Join us every weekday evening as Today in WoW runs down all the WoW news that you could possibly want. From comments from Blizzard's blues to the latest datamining info -- we've got you covered.

Please Note: Judge Alex Zarhym will be presiding over this week's blue posts. Court will always be in session.

Don't forget to check out The Daily Quest and our Weekly Podcast Roundup to find out what else is going on in the WoW community. And if you have a news tip, feel free to drop us a line and let us know.

• Blue posts
• WoW news from other sites
• News and features from WoW Insider
• Links from around the web

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Filed under: Today in WoW

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Protection specialist Matt Walsh spends most of his time receiving concussions for the benefit of 24 other people, obsessing over his hair (a blood elf racial!), and maintaining the tankadin-focused blog Righteous Defense.

I know this is not going to come as a very big surprise, but it's not very difficult to tank as a paladin. As any warrior tank would gleefully assert, even a trained monkey can operate the 939 rotation and squeeze in a Word of Glory from time to time to boot. Indeed, as the old adage goes, a paladin tank is easy to learn but difficult to master, and in many respects, that's very true. And very important. It's not good enough to just play the class -- we want to master it!

There are several common mistakes aspiring (or even veteran!) tanks make that hold them back from hitting their full potential. These range from covering threat generation to gearing to survivability. And correcting each is an important hallmark on the path to optimization.

1. Not hitting Crusader Strike enough Crusader Strike can be accurately described as the heartbeat of the protection paladin rotation. With its 3-second cooldown, resource generation, and generous contribution to one's overall damage numbers, Crusader Strike is situated in a hallowed place -- essentially, the center of gravity of our threat and damage. Not Crusader Striking enough can easily and mortally wound your damage output and thus your threat generation.

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Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It

The incredible Perculia (content manager over at Wowhead) has just put up one of my favorite posts about World of Warcraft ever -- Cataclysm starter epics, justice point gear, blue drops from instances, and more are all named after or refer to famous lines and fragments from poetry by T.S. Eliot and John Keats.

Truth be told, I want to know the story of the moment when all of this snapped into place for Perculia and it became about finding an item for almost every stanza from these poems. It's a spectacular effort. As I read her post and clicked on items, it became abundantly clear that this is far from coincidence.

For instance, from the blog, Perculia has analyzed this particular stanza from Keat's Ode to a Nightingale:

'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,
That thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

From Perculia's finding, we see that Keats' poems are used mostly for justice point gear at ilevel 359, with most of the dungeon 346 blues owing their monikers to his work. Eliot's poems are the source of many reputation rewards. Check out the full post on the Flavor Text blog.

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Filed under: Lore, Cataclysm

Every week, just at the start of the weekend, we catch up with the WoW Insider staff and ask them, "What are you playing this week?" -- otherwise known as: WRUP. Join us to see what we're up to in and out of game, and catch us in the comments to let us know what you're playing, too!

Today is Feb. 3, 2012. That probably doesn't seem exciting now. But someday in the future -- probably somewhere around April 12, 2038 (give or take) -- the idea of revisiting Feb. 3, 2012, will be so exciting. A trip to the past! What pop culture relics would our future selves uncover (and then mock)?!

The idea of a non-self-aware Facebook will seem quaint. We'll be in disbelief that we still powered our cars on dead dinosaurs. And Lana Del Rey?! What fools we were.

There's one thing we can take solace in, though. No matter what aspect of 2012 those time travelers from 2038 see, nothing can be as ridiculous as that song I posted above with the dancing robot. Nothing. (OK, maybe Lady Gaga compares.)

Enough about the past and future. It's Feb. 3, 2012. And dammit, we're going to WRUP in the here and now. This week's bonus question: Who is your favorite in-game NPC?

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Filed under: WoW Insider Business

When we last left our heroes, the fearsome foursome were sneaking beneath the bowels of shattered Lordaeron. They wore Iron Dwarf costumes from Wrath of the Lich King because I said so, that's why.

"I hate the way this place smells," Lolegolas complained. He stroked his iron beard. "It's like every angry poo-poo in the world cried out at once in terror and came here for refuge."

"Undead," Throgg said, as if that explained it.

"Halt!" a voice cried out. Actually, crying out is what the voice attempted. What it accomplished was kind of a dry, rasping croak. An undead guard waddled up to the intruders. "Who goes there?"

"Aye, laddie! We're to be seeing stout the Lady Sylvanas Windrunner pilsner," Lolegolas replied quickly. "We have a lager invitation and proof of her porter affection!"

"Well, you sound like a dwarf, but you're clearly not Alliance," the undead rasped. "Do you have any proof?"

Throgg quickly held out a small red card. He would have spoken, but he didn't have the blood elf's mastery of beers.

"Oh, a Lovely Undercity Card," the guard muttered. "Fair enough, then. Go on about your way."

Lovely Undercity Card
Type Inventory item, like a potion.
Use Increases Intellect for 1 hour, increases as you level.
Flavor text "From the Banshee Queen, Lady Sylvanas Windrunner."

How to get it Bring a gift to the Banshee Queen. Stay tuned for how Throgg got his.
How to get rid of it Just use it, and it will disappear.

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Phat Loot Phriday brings you the scoop on some of the most ... interesting ... loot in the World of Warcraft, often viewed through the eyes of the stalwart Throgg and indelible Lolegolas. Suggest items you think we should feature by emailing mikeg@wowinsider.com.

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Filed under: Phat Loot Phriday

Welcome back to The Lawbringer, where any esoteric or wacky topic concerning Blizzard gets a home or at least some tenuous connection to the law or rules in some fashion. Today's column is not the continuation of last week's column, which will be coming up soon, but rather addresses a very interesting email about a very special cake.

Reader Luotian sent me an email with a very special question. Luotian has a question regarding the ability to take an image/screenshot of a World of Warcraft character and have it placed as the design on a birthday cake. The cake shop says that it won't do copyrighted images, but Luotian really wants this WoW cake. I think you guys will like this topic.

Oh, and Kil'jaeden is at the top of the article because if I had to choose who to have on my WoW cake, it would be him.

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If you're working toward your new Darkmoon Faire achievements, you've no doubt been frustrated by the event's inability to save your progress from month to month. Today, there's some good news: Starting with the February Faire and moving forward, achievement progress will be saved. The bad news? All the progress you made in past months can't be restored -- you still have to work from scratch.

Darkmoon Faire Achievement Progress - Update, 03/02

January's Darkmoon Faire achievement progress status was cleared prior to the launch of February's faire. Any achievements that were started but not completed have had their criteria reset. Completed achievements are unaffected.

However, any future achievement progress (February included) will be saved to your character and will continue to contribute towards progression of those achievements in subsequent visits to Darkmoon Faire.

Regrettably, we are not able to restore any progress you may have made during January's faire. We do appreciate the impact this may have had and sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused.

source

I'm not sure whether or not we should be playing the Final Fantasy 7 victory theme on this one or whether we should be playing the The Price is Right losing horns. What do they do when someone plays Plinko but only gets like $200 out of it?

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Enjoy working on achievements? The Overachiever is here to help! Count on us for advice on patch 4.3 achievements, our guide to Mountain O' Mounts, and a good, hard look at what's wrong with archaeology and how Blizzard could fix it.

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Filed under: Blizzard, News items, Achievements, Hotfixes

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion

EU players will be happy to know that for the seventh anniversary of World of Warcraft in Europe, Blizzard has slashed the price of World of Warcraft yet again, bringing the cost of WoW down even lower for a limited time. Remember, United States and assorted North American nations, these are EU copies and versions of the game.

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- lowering the cost of the barrier to entry to WoW is not a choice but rather a grave necessity. When 90 levels starts looking like a lot of content and too big of an endeavor for a new player, it doesn't matter how good the 85-to-90 content is, because people will never see it. The last thing you want is for price to be an issue when there are so many other factors to consider about the relative uniqueness of the MMO industry.

Here are the EU seventh anniversary sale prices:

• World of Warcraft Battle Chest EUR 7,49 £4.99
• World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King EUR 9,99 £7.49
• World of Warcraft: Cataclysm EUR 14,99 £12.49
• World of Warcraft mount: Celestial Steed mount EUR 10,00 £8.50
• World of Warcraft pet: Lil'K.T. EUR 5,00 £4.50

Hit up the EU Blizzard store to get these deals while they last.

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Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!

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Filed under: Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm

I hear there's this dubstep music all the kids are into nowadays. Being an old man of questionable taste, I phoned some of the local teenagers for a primer. Their advice was to "listen for the drop." I kept listening for the drop, but I couldn't really hear it.

Nonetheless, WoPairs created WoW Meets Dubstep as a way of bringing this newfangled music into good old Azeroth. I don't really know if it was successful, since I kept waiting for the bass line to stop gently weeping.

If you have trouble making sense of this video, don't worry. It's meant to be random, I'm told.

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Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.

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Filed under: WoW Moviewatch