, such as Ming Must Die? RogueRogue.com is (probably) proud to present: Six Silent Shadows. Be warned, this video contains some vulgar language. Okay, maybe a lot of vulgar language. Consider it NSFW.
• With all the hoopla around the Blizzard Authenticator lately, you may be interested in The Stoppable Force's walkthrough of the activation process.
• Our own Paladins discussed which judgement does what, but Blessing of Kings tells you the who, when and why about optimizing judgements.
• Skrooge is on a quest: Make 25,000 gold in as little time as possible, using only the auction house. His quest began with only three things: Auctioneer Advanced, 100g, and a tuxedo.


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New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the resources they need to get acclimated. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic.

"Oops GTG TTYL bye" – heard that one before, in the middle of an instance? You don't want to be that guy.

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Oh Blizzard why do you torture us so? Last time it was all about Gilneas, and this time, Wyrxian winks at a player suggestion that phasing gets used more in the old world. Take this all as you will -- Blizzard is just pulling our chain on this stuff, and whatever they have in mind, they're not giving away quite yet.

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Vaneras has posted the latest EU Arena tournament rankings over on the forums (after the latest phase ended), and it looks like PMR has found their way back on top across the pond: Priest/Mage/Rogue teams have taken over the top three spots. The Death Knight/Paladin/DPS teams, formerly dominating, have fallen down to just two spots out of ten, and two Shamans have made an appearance, one partnered with a Druid and a Mage, and the other with a Lock and Hunter. Very interesting.

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This is a series of daily guides intended to guide you through the Argent Tournament as quickly and painlessly as possible. We'll have guides for each daily going live in the weeks to come. Keep your eyes peeled and your lances ready!

So, Argent Tournament aspirant. You want to start beating up dudes on their mounts, right? Of course. Any aspiring champion does. But before you can, you'd better familiarize yourself with mounted combat controls.

Don't worry! Your Sunreaver or Silver Convenant reps have you covered, and they'll even pay you to learn how!

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I'm very "up" on PuGs. I started my career as a PuG tank and met a lot of great players that way, many of whom I still raid with today. I've always been a stout supporter of throwing caution to the wind and joining LFG for an afternoon to see where it'll take you; it's been my experience that random players on your realm can and often will surprise you.

Once you master the art of the 5-person PuG, the ultimate risk is a raid PuG. One-shot the instance, or spend the night wiping? You won't know until you try.

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Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we discuss the role that speed plays in Rogue weapon choices.

No matter the encounter, Rogues really only have one true role: DPS. While there's trick fights like Gluth and Sartharion where Anesthetic Poison come in handy, we're designed to take down a boss as quickly as possible. In PvP, we're defined by our ability to create short opportunities to execute a wounded opponent. With damage as our one and only purpose, it becomes crucial that we maximize our DPS output.

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Our old friend Jessica Citizen has an interview up with Blizzard's Lead Game Designer on World of Warcraft, Mr. Tom Chilton. When Jeff Kaplan shipped off to other pastures in Blizzard to work on the new MMO, Chilton says he took over Kaplan's meetings, so right now, he is the flag leading the big ship of WoW. In the interview, he talks a bit about dual specs -- the system was originally planned to go in with the Lich King expansion, but it had to be pushed back to 3.1. And Chilton says he's already expecting to answer questions about triple specs at this year's BlizzCon, but of course, there's a balance there, as there has to be some choice on the part of the player as to what they decide to specialize in.

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There are a handful of free EU character transfers to report on today, all focused on the faction differences on the realm Magtheridon.

Now Magtheridon was always a pain in the butt in the days before his colossal nerf. It was a big challenge when BC was released to coordinate a couple groups of five people to click on cubes all at one time. I'd always say on vent very calmly: "Three, two... one... click-click-click. Good work. Break." Or "Three, two... one... click-click-click. Terrible. Wipe it."

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bridges_squares wants to know, and we're getting really, really close, so let's finally go out on that limb, shaky as it may be: when's the patch coming out? Turpster predicted it would be this past Tuesday on the WoW Insider Show last week (since Noblegarden and the equipment manager got delayed, he figured they wanted to hurry for a release), but obviously no dice on that one. And on the other end of things, April 26th is the date we're told Noblegarden will start, so it's a pretty good guess we'll see the patch by then.

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WoW is a very social game, and you might think that there is no getting around it. Fortunately for those who relish their alone time, there are several ways to minimize contact with other players and have some quiet time.

While some people will argue that you should stop playing social games like MMORPGs, there are plenty of solo activities, and if that is what you want to do, more power to you.

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Warning: Subtitles are in German. My amateur attempts at Google translation revealed no naughty words, but I could be wrong. The soundtrack is music only, but there are words that flash on the screen. If a coworker happens by your screen, and happens to read German, and the words happen to be innuendo, then this might not be completely work safe.

Das Strafgericht in Naxxramas was posted on Myndflame by Petunia. It is, in essence, a quick romp through Naxxramas, involving a bunch of cool scenes and kill shots. In that sense, this video isn't groundbreaking. However, it's a got a couple stylistic things going for it that I wanted to point out.

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Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today.

I feel sorry for Alex and his significant other. They can't have pets in their apartment so they got a Roomba. Now I can have pets in my place, and the girlfriend and I have a nice little kitty named Max. In fact, Max was talking to me last night as I wrote today's Queue and told me he'd like to eat Alex's Roomba.

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This week’s feature is an item we’ve been playing in the market for the past few weeks, the Abyss Crystal. Created by disenchanting WotLK epic items, Abyss Crystals are used as essential components in premium, high-end end-game enchantments. On our three test servers we found this enchantment material ranging in price from as low as 75 gold to as high as 140G per item. As mentioned, we’ve been playing around with the market for these items for a few weeks but only recently, however, have we seen reason to share this tip with our readers. The reason we mention it now is that we’ve observed an average 15% increase in the prices of WotLK enchantment materials on all three test servers. Each of our test servers, on both the horde and alliance sides, seems to be showing an increased demand for end-game enchantment materials.

The observed 15% increase in enchantment material prices seems to exclude Infinite Dust, which remains stable with a maximum 7% variance in going rate (meaning that the price varies up and down by 7% on any given day) on all three servers. The other three enchantment materials, Cosmic Essence, Dream Shards and Abyss Crystals, have all shown a steady increase of an average 15%. Now it is difficult to say definitively that it is time to sell these items if you’ve been hoarding them in your banks because we cannot say with confidence that we are at the peak of the price increase. What we can advise you to do, however, is to check for deals and repost them at a higher price when possible. Since all of these enchantment materials have a required deposit of 0 gold, it is best to post these items as high as you think you can sell them for as opposed to undercutting and redefining the market. If they don’t sell, just repost them again at no loss to you.

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One of the most often asked and debated questions on WoW Insider lately has been:"What is after Ulduar and patch 3.1?" While no one can know for sure, we do have some evidence out there that can help us at least look smart about it.

Back in October 2008, Kaplan said in an interview with Curse that Patch 3.2 will contain a new raid instance that hasn't been announced yet. There's some question as to what exactly he was talking about. We also know from the article that Patch 3.3 will contain the Icecrown Citadel, so we know the 3.2 dungeon won't be that.

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Pettibone of <Alliance United> on Anub'arak writes in, "I've titled this picture, "A Warrior Contemplates His Actions." I snapped this last night after beating Onyxia. My guild is a social guild, so this is technically the first raid I've ever completed - I know, so lame. Anyway, I wanted to document and immortalize this monumentous occasion. Enjoy!" Hey, Pettibone, everyone's got to start somewhere. Although if you keep contemplating your actions after killing a boss, you're going to start thinking of yourself as a mass murderer fairly quickly. "Hmm, why did I kill this troll again? Well, a dude in a city offered me a couple of badges and some cash if I brought him part of his corpse. Hey, wait a minute ..."

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During the last 2 days you might have experienced a few downtimes with the site, this isn't a problem from MMO-Champion but from our hoster. Tons of people way smarter than me are working on the issue and it should be resolved as I write this news.

Ulduar Legendary Mace - Val'anyr, Hammer of the Ancient Kings
Another day, another article. The page for Val'anyr, Hammer of the Ancient Kings is now avalaible. This legendary mace will be dropped in Ulduar and is only available to healers according to the last information.

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Many guilds recruit rather religiously, often having a couple people assigned to constantly ensure there's an adequate number of people to run dungeons, raids, and PvP teams. There are essentially four ways that people recruit.

The first way is through the official forums, both via the individual realm forums and the multi-realm guild recruitment forum. Often times this means making a detailed and professional looking post and ensuring that it's bumped to first page of the forum several times a day.

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Speed Run Hall of Fame

The Speed Run Hall of Fame is now available.  For the meantime it only includes 10-player Sartharion +3 kills, but leading up to 3.1 I'll be expanding it to include more boss kills for both 10- and- 25-player modes.  If you want to suggest a boss be added, post it here.

• Sartharion +3 Drakes Speed Run Thread
• Naxxramas Speed Run Thread
• Patchwerk Speed Run Thread

To be considered for the Speed Run Hall of Fame, you must complete the speed run when that content is the hardest tier available. To be included, post on the Speed Run thread for that particular encounter in the Raids & Dungeons forum and provide all of the required information.

Because this was created so close to patch 3.1, it will be possible to be added to the lists for Naxxramas / Obsidian Sanctum / Eye of Eternity for two weeks after patch 3.1 is released.

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If you've completed a speed run that puts you in this top-10 list, please post your details on the Sartharion + 3 Drakes Speed Run Thread.

10-player # Guild Time Realm Date Links

1	Utopie	67 sec.	EU-Blackrock	Apr. 7, 2009	WWS
2	NEG	70 sec.	US-Kil'jaeden	Apr. 7, 2009	WWS
3	Eternal Gathering	71 sec.	EU-Doomhammer	Apr. 7, 2009	WWS
4	Genesis	73 sec.	EU-Silvermoon	Apr. 6, 2009	WWS
4	Kinetic	73 sec.	US-Frostmourne	Apr. 7, 2009	WWS
6	Ninjapartio	75 sec.	EU-Darksorrow	Apr. 7, 2009	WWS
7	"megaplayer"	76 sec.	RU-Gordunni	Mar. 31, 2009	WWS - Video
8	Anvil of Crom	79 sec.	EU-Deathwing	Apr. 7, 2009	WWS - Video
9	cause we can	80 sec.	EU-Destromath	Apr. 6, 2009	WWS - Video
10	Ðeadline	83 sec.	US-Bleeding Hollow	Apr. 6, 2009	WWS - Video

Blue Posts

Ghostcrawler touched on Arenas quite a bit today.

Design Process (Source)

That's not exactly how we view the process. We aren't asking the players to balance the game for us. We are however providing a forum in which players can discuss game balance.

We view it like this:

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Diemm, in this excerpt from a long trade chat screenshot (which you can see in this week's column below), confesses right away to ninja'ing a guild bank -- he was brought into a guild by a merge, and decided he'd rather take everything in the bank than be a part of the guild. As despicable as it is, his honesty is quite refreshing. We have a confession, too: last week's Guild "Goodness" was just an April Fool's joke. In fact, here's the scary part: Jalabharxo, in the intro, who asked for help and actually got it? That's my character. And that was actually the third time I asked a trade chat nicely before I got a clean screenshot I could post -- the other two times, I got made fun of.

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