Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. Life is full of endings and partings. For example, Love Is In the Air is over for another year, and the Mists of Pandaria expansion is pretty much over except for the Garrosh farming. Sometimes those partings are pretty sad. For example, I still don't have my Big Love Rocket. Sometimes, though, they can make way for something better. For example, Mists of Pandaria may be gone, but Warlords of Draenor is coming on fast, and we've got a lot of great news and insight about it this past week.

Downtime today is limited to a series of rolling restarts at 5 a.m. PST, but seriously, take some to read up on the Warlords of Draenor news, if nothing else. It's good stuff. We also have our usual roundup of other great news and features. Before I tell you to read on, though, let me say just one more thing, dear readers. You were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And you know what? So was I.

Warlords of Draenor news and features

• Check out our Warlords of Draenor guide for all the news you need in one place.
• The new orc female model has been revealed, and the dwarf female model can be seen in 3d on the official Warlords of Draenor site.
• Warlords of Draenor PvP will feature a spectator mode and the return of skirmishes.
• You will need a silver medal from the Proving Grounds if you want to randomly queue for heroic dungeons in Warlords. In addition, they've hinted that Proving Grounds may be able to scale up instead of down in the future.
• The Dread Hatchling is now appearing in the pet journal as of patch 5.4.7.
• A recent press event has resulted in a glut of new Warlords info. Check out video of the character boost process and Alliance Shadowmoon Valley questing.

• EU fansite Mamytwink has a writeup of their experience with Warlords of Draenor playtesting.
• Check out this interview with senior PvP designer Brian Holinka at the recent Korean Warlords press event.
• Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas gave a Warlords of Draenor interview to fansite Battlenet.pl. There's some good stuff in this one!
• If one Watcher interview wasn't enough, here's another one with even more info. This one has video.
• Wowhead has updated their Warlords of Draenor talent calculator with the latest talents from the press events.

Other hot news and features

• Check out the latest datamined mounts, skins, and heroes from the Heroes of the Storm alpha leak.
• Patch 5.4.7 is officially live. Check out the patch notes.
• Check out the latest patch 5.4.7 hotfixes for February 20.
• The level 90 boost appeared briefly on live servers for $60.00, only to disappear again. You probably shouldn't panic about the price, though.
• A bug in patch 5.4.7 caused some mounts and pets to disappear temporarily.
• Check out the latest connected realms updates for February 20.

Class news and guides

• Lichborne offers dungeon etiquette advice for DPS.
• The Care and Feeding of Warriors looks at the new level 100 warrior talents.
• The Light And How To Swing It offers and introduction to the holy paladin healset and offers advice on what to do with a newly boosted level 90 paladin tank.
• Blood Pact has a basic guide to affliction for the end of the expansion.
• Here's 5 abilities your monk may not be using enough.
• Scattered Shots offers 10 reasons to use your level 90 boost on a hunter.
• Arcane Brilliance offers advice for playing your new level 90 fire mage.

Dungeons, items, professions, PvP, and more

• Need something to do while waiting for Warlords? Why not transmog? We have a bunch of guides for cool and unique looks.
• Casuals, a german guild, has 5-manned Garrosh Hellscream.
• We break down the latest Warlords of Draenor PvP news.
• Rossi advocates for simplifying point-based currencies in Warlords.
• WoW Archivist looks back the evolution of Alterac Valley.
• Tired of the same old quests? We have some tips to help you keep leveling.
• Waiting for your raid to get together? We have some tips on what to do while waiting for the raid to start.

Odds and ends

• We offer more fanfic recommendations from the official forums.
• Know Your Lore highlights some of the other races of Draenor and offers more theories on the true nature of Wrathion.
• With Irrational Games shutting down, we consider the amount of work and the number of people it takes to make such a large, persistent game like WoW.
• 15 Minutes of Fame talks to a level 80 neutral pandaren.

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Filed under: Realm Status, News items