Other changes included some small tweaks to the Ulduar encounters Iron Council and General Vezax. Auriya's cats took a good hit from the nerf bat, with the damage from their Savage Pounce ability being cut in half. Finally, Priests' Divine Hymn, which was completely reworked in patch 3.1, had its bonus healing to affected targets nerfed from 15% to 10%; I never use the spell, so I don't much care.

[View Remaining 1 Paragraphs]

It took a few tries, but Ghostcrawler has finally agreed to post a "state of the Hunters" on the forums, and there's both good and bad news. First of all, GC flatly lays out that Hunter DPS was too high in Naxx -- Blizzard wants Hunters to be fighting with Locks, Rogues, and Mages for top DPS, not head and shoulders above them. And Survival is still the top DPS build in PvE; while GC says it's probably not a huge increase from the other specs, they are seeing it do better consistently. That said, Hunter DPS may be a little low now, but Blizzard isn't quite sure, for two reasons. First, people are still learning the Ulduar fights, and they don't completely trust the data they've gotten so far. And second, the main goal for fights in there was supposed to be variety, so there are very few places where DPS can just go all out and test how powerful they really are. GC says you should be asking "what's my DPS in this fight," rather than just "what's my DPS?"

[View Remaining 2 Paragraphs]

According to a recent list by Develop magazine, Blizzard has dethroned Nintendo to become the most bankable game studio in the world. I'm surprised they weren't there already, but I guess it's just this side of possible that Nintendo is hard to budge. Develop's top 100 is compiled by their editorial team and accounts for total sales, reputation within the industry, and a variety of other criteria. When all was said and done, the editors wrote, Warcraft "continues to do the sort of numbers previously reserved for crime syndicates and smaller members of the United Nations."

[View Remaining 3 Paragraphs]

We've had WoW and Diablo 3-themed BlizzCon/Worldwide Invitational in-game pets already, so you might say "hell, it's about time" when we tell you that Grunty, a murloc in Space Marine power armor, is on its way.

MMO-Champion's Boubouille, head of the Romulan Data Miners Guild, discovered the pet's model while performing routine excavation on the newly-updated 3.1.2 patch files.

[View Remaining 3 Paragraphs]

PTR Maintenance - 5/11/09
I wouldn't be surprised to see a new build tonight, stay tuned for more info!
Quote from: Dresorull (Source)We will be bringing down the PTR servers for maintenance today at approximately 11:00am PST.

[View Remaining 1 Paragraphs]

PTR 3.1.2 - Build 9889
A new build has been deployed on PTRs, the talent calculator has been updated to the latest build.

[View Remaining 3 Paragraphs]

Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

Lately there's been a big discussion about the exact nature of the proc on Val'anyr and which class should get it. Bornakk finally stepped in and explained how the legendary mace works. What people don't know is that the actual fragments also have a mysterious proc: "Chance when picked up: Increases drama rating by 500." This proc is so powerful, in fact, that just one fragment can send a guild's entire healing team into an emotional tailspin. In this week's e-mail, the blessing of an unexpected fragment from a guild's first Ulduar kill quickly becomes a curse.

[Expand 4 Paragraphs]

WoW authors seem to be in the spotlight of late and after their last live chat with Arthas authoress Christie Golden, WorldofWar.net have already got the next one - this time with Richard A. Knaak - set up.

[View Remaining 2 Paragraphs]

Volcano sent us this tip about Pokerface, the new video by Ayukyo. Volcano hints that Ayukyo could be one of Demachic's favorite machinimators. Whether or not that's true, I can certainly see how that might be the case. Ayukyo's style is light, friendly, and warm. While your mileage is going to vary depending on whether you like the main character Blood Elves, I certainly enjoy the sense of fun Ayukyo is putting in the video.

[View Remaining 2 Paragraphs]

Quite a week on the podcast last Saturday -- Alex Ziebart, Adam Holisky, Turpster and I spent a considerable amount of time answering your emails (talking about everything from whether VoA has been ruined with the new raid boss to the never-say-die issue about which tank is best to take with you), and when we finally did sit down to the Meat of the Show, there was a lot, there, too: an interview with Tom Chilton, who Val'anyr is for (and that crazy proc), and we even snuck in a little Bloodlust/Heroism talk. Listen in to the show on any of the links below.

And don't forget: this Wednesday at 6pm Eastern, we'll be doing the show at a special time, since I'm out of town next weekend. And our live video show will be going down on the 23rd at 3:30pm Eastern, so mark your calendars for that if you like.

[View Remaining 4 Paragraphs]

One of our team members is a real pack rat. He stocks up on anything that might potentially have value whenever he can get it inexpensively. He’s got bags, bank tabs and his own guild bank filled to the brim with eternals of all flavors, BoE epic items, various consumables, and -get this- a guild bank tab filled entirely with stacks of Runic Mana Potions. Yes, that’s a total of 490 mana potions. We were blown away when this came up in a recent meeting between the WoWenomics team members. The rest of the team were kind of giving him a hard time about hoarding so many items as though he were planning for doomsday. We asked him if, when Blizzard finally allows player housing, he plans to build an underground bunker. He took our teasing in stride and said it’s all part of his personal gold-making strategy. He is not ‘stock piling’ anything. He likes to buy items at their cheapest and simply resell them when the value is higher than whatever he paid. In his words, he collects these items and is thus poised when the market goes up to “drop it like it’s hot”.

He makes thousands of gold per week just selling items at the height of their value. He never crashes a market by over-posting his sales- he simply bleeds them back into the economy no more than five at a time and reaps the profits. For this strategy to work he has to follow a strict bid/ask policy and adjust his buy and sell levels almost daily. Even items that he ‘needs’ are subject to his buy and sell policy. For example, as a tailor he stocks vast quantities of Moonshroud, Ebonweave and Spellweave for his crafting needs but is more than happy to sell them, even if he might need them later, when the price is right. See, he understands that the WoW market, like almost all markets, is cyclic and thus prone to ups and downs. Why stockpile any item if you can simply sell it when it’s high and buy it again later at a lower price. In this sense, let the AH be your bank and make a few gold on the items that you would otherwise keep. So, as he explains it, he’s not actually hoarding anything- everything is up for sale. He’s simply waiting for the right ‘ask’ level and he’ll begin selling off.

[View Remaining 6 Paragraphs]

Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly look at the mechanics, issues, and zen of the Death Knight class.

With 3.1 sort of leveling out for now, It's probably a good time to switch our views to leveling. It's a good a time as any to welcome any new Death Knights into the fold and give them a few tips for getting through that silly old Outland content and into Northrend.

[Expand 4 Paragraphs]

Kauro of <Brutal Death> on Crushridge writes, "I was flying around on my druid one day looking for lowbies to gank when I came across the needle thing floating above the Mooncrest Gardens. (I think that's what they're called.) I found out that there's an invisible barrier surrounding the rotating thing on the edge of the platform and stood on it for some fun, dancing tauren excitement! That's not the Arcanomicron! IT'S APOCOTAUREN!" Personally, I think this is reiteration of an important lesson we all learned from Dr. Egon Spengler: don't cross the streams. You never know what's going to come out.

[View Remaining 1 Paragraphs]

While browsing the General Discussion forums the other day, I noticed a recently-resurrected 2007 thread collecting players' oldest screenshots. Due to the age of the thread, some of the links (mostly on the first two pages) are dead and gone, which was really disappointing because some of them sound great, but there are plenty of good ones. Among the best are the character creation screen during beta, the old Troll epic mount, and -- according to Gorhendizzle of Bloodhoof on page 5 -- the first publicity screenshot Blizz ever released. I don't know whether that's true, but trying to figure out what the screenshot is of is driving me nuts. It looks like Elwynn, but I can't tell where.

[View Remaining 1 Paragraphs]

World first Glory of the Ulduar Raider by Ensidia
Ensidia (EU-Magtheridon) succesfully completed the Glory of the Ulduar Raider and is the first guild to get the Rusted Proto-Drake ! Congratulations to them!

[View Remaining 3 Paragraphs]

This installment of All the World's a Stage is the thirty-second in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class (or profession!) well, without embarrassing yourself.

Blacksmiths are known for being brawny folk -- hammering pieces of metal together is not easy work after all. But in World of Warcraft, even the smallest gnome or scrawniest elf can be a great blacksmith. Azeroth is a land where even the smallest people can wield the biggest of axes, so it would follow that they could craft them too, as well as any other sort of armor or weapon that they could imagine.

[Expand 2 Paragraphs]