The patch went live today, and Blizzard wasn't kidding about the Cheat Death Nerf. In case you missed it, here's how it reads:

Cheat Death: This talent has been rebalanced significantly. Killing blows are no longer 100% absorbed. If the Rogue is below 10% health, the killing blow is still completely absorbed; if the Rogue is over 10% health, enough damage will be absorbed to reduce the Rogue's health down to 10%. For the following 3 seconds, damage is not always reduced by 90%; it is now reduced by a maximum of 90%, depending on how much resilience the Rogue has. The damage reduction will be four times the damage reduction resilience causes against critical strikes.

Needless to say, Rogues are pretty unhappy, especially since Blizzard hasn't taken much interest in fixing the "vanish bug." Skudo of Altar of Storms takes this as proof that Blizzard hates Rogues. On top of that this must mean that Blizzard favors Druids since they rescinded their decision to make Scare Beast an instant ability.

While there isn't quite as much shocking news for those of us in the furry set as there was for our totem-spouting Earth brothers, there's still enough information to get us excited about our futures in Wrath of the Lich King.

I have to admit that I was a little surprised to hear Tom Chilton say in the first WWI dev panel that Blizzard isn't planning any Cyclone changes. When an audience member asked if there would be any alterations for Cyclone, Chilton answered in a pretty clear, unambiguous manner: Nope. But he did give us some explanation for it.

Holy moly, Shamans got a ton of stuff they wanted and then some today at the WoW Dev Panel during WWI '08 today.

• Shaman CC! Hex, previously the domain of NPCs only, was confirmed as a Shaman spell -- it'll have a quick 1.5 second cast, and will turn your enemy into a frog for about 8-10 seconds. The frogged person will still be able to move around, but they won't be able to attack or cast spells. A 1 minute cooldown was mentioned, but that's in opposition to the purpose of the spell, which is supposed to be emergency only, so that may change.
  
• The devs mentioned that Shaman were suffering from "Totem spam," so a few totems will be combined -- Strength of Earth and Grace of Air will become the same totem, and the physical school news was re-confirmed.
• Perhaps the biggest Shaman complaint since launch was answered: Shaman totems will now affect the whole raid, not just the local group. That's a big one.
• Weapon enchants are being revamped for more utility. Rockbiter is out completely, and Earthliving is replacing it -- it will give a +Healing buff. Flametongue will give spell damage, and Frostbrand will "more reliably snare" opponents.

A lot of Shaman concerns were answered today for sure, though perhaps not in the way players might have wanted. Will a 10 second CC be enough? It's great that totems affect the raid now, but will their range be extended to reach all of those people?

All of this information is still up in the air, of course, but it's awesome to finally see some official news on where classes are headed for Wrath of the Lich King. Stay tuned for more Wrath information, as well as any other WoW news we hear coming out of WWI.

I always thought of trinkets like Carrot on a Stick and the Chained Essence of Eranikus as bag-space wasters rather than trophies, but 35 Yards Out makes an excellent case for them as memorable trinkets. I do agree with the Mark of the Chosen and the Hypnotist's Watch (and I've even gotten the Watch to drop aggro for me) -- there are some trinkets and items you come across in your travels that might be trash to everyone else, but are the rarest of possessions for you and your character.

The Ravager is probably my biggest personal trophy -- everyone else told me that the proc was trouble (and in fact, I did have to switch out of it in instances to avoid breaking CC, though that may have changed since I last used it), but I just loved the idea of spinning around with a giant axe so much that I just had to have it. And longtime readers will know of my fascination with the Tier 0 Shaman shoulders -- most people aren't big fans, but for some reason, I love them.

It's true -- one player's vendor trash in game is another player's treasured dream loot. What exactly is it that makes us pine for a certain item -- certainly class and playstyle have something to do with it, but it seems like Blizzard makes these items so wild and varied that no matter what you find out there, something will definitely appeal to you more than other players.

[Via Mania]

Every Sunday, Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is now usually Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus, but this week he has midterms and you're left to suffer with a substitute. Elizabeth recently toyed with the darker side of the priest's profession, but for better or worse, is holy again this week.

I rolled my first Priest for a very simple reason -- I wanted to play with my friends, and I got sick of always having to wait on a healer when we wanted to do something together. With every group stalled for need of healing, picking up a healing class myself seemed a pragmatic solution. (And three healers later, I'm still at it.) So a few weeks ago when we happened to have plenty of healing... but were short DPS... by the same logic I decided I could respec Shadow and lend a hand. And though the plan may seem simple enough, there are quite a few things DPS classes have to worry about that healers may not pay attention to at all.

Ever think about joining the dark side? There are a few things to consider before-hand...

Tank Talk is WoW Insider's new raid-tanking column, promising you an exciting and educational look at the world of getting the stuffing thrashed out of you in a 10- or 25-man raid. The column will be rotated amongst Matthew Rossi (Warrior/Paladin), Adam Holisky (Warrior), Michael Gray (Paladin), and myself (Druid). Our aim is to use this column to debate and discuss class differences, raid-tanking strategies, tips, tricks, and news concerning all things meatshieldish. At least, that's what the others said they were doing. I intend to use it mostly as a soapbox to complain. Absolute power tends to......something something.

Welcome to Tank Talk. I am your bear Druid hostess for this week, with a topic that occurred to me while reading a recent article here on the site. Eliah Hecht wrote that his guild is facing a not-uncommon tank shortage and that he has considered the possibility of leveling a tanking class to 70 before Wrath, or tanking on a Death Knight afterwards. A number of people on my server and in my guild have talked about doing the same thing, or switching mains once Wrath hits. With so many people playing Death Knights, I think it's very possible that more people will discover they enjoy -- or at least, don't mind -- tanking, and may seek to do so in a raid environment without necessarily knowing what they've really signed up for.

From those of us who have tanked raid content in vanilla WoW or BC, here are the 10 questions you'll want to ask yourself if you're considering the possibility of tanking serious raid content:

PvP in its purest form is a beautiful thing. Amanda Dean, always obsessed with the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat brings you news you can use in the Arena. When last seen, former Blood Sport columnist V'Ming Chew was seen being chased by an angry pack of Gnome Warlocks in the farthest reaches of Outland.

In 3v3 matches, Rogue, Mage, Priest (RMP) teams have proven to be the ones to beat. Six of the top twenty Arena teams on live servers sport this composition. This team combines outstanding crowd control with abilities to survive until the end of combat. The team is not unbeatable, if caught without cooldowns available, this low-armor team falls prey to burst damage, especially if the Priest is dead or otherwise occupied.

The Priest's primary function in the group is dispelling both offensive and defensive abilities. It may also Mana Burn if there is no need for healing or dispelling. In practice, since the priest is often the first target, it spends a lot of time and mana staying alive with the Rogue and Mage work their magic (and stab things). The Priest is often the primary target in the composition because they are usually the only ones visible at the start of the fight and are the lone healer partnered with two pure DPSers. Pain Suppression is your friend and my enemy.

Totem Talk is the column for shamans. This week, Matthew Rossi examines the great flexibility of the shaman class and whether it causes difficulty for the design and play of the average shaman. He's also trying desperately to come up with a joke for the header paragraph but aside from a 'It's over 9000' reference, he's got nothing. But hey, at least it's being posted on the right day this week.

This week, on our way into Hyjal after having given Vashj her dirt nap, I noticed our guild's shamans doing some awesome work for us kiting striders, healing through massive DoT's, and putting out incredible damage on naga's.One of the top DPS on our Vashj kill was an enhancement shaman. An elemental shaman used frost shock to kite the striders and did very well holding aggro. All in all, without our shamans, we wouldn't have gotten her down, and wouldn't have been able to go kick Winterchill and Anetheron in the groins. I've talked before about how important the shaman is for raiding and this week I've really seen it in action. Grounding totems to eat damaging stuns before Vashj can apply them to me, windfury totem to boost our melee (one of our rogues gets very cranky if he has to raid without the enhancement shaman in his group), a variety of boosts to our healing and ranged DPS... shamans bring a huge toolkit to dungeons and raids.

In fact, I'm starting to wonder if the problem is that very versatility. Sometimes, it's as if people just don't know what to ask a shaman to do for them. Groups even seem to skip taking a shaman over another class because they don't understand that yes, a shaman specced for it main heal your Slabs run, or does have the ability to dps effectively. For that matter, at times they don't even care if the shaman can do the job or not: they just want someone who can crowd control.

WoW Insider co-lead Mike Schramm brought up an interesting question for today's Breakfast Topic; how can players utilize the Focus Target feature in World of Warcraft? Macros are certainly a great way to manage your focus target and what is being done with it. I've yet to write a installment of Macro Anatomy that covers the topic, so where can one turn if you want to utilize this feature?

Bad boy developer Tekkub has created Control Freak for people wanting to have fun with the focus target and their crowd control abilities. Granted, there are a lot of other things you can do with this feature, but this addon very efficiently automates the process.

After I profiled Tekkub's ChatSettingsFix (2.4), I thought I should start looking into his other mods. As it turns out, Tekkub is a man with the unique ability to provide little fixes and additions that greatly enhance gameplay. I am quickly becoming a fan of his work, so you can expect to see more of the grizzly dev's work here at Addon Spotlight.

Enough of my professions of love for the guy's mods, read on for details about how to use Control Freak.

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.

Last week David covered Arenas for the hunter, while I laid low and did a little more leveling. I'm to the point now where crowd control becomes not only an option, but at times a requirement. Hunters are known for our ranged damage output. It's practically the thing hunters are made to do: stand back and shoot. We are also quite good at crowd control using our traps, though. You'll see it in the Looking for Group channel fairly regularly: "LF1M DPS/CC."

That's us. Damage per Second and Crowd Control. They might be thinking Rogue or Warlock, but you should see those five letters and think "that's me." Not only is crowd control something hunters are good at, it's something which not all hunters do reliably or well. Being able to trap, and trap competently, will go a long way towards making you friends in both instances and the open road.

In this article I'll be discussing ways to use your Freezing Trap as a method of both controlling crowds and making friends. For those of you who haven't yet learned it, Freezing Trap is learned at level twenty. Rank One provides a ten second freeze. Rank Two upgrades at level forty for a fifteen second freeze. Rank three upgrades at level sixty for a twenty second freeze. Once the trap is laid, it will remain in place for sixty seconds before fading if it is not sprung. Meanwhile, the trap's cooldown is thirty seconds. Laying one trap while another is ready to spring will cancel the first one in favor of the second one.

Several talents exist to assist with trapping, in the Survival talent tree. Points spent on Entrapment give your traps an increasing chance to snare any opponent which trips them. Points spent on Clever Traps increase the duration of Frost and Freezing traps, the damage from Explosive and Immolation traps, and the number of snakes summoned from Snake traps. Points spent on Trap Mastery decrease the chance your opponents have to resist your traps. Points spent on Resourcefulness decrease the mana cost of traps (and melee abilities) as well as their cooldown. Talent specialization is up to you, but be aware that some or all of these talents will make your job as a trapper much easier.

We start trapping things after the jump.

The PTR has changed once more. Sure, the star changes are rollbacks on the Life Tap nerf and Flametongue buff, but there is at least one other change that I think is highly significant. Expect a Patch Note Watch soon exhaustively detailing every change that made it into the patch notes. Until then, however, enjoy the following:

Cleave, Multi-Shot, Swipe, Chain Lightning, and Avenger's Shield will no longer hit targets that are under the effect of CC spells that break on damage, such as Polymorph or Sap. This includes Felguard Cleave and the Chain Lightning effects caused by various items. As far as I can make out, this is all spells that hit multiple targets, but are not AoE; Thunder Clap, for instance, will still break sheep. Edit: Whirlwind, Sweeping Strikes, and Blade Flurry do not seem to be included. Overall this change is, frankly, awesome. The implications for tanking alone are highly pleasant, as well as for Hunter and Elemental Shaman DPS. I'm starting to get excited about patch 2.4 all over again.

In any fight where your group is fighting multiple mobs, you're going to want to have some version of crowd control. For those that play tanking classes the challenge comes not when the fight begins and the mobs are tied up with freezing traps or polymorph, it comes afterward, when the time comes to break said methods of control. As Karthis mentions in a recent post on Of Teeth and Claws, breaking crowd control successfully is more of an art form than you might think.

First, there is the concept of threat. Each method of crowd control angers a monster to varying degrees. Add to this the other abilities a crowd controller might have used previous to controlling the mob -- a hunter plinking away at the mob a few times to get its attention, for example -- and the CC'ers threat is pretty darn high. The monster, once they are free, will have eyes (and claws) only for the group member that kept them tied down in the first place. It makes sense, honestly. I know if someone shackled me to the ground for a minute or so I would be pissed.

MVP Schwick on the European WoW forums has compiled a weekly list of the best class improvement suggestions culled from the boards. He usually organizes this list by theme, but for this week its a free-for-all of interesting concepts. Here are the highlights:

• Talah of Ravenholdt would like to see Paladins improve their ability to heal multiple targets by changing how Holy Shock works.
• Neerco of Thunderhorn would like a player to be able to click off DoTs they've placed on mobs before they've run their full course. This would be helpful if a DoT'ed mob needed to be CC'd.
• Moolik of Arathor would like Tier 4/5/6 armor to be tradable with the reward NPCs for all the class variation sets. For example, once a Druid picks the Restoration set, he can then turn it in for the Feral set if he changes specs.
• Umah of Frostwolf has many, many suggestions to make playing a druid more fun.
• And Kalpothyz of Al'Akir wants Priest buffs to have lower mana costs so he can get back into the Battlegrounds without losing half his mana bar to rebuffing.

What do you guys think of these suggestions? Solid improvements or L2play?