This is something I would like to be doing right now. Maybe in a slightly larger facility, not to mention one without its own face. I once saw a screen shot on the World of Warcraft homepage that had a Gnome standing inside of her Voidwalker. So I wondered, you know those giant water elementals found here and there? Yeah, totally on top of that sport.

I thought now would be a good time to use this idea, seeing as how some people are starting school again soon. Missing summer? Try this!

See you next week!

"Water?" I hear you asking. How could plain old mana water be Phat Loot? But this is no ordinary water, my friends -- it's also known as Cheater's Juice. This, dear readers, is Arena water.

Name: Star's Tears (Thottbot, Wowhead)
Type: Common Consumable
Damage/Speed: N/A
Abilities:

• Requires level 65. On drinking, restores 7200 mana over 30 seconds. Which isn't that great -- you can get this water from any Mage, right?
• But this water doesn't come from a Mage, and that's what's so special about it. It's the cheapest vendor water you can buy -- just 25s and two (that's right, two) Honor points per 5, in stacks of 20. Just one BG will earn you enough to not worry about the Honor points, and overall, you'll save money (probably even cheaper than that Mage you're tipping every time you log in) every time you buy it.
• And, as Arena players all know, this is the only non-Mage water usable in the Arenas. As the tooltip says, it's "carefully extracted for warfare use," so Arena players who can duck out of combat (Hunters, for example, can Feign Death out of combat and drink) can get back some mana fast even without a Mage in the group.
• Plus, as all Warcraft players (and bloggers) know, tears are the tastiest drink of all. Mmmmm tears. QQ moar pls.

How to Get It: This tasty drink is just a vendor away -- you've got to run to the Officer Accessories Quartermaster in each capital city to pick up your couple of stacks. That's Brave Stonehide in Orgrimmar, and Master Sargeant Biggins in Stormwind City. Give them your money and a couple of Honor points, and the drink is yours. Who needs Mages anyway?

Getting Rid of It: You could, um, drink it? Otherwise, you can sell it back to the vendor for 1s 25c, which is suprising -- these are the tears of stars, people! Famous people cried their eyes out just so you could have these!

If you caught the MLG Orlando live stream over at GotFrag TV last weekend, you might have noticed a critical strategic move that many of the world's best players did over and over, particularly in the longer matches -- drink. Because mana-dependent classes don't have a constantly renewable resource such as Rage or Energy, drinking in Arenas is an important skill to master. Watching the tournament was educational because many of those pro Arena players knew how to drink like crazy.

The trickiest part of drinking in an Arena match is getting out of combat. Some classes, such as Druids, have an easier time than most but watching players escape focus fire with or without their teammates peeling opponents off them is really amazing to watch. It's a skill unto itself. Night Elves have a ridiculous advantage with Shadowmeld, allowing them to immediately enter stealth upon finding a safe spot to drink. This makes them harder to find, allowing them to get just a few more ticks from Star's Tears. Despite the nerf to drinking inside Arenas in Patch 2.4, players have managed to get those precious four seconds (and hopefully more) to get just enough mana back during matches. In the heat of combat, the nice cold drink is refreshing, indeed. Tips on how slake your thirst after the jump.

This is something we've all dealt with: my Hunter is traipsing through Terrokar right now, and nothing makes me more frustrated than hitting those little rivers on my mount and having to dismount in water. When you think about it, the logical reasons for our mounts disappearing once we hit water are pretty sound -- you don't want that cat or wolf you worked so hard for to drown. But on the other hand, it's a huge annoyance -- not only does it slow you down while crossing the water, but you have to wait another second afterwards to resummon the mount.

On larger bodies of water, this isn't so bad, but those little rivers are nothing but trouble (and Gnomes have it even worse). Even cowboys knew how to ford with their horses -- why can't we do the same with our mounts?

Zarhym, the new CM, doesn't seem very empathetic, so odds are that this won't change anytime soon. We can only hope that in future designs, Blizzard stays away from putting the deeper water all over the landscape, where it acts as nothing but an annoying roadblock in front of our next quest. It's not like we don't have enough problems with the water as it is.

You wouldn't think something as prosaic as the water that restores our precious blue bars would be undergoing a controversy, but that has certainly happened during the time patch 2.4 has been on the PTR. A change was made such that if you sat down to drink, and drank for less than five seconds, you would receive a reduced benefit -- i.e., less mana. The assumption was that this nerf was made to combat people regenning mana too fast in the Arenas, which led to objections to the change being applied to PvE situations as well.

European US CM Bornakk replied that in most cases we'd be drinking more than five seconds in PvE situations, and players responded with many counterexamples (chain pulls, etc.). Bornakk replied to that saying basically that he still thought it wouldn't be hard to drink long enough to avoid the change's effects, and that the change was meant to effect "more than just Arenas" anyway. Well, it looks like they've changed their mind: Kalgan himself just announced that the water nerf will now only affect Arenas. PvE casters rejoice!

Reader Michael sends in this shot taken in the lush landscape of Feralas. And though you may be inclined tot take this for just another waterfall, Michael points out an interesting detail: the water splashes off the rocks as it falls. Is this a recent addition, or just something we've never bothered to pay attention to before? Either way, lovely! (Also available in wallpaper size.)

Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? Because we'd love to see your idea of the best looking instance on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

Wondering why that Mage you asked for water yelled at you and then ignored you? Or why the Mage you were begging for a portal to Stormwind sent you all the way out to Darnassus? Briltur has the guide for you: How to ask a Mage for water.

Basically, it all boils down to "Don't be a jerk," which, frankly, is something you're either already doing, or you probably won't ever do anyway. I usually don't bug Mages for water-- it's cheap to buy, and it's not really worth the hassle. Most Mages have already had bad experiences with random people begging them for stuff, and even if you ask nicely, it isn't usually service with a smile.

The exception, of course, is instances-- if I'm in an instance with a Mage, I don't expect to be drinking my own water. Yes, I'm nice about asking for it, and yes, I'll wait if you're busy doing something else, but just as my class role as a resto Shaman is to heal when you all get hurt, your class role as a Mage is to give me water. Portals I'm not as concerned about (I've got two hearthstones, after all), but on the other hand, most Mages I'm with are happy to throw up a portal anyway, and usually do so without asking.

My guess is probably that anyone who really needs to read this guide isn't reading this site anyway, but at least you've seen it-- if you're a Mage, or see one getting pestered, now you'll know where to send the jerks.

Around Azeroth has looked at plenty of waterfalls before. And why not? They tend to be scenic views wherever in the World of Warcraft they come from. However, the waterfall we're looking at today is a bit different from any we've looked at before -- because unlike the ordinary waterfalls of Azeroth, this one has no apparent source of water. After all, a stream can hardly flow to an island floating in mid-air, can it? So where's that water coming from? Reader Boterham of Drek'Thar (EU), who sent us this shot, wonders too. Anyone in the audience care to take a stab at guessing how the Outland ecosystem works?

Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! Or perhaps you'd just like to see more of your pics from Around Azeroth.

Recently, I wrote a post on Rogues having trade windows opened up on them without so much as a word. As I suspected, many other Rogues out there indeed have the same problem. Of course, many had their own ways of dealing with it like picking the box, but not hitting trade until there was a tip in the window. Another idea was just keeping all trades off in their options so that people couldn't open up trades with them in the first place. All of these are things that I've tried from time to time with varying levels of success.

What I didn't expect, however, was the sheer amount of people who jumped in and brought up the similar plights that Mages and Warlocks face on a daily basis. As I've got a L59 Warlock and a L61 Mage, trust me when I say that I completetly understand and appreciate what you all go through with the requests you get. I'm not even able to portal others to Shattrath yet on my Mage, but anytime I'm playing her, I almost immediately get asked to open a portal there for someone anyway. Now, nobody has opened a trade window on me without asking and grunted out "food/water" as yet, but I've definitely gotten the tells demanding that I make food or water for them, as opposed to asking nicely.

A couple of interesting Mote related changes have popped up in the patch. I was well aware of the Mote of Shadow change-- those babies are now dropping not off of demons, but only off of void creatures (you can find tons of them in the southern part of Hellfire Peninsula, and in small pockets in many instances). Which makes sense, but makes you wonder why they dropped off of demons in the first place-- or why it matters which one they drop off of at all.

The other change was a little more hidden in the patch notes, and most players didn't realize it would be happening until they saw the drops: Essences are now dropping in Outland in the same place that Motes are dropping. You remember Essences-- they're the elemental components of many recipes found on the Azeroth side of the Dark Portal. A few players were unhappy that Essences were dropping instead of Motes, until Drysc confirmed that Essences are actually dropping in addition to Motes-- it's not a matter of either/or at all. Essences are completely extra.

And of course that'll have an effect on the economy. Right now, Essences are selling for up to 1g a pop on most AHs (Update: and even higher on other servers, sometimes up to 15g apiece), but they still only vendor for 4s, which is pennies compared to even most gray drops in Outland. And that price will probably drop anyway, considering the market is about to be flooded with them. One solution is to raise the vendor price. And another solution, say a few enterprising players, would be to give Alchemists a Transmute Essence to Mote spell, either at a 2-to-1 exchange rate, or a long-ish cooldown, that would set the economy on these little things right. Clearly there's a need for having Essences around (how else could you enchant firey weapon, right?), but it looks like Blizzard could have put a little more thought into their effect on the economy.

Magimagic posted a forum topic that concerns all mages. He suggests, that since we summon food, water and gems and have access to the "summon water elemental" spell, that we should likewise have a "summon bread elemental." Now, certain posters mentioned some of the challenges that might come along with a bread elemental. Your elemental might aggro mobs around as soon as it is summoned. We all know ogres have huge appetites. Another brought up the valid point that bread is not, in fact, an element at all. And what reagents would be required for said summoning? A simple flour, no doubt, but I'm not sure how I would be able to find yeast in the game.

A similar concept has been brought up in a previous post regarding the summoning of water. I know I keep a bag empty to summon water and food for groups and raids, and I love the idea of not having to feed and water entire armies. I'm not exactly sure the bread elemental is something that the devs will pick up on, but it certainly is a fun idea. I mean, everyone loves the Pillsbury Dough Boy, right?

[via Tom Waddwell, image via Arturis]

Today's video gives us a little slice of the demanding life of a water boy...I mean a Mage. I'm sure many of you can probably sympathize. Watch the clip; I think Samuel L. Jackson says it best....