Part of the allure of drums in raids has been the ability to overlap the effects of different types of drums by having several leatherworkers drumming at a time. One member might boost attack power and spell damage for party members in range, while another might restore health and mana.

With the new Tinnitus debuff, any targets affected by drums are immune to the effects of all other drums for two minutes. While this sounds like a nerf, it might actually have a balancing effect.

In fact, other professions are seeing similar changes. Potions will create Potion Sickness, which will prevent the consumer from using more than one in any given encounter. Players will have to rest out of combat in order to refresh the privilege.

So far, this also is affecting mana gems and similar items, although it is unclear if that particular effect is a bug or not. What does this mean?

Although there is information being leaked about the upcoming expansion Wrath of the Lich King, because of the alpha testing that is currently underway, it is too soon to tell what will make it into the final copy, and what will not. Furthermore, most things will be changed, and there are details that may never be leaked until, of course, release.

Still, it is a valuable experience to peer into Blizzard's process of designing, reforming, and progressing the game's professions. This week, Insider Trader will focus on analyzing the tentative progression of the leatherworking trade.

In addition, we'll take a brief look at professions-related changes in the upcoming patch 2.4.3. While mounts at level 30 and Haris Pilton might be first in your mind, Blizzard isn't overlooking the trade sector this round.

Many of the Patch 2.3 changes were pre-announced over the last two weeks by Blizzard. But today when the patch hit the Test server, many additional changes were discovered. And some of them are very interesting.

A new Expertise Skill has shown up in the notes. Based on the description given the meat of it seems to be that Weapon Skill Rating is out and Expertise Skill Rating is in. Weapon Skill Rating on an item used to decrease your chance to miss, increase your chance to crit and decrease your opponents chance to block, parry or dodge. Now that's been eliminated in favor of this new stat that simply reduces the chance for your attacks to be parried or dodged.

It looks like you're losing out, but the effects of Weapon Skill Rating were small (0.04% per point) where as the Expertise Skill rating has more impact (0.25% per point.) How this affects your overall dps I leave to the mathemagicians.

Weapon Skill Ratings on ranged items have not been replaced with Expertise Skill, but with additional +crit and/or +hit. Check individual items for exact changes. Also, some talents haven been altered to accommodate this new skill but what those talents are and how they were changed isn't clear yet.

Details have finally surfaced about the Guild Bank. We knew there were going to be 6 tabs and some permissions and a tracking function for transactions, but now we know the specifics. The 6 tabs will each contain 98 item slots for a total of 588 slots. Permissions to view, deposit and withdraw can be changed for every tab. Also every tab will show the last fifty transactions. So new recruits can't raid the good stuff.