The Colosseum takes us inside the world of the Gladiator (Brutal, Vengeful, Merciless, and otherwise), to interview some of the top Arena fighters in the battlegroups. Our goal is to bring a better understanding of the strategy, makeup, and work that goes into dueling it out for fame, fortune, and Netherdrakes.

Season 5 is nearly over. It's been an odd season, and one predictably dominated by our new friends in the PvP world -- the Death Knights. As Zach predicted many moons ago, the rise of the Death Knight and their associated Disease heralded the fall of the Druid. It's not that Death Knights are necessarily an intended direct counter. It's just that the dominant team (Death Knight/Paladin) has many great tools against the Druid's traditional allies.

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I had originally intended to talk today about changes to protection in patch 3.1, especially since we're coming closer and closer to it (I wouldn't be surprised if it dropped this week) but then I actually stopped and thought about it, and honestly there's really not all that much to talk about. Last Stand gets a reduced cooldown, which is good. Defensive Stance reduces the damage you do by 5% instead of 10%, which is also good. Glyph of Shield Wall will let you use Shield Wall every 3 minutes instead of every five (every 2 minutes with Improved Disciplines) which again, is nice. But none of this is going to change the way tanking works, so it seemed kind of odd to try and go in depth with so little to go in depth on. We could talk about how Deep Wounds will no longer gain bonuses from effects like the enrage from Improved Defensive Stance, but it still doesn`t change the fact that a lot of prot warriors are going to take Deep Wounds for the DoT when their Damage Shield, Cleave, Thunder Clap or even Shockwave crit. In the end, protection saw the absolute least changes of any warrior spec and for the most part, there`s almost no reason for prot warriors to alter their playstyle or gearing significantly.

So then, if we`re not going to talk about that (well, I guess we just did) then what are we going to talk about?

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Over the past couple of weeks, European players have been receiving plain text emails (like the one above) from Blizzard. I know what you're thinking ... scam alert but for once you'd be wrong. It might not be full of the usual sparkly Blizzard graphics but it's no less legit - and a quick call to Blizzard Europe confirmed it.

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Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Naxxramas-10 or Naxxramas-25, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. This week, we do some homework.

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Your Saturday seem kind of boring? Could you maybe use a little cheering up with a side of Warcraft insight to go along with that? Then we've got just the thing: our podcast is live this afternoon, April 11, 2009 3:30 PM EDT var date_span = document.getElementById("date"); var date = new Date(date_span.innerHTML); var monthname=new Array("Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug", "Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec"); var weekday=new Array("Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday", "Friday","Saturday"); var year = date.getFullYear(); var day_of_month = date.getDate(); var month = monthname[date.getMonth()]; var day = weekday[date.getDay()]; var hour = date.getHours(); if (hour > 11) { if (hour > 12) {hour -= 12} am_pm = "PM"; } else { am_pm = "AM"; } var minute = date.getMinutes(); if (minute < 10) { minute = "0"+minute; } date_string = day + ", " + month + " " + day_of_month; date_string += " at " + hour + ":" + minute + " " + am_pm; offset = -date.getTimezoneOffset()/60; if (offset >= 0) { offset = "+"+offset; } date_string += " in your time zone (GMT"+offset+")"; date_span.innerHTML = (date_string); over on our Ustream page, and as usual, right here after the break on this post. Today we'll have our good friend Turpster along for the ride, as well as WoW Insider writers Michael Gray and Chase Christian, so it'll be a nice full house.

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Each week Arcane Brilliance, a column about Mages, levels up. It gains 3 intellect, 2 stamina, 2 spirit, and 1 talent point. In case you were wondering, Arcane Brilliance has been leveling up every week for the past four years. That's right: Arcane Brilliance is level 208. What has Arcane Brilliance been doing with all of those talent points, you ask? Arcane Brilliance is specced 63/75/60. And yes, Arcane Brilliance still gets pwned by Lichborne in the 201-210 pvp bracket.

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The Loot Council is regular column highlighting interesting and informative posts from around the WoW finance blogosphere.

This week there is so much good content out there, and since this is a holiday weekend, we’ve decided to give you a little gift and include two posts that you should check out from several of our favorite bloggers.

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Your Saturday seem kind of boring? Could you maybe use a little cheering up with a side of Warcraft insight to go along with that? Then we've got just the thing: our podcast is live this afternoon, April 11, 2009 3:30 PM EDT var date_span = document.getElementById("date"); var date = new Date(date_span.innerHTML); var monthname=new Array("Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug", "Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec"); var weekday=new Array("Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday", "Friday","Saturday"); var year = date.getFullYear(); var day_of_month = date.getDate(); var month = monthname[date.getMonth()]; var day = weekday[date.getDay()]; var hour = date.getHours(); if (hour > 11) { if (hour > 12) {hour -= 12} am_pm = "PM"; } else { am_pm = "AM"; } var minute = date.getMinutes(); if (minute < 10) { minute = "0"+minute; } date_string = day + ", " + month + " " + day_of_month; date_string += " at " + hour + ":" + minute + " " + am_pm; offset = -date.getTimezoneOffset()/60; if (offset >= 0) { offset = "+"+offset; } date_string += " in your time zone (GMT"+offset+")"; date_span.innerHTML = (date_string); over on our Ustream page, and as usual, right here after the break on this post. Today we'll have our good friend Turpster along for the ride, as well as WoW Insider writers Michael Gray and Chase Christian, so it'll be a nice full house.

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Reader comments – ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week.

Observations from running a Naxx-25 PuG "Our readers are a bunch of smartasses, but oh, how I love them," cried Allison Robert after receiving this e-mail (no, technically not a [1.Local] reader comment) addressing point #2 of her "Observations from running a Naxx-25 PuG": [Expand 11 Paragraphs] Instant Vote: [+] [-] (No votes yet) WRUP: Is anyone playing WoW? edition [Read All] 1 posts (Updated 2 years 303 days 8 hours ago) [Source] Elizabeth Harper wrote on 11th April 10am Looking over this week's WRUP responses, I had to wonder what was up. Where were the raid schedules? Where was the to-do list of achievements and dungeon runs? Why wasn't anyone playing WoW? So I asked the team. [View Remaining 2 Paragraphs] Instant Vote: [+] [-] (No votes yet) Around Azeroth: The purple dusk of twilight time [Read All] 1 posts (Updated 2 years 303 days 8 hours ago) [Source] Elizabeth Wachowski wrote on 11th April 11am The simple beauty of nightfall in Darkshore is captured in this screenshot by Exminator of <Paragon> on The Maelstrom-EU. Sadly, this moment of peace and tranquility is not enough to wipe my memory of what a nightmare it is to level through this zone, the home of some of the worst quests ever designed. Deep Ocean, Vast Sea? The Absent-Minded Prospector? And let's not forget The Sleeper Has Awakened, the only escort quest in the game designed to make you fail horribly at the end unless you completely deviate from the logical path. Oh, and there's murlocs. So many murlocs. [View Remaining 2 Paragraphs] Instant Vote: [+] [-] (No votes yet) Patch 3.1 Reagents changes, Blue posts [Read All] 1 posts (Updated 2 years 303 days 8 hours ago) [Source] MMO-Champion wrote on 11th April 10am Patch 3.1 - Professions Reagents Changes Instead of a compilation of past changes already posted here, I think we have something new today. I didn't really do reagents change lately because of tons of reasons but they are now back on the site! A lot of professions had the reagents requirements of low-level recipes lowered or changed to match the latest changes in the game. (Drops from "old" dungeons removed, etc ...) [Expand 5 Paragraphs] Instant Vote: [+] [-] (No votes yet) Patch 3.1 Profession Recipe Compilation [Read All] 1 posts (Updated 2 years 303 days 18 hours ago) [Source] Kody wrote on 11th April 6am 3.1 Profession Recipes Below you should find all of the new profession recipes being added in patch 3.1. Due to the sheer number of recipes, I've made each profession section collapsible by clicking on "Expand / Collapse." If you notice something missing (or any bugs with this list; it's a fairly exhaustive amount of data), please let me know by posting a comment. [View Remaining 2 Paragraphs] Instant Vote: [+] [-] (No votes yet) 2012 WowFix.com  |  RSS Information  |  About Us  |  Suggestion Box  |  Contact Us World of Warcraft and Blizzard Entertainment are trademarks or registered trademarks of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.