It looks like there will be realm maintenance for all US realms this February 2nd. Since it seems to be somewhat extended (3 AM PST to 11 AM PST) and we're waiting for the 3.3.2 patch to drop in order to start Arena Season 8, I'm willing to go out on a limb and suppose that there will most likely be the next minor content patch at this time. This will also most likely open the last wing of Icecrown Citadel.

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At least judging by the number of emails we've been getting about them, WoW scams have never been more popular than they are now. So I'm very happy to see that Blizzard has launched a new Account Security section on their Battle.net site, featuring tips on how to keep your Battle.net account safe.

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We've received many tips about Vuhdo and it was only a matter of time before it would be featured here. Vuhdo is one of the most popular raid healing addons available. It offers enough features and customization options to keep even the pickiest of UI enthusiasts happy. At the same time, if your entire UI is fried and the raid is about to start, Vuhdo works great out of the box.

What's so great about it? I thought you'd never ask. Let me show you.Like most healing frames, Vuhdo will show all information that's relevant to you.

• Health remaining
• Mana or energy remaining (Rage, runic power, etc)
• Dispellable debuffs (or non-dispellable ones)
• Rangefinder (If they're out of range, the player becomes transparent)
• Players who have pulled threat
• HoT effects
• Tags (AFK, disconnected, dead, etc.)

I'm not going to go over every feature, but I will touch on the ones that I find that are the most snazzy.
Debuff management One very important feature that healers need is the ability to enter and detect customized debuffs. As you can see above, I entered debuffs that normally wouldn't appear as dispellable abilities for a priest. Having Rune of Blood show up alerts me to which players will be taking more damage than others. Inoculated allows me to see who managed to get the buff and who missed out on it (and thus, giving them a defensive cool down of sorts allowing them to live).

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Is it just me or does it seem as though everyone (myself included) is playing Mass Effect right now? I suppose there are a few people who aren't, but I'm pretty sure they're off playing Star Trek Online. Well, I suppose we all have to find something to occupy our time between raid resets and daily timers. Oh, for the simple times when all we had to worry about was chasing Arthas and pals around Northrend -- juggling more games only means more problems! For this week in WRUP, commemorating the recent release of Bioware's Mass Effect 2, I've also asked the team what game they're looking forward to most in 2010 -- some of them even got the answer right. (Hint: it starts with "c" and ends with "ysm.")

• Adam Holisky (@adamholisky): jIH DichDaq taH reHlI' Hov leng Online Hoch juS. Qapla'! [Editor's note: we were asked not to translate, so you're sadly on your own for this one.]
• Alex Ziebart (@alexziebart): I'll probably just be running my heroics for Frost Emblems, but that's just about all I'm putting into WoW this weekend. Well, that and my Sunday raid. The rest of my gaming time will be dedicated to Mass Effect 2, which was my most anticipated game of 2010. It's pretty much amazing, and has immediately made Mass Effect 3 my most anticipated game of the next decade.
• Allison Robert (@AllisonRobert): probably gearing my shaman a bit more, and even though I say this every week, leveling his jewelcrafting. I keep meaning to do it, but it's just...so annoying. Also, going to experiment with my main to see just how much content I can solo.
• C. Christian Moore (@thearenaguy): One of the last aspects I have to succeed in with WoW is mass-gold generation. I'm going to be powerleveling inscription this weekend. I've been stocking this week on inscription mats -- some scribe was going out of business or something and I purchased a lot of materials at exceptionally low prices. I've bought 50 stacks of Ink of the Sea and ~30ish stacks of Icethorn. I'm guessing that'll get me somewhere around 450. I just hit 75 on my paladin by using low-level herbs (peacebloom/silverleaf) and will be going for 400 something when I can find a high level scribe to mill my Icethorn. My goal is to make a net profit of 10,000g next week. I'll let you guys know how it goes.
• Chase Christian (@madsushi): Going to party with David, hopefully get the Blood-Queen down in the Crimson Halls. I'm also hoping my Starcraft 2 beta key becomes useful this year!
• Christian Belt (@ihatewarlocks): Mass Effect. I missed out on it when it was new, but the good news about my procrastination? While you payed $60 for it, I snagged it used for $7.99! Suck on that, everybody! And now I will burn through it as quickly as possible so that I can hurry up and play its sequel, which I just bought... for $60. Is it too late to take back my "suck on that" comment? Oh, and most anticipated: gotta be Cataclysm.
• Daniel Whitcomb (@danielwhitcomb): I'll probably continue to play through Mass Effect 2. I might log on WoW long enough to do my dungeon dailies and grab those frost emblems, but no promises. As for the game of 2010 I'm mostly looking forward to? I'd say it was Mass Effect 2, which is already out and every bit as beautiful as I'd hoped it'd be. As far as things yet to come in 2010, you know I'm looking forward to the Cataclysm expansion, of course.
• Elizabeth Wachowski: Playing Mass Effect 2, particularly if we end up snowed in. I'm looking forward to Bioshock 2. After that? Any chance Fallout: New Vegas is coming out on time? Yeah, probably not.
• Eliah Hecht (@eliah): Taking a weekend trip up to Boston to see a friend, so probably no WoW for me. Game I'm most looking forward to? Cataclysm. Duh.
• Fox Van Allen (@foxvanallen): I've been leveling up a druid lately over on the Horde side of my server (gasp! traitor!) so I might do that for a while. Even though druids are clearly inferior to shadow priests in every way. Oh, and most looked forward to game? Final Fantasy XIII, hands down. So excited.
• Gregg Reece: I plan on spending Saturday afternoon with my very pregnant wife watching movies and Sunday tanking Plagueworks in Icecrown.
• Kelly Aarons (@Cadistra): I'll be recovering from surgery, and seeing if I'll still be able to play WoW. Also planning on renting Bayonetta and Darksiders. Games I'm looking forward to? Dante's Inferno and the Edgeworth Ace Attorney game. Yeah, I went there.
• Matt Low (@matticus): Busy playing through Mass Effect 1 before hitting Mass Effect 2.
• Michael Gray (@writegray): I'll be poking at the Crimson Hall. My most anticipated game? Surely, WoW on the iPad. No, really, that's what I'm hoping for nightly.
• Robin Torres (@cosmiclaurel): Weekend is family time as usual, so there will be some flavor of Rock Band for all of us, and The Spawn and I will be tackling our first raid in Toontown (4-man Sellbot Factory). After hours, The Spousal Unit and I will be Dungeon Findering with our baby draenei pallies. (I'm the tank and he's the healer, so no wait at any hour.) I wish Diablo 3 were coming out this year, otherwise I have a highly anticipated date with the goblin starting zones in Cataclysm.


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The WoW Insider Show returns to the airwaves today at 3:30 PM Eastern time, bringing with it your host Michael Sacco, cohost Matthew Rossi, and special guests and prolific cosplayers Ayabi and Sijia. We'll be answering reader emails, shootin' the breeze, and, of course, discussing the week's top stories on WoW.com and around the web. We'll also talk with Ayabi and Sijia about how they design, create, and make it work in their outfits.

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If the blood princes and Blood Queen Lana'thel are looking to attract adventurers to turn into new Scourge, they definitely know their audience. Lana'thel's got the scantily-clad blood elf lady thing going on to attract the guys, and the trio of vampiric princes should be able to fascinate the rampaging hordes of Twilight/True Blood/Vampire Diaries-watching girls. But be careful, folks. Even if you do manage to convince her to engage in romantic activities rather than bite you to death, those clawed wings are going to leave hellish scratch marks all over you. (Thanks to Sanaré of <End of Days> on Twisting Nether for the screenshot!)

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I admit it: I'm a contentious person. Sometimes I deliberately say or do something just because it will irritate people. Usually, I try and use this power for good and I'm hardly pretending to be the most effective person at it even out of people I know, but the other night it worked out rather beautifully. I decided to go DPS a random because I was bored and wanted to play around with DPS ideas I had. Namely, if it was worth dropping some hit and expertise to hit 80% passive ArP which I could just barely do and I wanted to test it in a setting where the hit and exp caps were lower than in a raid where bosses are effectively level 83 since in heroics the highest level you'll face is an 82 boss. So I hit the queue, waited the 35 minutes (it was fairly late and close to server reset) and got a FoS pop.

As soon as we get in the tank says he's never done it before and do we think he should drop the group. We all try to be reassuring, since everyone's had to start somewhere and his gear was certainly good enough for a heroic. Then the first pull began and we quickly learned that he wasn't kidding about having never done it before and that the answer he was actually hoping for was that someone else would tank, because he clearly had no idea what he was doing, period. Furthermore, he was ridiculously hyper-critical of the healer (who didn't seem to be having any significant issues healing the group) and would go on long tirades blaming the healer for not having healed him at all when the healer was clearly dropping heals on everyone in the group including him. Drop to 90% on a trash pull because you ran up the ramp out of LoS? Yell at the healer. Take damage from one of the ghostly skulls and not get healed to full before pulling the giant skeletons? Rant at the healer. Frankly, I have no idea why the guy took it.

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