Happy Tuesday Morning. It's been an eventful past week. In addition to more stuff from the patch 5.2 PTR, we've had major twitter shenanigans from the dev team and we've welcomed some new (and returning) writers to the fold here at WoW Insider. In addition, the Lunar Festival is underway in game. Finally, Blizzard has revealed the new Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm Cinematic. Call me a sap, but I'm still rooting for a happy ending for Jimmy and Sarah. That said, this cinematic might be one of my favorites yet, if for no other reason than we finally got our gnome.

Maintenance today is scheduled to start at 5 a.m. PST and last for 6 hours. Luckily, while you wait out the downtime, there's a lot of hot news to catch up on. Read on for the usual roundup.

Hot news and features

• Check our achievement guide for the 2013 Lunar Festival.
• Want to get prepared for patch 5.2? We have some tips for you.
• Thunderforged Items will drop in patch 5.2's normal raids, providing a higher item level and possibly a new reason to raid 25-man style.
• Check out our preview of Lei Shin, the final boss of the patch 5.2 raid. We also have a play by play of the Jin'rokh the Breaker encounter.
• Elder Charms of Good Fortune now stack to 20, but can only be used for patch 5.0 raids. Patch 5.2 raids take a new type of charm.
• New legendary meta gems have made their appearance on the patch 5.2 PTR.
• Blizzard offered some clarification on the upcoming patch 5.2 reputation changes.
• The Dungeon Finder tool will help you choose a faction to champion in patch 5.2.
• The PvP interface is also getting a makeover in patch 5.2.

• Engineering gets a new battle pet in patch 5.2.
• We now have names for the patch 5.2 tier 15 raid gear sets.
• Patch 5.2 will bring new Mantid archaeology items.
• Patch 5.2 has some new fishing secrets, including battle pets and a sea monster.
• In patch 5.2, work orders will allow you to gain reputation with Pandaria's factions via your farm.
• WoW Insider interviewed Nick Carpenter, Blizzard's vice president of Art and Cinematic Development.
• Check out the latest patch 5.1 hotfixes for January 22.
• Ghostcrawler comments on the idea of killing flying mounts.
• Is Ghostcrawler hinting at an awesome new feature, or just teasing?
• Olivia has a few more things she'd like to see in patch 5.2.
• Just what happened to that Blizzard All-Stars game anyway? We have some new information.

Class news and guides

• The Light And How To Swing It discusses retribution paladin tier 15 set bonuses.
• Encrypted Text examines the latest changes to Smoke Bomb.
• Scattered Shots rounds up the latest patch 5.2 hunter changes.
• The Care And Feeding of Warriors looks at the latest patch 5.2 warrior changes.
• Death Knight solo artist Mionee answered our questions recently.

Professions, dungeons, items, PvP, and more

• Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas recently addressed some item level questions and concerns.
• We offer some advice for avoiding LFR wipes.
• Will Patch 5.2 kill PvP twinking?
• Are daily quests obsolete?

Odds and ends

• Rossi lists 5 things he never expected Blizzard to do.
• Know Your Lore discusses the Heart of Thunder and the true nature of the Mogu. We also unravel the char progression of Garrosh Hellscream.
• Blizzard offers a video guide to the life of a game master.

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Filed under: Realm Status, News items