We're still a couple of weeks away from the dam burst that is the Mists of Pandaria press event, but in the meantime, Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street has posted a new Dev Watercooler. He listed some stat changes coming in Mists that, while ostensibly not as complicated as those in Wrath, still hold some interesting and possibly major implications for class balance in the coming expansion. Let's dive right in and see what they mean for death knights.

Blocking takes a week

While it doesn't directly affect us, the blocking changes will certainly shake up the tanking hierarchy that we're a part of, so it's worth pointing out that the usual single roll combat table for dodging, parrying, or blocking a hit is gone. Instead, the chance to block will be calculated only after the dodge and parry chance is calculated. This essentially means that being unhittable is gone. You can't just stack to 102.4%. Of course, death knights and druids have never been able to do this, but they will now be joined by the shield tanks.

Of course, I expected something more drastic, as you may recall, such as the removal of block or possibly dodge from warriors and paladins, but this change seems to mostly serve the same function while still leaving paladins and warriors with a little extra help in the damage avoidance department. But if this works and block becomes just a unique mechanic to certain tanks rather than a leg up that allows one to ascend to the ranks of untouchable, we'll have a lesser chance of seeing monks, druids, and death knights become second tier in later patches as gear reinflates. Then again, Blizzard told us during the Wrath beta that we wouldn't be GCD-capped, either.

Spell resistance can't resist this

Spell resistance and penetration are gone as well. No more resistance gear, no more buffs, no more racial abilities. This one does affect us in a few ways. While resistance fights haven't been in vogue for some time, there were still instances where resistances came in handy, especially for tanks. Most serious tanks probably still have a Mirror of Broken Images in their bags just because that resistance boost is still amazing enough to be worth the stat hit for some fights. With spell resistance gone, you'll finally be able to vendor that trinket. Other than that, our class wasn't around for the worst of the spell resistance days, but it's still nice we won't have to return for that.

Hit, expertise, and critical strike rating

One of the most worrying parts of the new Mists calculators was the absence of Runic Focus, which not only gave us some extra critical damage on spells but ensured we wouldn't miss with our spells as long as we got to the expected melee hit cap. DPS death knights were going to sleep every night with nightmares of having to find 9% more hit on their gear in their heads.

As it turns out, we won't be needing that old thing anymore. Not only will the 200% critical damage on spells thing be a baseline feature for all classes, but expertise, which is changing to a percentage-based stat like hit, will also apply to spell misses. Since spell miss is at 15% hit, the expertise dodge cap is at 7.5%, and the special attack/two-handed melee miss cap is at 7.5%, this means that as long as we get to the expertise and two-handed melee hit caps, we'll be at the spell hit cap too. It's unexpectedly elegant and helps us streamline our gearing so that we don't feel obligated to pile on too much boring hit when we'd rather be hitting more interesting stats.

Of course, this does in theory still leave dual wielders out in the cold, since the article doesn't mention that their extra-high weapon swing hit cap is coming down. But then again, dual wielders haven't really felt obligated to hit that cap anyway, since other secondary stats become more valuable once the usual melee special attack cap is reached.

One thing that may make things interesting here is the possibility that expertise trinkets could be useful to spell casters. Since spell miss applies to expertise, that expertise/haste trinket could be a legitimate upgrade for that mage in your group. In addition, ranged attacks can be dodged now, so the hunter will probably be rolling on it too. That may be bad news if you lose a roll or have outspend them on DKP. On the other hand, Blizzard's been on the gear consolidation train for ages, and you kind of have to admire how elegant this one little change has turned out to be.

PvP changes

PvP changes are a bit more general, but it's worth mentioning them anyhow. Not only will resilience be changing to PvP defense, but we'll be getting some of it baseline -- about 30% worth. In addition, PvP power will be a new stats that increases damage done to players. Since it won't take up any item value, one assumes it will be stacked on top of the strength and other secondary stats already on gear, thus allowing strength increasing abilities like Unholy Might to at least partially stack with it. The other advantage may be that since PvP gear will have lower item levels but have it made up by the new stats, there may be a slightly smaller chance we'll have to deal with fellow group members inflating their gear scores with PvP gear.

This also brings up the chance of PvP and PvE play being separated even more. Death knights have had to deal with the specter of PvE abilities being nerfed because of PvP for some time now, and while separate PvP stats aren't a direct sign that's ending soon, it's a sign in the right direction. The more we can get the two sides separated, the better we can stop living with this particular Damocles' sword over our head. This upgrade's for you, Hungering Cold.

The world of player vs. player action in Blood Sport for fans of Battleground, world PvP and Arena play. Steering you to victory is Olivia Grace, who spends most of her time in Azeroth as a restoration shaman turning people into frogs.

Battlegrounds are usually the new PvPer's first foray into PvP, unless of course you're on a PvP server, in which case you're thrown unwittingly into the world of the ongoing Horde vs. Alliance conflight almost from day one. A Battleground is very likely to be your first go at cooperative PvP and certainly your first go at cooperative PvP with strangers. There are 10 Battlegrounds available to you -- fewer when you start out, then gradually added as you increase in level. All these Battlegrounds have objectives, the majority of which are assessed by points on a counter at the top of your screen. Once one side either gains the required total points or completely runs out of points, the Battleground is won.

There are, of course, strategies associated with each map. As the maps and objectives grow more complicated, so do the tactics. But a Risk-style grand stratagem is not what we're looking for here and certainly wouldn't comply with our word limit!

What we're interested in is how not to play in Battlegrounds. Your team may not lose the Battleground because you made these simple mistakes, but it will certainly make it harder for them to win. So don't be the guy who's failing at Battlegrounds! How? Well, read on! (There are of course times and situations when these rules don't apply, particularly on those rare occasions when your team actually has a strategy that it's following.)

1. Fighting in the wrong place

This is one of the simplest errors people make and one of the ones you most often get called out on, as it's so very visible. In capture-the-base Battlegrounds such as Arathi Basin, Battle for Gilneas, Isle of Conquest or Eye of the Storm, fighting at the base will help you capture it. In Eye of the Storm, it's the only way to capture a base. You can't click the banner like in other Battlegrounds; rather, the game measures the amount of people within the base zone and captures faster or slower depending on that number.

In the other Battlegrounds I mentioned above, you click the flag in order to capture the base. But guess what? The other team aren't going to be super-keen on your doing that, so they're likely to try to kill you! Surprising, I know.

So what should you do? Fight them at the bases. Don't get pulled into conflict that isn't at the base if you can help it. Sure, you may be ambushed on a path by two of the opposite team's wandering rogues; you can't help that. See a lonely healer? Just don't, OK? I know, you're thinking, "Hey, a priest! I'll be able to kill them and I'll get another killing blow and more damage, and I'll go up the chart and get more points and just be generally awesomesauce!" Maybe you will -- but one on one, DPS vs. healer, unless there's a huge gear or skill disparity, it's going to take you a while. And in that time, you could have been helping your team capture or defend a base.

Flag capture Battlegrounds are a slightly different kettle of fish. I'm thinking Warsong Gulch here, and Twin Peaks, where people will no doubt get really miffed if you fight in the middle. But depending on the game, the middle isn't always a completely idiotic place to fight. If you can control the routes that people have to use to get the flag across the map, that's actually a good thing!

But if both teams have the other team's flag and are shored up in their own bases, having an e-peen off in the middle is not going to help. Your team's controlling the middle? Super! Bully for you. Now go get the darn flag.

2. Not defending

Speaking of e-peens, this is another brilliant way to fail at Battlegrounds by letting your ego run away with you. "Aha!" I hear you yell, "We have three bases here in Arathi Basin, so the Horde/Alliance must be weak and pathetic! I will lead my band of merry men and capture their home base and the fifth one! Total domination! Rawr!"

While you're off capturing, the other team calmly take all three of the bases you used to have. One lonely soul stayed behind and got insta-killed by five of the other team because their hero comrades were off capturing bases they didn't need in order to win. Oops. Or all your glaives or destroyers got immediately destroyed because nobody even tried to look after them. D'oh!

Now, I get it. Defense is boring, hanging out at a base hoping you'll get attacked is really dull. And it doesn't award you as much honor as capturing unless you do get attacked, which is a bit of a shame, really. But in Battlegrounds that are about capturing objectives, you win by holding bases. If there's nobody at bases to make sure the other team doesn't get them, you're not going to hold them and not going to win.

Of course, you can theoretically win Arathi by capturing all five bases and holding them, keeping a careful eye on assaults and capture timers, but it doesn't happen often, especially not in PuG groups without clear leadership.

3. Not attacking

However, not attacking isn't going to win you any prizes either. Obvious advice is obvious? Well, yes, yes it is, dear reader! But you'd be amazed how often (especially in Battle for Gilneas, possibly my favorite Battleground) there are five people sitting at the Lighthouse or the Mine while their team is taking a pasting at the Waterworks. Guess what: In order to hold bases, you need to capture them. And while you're all doing an admirable job of really spoiling that opposition rogue's day, five people at a held base is far too many while another one is in conflict!

And healers, I feel your pain. A good amount of the time, I'm one of you! Having a target on your head is really rubbish, especially once the enemy have figured out who you are and you become their prime target as soon as you appear. But my dear, sweet healers, your amazing skills are totally wasted in places where there aren't active conflicts. If people aren't taking damage, there's no healing to be done. You're not likely to be able to defend bases completely alone due to your inability to kill things -- and more importantly, you're far too valuable for that! There are probably only two or three of you to seven or eight DPSers, and you're worth the number of DPS's health bars that you can heal before you go OOM. Someone who's better at math than me should totally work that out.

4. Killing the wrong people

The wrong people? How on earth can you kill the wrong people? You can't exactly have friendly fire incidents in WoW, can you? Well, no, mercifully. But you can have almost as good as if you attack the enemy in the wrong order.

Now, please note that this assumes a fairly equal level of gear and skill across the two teams and is a generalization. OK? Great.

Go back to point #3 and re-read the last couple of sentences. No, not the one that points out how awful at math I am -- the one before that, the one where I mention how healers are awesome. How can you stop healers being awesome? By killing them, of course! Especially if there's only one healer in the area, they're not going to be able to survive a full-on onslaught from a group of DPS for long. Spot a healer, thanks to an addon like Healers Have To Die? Tell your team. (And if you don't have HHTD, get it.)

Don't go after that DK who's really not taking any damage; he's probably a blood DK and will outheal a healer. Leave him until last. When you arrive at a fight, assess your opponents. Healers, as we've mentioned, are highest priority. Tanks are lowest. People with low health are the priority right after healers. People whose name you recognize because they killed you earlier? If you kill their mates, they'll go down eventually. People who can CC like it's going out of fashion? Yeah, bump them up the list. People who are doing a great job of defending their own healers? They need to go down. People who were squishy before? Probably still squishy now. Your team will be a whole lot more effective if you play like this.

5. Being That Guy who QQs

In terms of irritation, for me, this is the most fail of all fail things you can do in a Battleground. It seems that as soon as a team starts losing (or even before then), there's somebody in chat saying "OMG you guys suck" or "L2P noobs" or "Alliance/Horde fail again" or something equally erudite and useful.

Do you think that's helping? Do you really? Well, it's not. How on earth is that going to make people play better? And all that time you're spending typing about how rubbish the rest of your team is would be far better spent fighting.

If you're frustrated, go do something else for a while. If you think your team's doing something specific wrong, tell them, but don't word it like "OMG, you idiots don't do thing X." All that's likely to do is annoy people, even if your advice is excellent and exactly what's needed. Phrase it differently, and people might listen and you might win.

I don't really PvP these days. In vanilla, I had plenty of fun with my priest, running around and healing people who were on the mad dash for High Warlord. Back then, there wasn't really much in the way of PvP-appropriate gear -- in fact, when the honor system began, the most effective and deadly people you ran across in Battlegrounds were those who were raiding and collecting tier gear.

I remember that fact particularly infuriated a friend of mine, who over the course of vanilla did nothing but PvP, although at the time that meant basically running around Southshore and Tarren Mill. When the honor system was introduced, there was a contest held by Blizzard for those who engaged in PvP, and the top characters on the realm who got the most amount of honorable kills were rewarded with a special tabard. My friend spent weeks in Tarren Mill, happily murdering Alliance until his fingers bled, and he won his tabard handily -- after all, nobody really did as much PvP as he did. Then the Battlegrounds came out.

When he stepped into Battlegrounds, he discovered that despite the fact that he did nothing but PvP, he couldn't hold a candle against those people who engaged in raiding. The gear and weapons that they got from raiding were too powerful. And that's when he threw up his hands, said he didn't want to have to raid to be good at PvP, and promptly stopped playing the game.

The reason I tell this story is because I remember those days, and I remember when there weren't such things as resilience or PvP gear. If you wanted to be good at PvP, you picked up the best PvE gear you could find. The change between now and then is so different that there's no comparing the two. PvPers got their own gear, their own stats, and their own PvP world that they could pretty much live in forever, without having to worry about gear or anything else. My friend would probably be pleased with how much it's changed, though I lost track of him long ago.

However, the drawback to this is that now if PvPers want to play in dungeons, the PvP gear they worked so hard for isn't exactly ideal for PvE. Saga over at Spellbound wrote a brief post regarding what it's like healing a tank decked out in full PvP gear. Needless to say, it's not a pretty story, and it really got me thinking about the disparity and difference between PvP in vanilla and PvP now, particularly as far as gear is concerned.

Because PvP has its own set of stats, PvP gear isn't exactly the most ideal thing to wear into an instance. Yet for those who PvP all the time nonstop, if they decide they want to see these instances that everyone's been talking about, their PvP gear is their only option. For DPS classes, it's not as much of an issue -- but when you're talking about a tank, heroics are pretty brutal, particularly the latest stretch of heroics. Can it be done? Yes -- but for new healers or healers who aren't decked out in raid gear,

 it's extremely difficultto do.

So what do we do about this? Should there be an option for a tank set, one that you can purchase with honor points -- one that doesn't have any PvP stats on it but is simply a starter set for those who want to try PvE tanking? Should there be some sort of gear check when you queue as a tank that looks not only at item level but the presence of resilience on gear? Is there a solution, or do healers simply continue to despair when they see a tank in full PvP gear?

Loot drama is most often the biggest and juiciest type of drama. Lots of different guilds handle loot distribution differently, though most either do need/greed rolls or use master looter paired with some sort of external system. Sigtyr on the official forums brings up the loot council method, where a few individuals in the know get to decide who gets what piece. Sigtyr certainly feels that, despite objections from the peanut gallery, this system works the best for his group.

This discussion raises a good question: Is there such a thing as the "best loot distribution model"? When Star Wars: The Old Republic launched, Bioware seemed to have gotten a whiff of loot drama in games like WoW and even EverQuest (where anyone could loot anything, anywhere), devising a new system that is in use in its normal-mode operations (the SWTOR equivalent of a raid). There, most loot is auto-assigned based on class and spec. Personally, I've found that model to be frustrating because, among other things, it doesn't select against someone's receiving the same piece over and over again. Overall, I think that system fails because it takes the option away from the players and makes gearing up through operations as frustrating as needing on a piece of gear in the Raid Finder.

In my opinion, all loot distribution models are flawed because, at their core, they rely on human beings making decisions. Even systems like loot councils, where those in charge are supposed to be making their decisions based on what is best for the group, are susceptible to corruption, whether it's favoritism, fear of retaliation for not giving someone a piece they really want, or some other concern. Roll-based systems, too, are imperfect; while the decision of who gets what appears to be up to the random number generator, the decision to hit need or greed is ultimately in the hands of the player. A player could need on a piece of loot that they don't actually need, then trade it off to whomever they choose.

Ultimately, in the humble opinion of this player, the key to success seems to be finding a loot system that lines up with your group's goals and personalities. Want to give your group a fighting edge for difficult progression? Then maybe loot council is a good idea, where gear can be assigned to whomever can turn it into the biggest advantage for the raid as a whole. Is your group more concerned about having a good time and distributing loot evenly and fairly? Perhaps a point-based system such as DKP or EPGP is in order, where things like priority and point rankings are extremely clear and out of the hands of the loot master.

So what do you think, commenters? Do you think it's possible for a loot system to be devised that could work well for everyone involved, or are all of the systems fundamentally flawed in some way? Can there be a middle ground where, as I mentioned, certain systems work perfectly for certain groups? 
 Also look at Zygor  Dungeon Guide

The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins.

    I have noticed that some other ret paladins have very high initial DPS. How are they doing this and how can I do the same?

The string of abilities and buttons you hit at the beginning of combat, called opening sequences or openers, are a much-discussed topic among theorycrafters and the community at large. Naturally, your first few attacks can set the pace for the rest of the fight. Fortunately, the spec is forgiving enough that even if you flub a button at the beginning of an encounter, your overall DPS won't go straight in the toilet. Even so, I have a few pieces of advice up my sleeve from my own experiences that can help you start the fight off right.

1. Increase your holy power (HP) generation. The faster you can get holy power, the sooner you can pop your cooldowns and get to work. While many of you may think that this means you need to stack haste to reduce your Crusader Strike cooldown via Sanctity of Battle, what I'm actually talking about is doing what you can to get your hands on two pieces of tier 13. The set bonus essentially allows you to open combat with 2 holy power as opposed to 1, which leads wonderfully into my next tip.

2. Start off with a 2-HP Inquisition as opposed to one that is at full duration. I'm sure many of you may get your initial 3 HP and then follow it up with your Avenging Wrath/Zealotry macro, or maybe even get a 36-second Inquisition up and then start working toward getting cooldowns up. I think both approaches miss out on some valuable DPS.

Hitting your cooldown macro first and then putting up Inquisition takes one GCD away from the 20-second duration of increased damage. Conversely, waiting to get a 3-HP Inq up and then working to get more holy power for your cooldowns could delay that big damage spike you're looking for, not to mention that it could potentially offset the number of cooldown cycles you could possibly run through in a given encounter. For example, if you push back your cooldowns by 30 seconds in a 4.5-minute encounter, you would only be able to use them twice as opposed to three times, lowering your overall DPS.

To give some numbers to this argument, let's say you don't have tier 13 yet so you're still just using CS to get HP. If you start off with a 2-HP Inq, by the time you get 3 more HP to pop your macro, you will have about 10 seconds left on your initial Inquisition.

Like I said, refreshing Inquisition during your cooldowns isn't ideal (especially once you get your four-piece bonus), but let's include something we haven't mentioned yet: Divine Purpose. By the time you get 3 more HP after that initial Inquisition, you will have made roughly six attacks that should all qualify to proc Divine Purpose. That gives you an 80% chance to get at least one proc. As you know, this can basically be a free refresh on Inq if it's about to run out.

Basically what this all boils down to is, hope and pray that DP procs when you need it to. That's what I do, and it generally works as long as I didn't forget to sacrifice a few stray cats the night before. (I'm joking! I actually use squirrels; they're pretty overpopulated here anyway.)

3. Get the most out of those macros. This particular reader mentioned that he was using a macro that combined Avenging Wrath, Zealotry, and Hammer of Wrath. Ever since the addition of the "above 20%" Hammer of Wrath functionality to the talent Sanctified Wrath, people have been trying to find ways to get a HoW out right away to up their burst damage (of course, this was back when HoW actually hurt, but that's beside the point). Unfortunately, the macro just doesn't seem to work -- it takes a few seconds for the game to recognize that you activated AW and that you're specced into Sanctified Wrath, allowing you to use HoW above 20% of the target's health.

If you want a basic cooldown macro, here's one that will work just fine:

    #showtooltip Zealotry
    /use Avenging Wrath
    /use Zealotry
    /use (Trinket)

I put "#showtooltip Zealotry" in there just so I can see it light up when I have 3 HP. Note that you can put something like "/use Templar's Verdict" in there as well after the entry for Zealotry, as your cooldowns and trinkets should all be off the GCD, but for some reason I never have. I guess I like being able to decide if I want to cast a TV or refresh Inq, but I of course recognize that this comes at a DPS loss. The ball's in your court, Mr. McCloy.

4. For the love of the Light, pre-pot. If you don't have them already, stock up on some Golemblood Potions and put them on a convenient keybind. Outside of combat, potions have a 1-minute cooldown, but during combat only one can be used. A way around this one-potion-per-combat rule is to use a pot a brief moment before combat is started, incurring the 1-minute cooldown but not locking you out of your mid-combat potion.

Strike up some communication with your raid group or even just your tanks and see if you can't convince them to give you an audible countdown before they pull the boss. Delaying as long as possible will give you the best overlap of your attacks and the potion's 25-second duration. Oh, and I would recommend against tying this into your cooldown macro; you may want to save your mid-combat pot for a specific time in the fight, but you'll want to use your cooldowns as often as reasonably possible.

Blizzard, the development studio behind the Diablo, StarCraft, and Warcraft franchises, has laid off 600 employees, it said today in a press release.

Ninety percent of the cut staff were in departments unrelated to game development, the company said. Blizzard does not expect the news to affect upcoming games Diablo III, World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, or StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm.

"In order to keep making epic game content while serving players effectively, we have to be smart about how we manage our resources," Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime said in a statement on the official Blizzard forums. "This means we sometimes have to make difficult decisions about how to best maintain the health of the company. We're in the process of making some of those hard decisions now.

"We're continuing to develop, iterate, and polish Blizzard DOTA, Diablo III, StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, as well as other, unannounced projects. We'll have exciting news to share in the coming weeks regarding Diablo III's release date, and will soon be holding a private media event to showcase the latest work on Mists of Pandaria. It goes without saying that we're working hard to get all of these games in your hands as soon as possible."