Each week, Arcane Brilliance endeavors to bring you small peek into the strange and wonderful world of Mages. We're simple creatures, we Mages. We like to live fast, die fast, and turn things into other, funnier-looking things. We also enjoy giant, juicy crits. We don't need much, just absolute power.
When a Mage is born, he or she springs to life in Deathknell or some such place, tumbling out of the nether fully grown and wearing a dress. As they take their first tremulous steps into the World of Warcraft, they discover that they can summon balls of flame and hurl them at zombies. Soon they learn to freeze the very air itself and fling bolts of freezing death at boars. In time, as they venture into the great world beyond their starting area, they ding 10 and gain their first talent point.
Suddenly, these young magelings discover they can hone their craft, direct their studies along three distinct paths. Will they walk the devastating road of Fire? The subtle alleyways of the Arcane? The deadly tundra of Frost? Or dabble in all three? Reading this, you may be tuning out at this point, saying something to yourself like "duh...17/0/44." Some of you may be thinking, "Arcane? There are talents in that tree beyond Improved Counterspell? You sure?" You may also be thinking "ltp n00btard! you got pwned," but quite frankly, if you think in leetspeak I fear for your very soul. If you're thinking any of those things, read on. I stand before you to assert that there are absolutely must-have talents in every tree that you can fit into other more popular specs, and after the jump I'll explore some ways to do it.
As some of you have noticed, we're experiencing technical difficulties with regards to our mailing address for blogger/columnist applications, causing some messages to bounce back. You may receive a message like the following: This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification
THIS IS A WARNING MESSAGE ONLY.
YOU DO NOT NEED TO RESEND YOUR MESSAGE.
Delivery to the following recipient has been delayed:
apply@wowinsider.com
As the warning says -- you do not need to resend your message. Delivery may be delayed, but e-mails are getting through. However, due to this issue, we are asking anyone sending in applications from this point forward to direct them to wowinsiderapply@gmail.com (if you have sent in an application already, you do not need to resend it) and extending the deadline for applications until Monday at 11:59pm ET. Note that due to the volume of applications we receive, I'm afraid we cannot reply to them individually.
As World of Warcraft only gets more and more popular, we have more and more news to cover. We're looking for new bloggers to add to our site as well one new columnist. If you want to get paid to write about the game, read on!
For bloggers, we want at least one who can write a minimum of 25 posts a month on the weekends. We're also looking for bloggers that can post all through the week at least 50 times a month (2-3 posts/day). Preference will be given to those who can post heavily on Saturday/Sunday.
For the columnist position, we are looking for a high level Mage to contribute to our weekly class feature Arcane Brilliance. You don't have to be a hard core raider, but some raid experience would be an advantage.
For all open positions, we are looking for people who are passionate about the game and can write articles that are both informative and entertaining. See our application page for instructions on how to apply. The deadline for this round of applications is this extended to Monday, December 17 at 11:59pm PST.
EDIT: Deadline extended to Monday due to current mail delivery issues.
Don't forget that today is your last chance to enter a comment on our contest post(not this one) for your chance to win one of two Feast of Winter Veil TCG gift sets from Upper Deck. These sets are the perfect gift for the TCG player in your life-- they come with:
10 exclusive Feast of Winter's Veil set cards that you can't get anywhere else (including this Gingerbread cookie card)
Two pet mini cards (for the TCG, not the online game)
A holiday deck box with special artwork
And booster packs-- one Heroes of Azeroth, one Dark Portal, and one Fires of Outland pack.
Yes indeedy, there's nothing better for a WoW TCG fan this time of year. Our contest ends at 3pm EST, so you have until then to go over to that post (not this one), and leave a comment proclaiming your entry.
Just in case you missed it on Saturday, Episode 5 of the WoW Insider show is now online and in iTunes, ready for your listening pleasure. Robin, Turpster and I took to the airwaves (and if you had problems with the quality of our show, check again, as we've come up with a brand new way to record it that sounds a lot better) to talk in depth about patch 2.2, everything coming in patch 2.3, and all the other stuff you read on WoW Insider last week. It's just like reading this blog-- but it's in audio form!
As always, if you've got feedback about the show, compliments, questions, complaints, or anything else at all, toss us a line at theshow@wowinsider.com-- we'd love to hear it. We do the show every week, so if you like it this week and want to listen live, meet back up with us on Saturday at 3:30pm over at WoW Radio. Thanks for listening, enjoy the show.
Just wanted to thank everyone who has sent in tips about the error messages on our RSS feed (which you can find right here, when it's working, which is most of the time). We are aware the feed is broken, we have forwarded every one of your notes on to our technical guys, and hopefully the error will be fixed soon.
And while we're at it, I'll take this opportunity as well to remind everybody about our tips form, ready and willing to receive any news you have for us. If you've heard or seen something big about the World of Warcraft that we haven't posted yet, feel free to drop us a note. Unfortunately, due to the volume of tips coming in, we can't answer everything you send (although we do try to-- some folks have sent technical questions about the game to us, which we try to answer to the best of our ability, as well as on our Ask WoW Insider feature). But we do read each and every note sent through that form, and there's no better way to contact us with tips, feedback, errors like the RSS feed problem, or anything else you'd like to tell us.
Thanks for reading and letting us know what you think. We appreciate it!
WoW Insider's Art Card contest is over, and we have to sincerely thank every one of you that sent your fan art in. There were some really incredible entries, and every piece sent in looked really good-- we had a tough time choosing the winners.
But we had to, and so, as planned, we picked one Alliance piece and one Horde piece to each receive their version of Upper Deck's exclusive WoW TCG Art Card set. Each winner will get their faction's copy of the set, which includes 8x10 art cards by your favorite Warcraft artists, 1000 UDE points, redeemable online for ingame items, and a special playable foil card. If you didn't win (or just want a set), we're told they are exclusively available at Gamestop and EB Games. A huge thanks to Upper Deck for helping us with the contest!
And without further ado, the winners. Our winning Alliance piece is the one you see above, put together by Bernadette V. It's her hunter, Jynxiee, in her Tier 6 armor-- just as with all this art we're posting, please do click the pic to see it big. Congrats, Bernadette! More art, including our Horde winner and a few Honorable Mentions, after the jump.
Well, I'm afraid you've missed the deadline for entering this week's caption contest. (But never fear -- there will be another chance to win soon!) But you still have a chance to voice your opinion on which of this bunch of captions are the best! The WoW Insider staff has carefully examined every entry and narrowed the list down to ten finalists. And now your votes will determine which of them walks away with a 60-day gamecard or a class t-shirt of your choice from J!NX! For those curious about the contest's official rules, please read them here.
And remember, voting closes on Monday at 9:00 AM EST, so if you have an opinion, be sure to make your vote count!
Don't forget: today is your absolute last chance to submit your artwork for our huge Art Card contest-- we're giving away two very exclusive Upper Deck WoW TCG Art Card sets to two different artist. Just send us a JPEG of your Horde or Alliance fan art to wowinsidercontests@gmail.com, and the best Horde art wins the Horde set, and the best Alliance artist wins the Alliance set.
Each set has 35 8x10 art cards (including art by all your favorite Blizzard artists), a special playable foil card, and a card redeemable for 1000 UDE points (which you can use to buy ingame items like the Ogre suit!). These sets are super exclusive, and all you have to do to win one is send us your best original WoW fan art. If your art is chosen as our Horde or Alliance winner, the Art Card set is yours.
But act fast-- today is the last day. Email us a JPEG at wowinsidercontests@gmail.com to enter, and please include your name, age, mailing address, and email address-- that'll make things easier later when we mail out the winners. Official rules are right here. Good luck! Get that art in quick!
Happy Wednesday, everyone! This is just a friendly reminder that our Caption This contest is ending tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM EST. So if you wanting to enter, all you have to do is check out our contest announcement and leave a brilliant caption to the above screenshot in the comments. If our readers vote your entry as their favorite, you could walk away with a free 60-day gamecard or a class t-shirt of your choice from J!NX!
Over at WoW Insider we welcome the arrival of the new week in our own unique way -- with contests! We're giving away a 60-day gamecard (first place) and a World of Warcraft class shirt of your choice (warrior, warlock, mage, rogue, priest, paladin, druid, hunter, or shaman) from J!NX (second place). All you have to do to win is to give us the best caption to the above screenshot in our comments before Thursday at 9:00 AM EST. On Friday, we'll present the best captions for you to vote on.
But now for the official stuff: this contest is only open to US residents of age 13 and up. I'm very sorry if this excludes you, but legal restrictions make it very difficult for us to run a more inclusive contest. Before you enter your caption, you'll want to read through the official rules.
Legal business concluded, what are you waiting for? Get to captioning!
Episode 3 of the WoW Insider Show is now available to listen over at WoW Radio and also as a podcast on iTunes (wow, those iTunes reviews are harsh, aren't they? Send us your suggestions on how to make the show better at theshow@wowinsider.com). I was on board this time around, as was our own Amanda Rivera, and WoW Radio's ever popular Turpster and Alris from the World of Theorycraft.
We chatted about all of our popular posts from last week, including whether rogues stealthing around constitutes an exploit, Matthew's post about trojans, and what exactly Blizzard's Hydra is. We hit on lots more, too, and I made everyone give their prediction for the patch 2.2 release-- "this week," "next week," or "later." I believe "this week" won among the four of us (it's what I said), but considering what the CMs are saying lately, I have to admit I'm second guessing myself-- we may not see the patch tomorrow morning after all.
And don't forget that we do this live every Saturday at 3:30pm EST over at WoW Radio. Tune in next week for yet another episode of WoW Insider in audio form-- we call it the WoW Insider Show.
Tomorrow, don't forget to tune in to WoW Radio, and check out the third episode of our official podcast, the WoW Insider Show. We're going to kick off the broadcast about 3:30pm EST (which is 8:30pm GMT, I believe), and we've got lots of great discussion items on our platter: we'll hit up AFKers in Alterac (because we haven't talked about that on the podcast yet, right?), the WSVG shutdown shocker, and all of our most popular posts of the last week.
I'm going to be back on the mic this week, and WoW Insider's Amanda Riviera will be joining me, as well as Turpster ("The T," as we like to call him) and Alris from WoW Radio. And of course we want you along for the ride as well: go to wcradio.com tomorrow to listen in live, and we'll also be sitting in the IRC channel at #wowradio on irc.mmoirc.com. And as usual, we'll be watching for your emails: theshow@wowinsider.com is the address for your suggestions, complaints, compliments, or questions you'd like us to answer.
Tune in tomorrow afternoon at 3:30 pm EST for the third episode of the absolute best podcast about WoW Insider: we'll see you on the WoW Insider show.
Don't forget! There is just under a week left in our fan art contest-- we're giving away an Upper Deck WoW TCG Art Card set to artists who send us their best Alliance and Horde fan art. You can read all the official rules on the previous post, but all you have to do is send us of some original WoW fan art you've created, and the best Alliance piece will get an Alliance Art Card set, and the best Horde piece will get the Horde version.
And there's only a week left! You've got to send us your piece by September 20th at wowinsidercontests@gmail.com. Did we mention that each Art Card pack contains 1000 UDE loot points, which can be redeemed for ingame items like the Ogre Suit? We did?
Well get drawing then! (or painting, or modeling, or sculpting, or whatever it is you artists do!) Send us your fan art by next week for a chance at these bee-yoo-tiful art card sets!
As reader Addie noticed in a tip to us (thanks!), commenter profiles are now live on WoW Insider. You can now click on your name (or any other commenter's name) after you've posted a comment, and see a list of all the comments you've ever made on any of our Weblogs, Inc. sites. You can also edit your profile-- there's not much there at the moment, but you can put in a URL if you'd like, or upload a picture.
Eventually (and like Blizzard, we probably won't be giving out a release date on this), we're aiming to put together a system much like the one our flagship site Joystiq has, with user pictures, moderated comments, pretty pink ponies, and rainbow sugar drops. I can't tell you much (mostly because I don't know much), but I can tell you to expect changes, hopefully coming sooner rather than later. And if you've got suggestions, feel free to share them, now or anytime. We can't promise we'll do exactly what you ask, but we do promise to listen to everything you say to us.
And no matter what else we implement here, we'll continue to provide you with great daily content about the World of Warcraft. Thanks very much for reading, and stay tuned-- we're doing everything we can to make the site better every day.
Just in case you missed it on Saturday, Episode 5 of the WoW Insider show is 
Just wanted to thank everyone who has sent in tips about the error messages on our RSS feed (which 
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As reader Addie noticed in a tip to us (thanks!), commenter profiles are now live on WoW Insider. You can now click on your name (or any other commenter's name) after you've posted a comment, and see a list of all the comments you've ever made on any of our Weblogs, Inc. sites. You can also edit your profile-- there's not much there at the moment, but you can put in a URL if you'd like, or upload a picture.
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