Priests received a handful of changes with the latest Cataclysm beta build that was released Thursday afternoon. There were little changes, such as a new animation for Archangel (as seen above), and big changes, like tweaking the talent Improved Inner Fire so that it's no longer mandatory. A preview for tier 11 was also released. Let's have a look at the talent changes first.

• Power Word: Barrier has had the amount it absorbs increased. It will now absorb a total of 6 percent of spellpower plus 21,225 damage (up from 5 percent of SP plus 11,000.) It will still only absorb a portion of incoming damage if the damage exceeds 20 percent of the total absorb value.
• Borrowed Time will no longer increase the amount absorbed by Power Word: Shield. It will just increase your spell haste.
• Renewed Hope will now apply to targets with Grace. This means any target you heal with more than one spell (or more than one tick of Penance) will gain an additional 10 percent chance to be hit with a critical Flash Heal, Greater Heal, Heal or Penance.
• Inner Focus no longer costs mana.
• Improved Inner Fire has been renamed to Inner Sanctum. The new talent will no longer increase the overall effects of your Inner Fire, instead it will cause your Inner Fire to reduce all spell damage taken by 5/10/15 percent. The talent will now also affect Inner Will by increasing the movement speed bonus by 2/4/6 percent.
• Improved Healing will no longer affect Lesser Heal. This is just a tweak to the language of the tooltip for consistency.

Now on to the glyphs!

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Ready Check focuses on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, from Icecrown Citadel to Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses.

We covered Raiding 101 a few weeks ago. One of the interesting things you discover when you talk about "the very basics of raiding" is that people actually tend to say the same things. The key things are to read up on fights, listen to your leaders, pay attention and don't stand in fire. The actual skill itself in "raiding" (as opposed to "playing your class") is really just those tenets of cooperation. Unless you're in a bleeding-edge guild, there are lots of resources on the internet whose authors have already figured out the puzzle. Now you're just convincing 24 of your closest friends to read up, too.

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors is about warriors, who hurl themselves into the fray, the very teeth of danger, armed with nothing more than the biggest weapons and armored with the absolutely heaviest armor we can find. Hey, we're not stupid -- we're just crazy.

I decided to spend next week talking about protection in the beta in more detail, because between moving house this month and a bout of feeling sick, I haven't had time to push that last level to 85. I'd rather talk in depth about the spec after a few more runs, frankly, with as much improved itemization as I can get. I will say that as a level 84 warrior tanking his way through instances, threat seems wildly inconsistent. Sometimes it seems like Thunder Clap or Shockwave don't hit for peanuts, whereas on other pulls, I can glue things to myself. Part of it might simply be the shock of going from well-geared in ICC epics at 80 to poorly geared in quest greens and blues at 84, but I definitely think threat issues are pretty widespread for the class right now. Still, I'm going to reserve final judgment until 85. (Also, they went and dropped beta build 12942, but that doesn't seem to have many consequences for tank warriors.)

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Every Friday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting balance druids and those who group with them. This week, we are exploring two of the four wings in Heroic ICC. Be prepared to face some of the most challenging content the game has to offer, folks -- it only gets real from here on out.

Here we are -- it's another week and another great time at the office. Well, the office is merely an internet myth, but my room is comfortable enough as is; it even has a sweet "Life's a Beach" coffee mug and everything. Last week, we talked about the first two wings of heroic ICC, the Lower Spire and the Crimson Hall; this week, we'll continue with the next two wings. Unfortunately, I won't be able to cover heroic Lich King since, well, I haven't yet been able to complete the encounter, and I think it would be remiss of me to try and give out information on an encounter that I'm still working on. If you have any questions on the Lich King encounter, I'd be more than happy to talk shop about it, so just send an email or leave a comment and we can get to it; otherwise, it won't be something that's likely to appear in this article.

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Beta build 12942 is here, and with it, changes. Many changes. Some to talents, some to abilities; some merely to when you get them, and others to their power or functionality. It's quite a plethora of changes, and we're going to talk about them, because it's either that or I wander around muttering "worg" under my breath over and over again. Worg. It's infectious. Worg.

So let's take a look, shall we?

Worg.

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Welcome to your daily dose of The Queue. With Mike, Alex and Adam busy, their precious Queue was once again left unguarded and captured by the adorable Fox Van Allen. All members of the Van Allen faction shall enjoy a 5% buff to damage and experience for the 24-hour duration of this Queue, and Spirit Shards may now be collected.

Don't get the wrong idea. I'm not back running today's The Queue just because yesterday was, like, the most awesome edition of all time. I'm back because there's serious work to be done.

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Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm.

We often make the point in this column that WoW is in fact real life. It's real people interacting in a real way that has real consequences. This week's letter is a stark example of this. Sometimes the guildie with whom you are friends, whom you used to think well of, does something unethical, immoral, illegal or just plain cruel outside of the game. When he brings it in game, how do you handle it?

Public Service Announcement: Regardless of how you feel about animals or what the animal has done, it is generally accepted that unwanted animals should be given to a shelter (link goes to how to find an animal shelter in the United States) rather than abandoned. It's not just about the animal's welfare; it is also best for the welfare of your human neighbors. Even if you are only thinking selfishly, there may also be legal ramifications, depending on what you do.

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That inspired idea you have tucked away on your hard drive or in a dusty drawer someplace? Yeah, that one -- now's the time to write it up and send it in to WoW.com. We're taking submissions for one-off feature articles on any WoW-related topic. Current game mechanics, advanced strategies, arts and crafts projects, how-to articles, you name it ... If your article is entertaining and informative, you could see it right here on WoW.com.

Your article should run between 750 and 1,000 words. Multiple submissions are welcome; only the very best articles will be accepted for publication. We will not accept proposals submitted under player names or pen names; please use your full, real name and email. Please include your email address again at the bottom of your synopsis in the body of your submission. Links should be included as full URLs in the body of the copy; no active links, please.

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To be honest with you, I never really cared too much for Ashenvale. I quested there on my first character, and it was a little bit frustrating. I kept getting mauled by these ultra-high-level Horde NPCs whenever I tried sneaking through Splintertree Post. There were a bunch of Alliance NPCs in Raynewood Retreat who had no quests to offer, nothing to sell me and nothing to say to me. The whole zone felt a little weird and creepy. Oh, and there was no volcano. That part sucked the most.

Well, good news. Blizzard just did an in-house interview with Ashenvale quest designers Eric Maloof and Steve Burke to give us all some insight on the changes coming to the zone in Cataclysm. Like how there's a volcano now. A really big volcano.

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Pop law abounds in The Lawbringer, your weekly dose of WoW, the law, video games and the MMO genre. Running parallel to the games we love and enjoy is a world full of rules, regulations, pitfalls and traps. How about you hang out with us as we discuss some of the more esoteric aspects of the games we love to play?

The video game industry is affected by the legal world far more often and much more deeply than you can imagine. (Unless you are a lawyer, in which case you know the trials and tribulations of conforming to all sorts of regulations and laws around the world, just to release a video game.) Just look at how much Blizzard had to change Wrath of the Lich King for a Chinese release! The Lawbringer aims to give you a look into the pop topics that relate to the games we love and play every day, with some practical advice to help you avoid some of the more nefarious and potentially surprising issues that crop up alongside virtual worlds.

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A familiar necrotic stench fills the air as sights and sounds fade into a fog of Fear. Your hope is not that the warlock considers you a friend among foes, but that he has a use for you -- for that is the only way to survive this hell and receive his hallowed Blood Pact.

It's Friday -- the portal to the weekend and new home of Blood Pact, the festering pot of warlock goodness that seeks to satisfy your burning soul. So sit back, banish away the worries of the week, masticate on newborn flesh and ponder in disgust the obvious reason for a certain class's obsession with sheep, as you plot to kill them all. It's fry day, after all.

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Set collecting is one of those things that you either love or hate -- either the thought of running around in old gear is curiously nostalgic, or you simply don't care to fill your bank with a lot of useless junk. With the introduction of Cataclysm, a lot of these old dungeon sets appear to be changing or disappearing entirely, making them a hot commodity for set collectors. Since a lot of players these days picked up the game in the BC or Wrath eras, not everyone knows where these pieces come from and how to get them.

The first of these sets is the Dungeon Set One. Obtained through various level 60 instances, these blue armor sets were the top of the top before the days of Molten Core and purples everywhere. Originally, these sets had very boring graphics, until a patch was implemented in which all sets got a shiny new graphics update. In the early days of vanilla, these sets were pretty much all players needed to farm for, and the +8 to all resistances that served as a set bonus for each was handy in places like Molten Core, which was nothing but a fun fire factory in which you wanted to stack as much fire resistance as possible. There are nine sets to collect, and each set is class-specific. All set pieces can be found in Stratholme, Scholomance and Blackrock Spire (both lower and upper).

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