Wrath of the Lich King: Wendigo

Blizzard recently updated the Wrath of the Lich King official website with a new creature: the Wendigo.


Though rarely seen, the wendigo's existence is evidenced by the fierce, primal roars that echo across Northrend's mist-shrouded peaks. Many believe these reclusive, cannibalistic creatures are the primordial cousins of the wendigo that populate the mountains of Dun Morogh...

Bear armor woes in Wrath to be addressed

You may recall a while back that we covered the problem with bear tanks in Wrath of the Lich King. In short, the new shared gear itemization between Rogues and Feral Druids is leaving bear Druids incredibly starved for armor and stamina. Extra stamina and armor is wasted on rogues, but is mandatory for Bears. Bears, therefore, have suffered.

Ghostcrawler has now let us know that the dev team has noticed the problem. The justification, of course, is as usual: They want less useless stuff to drop. Ideally, itemization should be tight enough that there is a high chance of people getting stuff they can use off a boss, even if that means 12 other people in the raid can use it as well.

Blizzard will likely offer free respecs before Wrath

I finally logged in to the Wrath beta for the first time last night, and frankly, was a little disappointed. Like a lot of players, I really enjoy seeing content live, and playing around on the beta feels like I'm somewhere i'm not supposed to be -- things are not done (it's a little unnerving to see a Blizzard game without impeccable amounts of polish on it), and there's no flow yet from the old world to the new -- you're dropped into Northrend and it's like you've jumped forward a few months in game continuity. Something is missing.

But having been to the strangely buggy future, I can tell you one thing so far. Blizzard will do something they haven't done for almost two years now: every character will very likely get their talent points back around the Wrath of the Lich King release. Sure, it probably seemed obvious to most, but this is a bigger deal than you might think -- free respecs used to be a pretty common occurence, as almost every patch, Blizzard would refund talent points to at least one or two classes. But that was changed right around the last expansion, as Blizzard has opted for smaller class changes rather than content patch revamps. We haven't seen a talent point refund in a long time.

If this release is like last time, we won't necessarily see our talent points refunded upon installation, but rather around a big content patch right beforehand. If you were planning on respeccing for Wrath, you might want to wait a bit -- while respecs still aren't free all the time, we are apparently getting one done for us.

Replaceable backpacks might be in store

There are two things that every WoW character has: a hearthstone, and a backpack. Well, some bank alts might have destroyed their hearthstone, actually, but absolutely everybody has that 16-slot backpack occupying their first bag slot. 16 slots made some sense back when that was also the biggest size bag that wasn't crazy expensive, back in classic WoW (Traveler's Backpack/Mooncloth Bg). But now that 16-slot bags are dirt-cheap, 18-slotters are reasonable, and 20- and even 22-slotters are obtainable, and especially moving forward into Wrath with the basic tailored bag being 20 slots, the backpack's 16 is starting to look a bit puny by comparison.

This leads one to ask: when are we going to be able to upgrade the darned thing? I'd love to be able to grab a few extra slots by trading it in for an 18- or 20-slot bag. And it really doesn't make sense for our backpack to be the smallest holding container on our body. I mean, I like that everybody starts out with a free decent-sized bag, but it really should just act like any other bag slot after that. Someone asked the same question in the WoW forums recently, and Zarhym responded in a non-committal fashion, saying they were thinking about it but didn't have anything to report just yet. Personally, I don't see the downside of transforming the backpack slot into a regular bag slot, but there may be something going on behind the scenes that I'm not aware of. It is also worth noting that we will be freeing up a few bag slots already in Wrath with our non-combat pets, mounts, and tokens leaving the inventory, not to mention bigger bags being available. Still, it seems like one can never get enough space.

Ten things I hate about Wrath Beta

Bah. Beta. Everything I read all over is Beta this, Beta that. There's so much praise going for Blizzard's upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion that it's about time we give it some rightful hate! That's right, I'm going to go through a nasty little list of all the things I hate about the Beta.

10. None of my AddOns work
Ok, well, some of them do. But since this is a Beta build, it's best to stay clear of any AddOns. I want to test the Beta build, which is unstable enough on its own, so any technical issues I experience will result in a GM telling me to scrap my WTF folder and toss out any AddOns, anyway. So I have to play without critical PvP AddOns like Afflicted or graphical idiosyncrasies like MetaHUD and fun stuff like ShaderMod. Of course, it also means I've got to re-import all my macros and reprogram my key bindings, which -- since I'm a lazy bum -- can be a chore.

9. The world can go down at anytime.
I've gotten fairly familiar with the message 'World Server is Down'. It's kind of like a mantra, actually. This is the time when Blizzard is trying to fix all the kinks in the Wrath servers -- we're essentially their guinea pigs and subject to the expected errors of the testing phase. So just when I'm about to complete a quest, I get booted from the server like some awful server joke. When I log back in, there are no NPCs and I start to think I'm Will Smith in I Am Legend. And then, just when the NPCs start appearing, I get spit out again.

8. Things change.
As happy as I am with some things, I know that a lot of these won't make it to live servers. In fact, I was grinding madly to Level 75 with two bubbles to go when the servers went down without warning (see above). When I was finally able to log back in, I was halfway into my experience bar. I guess the devs felt that leveling was too easy -- it was, but boy was it fun while it lasted! -- and decided to scale things back. A lot of things will change from now and when Wrath finally goes live, so just when I start to get comfortable, Blizzard shakes things up.

7. Money means nothing.
Ok, since I don't have any money on the live servers, this really doesn't hurt me much. But I did forget to "borrow" all my wife's Gold for the copy process so now I stupidly ended up on the servers with just a few hundred Gold. This has become a problem for me now that I need to level my Blacksmithing. My character isn't a Miner, so I relied mostly on the Auction House or my wife's Jewelcrafter/Miner toon's leftover ores and bars on the live realms. Of course, in Beta, because money doesn't mean anything, there's no real economy. The Auction Houses have the feel of a Tower Records store.

6. I don't have friends.
Well, alright, that's not entirely true since quite a few WoW Insider folks have made it into Beta, including Mike "my-invite-took-so-long-now-i'm-grumpy" Schramm. But unlike some of my lucky colleagues, none of my Guild mates or friends on my home server have made it to Beta, so the playing experience is somewhat lonely. Particularly, I don't have my wife, my favorite leveling partner (and financier...) with me so playing in the Beta is actually just going through the motions. Ok, I don't have many friends to begin with, but that's besides the point.

5. There are too many Death Knights.
In Outlands, anyway. It's funny to have four Death Knights talking in Hellfire's General channel looking for a healer to go through Hellfire Ramparts. I find it impossible to throw a stone in the Outlands and not hit a Death Knight. And as cool as Death Knights look -- and they look really, really cool -- everybody looks the same, and seeing everyone and his uncle run around in that badass armor makes it less badass. If there's anything in Beta I'd expect to see in live, it's probably the proliferation of Death Knights. They're like mushrooms. Evil, death-dealing, plate-wearing mushrooms.

4. I feel inadequate.
Another bad thing about Beta is how good it is. I mean... look at all the cool talents and abilities we're gonna get. Playing in Beta and feeling super and then going back to the live realms is like being allowed to test drive a Lamborghini Diablo and then having to go back to driving a Cherry QQ. Back on the live realms, it's just not fun when -- faced with several opponents -- I frantically press my Thunderstorm key binding and end up dropping a Windwall Totem.

3. I'll have to do this all over again.
Just as money means nothing in Beta, neither do all the levels I've gained or the gear I've acquired stand for anything. When Beta finally ends, I'll have to do all the quests with the same characters again. Worse, because of the change in experience (which will probably stick), I'll probably have to finish all of the quests in the Howling Fjord and Borean Tundra just to make it to Level 71. As much fun as I've had doing them all, the idea of doing them all again doesn't exacty make me wanna do Balki's Dance of Joy.

2. Nobody PvPs.
Nobody plays the Battlegrounds on Beta! I'm always in queue for 3-4 hours for all Battlegrounds and when I finally do get in, it's in the Strand of the Ancients... which is broken. I don't think I've ever completed a game of Strand of the Ancients. I always end up in some sort of limbo holding pattern where everybody is running in place and I can run around taking picturesque screenies of the scenery. Alright, I'll confess... I copied my toons over to the PvE server because all the WoW Insider folks are there. But I'd forgotten how boring PvE servers were -- everyone's blue!

1. Wrath isn't out yet.
The absolute worst thing about the Beta, though, is the fact that its very existence means that Wrath of the Lich King isn't out yet! My Beta experience has been so much fun that the worst thing is knowing this game is months away from release. Even though we're likely to see the cinematic this coming weekend in Leipzig, that's only a teaser for what promises to be the most awesome expansion ever. The Beta key is some sort of Carrot on a Stick that makes me want to hibernate and come out in a few months. Curse you, Blizzard!

New Wrath of the Lich King Beta Screenshots

Blizzard updated the Wrath of the Lich King gallery with new screenshots from the ongoing Wrath of the Lich King Beta. If you're a current beta tester, please send us your screenshot submissions focusing on the new environments of Northrend.

Wrath of the Lich King Beta Mounts

A few mounts are already available in the Wrath of the Lich King game files, however it's not always easy to link mount spells to the right models. Hopefully, that's something we can do and below you will find a short preview of the mounts you might see in Northrend. (This is only a list of what looks like buyable/permanent mounts, we didn't include all the temporary mounts from quests).

Tailoring in WotLK

If you’re like me, you’ve had every profession this game has to offer at one point or another. Personally, my main has had more professions than I can even remember. I started out a Miner/Engineer, then changed to Mining/Enchanting. Then I tried Alchemy and Herbalism, then back to Mining again. I definitely hopped around. I settled on Tailoring and Enchanting as my main got to 70, for the reason that I could enchant my own items and craft one of the epic BoP sets for my Warlock.

But as any tailor knows once you outgrow that BoP set, and you will do that fast if you get into raiding, there really isn’t much use for Tailoring. Sure you can craft your own bags, and if you are able to obtain epic patterns, you can make some extra cash. But for the most part tailoring becomes very useless after you start going into T5 raids. Many tailors have cried out for a boost to the profession in WotLK, and it looks like Blizzard has listened.

In the latest build of WotLK, several new patters have appeared for tailors that could make the profession a little more useful. Blizzard has introduced the Magnificent Flying Carpet. An epic flying mount available to tailors to craft once they reach 450 skill. It requires epic flight training for use, so you’re still going to have to grind out that 5k gold. While this won’t make tailors rich by any means, it will give them second thoughts on dropping the profession.

Several new Spellthread recipes have also been discovered. Shining Spellthread increases spell power by 35 and spirit by 12. Brilliant Spellthread which increases spell power by 50 and spirit by 20. Azure Spellthread increases spell power by 35 and stamina by 20. And finally Sapphire Spellthread which increases spell power by 50 and stamina by 30. These are WotLK upgrades to the current spellthread recipes Silver Spellthread, Mystic Spellthread, Golden Spellthread and Runic Spellthread. Hopefully, these new spellthread recipes will give tailors a much needed boost in making the profession profitable, provided the mats for these recipes arn’t all that rare.

Three more patterns have been discovered in the beta which allow a tailor to embroider an ability on a cloak. The downside to this is these abilities are only available to be applied to your own cloak, and make your cloak soulbound once applied. No word yet on whether this is stack-able with current cloak enchants, but my guess would be no. Also no word on if this is something only tailors can apply, or we’ll be able to sell these embroiders at the Auction house.

These embroiders come in 3 different flavors. One for melee players, one for casters, and one for holy players. The caster embroider is called Darkglow Embroidery, which allows a tailor to add the chance to restore 300 mana when casting a spell. Very useful for casters, but it could be buffed a little, returning 300 mana isn’t all that much. Lightweave Embroidery is for players that cast holy damage spells. It gives the chance to do an additional 800-1000 holy damage on a target when you damage them with a spell. This could end up being Very beneficial for paladins and priests if the procrate is decent enough. Swordguard Embroidery adds the chance for a melee attack to ignore 1000 of your targets armor. Most melee classes don’t have much of a reason to take up tailoring, as they don’t generally wear cloth items. So I’m not sure how this will ever be used by a melee class if it does indeed require being a tailor to apply.

These are the only tailoring receipes to be found so far in WotLK. The flying carpet is a nice buff to the profession, but more buffs are needed in my opinion to make this profession profitable. Hopefully Blizzard is listening.

Death Knights And Willie Nelson, Inside The Wrath Of The Lich King

I don’t have any real experience with World of Warcraft. If you asked me what I expected to find in the game during my preview of the Wrath of The Lich King expansion pack with Blizzard’s Jeffery Kaplan, the game director for World of Warcraft, I would have ranked Willie Nelson somewhere between magical lizard shit and the Death Star. While Willie’s face doesn’t make it into the game he’s there in spirit by way of the new achievement system.

“We have over 500 achievements in the beta, by the time we ship we’ll have close to 700 I think. We’re really getting a lot of content in there,” said Kaplan. The purpose of the achievement system is to basically make players feel special in Kaplan’s words and reward them for playing the game in ways other than simply leveling up. “The achievements cross all aspects of the game from hardcore PvP arena achievements to total fluff achievements.” The names of the achievements, however, won’t really clue you in to the level of difficulty.

Kaplan cited an achievement named My Sack Is Gigantique as hardcore. “Players have buy a sack called the Gigantique from an NPC we have named Haris Pilton for 1200 gold.” While everything about the achievement screams fluff, Kaplan assured, “Twelve hundred gold is not trivial.” When I asked for an example of a fluff achievement Kaplan rolled out To All The Squirrels I’ve Loved Before. To complete this achievement, a play off of the Willie Nelson song To All The Girls I’ve Loved Before, gamers walk up to various woodland critters in the game from squirrels to prairie dogs and give’em the ol’ slash love emote. Kaplan demoed the process spawning a squirrel into the game, “Here’s Arthas the Lich King, a death knight, and a squirrel here and I’m about to love him.” And love him he did.

One of the more interesting things about the entire demo was the underlying statement that Kaplan can do whatever he wants within the World of Warcraft. When asked who was the Willie Nelson fan Kaplan answered, “I am. My dad loved Willie Nelson. I’ve seen him in concert a couple of times, the big Texas flag coming down and whisky river playing.” When asked if loving squirrels was a tribute to his father Kaplan answered, “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

The Wrath of the Lich King will arrive when it’s goddamn good and ready.

Everybody loves Warlocks edition

There are apparently some classes we haven't been paying a lot of attention to lately, as several commenters have pointed out. Today, a little about Warlocks, and tomorrow a little about Rogues. See any classes we haven't been talking about yet? Then ask your questions about them -- we can only answer 'em if you ask 'em!


alx1231 wants to know....


I haven't heard much on the state of Warlocks in Wrath. Is there anything cool that I should be looking forward to?

Though I'm not the expert (my days of raiding as a Warlock are long behind me), I'd have to say that Warlocks have a lot to look forward to -- enough that I'm considering dusting mine off. My favorite new spell has to be Metamorphasis, a high-end Demonology talent that turns your Warlock into a demon for a brief period of time. But don't take my word for it! Michael did a thorough rundown of the Warlock Wrath patch notes when they initially came out if you want the full details, and V'ming discussed the implications of Wrath on every Warlock's wishlist.


For more of your questions -- and our answers! -- read on! But if you're the sort who wants to avoid spoilers, turn back now. We're aiming to avoid major story spoilers, but this feature is all about beta content and we can't talk about the beta without giving a few things away.

ironblade asked....


Have they changed the XP rate of 60-70 as they did for 20-60?

Yes! So if you're planning on leveling any alts... well, that push to 70 will be easier after Wrath's launch.

venumus asked....


As a Retribution Paladin, I rely on both spell crit and melee crit. Now that they are essentially one ability, does intellect and agility add together for one crit percentage?


Not quite. While spell crit and melee crit as they currently exist on gear have been changed to a single critical strike rating stat, the critical strike you gain from stats seems to remain the same. So intellect will still improve your spell crit and agility will still improve your melee crit -- it's just gear with critical strike rating that will affect both. (This is currently reflected in the mouseover tooltip for intellect on your character sheet, which specifies "sepll critical strike." The mouseover tooltip for agility only specifies "critical strike," but improved agility does not presently improve your critical strike chance with spells.) Check your talents -- though some talents (like Paladin's Conviction) now help with both spell and melee crit, not all crit talents are multi-faceted!


Doc asked....


I was wondering: what does Unholy spec do for Death Knights? Does it have some handy DPS or is it for PvP or soloing?

As is the norm with Death Knight questions, I turned to our local expert, Daniel. He had this to say:


First I should say that there is no "point" to any tree. Blizzard's stated goal is that each tree is to be able to stand on their own for each role, more or less. Unholy is a very good DPS tree. It does, as I mentioned before [see yesterday's edition of Ask a Beta Tester], a good amount of AE DPS. It is also the only tree that can have 4 diseases up at once, and it does most of its damage via those diseases or with strikes (such as Blood-Caked Strike and Obliterate) that interact with diseases. It actually seems to have more damage potential than Blood, with Blood's main draw being that it is a little less buggy, and it's harder to die with it because of all the health return talents.

The other trees aren't as focused on diseases. Also, they can only have 2 diseases up at once, Frost Fever and Blood Plague. But you'll be using those diseases no matter which tree you're in. Frost, especially, has a lot of extra ways to apply Frost Fever.

Unholy's also turning out to be a popular PvP tree because of anti-magic zone, the ability to control Ghouls, and Desecrate, in part. But yeah, Unholy is more disease oriented, and has 2 diseases, Ebon Plague and Unholy Blight, that the other trees don't get.

evestraw asked....


How does Wandering Plague do in Alterac Valley or PvP flagged players in major cities? Is it like Zul'Gurub's plague?


Again, courtesy of DK expert Daniel:


Wandering Plague doesn't actually spread a disease, It just does disease damage to targets surrounding the target that procc'd Wandering Plague. So no Zul'gurub plague situation because there's no disease debuff being spread, just the damage being done in a small area. Pestilence does spread diseases, but it is an ability that costs a Blood Rune.

Alex asked....

I was wondering do Death Knights have access to their races racial ability, more specifically how does the Blood Elf's racial, arcane torrent, work on a Death Knight?

All Death Knights have access to racial abilities based on their choice of race -- so choose wisely! Arcane Torrent has been updated to provide a Death Knight with Runic Power.


PBoy227 asked...

I have a question regarding the lore behind Death Knights and Draenei. From what I hear, the starting zone of the Death Knight takes place quite a long time ago...

Not quite the case. Best we can tell, the Death Knight starting zone happens slightly in the past -- but by the time you leave it, you're in present-day Azeroth again. The starting quest chain does not seem to indicate a passing of months or years, but hours or days, at most.

Lionhearte asked....


I heard somewhere that they may be introducing siege vehicles into other aspects of the game, such as AV and world PvP, so my question is have you seen any other place where siege vehicles are usable besides Wintergrasp and Strand of the Ancients?

I can't speak for PvP, but I can say that siege vehicles have found their way into other parts of Northrend. A Horde quest in Borean Tundra allows you to take a siege tank you've repaired into battle against the Scourge. (This, I'd say, is Wrath's "fun-equivallent" of BC's bombing run quests. I could drive around in my siege tank for hours mowing down Scourge a dozen at a time!) For this quest -- and I imagine any others like it -- you are limited to a specific parcel of land in which you can use your tank. Wander too far and you'll be booted out.
Bakuryu asked....


What do we know about phylacteries? Can they only be used by Liches? And what do they do? Are they any soul-containing object?

A phylactery can be any sort of container, but when we're talking about a Lich, a phylactery is specifically a container meant to hold the Lich's soul. Says Wowwiki, "As long as a Lich's phylactery remains intact and undamaged, the Lich will eventually regenerate its body and return to life." This explains why Kel'thuzad is with us in Northrend despite his death in Naxxramas (back when it lived over the Eastern Plaguelands). Daniel notes that, "Araj the Summoner, Naberius, and Ras Frostwhisper are all Liches already in game who have quests to destroy their Phlacteries." So there are a few Liches, at least, who are gone for good.


ashley wheat wanted to know....


I need to know whether Badges of Justice will be used in WotLK.

So far, I haven't run into any places in Northrend where they're interested in Badges of Justice -- but there's a lot of Northrend not yet implemented, especially raid dungeons and high-end content. Personally, I doubt they'll be using Badges of Justice for precisely the reason ashley is asking: because if they did continue to use the same type of badge, people would stockpile them to pick up phat new loots when the expansion releases -- all without the trouble of killing anything. With crafting materials, Blizzard has taken care to keep Azeroth materials seperate from Outland materials seperate from Northrend materials -- new types of ore, new types of gems, new types of cloth. It makes sense that we'd have a new type of badge, as well.

Preparing for the Wrath of the Lich King Expansion

Most prognosticators suggest World of Warcraft's second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King (WotLK), will be released somewhere between late October and late December of 2008. With the expansion looming, many WoW gamers have felt a bit of gaming fatigue with their favorite pastime. This article gives those who may be feeling a bit down on the game in this late stage of the expansion cycle a few ideas on how best to prepare for the launch of WotLK.

Build a Bankroll
We all would have liked to have had 5000g in the bank at the launch of The Burning Crusade. The cost of the epic flying mount was a shock to many, and though gathering that 5000g was much easier in Outland zones than it would have been in the old-world, to many it still felt like a grind that got in the way of experiencing other elements of the new expansion. In that light, it will pay to expect one or several large gold-sinks in Wrath of the Lich King. And hey, if you are wrong, it's not like that gold will go to waste. There is almost always a way for a player to use gold to improve their character and to aid their enjoyment of the game. As one evidently omnivorous Tauren said matter-of-factly in an interview at World's End Tavern, "There are three things in life you can't have too much of: gold, green grass, and beer-battered gnome."

Now is the time to build the bankroll you think will see you through WotLK and its related money sinks. As soon as a release date is announced, the Auction House will become more volatile and the prices on some easily farm-able items have the potential to crash. In essence, you need to decide before the masses that it is time to save some gold for the expansion--and time is quickly running out.

So, how much is "enough"?

Bare-minimum = 1,000g

Tolerable = 5,000g

Decent = 10,000g

Ahead of the curve =15,000g

Solid = 20,000g+

Exceptional = 50,000g+

It's recommend that if you don't want to worry about farming gold during early-WotLK for all the new enchants, inscriptions, gear, and various other money sinks that may be required to "complete" your character that you enter "Ahead of the curve" at 15,000g or more. In the long run, having these reserves will help you immeasurably more than going in with a tiny bankroll after spending the months prior to WotLK pvp'ing (or raiding) for gear that will be quickly outdated after the release of expansion.. Mudflation (the relative worth of items dropping) is severe between expansions and, unlike some MMORPGs in the past, it's reasonable to expect that most gear that you will be wearing at the beginning of WotLK will soon be relatively worthless.

As an aside, it's important to remember that this advice only applies to those caught between expansions and who may not want to make a big push toward some of the PvP'ing and raiding at level 70. "Fun" ought to be the goal of your time spent in any MMORPG, and if you are having a blast raiding or pvp'ing or twinking out alts, more power to you.

As another aside, many gnomes were lost in retrieving and calculating these numbers.

Level Your Alts
The next few months are a great time to level your alternate characters. At the end of an expansion cycle, levels are more important than gear given that everyone is put onto a relatively level playing field again with the exceptional new gear that comes with an expansion. Thinking about making your main character a new class? If you've forgotten, leveling is much faster than it used to be! Not only are quests worth more than they used to be from levels 20-60, it takes less experience to get through each level. A developer recently indicated that leveling 60-70 will enjoy the same benefit in an upcoming patch, or with the outright release of WotLK. Not only could you be leveling that alt you've always wanted to try, but you could be farming gold with him to fund your main character as well.

Collect Honor and Marks
While the exact logistics of post-70 pvp Honor is not yet known, it's reasonable to assume that Honor and marks will translate into the expansion. Should you bank 75,000 Honor and 100 marks in each battleground? That's up to you, but it probably wouldn't hurt. There's certainly a small risk that the developers will revamp the honor system with the new expansion, but, given the relative stability and success of the current design, it seems like banking honor might be a good bet toward scoring a few nice upgrades once you hit 80. Same could be said for Arena Points. Calculations indicate that banking 40,000 Honor and 60 marks of each battleground will be sufficient for a pvp-oriented player.

Collect DPS gear and prepare to Re-spec
It seems logical, but you'd be surprised how many players leveled through The Burning Crusade as a non-dps spec. Unless you have a dedicated group who plans to instance their way from 70 to 80, or, you are comfortable constantly respecializing, it is imperative that you consider what your class's best dps build is and use it. A feral druid in green gear is going to level faster than a restoration druid in epics. Obviously, some classes do not have a decision to make as all trees are formidable dps.

Study new talent trees, try new specs
Check out Wowhead Talent Calculators and play around with the classes that you will be bringing into Wrath of the Lich King. With 71 talent points to spend, unique builds may become as normal as cookie-cutter builds. If you see an upcoming talent in WotLK that catches your eye but may be outside your specialization tree, now is the time to switch specs and give that tree a go. See if you like being a holy priest instead of a shadow priest in a battleground. See what makes a Moonkin tick. You obviously won't be decked out in your ideal gear, but it wouldn't be hard to get a feel for how a specialization plays. Making these decisions early will allow you to plan that much more efficiently.

Switch to a gathering profession
This suggestion is only recommended for those who may want to switch from one non-gathering profession to another during WotLK. While you are leveling through WotLK, having a gathering profession will help immensely with gold generation, or with gathering the materials needed for your other or intended non-gathering profession.

Vacation Time, Studies
Perhaps a whimsical suggestion, but why not bank some vacation time between now and WotLK so you can take a few days off guilt-free at the beginning of the expansion when excitement and energy is high. Similarly for those still in college or even high school, when that release date approaches, put in the extra time and effort with your studies so that you can enjoy playing WoW without that impending smell of doom wafting from your book bag. It might not hurt to have a few Hot Pockets in the freezer at release day either!

Find a New Guild
As has been stated often by the wisest Shamans, devoutest Paladins, and the most clueless Hunters (well, perhaps not the Hunters), success on the PvE side of the moat in WoW is not measured by what bosses you've killed, what gear you've attained, or whether you've achieved a high rank among the members of the guild. Success is merely finding a group of players who you like and who like you, and who play well together. That this is the only way to "win" at WoW. Now is as good a time as any to find a group of players who share your values. It may seem daunting given the immaturity and inhumanity we witness daily in the World of Warcraft, but there are good people out there too--it's up to you to find them.

There are many more things you can do to prepare for WotLK. Hopefully this article has sparked the thought process toward getting ahead in the expansion, and that from here you'll be able to get ahead before the expansion goes live Please feel free to comment and add your suggestions or opinions related to this article.

Arena Junkies Olympic Contest

If you haven't heard, Arena Junkies is hosting their own Arena Junkies Olympic Contest. So while many of us are working on getting our own Spirit of Competition from the Azeroth Olympics, the Arena minded can compete to win a key to the Wrath of the Lich King beta.

Basically, you start a team with the phrase "AJOlympics" included in its name. Then, you go play in the Arena. The better you do, the more chances you get to win a key in the final drawing. You have to get at least a 2k Rating to even get one chance, so finally a 2000 rating will mean something again.

They'll keep updating their leaderboards until the end of the contest, so you can see how many people you'll be facing off against in the final drawing. I think it's a pretty cool contest, and I wouldn't mind seeing one of our readers win it. Not that I'm hinting at y'all or anything.

The strange task of entering Dalaran

Here's a somewhat annoying little problem with the Beta. As of the latest build, you can't just walk into Dalaran, or rather, you can't just use the teleportation crystal go up. Instead, you have to complete a quest to align yourself to Dalaran. But this quest is only available at level 74.

In the Outlands, it's not uncommon for a fresh 58 to head through the Dark Portal and right to Shattrath City. Binding in one of the Inns there essentially puts all of the Outlands before you, with flights connecting you easily to where you wish to go.

It seems strange that Blizzard has put up this strange quest attunement roadblock to those who wish to alight from the boat to Northrend and head straight to the capital. Perhaps it's a similar decision that caused them to restrict flying mounts to level 77 and above -- they don't want people skimping on exploration and seeing content, so they make you hang around the newbie zones for a while before you can just stick with Dalaran.

Luckily, not all is completely lost. Much like with Shattrath before level 58, You can still get teleported or summoned up by a Mage or Warlock before level 74. Still, it's a strange little extra hoop Blizzard's having us leap through to get the to top.

The end of Naxxramas

I was just chatting with my colleagues here at WoW Insider about Blizzard's apparent neglect of their old content (since the expansion zones actually start at 68, Netherstorm and Shadowmoon are basically useless once Wrath comes around), and now here's another sign that Blizzard wants out with the old and in with the new. We had rumored this a while ago, but now it's been confirmed by the CMs: Old school Naxxramas is going to disappear forever when the dungeon moves up north to become a raid in Wrath of the Lich King.

Which means if you want to see Naxx in its 40 man version, do it now -- I believe, as I said way back when we first heard about this, that this is the first time Blizzard has removed major content from the game completely (though it's certainly not the first time they've removed something, poor Captain Placeholder). This, of course, also leaves up in the air what's going to happen to all the items around Naxx -- what about Atiesh? Not to mention lore -- we hear that the fact that a group of players beat KT and took his phylactery and returned it to the Argent Dawn is mentioned in the expansion already -- but how did that happen if the dungeon won't be there any more?

Blizzard will probably clean it all up, and I'm sure that out of game, it'll make enough sense. But it's a shame to officially hear that 40 man Naxxaramas as we know it, the jewel of patch 1.11, will soon be gone forever.

Pets Scaling in Wrath

A while back, class designer Koraa told Warlocks that their pets would be getting their master's hit percentage. Today, he confirmed the same for Hunter pets. This should definitely be a godsend for raid level DPSers of both classes. Conventional wisdom is that reaching your personal hit cap is pretty much the single best way to increase your personal DPS total, and being able to do the same for pets should only provide a noticable increase to DPS, as well as keep any special buffs or debuffs said pets apply coming in with a minimum of interruption.

Unfortunately, something else Koraa said on the same post is a little less exciting -- resilience is nowhere on the table for being shared. They believe that they currently have the right amount of survivability for pets. In a group situation, you or your group should be healing the pet, and in Arena play, any time spent killing the pet provides a benefit in the form "crowd control" while the DPS is focus firing your pet.

Unfortunately, as the player of a level 70 Hunter and Warlock who have both seen extensive 2v2 Arena play, I'm not sure it's that simple.

To start with, the idea of focus firing the pet being considered crowd control is a bit ludicrous. They die very quickly -- less than 5 seconds, easily -- to someone in any decent level of DPS gear, say Season 3 level or so. Then in the meantime, the Hunter or Warlock is deprived of a large part of their DPS, utility, and survivability unless they take the time out to "crowd control" themselves by trying to revive their pet.

In addition, If my 2v2 partner is being stunlocked by a Rogue, I don't consider the Rogue crowd controlled. I consider him killing my partner and my chances at winning the match. It's essentially the same thing when he kills my pet. That pet is my partner in a very real way. He's an integral part of my class. Consider if Counterspell could remove a spell from a caster's lineup for the duration of the Arena battle and you might start to get a feel for what killing my pet does for me in the Arenas.

Beta tester Bibdy put forth another good analogy in that vein. Consider your pet to be a player with 0 resilience and 7000 hp. Back around Arena Season 1, before resilience ruled and Arena gear got incredibly overpowered, pets still had enough toughness to weather your basic PvP players' attacks.

However, as the seasons wore on, gear got more and more powerful to deal with higher resilience -- bu the resilience of pets stayed 0, and their armor and HP has barely budged upward. Consider a pet like a fresh level 70 PvP newbie who hasn't even purchased the reputation PvP gear, and you may have an idea of how weak pets really are.

I will continue to disagree with Koraa. A pet truly is a large part of the utility for both the Warlock and Hunter classes when properly used. To say that a pet that can currently be killed in a few seconds by anyone in good DPS gear is survivable enough seems to fly in the face of all conventional wisdom.

If not more resilience or other forms of scaling survivability, we at least need to some way to quickly recall or dismiss our pets to save them from a focus fire (Simply setting them passive doesn't really work, especially if they're already snared, Mend Pet just doesn't heal quickly enough, and Health Funnel harms the Walock too much). If not, we will continue to be irreparably hobbled in Arenas.

Oh, and speaking of pet woes, Mania's also reporting that Pets won't benefit from the Recruit-a-Friend XP bonuses, which means you'll either have to tame a new pet every few levels or level with an underpowered pet and spend a lot of extra time grinding green mobs to level your pet once your leveling's done.

Here's hoping Blizzard shows some pets some love somewhere on these issues. Despite some of the great changes for pets in this expansions, there's still some key weaknesses and inconveniences that really do need addressing.