The Care and Feeding of Warriors

The Care and Feeding of Warriors is about warriors, those lovable, squeezable, strokable bundles of pure joy who seethe with a burning inner fire, a rage that can only be quenched in blood. Matthew Rossi tries quenching it in delicious caffeinated beverages. You'd be surprised how often that works.

Amazingly, this week I'm not going to talk about Cataclysm. Back during the 101 guides, I promised to go over glyphs, gems and enchants for the various specs. While a lot is in flux, we're still playing Wrath of the Lich King and not Cataclysm right now, so it's fair that I should finally get off of my duff and talk about these things. This week, we'll loot at gemming, enchanting and glyphing for the protection warrior.

One thing to keep in mind is that a lot of these options come down to your own personal gear level and what you're actually doing in game. Tanking heroic Saurfang-25 takes entirely different skills, gear and glyphs than tanking Halls of Reflection, which takes a different setup than tanking Nexus as a fresh early 70s warrior. We'll cover a variety of glyphs of use to a warrior seeking max survivability, AoE threat, or even special case uses and discuss gems and enchants, as well.

Glyphs

Major glyphs that are most useful as part of a threat glyph set include the Glyph of Blocking, Glyph of Cleaving, Glyph of Devastate, Glyph of Sunder Armor and Glyph of Vigilance. Frankly, the Glyph of Blocking is really only good if your gear is fairly low on block value when using it as a threat glyph, since the changes to block value and Shield Slam. Blocking works as a decent threat glyph when your block value is 1,500 or lower, but above that I wouldn't use it for threat. (It's still useful for mitigation, but in the end, there are probably better choices for you there, too.) Cleaving and Sunder Armor are pure "multi-mob threat" glyphs, and both are fairly solid for that, especially if combined with the Glyph of Devastate so that not only will your Devastate stack two sunders on a target at once, it will also apply sunder to a second target. It does not appear to stack two sunders on two targets, however. As a result, you might prefer Cleaving/Devastate/Vigilance for your threat glyphs.

Glyphed Devastate is a really solid threat generator right now, with Devastate having had its damage output increased recently.

Now, if you end up low on rage for whatever reason while tanking, and only if this is the case, then the Glyph of Revenge and Glyph of Heroic Strike are useful. Frankly, I'm not tanking on a warrior in a situation where I feel like I need the rage, but when I first started tanking and my gear was a lot worse, then this combination of glyphs had absolutely beautiful synergy. Revenge will give you a free HS, and then HS can end up actually giving you rage instead of costing it. But once you're tanking any raid content, these two glyphs will be definitively outperformed by Vigilance/Devastate. Likewise, if your hit is very low (like mine was when TotC/GC was the highest level raid in the game), then the Glyph of Taunt is very useful for fights where taunt-switching is essential. As tanking gear escalates in hit rating (I actually have to work to be below 263 hit rating, for instance), this glyph goes from essential to completely worthless. At 263 hit rating or above, I'd never use it.

The Glyph of Shockwave is very useful if you know you'll be doing a great deal of AoE tanking, possibly alongside Resonating Power and the minor Glyph of Thunder Clap. I personally like either Shockwave/Cleaving/Sunder or Cleaving/Sunder/Devastate for my threat setup, but I don't end up tanking a lot of heroics (and even if I do, I'm not at the gear level those instances were designed for).

For tanking cooldowns (very useful for raid tanking), I find Last Stand and Shield Wall to be very hard to do without if I expect to be taking serious amounts of damage. Tanking heroic Saurfang, for instance, I was very very glad to have a cooldown available every minute. (This is possible since Last Stand glyphed is two minutes, and Shield Wall with Improved Disciplines glyphed is two minutes, so you can use LS and SW once a minute interchangably. Combined with trinkets, you can effectively have Super Last Stand and Super Shield Wall by timing a trinket to use at the same time.)

Minor glyphs that you want to consider as a prot warrior including Thunder Clap (mentioned above), Bloodrage, Charge and Command. I'm personally running Charge, Thunder Clap and Command right now. (Four-piece tier 10 bonus makes the Bloodrage glyph useless, since it not only duplicates the effect but also gives you another tanking cooldown. But if you don't have that yet, Bloodrage is a very useful glyph.) Frankly, with fury warriors in the raid, Battle and Command feel like a little of a waste -- but I'm not really using Mocking Blow enough to want that glyph, either. For someone primarily tanking fives (where you might well be the only warrior), either shout glyph could be a fine choice.

Gems

Gems are actually fairly simple. You gem stamina, with dodge, parry and defense gems used only if you need them to reach targets or to hit set bonuses if you particularly like the bonus on a piece. For instance, if you have a piece of armor with a red socket and a blue socket and a 9 stamina bonus for matching, you can pop in a dodge/stamina gem and only lose 6 stamina compared to using two +30 stamina Solid Majestic Zircons. If you are a JC, you will obviously have access to gems with higher stats, but non-JCs will be confined to the universal epic gems.

Likewise, hit and expertise gems will mostly be used only if you're very low on those stats. You want to at least be fairly sure a taunt will always land, and you want to at least push dodges off of the attack table. If you're at 263 hit rating and 26 expertise, you don't need to gem for either and should either gem for pure stamina or avoidance/mitigation stats if you very much want to hit a set bonus. Frankly, if there were an armor/stamina gem (and yes, technically agi/stam does that), I'd recommend gemming that. I personally prefer agi/stam over dodge or parry/stam, but that's very much a personal choice and at this point, I don't really even do that very often, as my set bonuses are usually not worth it.

So I'd recommend looking at your gear. What are you deficient in? Are you able to be critically hit in the heroics or raids you're running? Gem for defense. Are you woefully low on hit or expertise? Gem for those. Otherwise, stamina is probably your safest bet.

For a meta gem, I almost always use the Austere Earthsiege Diamond, as armor is just that attractive as a stat now. If you're hurting on defense, the Eternal Earthsiege Diamond is a possibility. (It's also useful in gimmick unhittable sets, but so far, thankfully, ICC hasn't really had a fight that relied on one of those.)

Enchants

Enchants aren't just enchants, technically speaking. Leatherworking makes leg armor kits that work as an enchant, and there are shoulder and head enchants sold by various factions. Inscriptionists have access to superior enchants, and if you are a scribe you should be looking at those for your tank. You can only use them on the character with the profession, but they're worth it if you have it. Otherwise, the Sons of Hodir sell the primary tanking shoulder enchant. However, if you feel like you'd rather have stamina over dodge and defense, this level 70 shoulder enchant is still quite good. The Greater Inscription of the Gladiator is a PvP enchant, but 30 stamina is basically a free epic stamina gem at level 80, so if you feel like you would rather have the health than the dodge and defense, it's one to keep in mind.

The standard head enchant, the Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector, actually adds more health than the various PvP enchants, so it's generally superior even without taking the defense on it into account. (Since defense reduces chance to be crit and hit and adds to all forms of avoidance/mitigation, it's almost universally considered superior to resilience for PvE tanking). The Frosthide Leg Armor adds pure stamina and agility (armor and dodge) for a tank's leg slot.

Since most prot warriors take Deep Wounds for threat, Blood Draining is actually a fairly attractive weapon enchant for a tanking warrior. Other options (if you happen to be specced so that your bleed damage is minimal) include Superior Potency and Accuracy. I generally find Blood Draining more useful overall, as it is basically a free smart health potion that can go off more than once during a fight. Even if you spec out of Deep Wounds, Blood Draining is still useful; while it can stack from bleeds, it also stacks from your melee attacks striking an enemy.

For a boot enchant, you can either go with the solid workhorse of pure stamina or get stamina and movement speed, which in today's Aaah ahhagh OMFG the floor is spewing forth death and there's a giant monster about to charge into me which will make him grow 100 times larger and instantly kill half the raid game is pretty attractive. The loss of 7 stamina in return for the ability to move faster when needed is a pretty solid trade for a tank. Meanwhile, for a glove enchant I recommend Armsman, because while attack power or expertise enchants provide static benefits, Armsman scales as your gear and threat improves. For a cape enchant, there's nothing tremendously compelling: you'll go with either 22 agility or Titanweave.

Hunter analysisby

After days of watching other classes cheer and complain over their Cataclysm class previews, we finally got a chance for a look into what Blizzard has planned for us with the hunter class previews. Like a good first date, it leaves us excited and intrigued with the possibilities, but mostly it leaves us wanting more!
Let's roll up our sleeves and both take a deeper look at what these changes mean for the best-looking class in WoW and just how much more we hope to see on our second date.
Before we get started though, we have to be sure to keep our reactions in context. Everything is getting rebalanced in Cataclysm, every number for every class and every stat. We cannot look at these changes through our Wrath experience. Since we do not yet know how the numbers will play out with every class and spec being rebalanced, we cannot say whether our damage will go up or down compared to other classes or specs. We just have no idea, so we can only look at these changes with the assumption that our DPS will be equivalent to any other class in most situations.
We'll also be using the Frostheim rating system to evaluate each of the changes, ranging from FAIL to Awesomesauce.
New Abilities: Meh
Our new abilities seem more targeted at filling the quality of life or "neat!" roles rather than filling in gaps in the class. Cobra Shot is certainly interesting for PvP, but in PvE where boss armor is normalized, hunters will just figure out which shot does more damage (Steady or Cobra) and only ever use that shot. As an aside, Cobra Shot shares a cooldown with Steady Shot ... which doesn't have a cooldown. We can be pretty sure that they aren't adding a cooldown to steady and this is just Blizzard mis-speaking.
The trap launcher, something we've heard about before, is a big hit in the "neat" category. Flinging any trap of our choosing, and off of the global cooldown, is sweet and has a lot of situational uses. However, it doesn't have much in the way regular uses in most of our boss fights. Question on this ability: the cooldown is one minute, longer than our trap cooldown -- that's fine and makes sense. But if I "launch" a trap and 50 seconds later I drop a trap normally ... in 10 seconds, my trap-launching cooldown is free, but my trap is on cooldown. Can I still launch? (I know, I know, probably not, but I can dream).
Camouflage is another ability that we've heard about in the distant past and is another neatish ability with a lot of PvP uses. In fact, with the new Careful Aim that BM is getting, you can almost see the old "Shadowmeld / 3 sec Aimed Shot opener" from vanilla strat coming back (except, you know, you won't be invisible or stealthed). I dig Camouflage and I can totally see lots of neat little uses for it -- just like I have lots of neat little uses for my Nitro Boosts -- but again, it's not really changing our PvE play significantly. After all, if anything is attacking us in PvE, we've done something horribly wrong.
So while I have no problems with our new abilities -- there's nothing bad about them, they're all good -- I just can't get really excited about it since their PvE impact is so minimal. I would be more interested if they found a way to make Cobra Shot something that we actually made decisions about in PvE, but I'm pretty convinced that we'll always use one or the other (and BM will always just use Cobra). On the other hand, if you PvP, Cobra Shot and Camouflage are going to be excellent new tools for the toolbox and give you more depth of strategy!
Focus: Too soon to tell
I appreciate that they gave us a bit more specifics on how focus will work; however, we really aren't going to be able to tell anything until we get in there and start pressing buttons to get a feel for it. On the surface it looks painful -- 12 focus/second while casting our filler, 45 focus for our cheapest DPS shot. It sounds like a minimum of four Steady Shots for every one any other shot -- at a minimum.
But that's just the surface.
We have to keep in mind there's a lot of other things adjusting our focus regen. MM will be able to reduce the focus cost of shots with efficiency (and hopefully they make that talent worthwhile), SV will have big focus regen with their crits, and BM ... well, so far, no evidence that they won't just prefer to spam Steady Shot (Cobra Strike now) most of the time still. Also keep in mind that all hunters will increase their rate of focus regeneration with the newly awesome haste stat.
I predict that once we have some decent gear, focus is going to be just fine for us. The big difference is our rotations will be more interwoven. Right now, we just unload everything up front and then sit around and Steady Shot until something is free. In Cataclysm, I suspect it will be only one or two big shots, followed by a couple of Steady Shots, etc. Hopefully we'll be using the same number of Steady Shots -- just they won't be all clumped together. I suspect this is the design goal, personally.
I do hope that they don't accidentally balance things so that the new Viper Sting ends up being a must-have for the bonus focus regen. I hope it's still a niche role sting, with Serpent Sting remaining our go-to sting. I'm picturing Viper Sting something that you use when Volleying trash, for example, to keep the focus you need for rolling Volleys. Of course there's also always the strategy of putting Viper Sting on the add while you're DPSing away on the boss. I wouldn't be surprised to see in PvP that you almost always want Viper Sting up for the constant stream of focus.
I do have to say that I'm incredibly disappointed to see that they put a 30 focus cost on Disengage. This is a completely reactionary ability that we use to get out of oh pants situations. And keep in mind, the majority of the time you need to disengage, you're in (or about to be in) melee, so you won't have Steady Shot to boost your focus regen. It's very easy to see situations like, "OMG the warrior/rogue/other godless melee class just closed one me and snared me ... I guess I'll hang around for five seconds until I can jump away. Oh, never mind. I'm dead." We also use Disengage a lot in PvE, and similarly unless we're leaving a 30-focus cushion at all times, we just usually won't have the focus when we need it. Unlike most shots, waiting a couple seconds for the focus we need is not an option when we need to press the Disengage button. When you need it, you need it this instant. I very much hope they remove the focus cost from this.
Ammo: FAIL
Don't get me wrong here: Just flat removing ammo is a quality of life improvement. We no longer have to suffer as the only class in the game that has to pay gold for every attack we make (in addition to our durability hit). But ... there were so many possibilities here. So many incredibly cool things that they could have done with ammo.
I do wish Blizz had taken the opportunity to make ammo a defining hunter slot rather than just, well, nothing at all. I know I'm not alone on this one.
Pets: Awesomesauce
Hunters will effectively get more pet stable slots, while getting fewer that they actually "carry around" with them. We don't know the exact number yet, but I wouldn't be surprised to see our total number of pet storage slots going up to around 10. This is good news for hunters who like to collect pets, especially the rare spirit beasts, and falls into the quality of life category.
The real awesome change comes in their goal of making more pet abilities provide redundancy in various raid buffs and debuffs. This is a brilliant way of encouraging pet variety and something that we've talked about on the Hunting Party Podcast a couple of times before. The idea here is that pets will all have about the same DPS gain; however, if you're missing the bleed debuff, the minor armor debuff, or what have you, you can be the hero of the raid by filling in whatever is needed with your pet slot. And best of all, you (hopefully) won't be gimping your own personal DPS to do so. Though just to be clear here, even if it was a personal gimp, we'd be happy to do it anyway for the good of the raid.
Most awesome new pet that we won't be seeing in Cataclysm: "Mechanical Destroyer" providing the Heroism buff.
Stings affected by crit and haste: Awesomesauce
Really, what's not to love here? Other than perhaps wanting it now so I can retire my tier 9 set.
Hunter mastery bonuses: Too soon to tell
I have no complaints at all about our mastery bonuses, and I think some of them look pretty cool. However, we just don't have enough data to really be able to evaluate them. I will say that I think the mastery system in general is fantastic and I love the idea of taking a lot of the boring must-have passive boosts out of our talent trees.
BM gets haste and pet damage. The pet damage is exactly what everyone predicted, and the haste fits one of the themes of the tree, and will also increase their focus regen ... though they may be the tree that needs the focus regen the least.
MM gets armor pen and double shot. Keep in mind that while armor penetration is being removed as a stat in Cataclysm, the mechanic will still be in the game. Just like in vanilla, we didn't have an ArP stat, but warriors still had Sunder Armor to put on their target, so too in Cataclysm. This armor pen bonus is almost certainly going to make MM hunters prefer Steady Shot over Cobra Shot as their filler shot. Right now the information on double shot is really vague. It sounds pretty similar to the current MM talent, Wild Quiver.
SV gets ranged crit damage and elemental damage. The ranged crit damage just means that when you crit, your crits are bigger, and this fits in nicely with SV's current role as having the highest short-term burst DPS. The elemental damage is a little more vague and we can expect to see a clarification on this soon. Does that mean that those abilities will do damage of all schools? Will they do more damage than normal, or just be harder to resist? It's not very clear right now what this mastery bonus means.
The Cataclysm hunter: Awesomesauce
Hunters are a ranged physical DPS class with the largest variety and strongest pets in the game. We are also the greatest and best-looking class in the game. Neither of those will be changing in Cataclysm. Looking at the mastery bonuses and other changes, it's looking right now like the hunter trees might be defined something like this:
Beast Mastery Big on pet damage with the pet likely making up about 30% of combined DPS. BM will be the machine gun tree with the fastest rate of fire. It still looks like they'll be content to hang out and spam their Cobra Shot button most of the time. A lot of Cataclysm changes also push BM into a stronger and stronger PvP role, especially in arenas where the new tools in the hunter toolbox come in particularly handy. Marksman The physical damage tree, getting far more damage from physical damage than any other hunter spec. MM are likely to also be the focus-starved tree unless the Efficiency talent is really, really buffed up. MM has less to be excited about in the announced changes than any other tree, which is perhaps fitting since they're currently the unquestioned top DPS spec. Survival The magical damage tree, getting more damage than ever from magical attacks. Survival is more and more the hunter-mage and looks to also enjoy the most passive focus regen. Survival will likely continue to have the biggest short-term burst damage potential and will love critting more than ever. Since we are unlikely to ever have crit rates as high as we do in Wrath again, crit is going to be an increasingly attractive stat for SV.

Recap and personalized leveling advice

Elizabeth Harper as Faience, the troll shaman, and Robin Torres as Robinemia, the undead mage: Thursday, 11 p.m. to midnight EDT Michael Gray as Grayfields, the tauren hunter: Thursday, 8:30-10 p.m. EDT Adam Holisky as Adammentat, the tauren druid, will be making appearances as he can. After the break, our intrepid adventurers will relate their experiences from last week, and we'll get personalized leveling advice from our class experts.
Week 1 recapsElizabeth Harper as Faience, the troll shaman
The first eight levels were easy enough, though that could have just been the fact that we ran around Mulgore and Eversong in a large group, laying complete waste to all before us. I think I'll have to try to stick to leveling with Robin, because having a pet mage certainly does seem to come in handy. But after eight levels I'm still no clearer on how to play a shaman -- but I'm sure it will come to me eventually. Lightning, Lightning, Shock, Lightning, Lightning, Shock. Repeat until dead, right? Right -- or at least it's worked so far. But it's my understanding that enhancement shamans don't actually play like that, so I may need to rethink my strategy. And grab a melee weapon. (Or at least I'm guessing that a staff won't quite cut it in the long term if I go the enhancement route.)
Michael Gray as Grayfields, the tauren hunter
My first eight levels have not been difficult. Well, the leveling hasn't been difficult -- the long run across the Barrens was plenty difficult. I think I more or less spent the whole time as a ghost. I'm not quite sure why I didn't take the zeppelin. I think someone suggested running, and I did my very best lemming impression and did so. I think I'll claim I wanted the authentic Barrens ghost-run experience.
Once we hit Silvermoon, time flew and I'm now sitting at the awkward age of 8. In a few levels, I'll be off to pick up the first pet for Grayfields, so I'm excited to see what the readers have chosen.
Robin Torres (me!) as Robinemia, the undead mage
As we were asked to visit the blood elf lands for our earliest adventures, I first traveled to Sunstrider Isle. But no one would speak to me there. I think their isolationist policies are shortsighted and don't represent the outlook of the current administration. I won't get into politics here, though. So we decided to go with the second choice and traveled to Camp Narache. The taskgivers there, even though not exactly friendly to my kind, were happy to send us on errands and reward us for our troubles.
Not that we had many troubles. There were many of you there (40?) to help us as well as compete with us. It was likened to "launch day" by one of you. I very much enjoyed questing with Faience, particularly since I can be completely reckless with my health as long as she is nearby. After we helped the tauren get rid of those nasty boar people, we were of sufficient experience to go back to blood elf lands and run their errands. I wore my apprentice robes, as I had yet to acquire anything more fashionable.
The authorities at Falconwing Square, it seems, do not carry on the Sunstrider Isle isolationist policy. I think it is because they have such a problem with the addicts and wayward guardians that they are willing to accept help from almost anyone. We carried out their assassinations for a while, until we qualified for our level 8 training. They also gave me the pretty new dress I am currently wearing, though I really should be wearing my Red Linen Robe. Not only does the color of fresh blood suit me better, it makes me feel more intelligent. I may have to rethink my wardrobe choices. I'll get back to you on that next week.
Personalized leveling advice for Week 2We asked for a paragraph from our respective class experts to help us level.
Advice for Faience from Rich Maloy, Totem Talk
For the first 20 levels you are going to feel more like an elemental shaman than an enhancement shaman. Pull with Lightning Bolt, apply Flame Shock and start meleeing down your target, and hit Earth Shock when the shocks come off cooldown -- all shocks share a cooldown. If the mob tries to run and get his friend, use Frost Shock to slow him down. You could probably kill faster with more LBs than melee, but you are leveling enhancement, right? Melee away! For glyphs, reader Tom had the winning suggestion of using Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem to protect yourself and your totems. I would also suggest Glyph of Ghost Wolf for the minor glyph. 0/11/0 will be the spec of choice.
Advice for Robinemia from Christian Belt, Arcane Brilliance
Open with a Frostbolt. Then cast more Frostbolts. Close with a Frostbolt. The end.

Enhancement shaman

Enhancement shaman have been having a hard time keeping up with the top DPS classes in Icecrown Citadel, and Blizzard has apparently taken notice. Ghostcrawler popped over to the official forums today with a note on a new buff for the enhancement tree:
Ghostcrawler: Upcoming Enhancement buffWe agree with some of the recent discussion about Enhancement dps. We are going to hotfix a change to the Flurry talent to increase it from 25% to 30% attack speed with 5 ranks.
We also agree that Enhancement may have survivability problems and understand that players don't necessarily feel they can afford the bonus Stamina from the Toughness talent, at least in PvE. We don't have an immediate change to deploy here, but it's something we'd like to fix and a candidate for future patches.
Good news for enhancers everywhere. Hopefully the upcoming Cataclysm class changes preview will hold a lot more of it for you guys, and all types of shaman, for that matter.

Leveling in the pre-Cataclysm era

New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. See all our collected tips, tricks .
Make hay while the sun shines. In fact, if you're leveling a character pre-Cataclysm, you might want to consider making that hay on one of the farms in Westfall. Westfall is slated for a "moderate" overhaul in the upcoming expansion, so the Harvest Reapers you see today might be something entirely different come Cataclysm. Maybe the farms will be gone entirely. Who knows? Whatever ends up coming our way, it's time to stop and smell the flowers (or in this case, the sweet scent of hay). Whether or not you choose to purchase Cataclysm, zones like Westfall will be forever changed when the expansion hits.

My significant DPSer and I are currently leveling a set of Alliance characters (our original faction, but one we haven't played much in several years) specifically in order to revisit content that Cataclysm will sweep away. We're not the only ones with that idea. Still, it's not all nostalgia. The desire to soak up all that WoW has to offer rings just as true for new players who are leveling their first characters. We'll show you how to embrace it all while you still can.
Our suggestions for new players who'd like to experience as much of WoW's original content as possible before Cataclysm changes the face of Azeroth:
Quest in zones that Cataclysm will be changing.
Deploy some alts. If you're pushing forward toward Icecrown Citadel, we understand. It's pretty cool stuff. But if soaking up lore and exploring new territories is more your style, now's a good time to slow down and make enough alts (both factions!) to see all the sights before they're gone. Leveling goes so fast these days that you'll level past many zones and instances while you're busy in other areas. It might take several characters (or a willingness to work through grey quests) to see everything that will be changing.
Get a handle on the game's lore. The World of Warcraft is a living, breathing world. If you understand what's already gone on, you'll be in a much better position to keep up with the context of changes Cataclysm will bring.
Retro raiding (going back to see old level 60 and level 70 raiding content once you're level 80) and classic raiding (raiding the level 60 and 70 content when you're at the appropriate level) are both great ways to see what used to be considered endgame content. Looking for a group? Send The Classifieds your Armory link and a line or two about what you're looking for; We'll take retro raiding and classic raiding guild recruitment notices this week, as well.
The gang playing along with WoW.com's Choose My Adventure series is specifically targeting content that will be changing come Cataclysm. The project's moving along on US Zangarmarsh-H as part of.

Eyonix leaving Blizzard

It's sad news for the World of Warcraft community today as longtime Blizzard community manager Eyonix has announced that he's leaving the company. He announced his departure in a simple and direct post on the official forums:
"For nearly six years, we've shared our thoughts with one and other, we've laughed, we've argued, and we've cried -- the crying part was just me wasn't it? Those times, I'm afraid must come to an end as I've made the decision to explore opportunities outside of Blizzard.
It has very honestly been a huge pleasure, and I thank you all for allowing 'Eyonix' to always remain a very fond memory as I move on."My perspective might be a little different than some readers' due to my employment history, but I've always felt for the plight of the community manager, especially at Blizzard. Become emotionally detached, they say you're not passionate. Become emotionally invested, they say you take it too personally. Eyonix has generally managed to strike that particular balance -- no mean feat for a community manager, especially one for a community so inherently unmanageable. He was one of the good guys.
We'll likely never know what caused his departure, especially given that there was definitely no horrible public meltdown accompanying this particular exit, but I hope that the move is a positive and fortuitous one for him. Even when I might've disagreed with the Community team at large, I always supported Eyonix.
Godspeed, little whelp.

The WoW Launcher

A post in the official forums today, later confirmed by a blue, points to hackers attempting to take advantage of a new avenue to attack the user -- the World of Warcraft Launcher.
As you can see from the screenshot above (large version here) the real launcher apparently is replaced with a fake launcherthat sends the user to a web site that pretends to be official, asking for subscription information (including answers to secret questions and the original CD-Key) in what is meant to appear as the means to restore a supposedly suspended account. One of the telltale signs that this isn't legit, besides the very invasive information requested, is the version number in the upper left corner of the screen. We're way past patch 3.1.1 -- however not everyone might know this.
Ancilorn posts confirming that this is not genuine (reiterating that they will never ask for your password in such a manner, and also requesting that such things be sent directly to Blizzard if they happen to you). Goes to show that as security is increased, those looking to breach it become more desperate.