Arcane Brilliance: Mage leveling guide, 11-20

So, your mage is leveling nicely. You've wandered out of the starting area and into the wider zone beyond, done a bunch of quests, learned a rudimentary spell rotation (Frostbolt-->Fireball-->Fireball-->Fireball-->Conjure Water-->Drink) and now you've gone and hit level 10. This is a milestone for a number of reasons:

The mage staff quest we talked about two weeks ago.
You can now begin doing PvP in an actual battleground against players in your level bracket (as opposed to doing PvP against bored 12-year-olds who think it's fun to run around the starting areas with their level 80 death knights ganking lowbies).
Your first talent point!
Let's discuss the second two of these three things before we move forward.

PvP as a leveling mage

Patch 3.2 brought us a number of changes, but none altered the leveling landscape so much as battleground experience. It is now possible to level from 10 to 80 entirely through PvP, without completing a single quest, killing a single mob, visiting a single new zone, or conquering a single instanced dungeon. I wouldn't advise it, but it's possible.

The first battleground that you can visit is a place called Warsong Gulch, physically located between the northern border of the Barrens and the southern border of Ashenvale. Not that you have to actually go there to fight in this battleground. The moment you hit level 10, you can immediately begin queuing for WSG from anywhere, while doing anything, simply by clicking on the PvP button on your hotbar and selecting the battlegrounds tab. Depending on the battlegroup your server is in, you may have to wait a few minutes to get into a match, but once you're in, you can PvP to your heart's content, gaining honor and marks as well as a healthy amount of experience.

If you're looking for the fastest way to gain levels, keep looking. PvP simply isn't going to produce the amount of experience you can gain from efficient questing and mob-killing. I'm not saying it's terrible, but there are better ways to gain experience quickly. Still, leveling through PvP certainly has its share of perks. Because I like lists, here's one to help you decide if PvP is the leveling route for you.

Pros:

Gaining honor and marks as you level will net you some pretty awesome gear (and even mounts!) as you go along, and the honor you accrue will set you in good stead when you do hit max-level. PvP can be incredibly engaging (if you like that sort of thing; WoW PvP is sort of one of those things you either love or hate). For a lot of folks, it certainly beats the sometime tedious PvE level grind. You can queue for battlegrounds while you do other things, jump in when the invite pops up, and then return to whatever else you were doing when the battleground ends. Unless you're one of those pathetic wastes of human tissue who AFK their way through battlegrounds, PvPing your way to 80 will teach you a hell of a lot more about how to play your class (at least the PvP aspects of it) than solo questing will. PvP, done right, demands your attention and almost forces you to learn and improve. In a lot of ways, you'll be a better mage when you hit 80 if you've done some serious PvPing along the way, and that's nothing to sneeze at. Fully sanctioned opportunities to kill warlocks. Also you get to kill warlocks. I may have mentioned it already, but warlock-killing is involved. Cons:

Time consuming. Queues can frequently be long, so if you plan to PvP exclusively to 80, you may well end up wasting quite a bit of time. Matches are much shorter now than they used to be, thanks to hard time-limits and other basic mechanic improvements to the battlegrounds themselves, but you're still looking at spending about 20 minutes or so per match, to get the same amount of experience you can get from doing a quest or two and killing a few mobs along the way. You'll miss out on all the money and items you'd otherwise be picking up by doing the PvE content. PvPing exclusively to 80 is something that's very difficult to do without a higher level character bankrolling you. You get almost no money from PvP, you can't gather materials to advance a tradeskill, and you won't pick up any gear upgrades from quests. You won't learn how to play your mage in a PvE environment. We'll discuss this more later, but I'm a huge proponent of running a few instances on the way to 80. There are things you need to learn from operating within a group dynamic that you simply won't get any sense of in PvP. Lots of dying if your level ends in a number between 0 and 6. Though the problem isn't as severe and unforgiving as it used to be, the difference between, say, a level 10 mage and a level 19 mage is still massive. Especially at lower levels, you'll find yourself being more of a liability to your team than an asset. Also, it's just no fun, getting killed over and over. Once you get to the later levels in a particular bracket (which go in runs of ten, from 10-19, 20-29, 30-39, etc.), you'll have a significantly better time of it. For the first 5-6 levels, though, you're going to experience an unending parade of painful and frequently embarrassing failure, interspersed only occasionally by brief moments of moderate success. Sort of like high school. For these reasons, I suggest a mix. When questing starts to become tedious, or just when the urge strikes you, queue for a battleground, then keep questing while you wait. Picking up the daily battleground quest from the battlemasters in your nearest capital city maximizes your experience gain for the time spent. This way, you're still picking up honor and marks, but you're also still getting a healthy dose of quest rewards, item drops, the occasional instance run, and everything else the PvE game has to offer.

Also, forget the pros and cons. PvP wins because of the whole warlock-killing thing. I don't know why I even bothered to type all that up there.

Your first talent point!

This may not seem like a big deal, but it totally is.

Talent points, and the manner in which you allocate them, determine what kind of mage you will be. This is the moment you take the first step toward your career as a Fire, Frost, or Arcane mage, so I suggest you give it some thought. Decide what school of magic appeals to you and start working toward mastering it.

Having said that, know that you are in no way locking yourself into anything here. You can always change your talent spec at any point, and in fact almost certainly will, multiple times, during the leveling process and beyond. You may find it beneficial to select talents as you level that aren't necessarily the "optimal" talents, but make the leveling process easier and/or more fun, then change to a more efficient spec as you reach end-game. In that spirit, here are a few random pieces of advice:

Don't pick Arcane. It's terrible until the later levels, and then it becomes awesome. Just don't use it while leveling. At low levels, it'll make you feel weak, slow, and awkward, much like middle school gym class did.
Fire is good for pure damage, and Frost is good for control. For now, take one of the two and run with it. Fire is generally considered better from levels 10-40ish, at which point Frost's ability to gather up every mob in the zone and then kill them all at once nudges it into the lead as a leveling spec. Do what you like, I'm just throwing out some conventional group-think here.
With your first few talent points, take either Improved Fireball or Improved Frostbolt. No other talent will help you as consistently and immediately as speeding up your nuke of choice will. If you hate yourself and are going with a low level Arcane spec, go with Arcane Stability, I guess, and may God have mercy upon your soul.
I'll throw out some ongoing talent spec suggestions as we go along, but considering we're already about 1400 words into this behemoth, we'd better get to the leveling guide proper.

Levels 11-12

New spells: Dampen Magic, Slow Fall

New ranks of spells: Fireball (rank 3), Conjure Food (rank 2)

At this point, you should be thinking about moving out into the great wide world beyond your home zone, to a quest hub like Crossroads or Sentinel Hill. Things will get progressively harder, and the levels will come more slowly. Fortunately, you can now conjure slightly more potent bread to assist you on your quest. If you let it harden long enough in your backpack, it can serve as a pretty effective projectile.

I'm lying. You can't actually throw your bread. The good news? You can throw a ball of flame. And at rank 3, that ball of flame will blow things up like it means it. If you're going the Frostbolt route with your talent points, Frostbolt is probably still a better choice for a primary nuke, but if Fire is your spec, open with that Frostbolt to snare your target and then start chucking Fireball after Fireball at it.

Your two new spells are Dampen Magic (which sort of sucks), and Slow Fall (which does not). Dampen Magic gives you a small damage reduction from spells, but also gimps incoming heals. If you're playing solo, there's no reason -- other than that inconvenient extra button press and mana expenditure -- not to keep it up as a third buff. If you're fighting casters, it can take a bit of the sting out of their spellcasts. If you're running with a friend who has heal spells, Dampen Magic is a bad idea. It's really as simple as that. This is one of those spells you'll pick up at the trainer and then promptly forget you have it. It's that mediocre.

Slow Fall, on the other hand, is good, clean fun. Use it any time you see a drop that will get you where you want to go faster than going around will. Also, use it whenever there's a drop. Because it's fun. You'll need to get your hands on some Light Feathers to use as reagents for the spell, but those should be fairly common drops. Kill things like harpies or buzzards to get them. Then leap from great heights and sail down safely as often as possible. You know you want to.

Levels 13-14

New spells: Arcane Explosion

New ranks of spells: Frostbolt (rank 3), Fire Blast (rank 2), Arcane Intellect (rank 2)

Ah, your first AoE. Perfect for any occasion when blowing up just one thing simply won't do. Be warned, though: it will suck your mana pool dry faster than you can say "holy crap where did my mana pool go and why are these four bears eating my face?" Use it prudently.

Frostbolt gets more powerful, meaning it's smart to simply spam it again, especially if you've been using your talent points to lower its cast time. Fire Blast improves as well, and your Arcane Intellect is slightly more intellectual than it previously was.

If you've rolled a Horde-side mage, level 14 is a good level to start trying to find groups for Ragefire Chasm, the lowest-level instance in the game. It resides beneath Orgrimmar, and is the home to some very sweet loot. Here is what you need to know as a low-level mage entering an instance for the first time:

Monsters in instances are "elites," meaning they have far more hit points and hit far harder than normal monsters of the same level. They're designed to provide a challenge for five players, and absolutely slaughter one.

You do not want them to hit you.
There will be a tank in your group. He'll be a warrior, druid, or paladin. You want the monsters to hit him.
If you do too much damage to a monster too quickly, you'll piss the monster off and it'll ignore the tank and come for you. This mean you will probably die, and possibly take the whole group down with you.
If this happens, stop casting.
Your role in an instance is DPS. You're in charge of dealing damage to whatever the tank is fighting. The tank will do his or her best to keep the attention of whatever he or she is fighting focused squarely on him or herself, as opposed to on you, with your cloth armor and squishy innards. If this means you occasionally need to cut back on the Fireballing a bit (and that's exactly what it means), do it. The default UI will tell you when you've ticked the monster off by saying "High Threat" and flashing red and whatnot, but by the time it does so, it's probably too late. I'd encourage picking up a threat-meter add-on and using it liberally. It will keep you up-to-date on how mad the monster is at you in relation to how mad it is at the tank, and paying attention to it will save your life. Omen is a good solid choice, though a quick perusal of WoWCurse or WoWInterface or some similar site will reveal several other viable alternatives.

You may also be asked to fulfill another role: that of crowd control, or CC. Polymorph is one of, if not the single most reliable CC spell in the game, and you will be asked to sheep something if you go into an instance in possession of it. All this means is that you will need to keep one target in whatever group of enemies it is that you are fighting out of commission. You do that by turning them into a sheep and then turning them into a sheep again if the spell wears off or some stupid nub breaks your sheep. Your tank will hopefully mark your sheep targets clearly before the fight begins, so you'll know which mob to do this to. Set your sheep target as your focus by right-clicking its portrait and sheep it after the tank pulls. Then DPS the tank's target while you keep an eye on your sheep target, re-sheeping it as necessary. This is a skill you should perfect as soon as possible.

Levels 15-16

New spells: Flamestrike

New ranks of spells: Arcane Missiles (rank 2)

Flamestrike provides you with another mana-intensive and semi-awkward AoE option. It does quite a bit more damage than Arcane Explosion, but is far more clunky to use. Also, you get a new rank of Arcane Missiles, a spell that remains relatively useless at this level. It uses too much mana and takes too long to cast. It'll be awesome later, but for now, only use it when you get bored of Fireballs or Frostbolts.

Level 15 brings you brand new customization option: glyph slots. You get two to start with, one minor and one major. Your choice of glyphs is entirely up to you, but at low levels I'd recommend glyphing Fireball in that major slot. Not Frostbolt, mind you, since that glyph has a side effect that sucks for a leveling mage: it removes Frostbolt's slowing effect as a trade-off for more damage. The Fireball glyph is a clear damage increase, and unless you absolutely won't using Fireball, is worth picking up. There are certainly other choices, but Fireball is my preference at this level.

Your choice of minor glyph is largely a cosmetic one, so choose whatever suits you. I like the Slow Fall glyph just because it allows me to stop carrying around Light Feathers, but that's just me.

If you happen to be a scribe yourself, you can make your own glyphs, but if not, you'll most likely need to pay a visit to the auction house to procure your glyphs, and some of them can be quite expensive. Save your pennies and do what you can, but don't think it's the end of the world if you simply can't afford the glyph you want yet. At this level, they're a nicety, not a necessity.

Lastly, at level 15 you should be done placing talent points into reducing the speed of Fireball or Frostbolt. If you've chosen to spec Fire, I'd start working on Ignite, which will add a powerful DoT effect to anything you manage to crit with a Fire spell. It's a big damage increase and it's always fun to set things on fire. On the Frost side of things, I'd start investing in Frostbite, which gives you a chance to freeze your target completely every time you hit it with a Frost spell and is one of the bedrock talents for the tree as you go forward. Once you hit level 17, I'd move on to Ice Shards, which will makes your Frost crits do an almost obscene amount of damage. good times. If you're still speccing Arcane at this point, I don't have any advice for you, Do what you want, crazy person. I wash my hands of you.

Levels 17-18

New spells: Amplify Magic, Remove Curse

New ranks of spells: Fireball (rank 4)

Amplify Magic sucks. It has some very niche uses later in the game, but for now, just put it in your spellbook and tell it not to order any pay-per-view or invite any friends over. Remove Curse...removes curses. If you get cursed, use it. Don't forget you have this spell; you'll find it very useful on certain bosses in raids and instances later on. Also, Fireball gets more powerful. That's never a bad thing.

A couple new instance options open up in this level range: Deadmines and Wailing Caverns. Deadmines is worth the trip even for Horde characters, simply because it has pirates. Who doesn't like pirates? Specifically, who doesn't like setting pirates on fire? Put your hands down, pirates. I wasn't talking to you.

Levels 19-20

New spells: Blink, Blizzard, Evocation, Fire Ward, Mana Shield, the various Teleport spells

New ranks of spells: Conjure Water (rank 3), Frost Armor (rank 3), Frostbolt (rank 4), Polymorph (rank 2)

Level 20 may just be the best level in the game. Ok, maybe 80 is better, but not by much. In terms of pure advancement, it's tough to top level 20 for mages. You get a buttload of new and improved spells, you get to start teleporting around willy-nilly, and most of all, you get a pony.

Yes, in one fell swoop, we get one of the best AoE spells in the game in Blizzard, a couple of nice defensive spells in Fire Ward and Mana Shield, the down-time reducing, mana returning, sweetness that is Evocation, and the ability to pop forward twenty yards with the recently improved Blink. As if that wasn't enough, we also get better water to conjure, more armor from Frost Armor, a more powerful Frostbolt, and an update to Polymorph that lengthens its duration from 20 seconds to 30.

To make the level seem like even more of a milestone, we get access to our first three Teleport spells: Stormwind, Ironforge, and Exodar for the Alliance, and Orgrimmar, Undercity, and Silvermoon for the Horde. Welcome to one of the hands-down best parts of being a mage: get-around-ability. We can pop around from city to city without using a hearthstone, and our options only get more numerous as we level. This is extremely helpful in the old world, where a disturbingly large number of quests pop up that send you back and forth to capital cities for no good reason.

Perhaps the best part of level 20, though, is that you can train to use your first mount. This used to happen at level 40. I don't know if you remember that, but it happened. Then after like four years of making us grind our way to 40 before we could be trusted to ride into battle on something faster than our own two feet, Blizzard changed the level requirement to 30. Then about 15 minutes (give or take) later they switched it down even further, to 20. I halfway expect, every time I create a new character, to see them spawn at level 1 already on the back of a spectral raptor or a winged giraffe or something.

Whoo... I need to shut up. As more than one of you pointed out on the last installment of the mage leveling guide: it takes longer to read these columns than it does to actually level your mage ten levels. I don't know if next week will bring levels 21-30 yet or not. If PTR news drops, we may cover that. But if not... bring on the leveling!

Lichborne: Death knight leveling 68-80

So, death knight. You're through with Outland. You just dinged 68 in Nagrand and want to move on to whiter, snow covered pastures. Maybe those pastures are in Northrend. Maybe those pastures are in Alterac Valley. Either way, let's discuss getting through those final levels and pushing you through to the end game.

Gear

So if you've read our previous Death Knight leveling guide, you may have picked up an upgrade or two. Then again, you may have decided to keep your starting gear because it looks so awesome, which is cool. However, once you hit Northrend, that gear's going to start looking pretty weak. Luckily, you'll have a wealth of quest gear to grab.

You can starting by checking out our Northrend Starting Zone Gear Guide from a while back. If you need a sum up of that, the basics are that Borean Tundra has a great blue 2-handed axe reward, so you should probably quest for that first. After that, Borean Tundra has more straight strength and critical strike rating on its gear, while Howling Fjord has more haste and armor penetration. You can probably level up in either pretty safely, though I went with Howling Fjord simply because I enjoyed the story lines there more. Haste turns out to be good for Unholy, and Armor Penetration for Blood, so the gear there is actually a bit better than it might first appear to the untrained eye.

Once you've kitted yourself out in the basic gear, you should be able to get to level 80 relatively easy, grabbing minor upgrades you go. We'd be here all day if I went over every zone, but there are a few things I can recommend you focus on:

First, do the Wrathgate quest line in Dragonblight. By the time it's over, you'll have a few new blue upgrades a nice trinket in addition to having experienced the best quest line in all of Warcraft. Secondly, do all of the Kalu'ak reputation quests in Howling Fjord, Borean Tundra, and Dragonblight. Once you complete those and do a couple rounds of dailies, you'll be at revered, meaning you have a nice new breastplate or two waiting at 76 and a new 2-handed weapon waiting at 78. Thirdly, once you hit level 77, head to Krasus' Landing and take the free taxi to the Argent Tournament. The sooner you start on the dailies, the sooner you can start earning Champion's Seals, which should provide you with some nice weapon and armor upgrades once you hit 80.

Leveling the PvP Way

I thought I should make mention of PvP leveling possibilities since it is the new hotness. While the Patch 3.2.2 adjustments did cool down the gain a bit, you can still get 10-12k experience per a tower burning in Alterac Valley (before heirloom adjustments), so it's at least a good break from questing.

The main thing to remember about leveling as PvP is that unless you're twinked out, you're going to be sort of squishy from around levels 70-75. This means that if possible, you may want to find other ways of helping the offensive than charging headlong into the onrushing Horde. You can keep an eagle eye on flags and interrupt any Horde capturers until the more powerful members of your team can defeat them - one point of damage prevents a flag capture. Also, don't be afraid to use Chains of Ice, Strangulate, and other crowd control and interruption skills to help shut down casters.

Also, you may want to review my PvP tips for death knights. While the specs mentioned are a little outdated, and the tips still refer primarily to level 80s, you should find something in there you can adapt to the situation.

Skill Check: Old Skills

As far as talent trees go, all three can be used successfully for leveling, but a Blood/Unholy build is probably going to be the quickest and easiest to level, with great damage and self-healing. That said, I leveled as Unholy and found the experience enjoyable, and even Frost should be able to muddle through.

Your best bet for leveling quickly is to get a good rotation down. Essentially, you want to get both your diseases up. Then, you want to hit your Frost/Unholy strike (Death Strike for Blood, Scourge Strike for Unholy, Obliterate for Frost), then hit a couple Blood Strikes (or Heart Strikes if you're Blood), followed by your runic power dump. Then, you can start over again. Always make sure your diseases are up, since they will increase the damage of your strikes, and if you use Death Runes in your build, use those to unleash your most powerful runic strike (Heart Strike for Blood, Obliterate for Frost. This used to be Scourge Strike for Unholy, but end game Unholy builds currently eschew Death Runes and just start the whole disease cycle over again).

If you're AEing, the basic idea should be to get down your diseases, use Pestilence to spread them, and then use the remaining three runes for a Death and Decay. This will change a bit depending on your spec and role (for example, if you're DPSing in a group, be careful not to pull aggro off the tank with that DnD), but this method should be fine for solo DPSing up to 80.

Both of the above are very much the basics of rotation, and in the raid and heroic game somethings will change, but these basic methods will get you to 80, at least. Now, let's check on some of the other skills you'll getting as you head toward 80.

New Skills

Rune Strike: While you technically get this at level 67, I feel it's important enough to point out -- you need this skill.

Anti-Magic Shell: This level 68 skill is often overlooked, but it can be very useful both for tanking and DPS. Not only does it take the brunt of magical damage, but it provides extra runic power. If you're fighting magic using enemies and you have the runic power, put this up just before they send a spell your way or cast an AoE that you'll get caught in. Not only will you take a lot less damage, but you'll find yourself with a bit of extra runic power. Good death knights learn to use this well.

Rune of the Fallen Crusader: This comes along at level 70. You should probably head straight back to Ebon Hold, learn it, and apply it to your weapon. It's the undisputed king of enchantments for Blood and Unholy DPS, and even Frost builds will generally use this on their main hand, with Razorice for the offhand.

Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle: This one's pretty simple. If you're tanking and having trouble hitting the defense cap, using this enchant (or the one-handed version coming with Patch 3.3). If not, the parry enchant will probably serve you better.

Unholy Presence: If you're an Unholy Death Knight with low haste, you may find this presence useful for fitting in a proper rotation. It's also a easy way to get a quick burst of speed if, say, you're running deep into a dungeon after wiping. For the most part, though, Blood Presence will be the superior DPS presence.

Raise Ally: This is a nice little bonus if you're in the middle of a big battle, an ally has fallen, and the Druid's battle rez is on cooldown. That said, the Ghoul raised with this ability will probably be a bit weak. Still, it's better than nothing.

Empower Rune Weapon: This ability comes along at level 75. It will put all your runes off cooldown and grab you a chunk of runic power. In short, it's the perfect burst ability. In PvP or PvE, if something needs to go down fast, get off your first set of abilities, and while most of your runes are on cooldown and your runic power near depleted, hit this cooldown and lay into your target with a fresh set of strikes. Never underestimate this ability.

Army of the Dead: This level 80 ability can be both a help and hindrance. It's a great emergency button because it not only grants you extra protection while you summon, but the Ghouls taunt, peeling mobs off you and giving you time to bandage or Death Strike. They're also a surprisingly good amount of damage. Of course, they also have a downside. Since they taunt, they can peel off the tank if you're in a group. If a monster is tauntable and needs to be positioned a certain way (such as if he has a frontal cleave or cone AE spell), your ghouls can make life hell for the group, dragging the target all over the place. Take a little time to study your prey, though, and you should be able to determine if Army of the Dead is safe to cast.

Once You Hit 80

Once you hit 80, you know what time it is: Time to gear up again. Luckily, we already have a few good articles for you.

To get an idea of basic tank gear for heroic tanking, check out this article. To get an idea of basic tank gear to start in on Naxxramas, check out this article To get an idea of basic DPS gear to start in on Naxxramas, check out this article. Then understand that all three of the above articles were written before the advent of the 5-man coliseum, and read up on our Coliseum loot articles for tanks and DPS. Your best loot will always come out of the coliseum, at least until Patch 3.3 comes out.
Once you have some gear under your belt (and don't forget to enchant it!), a lot of different options will open up to you. You can choose a tradeskill if you haven't already, or decide on your dual specs. Then it's off to raid, PvP, run dungeons, and do all that other good stuff, and that's when it's time to start hitting the rest of the Lichborne articles. We'll see you at the end game!

We Have a Tabard: Strange bedfellows

Looking for a guild? Well, you can join ours! We have a tabard and everything! Check back for Amanda Dean talking about guilds and guild leadership in We Have a Tabard.

For years Blizzard has claimed that there would be no chance for faction changes. They didn't use the word "never" but they did say there were no plans on doing it. Much has changed since the Blizzard/Activision Merger. Well, the time has come, and what has become of it. I honestly can't tell you if the impact has been good or bad, but there has certainly been an impact.

If I haven't mentioned before, I play Horde. The first night that transfers came out, a number of my friends and guildies swapped characters over from Alliance. Good to see an influx of variety, but much attention turned to leveling forgotten alts. I don't know anyone who has transferred from Horde to Alliance. Given a better opportunity, I'm sure there are plenty who would make the switch.

Faction changes have had an interesting effect on guild on my server. A number of raiders from the top guilds swapped factions and joined forces with the top guilds on the Alliance side. The Alliance guilds have always been front runners in progression and this move has served to make them stronger. That's excellent for them.
On the Horde-side though, we've seen some pretty severe instability. One guild has crumbled and a new guild is rising from it's ashes. It's sad to see empires fall, but it's opened the door for some folks to move up the raiding ranks. I wonder if it's had the opposite effect on the Alliance side of the deal -- if it's bumped good, but not stellar players into a lower raiding bracket.

I've also heard tales of ninja disappearances with name changes and all. For those who play both sides or favor the other, it only stands to believe that these folks took their spoils to the other side. Honestly this behavior isn't really different from server/name transferring with an extra added level of faction complexity.

As for the raiders that merged with Alliance on my server, I don't know if they were compelled to do so by a raid leader. The guild was suffering some persistent personnel issues, and it may have been a good time to regroup under new management. There were many great players left behind. Did they stay due to Horde loyalty? A general distaste for the Alliance? Were they unwilling to pay the transfer fee? I don't know.

I am curious what the effect of race changes will be. As is stands now, it would be unreasonable to ask someone to change race. It would require having someone level up a new character to optimize racial benefits. But once race changes come out I could see raid leaders compelling players to optimize their racials. If a raid leader can ask a blood elf hunter to change from beast mastery to marksman, what's to stop the leader for asking for a switch to orc?

The dust is settling. I believe that the vast majority of transfers happened shortly after they went live. Normality should be restored. In some cases, like my server, it's just a slightly different version of normal.

Patch 3.3 PTR: Icecrown to introduce new hard mode toggles

There'll be a new way to activate hard modes in Icecrown, according to Bornakk. After the somewhat confusing four modes for the same instance that was introduced in Patch 3.2, which redefined "normal" and "heroic" for 10- and 25-man raids, Blizzard is making it easy for players to toggle hard modes for the bosses in Icecrown. The current plan is to make boss hard mode toggles part of the UI rather than through game mechanics such as in Ulduar. This means that players running Icecrown can switch hard modes on and off for bosses throughout the run. As Bornakk states, players "can switch it back and forth as much as you like. Encounter 1 on hard, 2 on normal, 3 on hard, 4 on normal, etc."

It's also interesting to note that Blizzard plans to scale up the Emblems found in older dungeons to Emblems of Triumph the way Emblems of Conquest are dropped in raids now. Newer, higher version emblems will drop in Icecrown, allowing advanced raiders access to the newest gear. This emblem upgrades will allow players to better catch up on gear and consequently explore Icecrown. Of course, Bornakk reminds everyone of the caveat that "Things can still change."

World of Warcraft Patch 3.3 PTR Patch Notes

Blizzard has just released the patch notes for the Patch 3.3 PTR. As with all PTR patch notes, please be aware that they are the early stages of the finalized patch notes, and not everything may yet be in them. These notes are particularly shorter than what most would expect, however there are still some juicy goodies.

The PTR is not up yet. You'll hear it here when it is. These notes come a day after the information and pictures of Icecrown were released.

Some of the highlights from the patch notes released thus far:

The Forge of Souls, the first wing of the 5-player dungeon, is currently available for testing. Additional Icecrown Citadel dungeon and raid content will be made available in future test builds Misdirection: Redesigned. Instead of having finite charges, it now begins a 4-second timer when the hunter using Misdirection performs a threat-generating attack, during which all threat generated by the hunter goes to the friendly target. In addition, multiple hunters can now misdirect threat to the same friendly target simultaneously. Rogue Vanish: For the first second after this ability is used, neither Vanish nor Stealth can be broken by taking damage or being the victim of a hostile spell or ability. Shaman Fire Nova Totem: This totem has been replaced with a new spell, Fire Nova, which is available at the same ranks as the old Fire Nova Totem. Existing characters will automatically learn this new spell in place of the totem. With a Fire Totem active, shamans will be able to use Fire Nova (fire magic) to emit the same area-of-effect damage as the old Fire Nova Totem from the active Fire Totem, not consuming the totem in the process. Fire Nova will activate a 1.5-second global cooldown when used and has a 10-second spell cooldown. The caster must be within 30 yards of the totem to use this ability, but does not need to be within line of sight of the totem. Black Magic: This enchantment now sometimes increases haste rating for the caster rather than inflicting the caster's target with a damage-over-time effect. It is also now triggered by landing any harmful spell rather than inflicting damage with a spell. Entire patch notes after the break.

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World of Warcraft PTR Patch 3.3.0

The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/

General

Icecrown Citadel
The Forge of Souls, the first wing of the 5-player dungeon, is currently available for testing. Additional Icecrown Citadel dungeon and raid content will be made available in future test builds. Dazed: Creatures attacking a player from behind can no longer cause players level 1-5 to be dazed, and have a reduced chance to cause players level 6-10 to be dazed. Copied Test Realm characters will no longer be copied with their achievement history in order to better facilitate the character copy process. Classes: General

Default Equipment: Starting weapons are now more uniform. Rogues now start with a pair of daggers equipped. All other classes except shamans start with a 2-handed weapon equipped and the required skill already known. Shamans start with a 1-handed weapon and a shield, as they benefit more from the shield than they would from a 2-handed weapon. Glancing Blows: The mage, warlock, and priest classes no longer have an increased chance for their melee attacks to be glancing blows; and the damage penalty due to their glancing blows is the same as for other classes. Health and Mana Regeneration: These regeneration rates have been increased by up to 200% for low level characters. As a player's level increases, the regeneration rates gradually reduce, returning to normal rates at level 15. Spell Mana Costs: These costs have been reduced for almost all lower level spell ranks. In general, if a spell decreased in cost with a higher level rank in patch 3.2.0, that spell now has the decreased cost at all ranks. In addition, spells learned before level 20 with reduced cast times and/or durations have even further reduced mana costs, proportionate to their reduction in cast time or damage. Races: General

Racial Attribute Bonuses: These bonuses have been recalibrated to even out the amount of starting health on the various races. All races start with a standardized level of stamina, except for orcs, dwarves, and tauren who now start with 1 extra point of stamina. For each class, bonuses and penalties to all attributes have been adjusted so that each race has an equal attribute total. Death Knights

Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle: There is now a 1-handed version of this rune in addition to the current 2-handed rune. Talents
Unholy
Night of the Dead: Now reduces the damage your pet takes from area-of-effect damage by 45/90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players. Druids

Pets
Avoidance (passive): Now reduces the damage your pets take from area-of-effect damage by 90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players. Hunters

Misdirection: Redesigned. Instead of having finite charges, it now begins a 4-second timer when the hunter using Misdirection performs a threat-generating attack, during which all threat generated by the hunter goes to the friendly target. In addition, multiple hunters can now misdirect threat to the same friendly target simultaneously. Talents
Beast Mastery
Intimidation: If the hunter's pet is in melee range of its target, the stun from Intimidation will now be applied immediately instead of on the pet's next swing or attack. Pets
Avoidance: Now reduces the damage your pet takes from area-of-effect damage by 30/60/90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players. Mages

Talents
Arcane
Arcane Empowerment: This talent now also grants 1/2/3% increased damage done by the mage's party or raid for 10 seconds after the mage gets a critical strike with Arcane Explosion, Arcane Missiles, Arcane Barrage, or Arcane Blast. This effect is exclusive with Ferocious Inspiration and Sanctified Retribution. Pets
Avoidance (passive): Now reduces the damage your pets take from area-of-effect damage by 90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players. Priests

Pet
Avoidance (passive): Now reduces the damage your pet takes from area-of-effect damage by 90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players. Rogues

Dual Wield: Rogues now know this ability upon logging into the game at level 1. Stealth: This ability no longer has multiple ranks. While active, the single rank of this ability (available at level 1) allows rogues to move at 70% movement speed. Vanish: For the first second after this ability is used, neither Vanish nor Stealth can be broken by taking damage or being the victim of a hostile spell or ability. Shamans

Fire Nova Totem: This totem has been replaced with a new spell, Fire Nova, which is available at the same ranks as the old Fire Nova Totem. Existing characters will automatically learn this new spell in place of the totem. With a Fire Totem active, shamans will be able to use Fire Nova (fire magic) to emit the same area-of-effect damage as the old Fire Nova Totem from the active Fire Totem, not consuming the totem in the process. Fire Nova will activate a 1.5-second global cooldown when used and has a 10-second spell cooldown. The caster must be within 30 yards of the totem to use this ability, but does not need to be within line of sight of the totem. Talents
Elemental Combat
Improved Fire Nova Totem: Renamed Improved Fire Nova. This talent now provides an additional 10/20% damage to the spell and reduces the cooldown by 2/4 seconds. Warlocks

Pets
Avoidance (passive): Now reduces the damage your pets take from area-of-effect damage by 90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players. Summon Imp: This ability is now available from the trainer for level 1 warlocks and no longer requires a quest to learn. Warriors

Victory Rush: This ability is now trainable at level 6. Talents
Protection
Damage Shield: This ability will no longer trigger any chance-on-hit effects from the warrior or the opponent it damages. User Interface

Quest Tracking Feature
This system is currently under development and is not fully functional. Looking For Group System
This feature is undergoing several improvements and is not available for testing at this time. For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros forum. Graphics

A new feature has been added to the D3D graphics engine to improve texture management (particularly for Windows XP users). This is currently enabled by default on the public test realms. For more information please visit our Test Realm forum. Professions

Enchanting
Black Magic: This enchantment now sometimes increases haste rating for the caster rather than inflicting the caster's target with a damage-over-time effect. It is also now triggered by landing any harmful spell rather than inflicting damage with a spell. Items

Glyphs
Death Knights
Glyph of Icy Touch: Instead of granting additional runic power, this glyph now causes Frost Fever to deal 20% additional damage. Shamans
Glyph of Fire Nova Totem: Renamed Glyph of Fire Nova. This glyph now reduces the cooldown of Fire Nova by 3 seconds. Bug Fixes

Druids
Rejuvenation: Rank 15 of this spell was providing a 15-second duration. It has been correctly reduced to 12 seconds. Mages
Flame Strike: Some ranks of this spell had an incorrect cast time of 3 seconds. All ranks now share a 2-second cast time

Patch 3.3: Icecrown raid preview

Blizzard has just released their preview of the Icecrown Citadel raid instance, which will be launching with Patch 3.3. This comes about a week after they released the Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeon preview.

Some of the key pieces of information from the preview:

"Join the legendary heroes Highlord Tirion Fordring, High Overlord Saurfang, Muradin Bronzebeard, Highlord Darion Mograine, and King Varian Wrynn in an epic battle against the Scourge and their master." "Icecrown Citadel features 10- and 25-player versions of the raid dungeon, and each version has 12 encounters. Each encounter can be fought in either normal or Heroic mode, and players can use a new user interface feature to toggle easily between difficulties." "The rewards in the raid dungeon start at item level 251 in the normal mode with 10-player encounters, increase to item level 264 in the Heroic mode mode with 10 players and the normal mode with 25-player encounters, and then finally reach item level 277 in the Heroic mode with 25 players." "...two new forms of abomination in Festergut and Rotface, who currently protect their devious creator, Professor Putricide."
The entire text of the preview after the break.


Gallery: Patch 3.3: Icecrown Raid Preview




From Blizzard's Preview:

All across the lands of Northrend, many battles have been fought against the vile Scourge. Countless lives have been lost since the Alliance and Horde first reached the frozen wastes, but the champions of Azeroth continue to march forward. Now Icecrown Citadel, the cornerstone of the Scourge's power and the home base of the Lich King, is their final target. Tirion Fordring and the Argent Crusade have forged an alliance with Darion Mograine and the Knights of the Ebon Blade to form the Ashen Verdict. The strongest combatants of this coalition, along with the champions of the Alliance and Horde, will lead the charge against the citadel.

This dungeon reveals the culminating story events and battles of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion pack. Join the legendary heroes Highlord Tirion Fordring, High Overlord Saurfang, Muradin Bronzebeard, Highlord Darion Mograine, and King Varian Wrynn in an epic battle against the Scourge and their master. Icecrown Citadel features 10- and 25-player versions of the raid dungeon, and each version has 12 encounters. Each encounter can be fought in either normal or Heroic mode, and players can use a new user interface feature to toggle easily between difficulties. The rewards in the raid dungeon start at item level 251 in the normal mode with 10-player encounters, increase to item level 264 in the Heroic mode mode with 10 players and the normal mode with 25-player encounters, and then finally reach item level 277 in the Heroic mode with 25 players.

Grand Entrance of the Citadel

After breaching the fortress, players will face a legion of undead guards directed to repel any invaders. Commanding the defenders is Lord Marrowgar, a monstrosity fused together from the bones of the undead. Supreme Overseer of the Cult of the Damned, Lady Deathwhisper is the next opponent. She bolsters the faith of her followers by promising them the opportunity to give eternal service in undeath.

As they continue their ascent, the Alliance and Horde heroes ultimately end up outside of the citadel where their hatred for one another erupts into a battle for dominance over the Rampart of Skulls. Players will join in battle alongside High Overlord Saurfang on the Orgrim's Hammer gunship or Muradin Bronzebeard on The Skybreaker in a unique encounter. Each faction will protect its gunship and try to destroy the other one in a back-and-forth battle to see who is truly worthy of facing the Lich King.

The Lich King's most powerful death knight then stands as the final obstacle for the heroes to enter the upper reaches of the citadel.

The Wings of Icecrown Citadel

After the heroes of the Alliance or Horde defeat the other faction on the gunships and wipe out the creatures near the entrance, players will venture into an area with three separate wings. Here they will face a multitude of terrors that must be vanquished in order to confront the Lich King.

In the Frostwing Halls players will battle alongside the Ashen Verdict and push into the lair of the deadly frost wyrm Sindragosa, who continues to strengthen her brood with the help of Ymirheim's vrykul. Along the way, the heroes will stumble upon Valithria Dreamwalker, a captured green dragon whom the Scourge is using as a test subject for their own ends....

The Plagueworks contains the most twisted experiments ever produced by the Scourge. In this wing players will face two new forms of abomination in Festergut and Rotface, who currently protect their devious creator, Professor Putricide.

The Crimson Hall contains the leaders of the San'layn, undead blood elves who oversee the Scourge's operations throughout Azeroth. The blood-princes Valanar, Keleseth, and Taldaram were raised into undeath by the Lich King to avenge themselves while protecting their blood-queen, Lana'thel.

The Frozen Throne

After clearing all three wings, players will ascend to the Frozen Throne, where the Lich King and his runeblade, Frostmourne, await to deliver them to their deaths....