We've seen some interesting things come out of the Wrath beta already for some of the crafting professions, including Jewelcrafting, Alchemy, Enchanting, and the new Inscription. But what about us humble gatherers? Skinners, Herbalists, and Miners need love too. Well, it looks like Blizz is ready to give us some of that love, at least for Skinners and Miners. Check out the following spells:

• Toughness (categorized under Mining)
• Master of Anatomy (categorized under Skinning)

Note that those buffs are passive. 35 stam all the time for all grand master miners, and 25 crit rating for grand master skinners. Each of those abilities have six ranks, which I take to correspond to the six ranks of profession skill: apprentice, journeyman, expert, artisan, master, and the new grand master.

This is awesome stuff, if you ask me. My analysis is that these benefits are meant to stand in for the epic BoP items that the production professions get access to. Why there is no benefit for herbalism is something of a mystery; it might not be implemented yet, or it might be absent on purpose. Natalie pointed out that it might be because several herbs already give buffs when you pick them, so that's another possibility.

I think these benefits are low enough that people with maxed-out professions aren't going to be dropping them just to get the extra 35 stam, but high enough to provide a meaningful, stabbity perk for those who've just about had it with skinning their ten-thousandth beast (who am I kidding, skinning is fun). Good change, and I do hope we see something for herbalism.

Faith has been rewarded. The Paladin changes have finally been revealed in the Wrath of the Lich King beta patch notes, and from a quick review of things... I'm just blown away. It appears as though Blizzard really seems to be on top of its game and isn't afraid to shake things up in order to get things right. Paladins are getting major changes to key abilities, and all of them seem like direct responses to grievances that have been aired in the past.

The talent trees are being moved around yet again (remember when Blessing of Kings used to be the 31-point Retribution talent?), but this time the changes seem to make more sense. There are major overhauls to some talents and abilities, as well as a removal of others. The changes are geared towards streamlining the trees and abilities, Blizzard remorselessly paring down the unnecessary and consolidating what needs to be rolled together. A list of the changes and my analysis after the jump.

We had a very special WoW Insider show last Saturday. With the usual suspects out of town Daniel, Robin, Duncor and I had a blast talking about all kinds of juicy goodness. You can download the show and listen to it whenever you like.

• I've recently gotten my new Blizzard authenticator, and I'm really happy about it. Other folks are not quite as enthusiastic about it.
• We discussed the current state of Mages and Paladins.
• We had a number of great emails from our listeners. Daniel told us all about Death Knight Role-Playing.

I didn't talk about my car once, but I did throw a motorcycle reference in there. I got a chance to play the role of host, sorry folks, no giggling or flirting involved. Was it as good for you as it was for me? We shall have another special guest host for the next podcast. Be sure to join us every Saturday on WC Radio at 3:30 PM.

Between the Shaman portion of the Class Panel and the Q&A session at WWI08, raiders have some great news (in my opinion). If you're a reader of Hybrid Theory, a few weeks back I discussed the possibility (and necessity) of certain group buffs becoming raid buffs. The devs have confirmed that yes, many of these things are becoming raid buffs.

The examples given were Totems and Unleashed Rage from Shaman, and Battle Shout for Warriors. This will greatly lower the need to stack Shaman so every single party of your raid has totems, but there's still the Bloodlust/Heroism issue. Taking 4-6 Shaman for Heroism is the single largest buff to your DPS that you can supply, so we'll see what happens. Either way, this is fantastic news, and something that has been sorely needed. Figuring out class balance for a raid can be fun, but not when your determining factor over who gets cut is "who won't fit in the Windfury group?"

Here's a great tip from Darthkurai on LJ: doing the Midsummer Fire quests as a lowbie will net you a ton of nice XP. He grabbed almost two levels' worth of XP at level 40, just for running around to all the different bonfires throughout Azeroth. Bewarned that some of the quests have various level requirements on them (Undercity and all of the capital flames, as he finds out, are level 50 and above only, and of course Lord Ahune is only for level 70s), but doing all of the quests at low levels will net you a good 6-7k XP, which around level 40 will give you at least a ding or two.

Pretty good for just running around the world once or twice. Everyone's excited about Ahune and what you can get from him, but don't forget your old alts, either -- logging them on during the festival and showing them the world (while killing on the way with those buffs) can grab you a nice chunk of free XP for them as well.

Looking for something to read. Look no further -- here's the best of our weekly features from the last seven days, presented in a handy roundup format. If you missed it the first time, don't make the same mistake twice.

	Guildwatch: The aftermath The messiest part of guild drama comes after it happens. And when the bank has been ninja-d the last gquit has been typed in, and the last wipe happens -- that's when Guildwatch appears.
	Shifting Perspectives: Druids just wanna have fun Caw! Some Druids in the Penny Arcade alliance pull off a little fight-or-flight terror, The Birds-style.
	He Said, She Said: Hypermasculinity Amanda and David wonder why your mage is so incredibly buff.
	Build Shop: Shaman 18/43/0 Pound for pound, one of the best melee DPS dealers in the game -- the Enhancement Shaman enters the Build Shop.

More great weekly features after the break, including an in-depth look at Cooking, and a must-read post for every Hunter.

I'm a rather avid raider, putting in a solid 20 hours a week on my Warrior. One of the major things about the time spent raiding is that it can be very precious. There is only so much time that 24 other people, plus appropriate class substitutions, can be available each week. It's critical that the time spent raiding is used well.

Unfortunately, using raiding time well is about as much of a challenge as is downing Illidan. In preparation for this article, I've spent the past three weeks keeping track of the down time in raids. We raid Sunday through Thursday nights, from 7:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. We experience a downtime of about 51 minutes for each raid, which is about 20% of the time. Down time is defined as the time that my character is standing still, not attacking, not moving, and not being MDed to.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I'm not really sure.

Tip #1: Chain pulling

Personally, I do my best at the main tank to chain pull and push the trash through as fast as possible. This works out 99% of the time, however the 1% of the time it doesn't work out can grind the raid to a halt. Case and point: The trash to Supremus isn't too bad, and is a lot of packs where the MT, OT, and Pally tank each have some mobs to tank. There are also some ranged dragons that the Warlocks tank. These pulls can go very fast, and are very predictable. Pulling slowly we can do this in about 40 minutes, while chain pulling each group, we can push through in 15.

Tip #2: Fully self buffed, all the time

It doesn't take much to buff yourself. Every class has some buff they can apply to themselves, be it food buffs, spell buffs, or shouts. The key here is that you can find a minute or two to always buff at least yourself, if not others. Although, it might not always be possible to buff others as you're going along - and that's okay with most raid leaders for trash pulls.

When information began to trickle down about patch 2.4, hunters, like most classes, were groaning. Which nerf bat would we be hit with next? Fortunately, it seems that we have slipped under the radar. For now. Maybe Aspect of the Beast finally did us some good.

Let's break down the changes and see how this is going to be affecting us. With no major patches between now and Wrath, we might be living with these changes for awhile.

Bug fixes:

1. Equipping a thrown weapon while in the middle of an Auto-Shot will no longer cause animation issues. Since no one likes animation issues, I'm filing this under "win." Not that I've ever tried to equip a thrown weapon while already shooting, mind you.
2. Casting Flare while in any way not visible, will no longer cause your flare to be invisible to other players. To me, this sounds fair. Also, I want to be invisible. Rogues can, so why not hunters? Right? No?
   
3. Hunter's Mark: Hunters with Improved Hunter's Mark will now properly overwrite Hunter's Mark cast by Hunters without the talent. This used to be, but then was not. Now, it will be again. While it might rub your ego the wrong way always reading the message "a more powerful spell is already active," it is better for overall DPS this way.
4. The stamina tooltip for hunter pets will now display the proper health increase. Personally, I find that most of my tooltips on most of my characters do not reflect the changes made by my talent points. At least one more will appear correctly, and I will try not to be sad about the others.
5. Hunters will no longer spin around if they cast Aimed Shot or Steady Shot while facing away from their target. So this was a nice little bug we had for awhile, but let's face it; it wasn't fair. It also doesn't help the "huntard" image any when hunters are caught whining that now, we will have to learn to actually face our targets; and that's just too hard. What does this mean you ask? Do note that these are our two channeled shots, and as such, if another player sees us channeling, they need only run around us far enough to interrupt the channel. Prior to 2.4, we would have spun with the runner.

There's been quite a bit of talk about the PvE vs. the PvP game lately -- with Arena PvP basically dictating the changes to drinking and Lifetap, and Mortal Strike-like abilities also taking center stage (which are almost useless in PvE), Blizzard's plan of having the same characters in PvE and PvP seems to be backfiring on them. They originally wanted to let you use all the abilities and techniques that you use in PvE in PvP as well, but reader Raul recently sent us a comment that more and more players might agree with: it's time Arena PvP became its own game, and Blizzard split the two up for good.

This is the case in Guild Wars -- when you roll a character in that game, you choose it for PvP or PvE, and there are certain things you can only do with each. And even Blizzard is heading this way, believe it or not: with the debut of the Arena realm this weekend, some players are already clamboring for characters that they only play Arena with 24/7.

Are we really ready to split the game into World of Warcraft and Warcraft Arena? There will no doubt be a lot of players who want to continue to play their characters in both PvE and PvP, balance be damned. But if Blizzard is as committed as they seem to be to balance Arena as precisely as it needs to be balanced to turn it into a real e-sport, they may have to eventually make the jump and separate the two games completely.

After Skellum of Dalaran posts on the forums asking just where all these PTR changes are coming from, Nethaera sobers us all up about what the PTR is all about: progressive testing. She says that Blizzard has said from the beginning that there will be changes in the notes, and that things we thought were the end of the world in the beginning have changed or been completely removed. Welcome to the perilous world of progressive testing.

And it occurs to me that I've broken my own rule about patience on the PTRs. When those Shaman notes dropped with only a Stormstrike icon, it didn't occur to me (or almost any other players) that Blizzard wasn't done yet. And while the latest changes still aren't done (we're still waiting for an Elemental buff), things have been fixed somewhat since then.

But is this really just players doubting Blizzard? They posted the patch notes with just one small disclaimer -- would they have been able to quell the furor a bit more if they'd made it more clear that what's posted on the PTR notes has almost no connection to what will show up on the live realms? But then again, Neth never really answered the question of where these changes are coming from -- if Shamans hadn't QQ'd so much over the Elemental Mastery and Nature's Swiftness nerf, would it ever have been reverted? Blizzard seems to be simultaneously telling players to be patient and also give feedback. If players had been patient when the EM and NS nerf came down, and it hadn't caused such an uproar, would it have been changed back at all?

Totem Talk is about Shamans. Matthew Rossi would just like to say "What the heck, did we just get buffed, did I miss a meeting where they decided that shamans get buffed now, holy Puck!" Puck is Matthew Rossi's cat. Yes, he named one of his cat's Puck and the other Aurora. Eventually he supposes he will have a whole host of pets named after members of Alpha Flight. You'll notice they have a team member named Shaman.

If you managed to miss yesterday's post about changes to the PTR, let me link back to it. Okay, now that I've done that, let me shamelessly copy and paste the pertinent information. (My apologies, Eliah.)

• Flametongue weapon puts a 50% healing reduction on the target for 5 seconds, refreshing with every hit.
• Toughness: each point in the talent now reduces the duration of movement-impairing effects by 10%, in addition to the previous effect of increasing armor. This means 50% reduced duration at 5/5.
• Shamanistic Rage changed; now reduces all damage taken by 30% and gives a chance to regenerate mana equal to 30% [was 15%] of your AP. Lasts 15 s [was 30 s].
• Global cooldown on dropping totems reduced from 1.5 s to 1 s.

Okay, now take a look at that. The first thing that jumps out at me is that Flametongue buff. Now, I play both a shaman and a warrior. So speaking as a warrior, I'll tell you now that's going to be nerfed - there is no way on this planet that there is going to be a five second duration healing debuff that costs minimal mana to apply to your weapon and which can be constantly refreshed with no additional cost. Especially when it doesn't require any specialization or talent selection: if this went live, all shamans could apply this debuff. (Granted, elemental and restoration shaman don't want to melee with you.) As a shaman, I don't think it's enormously imbalanced, but I doubt highly that it will stand as it is now. Still, it made me go ooh when I saw it. (The warrior in me also kind of wants it to stick around so that MS won't get nerfed.) It also made me giggle to imagine my poor resto shaman running up to whack someone with his Hand of Eternity to apply the debuff. (Also, according to some folks, it's currently bugged in an amusing fashion.) Apparently it also works for Flametongue Totem.

Obviously the flametongue change is aimed at arenas and other PvP venues. But what about the rest of the changes? Are they good or bad and who are they good or bad for?

Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Kara or BT, everyone can get in on the action and down them some bosses. Sometimes I forget that WoW is set in a Medieval time period, so here's a little of that flavor...

So it's about 5 minutes until raid invites shoot out to the masses. You're sitting there, stacks of flasks and food in-bag, durability at 100%, waiting by the meeting stone until you have raid buddies to summon. You worked all day yesterday to gather the enchanting mats for your new weapon and are itching to try it out on something more than dailies. You're amped. You're stoked. You're ready to roll.

The clock ticks to raid invite time. You wait for the invite window to pop up. The guildie next to you starts firing up a summoning portal. People start populating the area around you. Still nothing. Over your class channel, the call goes out to see if anyone needs anything from the first 3 bosses. Well, crap. You don't. Things aren't looking good, and your status is confirmed when the radi leader puts out the notice to whisper so-and-so to get on the standby list.

What did you do wrong? How can you ensure a raid spot in the future? You may not like the answers.

The Care and Feeding of Warriors comes to you again on the horns of a dilemma. Matthew Rossi has found himself playing his human warrior more often when he plays, and being sucked back into raiding again. This has led to him strapping on his DPS gear and dual wielding while still prot spec, and other anomalies he wants to talk to you about.

It's one of the ironies of my time playing warriors in World of Warcraft that I often find myself doing exactly the opposite thing I expected. Recently, due to time constraints and personal issues I haven't been able to play as much at night, and have found myself online at a whole different time of day. As a result I've tended to play Alliance again because there's more people online on my Ally server, and my poorly geared human protection spec warrior has found himself somehow raiding again. It began with a few heroics that impressed some people, a guild tryout I didn't really think much about that consisted of tanking Black Morass over and over again, and now I find myself in Kara, ZA and even Gruul's or Mags as a pure prot spec warrior.

I'm starting to remember it all again, how it feels to hold aggro against well geared DPS, the thrill of using your abilities to keep a mob stuck to you while properly keeping those crushing blows off of the table so that your healer whispers you after the fight and tells you he barely had to break a sweat keeping you up despite your horribly awful blues. Seriously, I'm still wearing a green ring here.