No husky loot this week -- with a name like "the Great Apocalypse," this sword is nothing but badass.

Name: Jin'rohk, the Great Apocalypse (Wowhead, Thottbot, Wowdigger)
Type: Epic Two-hand Sword
Damage/Speed: 380-570 / 3.70 (128.4 DPS)
Abilities:

• Equip: Improves haste rating by 45, which will help a little bit with that low speed (but look at that damage range!), will bring the speed back to 3.60, which brings it up to 131.8 DPS
  
• +49 Stamina, makes this a nice PvP two-hander
• Equip: Increases attack power by 120, which also adds to attack damage. There are better high-end two handers in the game, but anyone who likes to swing a big sword should like this one.
• Plus, look at it! And that name!

How to Get It: Drops from the troll himself, Zul'jin, in Zul'Aman. Interestingly enough, Zul'jin means "Leader of voodoo" and jin means "leader," So this sword is clearly a leader, but leader of what? Rohk, in the Zandali Troll language, actually means "end of worlds," or apocalypse. So if all the apocalypses you've ever seen in movies all got together (from Deep Impact to I Am Legend), one apocalypse would be standing above them all: Jin'rohk.

But yes, the sword drops from the last boss in Zul'Aman. Droprate is about 12%, so get to him, be someone who swings a two-hand sword and needs an upgrade, win the roll, and it's all yours. Just don't hurt yourself carrying it around.

Getting Rid of It: Sells for a whopping 17g 81s 95c, and disenchants, as you might guess, into a Void Crystal. But the terrible effect that carrying the Leader of Apocalypses has on you for all time? Priceless.

Scattered Shots is for hunters. 'Nuff said.

One of the most confusing things about a hunter's repertoire of spells is the exact use of Auto Shot. This ability is unlike the abilities of any other class, quite different from a warrior's swing timer, or a caster's wand shooting. Auto Shot is like a metronome, and the music of hunter DPS requires that we play according to its beat.

We've discussed Auto Shot a little bit in last week's introduction to Shot Rotation, but Auto Shot is much more complex than is first apparent from simply reading the ability's tooltip. First of all, there is a discrepancy between what the interface shows you of Auto Shot and what is actually going on. If you don't use any hunter addons, you may have great difficulty getting a feeling for any of what this article is about, because Auto Shot doesn't have any representation in the default UI. If you use an addon like Quartz or ZHunterMod, however, you'll be presented with a timer that looks something like a regular casting bar -- and while this Auto Shot bar will help a great deal, it is still not complete. No matter what, your imagination and inner sense of timing are going to have to do a good bit of work in getting your shots timed right.

This isn't me bragging: I fully expected to die. Usually when I do this kind of thing... in fact, in 99% of the times I've charged into a pack of Alliance or Horde when PvPing, I do die. It's usually a last ditch attempt to prevent a flag capture. I don't expect to live through it. But today, through some weird combination of skill, luck, and some poor choices and gear on the part of the alliance, I came out of it alive and they all died. (That rogue who showed up at the end helped, I admit it.)

I know it won't ever happen again, but for just that moment (long enough for a mage to ride up and fireball me down, since I had like 200 health left) I honestly felt like I'd learned something new, made a shift in how I PvP in World of Warcraft, and even surprised myself with how good I could actually be at a part of the game I've never really felt that I excelled at. Now, I still expect that the next time I try this I will die, but I won't go in thinking death is certain, and that changes the way the whole thing feels.

Almost certain death, slim chance of success, what are we waiting for? That dwarf knew what he was talking about.

Back in November of last year, I wrote a post for the Spiritual Guidance column called "The shadow diaries." In it, I pledged that I would recount my experiences of leveling a brand-new shadow priest. However, as you may have noticed (or not), that never happened. There's always too many things to do in this crazy virtual world of ours (not to mention that other, brighter world outside), so poor Hieronymus ended up getting neglected.

Why am I talking about a series of posts I didn't write? Well, I may not have had the fortitude to level another priest all the way to 70, on a strange server no less, but eventually two realizations came together. I already have a priest at level 70, and I'm doing a lot more soloing than grouping with her these days. I'd recently moved a few points in my long-held 23/38/0 spec over to the Holy damage talents, which sped up my dailies a bit. But then I thought, why not go all the way?

Last night the WoW Insider arena team went over to the Arena Tournament server and played 14 matches over a couple hours. We went 8-6 for the evening, a much better number than our 3-11 score the week before. That places us at 11-17, with a team rating of 1435. Not too bad considering we've only played together a handful of times, and some of us are playing completely unknown classes.

So what helped us go in the right direction? A few things. First, we were communicating much more over vent. We were letting each other know what our target was, where we were going, what our status was, etc. This gave us the edge in a few matches.

Another thing that helped us win more was focus targeting a player down. This action in itself might seem like a no-brainer to many of you out there, but it is easier said than done. One of the reasons we had success in the video above is that we focus targeted the Mage down quickly. This was good not only from a DPS stand point, but from a target selection stand point as well. Mages are squishy, and go splat easily. This Mage didn't last long.

Raiding warlocks have a very specific role - dealing damage. As we progress further in the high end-raiding game, one thing becomes more and more apparent. Our much-envied range of playstyles diminishes and we seem to be shoehorned, like other classes, into pretty much a single cookie-cutter spec.

The spec in question is destruction or 0/21/40 specifically. This spec capitalizes on the wonderful scalability of shadow bolt and consistently outperforms affliction when good spell hit and crit gear becomes available. For a detailed look at the 0/21/40 build, check out my "A Warlock's descent into Destruction" article.

I've recently respecced back to an affliction spec (40/0/21) just to revisit the good ol' days of mobility (instant DoTs) and an "unending" mana pool (Dark Pact). I know we tend to look back on the past with rose-colored glasses, and true enough, my experience with affliction again was ... less than satisfying. Why the difference?

My lovely and talented wife (she of the hunterish disposition) and I were talking last night about DPS in raids and instances. Specifically, an aspect I'd never really thought about before: how 'expensive' is the DPS of particular classes? Is it sometimes worth it to bring a lower DPS class over a higher one because the lower class is cheaper to maintain? And what, exactly, defines 'cheap' or 'expensive' here?

She brought up ret paladins... they don't do as much damage sustained as a similarly geared rogue would, but they provide a lot of group utility and buffs and auras, and they're wearing plate, so they tend to be more durable than rogues, requiring less healing. But the rogue, despite potentially costing more in terms of healing and often using items like Haste Potions, generates quite a bit of DPS, so that if you take into account the amount of damage he does vs. what it takes to keep him up doing it and what he has to spend to do it at peak, it might still be better to bring the high sustained mana-free rogue over the mana-dependent paladin. Or it might not be. Honestly, she lost me at the point where she started talking about co-efficients.

We started talking about all the different classes and what they have to do or have to be competitive... warriors need buffs from outside like Blessing of Kings and Windfury totem, hunters need ammo and food for their pets, mages are pretty low-maintenance but are still chugging mana pots and mana gems, warlocks can life tap and drain life but are still at risk and need some healer attention... and we didn't come up with any conclusions. I found it interesting to consider the idea, though: when I DPS, how 'cost-effective' am I versus another class? How much in consumables, how much time and effort from other players does it take for me to generate the damage? And how would you rate your own class, are you 'economy' DPS, cheap to keep going, or 'luxury' DPS, requiring a lot of upkeep but bringing higher performance, or are these even valid considerations?

Despite the fact that my level 70 Hunter isn't technically my main, she's probably my favorite character. A lot of people will tell you that a Hunter is an overly easy class: sic your pet, turn on Auto Shot, and you're done. While having a built-in tank that you can even heal a bit gives you a pretty strong advantage when going it alone, I'd have to say they oversimplify things a bit.

The largest area where the complexity of the Hunter class shows is in end-game DPS. If you want to be the most effective DPSer possible, it takes quite a bit of work. The way that you must weave shots in between your auto shots is a complicated dance that requires split second timing that can mean vast differences in DPS totals between Hunters. Cheeky of the Khadgar-US server (author of the famous Cheeky's Spreadsheet) posted a very concise and well-stated summary of some of the problems with Hunter DPS on the official US forums here a few months back. The post was originally written by Lactose of the Talnivarr-EU Server, who posted it on the EU forms here, where it got some blue love today a while back.

Every week, Shifting Perspectives is written by someone who is not me. Except for that one time. Rather an addictive experience, stealing this column. Does anyone even read the italicized portion at the top? Hello? Nobody? I'm just gonna sing. "My baloney has a first name, it's O-S-C-A-R, my baloney has a [censored over copyright infringement] (ed. just do the column, please).

While I sincerely hope the rumors about the patch hitting soon aren't true because I'm sitting on all of 43 badges of justice right now (g@^#(*% mother-expletive piece of $%^@ fire resistance set), I am forced to admit that the times may possibly have caught up with me. I confess that for a long time I hadn't even looked at the new badge loot that will become available ingame, partly because things have gotten markedly busier with my guild of late and partly because I'd planned my 2.3 badge acquisitions very carefully and wondered if I could get away with keeping myself somewhat unspoiled for 2.4. That lasted until I found out just how expensive the 2.4 gear is actually going to be ("150 badges for a new weapon, Zach? Are you @*(#&#% kidding me?"). Noble effort while it lasted, though.

Well, no more. If 2.4 does hit next week, I'm going to be ready to stand in front of the badge vendor and know exactly what I can't afford to buy for all three specs.

This treatment looks exclusively at the new leather gear offerings available in 2.4 and assumes that you won't have access, or at least immediate access, to the new 25-man raid Sunwell Plateau. For my part I am still using six -- count 'em, six -- pieces of badge gear for various tanking purposes in Tier 6 content, which either says a great deal about the general quality of badge gear or says a great deal about how bad feral itemization is in endgame content. I'll be magnanimous today and say it's both.

The biggest frustration in a MMORPG is probably getting ganked at most inopportune moments. The next biggest aggravation has got to be playing with pick-up-groups. Sometimes we get lucky in choosing random players to instance with, but we've all got horror stories of out worst experiences with PUGs.

Ihaveaplan of Altarac Mountains started a thread for players to list 200 things you don't want to hear from your DPS. The original poster's initial complaint was the Warlock who left the group because the tank was fighting multiple mobs. Some other gems from this thread include:

• Bizzerk of Laughing Skull, "Does anyone have damage meters?"
• Zazzi of Kirin Tor, "Do any of you have another weapon? My sword broke."
• Groxikor of Daggerspine, "I'm pretty good with bandages, can I heal?"
• Misada of Dark Iron, "Hey guys, can someone resummon me, had to hearth to repair my gear."
• Ovelita of Ner'zhul, "We don't need a healer. We have a shadow priest."

Running 5 man instances is the bread and butter of gearing up any PvE character. There are some short instances, and some longer ones. There are some bosses that are ready for fun, and others that like to die fast. Many people consider it a universal truth that all you need to do these instances is solid crowd control. When you're faced with a pack of six or seven level 70 elite mobs, the last thing you want is one or two of them running loose.

But what can you do if you don't have any CC available? Are you just out of luck? Nope! There are a few tricks to running instances without CC, and if you pay close attention, you won't miss the lack of sheeps at all.

In fact, you might just start preferring to run without crowd control entirely.

Nearly every hybrid has felt the sorrows of lacking itemization at one time or another. Every hybrid has seen its ups and its down, has watched class balance fall into and out of order, and embraced their spec through the good and the bad. Throughout all of this, though, there has always been one ever-present issue. Completely unchanging. Viability and acceptance? Oh, no no no.

Bag space. The Blue Crew of Blizzard has made it very clear over the last few years that limited bag space is fully intended. It's viewed as an important aspect of game play. A mini-game, if you will. I must say, being forced into choosing whether you want to keep an item you enjoy or vendor it in favor of that new piece of resist gear that is mandatory for your raid's upcoming boss fight is the worst game ever. Sometimes little vanity items mean quite a bit, like your first epic. A lot of them are just plain neat, like the furbolg outfit maker.

A little while ago, Drysc said in a post that "a prot warrior or shadow priest or what have you should though be able to jump into a battleground or arena and be able to do something with some small amount of success." This hasn't gone over well with many shadow priests. Even with Drysc trying to correct himself in multiple threads and insist that he doesn't mean that the class will never get more viable, a lot of shadow priests are up in arms.

It's probably pretty understandable. After all, before Burning Crusade, a Shadow Priest was pretty much universally feared upon the field of battle. They seemed to take almost no damage in Shadowform, and their DoTs tore through you with ease. Even in the early days of the Arenas, you saw quite a few Warlock/Shadow Priest teams tearing up the charts. These days, Shadowform doesn't really absorb damage like it used to, Psychic Scream doesn't really cut it as CC, and resilience makes sure that their DoTs are blunted quite handily. So what DO you do when you chose a class and spec to PvP, only to have that spec suddenly become lackluster in PvP? This isn't like Protection Warriors, who have known from the start they'd be good as tanks, and tanks alone.

We all generally have a good idea these days of what we roll a class and choose a spec to do. A Protection Paladin expects to tank. A Mage expects to DPS. But it's the divide between which specs are good at PvE and which at PvP that seems to be getting a little thorny lately. Should a player be able to count on their spec always being viable at the same aspects of the game? If so, should Shadow Priests expect PvP buffs sooner rather than later? Or should they accept that their age of PvP dominance was in the Battlegrounds and the pre-70 era, and resign themselves to speccing Discipline if they want to succeed in Arenas?

In World of Warcraft if you want to find a group, roll a tank. Tanks are hard to find and good tanks are worth their weight in gold, even Tauren tanks. Goosesausage of Cenarius posted some suggestions he believes might resolve the current lack of meat shields. He suggests that non-protection specialized Warriors would be capable of tanking if the Sunder Armor buff was tweaked a bit.

The poster reported that he has a hard time finding heroic groups since his warrior character is currently specced for DPS. To resolve this issue, Goosesausage suggested that removing the cost of changing one's specialization might resolve the issue. I both agree and disagree with this suggestion. True it's pretty expensive to switch back and forth from prot to DPS and back regularly, but thanks to daily quests money is not nearly as short as it once was. Just make sure you do your grinding before you spec to prot. Even if there was no respeccing fee, tanks would need to acquire two sets of gear.