Attention! We still need some righteous beta screenshot submissions for next week! Send 'em in. Anyway, Elithia of <Murloc Ate My Buff> on Runetotem (EU-A) sent in this Thunderfall pic with the following explanation/sales pitch: "Being attacked by a ferocious polar bear while trying not to be bashed on the head by a rather annoyed frost giant, all because you killed his favorite worg for a quick wolf steak? Worry no more! Just freeze and run! No wonder frost mages are known for their survivability."

Do you have any unusual, beautiful or interesting World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see them on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as emailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word "Azeroth" in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing -- use Alt Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, Val'kyr on mounts or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran. Older screenshots can be found here.

Filed under: Around Azeroth

Filed under: Breakfast Topics

Dear, dear Bolvar Fordragon. You may be caught off guard in the image above, but you can still handle yourself around a bunch of dragons. Player versus dragon may be easy for you, but player versus player is often a little more surprising than even a small fleet of dragons suddenly appearing in the throne room of Stormwind. While the advice is no longer timely for Bolvar, lets take a look around the blogosphere for PvP tips for those of us not currently occupied with ... other chilly activities.

• Spicytuna has some words of advice for frost mages regarding gearing for PvP.
• The Hunter's Mark talks about PvP specs for -- what else -- hunters!
• World of Matticus discusses leaping into PvP the correct way.
• Cynwise's Battlefield Manual fills us in on rated battlegrounds and how to prepare for them.

Filed under: The Daily Quest

"So, uh, Throgg?" Lolegolas asked in a quiet tone of voice. "I'm not exactly sure how to ask this, but I thought I'd put it right out there. You know, pick it up, toss it back, whatever, but I wanted to ask."

"What up, little belfling?" Throgg encouraged. The orc death knight flexed mightily, wielding his massive sword like other men held limp noodles. "I am busy using my immense weapon as weight for better curls."

"Yeah, that's kind of what it's about, man," Lolegolas said. "What happened to Shadowmourne, exactly? You got the last shard over me, and I'd kind of like to know where the bloody axe went."

Throgg laughed. "Oh, that old thing? I replaced it with this baby from the beta. This is Kliklak's Fearsome Greatsword. Isn't it fierce? Isn't it great?"

Lolegolas took a deep breath. "Shadowmourne, man. What happened to it?"

"Oh, that old thing? I vendored it for 50 gold. This quest drop has more damage and stamina."

"But ... but ... the proc!" Lolegolas gasped in shock, as if someone had just told him that hair product could decrease the size of your pecs. "The proc was gorgeous! And the sockets!"

"Hard to manage," Throgg said. "This way, I can spam Mortal Strike all day long and not worry."

"You understand," Lolegolas said. "I'm going to kill you now."

"I understand," Throgg replied.

Name Kliklak's Fearsome Greatsword
Type Two-Handed Sword; Speed 3.50
Damage 1007 - 1511 Damage, 359.7 damage per second
Attributes

• 171 Strength
• 257 Stamina
• Improve critical strike rating by 114

How to get it It's a quest item in Cataclysm. Pretty awesome, huh?
How to get rid of it It sells for 22 gold, 60 silver and 79 copper. Not sure on the disenchants yet.

Update: Stats fixed. Sorry about that!

Filed under: Phat Loot Phriday

Every Friday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting balance druids and those who group with them. This week we are going back in time once again to visit those pesky little dungeons. Do you have what it takes to make or break a group?

Greetings and salutations once again my fine, feathered friends. No superfluous pomp or wayward attacks on ferals in the opening this week; instead, I want to jump right into the topic at hand. As I've mentioned for a couple of weeks now, I've recently transferred my balance druid to a new server, forsaking all of my alts along with the ride, and because of that, I am in the process of leveling a host of new toons. Although most of them are still back in Azeroth, I've got a few now that are into Outland and Northrend. You see, back in the pre-60 content, I very rarely expect much out of players. They might be new, having never played their class before, and thus still learning all the different ins and outs of how to play. Not to mention, a lot of classes don't always have the best of tools to perform the jobs that they wish to at earlier stages in the game -- just ask me how attempting to tank Ragefire Chasm using a paladin before getting Righteous Fury or Consecration went.

Even still, once you hit The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King content, I gain a certain amount of expectation of what a player should know. Perhaps I am nothing more than an elitist prick, but it is no longer cute nor humorous having to teach a warrior that, yes, they need to be in Defensive Stance and use Thunder Clap in order to tank, or that using AoE spells against one or two targets is highly ineffective, not to mention inefficient, and you would really be better off just sticking to one target at a time in that situation. Don't get me wrong, I rarely tell these people anything -- well, except for the tank thing, because my mage is terrible at doing that -- instead I usually just sigh and get frustrated at my computer screen. The thing that gets me the most, however, is what I see balance druids doing.

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Filed under: Druid, (Druid) Shifting Perspectives

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today.

Wait, no, I can believe it is beta!


Cutaia asked:

"NDA is over Sacco. I wanna know what this was all about.

Spill it!

(Please?)"

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors is about warriors. This week, we look at where the class is going in Cataclysm.

Sorry if you were desperately hoping for a discussion of leveling, but with the new Cataclysm beta and the lifting of the NDA, we have details -- Finally, glorious details! It's been so long! -- to discuss about where the class is going. While there are not actually a lot of new talents to discuss, a great many talents have been altered in order to fit with the new design elements. Safeguard, for instance, isn't useless; it's practically mandatory. You're not going to want to take it ... That intervene effect more or less fits the definition of "useless" still ... But you'll need to take it for the crit immunity. This is the way of things for quite a few changes with Cataclysm. You may like them, or you may hate them, but you have to deal with them either way.

I'm going to drop my usual attempt at detachment and be up front going into this. I like some of the changes a lot. I hate others. I am not unbiased about what's coming. How could I be? I've been playing warriors for over five years now. I love the class, and I'm never giving it up no matter what comes down the pike.

So let's take a look at what's coming down said pike. Yesterday we covered talent and ability changes. I'm not going to repeat too much of that here; no reason to reinvent the wheel and all. Supposedly, Inner Rage is trainable in the latest beta build. They're also moving crit immunity from Safeguard to Improved Defensive Stance. As always, beta means constant changes.

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Filed under: Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, News items, Cataclysm

Choose the adventures of the WoW.com staff as we level our characters in <It came from the Blog> on Zangarmarsh (US-PVE-H).

Here's the schedule:

• Fox Van Allen as Foxlight, the blood elf paladin: Friday, 8 p.m. EDT
• Robin Torres as Robinemia, the undead mage; Michael Sacco as Sahko, the orc warlock; Christian Belt, as Selfloathius, the blood elf warlock; Elizabeth Harper as Faience, the troll shaman; Matthew Rossi as Andrenorton, the troll mage; Michael Gray as Grayfields, the tauren hunter; Adam Holisky as Adammentat, the tauren druid; and Gregg Reece as Sandwichdoc, the troll shaman, will be making appearances as they can.

So, we have some polls this week ... some choices for you to make ... some ways that you can make what you read about our adventurers more interesting. Turn the page and choose wisely.

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Filed under: It Came from the Blog, Choose My Adventure

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Filed under: BlizzCon, Guest Posts

And you thought we'd never ask! If you've ever been dying to propose what you think would be the perfect article for WoW.com, your golden opportunity has arrived. We're taking proposals for one-off feature articles on any WoW-related topic. Current game mechanics, what's ahead in Cataclysm, how-to's, you name it -- if you can sell us on the idea, we just might give you the green light to write it up.

Your feature article proposal should clearly outline the topic of your article and its major highlights. It should be lengthy enough (one to three paragraphs) to give us a taste of the tone you plan to bring to your writing. Should we accept your proposal, we'll open an assignment for the article, which will be evaluated separately and may or may not be accepted. Final feature submissions should run between 500 and 1,000 words. Artwork is not mandatory, but any you choose to include must be your own work or from creative commons. We will not accept articles submitted under player names or pen names; please use your real name and email.

We are likely to accept more proposals and make more assignments than we are final articles; only the very best articles will make it through to publication.

Ready to submit? Read up about our guest post program, then sign up for Seed and submit your proposal here. (You can't see the proposal page unless you have a Seed account.) Unfortunately, the Seed program currently only allows us to accept submissions from individuals living in the United States; we hope to be able to accept international submissions in the future. We'll accept submissions for this assignment until 11:59 p.m. EST on Thurs., July 8. Good luck and good writing!

Filed under: WoW.com Business, Guest Posts