Trial of the Champion (5 Player Dungeon) Open
Stay tuned for more information! Feel free to post anything you find in comments.
Quote from: Daelo (Source)The Trial of the Champion is now open on North American PTR realms. We're going to leave it open for testing for a while, unless something is broken to the point of causing serious testing issues.

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In an unexpected turn of events, the latest patch 3.2 build on the PTR is giving Val'anyr a buff, and something of a nerf to accompany it. If you didn't see it in the official notes, here's the detail regarding Val'anyr before I dig into it:

• Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings: This item's stats and level have been increased to match the power level of healer weapons coming from the Coliseum 25-person normal difficulty instance. In addition, each time Val'anyr is equipped, Blessing of Ancient Kings will be placed on a 45-second cooldown before it can occur.

Well, now! What is this? Blizzard scaling up a Legendary? Unheard of... until now! You could call it a pleasant surprise, but it's more pleasant than surprising. Val'anyr's raw stats were never very impressive. In fact, when the weapon stats were first revealed, a lot of people were rather underwhelmed! The proc is downright incredible, enough to give it more longevity than you'd ever expect, but the stats themselves were only a bit better than other weapons you found in Ulduar. Considering the weapon is a Legendary, that's more than a little bit odd. Legendaries are often (but not always) heads and tails above the competition in their tier of gear stat-wise. I could be completely off-base, but I'm pretty sure that's what they're trying to fix. A legendary weapon shouldn't last you forever (or even an entire expansion), but it should probably last you at least half a tier of raiding, shouldn't it?

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Stars was kind enough to provide videos of their killshot, which we've embedded for you below. See how exactly you kill a god without any help! Part 2 is after the cut.

Lead Encounter Designer Scott Mercer, a.k.a. Daelo, posted an updated testing schedule for the Crusader's Coliseum on the Patch 3.2 PTR today. The good news is that EU players get to try another set of bosses -- this time the Faction Champions. The bad news is that the US PTR instance servers are still broken following last night's aborted testing attempt. Not good.

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Gallery: Tier 9 Horde Plate

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The Patch 3.2 PTR has been updated to build number 10083, and with it comes a list of interesting changes to the official patch notes -- some not-insignificant class changes (Wind Shock not sharing a cooldown with other Shocks, Earth Shock no longer interrupting), a buff for Val'anyr, and lots more. Thanks to MMO-Champion for nabbing these.

Some samples are below, and the rest of the notes are after the jump.

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As dear Wryxian announced earlier today, we're getting a new build on the PTR. The unofficial notes for this build are already making the rounds, and they're... not very interesting! Perhaps the most notable change is that the change to mount casting speed, previously only applied to ground mounts, now affects flying mounts as well.

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Lorecrafted is one of my favorite blogs these days. If you've been reading this site for awhile, you probably know that one of the things I enjoy most is geeking out about lore, both positively and negatively. I love picking things apart, speculating on random story snippets, and all of that sort of thing. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to spend much quality time with Know Your Lore due to other commitments, so Lorecrafted replaces that void in my life at least a little bit.

Just recently, Greyseer (the author behind Lorecrafted), finished up a three part speculation series on what he would like to see come out of a Maelstrom expansion. Reading over it, you realize just how many different forces could be at play in the expansion. I don't think everything will play out the way that he thinks they'll play out, but that just lends more weight to just how much could happen in the Maelstrom.

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Val'anyr Stats changes in 3.2
As mentioned in the patch notes update earlier tonight, Val'anyr has been boosted in patch 3.2. Below are the new stats.

• Item Level has been increased from 239 to 245
• Stamina has been increased from 52 to 55
• Intellect has been increased from 54 to 57
• Spell Power has been increased from 587 to 621
• Critical Strike Rating has been increased from 47 to 50
• Haste Rating has been increased from 46 to 49

Trial of the Crusader - Updated Test Schedule
Quote from: Daelo (Source)Here's the current schedule for Trial of the Crusader PTR testing:

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Patch 3.2 PTR Notes Update
The official patch notes have been updated to reflect the changes from the latest build.
Quote from: Blizzard (Source)Arenas

• Beginning with season 7, players will no longer have access to the newest season's weapons or shoulder armor and will not qualify for the Gladiator title/rewards with ratings from the 2v2 bracket alone. Ratings obtained through 3v3 and 5v5 game play will be required for these rewards, while the rest of the newest season's items will remain available to players in all brackets (standard rating restrictions still apply).


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We've talked about wowtwitter here on the site before -- they're the ones who created a whole other Twitter-like service just for your WoW characters (and that featured verification of your toons, so that no one else could claim or tweet as them). The site is definitely growing, but they wanted to give it that extra oomph, and so they're giving away a free FigurePrint to someone who joins up and posts a special screenshot. If you want a chance at the prize, what you've got to do is log in to the site and verify your character (as we said last time, it requires that you remove a piece of gear and then log out so the Armory can see the change), and then use their new screenshot uploading tool to post a screenshot with "wowtwitter" somewhere in the picture. Then they'll take the screenshots with the top three "like" totals (other users on the site can approve of your uploads), and the one they choose will win a real-life 3D sculpture of their character from FigurePrints.

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Not all of us get to run around with Val'aynr. But for you mace casters out there who aren't first on your guild's Legendary list, here's another sweet mace to hunt down.

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Word has suddenly started flooding in that the EU-first kill of Heroic Yogg-Saron with no Keepers, a.k.a. Heroic: Alone in the Darkness, has been scored today by... no, not Ensidia. Paragon of Lightning's Blade EU has managed to steal the EU first (and world second) achievement. Hopefully this one will actually stick, unlike Exodus's kill.

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Yogg-Saron +0 Video by Stars
Stars just released a video of their Yogg-Saron +0 kill, the stream is split in 2 files because of the time limit on youtube.

• Torrent download link
• Video on WoWMovies.cn
• Yogg-Saron +0 World First Kill by Stars
• Yogg-Saron +0 Strategy by Stars


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Patch 3.2 - PTR Build 10083
A minor build has been deployed on PTRs, nothing really exciting here for the moment.

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Let the Drama Mamas guide you through the sticky business of dodging drama, toward becoming that player everyone wants in their group. Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are taking your questions at DramaMamas (at) WoW (dot) com.

Getting your own 15 Minutes of Fame is not a bad thing – except when it's for all the wrong reasons. Leave the drama, Dear Reader, to the denizens of GuildWatch. Introducing WoW.com's Drama Mamas, here to help you stay out of the wrong kind of spotlight. Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are real-life mamas and experienced WoW players. And just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your server.

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We've posted about the WoW TCG Lifecounter app for the iPhone before, and now the official WoW TCG site has spotlighted that one and another Upper Deck-related app for Apple's little handheld devices. WM Match Tracker is a free application on the App Store that will keep track of everything you need during WoW minis matches, including lifepoints for every character in play, the master clock of the entire game, and even each characters' clock (if you've played the game, you'll know that will tell you when each player can come back into play after using a certain ability). Sounds pretty useful, and the price is great, too: completely free. Of course, you don't need the app -- you can use pen and paper (and each board for the game usually has a clock on it), but if you've got an iPhone or iPod touch, it could come in handy.

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Wryxian just announced a new Patch 3.2 PTR build is on the burner for tonight as the PTRs go down for maintenance this afternoon.

This will bring Patch 3.2 up to build #10083 for those of you keeping track.

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Everyone can have slow days, even machinima authors. It seems X-Cross had one of those days, and he was feeling less-than-entertained. Out of those idle hands, he authored Herpi Derpi I was bored. I'm featuring it today because X-Cross has created quite of bit of good work, so something by him is relatively newsworthy. And, even though I'm not proud to admit it, it somehow made me laugh.

As you might expect from the title, Herpi Derpi I was bored isn't exactly a groundbreaking feat of storytelling and fine-tuned graphics. It's a quick, short sight gag, followed by some relatively standard anti-elf ranting. This probably isn't the most high-brow comedy we've ever feature, but I enjoyed it.

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The folks over at Ten Ton Hammer have a post with some anecdotal data about Hunters -- they claim that Azeroth's ranged DPS pet class is on a decline lately, and they've got only some guild application numbers to back the theory up. Mem over there says that there are a few diehard Hunters still floating around, and lots of alts, but that as a class, it's fallen off in terms of popularity for sure.

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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. These helpful hints are particularly suited for convention rookies. But if you are a con veteran, we'd love to hear your advice and wisdom in the comments as well.

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Would this be considered a still unlife? Onet of <Tainted> on Daggerspine-EU has decided that it's time to update his portrait to reflect his current appearance. After all, he's lost so much weight since he died. And he's got a nifty new hat. The bright colors really distract the eye from his rotting, gray, maggot-infested flesh. With this as his Facebook picture, he's sure to get all the undead ladies.

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I was never one for these tabletop strategy games or D&D but thanks to WoW I have become quite a tactician. Tactics are so integrated in the game that they come into play figuring out how to down Hogger without aggroing too many of his numerous minions, to sneaking through hostile territory and avoiding NPCs who want to kill you all the way to confronting KT in Naxx or Ignis in Ulduar. The latter is especially true, Ignis is a nightmare where a knowledge of tactics is life or death. When your raid leader asks if everyone knows the tactics and you all nod heads and mutter yes, it's not actually courtesy, he or she is trying to figure out how many people will survive long enough to down the giant er ... giant.

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Upon our return from vacation we  will be conducting one week of focused WoWenomic analysis.  This poll is your chance to vote on what sort of posts you are most interested in reading for the week.  During this time we will focus exclusively on the types of posts chosen by our readers.

Your choices are as follows:

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I’m off on vacation for about ten days.  I may not have an opportunity to post during this time and will most likely not have contact with the rest of the WoWenomics team regardless (which is the vacation part of the vacation no doubt).  At any rate, you might enjoy looking over a few of our older posts during our absence.

Here, in no particular order, are a few of my personal favorites:

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