A guildmate of mine was healing a Culling of Stratholme run last night and finally broached a question that seems to have occurred to everyone who's helped Arthas take his utilitarian moral perspective on the road: "Why are we helping this guy?"

It's a question that people used to ask about Black Morass a lot too (indeed, the first boss, Chrono Lord Deja, will ask you that himself), but Black Morass was a little more cut-and-dried. Medivh unquestionably cost many lives in bringing the first Horde through his portal, but if the orcs never set foot in Azeroth, then the world would have fallen to the Legion. The Bronze Dragonflight is unusually blunt about the cause-and-effect; war breaks out among the human kingdoms, the Alliance never occurs, the new Horde is not present at Hyjal to defend against Archimonde's forces -- indeed, the Legion may very well have swept the world without Hyjal ever occurring. So, despite the destruction wrought by the first Horde's entry into Azeroth (and you could argue, because of it), Medivh must succeed in opening the portal.

I'm not sure it's quite that straightforward with "Old Strat" -- and questions about whether it is prompt some thought-provoking questions concerning Azeroth's past, present, and future.

Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, ZA or Sunwell Plateau, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. This week, we sing a swansong to TBC raiding in all its glory.

With less than a week to go before we all start frantically levelling and leaving Outland behind for good, let's not forget the ups and downs raiding during The Burning Crusade has brought us. From Attumen to Kil'jaeden, we've run the gamut of raiding, killing anything from pit lords to corrupted naaru with nary a blink.

We've shed blood and tears over rare drops, wiped countless times until the small hours, decked our alts out in epics and moved servers to find a better guild. We've rerolled, watched ourselves and our raid instances get nerfed, hung out in Shattrath showing off our gear, and gotten to grips with major class changes in the last two weeks. So let's look back...

Every Tuesday, or possibly Thursday when the writer votes on Tuesday and spends Wednesday screaming and beating her laptop over formatting errors, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting Druids and those who group with them. This week Allison Robert steals John Patricelli's column once again, secure in the knowledge that she will never be forced to atone for her crime as long as she writes something nice about ferals and keeps a respectful distance from Dan O'Halloran's whip.

I hate Tauren cat form.

Good. I got that out of my system and can write something productive. Although, believe me, if I could get away with it, an entire Shifting Perspectives would be devoted to just how much I hate Tauren cat form. I mean, just look at it! Look at the angle on the horns! The cat can't bite anything! Christ, I just -- hi, Dan. Yes, I'm totally writing the column! Look at me go!

This week, mindful as always of American election-year politicking, I'm going to borrow a page from presidential duties and write a little something I like to call "State of the Class." Druids have undergone a number of changes in the transition to Wrath of the Lich King, and will acquire even more as they level to 80. We are one of Blizzard's primary targets for both gear and role consolidation, which raises a few questions over how comfortably we're going to scale in relation to pure classes and what we can realistically expect on the march to a new level cap.

The TL:DR version of this article -- I believe our future is generally bright, the Druid community continues to have a few concerns over certain aspects of the class, our focus in PvP seems to be changing the most, and I hate Tauren cat form. This is a three-part post, so let's get started with balance. However, if you want to jump ahead to feral, you'll find that here; and the third part, restoration, is here.

The Sunwell Redemption

The final tie between Kael'thas and Quel'thalas was broken when Kael'thas' minions returned to take back by force the naaru, M'uru, which he had once given to his kindred so freely. Lady Liadrin and her Blood Knights would have been left without any of their powers had the naaru A'dal not reached out a hand to save her and her people. Lady Liadrin was deeply regretful of what she and her Blood Knights had done to M'uru, but A'dal forgave them, saying that M'uru had known all along what his role would be in this unfolding drama. The naaru extended his own Light energies to Liadrin and her Blood Knights, and encouraged them to assist him to stop the terrible threat that Kael'thas now represented to all the people of Azeroth and Outland.

The former "Lord of the Blood Elves," now quite insane, had brought the remaining strength of his forces back to Azeroth and taken over the Sunwell Island, just across the channel from Silvermoon City, and planned to use the hidden energies of the Sunwell's magic to try and summon Kil'jaeden into the world. The blood elves and draenei of Shattrath united to overcome this threat, and as their forces ventured deeper and deeper into the Sunwell fortifications Kael'thas had set up, they found that M'uru himself was enslaved as a guard the site where Kil'jaeden would be summoned. The heroes were forced to destroy his weakened body and stop the entropic energies which now began to vacuum up all life around it as the last of his Light energies seemed to drain away.

At last, of course, the heroes faced Kil'jaeden himself at the site of the Sunwell (perhaps your own character was among them), and, with the help of some dragons, they drove him back into the Sunwell Portal, away from Azeroth. The draenei prophet Velen arrived, along with Lady Liadrin, and spoke to the heroes, as he placed the last remaining fragment of M'uru's body into the Sunwell. The result is one of the best scenes in Warcraft lore, which you too can look on, as the last spark of M'uru's life reignites the Sunwell with the energy of the Holy Light, restoring once and for all, that magical life energy the blood elves need, as well as something far greater, something with the power to rebirth the entire civilization of the blood elves: Faith.

Every Monday, we put a question back to you readers, and see what you have to say about a current issue in the World of Warcraft. This week's question actually comes from our Guildwatch column -- Lugbruz is an officer in Reforged on Runetotem (they just downed M'uru -- grats!), and he has a question about how much you need to raid to be successful:

Are there other guilds who have a 3 night/week raid schedule (or less) who have enjoyed success in high-end raiding? We killed Mu'ru before the nerf and don't know of any other crew has gone so far with so little time. Our primary competition of the server was at equal progression with us pre-nerf and they're a 5 night/week crew.

We assume that 3 nights (4 hours per raid) is the minimum, but can endgame be done with less?

Lugbruz

The Warglaives get all the glory for being all Legendary, but when you want a mainhand melee and you're raiding at the top of the game, this is really what you'll want.

Name: Hand of the Deciever (Wowhead, Thottbot, WowDB)Type: Epic Main-hand Fist Weapon
Damage/Speed: 238-357/2.60 (114.4 DPS)
Abilities:

• +28 Stamina, and you know by now what Stamina gives you. There's no Agility on it, so the Warglaive set is still likely a better option for Rogues if you were lucky enough to get that. But for anyone who needs a fist weapon in the main hand for melee, this is the Cadillac you want to be driving.
• Two Yellow sockets, and there is where you can get everything you need that's not in the usual stats (some more crit, some extra Strength for Fury Warriors, or even some hit if you still need it). +6 Attack Power socket bonus, which is pretty weak, so socket with what you want on this one, and only go for yellow if it's all you need.
  
• Increase Attack Power by 54, and your attacks ignore 196 of your opponent's armor. We need to mention Enhancement Shamans at this point -- while Rogues and Warriors pretty much get their pick of the litter for weapons, this kind of fist weapon is aimed squarely at Shammies, who aren't able to use the Warglaives or any of the other crazy swords at this level. That doesn't mean that this isn't a good weapon for a Warrior or a Rogue -- in certain situations and specs, it does rival the Warglaives for them. But this is an Enhancement Shaman weapon first and foremost -- because they aren't able to wield swords, this one's for them.
• Ignoring armor is a tough mechanic to wrap your head around (and since you all know that I'm bad at math, I have a harder time with it). If you do have an item that ignores armor, it's best to stack it as much as possible with other items -- taking just a little armor off of a target that has tons of it won't help you too much. But taking a nice chunk of armor off, say, a clothie, helps your DPS out more. Here's a quick chart (that probably isn't necessarily up to date, but can probably work as a good guide). So as little as 500 armor ignored can help your DPS out by a few percentage points, but as you get further into more heavily armored targets, that DPS number goes down.

How to Get It: Drops from one of the last bosses in the game, Kalecgos Kil'jaeden (sorry, I've never been to either, mixed them up). Do we have to say anything besides that? If you're already in Sunwell, you know exactly where he is, and if you're not yet, then get to Sunwell first and then you can figure out. Odds are that if you're not raiding Sunwell by now, you probably won't see him before Wrath anyway. Drop him, have about a 15% chance that this item drops, be an Enhancement Shammy and convince all the Warriors and Rogues that this is really an item you deserve, and the Hand is yours.

Getting Rid of It: Fully socketed, you probably won't -- even in Northrend, this is a nice weapon to have in the main hand. Though you probably will be done with it before raiding gets underway at level 80, so then you can sell it back to vendors for 15g 65s 3c, or disenchant it into (probably two) Void Crystals.

A friend and I were idly wondering about the possibility of tackling all Burning Crusade raid content the way you'd watch the extended Lord of the Rings trilogy on a rainy weekend: doing it all without stopping, intent on a glorious finish. Nobody's arguing that the point of such a marathon is to have fun every second while you're doing it; I'd say this is the classic undertaking where it really is about the destination and not so much the journey. But let's say you had an enterprising bunch of raiders sitting around bored on a weekend and your choices were either raiding Tarren Mill again or trying something adventurous. Or if you had Wrath coming up the next week and you wanted to conduct a triumphal tour of the content your guild had conquered, stopping only to relish the wholesale slaughter of bosses who'd given you so much trouble (here's looking at you, Gurtogg). Would it be possible to cut a swathe of destruction across the BC raiding landscape all within the space of a day?

Assuming a bunch of experienced raiders, we came up with the following figures:

Karazhan: 2-3 hours
Gruul's Lair: 1 hour
Magtheridon: 45 minutes
Serpentshrine Cavern: 3-4 hours
Tempest Keep: 3 hours
Zul'Aman: 1 1/2 hours
Mount Hyjal: 2 1/2 hours
Black Temple: 3-4 hours
Sunwell Plateau: 4-5 hours

On the low end, that's 20 hours and 45 minutes. On the high end, it's 25 hours (and I have to pause here for a moment's respect over just how much raid content Blizzard programmed for BC). If you lopped Kara and ZA off the marathon in the interest of doing only 25-man content, an experienced (albeit insane) raid that stomped each site and methodically proceeded to the next with no wipes along the way (probably not likely in Sunwell) could probably wreck BC raid content in maybe 18 hours start to finish (giving them a little extra time for travel and bathroom breaks). Has anyone been crazy enough to try this? Should anyone be crazy enough to try this?

I'm putting together a class-by-class prediction post on how the changes we'll see in patch 3.0 and beyond will wind up affecting PvE gameplay in Wrath, but it's probably a bit premature to make specific guesses while talents and skills are still being overhauled in the beta. Still, I think a few general trends (at least for 3.0) are pretty clear.

I'm calling it now; Paladins will fare best, but Shamans will be the hardest hit by the upcoming changes, especially with respect to raiding. I think this change is driven in no small part by Blizzard's realization that Sunwell-level raid guilds are hugely dependent on the party-specific buffs like totems and Heroism/Bloodlust that Shamans bring. The problem is that Shamans are still the least-played class, which has left raiding guilds desperate for a high-end population of Shamans that simply does not exist (especially Alliance-side). Making Shaman totems and Heroism/Bloodlust buff the entire raid (but heavily nerfing how often the raid can benefit from the latter) means the days of stacking Shamans (or trying to) are effectively over.

Paladin changes, especially for holy and retribution, are equally driven by Blizzard's experience with Sunwell. With absolutely breathtaking amounts of raid damage occurring, encounters were disproportionately weighted in favor of: a). healers with more raid-healing capacity, like resto Shamans and CoH Priests (something we heard from SK Gaming months ago) and b). DPS who brought raid-wide DPS buffs to kill the boss as fast as possible (e.g. Retribution Paladins on Brutallus and M'uru). Given the new skills I'm seeing on other healing specs, I'll make another prediction; prepare to see that same level of raid damage rear its ugly head in Naxxramas again.

I'll be launching a more extensive prediction post once talents and skills are finalized for Wrath, and then I'd like to do a follow-up post at some point after guilds start conquering level 80 raid content to see whether they were any good.

Dark Haven on Baelgun actually killed our buddy Illy D this week, but we liked this picture on their website better. Yes, they're coming for you, Defiler.

This week's Guildwatch is chock full, as always, of drama, downed, and recruiting news from around the realms. If you've got some to share with us, about your guild or anyone else's, feel free to send it along to wowguildwatch@gmail.com. Click the link below to see what's going on this week in guild news.

Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, ZA or Sunwell Plateau, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. This week, we look at a nerfed guild-killer.

The prize for this week's most-talked-about Sunwell boss goes to... an imprisoned naaru. Formerly resident in Silvermoon City, in patch 2.4 M'uru was captured by Kael'thas and taken to the Sunwell Plateau, where he now holds the place of fifth boss in the instance. After defeating the Eredar Twins (which gives you a handy teleport to their room) and clearing a few trash packs, you'll find yourself at the doorway of M'uru's circular room.

Initially a fairly unimpressive looking boss -- discounting the 'wow, it's a naaru' factor -- as the encounter gets into full swing you begin to marvel at its clockwork complexity. Killing M'uru isn't the end of the fight, either; instead of dying, he transforms into a void god called Entropius, who you have to burn down as quickly as possible. It's a very intense encounter, even post-nerf.