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WoW Insider has the latest on the WoW: Cataclysm expansion!

Arcane Brilliance: Time to talk about the mage tier 13 set bonuses

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week, we take a look at the newly announced and quickly revised mage tier 13 set bonuses. I've provided a picture of the tier 13 helm above. Also, I am a liar.

So yeah, that isn't really the mage tier 13 helm at all. No matter how desperately I want it to be.

Still, any clothing that makes me look like a time chicken wizard is welcome. But we've spent enough time in past columns discussing the appearance of our tier 13 set. It's high time we started the conversation about the actual set bonuses this gear will provide. And what a conversation it will be ...

Mage tier 13 set bonuses:
  • Two-piece bonus Your Arcane Blast has a 100% chance, and your Fireball and Frostbolt spells have a 50% chance, to grant Stolen Time, increasing your haste rating by 50 for 30 seconds and stacking up to 10 times. When Arcane Power, Combustion, or Icy Veins expires, all stacks of Stolen Time are lost.
  • Four-piece bonus Each stack of Stolen Time also reduces the cooldown of Arcane Power by 7 seconds, Combustion by 4 seconds, and Icy Veins by 6 seconds.
All right -- let's discuss, shall we?

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Filed under: Mage, Analysis / Opinion, (Mage) Arcane Brilliance

The WoW Insider Show's Weekly News Update

Welcome to The WoW Insider Show's Weekly News Update, hosted by Mat McCurley. In this weekly news brief, we recap the week's top stories and opinions from all around the World of Warcraft. This additional weekly podcast helps keep you informed and up-to-date on everything you need to know.

The regular podcast will return next Tuesday!

Get the podcast:

[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.
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[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.

Listen here on the page:


Filed under: Podcasts, WoW Insider Show

The Queue: Bedroom Eyes

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today.

Here's the latest from the Dum Dum Girls, "Bedroom Eyes." Dee Dee Dum Dum (one Miss Kristen Gundred) used to be in a San Diego band I adored, Grand Ole Party; but, like most bands I discover before they hit it big, they broke up after their first album was released. The Dum Dum Girls are a way different animal than GOP, but at least their latest album is an improvement over the first, which sounded like it was recorded in a public bathroom.

Necromann asked:

This morning, I queued as healer for heroics on my pally alt. After the first pull in GB, the group told me to leve or they would kick me because my gear sucked, my pally is 342 equipped, which is plenty to heal heroics in. (On my disc priest, I've been healing heroics since everyone was 330 or so) I've had similar occurrences happen to me, my friends, and pugs. My question is has anyone else noticed a rise in hostility in the LFD recently, or have I just had a bunch bad luck in my groups?

Hard to base trends on anecdotal evidence. There will always be jerks in the Dungeon Finder, just as there will always be guys who AFK to smoke, or mages who roll on spirit gear, or tanks who run in full resilience gear. It's the facts of life, the facts of li-i-ife.

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Filed under: The Queue

Around Azeroth: It's today that's the day of the plunge

rogue getting married
Today's screenshot was submitted by the first and favorite of my very own characters, Apollinariya of Bloodmoon Chosen on Argent Dawn (US-H). Yes, yes, I just picked her up again after a few years, so the gear is a bit outdated.

Anyway, today is my real-life wedding day.

Unfortunately, my husband doesn't play WoW, so I had to go solo for the wedding screenshot. Here stands the blushing bride, waiting for her ardent swain. The white wedding dress is to dazzle him when he first looks upon her radiant beauty. The glowing daggers are for if he changes his mind at the last minute. It's good to be prepared.


Want to see your own screenshot here? Send it to aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com. We strongly prefer full-sized pictures with no UI or names showing. Please include "Azeroth" in the subject line so your email doesn't get marked as spam, and include your name, guild and server if you want to be credited.

Filed under: Around Azeroth

Breakfast Topic: To pee or not to pee?

Idle report
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.

It happens to all of us. You've just wiped for the third (or maybe 30th?) time on a boss. The mage decided it would be more fun to jog in circles than to target the adds he was assigned, and your raid leader's crunching numbers and calling out changes to the strategy while everyone makes the graveyard run.

You're already back to the boss's room, you're flasked up, and you've eaten your appropriate buff food. You know your job and are anxious for the kill, because your best-in-slot item is just sitting there waiting for you. All you need is the signal to go, and you'll be ready to unleash hell on this beast. It's during this anxious moment when you realize ...

You have to pee.

Suddenly, this has become your overwhelming priority. You start to stand up, but then, the raid leader sends out a ready check. What do you do? Do you hit Not Ready, make a quick apology, and race for the bathroom? Do you send your raid leader a whisper, begging for a few extra minutes? Do you hold it in, click Ready and fight even harder, knowing that the boss must die so that freedom can flow free?

Or do you just call for a clean up in aisle three?

Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts

Today in WoW: Friday Sept. 30, 2011

Join us every weekday evening as Today in WoW runs down all the WoW news that you could possibly want. From comments from Blizzard's blues to the latest datamining info -- we've got you covered.

Don't forget to check out The Daily Quest and our Weekly Podcast Roundup to find out what else is going on in the WoW community. And if you have a news tip, feel free to drop us a line and let us know.

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Filed under: Today in WoW

WRUP: Return to "over there"

Every week, just at the start of the weekend, we catch up with the WoW Insider staff and ask them, "What are you playing this week?" -- otherwise known as: WRUP. Join us to see what we're up to in and out of game, and catch us in the comments to let us know what you're playing, too!

Hello again. It's me, Faux Van Allen. Pull up a seat, ladies and gentlemen. It's been a long time.

Five months ago, the blogger you know as Fox Van Allen ventured to a place you may know as over there -- a parallel universe where there's a second version of everything, people included. The airplanes of your universe are zeppelins in ours. And the website you know as WoW Insider is known as Wow.com over here. At least, it was known as Wow.com up until last month. It's now known as wowgame.nbci-xoom.com/warcraft. (Long story.)

Dear friends, I'm afraid we're really in it up to here. It seems that someone -- and darned if any of us can remember who -- tore a permanent hole between this universe and the one over there. Since then, the WoW Insider team and the Wow.com team are in regular contact, sharing information to help bring you the latest news. But it seems that this is less than useful. They've never even heard of the Yellow Dragonflight. And their "death knights" as a hero class? What that hell is that? That doesn't even make sense.

What's really weird, though, is this bizarre yet sad flicker I keep seeing out of the corner of my eye, like there's someone else around, someone who belongs and yet is so terribly out of place at the same time. A dangerously underweight flicker that likely needs treatment for malnutrition. It's like the universe is trying to correct some kind of mistake that we can all agree doesn't need correcting at all. Strangest thing.

Anyway, though we've seemingly got all those universe-devouring wormholes from May under control, we've still got issues with quantum entanglement regarding the over here and over there versions of WRUP. Don't worry, though, we've got a lot of creepy, bald-headed technicians working on the issue as we speak.

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Filed under: WoW Insider Business

The Light and How to Swing It: Patch 4.3 news and paladin T13 bonuses

Paladin tier 13
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Protection specialist Matt Walsh spends most of his time receiving concussions for the benefit of 24 other people, obsessing over his hair (a blood elf racial!), and maintaining the tankadin-focused blog Righteous Defense.

The ball has begun rolling on patch 4.3, with the player test realm officially going up Tuesday night for public consumption. There isn't terribly much of interest just yet -- only the first iteration of the patch, so obviously much more is in store for us. Still, there are some interesting changes (and some glaringly absent ones) that demand discussion. Let's dig in.

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

The Lawbringer: Paying for addons and the spirit of the TOS

Pop law abounds in The Lawbringer, your weekly dose of WoW, the law, video games and the MMO genre. Mathew McCurley takes you through the world running parallel to the games we love and enjoy, full of rules, regulations, pitfalls and traps. How about you hang out with us as we discuss some of the more esoteric aspects of the games we love to play?

A long, long time ago, I can still remember the article I wrote at the beginning of my time here at WoW Insider called What happed to TourGuide?, an article detailing the disappearance of beloved addon TourGuide and the sale of World of Warcraft leveling guides. I had questioned whether these guides went against the stated addon policies Blizzard had laid out, which expressly forbid addons for sale or paying for addon access. It was not well received in those circles.

Addons have been brought down or have had the Blizzard gaze upon them for less than being sold on a website for a nice chunk of change. Why then does this new crop of leveling guides and automatic gold making addons (which I will not be linking) get an apparent free pass? Why haven't we seen Blizzard take action against for-pay, in-game gold automators and leveling guides? What is it inherently about the for-pay addons that makes them permissible?

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, The Lawbringer

WoW Insider Live Stream: More 4.3 PTR hijinks


Since y'all seemed to like it so much (and since I like typing "y'all"), we're streaming yet more 4.3 PTR content for you to enjoy. Thrill as Mat McCurley, Alex Ziebart, Anne Stickney, Fox Van Allen (who I hear tell will be shirtless) and some other guy run dungeons on the PTR and comment on what we're seeing and doing. On deck are Horde and then Alliance runs of End Time and the other dungeons, if they're accessible.

You can watch the live stream or go to the page of streaming to see the dungeoneering, the fashions (I'll most likely be wearing an entirely new set for each run) and the fun of watching everyone pick on Alex.

Well, I assume we'll be doing that. I know I will.

Edit: Show's over, folks -- thanks tons for coming out to watch and hang out. We'll hopefully do it again as soon as the next dungeons are available. The video embed has been changed from the live stream to the recording of the event. Enjoy!

Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!

Filed under: Cataclysm