Been a while since we did a shield. And since we did a BoE, actually. So here's both in one.

Name: Northern Barrier (Wowhead, Thottbot, WoWWiki)
Type: Epic Shield
Armor: 7890 Armor (221 Block)
Attributes:

• +42 Strength, +94 Stamina
• Increases defense rating by 63, which is just awesome.

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

In the World of Warcraft, there are three types of craftspeople: those that gather, those that enhance, and those that create gear. They are not mutually exclusive. For example, Scribes can create off-hand weaponry in addition to glyphs and Jewelcrafters can prospect gems from raw materials.

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Toussaint is exactly right -- this took me back. Way back to the original login screen and music, when level 60 was the max and everyone was running UBRS and the Plaguelands instances, and "heroic" was just something us players were. Even the Burning Crusade login screen, right, brings back some memories, of wandering around Hellfire Peninsula and raiding in Netherstorm. The roar of the frost wyrm we have now is nice and all, but sometimes we long for earlier days.

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Last month, Clint Hackleman over at Myndflame machinima attended and presented at Stanford Play Machinima Law conference. As you might expect, he came out of the conference with a heightened respect and understanding about how machinima law works. Building on the relationships he's formed, as well as lots of leg work, Hackleman has been publishing a machinmator's guide to Blizzard & Machinima Law.

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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. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

I was horrified to find endless amounts of Wisconsin hate in the comments of yesterday's edition of The Queue. Come on, Wisconsin rules! Well, no, the few bubbles of real civilization in Wisconsin rule. Milwaukee, Madison, and maybe (maybe) the Green Bay area. Everything in between those points are like something out of a horror movie. In transit from Milwaukee to Madison, all of the passengers in the car keep their eyes squeezed shut while the driver breaks out in a cold sweat. Packers fans fling themselves at your vehicle like the undead, crying out for your blood and pounding their fists on your windows. The only thing that you can do, the only thing you want to do, is keep driving.

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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.

• Big Red Rhino takes a look at Hunter consumables.
• Pink Raid Frames talks about the XT-002 Deconstructor.
• Is keyboard turning killing you raid? Yes, yes it is.
• Casual Hardcore has a take on multiple raiding toons.
• Greedy Goblin transfered to a new server, check out this guy's bags.
• World of Ming speaks up about the latest in the world of PvP.


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Ulduar has brought over 800 items within our grasp. While toying with specs (I'm actually raiding switching between arms and fury depending on the fight, although last night I actually tanked clearing up to Vezax) to try and squeeze the most DPS out I find myself wearing the half-and-hald set you always get when content is progressing. Naxxramas gear tends towards a screaming skulls motif while Ulduar gear has a more construct simulating appearance. As you can see in the screen shot, I've ended up looking somewhat like the gothiest Power Ranger ever. I don't mind the look myself, although I know some people really do. Then again, as I've said many, many times, I'd wear the Conqueror's Clownshoe Raiment if the stats were right.

This week we're going to discuss the weapon drops for warriors in Ulduar - 10 and 25. This basically means tanking 1handers and 2 hand weapons. While I personally love fist weapons myself, The Masticator is not a tanking weapon, although it's certainly true that you could tank with a 2.7 speed weapon with no defensive stats. Heck, I tanked with a 3.4 speed weapon last night. I'm going to try and keep focused on the drops with the most utility first.

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Ghostcrawler has appeared in two different threads talking about healing today, and the gist of it is that he's happy. He's happy with healing and the way it works in Ulduar: there's a good variety between boss fights and phases, there are intense moments and pauses in the action, and he says they've got things to a point where they like them. Later, he says that while in Naxx, you don't really have to warn the healer too much (you can basically tell them to heal the MT and leave it at that), Ulduar requires healers to get into the rhythm -- sometimes go all out, and sometimes hold back. He does say that too much mana is still an issue for them, and if anything gets nerfed in that department, Replenishment will. But he doesn't expect too many nerfs for a while.

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M is for Muchacho was suggested to me by Art on the tip line. Uploaded by Wuza, this video is actually one hell of an interesting freshman effort. The plot is a familiar one. A small group of compatriots are relaxing by their campfire when the king's men come to harass them. Unable to pay their taxes, the cadre must train at the feet of a combat master in order to defend themselves when the king's men return.

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Yep, we're still sorting through the Noblegarden shots here at Around Azeroth. Gophfa and <Forgotten Legacy> of Andorhal were waiting for their healer to come back from a "five minute" AFK during Kologarn attempts when they decided to have some fun with their holiday equipment. The result looks like the Titans created two bunnies, turned their backs for a minute to put the finishing touches on some trees, and came back to discover a rabbit overload, Australian-style.

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This seems like a strange deal, but in fact it's business as usual -- Blizzard says they won't tell you what's in the BlizzCon bags this year until all of the tickets are sold out. Seems weird, right? Wouldn't knowing what you'll get with the bag encourage you to buy tickets? But apparently not -- they've always announced the goodies post ticket sales and pre-event, so we'll just have to wait and see what comes up this year.

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So, Children's Week came and went, and for the most part I think it went by largely unnoticed. Aside from the first few days where Battlegrounds were overrun with orphans -- a truly disturbing thought if you stop to think about it -- most people pretty much completed the Children's Week meta-Achievement on the first day. In theory, this was one of those holidays that had the potential to screw players over with Daily Chores, which required players to complete a daily quest every day for five consecutive days. That would've meant that anyone unable to log on for 24 hours would have to wait until the next year to complete the Achievement. Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly), the Achievement bugged out and players were able to complete it in one day.

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Recent In-Game Fixes - 05/07
Quote from: Crygil (Source)Listed below are recent fixes we have applied to the game. Keep in mind that some of these changes may not be active until after the realm has been restarted.

5/7/09

• The Impale ability used by the Iron Ring Guards in the Thorim encounter should now hit the player tanking them and only that player tanking them.
• The damage done by Swamplord Musel’ek’;s Aimed Shot ability has been reduced and be more in line for players at the appropriate level to face him.
• We have corrected an issue with the two-piece set bonus for the Paladin set, Conqueror’s Aegis. Holy Mending no longer costs additional mana.
• We recently made a change to the sell value of Nerubian Legguards. The material costs used to create this item were unintentionally low, and we were prompted to make changes to minimize the impact on the game's economy.

Blue posts
Quote from Blizzard staffRating requirements changes on ilvl 239 PvP Weapons
We had to think pretty long term on this and make the change rather quickly before the PvP 239 items started flowing. The weapons on Algalon were included in other hard mode encounters so it doesn't require an Algalon kill to get them. Over time more than zero people will kill Algalon though and we should see a decent chunk of players with the ilvl 239 weapons, hopefully it's not too much though. (Source)

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We already had this week’s Hot Item of the Week feature written. We were planning to post about another item entirely when, in just the past 48 hours, we began receiving tips from readers suggesting that the market for Frost Lotus has increased significantly. On these tips we asked the WoWenomics team members to take a look at the herb on their individual home servers and, sure enough, they confirmed these reports. We’re not the types to go on circumstantial evidence, however, so to the test servers we go.

Of four servers tested, both Horde and Alliance sides, every single instance of testing showed an increase of more than 50% in the going rate for this item. The average price increase across all 8 tests was an impressive 68%. The fact that all four servers on both team’s sides showed significant increase tells us that this is more than just a few people manipulating the market. We won’t attempt to explain why the price increase is occurring but it stands to reason that, as we initially predicted, flasks are in higher demand due to the new content and most players have already sold of their stocks of the Northrend Lotus.

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