Happy Tuesday morning, everyone! It's another 24-hour downtime for a new list of servers, including mine. The other servers will be getting a standard maintenance window of 5-11 a.m. Pacific.

Luckily, with all this downtime, we just got a new beta patch with a decent amount of content, including new loading screens (though I do hope they consider replacing the worgen and goblin models with something more fitting), a new character model for Thrall, and a bunch of pretty epic new music. Also included were class changes, including masteries and a new Holy Power bar for paladins, as well as guild vendors for new guild-only purchased rewards. There's plenty of other news to peruse as well, so whether your server is down for six hours or 24 hours, why not follow me behind the break to see what else you may have missed over the past few days while you wait for the server maintenance party to start?

Hot news and features

• Check out our screenshot gallery of the new Tol Barad PvP zone.
• There's a whole slew of awesome UI tweaks and upgrades in the latest Cataclysm beta build.
• Currently existing relics have now been changed to grant stats instead of unique procs.
• Blizzard has an official preview of the Cataclysm changes to Darkshore.
• China's finally getting Wrath of the Lich King, but there are a few changes.
• Typhoon Struggle has obtained the world's first strict 10-man heroic Lich King kill.
• A private WoW server is being forced to pay Blizzard $88 million in damages.
• The Day That Deathwing Came quest gets even more epically absurd in the latest beta patch.

Class news and guides

• Check out the hunter changes from the latest Cataclysm beta build.
• Warriors finally lose the stance penalties in the latest beta build.
• Check out the latest on priest talents from the new beta build.
• Scattered Shots looks at the marksman rotation on the Cataclysm beta.
• Lichborne plays a dual-wielding frost death knight through Deepholm in the Cataclysm beta.
• Totem Talk has the latest on the shaman's restoration tree in Cataclysm, opines on elemental scaling in Cataclysm and takes on Halion as enhancement.
• Shifting Perspectives takes a look at the state of the bear druid in Cataclysm beta and getting your balance druid geared up for Cataclysm.
• The Light And How To Swing It keeps abreast of the latest Holy Shield changes and discusses healing different types of tanks as a holy paladin.
• Encrypted Text opines on the rogue's energy system.
• Shadow priests shouldn't panic over the latest shadow changes on beta.
• The Care and Feeding of Warriors looks at warrior lore.
• Arcane Brilliance looks at the newbie levels for Cataclysm mages.

Items, professions, dungeons, PvP and more

• Insider Trader has some preliminary thoughts on the direction of professions in Cataclysm.
• Gold Capped helps you get the most out of out-of-game auction house access.
• The OverAchiever continues counting down the most entertaining achievements.
• WoW Rookie crowdsources some tips for newbie players.
• Raid Rx discusses healing heroic Icecrown Citadel.
• The Art of War(craft) has more random thoughts on Cataclysm PvP.

Odds and ends

• NBC's The Event is giving away BlizzCon tickets!
• The Maelstrom: now with epic video.

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.

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Filed under: Realm Status, News items