Ardol has made a compelling post at World of Warcraft Philosophized, a blog which I can't remember adding to my feed reader, but which I'm now glad I (evidently) did, arguing that the current emblem system has ruined heroic instances. You should go read the whole post if you can, because it's well written, but here's his argument in a nutshell, as I understand it:

• A player who mainly runs heroics will quickly amass many Emblems of Triumph, thereby becoming easily overgeared for all but the most challenging heroics (i.e. Halls of Reflection). This makes them much less fun.
• Raid-oriented players who are running heroics just for the two Emblems of Frost at the end are not very fun to run with.

He also proposes a solution: five-man instances should be ordered into tiers, like raids, and should award emblems on the same schedule as raids do. The first part of this suggestion is already partially implemented: Trial of the Crusader already came with Trial of the Champion, and Icecrown Citadel with the Frozen Halls trio of instances. But Ulduar did not have any attendant five-mans, and the same quality of emblems drop in every heroic (although the loot quality is differentiated).
In Ardol's plan, right now, only the Frozen Halls instances (Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron, and Halls of Reflection) would drop Emblems of Triumph (I think), and every other instance would continue to drop Conquest. This would make it much slower to gear up in Triumph, as well as not forcing people who don't like five-mans to run five-mans to get their Emblems of Frost.

A key advantage to this plan is that it keeps like-geared instance runners together, at least to some extent. People who far outgear the earlier instances will have no real reason to run them. and will be concentrated in the higher instances, hopefully with others of their gear level (although WoW players being what they are, there are going to be some undergeared players in the more demanding instances). It also gives five-man players a clear progression path, similar to if not quite as difficult/rewarding as the raid progression path.

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This is surprising: the entire loot table for the Arthas fight, on both 10 and 25-man (normal and hard, judging by the item levels) has just been posted to the Armory. As tipster Micah noted, if this is really the whole loot table, it consists entirely of armor tokens, weapons, and Invincible's Reins (which is listed as a guaranteed drop on 25-man heroic). The focus on weapons isn't exactly new for raid end bosses, but it's interesting nonetheless.

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Icecrown Citadel is just full of news tonight. Hot on the heels of the Lich King's entire loot table being revealed, it appears that the Icecrown raid weeklies are now available. There seem to be five different raid weeklies (here's the list), existing in both 10- and 25-man versions, and they appear to be given by a different questgiver within Icecrown Citadel for each quest.

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Welcome to Lichborne, wow.com's weekly death knight column. This week, we continue our breakneck tour of the fabulous Ice Crown Citadel, premiere vacation getaway of the dead, rich, and infamous.
Our look at ICC death knight loot continues this week with the Crimson Hall. Prepare for corny twilight jokes to go with your raiding (trust me, I know they're coming, and I will be making many of them). There's only 2 boss battles in this wing, but there's still plenty of loot to discuss. As before, I'd suggest you check out the introduction to the Lower Spire loot guide, as it does include some basic stat rundowns and philosophies that you should keep in mind as you read these guides.

There's also a few wrenches in the gears (but good wrenches, since they involve buffs) for your loot selections as of Patch 3.3.2, which I'd expect will be live by the time you read this. We'll be getting an Ashen Verdict strength ring and a slight stat adjustment on tier 10 tank armor, so keep those in mind as you read. In short, you'll probably be keeping the Ashen Verdict strength ring as one of your main rings, and tier 10 tank gear looks a lot sexier now, at least for physical-based fights.
The Blood Princes

10-Man

The big thing the Battle-Maiden's Legguards have over Scourgelord Legplates is one extra gem slot and haste instead of critical strike rating. However, the 4-piece bonus makes sure the tier 10 edges out anyway. Just stick with tier 10 and let some the tanks grab this for their off set, I'd say.

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Enigma is already hitting the Lich King this evening, and they're livestreaming it for all to see. As of this posting they have 15 attempts left, so we're in for quite the show. Considering it's a livestream of the raid encounter there are bound to be spoilers in it. If you don't want to be spoiled, don't watch.

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15 Minutes of Fame is WoW.com's look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes -- from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, from the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about.

DKs are OP -- there, we said it. Now then, we can move on with our discussion of ... well, of an OP death knight. This particular DK, however, brings more to the plate than the sheer muscle of his class. Raegwyn of EU Zuluhed-H brings a wealth of raiding experience, class skill and game savvy to bear in his continuing campaign to conquer as many bosses and instances of WoW as possible, completely solo.

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Update - Added another stream, post in comments if you're streaming the encounter!

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Update - The price are now available on the DB.

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The last wing in Icecrown Citadel is now open. The Icecrown Citadel raid overview here on WoW.com has new information and resources that your raid needs to know about Valithria Dreamwalker and Sindragosa. We've also got boss overviews for every encounter up to this point, complete with links to other strats and loot information.

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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. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

In this edition of The Queue, we answer a couple of new questions, and a couple of questions that we've answered approximately seventeen thousand times. Okay, not that many, but it certainly feels it. Hopefully between the new and the old there's something for everyone.

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Patch 3.3.2 heralds the start of season 8, and with it comes a whole load of shiny new PvP gear. Armor sets, weapons, trinkets, the whole deal. MMO-Champion's database has been updated with all of it (stats included, of course), and Boubouille has all of it listed in convenient tabbed menus. You'll find rating requirements there, too.

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Our sister site Big Download has hosted the patch 3.3.2 files for easily accessible and speedy downloads. Right now they only have the North American PC patch available, but they will be getting the additional versions of the patch up later today.

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It's fairly common knowledge that Blizzard has kept updating the Armory with new features and new apps. Now, Bornakk comes forth with news of an app that will be to the armory what a giant Steve Allen pog was to pogs: behold, the ultimate feature! In the glorious future, we'll be able to work our auctions from the Armory itself or apps for the iPhone and iPod touch. Yes, one more step closer to actually living full time in Azeroth. I have my eyes on a nice cottage outside of Elwynn, myself.

In all seriousness, I know a lot of people who would probably club me over the head and hand me over to a cabal of secretive necromancers for this feature. No news yet on exactly how it's going to work, and Bornakk does point out that with the amount of work it will be to develop, you're probably going to have to pay extra for it.
This is a fairly complex service to develop, due in large part to its unprecedented integration with the game, so we don't have an exact release date yet. It's important to note here that certain elements of the service will be premium-based, which we'll go into more detail on once the service functionality is finalized. As with all of the services we offer, we plan to integrate the Auction House and Armory in a way that won't disrupt the gameplay experience, and we won't release it until it meets the quality standards that we've set for our other features and services.See the rest of the announcement after the break.

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I'm a man who likes to tank. If you find me in PvE content, it's almost always out there doing my very best to take as much damage as possible. It's kind of my thing. So when I first saw Ascension Gaming's This is Why I'm Prot, I was understandably excited.

The song is a parody of This is Why I'm Hot with a protection warrior spin. Still, I think it probably applies to all tanks about equally, even if the song pokes a bit of fun at the protection paladin crowd. The music itself is fairly straightforward, and completely accessible. It's got a solid beat, and I'd actually love to hear the rapper do other work -- he felt pretty solid to me.

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WoW.com's prestige in the community has afforded us the opportunity to speak with major Azerothian leadership figures on any subject, and we're letting you, the reader, Ask a Faction Leader!

We recently spoke to Vol'Jin, leader of the Darkspear trolls, and he shed light on several key issues, including voodoo proximity, detachable extremities, and residential communities, and free zeppelin rides for three. In this installment of Ask a Faction Leader, we'll be sitting with Anachronos, interim leader of the Bronze Dragonflight.

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As a rule, the undead aren't nature types. You'll rarely see a Forsaken family go on a camping trip, splash through the surf on Westfall's beaches, or just lay back and relax in a field of flowers. (There are some notable exceptions.) It might be the whole rot thing, or that whenever they try to participate in outdoor activities, various local carnivores try to chew the marrow from their bones. Immobile of Skullcrusher is spending some forced time in communion with nature while leveling through Ashenvale, and he looks like he's hating every minute of it. Damn hippie night elves and their trees!

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Welcome to another edition of the WoW.com Weekly Comic -- Byron the Tauren Rogue!

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It's been a busy seven days in MMO news as we gear up for the release of two games this week: Star Trek Online and Global Agenda. In addition, be sure to check out our brand new columns rolling out for specific focus games such as Guild Wars, Final Fantasy XIV and more to come!

	Editorial: What could Apple's new iPad mean for MMOs? If you consider yourself any type of technophile at all, you're probably well aware of Apple's announcement yesterday regarding their new iPad. This is basically the love child of an iPod Touch and a tablet PC, allowing users to take a fairly powerful slab of computing power with them wherever they go. While it might not be as beefy as your desktop machine or even a mid-range laptop, it has caused a giant wave of interest from consumers. So how does this affect us, as MMO gamers? We're glad you asked!
	LotRO announces Volume III, Book 1: Oath of the Rangers Lord of the Rings Online fans have been speculating for a while, wondering what the name of Volume III, Book 1 was going to be. Turbine's Sapience has been giving increasingly specific hints in a hangman-style game in the forums. Now the game's over, he's had his fun, and we have a title. Volume 3:Allies of the King, Book 1: Oath of the Rangers is on the way, bringing with it plenty of new additions to the game.
	Leadership tips from a former roleplaying raid officer "Roleplaying" and "raid" both in the same sentence? Blasphemy! Yet, that was my position back in World of Warcraft, and I certainly roleplayed while participating in PvP and massive PvE (almost akin to raids) in The Matrix Online before its demise. Before all of that, I was a roleplaying guild leader in Final Fantasy XI and Phantasy Star Online, so I've been around guilds for a long, long time.
	The 'Next Big Thing' in MMOs Is All Points Bulletin the "Next Big Thing" in MMOs? While I'm fully aware that Realtime Worlds doesn't specifically prefer to associate the game with this genre, it's very much a part of it -- but it also orbits the fringes of what we commonly refer to as a massively multiplayer online game.

	Massively's Black Prophecy Q&A: Mission Systems Massively has been following the development of the sci-fi MMO Black Prophecy very closely, and was pleased that the title's developer Reakktor Media wanted to do a series of focused Q&As with us on several aspects of the game. Our last such Q&A started at the beginning with character creation, but in our second installment of the Black Prophecy interview series we discussed the game's mission design. To that end, we posed some questions to Lorenz Dames, the Lead Game Designer on Black Prophecy.
	The Virtual Whirl: The meaning of life "Get a life", "Get a first life", and so on, and so forth. If you're involved in virtual environments, you've probably heard this phrase a lot. Wagner James Au of New World Notes suggests that people who use those phrases are among the least likely to 'have a life' themselves.
	The worrying future of Final Fantasy XI There's a growing unease in the Final Fantasy XI community. It's one of those subtle things that no one is willing to outright talk about, but it's still there, just beneath the surface of a surprising number of discussions. And it's a bit unusual for an MMO, because it's not fear or anxiousness about something being broken from the last update or an upcoming update.
	Wasteland Diaries: Community guide to Fallen Earth With community being as important as it is in any MMO, accessibility to that community might sometimes be daunting. You want to learn more, but maybe you don't want to look like a noob by asking in-game. Maybe you want to start crafting, but you don't even know where to start. In keeping with our influx of community guides that have kicked off our new game-specific columns, we bring you Wasteland Diaries for all fans of Fallen Earth.
	The Road to Mordor: Community guide to Lord of the Rings Online We here at Massively have been avidly covering Turbine's Lord of the Rings Onlinesince we launched back in late 2007. And now, we're dedicating a new weekly column, The Road to Mordor, to cover the many facets of the game including the just announced Volume 3, Book 1 content update. Every Friday, we will be exploring topics and writing guides for both leveling players and end game raiders, crafters and role-players, info-hounds and casual browsers.
	Massively and G4TV's The MMO Report If you're a fan of G4TV's The MMO Report, you may have noticed a mention of a certain favorite MMO news site on the last two episodes. Why is that? We've teamed up with G4TV to provide the best MMO news to a wider audience.
	Massively's tour through DDO Update 3 Recently, we posted information about the current release notes for Dungeons and Dragons Online Update 3, the latest in a series of updates from Turbine since Dungeons and Dragons Online went free-to-play last summer. The update is scheduled to go live on February 3rd, and is only the tip of the iceberg for Turbine's plans, including six content updates for 2010, with a new one added every two months.
	Star Trek Online's State of the Game: The first patch According to the latest State of the Game from Cryptic, Star Trek Online's first update will be surprisingly hefty. "The first update is going to have more PvP, Klingon exploration content, more ground fleet actions, more ship costume pieces, more playable species, and then some," says the executive producer Craig Zinkievich. Of course, that's only a small piece of the rather titillating article outlining the current plan for the first few months of updates.

Our sister site Massively has been producing some great content the last few months on Cryptic Studios' latest MMORPG - Star Trek Online. The game puts the player 30 years after the events in Star Trek: Nemesis, pitting Federation against the Klingons, and everyone against the Borg. The universe is on the brink of a massive war, and your job is to trek amongst the stars carrying out missions and battling the enemy at ever turn.

The SciFi MMO is a great opportunity for players who are burnt out on WoW or are looking for a distraction from the daily/weekly WoW grind. In order to help all of you WoW player's out there, we've penned The WoW Player's Guide to Star Trek Online, which gives you the basic concepts of the game as they related to WoW.

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We're in heavy spoiler territory yet again with datamined sound files straight out of Patch 3.3.2, so we've hidden the video containing them behind the cut below. Do not click through the break to watch the video if you do not want to be thoroughly spoiled. The sound files contain lines spoken before, during and after the final confrontation with the Lich King. If you do choose to watch/listen, please don't run around spoiling your fellow players. Let them make that decision on their own.

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Back-channel team discussion these past few days has been reminiscing about the Warcraft series' best bits of lore, and eventually discussion turned to the things that we wish Blizzard had revisited or expanded. Zul'jin came up, with people a bit uncomfortable that the great story promised by the Zul'Aman trailer didn't transition to the actual raid very well. "Both Horde and Alliance had perfectly good reasons to raid it," Rossi observed. "Instead, we go there because someone wants to plunder Amani riches."

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Happy Tuesday Morning! And yes, it is pretty happy, because it looks like we're getting the long awaited Patch 3.3.2, and with it, season 8, some nice little class changes, and of course, Arthas. We've already seen a leak of the promised final cinematic that occurs after the Lich King battle. Don't click on the link if you don't want to see it, it's a pretty big spoiler.

Of course, a new patch means a lot of downtime. So, While you're waiting through the 3 AM to 11 AM Pacific downtime for the servers to come up and the patch to download, have a serving of some of the hottest news and best articles from the past 7 days, and be sure to stay tuned for lots more Patch 3.3.2 news in the coming days.
Hot News and Features

• Vol'jin clarifies what you should do with the voodoo in last week's Ask A Faction Leader.
• Patch 3.3.2 brings a new Ashen Verdict strength ring for plate melee classes. Check out the stats.
• Patch 3.3.2 also brings some updated states to tier 10 plate tank armor, and we have more details for those as well.
• Patch 3.3.2 brings with it a new mount for raiders: Invincible, steed of Arthas.
• Patch 3.3.2 is also the start of a new arena season. Check out the look of the new season 8 gear.
• Ghostcrawler recently offered some insight into Blizzard's talent redesign philosophies for Cataclysm.
• Ever wanted to show off your WoW characters to your Mafia Wars family? Blizzard now has an official facebook armory app.


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As many suspected might have been the case, the recent resilience change seems to have made healing a little too strong in PvP. To continue the efforts of slowing down the pace of PvP in the final arena season of Wrath of the Lich KIng, Zarhym has made the following announcement:
Patch 3.3.2 is bringing about a change to the way healing functions in Arenas, Battlegrounds, and Wintergrasp. We have applied a debuff to all players in these zones which will decrease the effectiveness of all forms of healing by 10%. This includes heals from items such as Healthstones and potions, however, it will not affect defensive shields or auras. This change is being made to balance the effectiveness of healing against the recent buff we made to the damage reduction component provided by resilience. Rest assured that we will be closely monitoring the effects both the healing and resilience changes have on Battleground, Wintergrasp, and Arena PvP game play to ensure that fights last a reasonable amount of time without overtly skewing the effectiveness of any class, role, or team combination.
Should we hear any further announcements today, we'll make sure to keep you posted.

If there were any doubts left that today was the day of Patch 3.3.2's release, dismiss them now because the official patch notes have been released. These notes are more or less identical to the Korean patch notes that were posted last week, except without our less-than-desirable translation job. A few highlights:

• Halls of Stone: Brann Bronzebeard has been getting into shape and now feels comfortable walking faster when escorted.
• Concussion Blow: The damage done by this ability has been reduced by 50%, but its threat generation will remain approximately the same.
• Violet Hold: The time between a boss being defeated and a new portal opening has been decreased.
• Season 8 has officially begun featuring all-new rewards!


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