Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the rogue class. This week, we talk about what Ghostcrawler has to say about Subtlety in the future.

With patch 3.3's release nearing, both Assassination and Combat rogues have buffs to look forward to. Mutilate will be a true force in PvE, returning us to our iconic weapons: a pair of poison-soaked daggers. The Deadly Poison change I talked about last week will benefit Combat as well, though not to the same degree as Mutilate. Icecrown and Season 8 are shaping up to be the most exciting things we'll see in WotLK.

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Ok Blizzard. We give up. Patch 3.3 can come out now, please. Guilds are cleaning up even the Tribute achievements in Trial of the Crusader, and pretty much everybody is just sitting around waiting for Icecrown to drop. Even drama is taking a break -- with plenty of loot to go around and everyone getting what they want, nobody is actually fighting any more. Where's our crazy ninjas and raiding breakups? We need to get some new progression content, and soon!

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Gnomeaggedon has written up a great guide to something a lot of players (including me) haven't worried about at all in the past: min/maxing your gear before you ever hit level 80. Aside from twinking, there seems to be almost no reason to worry much about gear before you hit the endgame -- you can level in almost anything these days, and by the time you hit 80, you'll replace it all anyway. Why bother? But Gnome makes a good point: he says you should put the minimum of effort in to max out your gear's power. Better gear will help you level faster, will help you play better, and I'll even add that it will help you learn your class better; figuring out early on which stats you want to choose over others will be a big help when you are dealing with all of the epics at level 80. You don't have to spend all your time choosing gear pre-80, as most of it will get replaced with regular quest rewards anyway. But it's good to put some thought into it.

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New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. Visit WoW.com's WoW Rookie Guide for links to all our tips, tricks and how-to's.

When PvP leveling in Battlegrounds was introduced with Patch 3.2 (August 2009), players rushed to try their blades and spellbooks at this new way to gain XP. It was fresh, it was fun -- and boy, was it fast! It took just one month for Blizzard to nerf experience gains (patch 3.2.2, September 2009), rolling back XP rates to more reasonable levels. Today, while we wouldn't say that Battlegrounds are a recommended way to level up, we do continue to recommend them as a healthy part of your leveling experience. (Yes, I was wearing scrubs and holding a clipboard and stethoscope during that last statement.) Let's take a look at all the reasons you should and shouldn't be PvPing on your path to level 80.

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Acknowledging the power of social media and networking, Blizzard has created fan pages for their three big franchises on Facebook. Following the trend of other products and companies who have created Facebook pages in order to deliver updates, promotions, and other fan extras, Blizzard has set up pages for Diablo, Starcraft, and Warcraft. Interested fans need to have a Facebook account in order to "become a fan" of the pages, which Blizzard says they have big plans for.

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Are you ready for the Battleground Bonanza tonight? A few It came from the Bloggies have been leveling their characters to either the 10 to 19 range or the 60 to 69 range, though I'm sure we'll have attendees in the other ranges too. Here are the details:

• When: Wednesday, December 2, 11:00pm EST (8:00pm PST, 9:00pm Server time)
• Where: The Hall of the Brave (where the Battlemasters are), Orgrimmar, Zangarmarsh U.S.
• Who: Any level 10 or above Horde character.
• How: Ask any It came from the Blog Lurker or Robinella for a guild invite.
• What: Battleground premades

We will do whatever Battlegrounds are appropriate for our level ranges and numbers. I want to at least do a couple AVs in the 60 to 69 range, regardless of how many people show up, because even a small premade is great for defending Galv and recapping the towers.

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Blizzard's onslaught of fifth anniversary press continues. As we said on the podcast last week, Turpster and I both are kind of "meh" about the whole thing at this point -- just how much can you read/hear about how the game has changed over the last five years? But just in case you're still interested, here's two good pieces from two big publications about WoW's 5th birthday. First up, Prospect magazine has a piece by Tom Chatfield about "the world's most famous computer game" -- he plays with his wife, and says that the game represents quite a few things he's enjoyed. It's diverse, all-encompassing, lets you act out (or show off) your fantasy self, and constantly rewards rather than punishes. It's this brilliant game, he says, which has allowed gaming a "bridgehead" into the mainstream. Interesting.

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Silverlined Productions has released the trailer for Revenge (Act 2). This is the follow up to the first piece of roleplay inspired work, called Revenge. In Act 2, Nixxiom is finally getting his chance to show down against the Lich King. That's pretty appropriate, when you consider the likely proximity of patch 3.3.

Interestingly, in the Myndflame post about the video, the author is pre-emptively defending his work against accusations of "god mode." That's a roleplay term in which the player considers their character so awesome, they win every encounter, and possess every virtue. Generally, in machinima and fan fiction, that dynamic is called "Mary Sue."

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Welcome back to Know Your Lore, WoW.com's column about the story behind the game we all play.

We talked last week about Quel'Delar, a sword of emerging lore, and the week before that we covered Darion Mograine, a pivotal figure to Death Knights and part of the reason we're fighting in Northrend. This week, however, we're kicking our look at the lore of Wrath of the Lich King in the caboose with a look at possibly the most reviled orc to ever live. Sure, he probably wasn't the most evil orc ever (Gul'dan wins that one in a walk, boy howdy) but for sheer staying power and for having a role in the genocide of the orcs against the draenei, the sundering of Draenor into Outland, and for being the first Lich King, you really have to hand it to Ner'zhul. Here's an orc who manages to pop up a lot in the lore.

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West was determined to get the best spot in the house for viewing the Thunder Bluff fireworks, even if it meant getting up at sunrise to stake out his territory. The drawbacks of this plan only became evident when he was pushed off the cliff by a pack of stampeding tauren looking to bask in the warm rays. Should've stuck to those towers in Silvermoon.

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Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky be your host today.

I might be wrong with this one, but I think World of Warcraft is just a game. I mean, it's something we all do in our spare time, and have fun with, right?

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BoK brings up something I've thought a little bit about lately: their guild will occasionally run an encounter "blind," which means they'll go in without researching or learning any boss strategy ahead of time. This is generally something that only the highest-level guilds often do, and even then only on the PTR -- by the time bosses hit the live realms, their abilities are usually posted online somewhere. But some guilds enjoy a challenge, and doing a raid without knowing what's coming definitely keeps you on your toes. A lot of raiders think that's actually the "right" way to do it -- Blizzard's game doesn't come with strategies installed, so if the designers created the fight correctly, it should be clear, just from watching buffs and boss animations, what to do during a fight.

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Patch 3.3 - PTR Build 10952
A new build has been deployed on test realms, this build is a release candidate for live servers and as I said yesterday the patch should hit the live servers on December 8th/9th. Of course, this information isn't official and it could change if something bad happens. (That's why Blizzard never gives any ETA)


Nothing really new in this build, only changes from the official notes going live and a few tweaks.

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While we weren't going to announce this until we had something more definitive to announce, a couple other sites are running that patch 3.3 is due to be out next week. From what our multiple sources have told us, the following is true, and needs to get out to the rest of the community:

• Patch 3.3 is done, more or less.
• There are a couple server issues to be worked out.
• If the server issues are worked out, the patch will go live on December 8th.

We're not ready to say with 100% certainty that patch 3.3 will arrive next Tuesday for the US, Wednesday for the EU, but it looks like a good bet.

We should have more solid confirmation towards the end of the week (or sometime next Monday afternoon) and will bring it to you when we get it.

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