One of the gripes most often heard during Arena Season 2 and Season 3 from part of the hardcore raiding crowd was about the fact that Arena gear was recoloured tier gear, so that an Illidan-killing hero wouldn’t really appear remarkable when walking in areas where arena dancers gathered. In Blizzcast 3, Tigole announced that this part of the disagreement between arena players and dedicated raiders will be a thing of the past in Wrath of the Lich King:

PvP armor will be different from the PvE armor entirely in looks and colors this time.

Of course, to some people this might be a trivial issue, but for all the people to whom recognition is also part of the values driving their gameplay, this is a welcome change.

Credit to WTBBlue Hello and welcome to WTBBlue's Northrend guide to Alchemy. This guide can be found on the guide/professions forums as well as my website at: http://www.wtbblue.com/profession-guides/alchemy/256-alchemy-375-450 This is a speed guide and will go over the quickest and cheapest way to level alchemy from 375-450 - with alternative recipes listed whenever it makes sense. Given that none of the professions will be finalized until November 13th this guide will be revised and completed when Wrath of the Lich King is released - however the basic patterns for Alchemy looks pretty complete at the moment so the final build should be similar (if not cheaper to level) to the current beta as of 09/26/2008.

Anub’Rekhan is the first boss of the Arachnid Quarter (Spider Wing). Most guilds entering Naxxramas for the first time will wish to go and try their luck against him initially as he’s the easiest boss to get to. He’s a really big Spider boss with a few tricks up his sleeve. Anub is a two phase, repeating encounter.

Phase 1

Anub does a knock back. Your MT is going to want to position him against the far back wall with the boss facing the right (Look at my diagram). Every so often he’s going to use an ability called Impale. It’s a straight line damage spell which knocks players in the air if they get hit by it. In other words, anyone in the path of an Impale will get thrown in the air. He likes to spawn a mob during this phase. Have your off tank keep an eye for one. When you kill it, it’s going to spawn these mini-mobs called Corpse Scarabs. Have any AoE DPS lock them in place and burn them down before they get on the tanks and healers. So for instance, the red arrow signifies an example Impale targeting a blue raid member. I, being the idiot Dwarf I am, is standing just ahead of him. I’m close enough that I would get struck by Impale as well. Impale’s target the player. They’re inevitable and players will get hit by them. But we want to minimize it by having them spread out in a staggered line facing Anub. Impale will hit for about 4400 on Cloth. Really important: See the green slime? Don’t stand in those. Or run into there. Don’t come in contact with it. Trust me.

Example: Stop’s Warlock is right behind me. Anub targets him and lights up an Impale. The two of us go flying in the air. I pop a CoH in the air to help boost our health a little and Levitate down. Stop just… lands really hard and continues DPSing.

Phase 2

In this phase, your tank has to do one really important thing: Run along the outer edge of the room in a circular fashion (Refer to the image header at the top). Anub slows down a lot. In addition, he’s going to use an ability called Locust Swarm. At this point, all casters and healers should fall back to the middle of the room. Locust Swarm will silence players and hurt a lot. It’s a 30 yard radius stretching out from Anub’Rekhan that’s in constant effect (like an aura almost) In this phase. Similar to the first phase, he also summons a mob. Make sure your OT jumps on it. Make sure your tank does not run it into the raid. It’s absolutely imperative that they run along the outside. When you run to the other side of the room, Locust Swarm should expire and he’ll return to phase 1 mode. The green arrows signify the path your tank should take. Note how the scattered raid has collapsed to the center. The second time you enter phase 2, go ahead and take the reverse path back up. Pro tip: Are your tanks out of shape? Their armour really heavy? Having a hard time running away from the boss? If you have a Hunter, have them activate Aspect of the Pack temporarily. Death Knights should switch to Unholy Aura for increased run speed. If you have a Warrior as a tank, feel free to have a player jump across the river of goo and have your Warrior intercept into them. Just take care you don’t run too fast that Anub starts cutting across the raid.

Healing

Anub hits fairly hard. I’m going to suggest a 2 healer on MT with 1 healer on the raid and OT. Note that the raid doesn’t take a lot of damage throughout the encounter as long as they spread themselves out to avoid and mitigate Impale damage. Once the impale hits, your 3rd healer should drop a few AoE spells or whatever to get them back up (I’m not telling you what spells to use. You’re in Naxx now). Like I said earlier in Phase 2, collapse to the middle. Try to load up the tanks with as much HoTs and mitigation spells or abilities as possible. If you need to sneak out and hit your tank with an emergency heal, do it even if it means risking a Locust Swarm. You should be able to max range the tank without getting affected by it. Another method is to run slightly ahead of the tank so that you still remain out of range of Locust Swarm.

Example: Assuming I’m a Discipline Priest, I would park myself on the side and heal the MT. Anna, on her Resto Shaman, would be tasked to healing the raid. Jess’s Resto Druid would be unloading HoTs on the MT as wel as any melee players that are up front.

All Information provided on this guide is property of www.wow-pro.com. Intro: Hi, i have 4 level 70's, 2 60+'s and numerous alts all in there 30's/40's. I dont have an instane ammount to play, as i still have school and stuff, but i know how to level fast, and thats what im going to try and teach you here. This guide will teach you tips and strategies to avoid getting burned out and creating the spiral that is "altaholicism" BEGGINING NOTE this is not a hardcore guide, if you can ding 70 by straight grinding in 6 days /played, go right ahead, youve already passed this stage of your game. If you suffer from the severe case of altaholicisim, then read on, as these tips should help anyone suffering from this problem. 1. Pick a guide First, if you are just starting out in the game, find a leveling guide, some of the best out there (arguably on the same scale of james' and joana's leveling guides) you can find right here on this website. Leveling guides will show you what to do, and will give you a general idea of how powerleveling works in this game. Once you have a few high level chars from following a guide, you may be able to start following your own path and getting all of the quests done on your own because as with everything, all of these guides aren't perfect, and maybe havent been run with your class. For example, i played a blood elf mage right after BC came out, and i found myself dieing alot on some of the quests because they simply arent soloable as a mage where a hunter (the class the guide was written about) would have no problem with it. Making a few tweaks, like instead of doing x quest before you get to level 20 and get your significantly more powerful spells, you could grind it out instead in an area where you were doing other quests. One note: Complete Grinding is not faster than questing, and most likely gets you burned out before you even get close to your desired level. It can take roughly 2 hours of grinding to go from 19-20, but i can quest that in 30 mins. The only exception to this is rouges, and shadowpriests, because with rogues you have 0 downtime and can just bandage up, and shadowpriests with high spirit have spirit tap to minimize downtime. Even though warriors can still bandage up, they kill things too slow to be viable grinders. An arms warrior going through his levels is going to take a good 10 or 15 secs more to kill his mobs to grind, and that adds up. fast. 2. Set goals for yourself This is an important part, One thing i noticed while leveling a few alts was, as soon as i started the char i would look at the t1/2/3/4/5/6 armor sets on them and be like "wow they look cool i gotta rush to 70 fast". This is a big mistake, One thing i tried to do when i was starting most of my alts was i would set a goal and say" Wow theres this really cool spell at 20 i want (like ghostwolf, blink, aspect of the cheetah" and i really want to run that instance deadmines its so fun" and in around 5 or 6 hours of /played, i would be at 20 and running deadmines, and i would get a feeling of accomplishment and be proud of myself. Then i would say to myself "Gnomeregan/sm library looks fun and felhunter at 30 looks awesome for pvp" so my next goal would be to get to level 30 and i would get that feeling of accomplishment all over again. do this, and when you get to the higher levels maybe bring it down to 5, 4, 3, and in outland, 1 level in a day or two of solid playing is awesome. Most instances in outland are alot of fun compared to the azerothian instacnes so set goals for yourself that i wanto get to x level so i can run y instance and get z new BC spell 3. Take it slow, read the quest text I know it can seem tedious, but reading the quest text really gives you a sense of involvement and it compells you to do the quest to save whatever. When i leveld my first draenei i really enjoyed the starting area's quest line with the story being that we were crashed on this strange island and dont know if were the only survivors, only to find out later after rebuilding the emitter there were other draenei still alive. I know it sounds boring, but it will keep you from getting burned out and thats most important. 4. Listen to good music! I know it sounds silly, but listening to the same tracks over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and overand over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and OVER again gets really boring and makes you get bored from the game. Im quoting Eera's "Fast Leveling Tips" guide on this website here: Ok this is the part that really helps, more than the mods, more than the logical thinking, more than questing. This is what will help you keep your sanity when you play for hours on end, music. Thats right, it's proven, music helps you level a LOT easier. Not just any music though, music that really gets you going, gets you pumped up, keeps you awake. A good list was written up by one of the DJs for one of the radio stations I listen to (Which will be mentioned shortly) of decent artists to look into for your grinding needs: Electronica: Some other good people recommended by Hakker: Basshunter (one of my favorites hes an EXTREMELY famous dance music creater from sweden who makes gaming music) My Chemical Romance (there fast stuff not the slow ones) The Used System of a down Sum 41 Paul Stanley The Killers AFI Billy Talent 1. DJ Tiesto 2. Paul Van Dyk 3. Ian Van Dahl 4. Orbital 5. Trance Control 6. Infected Mushroom 7. Armin Van Buren 8. Ayla 9. Kimball Collins 10. Kraftwerk 11. Chemical Brothers 12. DJ Oakenfold 13. DJ Sasha & Digweed 14. SaxionPike Metal & Things of the Rock or Alternative Persuasion: 1. Sonata Arctica 2. Tristania 3. Black Label Society 4. Iced Earth 5. Primal Fear 6. Symphorce 7. Lacuna Coil 8. Within Temptation 9. Dragonforce 10. Nine Inch Nails 11. Drowning Pool 12. Korpiklaani 13. Rhapsody 14. Switchblade Symphony 15. Type O 16. Dimmu Borgir 17. Iron Maiden 18. Epica 19. The Gathering 20. After Forever 21. Nevermore 22. Killswitch Engage 23. Rammstein Ok so if you're not into that kind of music and preffer listening to some radio, look at http://www.wcradio.com, shows every day, good conversations and good music in the preshows and the music breaks, good for people that don't like listening to music all the time. Ontop of that if you can't a break from music, if you're in a guild or a gaming community that has a Ventrilo or Teamspeak server you might want to go on there and talk with them. Anything that keeps your mind from all the quests your doing and all the mobs you're killing. It makes the time pass faster and makes it more enjoyable. (recommended by Hakker) Another good wow radio show is Taverncast, although they havent updated there podcasts in a while, they still are the funniest wow podcasters and have the best edited shows out of any free podcast out there. 5. Dont buy off the AH if you can avoid it Unless your gear is EXTREMELY crappy for your level, you can get awesome gear from quests that will keep you good until you get to raiding. Buying gear off the ah is pointless and not needed. If you really need to update your gear, take a break from the guide and farm an instance. Ive never had trouble buying my normal, epic, and normal flyer mount ever because i dont buy needles crap off the AH. Begging makes you look bad and will land you on quite a few peoples ignore lists. Go to the auction house and sell. never buy, unless you plan on reselling. its even possible to go from 1-60 without any gear at all, infact its already been done. (not 60-70 because outland is HEAVILY gear dependant) if your interested you can check out the Naked Troll Project article here http://wow.qj.net/Naked-Troll-Project-reaches-its-goal/pg/49/aid/68828 6. If you get bored, do something else! If your not listening to what im saying, doing straight grinding, not listening to any music and not getting involved in the game, you will get bored. When that happens, do something else! farm a fun instance, do battlegrounds, gank lowbies in barrens, raid something. Just take a break and keep on your chosen character. The last thing you want to do is make an alt before your completely done with your character. That sets you on the long, hard path of altoholcisim, a serious problem in america, that leads to car crashes, dead babies, and cancer. 7. Join a good guild! You play an mmo for social interaction, then use it! good guilds help keep you focused on your character and help keep you enjoying the game. I was completely bored of my first 70 before i joined an awesome friendly raiding guild and i would play for hours on end. Buidl your social relations in the game, even if you dont plan on playing to 70, socializing is half of any mmo game. 8. Get a life! Exploring outside the game is a really good way to keep you interested, it keeps you from playing so much you get burned out fast, and it keeps you from, well, losing all of your friends =O 9. Pick the right talents If you plan on leveling as fast as possible without burning out, then you have to make sure you have the right talents. Spec for the most damage as possible. If you need some good builds, there are awesome ones right here on this website (hint hint: Hakker's In Depth Class Guides could use some more hits =) 10. Dont be afraid to explore! Following a guide to every single step gets boring and tedious. Fast. Dont be afraid to do anything the guide doesnt tell you to do, go and explore some of the zones you dont visit, Deadwind pass, even though most of the zone is 70, the early parts look really awesome. Beggar's haunt in duskwood, a place hardly known by anyone, is just north of that path and has an area with a cemetary and two dark portal guards next to a waterfall. Closing: Well these are the ways that keep me from getting burned out while leveling, i really hope they can help you alot More about me: I have 4 level 70's on the Stomreaver server, my fastest time being 10 days 17 hours/played, and i have 2 60+'s on Zul'Jin server, where my fastest time to 60 was 5 days 2 hours /played, and i also have many other 40+ alts on that server that i still play time to time but were mostly the product of my former altaholcisim. Sources: "Fast Leveling Tips (For 1-70) By Eera, http://www.wow-pro.com/node/974 Community Contributions 11. Always log out in an inn, so you get the rested EXP bonus. The 50% extra EXP only effects creature deaths, not quests. It helps in the long-shot. (thanks darkerri =D)

Usually when we come to you with addons to highlight in one of our features, it's because we think it'll enhance your game play in some way. Well not today. Today it's all about the eye candy, or dare I even make this pun, the WoW factor. (Snap!) You've just gotten your interface ready for Wrath, so today we'll gonna trick that ride out. Can't begin our adventures in Northrend with a boring interface can we? You've seen some of the amazing interfaces in our Reader UI of the Week feature, so after the jump we'll take a look at 3 addons that help add that artistic flare to your interface. I would say to most players, the cornerstone of their interface is the action bars. Even those who prefer to bind the majority of their abilities to keys usually have at least one action bar somewhere on their display. (Yes, I have seen some really great UIs that feature no action bars at all and I envy those people with the memory and dexterity to use key bindings completely, but I feel they are in a minority of players. If you fall into this category don't feel left out; the other addons looked at today might still be of some interest.) A clump of icons looks rather boring, but this is where ButtonFacade steps into our Spotlight. ButtonFacade skins a vast majority or action bar addons allowing you to dress up those rows of icons. ButtonFacade lets addon authors add compatibility to their addons fairly easily, so lots of addons offer ButtonFacade support. Once the addon is installed you can select from a variety of different skins and you can supplement the default skins with downloadable ones found on the major addon websites. Once you select the skin you want to use, you can edit the color schemes and glossiness of your icons allowing you to fine tune the settings to meet your artistic demands. You can even take customization one step further by selecting unique skins for each action bar addon. So if you use Macaroon, Autobar, and Opie, each can have their own skin. If all this sounds familiar, ButtonFacade is the successor to cyCircled which offered skinning to the last generation of action bar addons. ButtonFacade is a worthy successor to cyCircled and is a cornerstone to anyone looking to spruce up their interface. Next up is SunnArt, a viewport addon that also can add background graphics. For those who don't know, viewport addons allow you to adjust the viewing field of the world. Think of view you have of the WoW environment as a piece of paper with all your interface elements stacked on top. By changing the size of the paper you can adjust it so all your interface doodads aren't covering it. So now you create a blank area to move things to so that the playing field isn't covered up. With SunnArt you can download art packs to add a graphic to the blank area. This sounds a little confusing so hopefully these screenshots clear things up. There's 8 different art packs as of the time of this writing, and with a little photo editing skills you can even create your own background. Check out SunnArt's download page for more information. While there are more addons that allow you to add graphics to the WoW interface, such as kgPanels, SunnArt is easy to use and a good addon to start with. Rounding out today's addons is a fairly new minimap addon called SexyMap. The animation effects are pretty dang snazzy, and there's a variety of them to choose from. You can even use one of the premade templates as a launching point to your own creations; as you can adjust the transparency, animation speed, and color tints. The animation effects are best viewed in motion, so there's a YouTube clip below. SexyMap is more than just a pretty face; it's a full featured minimap addon. It has practically everything you'd find in RicoMiniMap and Chinchilla such as minimap button handling, mouse wheel zooming, coordinates, and even a HUD overlay of resource and tracking icons. The animation effects may lose their appeal after a while, and thankfully you can use a plain basic border (with color of your choosing), but even after the honeymoon is over with SexyMap I kept it around because of all the nice features. Most players, and even myself, will probably tell you a functional interface that helps your game play is the reason why we mod our UIs to begin with, but with the help of today's addons there's no reason why your interface can't be functional and look good doing so. Designing and building a slick interface can be a lot of fun, (to some) and isn't that why we're all in this hobby? I hope today's Spotlight helps you get your creative juices flowing, and when you're done with your masterpiece be sure to submit it to Reader UI of the Week! I'd also like to point out I made it through a feature about decorating your interface without using the word "bling", quite the feat! Have fun out there and see you in Northrend!

A top wow player share his ram racing guide In the wow forum and received many positive feebacks. Here we post it and hope it will be helpful to those who need this. Now This is Ram Racing... Almost. • Reward: Nothing • Quest Giver: Neill Ramstein This is your first taste of riding a ram. Some things you'll need to know about the different speeds: Fatigue: When your ram reaches 100 fatigue, it will become Exhausted and slow down considerably for 10 seconds. Gallop: Fatigue is increased by 5 and you move at a fast pace. Canter: Fatigue is increased by 1 and you move at a brisk pace. Trot: Fatigue is decreased by 2 and you move at a leisurely pace. Walk: Fatigue is decreased by 4 and you move at a slow pace. To speed up, open your inventory and right-click on the Ram Racing Reins. The icon looks like a belt. Speed up to a Gallop and maintain this speed by right-clicking the reins every couple of seconds. Once you hold a Gallop for 8 seconds, stop clicking until you slow to a Canter. Right-click every couple of seconds to hold a Canter for 8 seconds. Stop clicking again to slow to a Trot. Hold the trot for 8 seconds and return to the quest giver. There and Back Again • Reward: 10 Tokens • Quest Giver: Neill Ramstein The trick here is to stay at a full Gallop. There are 3 barrels of apples on the way to Flynn Firebrew. You shouldn't need to use all of these barrels, only the first two. I've included a video below detailing the quickest route: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZnnmy-WBLc Bark for the Barleybrews! (Daily) • Reward: 15 Tokens • Quest Giver: Becan Barleybrew The trick here is to stay between a Canter and a Trot. Stay at a Canter until you're at about 90 Fatigue then slow to a Trot. Repeat this until you've made it around the outer rim of Ironforge. There and Back Again (Daily) • Reward: 0-40 Tokens • Quest Giver: Neill Ramstein The trick here is to stay at a full Gallop. There are 3 barrels of apples on the way to Flynn Firebrew. You shouldn't need to use all of these barrels, only the first two. I've included a video below detailing the quickest route: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZnnmy-WBLc You receive 2 tokens for ever barrel you return. Speed is of the utmost importance if you want to make the most out of this quest. If you miss a barrel of apples, turn around quickly and tag it before continuing on. If you've watched the video and are comfortable with your technique, you can also skip the second barrel on the way back to make up time. It can also be helpful to bind the reins to a hotkey. Has this guide helped you? Please post your comment or feedbacks under this guide. Thanks for enjoying! If you wanna read the whole and detailed guide, please go to http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=10043282550&sid=1.