Happy Tuesday Morning, everyone. Patch 5.4.7 is out on the PTR, which means, even if it's not a content patch, we got lots of cool news coming in. I admit to being a little too bummed out by those poor dragons, but even I'm still pretty excited at the prospect of getting my free 90 boost a little earlier. Now I really need to decide between my priest and my rogue.

Of course, beyond patch 5.4.7, we still a lot of other news, including Hearthstone's open beta, new female human model previews, and our usual roundup of guides. As of this writing, there is no announced downtime, but why not take a break and read up anyway? The usual roundup is below.

Hot news and features

• The updated human female model has been revealed by Blizzard.
• Bashiok posted on the new system requirements that the new character models might bring.
• Patch 5.4.7 is on the PTR, and with it are new character upgrades and mount models, including a flying raven lord that may be the reward for buying the Warlords of Draenor collector's edition.
• Timeless Isle weapons will be ilevel 489 in patch 5.4.7.
• PvP gear will be ilevel 550 in patch 5.4.7.
• Hearthstone's open beta has begun in both the US and EU.

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Filed under: Realm Status, News items

There's been a lot of commentary, here and around the web, on why dailies become so hated during Mists of Pandaria. One aspect, though, that I feel most people haven't covered is the issue of reputation rewards. All through this expansion, almost every expansion reward has required either honor or valor points. Your reward for finally get Revered with the Klaxxi was having to run a few dungeons so you could actually buy the stuff you unlocked. That put an extra twinge of pressure on the whole thing. Not only were you trying to figure what faction to grind, there was a voice in the back of your head, "I'm nearly valor capped. I'd better do my dailies so I actually unlock something to spend them on." While getting valor from the dailies themselves might have got you part of the way there, you still felt like had one more gate before you could actually get the stuff you wanted.

In Cataclysm, things were different. Once you hit exalted with the Dragonmaw, you didn't need valor points. All you had to do was head to the quartermaster, buy Boots of Sullen Rock, a raid-level piece of gear, and add them to your tanking set.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion

Happy Tuesday morning everyone. This week, the future's still coming, slowly but surely. We have a pretty cool grab bag of Warlords of Draenor news from twitter and beyond, as well as some hints about the Warcraft movie. If you're more for the here and now, don't worry, though, there's plenty of news about the connected realms and other in-game happenings, and a round of new guides to help you up your game.

Speaking of here and now, we have scheduled downtime this morning from 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. Pacific time, so you have plenty of time to read up on all the latest news. the usual roundup is below.

Hot news and features

• Check out the latest patch 5.4.2 hotfixes for January 14.
• The Lunar Festival is underway. Time to stock up on Moonglow!
• Nerfs are incoming to the Siege of Orgrimmar raid.
• The Warcraft movie may have started filming yesterday.
• Warlords of Draenor will come with a free level 90 if you pre-order, but you may be able to buy more boosts separately. And no, free level 90s are not the end of Warcraft.
• Cory Stockton recently tweeted a lot of nice new info about Garrisons in Warlords of Draenor.
• EU Servers have more connected realms coming up. We have the least on US connected realms.

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Filed under: Realm Status, News items

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done.

We've got a pretty good set of death knight news to cover this week. While we're still definitely in the pre-expansion lull, Blizzard's been releasing little tidbits of information, mostly on twitter, and a few of the latest live server hotfixes have specifically focused on death knights. Today, we'll root through some of this new info and see how it relates to death knights, now and in the future.

DPS buffs for all

Rygarius

January 6

Classes

• Death Knight
  • Frost
    • Icy Talons now increases melee attack speed by 45% (up from 30%).
  • Unholy
    • Unholy Might now increases Strength by 35% (up from 25%).

source

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Filed under: Death Knight, (Death Knight) Lichborne

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. The stream of Warlords of Draenor news continues unabated, although we've yet to hear the long-awaited beta announcement. Of course, my favorite piece of news this week probably comes from Hearthstone. A nerfed Pyroblast card almost makes up for losing my beloved Unleash the Hounds.

Downtime today is limited to rolling restarts at 5 a.m. Pacific time, but why not take a few moments to pick out your own favorite news story of the week? The usual roundup is below.

Hot news and features

• Check out the latest patch 5.4.2 hotfixes for January 6, January 8, and January 10.
• Select US Realms will be getting free character transfers.
• Blizzard is planning even more bag space improvements after Warlords, but will offer bigger bags in the meantime. We also got some new information on the upcoming toy box feature.
• The new player character models may also come with new skins and hairstyles.
• Blizzard's planning a new PvP season before Warlords of Draenor.
• We got more information about upcoming crowd control changes in Warlords of Draenor, as well as a glance at diminishing returns changes on what remains.
• Base resilience and Battle Fatigue may be gone from PvP in Warlords of Draenor. Lore later offered some clarification on the original comments.

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Filed under: Realm Status, News items

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done.

Welcome to 2014. With this, the first Lichborne column of the new year, we're going to examine some of the biggest death knight related new stories of the past year. What were the big things that plagued us, and how were they resolved?

Patch 5.2 and the rise of unholy

2013 began with patch 5.2 on the PTR. This is the patch that gave us some long-needed updates to the unholy tree. Unholy had become a very unpopular tree. While some of this was due to the fact that it just didn't do as much damage as frost DPS, it was also in large part due to its unique rotation and rune-spending scheme, which left some ungainly gaps if you didn't apply diseases just so or pre-load death runes for your AoE rotation. Blizzard finally responded to these complaints in late December of 2012 by adding some changes to the patch 5.2 PTR, including Plague Strike adding both diseases for unholy and Reaping working for Blood Boil and Icy Touch, designed to ease the complaints. Just as a bonus, Patch 5.2 bought us what I still think were some of the most fun and flavorful set bonuses of the expansion, as well as some tweaks to make Conversion and Soul Siphon as enticing as Death Pact.

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Filed under: Death Knight, (Death Knight) Lichborne

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. Alas, another year, another Winter Veil without a Corgi of my own to keep forever. The Holidays are mostly behind us, and it's just about time to get back to work in earnest. While we can all hope the expansion news spigot turns on full blast in the coming weeks, don't think the last few weeks have been completely news-free either.

Downtime this morning is only a series of rolling restarts at 5 a.m. PST, but there's enough news here that you may want to take a little longer to get caught up. Read on for all the latest stuff.

Hot news and features

• Check out the latest patch 5.4.2 hotfixes for Jan. 3.
• Check out the latest updates on US and EU Connected Realms.
• Draenei and blood elves are now officially on the list for model updates in Warlords of Draenor.
• Blizzard's warning about a dangerous trojan than could even bypass the authenticator.
• Blizzard CM Lore recently posted a bit about Flex raiding, Raid Finder, and the new dungeon and raid finder tools.

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Filed under: Realm Status, News items

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done.

With the end of the year coming up, it's a good time to sit back and reflect. This week, my reflections on the death knight class have tended towards those little quirks, those mechanics that come up week after week in discussions, pet peeves to some people, things they may want changed, or things that are just a bit weird. This week, we'll look at three of these in particular, why they're sources of such controversy and frustration, and speculate on whether or not Blizzard might consider changing them in the upcoming patch 6.0.

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Filed under: Death Knight, (Death Knight) Lichborne

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.

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Filed under: Realm Status, News items

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done.

While some of us are still trying to kill Garrosh or grinding rep on Timeless Isle, it's probably safe to say that the expansion is winding down. With that in mind, how do you spend that time, especially if you're already tired of the latest raid? You can always dig into all those games you bought during the last Steam Sale, of course, but if you're planning to stick to WoW, this week we'll cover some stuff you can do to bide your time until you get that Warlords of Draenor beta invite.

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Filed under: Death Knight, (Death Knight) Lichborne