Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. It's the night before Winter Veil, and whether or not creatures are stirring in your house, that probably means things have quieted down on the WoW front, right? Not as much as you'd think, actually. From release dates for Diablo 3 to lots of class articles to help you keep playing through to Warlords of Draenor, there's lots of stuff to read up on.

Of course, even downtime seems to be taking the day off, as there's no announced downtime for WoW as of this writing, but why not read up on the latest news anyway? If you've the day off, you probably have time, and if you don't have the day off. Well, it's Christmas Eve. Treat yourself to some WoW news on your next break.

Hot news and features

• Check out the latest patch 5.4.2 hotfixes for December 17 and December 19-20.
• The Best of WoW Insider 2013 series has begun. So far, we're up through April. Is your favorite article on our list?
• We have the latest updates for US connected realms.
• The Winter-only Snowy Owl battle pet can now be captured in Winterspring.
• Lead Encounter Designer Watcher recently had more to say about flex raiding "magic number" fixes.

• Blizzard held a live Q&A for the upcoming Heroes of the Storm game, and we have the highlights.
• The Warcraft movie has announced 2 more actors, Clancy Brown and Daniel Wu.
• Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls will officially be released March 25, 2014.
• Hearthstone's first test ranked season ends January 2nd.

Class news and guides

• Just hit level 90? Here's 10 ideas for what to do next.
• The Light And How to Swing It has tips for paladin tanking Garrosh.
• Totem Talk looks at healing set bonuses in Siege of Orgrimmar.
• Scattered Shots offers some advice on hunter macros.
• The Care and Feeding of Warriors discusses how an ability purge might affect warriors.
• Lichborne suggests some ways for death knights to pass time until Warlords of Draenor.
• Encrypted Text discusses rogue stealth.
• Arcane Brilliance scares up some fun stuff for mages.

Dungeons, items, professions, PvP, and more

• Want to try some PvP? We'll tell you how to get PvP gear right now.
• Anne looks at one player's collection of Shado-pan Transmogs for all specs and armor types and speculates on the little games and quests we set for ourselves in game.
• Russian servers will now link up with EU servers for battlegrounds and arenas.
• Hearthstone recently introduce some nerfs to the mage deck's frost abilities.
• WoW Archivist looks back at the history of Winter Veil.
• Oh transmog, how do we love thee? Rossi counts the ways.

Odds and ends

• Some WoW hackers were recently sentenced to 2 years in prison in China.
• The in-game store and the webs store are having some currency mixup issues.
• Wowhead has a new database of in-game sounds.
• Know Your Lore sums up the lore of classic WoW and the story-telling chops of Blizzard in Mists of Pandaria.
• Need to talk to Blizzard's customer support? We have some tips for using the customer support live chat feature.
• The Hearthstone open beta has been delayed, but a whole lot more closed beta invites have been sent out. If you didn't get yours, be sure to check your spam folders, just in case.
• 15 Minutes of Fame interviews Matt Mercer, a voice actor who has contributed to World of Warcraft by playing some our most beloved servants of the old gods, from General Vezax to Ka'roz the Locust.

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