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Welcome to another Arcane Brilliance, the weekly mage column that is the only place I know of where a gnome in a dress with glowing hands hanging out in the middle of the forest isn’t so much creepy as it is socially acceptable.

Since I see a growing trend among the other class columnists, and because I crave the approval of my peers, I bring you Arcane 101. This is intended to be a relatively basic overview of the spec; I won’t be delving into much in the way of the more complex mechanics here. This will also be a PvE-centric column. We’ll revisit arcane PvP at some future point, but sadly not today. So without further ado:

1. What is arcane?

The leftmost of the three mage specs, this tree focuses on magic that is neither fiery nor frosted. It is (for the next five minutes or so, at least) the current single-target pure DPS champ, as far as mage specs go.

2. Arcane Benefits

• Extremely high damage
• Simple rotation
• Low hit cap
• Provides good raid utility
• Missile Barrage is awesome

3. Arcane drawbacks

• Highly dependent on timely procs for mana efficiency
• Cannot sustain highest DPS rotation
• Rotation is fairly boring
• Sub-par AoE

Continue reading Arcane Brilliance: Arcane 101

Filed under: Mage, (Mage) Arcane Brilliance

Arcane Brilliance: Arcane 101 originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Every Sunday, Chase Christian of The Light and How to Swing It invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. This week, we examine the basics of a holy paladin, from gems and enchants to talents and spell usage.

I have always been of the belief that the paladin is a healer at heart, with their hybrid nature simply an extension of their healing capability. In vanilla WoW, paladins were the Alliance’s healing all-star, with our tier sets and raid utility focusing on the restorative arts. Retribution and protection both have abilities that heal in some way, and their talent trees even have pro-healing options. If you want to experience the purest distilled essence of the paladin class, you have to try holy.

This is intended to be a guide to the holy paladin’s basic principles and tenets, not an in-depth guide into high-end raid healing or specialized gearing choices. If you’re new to the holy paladin or want to discover what the spec is all about, read on.

Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: Holy 101

Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It

The Light and How to Swing It: Holy 101 originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I’m going to assume that if you’re still reading this past the title, you’re interested in talking about tank gearing for your level 80 and that you’ve presumably used the Dungeon Finder to level him or her as a tank, but you’re certainly not rocking full T9 yet. It’s generally accepted that you’ll be saving up emblems for that, and of course filling the gaps for rings and trinkets and such as you can. You also may be a DPS player who wants to switch over to tanking but don’t have the gear yet.

First off, please, don’t pass on tanking gear just because it’s blue or dropped in a normal or heroic. Just because it’s not iLevel 232+ doesn’t mean it’s not good. You should be collecting and using upgrades as they drop, even if they won’t immediately put you at 35K health. Please remember also that a lot of people ran these instances and heroics back when Wrath first released with 22k or so health: despite what speed obsessed or hyper geared players will tell you, it is indeed possible to tank all the original Wrath heroics in blues.

Take the Nerubian Shield Ring, for example. If this drops and you don’t have better, roll need on it. Don’t worry that people will lose their shard, don’t let people give you grief on gear not being up to some ridiculous standard, just take the ring. It has armor, defense and stamina. If you’re there as DPS but you want to build a tank set? Roll need if you don’t have better. Just ignore people who give you grief over it, clearly they don’t understand how important every possible upgrade is while building a tanking set.

Continue reading Growing Pains: How to approach gearing up your tank

Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, Death Knight

Growing Pains: How to approach gearing up your tank originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Reader comments — ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week.

Some of us had a little trouble focusing on the topics at hand this past week. It seems we were, ahh, a wee bit distracted by the puppies.

Hooch [Quite possibly crazy]: Firs …
*distracted by puppies*
krizzlybear: Oh look, what a surprise. someone trying to mask a first po —
*also distracted by puppies*
Nicknin10do: Hooch, you’re so cra …
*also distracted by puppies*
Hal: This is the dumbest thing I …
*distracted*
D’awwwww.
Narshe: What is this? I don’t even –
*gasp*
elstor: Wow you guys are so la –
*distracted by puppies*
Sev: C-c-c-combo brea — Dawww, so cute.
God damn it, the puppies got to me, too.
The220: Many pups … now! Handle it!

Ok, ok, don’t slap us with minus 50 DKP! … More of the week’s distractions (plus several juicy conversations that actually stayed on target), after the break.

Continue reading [1.Local]: Distracted by puppies

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Humor, [1.Local]

[1.Local]: Distracted by puppies originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ladies and gentlemen, and all those with paws/hooves, etc, I think we might just be entering a new phase of the Sunday Morning Funnies. Why? Because this week’s list is pretty long too.

So long, in fact, that I had to throw it all behind the break again. Have I missed any? Do you know of a comic that isn’t listed here? If so, throw it into the comments section! Let’s see just how long we can make this thing. Hunt them down, and leave me a tip.

Last week, I seem to recall promising you a Long Cat. Just to be safe, I’ve delivered two. Yes, you can all has long cats.

Continue reading Sunday Morning Funnies: Jazzercise

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Humor, Comics, Sunday Morning Funnies

Sunday Morning Funnies: Jazzercise originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What’s the proper term for a gathering of warlocks? A conclave? A summoning? A coven? Ah, yes — a hellraising. Michael wrote in to inform us of such a meeting, which occurred last night in the bowels of Karazhan on the Moon Guard server. “Warlocks of every race were there, as well as a few gate-crashers of a nonwarlock type in disguise,” he writes. “This is a picture of us surrounding a pit of infernal fire, basking in our vileness. Afterwards, there was a fearsomeness pageant and storytelling around the campfire.”

Do you have any unusual, beautiful or interesting World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We’d love to see them on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word “Azeroth” in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing — use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, Val’kyr on mounts, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran. Older screenshots can be found here.

Filed under: Around Azeroth

Around Azeroth: Fire and brimstone originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I discovered that many of the regular players in It came from the Blog, WoW.com’s event guild, are using it as a getaway guild. Some of them lead or are regular raiders in progression guilds on other servers, but come to Zangarmarsh to get away from it all.

In a getaway guild, you can level a character without having to deal with your home guild’s drama, responsibilities and requests. Sure, you want to be there for your guild and you don’t mind helping out your friends, but sometimes it’s nice to just play the game without all of the extra baggage that comes along with an ambitious guild. Of course, you can solo incognito or on another realm, but in a getaway guild, you have the social interaction without the expectations.

Do you belong to a getaway guild? Or is all your WoW playtime in one guild and you just stay out of Azeroth when you need a break?

Note: If you like the idea of a getaway guild, but aren’t in one, you are welcome to join It came from the Blog on Zangarmarsh, U.S. Please see our FAQ for any questions.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Guilds, Breakfast Topics

Breakfast Topic: Getaway guilds originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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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.

So! Are you excited? I’m excited! Well, also I’m kind of hoping I’m right, but then I’m excited. We’ll have the Tuesday Morning Post for you to obsess over while waiting for the realms to come up, not that I compulsively refresh the realm status page or anything myself. No no, not me.

Filed under: Realm Status

Scheduled maintenance on US Realms for February 2nd originally appeared on WoW.com on Sat, 30 Jan 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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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.

A lot of it is common sense – things like using an authenticator (which also gets you a nifty Corehound pet), not giving your account name/password to anyone (even if they say they’re a Blizzard employee), and keeping up-to-date browser software and anti-virus on your computer. It never hurts to reiterate these things, though; many accounts get compromised every day through not observing these rules.

Continue reading Blizzard shines the spotlight on account security

Filed under: Blizzard, Account Security

Blizzard shines the spotlight on account security originally appeared on WoW.com on Sat, 30 Jan 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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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.

Continue reading Addon Spotlight: Vuhdo

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Add-Ons, Raiding, AddOn Spotlight

Addon Spotlight: Vuhdo originally appeared on WoW.com on Sat, 30 Jan 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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