Yet Another Warlock Nerf has a terrific guide up to one of the most misused/underused pieces of gear in the game -- the PvP trinket. The cheapest version, Insignia of the Alliance/Horde is just over 2,500 Honor, so anyone can get a version of this (YAWN recommends the Rare version, which is powerful enough to be useful and cheap enough to spend honor on other things) and especially until many more specialized trinkets are available at endgame, it's a must have for anyone running PvP.

But when to use it is the question. Especially in 1v1, the best times to break out your trinket are when it will allow you to immediately avoid damage, so breaking it out for things like Sap or Polymorph (which don't actually cause damage to you) can be a waste of the cooldown. But things like Kidney Shot, Fear, and Frost Nova mean that more damage is incoming, so then is usually (there are, of course, exceptions) a good time to pop the trinket and escape the damage.

YAWN bravely goes out on a limb here and tries to provide some guidance for an activity that isn't very well governed by guidance (don't tell PvPers what they can't do!). Actions and rules are very, very situational, and so there sometimes will be times when you should trinket out of Sap, or spend your two minute cooldown on Death Coil. But as a starter guide to when to use and not use the trinket, it's a great read.

[via Resto4Life]

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.

Twice a week (if writers like Zach here keep to their deadlines), our writers will tell you more about themselves, and let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more About the Bloggers.

What do you do for WoW Insider?
I write the incorrigibly erratic columns The Art of War(craft) and The Light and How to Swing It that deal with PvP and Paladins respectively (and sometimes interchangeably). I also tend to mix up my posts with regular, run-of-the-mill news and the occasional opinion piece, like my analysis on the new Wrath changes to Paladins.

What's your main right now?
I spend most of my time in-game on my Level 70 Blood Elf Paladin, who re-specs 3-4 times a week. One day I'm mashing faces with a big hammer, and the next I'm waving my glowing fingers in the air like somebody's boy toy. I've spent thousands of Gold on re-specs that I'm probably a spec-a-holic. Just don't ask me to tank. I also have a neglected child in my Level 70 Troll Shaman, who was originally my main. Well, that's not entirely accurate. I started playing the game with an Undead Rogue and later a Troll Hunter on a PvE server. My wife and friends later rerolled on a PvP server.

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.

Well, we were going to talk about other things, but with the Beta coming out I have to admit I've entirely forgotten what they were. There's really no point in pretending that we're not going to be talk about this, is there? I don't think so myself.

We learn nothing about any new talents that don't directly replace older talents. Nothing about Bladestorm or Titan's Grip, and talents like Incite are only mentioned because they're directly replacing talents like Defiance. We also don't learn what the big new protection talent to replace Shield Slam is from these notes. (We do have other sources and we will be discussing those talents in more depth, I'm just pointing out what the notes don't specifically mention.) The notes focus more on protection spec than others although we do find out that mace spec and sword spec are being slightly nerfed while poleaxe spec is getting a nice little buff: these changes seem PvP related to my eyes, but I have no idea how effective they'll actually be.

The juggling of talents and the alteration of their effects definitely seems to confirm the notion that crushing blows are a thing of the past. On the one hand, this is a huge change to warrior tanking mechanics, as we're noted for our ability to hit uncrushability while druid tanks simply soak the damage with higher armor and stamina (paladins use the same mechanic as we do for uncrushable, they just need more block rating but can stay uncrushable longer than we can due to how their abilities work vs. ours): we've yet to see how this is going to play out. With the addition of DK's as tanks, removing CB's keeps them from having to rely on a gimmicky high parry (since they won't use a shield to tank) to avoid being crushed, but it also means that warriors will need a means to stay competitive with other tanks. Threat seems to be getting entirely reworked, so for now I'm cautiously optimistic about where tanking is heading for protection spec warriors, and indeed, all warriors.

I'll go so far as to say that arms and fury warriors will be tanking in Wrath. I don't expect them to be dedicated main tanks for raids, but I do expect to see them tanking in five mans without respeccing, and that is without taking the possible two talent spec idea into account.

With the rumor of Achievements in Wrath of the Lich King finally revealed to be a certainty, there's a bit more excitement in the air about the expansion. When I told my somewhat obsessive-compulsive wife about the new Achievement system, she was filled with both dread and giddiness knowing she would obsess (and lose a lot of sleep) over unlocking them, particularly the whimsical ones. "You're probably not excited about all this, are you?," she asked me, knowing I didn't concern myself too much with some of the game's frills. "Actually," I replied with a smile, "there are PvP Achievements, too."

So while my wife is looking forward to doing all the, ahem, frivolous things like getting a haircut -- she'll probably unlock that one in the first hour of the expansion's release -- or giving out ten hugs (!), I'll be grinding away at the PvP-oriented Achievements. Hot Streak is certainly doable; I've been an Alterac Valley All-Star more than a few times; but getting City Defender looks like it'll take a little bit more work. How about you? What category of Achievements are you most interested in? Are you a professions freak, a quest addict, or maybe an explorer? It looks like there's something for every type of player. What kind of Achievements do you think you'll be unlocking often?

Well, it finally happened. The dreaded nerf to Cheat Death was finally implemented in yesterday's Patch 2.4.3, and it seems like more than a few Rogues are unhappy. Oddly enough, the most important change to me wasn't the nerf itself but the adjustment to how Cheat Death works. If I'm not mistaken (I often am, though), Cheat Death is the only talent specifically designed to work with Resilience.

No other talent or ability in the game works or improves with Resilience the way Cheat Death does. Because the ability scales with Resilience -- the more you have, the more it works like the old Cheat Death -- it's a clear indication that the ability is for PvP. While there are talents that are more suitable for PvP than others, no other abilities are designed to work specifically with the Resilience stat. In this case, a Rogue would need roughly 442 Resilience points (at Level 70) in order to achieve the maximum 90% damage reduction. It's an ability that requires players to gear a certain way in order to maximize their gains.

Prior to Patch 2.4.3, many Rogues mixed PvP with PvE gear in order to increase their damage output (double Warglaives, anyone?) but were able to maintain high survivability thanks to Cheat Death. With the nerf to the talent, many PvE-geared Rogues suffered a significant reduction in survivability because low Resilience means an inefficient Cheat Death. It's an interesting shift because Blizzard has claimed in the past that it doesn't create trees specifically for PvP. In the future, it's possible that we'll see more PvP-specific talents that require Resilience or reduce Resilience directly. I think it's a positive direction in Blizzard's design philosophy.

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.

Around every 4th of July I reread Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels, which is a book about the battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. There's an early passage about the Southern general James Longstreet's unease over the Confederate push north to Pennsylvania: He had never believed in this invasion...He did not believe in offensive warfare when the enemy outnumbered you and outgunned you and would come looking for you anyway if you waited somewhere on your own ground. Longstreet, one of the finest military minds of the age, spends much of the subsequent bloody fight knowing that Union forces had a terrain advantage impossible to overcome.

There's been a lot written about battleground strategy (particularly Alterac Valley) but I think all of us have known the sinking feeling you get when you realize that your side isn't going to win. Some causes of failure are relatively easy to pinpoint; starting a battleground with a heavy numbers or healing disadvantage often seals the fate of a match. And of course the collective quality of a team's gear will always play a role; people in Season 4 are unlikely to lose to those in Season 1.

All other things being equal, what I find most fascinating are the matches -- PuG versus PuG, or premade versus premade -- where the battle can swing either way depending entirely on each team's degree of foresight and strategy. Rarely, single players can sometimes decide the outcome; I once saw a protection paladin in a 2-cap versus 2-cap Eye of the Storm prevent the opposing side from taking any flags by parking himself in the middle and simply taking forever to die, and one of my own favorite techniques is to suicide/harass heavily-defended nodes in Arathi Basin and EOTS while Horde quietly caps elsewhere (you'd be amazed at the number of players who prefer an easy kill over responding to "Inc!" calls elsewhere). But failure and success are usually collective and hard to pin down. How do you convince people to do the less-glamorous jobs -- defense, distraction, crowd-control -- more likely to result in a victory? How do you know when the battleground is lost for sure?

Have flying mounts killed off world PvP in Outland? I'm on a PvE server, so I don't see it much anyway, but folks on a PvP server are complaining that whenever they find a good target and get close, the person just hops on their "carebear cloud" and flies away. Of course, "xxxx ruined PvP" is one of the most common types of QQ (although "xxxxx class is broken!" probably beats it), but is Blizzard protecting folks on flying mounts by letting them escape a fight too fast?

Neth says no, of course -- she says that flying away from (or into) a fight is just another method PvPers have in their arsenal. And a few commenters in the thread make the point that I would: odds are that if someone is running away from you, it's not really a fair fight -- flying mounts may have ruined ganking, but they haven't ruined actual PvP.

Of course, what people really want here is a way to attack someone in the sky, and fortunately, with Wrath of the Lich King, your prayers will be answered -- not only have we seen flying vehicles fighting in the air, but Blizzard has confirmed anti-air capabilities. If you're just looking for a gank, and are angry when that level 64 runs away from your kitted-out 70 Rogue, you're probably still going to be unhappy. But if you're looking for the fight to go up in the air when your opponent does, Northrend probably has what you need.

Uhohhotdog of Mathrezim has a leveling problem. In the General Discussion forum he announced that fails whenever he tries to level an Alliance character. He asked if others have this problem. Secksie of Tanaris said that she has the same problem, only she can't seem to manage to roll Horde.

It looks like the issues is not so much faction pride as friends and familiarity. Probably the most important factor is having friends or guildies to play with on the other side. Millaneous of Norgannon said that he doesn't care which side he plays, as long as he's playing with friends. Rummi of Ysera finds difficulty in breaking the link with his main character when playing on Alliance side. It's kind of Lonely and outside of one's established element.

This week I headed off to Bleeding Hollow's Horde side to talk with players about the biggest story of the past week: the opening up of the opt-in for the Wrath of the Lich King beta. The server was really busy, and in fact, someone's been busy in Orgrimmar there -- there are quite a few bits of corpse graffiti around, with names like "Pvpfails" and "Blizzsucks."

But nevertheless, I did find two willing victims interviewees for the column this week. See what we talked about after the jump.

Welcome to Hybrid Theory, where we discuss all things hybrid in the World of Warcraft. Hybrid Theory is brought to you each week by columnist/blogger Alex Ziebart.

A pretty substantial point of debate when it comes to Hybrids is their place in PvP. The thought that only one spec is viable per class is most problematic in the context of Hybrids for a couple of different reasons. Some argue against every spec being arena viable, some argue in favor of it.

The argument in favor of each spec being viable that I feel is the strongest is the fact that each Hybrid spec is vastly different from all of the others. In the arena, an Enhancement Shaman isn't doing the same thing as an Elemental Shaman. They are doing similar things like dropping totems and casting Shocks, but the role they play is different. Enhancement is in your face, Elemental throws lightning at your face, and Restoration is healing your face. This is not like Rogues in which all three specs are about hitting you until you fall down, just in different ways.

Why is it a problem that all three of them aren't viable? It essentially feels like a forced block on your chances at success. "Just spec Resto" isn't really a valid answer, because it means you are not able to play your preferred role. Someone who rolled a Shaman to Stormstrike people's faces off are told to go get some Elemental gear, and that isn't very fun. To be successful in the arena, they are more or less forced out of how they want to play the game.