Failure? OK.

Smods asked:

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Filed under: The Queue

Most of the beta screenshots we've been getting fall into one of three categories: landscape, goblin and underwater. This picture, submitted by Adelis of <Tribe> on Sunstrider (EU-H), is a good example of the latter. "While swimming around in Vashj'ir, Adelis suddenly realized that payback had come for all those times she had teased fish in fishbowls," she writes.

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Want to see your own screenshot here? Send it to aroundazeroth@wow.com. We strongly prefer full-sized pictures with no UI or names showing. Please include "Azeroth" in the subject line so your email doesn't get marked as spam, and include your name, guild and server if you want to be credited.

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Filed under: Around Azeroth

Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host, Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus, is on vacation. Today, Allison Robert pens advice concerning recruitment policy that you would probably be better off not reading.

Unlike Dawn, I did not consult Matt Low prior to writing this article, because he would have told me to quit screwing around and write something helpful. I think we can all agree this serves as an important lesson to all WoW.com columnists -- namely, going on vacation leaves your column to the mercy of people like me.

Healers, like nuclear fission, are prone to instability and drama. This is perhaps understandable because the rest of the guild holds us responsible for the collapse of fishery stocks, split infinitives and the raid's survival through enormously stupid gameplay. Because we exert an equivalent amount of influence and control over all three issues, pressure eventually builds to the point where we crack and start screaming obscenities at the height of the raid hour, or else sit at our computers muttering to ourselves, oblivious to the stares of nearby friends who make a mental note to refill the Percocet when they are next in town.

So. As this process inevitably consumes most of your healing team, it will eventually become necessary to recruit. Healer recruitment is a process fraught with danger and heartbreak, as it involves the repeated casting of one's line into Yoohoo Lake in the hopes of fishing up the least terminally incompetent player therein. Officers are subsequently obliged to make distinctions between different applicants, some of whom may be legitimately crazy and nearly all of whom are lying in some respect.

The following guide should prove useful to any player who wants to know when someone can be comfortably incorporated into an existing healing team, and when an applicant should be shuffled in the direction of the nearest KFC selling two-piece and a curb stomp.

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Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Priest, Shaman, Raid Rx (Raid Healing)

This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com.

We're all getting ready for Deathwing and his sundering of the world by raiding the last few bosses of ICC, jumping into the Ruby Sanctum and beating it until it turns into a broken loot box, and leveling our alts. I, for one, have been focusing on the latter. My 80s are geared appropriately for the level 80-85 zones that are coming in Cataclysm, and I believe I'm pretty well prepared. I have enough gear to get into ICC hard mode runs to pass the time if I get really bored, but other than that, I'm focusing on leveling my baby shaman and paladin in preparation for Cataclysm and the old world changes.

If you're not doing any of that, then you're probably hitting one of the game's many meta-games. Gold farming, achievement grinding, rep grinding, mount grinding ... pretty much any kind of grinding there is to be done is a popular option in the calm before the Cataclysm. A huge gold pool to work with when you reach 85 is going to give any type of player an upper hand -- casuals, hardcore raiders, hardcore PvPers alike. Completing WoW's current iteration of achievements before they become Feats of Strength can increase the ever-important ego of every player, and grinding (especially old-world reps) can give you things that may become impossible to retrieve when Deathwing goes insane all over the Azeroth we all know and love.

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Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Cataclysm, Guest Posts

And we're done for tonight folks, thanks for tuning in!

The WoW.com team is streaming again tonight over on our Justin.tv channel, or you can simply watch via the embed above. Tonight Anne Stickney will be showing us the continuing adventures of Lunchmeat the human hunter accompanied by her trusty wolf Spam, playing through Elwynn Forest, Westfall and beyond!

We have no scheduled end time for this particular stream; Anne will just go as long as she pleases. Pop some popcorn, pull up a chair and enjoy. We're also in the chat channel over there if you want to drop by and say hello!

Filed under: Cataclysm

Welcome to the Wednesday edition of Spiritual Guidance, hosted by Fox Van Allen, consort to the shadows. Don't mind any distracting grunting you hear coming from under the floor boards. Dawn Moore isn't buried alive underneath there, I promise. She just needed to take today off. You know. For ... um ... I dunno, I think she's one of the Hollywood Squares this week. Who cares, whatever, she's gone.

Oh, hello shadow priests. Please come in. Shut the door behind you.

Have a seat. We need to talk.

I've been hearing rumors on wowpopular.com about your top major glyph choices, and frankly, I'm concerned. It's telling me that the Glyph of Shadow Word: Pain is the most popular for shadow priests. Madness! And my god, are you really casting Flash Heal that often that you want to glyph for it?

Look, look, it's okay. It's not your fault. You're the victim here. You chose what you thought was a good glyph, and it's been letting you down. I can help.

After the break, we're going to run down the list of the top ten most popular shadow priest glyphs and pick them apart, one by one. Hopefully, in the process, we can get rid of your cookie cutter build and find you a great new set of glyphs that matches your play style.

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Filed under: Priest, (Priest) Spiritual Guidance

The latest Cataclysm screenshot from Blizzard is shown above. There was some consternation yesterday about a Twilight joke. I apologize for that, and instead offer up today's image, or a brunette nearby apples. At night, in a neckbaring dress.

If you've missed any of the previous Cataclysm screenshots of the day or you want to see a high-res version of today's image, check out the gallery below.

Filed under: Cataclysm

The Classifieds brings you weekly news from around the WoW community, including our famous Random Acts of Uberness.

While we at WoW.com are hard at work puzzling out the latest round of changes from the Cataclysm beta, we've got something for you to puzzle over as well: a "Where in the World of Warcraft?" crossword puzzle from The Puzzle Hub. This one's themed around places throughout Azeroth, Outland and Northrend. If that mind-bender strikes your fancy, there's a "Who in the World of Warcraft?" version, too. Thanks for the tip, Benji -- these look they'll most assuredly help keep our minds off the agony of watching beta test class changes scritching and scratching back and forth.

Let's crack open The Classifieds ...

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Filed under: Guilds, The Classifieds

The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

Last week we talked about the Old Gods, both ones we know as of right now and ones we can speculate upon come the Cataclysm. This week, we turn an unblinking gaze upon the master of unblinking gazes, the Old God that has arguably the most direct impact upon all of Azeroth. Not only did it indirectly create the nerubians and directly altered the qiraji into their modern form, not only did it battle a Titan to a standstill, but its connection to the Twilight's Hammer and their demented leader Cho'gall means that even during the upcoming Cataclysm, the consequences of its actions are unfolding.

Most interestingly, this Old God did not even have a name until its own creations gave it one.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Lore, Know your Lore, Cataclysm

Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the rogue class. This week, we discuss one of the least-appreciated rogue abilities, Expose Armor. I took the above screenshot by pushing one of two Expose Armor macros I have.

One of the most common complaints that I hear from the rogue community is that we don't provide enough useful buffs to make ourselves worth taking to a raid. The rumor was originally true; in fact, rogues had a bad reputation for actually knocking off important debuffs when there used to be a limit. I remember my raid leader using the CT_Raid addon to look for Phantom Blades and Gutgore Rippers, then kicking anyone wielding them. We were the simple rogues, brought to stab our enemies and soak up any leather gear that dropped.

Times have changed. Both of the popular PvE rogue specs now possess a critical raid debuff. Mutilate has the fairly common Master Poisoner critical strike chance debuff, which is brought by a few other DPS specs as well. Combat, however, has the fairly unique Savage Combat debuff, which we share with arms-specced warriors alone. Since arms warriors aren't exactly common in the high-end raiding game, we're essentially the only way to pick up that serious boost. Add in the fact that Tricks of the Trade is often glyphed to provide maximum uptime, and we've actually got one of the better buffs in the game as well. All of this doesn't even include our most beneficial raid ability by far.

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Filed under: Rogue, (Rogue) Encrypted Text