You've heard that patch 5.3 is arriving this week, but do you know just what is in store? There's been a lot of news, but we'll point you towards the highlights so you can get up to speed and into patch 5.3's new content immediately.

From Blizzard

• Patch 5.3 PTR patch notes
• Preparing for Patch 5.3: Escalation
• World Event – Battlefield: Barrens Preview
• Patch 5.3 Scenario Preview
• PvP Preview: Deepwind Gorge and The Tiger's Peak
• Patch 5.3 Adds Off-Spec Loot and Rewards
• PvP Gear in Patch 5.3

Interviews

• WoW Insider interviews Ghostcrawler
• Convert to Raid interviews Ion Hazzikostas

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If you haven't caught the pet battle fever yet, now's a great time to start. New rewards make pet battles a great way to help earn some of your raiding currency, such as Valor Points or Lesser Charms, and mechanics changes make the whole system more transparent and less frustrating.

New rewards

Tired of killing daily quest mobs for VP? Why not pet battle for it? All of the master tamers in Pandaria, as well as the Spirits and Beasts of Fable, now offer daily quests for their defeat that offer the standard XP, 5 VP and 2 Lesser Charms per turn-in. The Beasts of Fable quest has been split into three parts, giving you a total of 14 pet battles you can do daily for VP, charms, and a chance at a battle-stone.

Those battle-stones should be more common as well, with "bad luck protection" added to the game. Every bag without a battle-stone increases the chances of the next bag containing one. If you're using pet battles to level alts, all the pet battle daily quests now award XP as well. All of these quests now show up on the map, so you can find them easily.

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Filed under: Mists of Pandaria

In the leveling homestretch, I tend to follow a pattern. My main goal is to boost my ilevel as soon as I hit 90 to get in on Raid Finder. Although, once I get there, I end up feeling bitter because waiting in a Raid Finder queue isn't fun. Even if you're not into Raid Finder, WoW presents players with plenty of opportunity to wait around at some point -- battleground and dungeon queues, or even sticking around for a PUG to come together.

As a tank on my main, I groan when thinking of entering Raid Finder, mainly because of the wait. There are only two tank roles, after all. With the new loot specialization coming to 5.3, players looking to win tank gear have hope of a less painful wait in a DPS role, at least. Even if you're used to the long wait, everyone has a limit. I remember waiting as a tank in a Raid Finder queue for an hour and forty minutes. I'm not usually willing to wait that long. I'm relatively comfortable with waiting about thirty to forty minutes before moving on.

When it comes to PUGs, I'm quite patient, usually waiting longer than I probably should. In a PUG, I tend to have a personal connection to at least one of the other players in the group, so I'm not quick to leave.

How long are you willing to wait, whether it be for a dungeon, Raid Finder, battleground, or a PUG? While in queue, how do you pass the time? I usually find myself completing dailies or battling pets. But at what point do you throw up your hands and leave?

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Mists of Pandaria

If World of Warcraft had but one holiday, it would be Patch Day: the glorious Tuesday (or Wednesday) in which the WoW servers go down for maintenance but come back online brimming with new, unexplored content. If you're new to World of Warcraft, or MMOs in general, you may not entirely understand all the fuss the community makes over patches. So just what is a patch? Why are they so important? And how can you get your hands on one? We'll do our best to explain.

What is a WoW patch?
Did you know we're playing version 5 of World of Warcraft right now? It's true: Version 1.1 was World of Warcraft's launch client and every expansion since has bumped the version number up a full number, while each patch release is a decimal place. The original game went up to patch 1.12 (the 1.1 launch client and 11 patches after), Burning Crusade (2.0) had a scant 4 patches, Wrath of the Lich King (3.0) had 3, Cataclysm (4.0) had 3, and Mists of Pandaria (5.0) is about to see the release of its 3rd patch, patch 5.3. These days, patches are coming more quickly than ever and we have no idea how many patches to expect before the next expansion arrives.

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Filed under: WoW Rookie

Work Warning: Minutely blue humor found herein.

It's been a while since we've seen a new video from Nixxiom (also known as SilverlinedPro). That makes this delicious bit of machinima even more tasty. With a somewhat painful look on those first seconds of a Tauren roleplayer's life, Not All Roleplay is Serious - Episode 7: NOOB demonstrates only the finest irony of a beginning roleplayer. Watch your flags!

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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

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Filed under: Blizzard

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill is free to pet battle all day, e'ry day.

I tried to gauge when Patch 5.3 would hit so that I'd end the series on World of Logs just in time, but unfortunately I overestimated and the new patch has cut me off. With my original plan of posts, I'd be a week short, but now...uhhhh it might be a halftime break.

In case you've missed the World of Logs posts so far, here's a recap:

• A brief overview of ranking and the combo of how to tell what warlock or pet you would or should be looking at,
• Looking closer at some of the graphs on World of Logs, and
• How to use the buffs and debuffs graph to gauge proper cooldown or proc usage, as well as a basic understanding of what stats (for trinket procs) do for each spec.

I intend to explore some warlock-specific examples using the expression editor to dive deep into the combat log, but I'm not sure I can fit it all into one post. I'll finish the series off with a deeper look at the damage done tables and how the spells spread for each spec in general raid encounter styles.

But this week? This week is a little shorter and lighter while we go over what Patch 5.3 means for warlocks.

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Filed under: Warlock, (Warlock) Blood Pact, Mists of Pandaria

Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm.

This week we have two letter writers having personality conflict problems with fellow guildies.

Hello Drama Mamas,

Long time reader, first time writer. I'll keep this as short and sweet as I can. My problem arises from two things 1. a misunderstanding between two guildmates and 2,) limited activity.

A guild mate and I, in an out of game chatroom, have had some misunderstandings. While I attempt to not bring said things up in game, believing that OoGD (Out of Game Drama) remains OoGD, I am worried that this person should we have to work together, or talk to one another would shun me and be very nasty to me. A point I brought up to one of the Officers and explained that I wasn't sure if I was good a fit in the guild do to the "limited activity." The Officer told the GM, and that was when that whole mess got started. He put most, if not all, of the blame on me even though I had screen shots to prove otherwise. I have tried to smooth things over, even apologizing, and tried to explain to the GM what was going on-with the screenshots-only to be rebuked and told off, presumably (though I don't know for certain as they are good friends) with the other person also told off.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Drama Mamas

Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook.

Mists of Pandaria has given us some fantastic raiding experiences -- it's easy to forget just how many activities this expansion currently offers. Much of this new content is either group-oriented or can become group-oriented if you want to make it so. With Mists' third content patch set to go live tomorrow, now is a great time to look at some of the many guild activities that are possible in this expansion. Here are nine ideas that go beyond raiding.

1. Earn your Stormbreaker titles.

Some of the achievements for this meta can only be accomplished solo, but many of them are much easier with some help -- and some all but require it. The summoned elites for It Was Worth Every Ritual Stone, for example, mostly require a group to take down. Some classes can't solo Tak'u with all of his powers active if they can't dispel his robust HoT for Our Powers Combined.

Ready for RAAAAIIIIDDD?!?ing is rough to solo. It can be accomplished most easily right after a server reset, but with a raid group you skip that hassle. Every roach squished counts for everyone in the raid.

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Filed under: Officers' Quarters (Guild Leadership)

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

It's Monday. I'm tired. Let's do this.

Nocjin asked:

Are there any icons you've spent years not knowing what they actually are? It took me about 4 to realise that the cleave icon was not a parrot, and that there's a hand in the holy fire icon.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, The Queue