Every Wednesday, Encrypted Text explores issues affecting Rogues and those who group with them. This week Jason Harper, the new Rogue feature blogger, discusses the state of the Rogue class, effects of the 2.4.3 patch and the news from the Wrath beta.

I think I've got a pretty big job ahead of me as the new Rogue columnist here at WoW Insider. Sitting here, freshly unwrapped, I know I'll have to both balance the need to fairly represent "real" issues and not get too lost in "rah-rah-rogue" points of view. I'll need you, dear reader, to keep me honest and call-out the unintentional errors or oversights. We're a community and I absolutely want to know what you are thinking, what you love or hate and what you'd like to see me bring to this column that represent your needs.

Like a "do-not-toast-in-the-wrapper" warning on your box of PopTarts, I'd like to point out that any references I make to skills or talents in the Wrath beta should be taken with a grain of salt since they are subject to change at any time.

The premiere 3v3 Arena team from Europe of Cherez, Beasteh, and Hydra -- aka Nihilum Arena -- won top honors at the recently concluded Championship Gaming Series Arena Tournament. This win comes after their notable absence from MLG Orlando despite a 2nd place finish in San Diego. Considering the purse for the MLG series is $12,000 (and an HP Blackbird for each team member), Nihilum fortunately participated in this tournament, winning a whopping $25,000.

Frag Dominant Duelists continued their strong showing on the pro circuit, finishing 2nd again after falling to Orz in MLG Orlando about a week ago, and placing first in MLG San Diego. FD-DGFG ran a double healer Rogue, Druid, Priest comp, taking home $12,500 after their defeat to Nihilum Arena's Hunter, Druid, and Priest. Two runner-up teams took home $6,250 apiece. The tournament used a format that pitted Europe's against the United States' best in the finals.

The coverage was different from the MLG series, being much more friendly to viewers not overly familiar with the game or Arena tournaments, with extensive previews of the characters used by the players, and an overview of the Arena maps prior to matches. The shoutcasting was also much more casual-friendly, at a significantly slower pace than the MLG coverage. The choice of the infamous Leeroy Jenkins to commentate was definitely a marketing move, with more than a few mistakes (calling Scatter Shot Distracting Shot, saying Ice Block's cooldown as 2 mins vs. the correct 5, being fooled by Cherez' Feign Death, etc.). The level of analysis wasn't as deep as MLG's, which featured Arena pros for commentating. Camera view was also an overhead style as opposed to the third person view used by MLG. Both tournaments had good points, and it's exciting to see Arena play gaining a stronger foothold in the pro gaming scene.

This week we have a fair amount of humorous adventures, including an ill-timed leak, success in disguise, a handy brick, a clever wolf, and even some snakes.

Humorous Plot

• Dark Legacy Comics has seen an end to the NPC tyranny, as "Whitemane" exposes The Horace Hypocrisy.
• Shakes and Fidget discover The Altar.
• In LFG, an alliance is sought. It isn't going well.
• The Road to BlizzCon continues, with Now you're just being silly and The Dead Mimes, Part 1.
• Kissybear's friends are giving up; or are they?
• Teh Gladiators has alchemists for murlocs, and a statement is made on Yolanda.

Humor

• NoObz has some insight on patch days, from the mobs' points of view.
• This week's installment of The Adventures of Disgraph T. Dwarf almost didn't happen, and the announcement of the delay is worth reading itself. Fortunately, Episode 23: WoW TV arrived in time for Sunday Morning!

The Colosseum takes us inside the world of the Gladiator (Brutal, Vengeful, Merciless and otherwise), to interview some of the top Arena fighters in the battlegroups. Our goal is to bring a better understanding of the strategy, makeup, and work that goes into duelling it out for fame, fortune, and Netherdrakes.

You may have heard of him. Jeff "Aelli" Ware of the Reckoning battlegroup has been rocking battlegrounds and the Arena, scoring a Gladiator rank in Season 3 during the last week of play. And as Amanda told us at the beginning of the season, Aelli planned to do even better in Season 4. And now, he's succeeded at doing just that -- Lookin for Sponsor, Aelli's team, has hit the #1 spot on the Reckoning 5v5 ladder. What's the big deal?

Not only has Lookin for Sponsor achieved something pretty cool -- they've done it with only two people. Aelli pilots the team's four Shaman all by his lonesome. He's what's known as a "quad-boxer" or "multi-boxer," and controls four of the team's five characters. We were fortunate enough that Aelli was willing to do an interview with your intrepid WoW Insider team, and share some thoughts on both his unique playstyle, and the Arena as a whole. The interview is after the cut.

Continuing on from the analysis of the changes to the Balance druid talent tree, as shown in the first patch notes for the official Wrath of the Lich King Beta, we'll now examine the Feral and Restoration trees.

Feral tree
The Feral tree is seeing changes to limit the benefits that the other two trees, specifically Restoration, can gain from investing a few points into the first few tiers. We are also seeing changes to the ways in which bears will be generating aggro.

The Faerie Fire (Feral) and Feral Charge swap
Feral Charge is currently an 11-point talent into the Feral tree, which contributing to the advantages that Restoration druids currently have in arena. It allows Restoration druids the ability to charge, immobilizing their target and interrupting spells for four seconds.

Instead, Faerie Fire (Feral), which is not something that a Restoration druid would likely spend 11 points to get, will take up the 11-point spot, with Feral Charge taking its place in the tree 21 points in.

In addition, Feral Charge will be usable in cat form, dazing the target and moving the cat behind it. This will help address the concerns that cat form is not especially viable in PvP, although their crit dependency is still a weakness. It will also be useful in dungeons to catch runners and other out of place mobs.

Now that the Wrath of the Lich King Beta is live, and the patch notes are up, we have some solid information on Druid talents as they're being tested. Here is what the patch revealed:

Balance tree
If you were to invest three points into your Brambles tier three talent, you will not only have the current 75% boost to damage caused by Thorns and Entangling Roots, but your Treants will have their damage boosted by 15%.

In addition, all damage caused by Treants, and any attacks done to you while Barkskin is active, have a 15% chance of dazing the target for three seconds. Actually, Force of Nature, which summons your Treants, is having its cooldown reduced from three minutes to two.

This will be a nifty talent for Moonkin in battlegrounds and arena, although it won't be enough to convert all of those Restoration druids to the ways of the Giant Chicken.

The news and analyses keep rolling in for Wrath of the Lich King. We've all got our pet talents and abilities we're psyched about. Everybody's going to get a shot in the arm. While Blizzard will balance and rebalance until release and then even after, some abilities stand out ad more exiting and powerful than others.

Issenaril of Blood Furnace is afraid that Titan's Grip is going to be an over powered ability. The ability allows Warriors specced 46 points into the Fury tree to swing two two-handed weapons at a slowed speed. With a maximum of five points in this ability, the weapon speed will be decreased by 20 percent. He believes that this ability will massively increase Warrior DPS and make imbalanced in PvP. Liganu agrees that a 50 point Fury build will be helpful in battlegrounds, but it won't be as viable in arena combat.

On Saturday, July 19th, the four finalists in the CGS 2008 World of Warcraft Arena Championship will meet in the squared circle of pixels to duel it out for glory. The four finalists are MoB Gaming (US), Frag Dominant (US), aÄa Agïta (EU), and Nihilum Arena (EU). The US teams will fight first, then the EU teams, and then the winners will face-off up to determine the final champion.

The matches run in a best-of-five format, ending when one team reaches three victories. There is a 15 minute time limit for each round, and the show will be live streamed by the Championship Gaming Series. The matches will be shoutcasted by none other than the infamous Leeroy Jenkins. No, really.

The show starts at 4PM Eastern, with aÄa Agïta versus Nihilum. MoB Gaming versus Frag Dominant kicks off around 5PM Eastern, and the US Finalist versus the EU Finalist will fight it out by 6PM. That schedule's going to shift a bit, obviously, if any of the match ups finish especially quickly. At any rate, we'll let you know who wins.

The first social step anyone has in WoW is your Guild. We've talked about how it can form the core of your player experience, for good and bad. But, not everyone's lucky enough to have a Guild ready-to-go at everything you might want to do, and what's more, ready at a moment's notice. Many Guilds (rightly so) will expect each members to show some individual initiative, and maybe brave at least a few PUGs. Well, a pair of tools have popped up recently to help you get set up with people outside the limited scope of your Guild.

As a caveat: Both sites I'm presenting here are relatively new and untried. You're getting in on a ground floor, but we can't promise fame and fortune from them (yet).

In the midst of the hubbub over the Worldwide Invitational 3v3 Arena tournament and the MLG PC Circuit tournaments in San Diego and Orlando, the official 3v3 Arena Tournament seems to have fallen by the wayside -- At the least, people don't seem to remember it much.

It looks like it's looking to burst back onto the scene in a big way, though, as Blizzard announced the end of the 2nd qualifying round of the tournament today. The next round will see the winning teams from the 1st and 2nd qualifying rounds facing off in live matches in Boston, Madrid, Seoul, and Taipei in the coming months.

The list of first round winners has some familiar faces in it already. MLG San Diego winners Frag Dominant will be competing in the Boston event, WWI winner Council of Mages will be competing in Seoul, and WWI runner up Improved Clicks will be headed to Madrid. There's no word yet on which teams won the 2nd round, or when the next round's matches will take place, or whether we'll get live streaming from the events. We'll be sure to let you know all the details right here as soon as they're available though.

If you caught the MLG Orlando live stream over at GotFrag TV last weekend, you might have noticed a critical strategic move that many of the world's best players did over and over, particularly in the longer matches -- drink. Because mana-dependent classes don't have a constantly renewable resource such as Rage or Energy, drinking in Arenas is an important skill to master. Watching the tournament was educational because many of those pro Arena players knew how to drink like crazy.

The trickiest part of drinking in an Arena match is getting out of combat. Some classes, such as Druids, have an easier time than most but watching players escape focus fire with or without their teammates peeling opponents off them is really amazing to watch. It's a skill unto itself. Night Elves have a ridiculous advantage with Shadowmeld, allowing them to immediately enter stealth upon finding a safe spot to drink. This makes them harder to find, allowing them to get just a few more ticks from Star's Tears. Despite the nerf to drinking inside Arenas in Patch 2.4, players have managed to get those precious four seconds (and hopefully more) to get just enough mana back during matches. In the heat of combat, the nice cold drink is refreshing, indeed. Tips on how slake your thirst after the jump.

We're now a few weeks into Season 4. And, we've known even before it started that Season 4 gear would carry some rating requirements. And while we're all hopefully enjoying the new challenges of the new season, there are some folks who are starting Season 4 relatively fresh.

They don't have much Vengeful gear, or even Merciless Gladiator's gear -- they might be starting out in some quest greens and blues, with only a smattering of PvP gear across the character. Heck, some players might be in all Vengeful and Vindicator's gear already, and still facing the same question. Where should you start with the Season 4 gear?

Rating requirements and high point costs can make the gear curve seem like an insurmountable obstacle. Don't worry -- WoW Insider is here to help.

Let's chart a basic path of gear accrual -- via PvP only -- that will help every fledgeling PvPer grow into an Arena powerhouse. We're going to follow two paths, actually. One will assume that you do have the ratings required for each piece of gear. The other will assume that you do not have the ratings. In either case, our goal here is going to be to be sure you have a plan to pick up the available gear as you gain the available points.

If you're even moderately interested in Arenas, I hope you caught the live stream of MLG Orlando yesterday, hosted by GotFrag TV. The stream quality was much better than the one from the Worldwide Invitational, and it was truly entertaining, um... television. A lot of video entertainment is available through the web these days, and GotFrag TV has been providing topnotch coverage of the Major League Gaming World of Warcraft Arena tournament series. As a student of Arenas, I've found the coverage to be extremely fun and educational. This is competition at its highest level, where players actually get paid, or win money, for playing. And just like any sport, there are a few special elements that make it interesting to watch.

The stars
Every sport has its stars. You have athletes like Tiger Woods being the face of golf, or Kobe Bryant being the guy you either love or hate in basketball (for the record, I've been a Kobe fan since he got drafted by the Hornets in 1996), or even Maria Sharapova for tennis, who doesn't even necessarily have to win in order to be fun to watch (I mean, look at Anna Kournikova). Tournaments, when they're in a televised LAN format -- as opposed to online, such as the Blizzard-sponsored 2008 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament -- means that audiences will actually get a glimpse of the players behind the characters. Just like sports stars, these players need to have some special quality that holds the interest of fans. Let's go through a few examples.