Waldonnis

I don't recall exactly when, but it's been a long while now. I've had the same experience with traps and the ability icon, but strange results when clicking on the traps themselves... The changes are curious and I'm iffy on a few of them, personally. Moving Vigor continues to make me laugh (hell, maintaining it as a talent continues to make me laugh) considering the long history of debates that have surrounded the talent. Shadowstep continues to float in duration, but I agree with Scryll at this point...if they want to do something about its duration, do it with talents rather than trying to find a balance point with the base skill. I also think that Shadow Dance likely needs a bit more work since I'm hearing that it's a bit confusing at times and hard to predict for the rogue. As for the utility spell, it's odd and I'm not sure how well it will fit quite yet. While I've never been one to raid as a rogue, I see this as being of limited value, depending on the energy cost and cooldown, not to mention threat mechanics changes that are going on in the tanking classes. I guess we'll have to see how this all works out in practice before really passing much judgment on the ability, though, and I agree that it's a tricky one to tune while also avoiding "required rotations". In all, most of it does look interesting and a bit fun without having altered the class mechanics significantly (which is a good thing, since it means rogue changes will be quicker to implement and tune than some of the other classes).

General: Several new achievements have been added and others have been tweaked. Previously earned achievement progress has been wiped (not a bug). Northrend gems have icons of their own and no longer share those with older gems. Baby Shark (companion pet) has a tooltip indicating that "he really requires water", but is still able to be summoned on land. Hairstyles now have real names instead of their identification labels. All of the companion pets that required reagents (snowballs, notably) are now learnable! *happy dances* Dalaran: Dalaran finally has a working anvil! Several in fact. An "Enchanted Anvil" is also present in Dalaran and functions as a forge as well. Archivist Betha has been added (a tribute to the notably helpful Betha on Lich King, no doubt). She is currently inactive, but her title is "City Historian". Awilo Lon'gomba has sauntered into the kitchen in the Horde-area inn and now has cooking recipes to teach for the interested. A Halls of Lightning teleporting NPC has been added near the Violet Citadel. Professions: Inscription: Glyphs and other goodies have been added to the Inscription trainers! Inscriptionists (is that a word?) should run, not walk, to their trainer! Milling has a new icon that's much more appropriate for the ability. Tooltips have been added to each pomace type to indicate what herbs to mill to yield the pomace (SWEET!). [*]Cooking: Grand Master cooking recipes have been added to the trainers. Yay, finally something to do with all of this fish... Cooking dailies have been added to Awilo Lon'gomba in Dalaran. They reward Dalaran Cooking Awards that can be used to purchase recipes from the Arille Azuregaze, the Bartender in The Legerdemain Lounge (inn in the common area of Dalaran). [*]First Aid: Frostweave bandages now require two cloth per bandage to craft. Heavy Frostweave bandages now require four cloth per bandage to craft. Heavy Frostweave bandages now give skill beyond their previous skill expiry. Manual: Dense Frostweave Bandage is now a useless item. [*]Mining: The Toughness buff now gives a flat increase of 500 health instead of a stamina value. [*]Jewelcrafting: Several of the craftable level 80 rings and necklaces have gotten stats finally. *pokes Holyssa to make some stuff* Zones: Borean Tundra:Areas previously not tagged as flyable have been fixed (yay, no more me-shaped craters!). [*]Howling Fjord: Areas previously not tagged as flyable have been fixed. A few environmental effects have been added to some areas, including mist and spotlights. [*]Grizzly Hills: Areas previously not tagged as flyable have been fixed. [*]Crystalsong Forest: The ruins below Dalaran have suddenly been constructed (can you construct ruins?) and a protective shield added. Discoverying areas of Crystalsong Forest rewards experience and sub-zones have been tagged/named. [*]Storm Peaks: Storm Peaks remains closed for the time being. [*]Zul'Drak: A new flightpoint and small quest hub has been added: Dubra'Jin. Quests given are for the Gundrak instance. [*]Wintergrasp: Icons for objectives that can be captured or destroyed have been added to the overhead map. An icon indicating overall control of Wintergrasp has been added to the continent map. Icons for graveyards have been added to the overhead map. Instances: Gundrak:Gundrak, in Zul'Drak, has been opened for player testing. [*]Halls of Lightning: Since Storm Peaks remains closed, a teleporter to the Halls of Lightning has been added in Dalaran. [*]Ahn'kahet: Anh'kahet, in Dragonblight, has been opened for player testing. The instance has been closed due to major problems. Classes: Death Knight: Winged Steed of the Ebon Blade is now correctly in the mount pane, but the item persists in my inventory (almost got it right this time). Death Knights have gotten new voices and no longer share them with their "parent race". New spell: Dark Command (Blood), which is effectively equal to Taunt and on a 10sec cooldown with no rune or runic power cost. New spell: Horn of Winter (Frost), which increases total strength and agility of party/raid members within 30yds by 155 (top rankp). Lasts 2mins, costs 20 runic power, and appears spammable given runic power requirements. Path of Frost no longer affects other players (thankfully). The "Deathcharger" mount is now labeled as "Archerus Deathcharger" [*]Mage: Improved Scorch now increases critical strike chance against a target rather than providing a fire vulnerability. (duplicated by Winter's Chill in Frost). [*]Paladin: Judgments have been fixed and are working again.

General: Several art assets apparently didn't make it into the build, despite being required by the code. As such, quite a few obnoxious errors pop up in certain areas or when accessing certain UI elements. Type the following to hide the errors: /console errors 0 Overhead map functions aren't working properly. Clicking on a zone in the continent or world map does not properly zoom as it should. Achievement progress tracking indicator seems to get stuck on the screen. Resurrection spells of all types are not functioning properly. Players cannot be rez'ed if they haven't released. Mana regeneration of all types is not functioning at all or at random times. This includes not regaining mana from drinking. It appears rare and I can't find a way to reproduce it reliably. Test Arena gear in Wintergrasp claims to sell for honour, but the amounts are actually Arena points (display bug). Dalaran: Guild banks in the main banking area still don't function. There's another tiger pit/hole in the doorway of the wine and cheese shop. Professions: General:Many crafted items are still not itemised at all. [*]Inscription: Several parchment types cannot be placed into inscription bags (Scribe's Satchel tested so far for this). Shimmer Ink gives skill up to 300 (at least) but is grey when initially learned at 250. Trainers are not capable of teaching Master level Inscription, so there is no way to skill up beyond 300. Many glyphs do not appear to function at all at this time (seeing reports that indicate that none of the glyphs are functioning). [*]Cooking: The cooking quests in Vengeance Landing and Warsong Hold are unable to be completed, since Chilled Meat does not drop from any mob yet. None of the cooking dailies are able to be completed at this time (items are unavailable around Dalaran, and a few require Chilled Meat). Zones: Grizzly Hills:Venture Bay's captured area does not despawn NPCs properly when faction control changes. [*]Storm Peaks: Remains Closed for the time being. [*]Sholazar Basin: The Lost Lands area still remains "undiscoverable" for the purpose of the exploration achievement. [*]Zul'Drak: The quest "Sabotage" is once again broken and unable to be completed by most players. [*]Dragonblight: The cutscene is still missing when turning in the quest "Return to Angrathar". This has been missing for awhile, but felt it was worth noting from now on until they implement it. [*]Wintergrasp: All of Wintergrasp appears to not be tagged as flyable. This may be intentional, but it's pretty funny to see so many skeletons around the edge of the zone. Being in the water at all causes drowning damage (again, may be intentional due to the temperature of the water and could be the "intended debuff" that Blizzard had spoken about when it came to water in Wintergrasp). Using vehicles and cannons still causes random disconnects. Instances: Caverns of Time: Stratholme:Zoning in, starting the event, or sometimes even being near the instance entrance can cause players to crash repeatedly and become unable to move their characters without further crashes. The instance has been marked as No Man's Land temporarily to avoid further problems. [*]Halls of Lightning: Scattered reports of the same issues as listed above, except it applies to using the teleporter in Dalaran. [*]Halls of Stone: Scattered reports of the same issues as listed above. [*]Ahn'kahet: Same problems as above. The instance has been marked as No Man's Land temporarily to avoid further problems. Classes: Death Knight:Winged Steed of the Ebon Blade remains an item even after learned. [*]Mage: Rank 10 and 11 of Conjure Water continue to conjure Rank 9 water. Rank 9 of Conjure Food continues to conjure Rank 8 food (likely that this is the case for rank 10 as well, but I cannot test it myself at this time). There is a rank 3 Arcane Brilliance, but no corresponding single buff (missing rank 7 of Arcane Intellect, apparently).

Well, it makes sense that they are (and always were) in their own categories, simply because they are the only real "all around" additive/multiplicative buffs. What wasn't mentioned at all, however, were things like scrolls, elixirs, and flasks, which can serve the same function and at the same strength as a few of the buffs listed. Also, I'm not quite sure where some of the effects listed for certain debuffs came from, as they are not in any build that we've seen yet. Improved Scorch is a good example of "huh?", since its listed effect is not only duplicated by another spec in the same class, but also by another class in a non-stacking, non-additive/multiplicative fashion (I won't even touch the fact that one mage could effectively have both talents to provide the effect, but only benefits from one; this is bad talent design). There are a few other examples that make me wonder why some classes seem to be pitted against members of their own class over the same buff, while others enjoy little-to-no duplication whatsoever in the entire game. One of my suggestions in the past revolved around spreading the duplication a bit more evenly (while keeping it relatively weighting-appropriate). Some buffs/debuffs are very strong (bloodlust is the frequent example), yet only shared by two classes while others are relatively weak and shared by 3-4 classes. This is compounded by those same weak buffs being provided by classes with little to compensate for their lack of buff/debuff power. I'm hoping they do a few more passes at that list before settling on it for good. It just seems like it's really good for some classes, awful for others, and doesn't really encourage top-end content raid leaders to do much different than what they do already....they'll just do it a bit differently.

...or not... Storm Peaks is once again CLOSED! This is actually getting quite funny.

Hehehe, trust me, it has been (and sometimes continues to be) worse. After they re-opened Storm Peaks last night, we crashed every 2-5mins on average and, at one point, I was in combat with a mob for 30mins, but neither of us were moving. Longest stare-down ever...

Storm Peaks has been reopened after a server restart this afternoon. Stability problems continue, but at least the tissuefest of "OMG I was forced to grind mobs to hit 80" will end I'm looking forward to playing around in the zone, since it wasn't open long enough for me to do more than a handful of quests there before it was closed off. On the plus side, at least I got to work on my engineering a bit...

With a hammer that size, it hurts when it hits you no matter how you use it...so yes, size sometimes matters

Tigole posted a little bit of clarification on the beta forums about this. First off, the patch will hit standard PTR first for more widespread talent testing and to shake out some remaining bugs. There's also not any definitive timeline, but estimates were a month or maybe longer from now (could be sooner, could be longer) for it to make it over to live servers. Lastly, expect the same unbalanced woes that we saw just prior to TBC's release, since quite a few of the talents are designed around higher ranks of spells, while others will see immediate benefits at 70. That being said, I'm glad to see this stuff coming to live before release. It makes it a little less overwhelming when you're not suddenly dunked into new areas with talents that you've never seen before. Plus, there's always room in the current game for new things to play with, like barber shops or Inscriptions.

Just wanted to mention that there are two new "Ring of Blood" style events in beta and, frankly, both are so much more fun than the one in Nagrand that it's hard to even compare them. Kalea and my death knight joined Holyssa this evening and conquered the second of the two, the Amphitheater of Anguish, with just our little party of three. It wasn't easy, but it was definitely a blast to do and the things that the announcer says continue to make me laugh every time I see them (the spectators were also the greatest addition...last build did not have them speaking at all). As for rewards from the AoA, I can only say one thing: "better than season 4"-quality weapons, so it'll be a "must do" for anyone heading up the level ladder, and that's without counting the fun factor. The experience gain for these is also phenominal, as I was getting a bit more than 4k xp from just killing the mini-bosses (I had already done the quests themselves a few days ago). After all was said and done, we strutted out of there triumphantly and Holyssa had a shiny new gigantic hammer! Congrats!

Dammit, I sneezed and accidentally hit delete on your post instead of reply, Holy :-( Yeah, that Naxx 2-hander looks very nice, especially for Death Knights that do some tanking, but also for warriors and paladins. Some nice loot is starting to appear now, and rumour has it that Storm Peaks may reopen tonight or in the next few days.

*head asplode* Hehehe, this is good info and I share some of the concern expressed in the thread. However, it does seem to solve the gear expiry problem somewhat gradually rather than abruptly (WoW->TBC was awful for that). I'm curious how static the values will be after the itemisation team finishes more of their work.

Interesting note for the future for Goblin engineers...K3 in The Storm Peaks is likely your teleport location for future teleporter implementations. There's a teleporter pad in town and, being a goblin town, it makes sense for it to be the destination. It's also very "Winterspring-esque" in that area and the town itself reminds me of Everlook.

It was just a general comment that I should've added before to answer the "there's nothing new for me to learn...wtf?" shock question. Tailoring and first aid are good examples of partially-finished/broken professions, since neither can be capped at this time due to skill-up gaps. From what I've been seeing in the channels, most paladins have been playing for about 20mins, half of which is spent complaining about the judgments not working...so unless someone's feeling "warrior-y", I doubt you'll get much testing Let me guess - more pitfalls? *looks at her small hip flask of water from said fountain* ...I suddenly don't feel so well. This was an error on my part. It's the well that...has problems. And no, Little Timmy didn't fall down there, but quite a few others did. Lassie tried to warn them

I know! I can't decide whether I want to level or make stuff first. This is like opening presents for me Only on the Alliance AH.... I'm making and sending Hammer Picks to Holyssa and Kadiana. Since you only carry the mining pick, Holy, this shouldn't save you any room, but it'll free up a bag slot for Kadi and I figured I may as well make a few anyway.

General: Several parts of the Storm Peaks map don't match up in certain circumstances (hard to explain, but easy to understand once you see it). Using flying mounts in Howling Fjord, Borean Tundra, and Grizzly Hills is still a craterfest. Taunka females still use the Tauren models (with no PH tag) and the males continue to have a "Halloween mask" look to them. Dalaran: Guild banks in the ground level banks still do not work. The guild bank in the Sewers continues to work, however. The designations for the forge and anvil have been removed, but are still not functional. Beware of the fountain well...*doom music* The forge and anvils are still not functional. Zones: Grizzly Hills:The sapling for the quest "Vordrassil's Sapling" is still unburnable. [*]Wintergrasp: Horde players are unable to create vehicles that are usable by them. Every vehicle created is Alliance-only, regardless of base control or who created them. Vehicles can be created, but the ability to use them seems to change depending on a complex set of circumstances. Honour and Arena point awards are "taking turns" regardless of who captures the base. The award is basically being given to the side that opposes the current "controlling faction" of the base. Lots more, but in short: Wintergrasp is bugged to hell...but in a funny way. Just by sitting in one place, I managed to get about 58k honour for doing nothing while the Alliance nuked their own base repeatedly. There was nothing we could do to stop them without access to vehicles anyway, so may as well soak the honour Honour gained from Wintergrasp PvP is being retained, but Arena points are not unless the player is level 80. [*]Storm Peaks: Storm Peaks was closed again by Blizzard and is, once again, No Man's Land until further notice. Storm Peaks has been re-opened. One graveyard was apparently too close to Icecrown, which is still No Man's Land. When players were sent there, they immediately got the debuff and their ghosts were ported to Vengeance Landing (long, long, LONG run back). Numerous reports of an experience-gain exploit in Storm Peaks also forced the shut down of the zone until the problems could be fixed. Many achieved several levels' worth of experience in a matter of hours, from what I could tell. Professions: General: Many professions remain unfinished, partially broken, or unable to be completely levelled due to skill point expiry. Many craftable items have no stats allocated to them other than armour values. [*]Tailoring/Leatherworking: Eternium thread is still not available on all of the profession-specific suppliers. Check the generic Trade Goods vendors if you need it and can't find it otherwise. [*]Fishing: Despite learning GM fishing, players are not getting skill points while fishing (reported by some, unconfirmed by me at this time). This has been fixed and players are gaining fishing skill now. [*]First Aid: The Dense Frostweave Bandage book remains unlearnable and taunts me. [*]Cooking: The recipe for Succulent Orca Stew still teaches Big Bear Steak (talk about opposites). This bug has been long-standing, but I kept forgetting to note it. Grand Master trainers still have nothing to teach (including the grand mastery itself in some cases). [*]Alchemy: I haven't seen an alchemy lab in Dalaran yet, nor any indication of a future one. This may be intentional, but I doubt it. [*]Engineering: Reinforced Froststeel Tubes are grey when first learned, but continue to give skill points when crafted. Global Thermal Sapper Charges can be learned and made by Gnomish engineers, but require Goblin engineering to use them. (still a great recipe to use for skill points, though) Achievements: Despite the zone being available now, the Storm Peaks exploration achievement is NYI. Storm Peaks is closed again, so the former point is no longer valid. Classes: Death Knight: Winged Steed of the Ebon Blade continues to be a spell instead of a mount and the item remains in inventory. Many death knights appear to glow green. This may be a bug or intentional (no one knows), but the glow is tied to the Bloodworms talent. Blood Strike currently does more damage than Heart Strike, both in practice and according to the tooltip. Ghostcrawler posted "I'm crying inside" when realising what happened. [*]Paladin: Judgments appear to be doing no damage and are generally broken (reported by many in various channels in beta, but I cannot confirm myself). [*]Shaman: Weapon buffs do not work on all weapons. Kalea noticed that one of her new blue-quality maces prevented the weapon buff to function, but her old weapons were fine. [*]Warlock: The affliction talent "Eradication" is sending up the Bat Signal...literally. Players with points invested in the talent appear to have a shadowy bat over their head constantly (which admittedly looks hilarious). [*]Mage: Rank 11 Conjure Water continues to conjure Rank 9 water. Rank 10 Conjure Water continues to conjure Rank 9 water. Rank 9 Conjure Food continues to conjure Rank 8 food. Rank 2 Ice Lance does not benefit from Shatter. Rank 1 does, however. I still need to test Rank 3, but just got it today.

Usual note: Server stability is often very poor within the first few days of a new build. This is no exception... General: Level cap raised to 80! Experience required to level has been reduced significantly (although not as low as early beta). The Storm Peaks zone is (re)open and available for questing! The zone has some cool scenery and the name is well-deserved (lots of REALLY tall mountains). Icecrown is still unavailable at this time. Sigh, Storm Peaks is closed again (see below) All races can FINALLY see themselves and preview changes when using the Barber Shops. The bug affecting mounting in major cities has been fixed, so your mounts won't feel so unneeded any longer. A goblin named Rin Duoctane has appeared in the sewers with a quest that sends you to the Storm Peaks. Visit him for a laugh (hint: part of his model isn't finished and it looks funny). Locksmiths have been added to recover those lost keys that you tossed away eons ago! Some level 80 PvP gear has been added to the vendors in Wintergrasp. So far, it's just the initial blue class set, some of the epic off-pieces, and some blue weapons. All carry a generic descriptive name and supposedly cost honour, but I'm not sure if they can be bought at this time (I tried, but I'm not 80 yet anyway). A new companion pet was also added to a vendor in Wintergrasp for 60 silver: Baby Shark. He's very cute and fierce-looking! Word has it that he may be a water-only pet, but no one knows for sure. Dalaran: The security measures at the banks have apparently reassured the bankers enough to start stacking gold and jewels behind the barriers. Breanni continues to decorate her shop and is now found more prominently in the centre of the store. You can now ride through the Sewers, so you don't need to bring a lunch when you want to pay them a visit. Pazik "The Pick" Prylock <Locksmith> has finally set up shop in the Sewers to assist you with finding those keys that you lost... A lovely statue of Antonidas has been added to the area next to the Horde-side bank. Additional minor decorations have been added to many shops and the city itself. Aimee, the famous "Pie and Cupcake Vendor that doesn't actually sell pie or cupcakes" now sells pies and cupcakes The plumbers finally arrived and installed a really nice fountain by the Horde portal area. Zones: The Storm Peaks: ...is now (re)open! It's really amazing too! Storm Peaks is closed again due to rampant exploits and bugs *sad panda* Flying mounts don't seem to be required, but trust me, you'll want one. This zone's terrain is rough otherwise and there's a ton to see at upper altitudes that can't be ridden to. [*]Zul'Drak: Many new quest rewards have been added to existing quests (not retroactively rewarded, apparently), including a blue-quality feral druid weapon. [*]Sholazar Basin: Pitch now drops the correct item. A funny twist has been added to the "Some Make Lemonade, Some Make Liquor" quest. [*]Crystalsong Forest: The Sunreavers have moved into their camp after taking a long time to set it up. You can interact with the vendors, but the flightmaster still is not functional. The Silver Covenant has also populated their camp, but being Alliance-sympathisers, they're not too friendly. Raids and Dungeons: Halls of Stone:Access portal has been moved appropriately to Storm Peaks' Ulduar area. [*]Halls of Lightning: Access portal is available in the Storm Peaks' Ulduar area. Unknown if the instance is open yet. [*]Ulduar: Access portal is showing in the Storm Peaks' Ulduar area. Unknown if the instance is open yet. [*]Violet Hold: Now requires a key to enter. Unknown if the instance is open yet. Professions: Engineering:Many new schematics are available to learn from Justin Oshenko in Dalaran, and possibly the other engineering trainers as well *happy dances* Some fun things added include: Gnomish Army Knife, a nice tanking gun, some awfully fun looking anti-siege weapon explosives, a haste scope (!!), a portable mailbox (FINALLY, but the cooldown is immense), injectors for the new health/mana potion ranks, quite a few fun-looking bombs and doodads, and hand rockets and other "certain slot" items (work like an enchant)! Best for last: an engineer-created item called a Hammer Pick that is a single-slot replacement for the mining pick and blacksmith hammer. There is a similar craftable item that acts as a mining pick and skinning knife. [*]Fishing: Grand Master Fishing rank can now be trained. Pools of fish are now appearing in Northrend! *happy dances* [*]Tailoring: Some new items have been added to some of the tailoring suppliers that are required for later crafting recipes. [*]Alchemy: New vials have been added to the supply vendors, but no new recipes yet. Classes: Hunter:Several new exotic creatures appear to have been enabled for taming, including wasps and rhinos. [*]Mage: Fingers of Frost is reportedly working! (untested by me at this time) Improved Water Elemental talent no longer has an NYI tag, but I have no clue if it's working. [*]Death Knight: The Bloodworms talent has been changed AGAIN, but it's an agreeable change from my experience so far and nowhere near as stupidly powerful as it used to be. Some DKs disagree (mostly sub-70s), however, so expect more tweaks. Blood Boil no longer carries an AoE taunt effect on use (*sad panda*). Lots of changes to Frost, but I haven't respec'ed to play with the new goodies yet. Early reports indicate that the changes are pretty good, although a few tweaks are still needed. Might of Mograine no longer affects Obliterate (expect this to either change or Oblit to be tweaked). [*]Shaman: Mana Tide totem appears to give mana again (Yay!).

If Zartum is who I think he is, you're in good hands If I'm around and you need a hand, I could probably fill in, but I'm not looking for a regular run (too much raiding lately has me feeling a bit... ).

There's a loooooong QQ-filled, "the world is ending, we healers are cancelling" thread in the general forum. Feel free to voice your rant/opinion...

General: Server stability is incredibly awful for Northrend at this time, so be prepared for frequent disconnects (circa every 10mins so far). The Token panel remains unimplemented and the PvP minibar button still links to the old PvP panel. Some races still have camera problems when using the barber shops and cannot zoom out to preview any changes being made. Mounting is still bugged in many capital cities. Dalaran: The forges and anvils have been tagged as such, but are still not functional Guild banks in the main banking areas are not functional nor show a tooltip (the one in the sewers does work, however) Professions: All:Many Master-level trainers in the starter areas are still not promoted to train Grand Master skills or recipes [*]First Aid: The Dense Frostweave Bandage book is still unusable (heavy frostweave bandages turn grey well before the minimum to learn dense) [*]Cooking: Awilo Lon'gomba, the Grand Master Cooking Trainer in Dalaran, still does not teach the Grand Master level skill nor any new recipes [*]Tailoring: Eternium thread, which is required for most tailoring patterns, is not sold by the Dalaran supplier. It can be obtained from the vendors in Warsong Hold and Vengeance Landing, however. Classes: Mage: Highest ranks of conjure food and water continue to conjure lesser amounts of the lower rank for an increased mana cost Frostbolt graphics are improperly scaled (they're friggin HUGE). Improved water elemental has been tagged as NYI (not really a bug, but worth noting) Death Knight: Winged Steed of the Ebon Blade is learnable, but does not properly get stored in the mount pane nor even in the new mount storage system programmatically. Instead, a new spell is added to the spell book and it must be called from there (or draggable to a toolbar/cast via macro or add-on). The item also remains in the death knight's inventory. Shaman: Mana tide totem is still not giving mana.

General: The test shields that were for sale in Dalaran have been removed. Several of the mount and companion pets are centred and sized properly in the preview on the pet panel (some are still not). Swapping between two-handed weapons and a one-handed weapon/offhand (or shield) combo no longer prevents you from equipping the two-handed weapon again. Experience required for each level above 70 has been adjusted (read: increased). Preparations may have begun to increase the level cap. The initial login screen graphic "friend" has a texture now...and looks awesome. The map interface now has a selection for "floors". This is quite handy for Dalaran, but may also be used in future instances. Mana costs for downranked spells have been adjusted to cost a percentage of base mana. This is NOT a bug and will likely result in lower rank spells costing more mana than they're worth. Blizzard posts indicate that the tuning of this is ongoing, but intentional. Mana costs on several abilities for most classes have been modified. No list is available at this time. The zeppelin from Orgrimmar now arrives at the same level as the platform in Warsong Hold. Filters were added to the Calendar feature, allowing you to see/hide raid resets, battleground holidays, and other such events (this includes being able to see when *your* current raid IDs expire). Dalaran: The leaders of the Kirin Tor have finally arrived in Dalaran. They're a bit snobbish, though, and aren't talking to anyone. The well-covered tiger pits in front of Breanni's shop and the Barber Shop have been patched up, so it's once again safe to walk in. A wall has been added to the back of Breanni's shop to prevent the Alliance from making mischief in the Horde area of town. Mailboxes are usable again (yay!). Aimee, the famous "Pie and Cupcake Vendor that doesn't actually sell pie or cupcakes" has moved her wares into a streetcart store near the Horde-side bank. Banks got a few lighting tweaks, so you can actually see the banker that you're talking to. You can (finally) sit in the chairs at the inns. The gaping holes in the Sewers have had grates installed over them. Shifty Vickers has been added to the Sewers and gives a quest leading to the Amphitheater of Anguish in Zul'drak. A small family of turtles seems to have taken up residence in the Sewers. Their leader appears to be a sewer rat...hmmm. The guild bank in the Sewers finally works! *cheers at Binzik Goldbook for fixing it* The alchemy trainers and herbalism trainers had a spat, so they erected a wall between their two shops. Zones: Icecrown:The map is starting to look like a real map! The zone is still considered "No Man's Land", however. [*]Storm Peaks: The map is blocked off properly, and appears to be a bit more detailed now. [*]Borean Tundra: The forges and anvils now function! I blame the goblins there for them not being operational before... [*]Sholazar Basin: The quest "A Prickly Situation" has been renamed to "The Part-time Hunter" and correctly asks for the head of a beast that actually exists. [*]Zul'Drak: The Amphitheater of Anguish quests are fully implemented and are no longer copies of the Ring of Blood quests (and the announcements are hilarious). Akali's chains are all unlockable again for the quest "Rampage". Gymer, the King of the Storm Giants, can be released from his cage again for the quest "The Storm King's Vengeance" (incredibly fun quest, incidentally, but fairly difficult). Instances: Violet Hold has been implemented, but is still unavailable (apparently has a minimum level requirement above the currently level cap). It also implies that it will require a key to enter, as there is a lever inside of the doors (currently unlocked). Professions: All:Apparently, some trainers have been promoted (and moved around a bit) in Vengeance Landing very recently (possibly a hotfix was applied upstream since they were in their original locations very recently) [*]Tailoring: New recipes have been added to the tailor trainer in Dalaran finally! Embroidery stuff is listed as well as a new 20-slot bag pattern and some new spellthread types. [*]Jewelcrafting: Tiffany Cartier (Dalaran) is now stocking new cut patterns and a type of rare gem that she didn't carry before. Some cuts' skill point expiry may have been adjusted to allow jewelcrafters to gain skill (unconfirmed, but saw quite a few training and cutting gems). Jewelcrafting dailies have been added to the Dalaran trainer. Early reports indicate some bugs in obtaining the dropped items required for the quests, but I cannot confirm this (obviously). Achievements: The Achievements frame has gotten some additional minor graphical tweaks to make it more attractive. Scholomance and Stratholme have been added to the Classic Dungeons and Raids achievements finally. Classes: Death Knight: Winged Steed of the Ebon Blade is now learnable, but does not appear on the mount selection pane. Instead, it adds a page to your spellbook and places the spell there (it also does not get stored in the companion system programmatically; no idea why). All races can now properly alter all of their physical appearance attributes on character creation. Most (all?) of the texture mismatch problems with the new skin colour sets have been corrected. Some of the original racial hair colours have been added back to the various races on character creation. Pre-fixed-featureset Death Knights can now alter their appearances at barber shops. Bloodworms has been decoupled from Death Strike. The cooldown has been removed from Chains of Ice (rune cost is still present). Master of Ghouls ghoul abilities have been restored to the ghouls (yay). Mage: Frostfire bolt has a new graphic. UI & Macros: GetPlayerMapPosition() appears to work in instances now (FINALLY). Several tweaks to the new SecureHandlers are in progress, with more (pretty exciting) changes coming in future builds. this -> self changes continue in the Blizzard UI code, so expect more fluctuations in add-on functionality.

I'm kinda stuck with only Saturday being available at this moment. Monday is temporarily doable, but otherwise, I have raids on Tuesday through Friday in the evenings.

Aha, found out why. If you go to My Controls (very top) and then Board Settings (under options, on the left), you need to change your editor from Standard to Rich Text. I did this so long ago that I had forgotten about it.

Of course it allows HTML Second button from the left in the top row. ...and those pictures are far too un-angry to be Baracko...

Death knight tanking continues to evolve with each talent push. This latest one did some shuffling and changing that I have mixed feelings on, but overall, the changes are positive. The big question is, however, just how effective will a death knight be as a tank? This same question extends to some of the other current tanking classes, although to a lesser degree since they are more established and better understood by Blizzard and the playerbase (they do rely on players quite a bit to fully explore the mechanics over and above the intended design). I guess nobody will fully know much until the level cap is raised to 80, final itemisation passes are done, and raid instances introduced (along with heroics)... As for the soulwell change, IT'S ABOUT TIME. I'll check that later today, since I totally forgot that was coming and was hoping it would hit with last night's build.