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

• Runeforge Gossip isn't very happy with the recent Death Knight Q&A.
• I am a Paladin... has an initial reaction to Paladins on the Patch 3.2 PTR.
• Banana Shoulders takes a great look at Epic Gems and Jewelcrafting in Patch 3.2.
• Matticus thinks the emblem changes in Patch 3.2 are great.
• Mystic Chicanery talks about the add-on Power Auras.


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Didn't get your tickets for BlizzCon? Planning to pick up the Internet stream instead, because you don't have DirecTV at home? Now's your chance -- the page has appeared to order up the official livestream in HD video straight from the conference. For $39.95, you get over 16 hours of video from the convention floor, as well as all the main stage presentations, tournament coverage, and even the Grunty the Murloc Space Marine pet. There's more answers over on their FAQ page if you have more questions.

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We've heard this argument before, and every time Blizzard makes a change to help players complete quests more quickly, it comes up again. And with the recent announcement that Blizzard will actually be adding quest targets to the ingame maps (again replicating another function of the popular Questhelper addon), players have again brought up the old argument: is the game too dumbed-down? Originally, when the game began (though I don't know anyone that didn't still use Wowhead to find quest coordinates even back then), you were sent "east" to find a tiny little brown backpack to click on, and in the next patch, not only will you see that brown backpack sparkling with flares as you get close, but you'll have it marked on your map the entire time.

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Wowhead has been promising a profiler system for quite some time (it's been under development for over two years, according to the site), and now it's finally here.

Wowhead's profiler has pretty much every feature you might want from a modern profiling site, and fits right in to the excellent Wowhead interface. Armory import, 3D character view, gear sets, gear scores, upgrade search - it's all there. You can save your characters however you want, link them to your friends, check puggies, and so forth.

It's just gone public, so bugs are to be expected. Report them to Wowhead if you find them; the Wowhead team is very responsive. New features are also in development, such as embeddable 3D widgets of your characters, or automatic comparison between items in the site database and a profile of your choice.

But what is it actually like to use? Well, it's pretty pleasant. Just go to the Profiles tab, pick your region, realm, and character name, and away you go. You can save any profile for future quick reference from the "my profiles" drop-down in the top-right. I encounter a short (15 second) queue to refresh my character from the Armory, and then was presented with all kinds of useful information. Here's Skosiris's page, for example.

Similar to sites like WoW Heroes or Be Imba, Wowhead assigns a gear score for each character. This takes into account the quality (ilvl) of your items, enchants, and gems. The gear score is color-coded for quick reference: white, green, blue, or purple (an orange score is theoretically possible, but it would take a gear score of 4,000). This could be a good reference for checking on unfamiliar characters, if it's weighted well.

The other information is all standard stuff, although it's very well presented. You can see a player's progress in achievements on the Normal and Heroic modes of the various raids, as well as how many of each kind of Emblem they've looted. A gold border around a raid's icon (like Naxx-10 and OS-10 in the screenshot) indicate that the character has cleared the raid. The default Armory panes ("Base," "Defenses," etc.) with all your character's stats are broken out for easy reference below that.

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Ethic at Kill Ten Rats has a post up about something that a lot of you have probably been through: more and more I'm hearing about people returning to the game. I've been playing ever since I signed up a few years ago, but that's really only because I'm writing about it -- I'm pretty ADD when it comes to games, so left on my own, I probably would have walked away from WoW a long time ago. But Blizzard is really good at bringing players back by tweaking the game in exactly the way they woud like. I feel like if I had left, I would have definitely come back in for a while, if not with Burning Crusade than definitely with Wrath.

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Ok, we've got quite a bit of information on Patch 3.2 now, and even though this major content patch isn't introducing too many new things to the class, it does shake it up a bit. Nothing too big, but it should keep everyone on their toes. But first we'll talk about one thing that isn't related to class skills or nerfs or anything like that... first I'd like to encourage everyone to get chummy with the Argent dudes. Do their mind-numbing daily quests and all that, get the Crusader title if you want... and along the way collect 100 Champion's Seals.

According to the PTR, the new Paladin-exclusive Argent Charger is available on the Tournament Grounds for a mere one hundred seals. Of course, Blizzard is also giving away Tier 9 gear for free during the testing phase, so that cost could still change. Still, here's that pony that Ghostcrawler promised all of us. It's a fitting item for an entire faction run by Paladins, right? Anyway, enjoy that pony because not everything in Patch 3.2 is as nice a ride.

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I hope everybody's been having fun on the PTR. I know Matt's been having a grand time in Patch 3.2's new Battleground, the Isle of Conquest. Thanks to all the players who have been airship-dropping, flag-capturing, glaive-thrower-riding, and general-killing, Blizzard has announced that they will be making some changes to the Isle of Conquest in the next iteration of the PTR build. The changes are as follows:

• Increased all the gates' health from 300,000 to 600,000.
• Increased the reinforcement count from 200 to 400.
• Significantly increased the health and damage of the keep generals.
• Reduced effect range of the siege damage caused by Seaforium. Both the player damage and the siege damage caused should be 10 yards now.
• The Huge Seaforium piles will now despawn for 20 seconds once looted.
• Glaive Thrower - Reduced the cooldown of Blade Salvo from 60 seconds to 30 seconds.
• Glaive Thrower - Reduced movement speed.
• Demolisher - The Hurl Boulder and Ram effects no longer share a cooldown.
• Keep Cannons - Fixed a bug that was causing them to do much more damage than intended.
• Keep Cannons - Can now be repaired once they are destroyed by clicking on them. This repair process takes 8 seconds and can be interrupted, similar to capturing a PvP objective.
• Siege Engine - Significantly Increased health.


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Welcome to Scattered Shots. I am Eddie "Brigwyn" Carrington from The Hunting Lodge and I'll be your tour guide each Thursday as we explore what makes our Hunters tick and how we can make them better.

General changes

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The Public Test Realm for Patch 3.2 is in full swing, and even though the Argent Coliseum isn't available for testing just yet, there's a brand-new wing in Wintergrasp's Vault of Archavon housing a brand-new giant to beat up. Enter Koralon, the Flame Watcher.

He's a stout fellow, and you probably recognize his model, which he shares with Volkhan from Halls of Lightning and Ignis from Ulduar, replete with crotch-pot. And as you may have also guessed, he uses fire spells and abilities. He doesn't currently drop loot on the PTR, though I assume the distribution will be much the same as it is with Emalon -- two or so pieces of Tier 9 gear along with a lion's share of PVP items.

Impressions and strategy after the jump.

A word of warning: I've tried Koralon on the PTR, and we one-shot him. He is currently easier than Archavon in terms of execution, and much easier than Emalon in terms of DPS benchmarks. We were all in very good gear for our level. Your mileage may vary.

Koralon has no adds. The fight can be single-tanked on 10-man, or at least we did it that way. Here's a breakdown of his abilities:

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Two Bosses Enter ... but only One Boss Leaves, in WoW.com's series of fantasy death matches. This season's bosses come from the five-man instances of Wrath of the Lich King.

Charging ... goring ... exploding ... cannibalizing ... This week's Two Bosses Enter deathmatch is ugly, ugly, ugly. In the ring: Moorabi of Gundrak versus Trollgore of Drak'tharon Keep. It's going to be rough, and it's going to be bloody.

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We've heard about WoW in schools before, but usually it's at schools of higher learning, where they're studying social networks or how society evolves. But a group in North Carolina is planning to put WoW in schools in a different way: by using situations in World of Warcraft to develop literacy, mathematics, and other competencies. WoWinSchools has math lessons and other tests based around WoW terms and knowledge: one example question asks "Which types of heals produce a greater number of recovered hit points during an encounter?" Another wants to know "Which buff (a spell that enhances a character's abilities) is more effective for your character, Blessing of Kings or Blessing of Might?" The idea is to use situations that the kids are familiar with in World of Warcraft (raiding, for example), and apply higher level thinking to those situations.

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Upcoming Isle of Conquest Changes
Quote from: Zarhym (Source)Based on player feedback and testing, we will be making several changes to Isle of Conquest in the next test realm build. We'd like to lay them out for you here in the hopes we're able to encourage continued participation and feedback.

• Increased all the gates' health from 300,000 to 600,000.
• Increased the reinforcement count from 200 to 400.
• Significantly increased the health and damage of the keep generals.


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We've heard about WoW in schools before, but usually it's at schools of higher learning, where they're studying social networks or how society evolves. But a group in Australia is planning to put WoW in schools in a different way: by using situations in World of Warcraft to develop literacy, mathematics, and other competencies. WoWinSchools has math lessons and other tests based around WoW terms and knowledge: one example question asks "Which types of heals produce a greater number of recovered hit points during an encounter?" Another wants to know "Which buff (a spell that enhances a character's abilities) is more effective for your character, Blessing of Kings or Blessing of Might?" The idea is to use situations that the kids are familiar with in World of Warcraft (raiding, for example), and apply higher level thinking to those situations.

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Introducing a new class to a game that didn't really have an empty niche was tricky, but they think they have succeeded - "perhaps too well." They like that there's a lot of room for variation in player skill.

In patch 3.2, they wanted to reduce DK AoE and defensive cooldowns, which they definitely did.

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As expected, the twink enthusiasts over at TwinkInfo are supremely excited about that experience switch coming in patch 3.2 -- not only are they finally getting to stop XP gains on demand, but Blizzard has given them their own little easter egg in the game. We already knew the two NPCs with the switch for each faction were called Behsten in Stormwin and Slahtz in Orgrimmar (get it? "Best in slots?"), but now that the PTR is open, they've discovered something else: the NPCs themselves are twinked out with classic Rogue twink gear. From the Blackened Defias Chest to the Feet of the Lynx (and dual Assassin's Blades with Lifestealing), Blizzard went all out on these guys. As Drayner says, the only thing missing is a 'chanted Fishing Hat.

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BlizzCon approaches! Preparing for BlizzCon is your regular source for tips on how best to prepare for Blizzard's gaming extravaganza.

There are going to be lines at BlizzCon -- long, long lines. There will be lines to get badges, lines for the store, lines for gameplay, lines for food, etc. There will also be some walking, as the Anaheim Convention center is big. And sitting will take place, if you can get a seat for the more popular events. But mostly there will be standing... in lines.

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• Flame damage reduced.
• Damage/health gained from Emergency Mode reduced slightly.
• Range of Emergency Fire Bot's Deafening Siren reduced in heroic; no longer cast on normal.
• Damage from Heat Wave in phase 2 reduced.
• Damage from Plasma Blast in phase 1 reduced.

That's a pretty wide array of nerfs. I haven't tried the hard mode - my guild is still working on getting the normal mode down consistently. I do love the fight on normal, though; it's not easy, but it is super-fun.

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What to say about patch 3.2 so far? One of the dangers of writing about the PTR in general is the possibility that, as you are typing out what you want to say, a brand new PTR patch is dropping. To some degree this would be a welcome circumstance even though it would erase what I'm writing about now, because the current PTR has nothing for warriors.

Well, okay, not nothing. They buffed Armored to the Teeth slightly. On the PTR it grants 1/2/3 AP per 108 armor, as opposed to on live, where it takes 180 armor for that same benefit. Why 108? Maybe because it was easy to swap the 8 and the 0. Honestly, I couldn't tell you. The amount of AP you get from the talent isn't tremendous, but anything's better than nothing I suppose.

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Recent In-Game Fixes - 6/25/09
The nerf is now official.
Quote from: Bornakk (Source)6/25/09

• The hard mode of the Mimiron encounter has received the following changes: the damage of the flames has been reduced, the damage/health gained from the Emergency Buff has been slightly reduced, the range of the Emergency Fire Bot’s Deafening Siren ability has been reduced in heroic difficulty and this ability is no longer cast in normal difficulty, the damage of Heat Wave in phase 2 has been reduced, and the damage from Plasma Blast in phase 1 has been reduced.

Class Q&A Series: Death Knight
Quote from: Ghostcrawler (Source)Today we continue our class Q&A series with Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street and the development team, in which we’re taking a look at each class and answering some of the top questions brought forward by their communities. Next up, we take a look at the most asked questions from the death knight class and find out more about the design philosophy behind the first Hero class, the expectations for the class, and what may lie in store for it in the future.

Death Knight Q&A with the Voice of the Class Design Team, Ghostcrawler

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Robin Torres writes WoW, Casually for the player with limited playtime. Of course, you people with lots of playtime can read this too, but you may get annoyed by the fact that we are unashamed, even proud, of the fact that beating WoW isn't our highest priority. Take solace in the fact that your gear is better than ours, but if that doesn't work, remember that we outnumber you. Not that that's a threat, after all, we don't have time to do anything about it. But if WoW were a democracy, we'd win.

Oh my. All of this Patch 3.2 stuff is a bit overwhelming. We'll go over the changes that affect most casual players here, but there is still a lot of info that I won't cover. Many class changes are on the way, as well as a series of Q&As that Blizzard is releasing periodically. Also, the professions are getting some attention. So keep an eye on our Guide to Patch 3.2 for the latest changes that are specific to your character choices. Here is an analysis of the changes that affect most players with limited playtime:

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All Souls Day by Pulverpadda represents one of the most frustrating scenarios a machinima author can experience. That is to say, while he's working on his movie in good faith, "real life" seems to keep getting in the way. Pulverpadda is joining his second year in the Army, and it's going to be at least a month before he's able to really get cranking.

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Notice : This news is obviously a way to see how much load the item database can take, it might be slow while we tune a few things and extinguish a few fires.

Mimiron Hard Mode Nerfed
In the past hours a lot of people have reported major changes to the hard mode version of Mimiron (See this post). So far it looks like the changes are:

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Two Bosses Enter ... but only One Boss Leaves, in WoW.com's series of fantasy deathmatches. This season's bosses hail from the five-man instances of Wrath of the Lich King.

It was indeed the day that time stood still: Chrono-Lord Epoch (The Culling of Stratholme) shattered the Halls of Lightning's Volkhan in this week's Two Bosses Enter deathmatch. "Honestly, Chrono-Lord Epoch should be able to destroy pretty much any boss in the game," observed kabshiel. "He can stop time, for Pete's sake! All Volkhan does is make little robots and break them. Manipulating the space-time continuum > Toy making."

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Runasutaru the Insane of Wildhammer-EU is not amused by the frivolity of the Midsummer Fire Festival. "In the middle of all the festivities at this time of the year, most forget that the threat posed by the enemy still remains, not stopping for anything," she writes. "I was reminded of this after being tasked with the defeat of Lord Ahune. Picking up his Frostscythe, I decided to take a pause from all the excitement flying around in the air. Carefully selecting my gear for the best camouflage possible in Icecrown, I assumed a position near a bridge and started observing the movement of the army forming below me."

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Heirlooms are something I've not really had much experience with but as I've been doing Wintergrasp a lot since hitting 80 (prior to my burnout, that is). However as the prospect of re-rolling a very different kind of class becoming more promising, so did heirlooms.

I remember hearing about them at last year's WWI and it sounded like a great idea at the time. A way to may have your main help out an alt. I would be able to outfit my lowbie toon with decent gear that gets better as she levels. Plus I like the fact they are an homage to classic WoW by taking their names and graphics from weapons no one ever uses anymore.

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