Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. There's a buzz in the air, as patch 5.4 enters its final tuning phase. Could the patch be dropping soon? Could it be dropping today? Alas, today is unlikely, as downtime this morning is just the standard 5 a.m. to 11 a.m. PDT, but it does seem like we're entering the home stretch. I'm guessing we'll have to wait until early September myself, but my crystal ball's always been a bit cloudy.

In the meantime, just because we're in the tuning phase doesn't mean Blizzard's slowing down. There's still new updates coming every week, and we're still delving and reporting all the best stuff. You have a few hours free thanks to this morning's downtime, right? Go ahead and read on for all the latest news from the past week.

Hot news and features

• WoW Insider is looking for hunter and mage columnists.
• Ghostcrawler laid out the upcoming patch 5.4 class changes in yesterday's Dev Watercooler. He also spoke with BlizzPro's Twizzcast about the upcoming patch.
• Read up on the latest Patch 5.4 PTR patch note updates from August 7.
• Check out this preview of patch 5.4's Noodle Carts, and the quests and scenarios you need do to build your own.
• We preview Malkorok, one of the upcoming patch 5.4 raid bosses.
• In patch 5.4, Garrosh Hellscream will drop heirloom weapons that scale from level 90 to level 100.

• Check out some of the newly datamined music of patch 5.4.
• The latency and FPS info on the UI has been moved in patch 5.4 to make room for the store button.
• Blizzard CM Lore recently elaborated on the upcoming patch 5.4 Vengeance changes.
• Patch 5.4 will not have epic gems.
• The Burdens of Shaohao continues and concludes with Despair, Fear, Anger, and The Sundering.

Class news and guides

• Warlock mounts will share their master's green fire in patch 5.4.
• The Care And Feeding of Warriors discusses the disturbing trend of people leaving the warrior class behind.
• Lichborne proposes 3 changes to death knight leveling.
• We propose the possibility of dual-classing in patch 6.0.

Dungeons, items, professions, PvP, and more

• Patch 5.4 will raise the battle pet cap to 1000.
• Wowhead has a complete walkthrough of the legendary cloak quest from beginning to its end in patch 5.4.

Odds and ends

• The BlizzCon 2013 costume contest is open for signups. It's first come first serve, so get your application in now.
• The official website is closing down some sections, including parts of the character armory.
• Know Your Lore speculates on the origin of the tauren race and the nature of Garrosh's villainy.
• Rossi argues for more dissent within the ranks of the draenei and a bit of sympathy for Garrosh.
• What if Garona Halforcen was the big bad for an expansion?
• Blizzard CM Zeriyah offers an update on the upcoming Hearthstone beta.
• 15 Minutes of Fame talks to a player who valor caps a whole realm's worth 90s every week.

Tags: downtime, last-week-in-wow, maintenance, realm-downtime, realm-maintenance, roundup, roundups, scheduled-downtime, scheduled-maintenance, server-downtime, server-maintenance, server-status, tuesday, tuesday-downtime, tuesday-maintenance, tuesday-morning, tuesday-morning-post

Filed under: Realm Status, News items