It’s time again for Arcane Brilliance, the weekly mage column that used this boring screenshot of a damage meter graph for one reason and one reason only: Arcane Brilliance needs more of your pictures! There are still some languishing in Arcane Brilliance’s email folder, for use in future columns, but not nearly enough. The strong initial outpouring of excellent screenshots has now petered out, and Arcane Brilliance would like to humbly request more. Send your pics to arcanebrilliance@wow.com, and see this column for the rules.

The comments section of last week’s column on mage mistakes was an absolute treasure trove. It was full of wisdom, good advice, relevant in-game experiences, and the occasional trolling warlock (always welcome… we love it when the fireball-fodder comes to us… speeds the whole process up). But one comment stood out to me, so much so that I felt compelled to write an entire column about its topic. It’s far too long to simply reprint here, and so I highly encourage going to the comment itself and reading it. There’s actually another by the same commenter later on that is just as awesome. In fact, I will reprint one of the paragraphs from that second comment, because it pretty much encapsulates what I want to discuss this week.

Sarabande wrote:

Please don’t remark on low DPS or complaining that DPS is barely above the tank’s (esp. if tank is doing pretty high dmg) or constantly spam Recount in group, if everything is dying in a timely manner. This encourages the atmosphere of competition and pressures DPS into concentrating only on the numbers. If there is some kind of timer (such as HoR, VH, etc) which the DPS is not able to meet, that’s a whole different thing. In fact if you happen to notice some DPS being considerate by holding back on purpose (even though most likely they want to be blowing stuff up, shooting stuff, stabbing things to death) and it’s really helping, you might say something positive. That might encourage that behavior further and let the other know that that’s something they might want to do as well.

This week’s topic: DPS meters, and why I wish they’d just go away.

Now, before you tune out completely and start sharpening the pitchforks, let me clarify. I understand and appreciate the positive uses for damage meters. I have Recount installed on all my characters and use it liberally. Here are the things damage meters are good for:

1. Monitoring your own DPS.
2. Using the meter to help you when tweaking specs, gear setups, or testing spell rotations.
3. In raids.

Here are things damage meters should not be used for:

1. Linking in party chat during a random PUG, without being asked to do so.
2. Determining who’s a good DPS and who isn’t.
3. Justifying a vote-kick.

I almost feel like I could distill this entire column down into one sentence: don’t be a douche.

Seriously, that’s pretty much how I feel about the topic. In my opinion, society (and by extension, WoW) is made up of two kinds of people: those who are jerkwads and those who aren’t. The people who spam damage meters after every pull to point out that A.) they are awesome and B.) you are not — those are jerkwads. I can’t think of a single good reason for this behavior. It’s counterproductive, it’s mean, and it’s stupid.

The era of the random PUG is upon us, and it has heralded in a new style of instance running. As Sarabande points out, the tank sets the pace more than ever in these random dungeons, and though you will occasionally encounter the patient or uncertain tank, who prefers to take the instance at a slower, more normalized pace, most of the time your tank will be sprinting from pull to pull, daring the DPS and healer to keep up, rushing to complete the instance in as little time as possible. The tank assumes the DPS will kill things, and that the healer will be able to keep everybody up, and heaven help anybody who lags behind. In the rush, groups die with absurd rapidity, and there is no time between pulls to drink, look around, inhale, or even flip off the warlock. This leads me to the first reason I hate DPS meters:

They’re worthless on trash pulls.

Beyond worthless, actually. The typical trash pull in a random PUG, with a decent group, lasts such a short amount of time that a mage typically can’t even finish a full spell rotation before the mobs are dead. My arcane mage has resorted to using an abbreviated rotation for all non-boss encounters. He waits a second for the tank to pull everything, then spams Arcane Blast until Missile Barrage procs, at which point he fires out an Arcane Missiles, no matter how many stacks of Arcane Blast he’s got out. Then, he follows it with a quick Arcane Barrage, because if the mob isn’t dead yet, that’s the only thing he’s got time left to fire out. There are times, especially if the rest of the group is trigger happy, or if I’m lagging behind the group because of an Evocation or because I lagged a little while looting something, or any number of other reasons, that I don’t even finish the first cast of Arcane Blast before a mob dies.

How is that in any way an accurate representation of the damage output a player is capable of? The answer? It isn’t. Which brings me to my second reason for hating damage meters:

They’re largely inaccurate in random PUGs.

Let’s lay aside the fact that most DPS meters are still of questionable veracity in cross-server instances (the numbers are still pretty wonky, in my experience). Even if your damage meter is 100% accurate, accounting for everybody in the group without error, you’re still talking about a rush-job random PUG. Chances are that most of your group outgears the instance. The tank is rushing. The rogue is spamming Fan of Knives on every pull. The arms warrior can’t stop using Bladestorm as an opener. The ret pally only appears to have one button on his action bar, and that button is Divine Storm. The tank is in full tier 9/10 gear and does more DPS than anybody else is capable of. Mobs die swift, horrible deaths, to the point that other mobs in the instance see what’s happening and just leave.

What you end up with is an environment where you can’t judge anybody’s worth by a meter. The entire operation is barely-constrained chaos. There is no semblance of a kill order, of target marking, of crowd control, of anything resembling even rudimentary organization. You end up throwing out spells and burning mana you ordinarily wouldn’t, simply to look better on Recount. The numbers on the meter only reflect a player’s ability to throw numbers up onto a meter.

Then somebody links recount after the first pull and we come to my third reason for hating damage meters:

They breed an unnecessary sense of intra-group competition.

So let’s look at the reasons a person might feel obligated to link the damage meter in party chat:

1. They were asked to do so by someone who doesn’t have Recount installed, but would like to know how they are doing. In this case, I usually just whisper the numbers to that specific individual.
2. They were topping the chart, and wanted everyone to know it.
3. They want to point out someone’s perceived sub-par performance to the group.
4. They are the tank and want to shame the DPS by notifying them that the tank is outperforming them.
5. They suffer from muscle spasms, and accidentally clicked the wrong button.

Of those five reasons, one is justifiable, one is improbable, and the other three mean you are a prick.

The first time somebody links Recount in chat, the group dynamic instantly changes. Suddenly it’s on. The game condenses down to a single gnawing imperative: I must lead that meter. Whoever is last on the list instantly feels terrible. They may not have anywhere near the gear they need to outperform the other two DPS members of the party, but they feel bad about it just the same, because if you linked, you clearly want them to know how badly they’re doing. The person topping the group feels good about themselves, but might also begin to resent the underperforming members of the group, feeling that they aren’t pulling their weight. The group atmosphere goes, in one fell swoop, from cooperative to toxic.

What was the point of linking it? The answer, of course, is my fourth reason for hating damage meters:

Unless the group is wiping, the numbers are largely pointless.

Before you link your meter in chat, ask yourself the following question: are the mobs dying?

If the answer is yes, then why do you care? If things are going poorly, then maybe you need more DPS, and the undergeared or incompetent DPS in your group are holding you back and need to be voted out. If things are going well, though, what would possess you to point out what you perceive to be weakness in your teammates? Doing so has zero upside. What do you hope to gain? Do you think that by pointing out a below-average member of the group, that member will suddenly become better, improve their performance, and top the DPS meters? Are you secretly trying to inspire them? No, you’re trying to demean them. Don’t argue. That’s what you’re doing, and you know it.

Do you point out their shortcomings to the group in an attempt to foster support for a vote-kick? If so… what do you expect to gain from the eventual kick and replacement? Again, we’ve already established that the mobs are dying, right? Do you want those mobs to die… more? Is the time you’ll spend waiting for a replacement and then waiting for that replacement to catch up with the group really worth the extra second or two you’ll shave off the pulls from then on?

If the mobs are dying, if things are going well, then having somebody on the team who’s not up to your standards isn’t hurting you at all. In fact, for all you know, the subpar DPS they’re putting out may not actually be a measure of their incompetence. It may, in fact, be a byproduct of their utility. Speaking of which:

Damage meters don’t reflect anything that doesn’t actually do damage.

I was in a group the other day. The healer died during a particularly difficult boss fight. The feral druid was on the ball, though, and very quickly came out of cat-form and took up the slack, allowing us just enough time to down the boss. Then the warlock (have I mentioned that I dislike warlocks?) had the gall to post the recount numbers in chat, and add a comment at the end that the druid did less than half of the damage that he and I had done. He initiated a vote-kick, and before anybody could say anything, it passed, and the druid was gone. I was flabbergasted. I pointed out, angrily, that the druid’s numbers had been low because he’d spent the second half of the fight keeping us alive instead of doing damage. And then I left the group.

We become conditioned to look at the DPS numbers as some magical, infallible yardstick for evaluating a DPS character’s worth to the group. And yet a DPS meter is only that: a cold, numerical measure of raw damage output. It is nothing more, and nothing less. It doesn’t reflect the time we spend decursing. It doesn’t reflect time spent on crowd control. It doesn’t reflect time spent running out of the pool of green poison so that the healer doesn’t have to worry about us when he should be worrying about the tank. It doesn’t reflect time spent throttling back our threat generation, or waiting for the tank to grab aggro. It only reflects damage. I can’t emphasize that enough. I really can’t.

Do we really want to create an environment in which people are scared to contribute to the group in ways other than flat damage? Would you rather the hunter throttled back his DPS a bit so that he isn’t constantly pulling mobs off the tank? As a mage, would you rather I spent some time removing curses, taking a bit of the weight off the healer? Or would you prefer that I continue to be so worried about my position on the damage meter that I concentrate entirely upon DPS?

Now, about 2,000 words in, I have come to a realization. I don’t actually hate DPS meters. I’ve focused largely upon their failings in the environment of the new random dungeon finder. In a traditional raiding environment, though, they’re must-have tools. You have an organized group, taking on challenging content, and it’s vital to know if somebody can’t pull their weight in an extended combat encounter. It’s important to know if you have enough DPS to swap one out for an additional healer or off-tank, or if your DPS is lacking and you need to replace members, or ask somebody to change specs. No, I guess I don’t hate damage meters.

I hate the people who misuse them.

So the next time you glance over and realize that LolpallyXxX is only throwing down 1k DPS in heroic Nexus, and you’re suddenly struck by the urge to link his meager numbers to the rest of the group, stop. Take a breath. Look around. Are the mobs dying? Is the run going smoothly? Are you in heroic freaking Nexus? If you’re nodding your head to those questions, you need to reconsider your motivation.

And finally, I realize that this is a mage column, and that the majority of what I wrote above isn’t exactly a mage-only concept. But I play a mage, and I run random heroics all the time on him, and I use a DPS meter. I’m sure a great many of you mages out there do the same thing. I am concerned by the douchebag who keeps linking Recount. His constant presence in my groups disturbs me. Sometimes, he is a mage. I write all of this in the solemn hope that the mage community can begin to be a part of the solution to this, instead of contributing to it. We’re DPS. We remove curses. When asked, we provide rock-solid crowd control. Other classes perform other duties within the group. Let’s all do our jobs, and let others do theirs. If the mobs are dying, who cares what the stupid meter says? The answer, of course, is nobody. Except the jerkwads. The jerkwads care.

Yes folks, today is the dawning of the age of aquarius, the time when humanity and Azerothians alike enter into an enlightened state of love, peace, and happiness. No more war, famine, and destruction.

Just lots and lots of Hawaiian Pizza for everyone.

Outlier asked…

“We’ve seen a lot of goblin and gnome technology when it comes to vehicles, mounts what have you. But why none designed by draenei? They’ve mastered interstellar travel and even have a huge ship to farm for materials. Can it be that they didn’t escape Draenor with a single engineer?”

The draenei are masters of crystals, not interseller travel. The ship they arrived on and the associated technology, which happens to integrate with the crystals, are all of Naaru origins (the Naaru are the big crystal like beings that were created at the beginning of time).

Thaksasum asked…

“Assuming they have the same stats is there any difference between iLvl 200 superior and epic items, other than text color?”

Epic items have a higher “stat budget.” Where you’d see just Strength and Stamina on a blue item, you might then Strength, Stamina, and Agility on a similar purple item. There are no real hard and fast rules however, and Blizzard doesn’t really comment on this too much.

Freeway asked…

“Why hasn’t Darion Morgraine been more of a major figure in patch 3.3? He was one of the big movers-and-shakers in the death knight starting zone. But in the recent patch, he has literally done nothing except for being a quest-giver for the new, but still optional, legendary axe. Couldn’t he have at least made a speech at some point in ICC like Tirion?”

Patch 3.3 isn’t over yet. We don’t know everything that’s going to happen in Icecrown Citadel.

Dameblance asked…

“Has Blizzard ever had any idea’s/plans about customizing the way gear looks on female characters? With some of my characters I don’t mind the soft-porn look of gear, but for instance my female dwarfs and tauren look totally ridiculous in the unavoidable bikini-and-thong designs of some armor. Would be nice if you were able to choose between the male and female look of any given item.”

Blizzard has not said anything directly related to this. However, they have said a few times now that they’d like to update the character models of various races, and I know many folks agree that the female models need to be amongst the first to be updated. When the models are updated, hopefully gear will be updated along with them. Although I don’t think they’ll be able to go back and revisit the way all the old gear looks, I would expect new gear to continue to look better and fit the models better than old gear.

Cerrena asked….

“According to the lore, the Spirit of Competition occurs every two years. I know when it was held in conjunction with the Olympics in China there was an assumption that something similar would follow every two years in conjunction with other Olympics, yet there is nothing on the calendar for next month. Do you believe there will be something?”

Ghostcrawler promised us all a moose pet for the Winter Olympics. Other than that, we have no idea if they’re planning something. But, I would be surprised if we didn’t get something out of it, like another shot at the tabbard. One would think that enabling the tabard again would just be a matter of turning on a few bits here and there, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Hunters and warlocks were given something to look forward to during the Blizzard developer chat on twitter this evening. The question was asked: “You mentioned pet scaling being added for patch 3.3 but due to time constraints, was delayed. Will this be in the next patch?” This is something that has been mentioned throughout the course of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion and hasn’t been implemented yet. The reason? It is a fairly complicated procedure.

We’ll try to do what we can. Technically it’s just more challenging than you might think. For Cataclysm, we have on our list that 100% of stats scale. If they don’t then certain stats just won’t be as valuable for pet classes. At the very least, we can do stuff like convert your X into damage for the pet so every stat is valuable. Getting everyone to scale with every stat better is a major goal for the class team for Cataclysm.

With hunters, warlocks, and unholy death knights, there are a lot of talents and glyphs that affect the scaling of stats to your pet. If you allow certain stats to scale too well, you suddenly unbalance the class. If the stat scales poorly, then the class falls in the other direction. Every talent and ability that taps into these has to be checked to make sure it doesn’t throw things out of whack. Considerations on diminishing returns on certain stats scaling would also need to be checked.

Overall, there is a lot of number crunching and statistical analysis involved in trying to find the right balance between all of the knobs that they need to adjust. However, the frustration of out-gearing your pet will hopefully be behind us either in an upcoming patch or (more realistically) when Cataclysm hits.

With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and helps with the puppet shows at the Argent Ren Faire up in Icecrown.

Consumables:
For leveling up, generally you’ll just want to keep a good stash of food and water. I recommend learning to cook so that your food will at least boost your stamina up a little bit. Most low level food is primarily stamina and spirit buffs and a lot of them are rather lacking. There are exceptions to that rule, but generally that’s what you’ll see. A lot of holiday food items are pretty good as they will usually scale with your stats. Some holiday food items even have unique buffs to things like hit and defense.

Fishing is helpful for getting something to put over the cooking fire especially if you’re a die-hard dungeon runner and is pretty easy (if not boring) to skill up in and will keep you up to date with cooking supplies.

For secondary buffs on higher end food, if you need more hit, go with hit foods. If you need more threat, go with strength or attack power foods. Otherwise, use whatever consumables you have at your disposal. If you happen to be an alchemist, then try to make some potions, elixirs, or flasks that are useful to you. If you’re an engineer, then lob some dynamite during pulls. Blacksmiths, use those Sharpening Stones and get a little extra threat. Scribes can use the scrolls that they made for skill ups. For leveling dungeons, use what you have available to you. For raiding, you’ll probably want to be a little more precise about your choices.

Macros:
Macros are pre-defined little batches of commands that you can run. They’re a bit like programming, because they can be told to do certain things in certain orders and they can be told to check for certain things first. Our old column Macro Anatomy did a little primer on what macros are, simple macros you can make, and more complex macros. There is also a guide on the WoW website as a simple guide to macros.

“Oh Crap” Macro – There are many variations on this one. My personal favorite just hits both trinkets and my Divine Protection cooldown. I used to also have it as a cast sequence where I hit my shield wall first and then hit it again to use Lay on Hands, but that doesn’t work anymore thanks to the patch 3.3 change. If you’d rather use Lay on Hands for bringing you back from a near death experience, feel free to change it. Note that this will work with whatever trinkets you have on you. There is a number associated with each equipment slot and your trinket slots are numbers 13 and 14.

#showtooltip
/cast Divine Protection
/use 13
/use 14

The “Unbubble” Divine Shield Macro – When soloing, you can just hit it once and you’ve got Divine Shield up so that you could hearth out if you were in a pickle. When tanking, you hit it once to use Divine Shield to clear any debuffs you have on you and then hit it again to cancel Divine Shield so that the monsters don’t attack the rest of the party. This is also a great way to cancel out of effects you accidentally get yourself into although it doesn’t always work. Just make sure you don’t spam this macro if you want to bubble-hearth, because it’ll end up canceling the bubble if you’re not careful.

/cancelaura Divine Shield
/cast Divine Shield

The “ZOMG Heal the Healer!” Macro – Okay, the name is probably a little overboard, but occasionally your healer gets ‘martyr vision’ and starts concentrating so much on the tank’s health bar that they forget their own. Either that or the entire group is taking a lot of damage and they figured that they should get everyone else healed first. In these situations, it’s important to have something like Lay on Hands available. This one is a mouse-over macro so don’t have to change targets to use it. All you have to do is put your mouse over the unit frame (the little window with the health bars) of the person you want to use it on and then hit the macro button. You don’t even have to select them. This version can also be used by just clicking on them.

#showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover, help] Lay on Hands; Lay on Hands

Addons:
Every paladin running dungeons should have a few types of addons. They’ll need a blessing manager, a cleanse tracker of some sort to help them keep track of anyone who has debuffs you can remove. It’s also good for a tank to have a way to keep tabs on what buffs and debuffs they have cast on them. We’ll take a quick look through some of these.

Blessing Tracker – The main addon that everyone uses for this is PallyPower. It’s been around for a long, long time and unfortunately, it sometimes shows it. If you’re starting out, this is probably a good choice. Personally, I’ve been using ZOMGBuffs lately. While these two technically play together, they sometimes fight for dominance. If you’re in a guild, check with your fellow paladins there to see which one they use and follow suit to avoid any issues.

Cleanse Tracker – I like Decursive for my remove debuff addon. However, being as paladin debuff cleansing is fairly simple (it’s one spell for three things instead of a spell for each), you can do this fairly simply with a mouseover macro and some decent group unit frames (Grid, Pitbull, or even the default user interface). That would give you a little more control and less addon overhead. You’d just have to change the above Lay on Hands macro to use Cleanse instead (or Purify for you low level types).

Threat Tracker – Omen… Was I supposed to say more? Fine. The defacto threat meter addon in World of Warcraft is Omen. It’s simple, easy to use, and it hooks into the underlying threat system that Blizzard lets addon developers have access to. You can use the in-game threat tracking, but it’s not always as useful as you need it. You can use Omen to know when to tell the hunter to Feign Death or check when to hit Avenging Wrath to force your threat up higher.

Buff/Debuff Tracker – Being able to see what bad stuff you’ve currently got stacked on top of you is vitally important for some fights. You have to know if you’ve got 3 stacks of horrible damaging debuff that will drive your healer mad or if you’re just standing in fire. There are a couple ways to do this. You could run custom buff/debuff bars such as Elkano’s BuffBars (which is one of my favorites) and stack them in easy to see places or you could pre-plan for certain debuffs and use something like Power Auras Classic which you can setup to give you different glows when good or bad things happen. I use a mix of the two. There are certain debuffs that I want big flashing symbols on my screen to warn me about and there are others that I’m fine with just looking over at a short list of current debuffs to see what’s what.

Reagent/Food Tracker – When you get near level 60, you’ll start getting greater versions of all of your blessings. To cast one of these, you need a little item called Symbol of Kings. These are sold in stacks of twenty (and stack up to 100) at almost any reagent dealer and when running dungeons and raids, you’ll go through metric tons of them. You’ll also go through a lot of water at lower levels before you get talents and abilities to help you keep your mana up. However, there are addons to keep track of these things for you. There’s a text line only one called FreeRefills which does a good job. There’s also one with a graphical UI called Reagent Restocker. These can be setup to automatically keep you in stock with however many of a certain item you want. If you tell it you want two stacks of Symbol of Kings, then every time you open up a reagent vendor, it will try and purchase enough reagents to keep you at those 2 stacks. You can do the same thing for food, water, and any other consumable you want.

Well, that’s pretty much it for our low level dungeon tanking guide. I hope you’ve enjoyed the series. We’re going to be hitting a couple weeks of end game info and then delve into a low level healer’s guide (that is unless we find a holy paladin columnist before then and then I’ll let them cover it).

Welcome to Lichborne, the Death Knight column. This week, Daniel Whitcomb is really regretting turning on his boombox in Acherus at the new year’s party.

By now, I assume a good portion of you have managed to get on your daily heroics at least a couple times a week, maybe even have an ICC raid or three under your belt. If so, you’re starting to amass enough Emblems of Frost to maybe possibly think about buying a piece of gear. Of course, the problem with Emblem of Frost gear is that it’s a little bit more expensive than, say, Emblem of Triumph gear. You’re not going to get away with gearing up quite as fast, at least not until all of ICC is open and you have a good group for the place. No 25-emblem tier gear here. So that also makes it important, especially for the more casual player, to pick what you buy carefully.

Let’s take a look at the various options.

Tier Gear

Basic tier gear is, once again, purchasable via badges. Not only that, but if you want higher level heroic tier gear, you want to buy these since you’ll need to turn in the lower ilevel stuff with a drop from the proper instance to get the higher ilevel version.

If you’re DPS, it’s probably a good idea to start buying and get to the 2-piece DPS bonus as soon as possible. The damage boost to your main strike is considerable. For Unholy, it’s even better, since it pretty much makes Reaping worth taking as a talent again and Haste a decent stat to grab again after the hot fix weakened Scourge Strike pretty considerably at lower gear levels.

For tanks, it probably isn’t a horrible idea to grab some tier 10 to start either. For 5-man tanks, that 2 piece bonus should prove pretty helpful in establishing aggro over PuG DPS with no concept of threat, especially if you’re throwing down Death and Decay first like you pretty much always should be on pulls of more than 2. For raiding tanks, and even for 5-man tanks beyond the first 2 pieces, there is a pretty decent alternative to gathering more tier 10, but read on for that.

Non-Tier Plate

In regards to tanking plate, you may want to take a pretty good look at the Gauntlets of the Kraken and the Cataclysmic Chestplate. Eerily prescient naming aside, these are actually a pretty reasonable alternative to gamely gathering tier 10. Specifically, they pretty much have about the highest effective health you’re going to find in game right now. Effective health, of course, is essentially how much physical damage you can soak up. These two pieces have a lot of it thanks to their high armor score. This is especially nice for us as Death Knights, since our lack of block makes us more susceptible to physical damage in the first place.

For DPS plate, yes, it is true that Castle Breaker’s Battleplate and Gatecrasher’s Gauntlets are higher ilevel than the base tier 10, but there’s two things to remember here: firstly, they don’t provide the tier 10 set bonuses, and secondly, you’ll need to buy the base tier 10 to upgrade later anyway. The tier 10 4 piece set bonus is actually pretty nice for DPS. When you’ve got a good rotation, that damage buff will never drop. So I’d highly recommend that you leave behind the extra stuff and go for the 4 piece bonus anyway.

Sigils

The Sigils are interesting beasts this time around. While at full power they are clearly an upgrade over their old Emblem of Triumph counterparts, they do need to be charged up with multiple applications of a skill: Rune Strike in the case of Sigil of the Bone Gryphon, a Frost/Unholy strike for the Sigil of the Hanged Man.

The issue here then is simple: Will you have the time and ability to charge up the sigils and keep them charged? On any fights that require a lot of movements, that’s not a given, and the upgrade is marginal anyway. Honestly, I’d make upgrading to the new sigils pretty low on my priority list, especially for DPS. Just stick to the Sigil of Virulence or Insolence. They’re a lot more dependable in the long run and not that much weaker. You just plain have better upgrades to buy with your badges.

Cloaks

The badge cloaks actually prove to be some pretty nice upgrades for a death knight. Again, with the extra armor, the tanking cloak is all about effective health. The Sentinel’s Winter Cloak is going to easily beat anything else you can get before ICC Heroic in terms of all around tanking effectiveness. For DPS, the Might of the Ocean Serpent is likewise amazing for DPS. Once you have your basic tier 10, the cloak is a strong candidate for your next buy.

Trinkets

The Corroded Skeleton Key is another amazing buy for tanks. It’s one of the best boss tanking trinkets you’ll find before Heroic ICC hard modes. You’ll probably not go wrong buying it. The Herkumi War Token is a little less amazing for DPS just because Haste isn’t much of a DK DPS stat anymore, but it’s certainly head and shoulders above just about anything you’ll pull out of 5-man dungeons or buy with Emblems of Triumph (assuming you don’t need the hit). Still, if you have a DPS trinket from ICC and/or a Death’s Verdict/Choice, keep those over this one.

Primordial Saronite

This crafting item deserves a mention if only because, yes, you’ll probably end up buying a lot if you plan to chase after Shadowmourne. Still, it may be worth buying a few of these even so, if only for the crafted items. The crafted plate stuff is certainly competitive with anything you’ll pull out of 10-man ICC, and even arguably keeps pace with a lot of 25-man stuff. Compare and contrast it and see if it works for your gearing needs.

In particular, I’d like to point out the Legplates of Painful Death, which, at least for Blood and Unholy death knights, are going to give anything short of heroic ICC armor a serious challenge. If you have the spare emblems or money, consider grabbing a set of these legs. You can use the remaining 4 tier 10 slots to get your 4 piece bonus. Mind you, if you’re going to be upgrading to heroic tier 10, you’ll need to buy tier 10 legs anyway, so that could be a bother if you’re starved for badges. Likewise, the Pillars of Might are a pretty smart buy for tanking Death Knights right up to 25 man heroic ICC. .

Cinch up your robes and brandish your wands, it’s time for another edition of Arcane Brilliance, the weekly mage column that sincerely hopes that this picture was taken by a warlock, just before the mage on the other end got an honorable kill.

Around Thanksgiving, Arcane Brilliance received an email from a reader named Todd. I liked it so much that I wrote him back and told him I’d devote a column to his topic at some point soon. Though it has been over a month, I’m finally getting around to writing that column. In my defense, though: I’m extremely lazy. In the interests of space, I won’t print the entire email, which was long, polite, and quite well-written. But here are some selections:

“Hi There,

Anyway, I was hoping you might give us some assistance in regards to Gemming her gear. With the plethora of options out there it is hard for us to make a choice as to what will give her the best output for the investment…”

Todd then goes on to list the specifics of his mother’s gemming setup, and the philosophy behind it in detail, and closes with what he’s tried in the past:

“Now we have noticed that this current setup is a marked improvement over the previous setups we had going. First we tried pure spellpower gems but found it lacking in staying power due to a low mana pool. Next we tried Pure Intellect Gems and found a generous mana pool (30k raid buffed, 28k party buffed) but could quite hold the top of the charts in dps (however, She was almost always in the top 3). Now we are trying this new gem loadout and are looking for some guidance to see if we are on the right path.

If you can help we would appreciate it.”

First things first: Todd has the best mom ever.

The second thing this email makes me realize is how difficult it can be to tweak your mage at the high levels of the game. Once you have the gear to put out quality DPS, maximizing that DPS through gems can often be a trial-and-error process, costing a great deal of time and gold.

Theorycrafters make it sound simple: Spellpower trumps all, every time, always, forever. And though this is largely true, the hard and fastness of this rule varies a bit between specs and playstyles. There is no cookie-cutter “optimal” stetup that will work for every mage ever, without exception.

Now, before we get started, let me issue my standard caveat when I write columns like these:

I hate numbers.

I fear them. It stems, I think, from when I was a child and a Texas Instruments calculator became self-aware while I was playing that little game where the snake eats the apples and gets longer and longer until it becomes so long that it wants to turn against its human masters and begin the dark work of ending our race. That calculator hunts me still. At night, I can hear it…graphing.

So there won’t be much in the way of complex number-crunching in this column. Honestly, if you expect that kind of thing from me, you simply haven’t been paying attention. What I offer here are a few guidelines to follow when gemming your mage, things that are generally true to some degree regardless of your spec or playstyle. When there are exceptions, I’ll try to list those too.

In most cases, spellpower gives you the most bang for your buck.

This is almost always going to be true. But it would be a mistake to assume that the optimal gem setup for every mage is always going to be a Runed Cardinal Ruby in every slot, regardless of the color of the slot. Past a certain point, more spellpower isn’t always the best policy. Once you get in the neighborhood of 4,000 spellpower, other stats, most notably haste for Arcane mages, start to creep up on something akin to equal footing.

Lets look at the current stat hierarchy:

• Hit rating – This is the single most important stat until it is capped. See this column for specifics on your spec’s hit cap. It varies depending upon talents and raid buffs. Once geared in full epic gear, this should be capped in most cases, without the need for hit rating gems. If you still need hit rating to reach your particular cap, then gems are a good place to get it. Once capped, this stat ceases to be useful in the slightest.
• Spellpower – When in doubt, go with spellpower. In most cases, a Runed Cardinal Ruby is the single best gem you can put in a slot. This is your primary stat.
• Crit and Haste – These are your secondary stats. Haste is of more importance to Arcane mages, while crit is more valuable to Fire/Frostfire mages. Both have effective caps, where stacking more ceases to add value, but they are so high that most mages will never see them.
• Intellect – This is largely valuable as a mana-pool increasing stat. If you find you aren’t running out of mana in long fights quickly enough to cause problems, you have enough intellect. In most cases, this isn’t a stat you’ll need to gem for. The exception is Arcane, which has talents that convert intellect to spellpower. For Arcane mages, the value of intellect jumps to the approximate level of haste, but is still well below spellpower in terms of pure point-for-point importance.
• Spirit is useful for adding crit rating through Molten Armor, but absolutely every other stat already listed is more valuable than spirit for mages, without exception. There is almost never a need to gem for spirit.

Meta slot

This is one circumstance under which there actually is one “optimal” choice: the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond.

The extra crit rating is minimal, and not worth factoring in here. The real value comes from the 3% increased crit damage. This is a flat-out DPS increase, worth around 200 DPS for the more crit-heavy specs. It’s the best meta gem by a long distance, regardless of any variable. You might look at one of the other metas and be tempted. You might think something else sounds appealing somehow. You are wrong. In terms of pure DPS, which are the only terms a mage should care about, the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond is the only choice worth making.

It requires at least two blue gems, which is a slight limitation. You’ll want to fulfill this requirement with purple or green gems, since the blue gems on offer all suck for mages.

Red slots

This one’s also easy. When you have a red slot, there’s no reason not to gem for spellpower. The best choice here is the Runed Cardinal Ruby.

Blue slots

Here’s where it starts to get a bit more muddy. First, look at the slot bonus. Is it something besides spellpower? If so, you might want to ignore the color of the slot and simply gem for spellpower again. If it is spellpower, you may want to consider other options. Here are your choices:

• Sparkling Majestic Zircon – No. Just…no.
• Glowing Dreadstone – The spellpower is good, but gemming for stamina is usually not ideal unless you’re gemming for a PvP setup. In which case, this week’s column pretty much ignores you anyway. Sorry, guys. This might be a good time to point out that I’ll also be ignoring gems with spell penetration or resilience on them, too.
• Purified Dreadstone – Spellpower here, but the spirit is of only marginal use. Still, if you’re going with a purple gem, this is probably the best choice. If your slot bonus is 4 spellpower, you’re basically trading 7 spellpower for 10 spirit, which is not a good trade in most cases.
• Intricate Eye of Zul – Haste and spirit. For Arcane Mages, this is an option, but not a really good one. Spellpower, even at the expense of a spellpower slot bonus, is likely going to be better.
• Misty Eye of Zul – Again, this will be an option for Fire/Frostfire, but still falls short of an off-slot-color spellpower gem in most cases.
• Seer’s Eye of Zul – Intellect’s inflated value to Arcane mages makes this an interesting option for Arcane Mages, but only if mana pool size is still an issue.
• Shining Eye of Zul – Only a valid choice if you’re below the hit cap, and probably not even then. There are better ways to get your hit rating.

Yellow slots

This is actually a better slot for mages, since your orange gem options are better. All of the Green gem choices listed above, such as they are, apply here as well. Again, if the slot bonus is something besides spellpower, your best bet is almost always going to be to ignore the color and plop a spellpower gem in there.

• Brilliant King’s Amber – A solid choice for Arcane mages, but only valid for other mages as a way to pump up mana pool size.
• Quick King’s Amber – This is another interesting choice for Arcane mages, especially if your spellpower is already quite high.
• Rigid King’s Amber – Again, only an option if you’re finding it hard to reach the hit cap through other means.
• Luminous Ametrine – Intellect and spellpower. This is a nice alternative for Arcane Mages, and trumps the Brilliant King’s Amber unless you really need the extra mana.
• Potent Ametrine – The extra crit rating makes this an intriguing option for Fire/Frostfire mages. If the slot bonus is 4 spellpower, you’re trading 7 spellpower for 10 crit rating, and most of the time, the spellpower is still going to win that one.
• Reckless Ametrine – Haste makes this a decent choice for Arcane, if you can justify the 7 spellpower for 10 haste exchange rate.
• Veiled Ametrine – Once more, only valid if you need the hit rating. Great choice if you do, terrible if you don’t.

The other choice, of course, is the Nightmare Tear, which provides you with 10 intellect, 10 spirit, 10 stamina, and the other stats don’t matter. You can only have one of these, it works in every slot, and for the purposes of the meta gem provides the equivalent of one of every color of gem. Frankly, I believe there are better choices out there for mages to fulfill the meta requirement, but you may find this suits your needs. This is most useful to Arcane mages, due to the increased value spirit and intellect have for them. Feel free to shove this in a blue slot if you can’t think of a better way to meet your meta requirement.

A large part of your gemming choices should be made with an understanding of your mage’s specific statistical needs. If you find your rotation is more mana heavy, you may need more intellect. If you aren’t critting the way you’d like to, add a bit of crit rating. If your Arcane Blasts or Frostbolts aren’t coming out with the frequency you’d prefer, haste gems are a good option. It’s a complex and difficult balance to strike. And spreadsheets aren’t always going to tell you the right answer for you. Are you a spreadsheet? Do your spells always follow the same cast order without deviation? Do fights always go as planned? Do you ever spend time running instead of casting? Is your spec a cookie-cutter one, or do you have the odd talent point here and there that you’ve used in a proprietary manner?

The point I’m trying to make here is that the “optimal” setup for one mage may not be the optimal setup for another. Find what works for you. Cap your hit, stack your spellpower, and everything else is gravy. Put it on your potatoes, drizzle some on your turkey, mix it with your stuffing, throw it at a warlock. In the end, it’s completely and utterly up to you.

Blizzard helped an Indiana sheriff track an allegedly drug-dealing, definitely WoW-playing fugitive to Canada. Sheriff’s Deputy Matt Roberson, who used to play World of Warcraft, discovered that Alfred Hightower aka Rastlynn, was an avid player. So he contacted Blizzard with a request for help in locating his quarry. Three months later, Blizzard sent Roberson a package containing Rastlynn’s IP address, billing address and other info. After finding out the fugitive’s latitude and longitude from his IP, Roberson used Google Search to pinpoint Rastlynn’s exact location. With the cooperation of Canadian authorities, Hightower has been deported and now awaits his fate in the U.S.

Usually it is Blizzard that is calling the police for help, as in the cases of:

• The teenager who threatened to blow up a plane using in-game chat.
• The kid who threatened to kill himself if his ban wasn’t removed.
• The teen who was arrested for making a suicide threat to a GM.

But here, Blizzard cooperated with a request from authorities with no lives at stake and without being legally bound to do so. Also, his character name was not only provided to the police, but also published in the Kokomo online news publication. So, now we all know that Rastlynn the resto shaman has most definitely been naughty.

Should Blizzard have cooperated with authorities in this case? There was a warrant out for his arrest since 2007, but he was not actually convicted of a crime and presumably did not use WoW to commit his crimes. I can see the reasoning behind giving the information in this case, to stay friendly with law enforcement. But what about cases in other countries where the local laws infringe on their citizens’ civil liberties?

For example, many countries don’t have freedom of speech and will arrest those who voice subversive opinions, say against election results. Iranian protesters used Twitter to report on post-election activities and express their opinions, because most other online sources were more easily tracked — and many died for their troubles. Would Blizzard comply with local government requests in cases such as this? (There are also many who argue that the war on drugs is an infringement on our liberties, but that’s a discussion best left to other publications.)

I guess the lesson we need to learn from this is that Blizzard has a large amount of personal information about their active subscribers and are willing to share that info with law enforcement agencies. If you aren’t wanted for any crimes or committing any in-game, it shouldn’t worry you — for now. But if you are a shady dealer running from the law, you may want to stay out of Azeroth.

Another day, another round of in-game hotfixes. This time the most interesting one of the bunch is the increase in Battered Hilt drop rate (the Battered Hilt leads to the Quel’Delar). Of course it could mean that the hilt drop rate was increased from 0.001% to 0.01%, but hey, at least that’s one whole decimal place! Please note however that we don’t know what the actual drop rate was nor what it is now. All we know that it’s very low.

In actuality, one could surmise that the drop rate was increased to combat some of the outrageous prices that we’re seeing on the AH. 20,000 gold or more for a weapon that will be outdated in less than a year is a bit much.

• Quel’Delar in now unique equip.
• Naxxramas can now be cleared in any order for the Immortal and Undying achievements.
• The drop rate for the Battered Hilt has been increased.
• The Skeletal Slave in the Pit of Saron has had the ability to drop the Battered Hilt and other random drop epics removed.

The entire list of in-game hotfixes from the past seven days after the break.

Previously recent hot fixes:

• Onyxia has settled down and is once again killable and flying in the proper areas during phase 2.
• Icetouched Earthragers casting Avalanche now deals appropriate damage.
• The quest “Keeping the Enemy at Bay” is now completable.
• Totems are no longer targeted by chain effects as intended.
• The Death Knight chest piece, Scourgelord Chestguard, has been updated to reflect appropriate tanking statistics.
• Emblem of Triumph quartermasters now allows players to pay one Emblem of Triumph to purchase one Emblem of Conquest.
• The NPC Usuri Brightcoin in Dalaran now allows players to pay one Emblem of Frost to purchase one Emblem of Triumph.
• Bosses no longer respawn in the new Frozen Halls 5 player dungeon after being defeated.
• Scourgelord Tyrannus now heals to full when the encounter begins.
• The chance for epic items to drop off trash mobs in the Icecrown Citadel raid dungeons has been reduced.
• The chance for epic items to drop off trash mobs in the Frozen Halls 5 player dungeons has been reduced.
• Running up the ramp at the end of the 3rd encounter in Halls of Reflection will no longer disconnect players. http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=21723843673&sid=1
• Trading soulbound items will no longer make them appear as lost. http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=21723842445&sid=1
• Improved Counterspell now triggers Burning Determination as intended.
• The Call to Arms: Warsong Gulch daily quest is now properly offered to players of all levels.
• The quest “No Mercy for the Merciless” can now be completed as intended.
• Onyxia will now move at a normal speed when performing a Deep Breath.
• Onyxia has been cut off from the magic that sustained her invulnerable state.
• Players will no longer die while zoning into Icecrown citadel as the Gunship event resets.
• The Battered Hilt will show it’s appropriate faction-racial restrictions. <
• Hunters, Rogues, and Shaman will once again be able to roll need on off-hand weapons when the need before greed looting system is active.
• Earthen Power now properly removes snare effects.
• Hunger for Blood now increases a rogue’s damage by 10% down from 15%.
• The Ephemeral Snowflake trinket now has a very short cooldown to prevent it from restoring inappropriately large amounts of mana.
• The Shadow damage from Scourge Strike will no longer be able to critically strike. The physical component will continue to be able to critically strike.
• You are now able to recast Mind Flay after missing with the spell without receiving a “This spell is not ready yet” message.
• In Ulduar, the Salvaged Demolisher’s Hurl Boulder ability will now properly ignite tar.
• Vault of Archavon bosses are again able to be hit by area of effect abilities.
• Chains of Ice is no longer limited to a single target. In addition, when Chains of Ice is used on a snare immune target with Endless Winter talented, it will once again apply Frost Fever.
• Druids will now be able to shapeshift out of a spell-reflected Entangling Roots spell.
• The trinket Ephemeral Snowflake will now be triggered by all healing spells.
• The players’ Gunship will now appropriately dock after achieving victory.
• Lord Marrowgar will now do significantly less melee damage in both the 10 player normal and 10 player heroic difficulty.
• Everlasting Affliction can now refresh the duration of Corruption on a target when the Warlock casts Shadow Bolt. This talent also refreshes the duration of Corruption with Drain Life and Haunt.

Welcome to another installment of Arcane Brilliance, the weekly mage column that is incredibly proud of mages. We are, after all, the only class in the game that can conjure our own 5-man group, as evidenced by the picture above. And though our mirror images may not be too bright, I’d still take them over about 3/4ths of the folks I PuGed with last night.

Holy crap. I’m not even kidding. It was like some kind of idiot convention, and I was the keynote speaker. I came in with some prepared remarks, like “Don’t stand in the green stuff that looks like poison, because it is poison,” “when he begins spinning his giant sword around like a whirlwind, it’s because he’s doing Whirlwind and you should get out of the way,” and “Warlocks drink their own pee,” but ended up just sighing and shaking my head a lot.

This whole Dungeon Finder tool is incredible, right? My head has been spinning since the patch dropped, marveling at the ways it has already changed the game, both for good and ill. Suddenly, PuGs are the norm, not the exception. Each instance is a complete unknown, and not just because you don’t know which one you’re going to get. Is that rogue going to inexplicably decide to eschew his formerly stealthy ways and take up tanking? Who knows? Is the pally healer who just joined specced ret? It’s not as unlikely as you think. Did that warlock really just go afk during the boss fight, then return only to need the Frozen Orb and drop group? Yep, he did. Outstanding.

It works the other way, too. There I was, minding my own business, happily spamming Arcane Blast on some kind of giant disgusting undead guy, only to see him turn and begin lumbering over in my direction. OK, I thought, I’ll just stop casting, let the tank snatch him back up. Only that doesn’t work. I look over at the threat meter to see that I have like three times more threat on that mob than anybody else. In fact, the only two other names on the threat list were the tank and the healer. That’s right, I had been pew pewing the wrong giant disgusting undead guy. The fight ends with me reduced to a stain on the floor, and nobody to blame but my own stupid self. Sometimes, when you can’t spot the nub in the room, it’s because the nub is you.

So how, in this new environment of PuGing, do we ensure that we aren’t the only doofus in the group? Or at the very least, make sure we aren’t the biggest doofus in the group? I’ve compiled my thoughts below, and hope that in the comments section you will all chime in with your own advice. I feel it is my duty to help us, as the proud mage community, to not be morons. Let’s not be the idiot, the drooling, gibbering mouthbreather in the corner that the rest of the group tweets about later in the evening.

Now, I understand that a great many of you couldn’t be that kind of moron if you tried. I’m confident that the vast majority of the mages out there are fully competent, highly-skilled DPS machines who top the DPS meters in every group. But even those of you who have already blinked into Arthas’ room and soloed him down somehow with a clever combination of Spellsteal and Incanter’s Absorption (screenshots or it didn’t happen) may not be fully familiar with this new etiquette of entirely random grouping. It’s a brave new World of Warcraft out there, and it’s an adjustment for all of us.

So without further ado, here is my short list of ways to avoid being the soup sandwich in your PuG:

1. Remember the basics

You absolutely cannot assume anything going into these groups. The tank will not wait for you to drink between pulls. The healer will not heal you if you get whacked accidentally. The ret pally may very well be doing like 17k DPS somehow, making you look like the lowliest scrub to ever put on a robe and shake a stick at something. You may be expected to sheep… but probably not.

The bottom line is that you need to do your job — and that means every part of your job — regardless of what you’re used to doing in your experienced guild on your seven-hundredth trip through Trial of the Grand Crusader. You may not be getting things you take for granted, like marked targets or even buffs. This makes it doubly important that you do what you’re supposed to do. Remember your role: produce high DPS, manage your threat, and give strudel to everyone.

One thing I’ve seen a lot of in my short time with this new system is this guy: Mr. Elite Mage Who Will Continue To Pump Out Massive Amounts Of Damage Whether The tank Can Keep Up With It Or Not.

I understand that you are uber. I fully sympathize with your desire to blow up everything ever. But if you’re pulling aggro off the tank (who is competent, but simply not equipped to deal with the girth of your particular can of whoopass) because you’re simply unwilling to reign yourself in a bit, you’re wrong. Don’t blame the healer for not keeping you alive when you decide you’d be a more effective tank than the tank. Adjust a bit. Along with several others, this is a basic lesson we all learned in the infancy of magehood, but a lot of us appear to have forgotten.

• Keep your threat below that of the tank.
• If you pull aggro, stop casting and run toward the tank.
• If your sheep breaks, recast it.
• Keep your mana up between fights as best you can.
• Buff everybody.
• Make strudel when you can.
• Only attack the tank’s main target.

I know these are basic things, but you have to keep them actively in mind because there’s absolutely zero guarantee that anyone else will.

2. Don’t be a ninja.

Really. This random PUG thing is going to be an absolute breeding ground for douchebags, Don’t be one of them. Roll greed or disenchant on anything you don’t need, and need on anything you do. If somebody ninjas something, vote to kick them from the group. It’s not hard to find replacements.

One of the worst offenders here seem to be the Frozen Orbs handed out at the conclusion of Heroics. They come right at the end of the instance, so it’s incredibly easy to need them when everybody else greeds and then drop group, no muss, no fuss. It might be a good idea to quickly establish the ground rule at the outset of an instance that on Frozen Orbs, everybody rolls need, to prevent the end-of-instance ninja from even being a possibility.

I actually had a guy ninja one at the end of a ToC run last night and when confronted about it, he responded “I need it, I’m a tailor.” True story. If only you could punch people in the face over the internet. Why isn’t there an app for that, Apple? Huh?

3. Communicate.

Seriously, it seems like in at least every other instance I PUG, everybody is lurking-serial-killer silent. If you want the tank to mark targets, ask him to do so. Warn folks if they’re about to aggro a patrolling mob group. Congratulate others on drops. Just because you don’t know these people and will likely never see them again doesn’t mean you can’t have rudimentary verbal interaction with them.

Every once in awhile you’ll land in that special group where everybody knows what they’re doing, is familiar with the instance, and is on the same page. The run may go by smoothly without a word being spoken. These groups are the exception, not the rule. The vast majority of the time, a little communication will prove invaluable, even if it’s just to point out that Uther’s ghost is freaking chatty.

4. Don’t assume folks know the fights. They don’t.

When you reach a boss encounter, throw out a brief primer for the fight. Chances are there’s at least one member of your party who has never done that encounter and could use the friendly advice. Maybe that party member is you. Don’t be afraid to ask for tips. The momentary (and largely imagined) feeling of being the nub is much better than the very real shame of causing a wipe.

5. Let the tank set the pace…

…but don’t be afraid to slow things down. If your tank is charging from group to group without leaving you any time to recharge your mana batteries, feel free to ask for a second. Just don’t expect to get it. Mana conservation and efficiency is doubly important in these rush-jobs, so just do what you can to keep up. A second or two before a boss fight to drink up is important.

6. Be patient…

Don’t kick that rogue just because he comes in wearing blues. He may just be trying to gear up an alt, but be a competent rogue beneath all that blue. Now, if he’s undergeared and terrible… well do what you must. Just don’t be the elitist prick who thinks everybody without epics is wasting your time. Give folks a chance. Random means taking the good with the godawful.

7. …but know when to throw in the towel.

You know when things are going to be bad. The tank doesn’t know how to tank. The healer can’t keep anybody alive. The moonkin is directionally challenged. The warlock’s doing 1k DPS. The paladin’s name is “XcRSDrdGHghFGF” and he introduces himself by asking you to visit his goldselling website. You can usually tell fairly early on if you’d be better off waiting out the ten-minute debuff and trying again.

Now, I’m not advocating being the pantywaist who bolts at the first sign of trouble. Sometimes a wipe is just that: one wipe. Somebody screwed up, it won’t happen again. Sometimes perceived incompetence is just absent-mindedness or simple bad luck. Give things a chance, but in the immortal words of the great Kenny Rogers, “know when to fold ‘em.”

8. Keep reagents stocked, and make tables whenever new people join the group.

These new cross-server PUGs don’t allow for trading between party members, so as a mage, you are the first, last and only line of defense against folks showing up without anything to eat or drink. It’ll happen, and it is our duty, in my opinion, to provide these hopeless losers with strudel. Don’t be stingy with your magical pastries, guys.

I’m about out of advice. All in all, though, I have to say that I’m loving the Dungeon Finder tool. It has revolutionized the game for me. I love the pick-up-and-play feel it has added to the game. Old instances feel new when you’re using the tool, and everything just seems…funner than it used to. And yes, I’m aware that “funner” isn’t a real word. Frankly this is the internet, where anything can be a word.

What other nuggets of wisdom would you impart in this new era of randomness?

What else are we looking forward to in this patch, mages?

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

Now that you can spice up your leveling experience by adding a little PvP to the mix, you owe it to yourself to do it up right. Battlegrounds can be bufuddling for new players, and WoW Rookie would be sad to hear you’d given up on them based on a couple of false starts. Head straight over to Zach Yonzon’s A-to-Z coverage of Battleground basics in The Art of War(craft)’s Absolute beginner’s guide to the Battlegrounds. Join us after the break for a complete list of the Battlegrounds you can enjoy, starting at level 10.

Absolute beginner’s guide to Battlegrounds
An overview of the Battlegrounds experience.

• The absolute beginner’s guide to Warsong Gulch Warsong Gulch is a classic capture-the-flag game for 10 players per side. You can enter your first Warsong Gulch match at level 10, with brackets covering levels 10–19, 20–29, 30–39, 40–49, 50–59, 60–69, 70–79 and 80.
• The absolute beginner’s guide to Arathi Basin Arathi Basin is about accumulating resources, with 15 players playing for each faction. You can begin fighting in Arathi Basin at level 20; brackets include levels 20–29, 30–39, 40–49, 50–59, 60–69, 70–79 and 80.
• The absolute beginner’s guide to Alterac Valley Alterac Valley is a massive battle pitting 40 of your faction against 40 of the enemy’s, with generals to kill and other objectives to meet. You’re eligible for your first AV at level 51, with brackets including levels 51-59, 60-69, 70-79 and 80. (Update: Corrected bracket levels)
• The absolute beginner’s guide to Eye of the Storm The Eye of the Storm is a mix of capture-the-flag and resource gathering for 15 players per side. You’re eligible for EotS beginning at level 61; brackets include levels 61-69, 70-79 and 80.
• The absolute beginner’s guide to Strand of the Ancients The Strand of the Ancients pits teams of 15 against one another in an attack-and-defend scenario. There are two Strand brackets for levels 71-79 and 80.
• The absolute beginner’s guide to Isle of Conquest The Isle of Conquest is a massive battle pitting 40 of your faction against 40 of the enemy’s, with generals to kill and other objectives to meet. You become eligible to play at level 71, with brackets for levels 71-79 and 80.
• The absolute beginner’s guide to Wintergrasp Wintergrasp is all about siege warfare and giant vehicles you can drive. The instance will accept up to 120 players from each faction. You must be level 75 to join, and players of higher level may receive priority getting in.

• Basic Wintergrasp features
• Offensive and defensive tactics