Lileah on Livejournal was looking for some help with an addon the other day, and her request gave me an idea. For this morning's Breakfast Topic, we're going all out with the addon requests. If you've got a need for an addon (like custom timers, an addon for keeping track of food, or any other weird needs you might have), ask in the comments below, and if you're an addon expert, show off your expertise by letting the requester know if there's an addon that will fill their needs.
And if there's isn't an addon that can do what they're asking, maybe this comments section will be the impetus for someone out there to create one of their own. Think we can find a need out there for an addon that doesn't yet exist? Of course, there are some things that addons can't do (choose targets or spells for you is a big one), but otherwise, consider this thread your clearinghouse for addon service requests.
If you can't get an answer here, feel free to tip us, too -- we at WoW Insider always love finding out and writing about new addons. Whether you need help finding an addon that does what you want or you know of a great addon that could use some coverage, let us know and we'll be thrilled to take a look at it.
In the recent explosion of news about Wrath of the Lich King, Ten Ton Hammer had an interview with Jeff Kaplan and Tom Chilton, where they asked some solid questions on why exactly we needed another tanking class.
Chilton:We're kind of designing the Paladin tank to be the best AE tank, and we're designing the Warrior to be the best sheer mitigation tank, and we're designing the Death Knight to be the anti-spellcaster tank.
From that statement, at least, you can see that the subject of a feral druid's place in the end-game main tanking plan doesn't even get a mention. You might think that, as far as the designers are concerned, a feral druids' future tanking viability is merely an afterthought.
But that doesn't mean that in the new expansion, all of the new Talents will only be buffing up the Balance and Resto trees.
Oh, no. Not hardly.
No, I have seen what is currently active for the new Talent trees up to level 80, and I can assure you, we may not be in the forefront of the developers' minds when it comes to 'cutting edge' tanking, but we have NOT been forgotten.
The guild Shards of Existence on the Illidan server hasn't managed to down Illidan himself yet, but apparently that hasn't stopped them from having a little bit of fun with the other Black Temple bosses. According to their site, they've been having a bit trouble with tanks losing their computers, which has in turn frustrated their attempts to put Illidan on farm status. But just because they're still getting their replacement tanks geared up doesn't mean they have to sit back and wait.
Introducing Gaeowyn, The first Rogue to tank Mother Shahraz, the harem mistress of Black Temple. Notes Nihilum's news site, she pulled it off by stacking massive amounts of agility, while keeping enough expertise to cause adequate threat to keep the boss' attention. Raid buffed, she had 76.31% dodge, 12.16% parry, and 14.16% chance to be missed, meaning that she had 102.63% avoidance - just enough to take physical damage out of the equation.
If nothing else, that alone makes me wonder if I could pull that off on my Druid tank - It certainly would make tanking Prince Malchezaar's phase 2 easier. Of course, Bears cannot parry, alas, so I'd have to make up some major ground somewhere.
The video is a fun watch, especially at the end where it looks like Gaeowyn tries her hand at tanking Illidan. Is this a sign that we can expect Rogues to be fighting with Paladins, Druids, Warriors, and Death Knights for tanking spots come WoTLK?
This week, The Care and Feeding of Warriors talks about Expertise. There's going to be a lot of math talk. It will probably have an error or two in it. Mr. Rossi needs to get some int gear for writing these columns. Expertise is useful for tanking and melee DPSing, so it seemed time to discuss it. Also, I've recently realized I can't actually hit the 'expertise cap' as a tank with the gear I can get. Sad but true.
We live in interesting times since patch 2.3 here in warrior land. Whereas previous to this patch, we had good old fashioned bonuses to our weapon skill (remember the old Edgemaster's Handguards? Admit it, you wore these at 60. Some of you wore them at 70. You don't have to lie to us, we know.) we now live in the magical world of expertise rating and expertise. What is expertise, and what isn't it?
Well, for starters, expertise is not chance to hit. Expertise can help you hit more often in an indirect manner... it reduces the chance for a mob to dodge or parry your attacks. so technically yes you'll be hitting them more often. But + hit items directly reduce the chance an attack will miss, which in World of Warcraft is entirely different from a dodge or parry (just ask any warrior trying to hit the Overpower button). Furthermore, expertise is not weapon skill. The expertise system replaced bonuses to weapon skill on items, but it did not actually replace weapon skill: weapon skill up to 350 (at level 70) still exists. Expertise is just (just, he says) a direct reduction of your chance to have your attacks dodged or parried. Unlike the old days with weapon skill bonuses, as far as I know there's no relationship between expertise and glancing blows. (If anyone out there has information that contradicts me here, please share it.) So if expertise isn't going to raise your chance to hit, why am I so excited about it?
Every Wednesday, Elizabeth Wachowski or Chris Jahosky write Encrypted Text, a look into the shadowy world of rogues.
Last time, when I discussed raiding on your rogue, I talked about the differences between the 3 talent trees as they relate to raiding, and the Hit cap. A couple of people made comments that basically say there is no magic number for Hit rating that you need to be at, and this is true. I'm not advocating stacking hit at the expense of all your other stats. There should be a balance, and you don't want to gimp yourself in other areas just to stack Hit rating.
Today, one of the things I'm talking about is the Expertise cap, which should be viewed in a similar light -- the information is there so that you can make good decisions regarding your gear. Don't just run out and start stacking Hit and Expertise and leave your other stats to twist in the wind.
In what must surely be the final build of the patch 2.3 PTR, which was pushed last night, few changes seem to have been made. Which makes sense, because they're only going to have a week to test it. As far as the good folks at World of Raids can make out, here's the list of changes in the latest build:
[Mage] Hypothermia changed from 45s back to 30s.
Human and Orc weapon racials changed from 1% crit to 5 expertise.
Expertise is a new weapon stat that reduces your opponents' chance to dodge or parry your attacks; 5 expertise grants 1.25% dodge/parry reduction. Expertise has replaced weapon skill elsewhere in the game (except on ranged weapons, which get +crit/+hit instead), so it makes sense to see it here, as these racials were in the form of weapon skill pre-2.3. And I assume the Hypothermia de-nerf can only be seen as a good thing. I've seen some quite upset mages around, and indeed, 30s already seemed perfectly long enough to me.
Since there were no updated patch notes for this build, it's always possible that there are additional changes that no-body's noticed yet. If so, please feel free to post them in the comments and I'll update the post.
As a druid, I often find it hard to figure out my place in life. Sometimes I'm up there with the tanks, soaking up damage and dancing in bearform; sometimes I'm sneaking around with the rogues; and sometimes I'm standing at the back with the Priests healing.
Druids truly are a jack-of-all-trades class, in my opinion. However, with the right gear and talents, they can master one -- or all of them -- too. My main is a mostly-feral druid, but I recently popped on the Test Server to try out the new Swiftmend talent. The premade characters are restoration-specced with healing gear, and I found myself out-healing priests in instances as a result.
I also tried playing a priest and rogue, and found my experience with druids led me to grasp these other classes quickly. So, while some may criticise the druid for being an all-rounder, that all-round experience is valuable in some circumstances. It's certainly good to know what being a tank feels like when one is stood at the back trying to keep said tank from dying.
Is this jack-of-all-trades approach valuable for other classes, too? Or is it unique to the shapeshifting druid?
Lileah on Livejournal was looking for some help with an addon the other day, and her request gave me an idea. For this morning's Breakfast Topic, we're going all out with the addon requests. If you've got a need for an addon (like custom timers, an addon for keeping track of food, or any other weird needs you might have), ask in the comments below, and if you're an addon expert, show off your expertise by letting the requester know if there's an addon that will fill their needs.
In the recent explosion of news about Wrath of the Lich King, 
This week, The Care and Feeding of Warriors talks about Expertise. There's going to be a lot of math talk. It will probably have an error or two in it. Mr. Rossi needs to get some int gear for writing these columns. Expertise is useful for tanking and melee DPSing, so it seemed time to discuss it. Also, I've recently realized I can't actually hit the 'expertise cap' as a tank with the gear I can get. Sad but true.
In what must surely be the final build of the 
As a druid, I often find it hard to figure out my place in life. Sometimes I'm up there with the tanks, soaking up damage and dancing in bearform; sometimes I'm sneaking around with the rogues; and sometimes I'm standing at the back with the Priests healing.
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