Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly source for news, guides, tips and opinions on the death knight class.

Our adventures in beta continue, as promised, with a new zone and a new spec. With Hyjal behind us, the next logical zone to head to is Deepholm, and such is where I headed, after a suitably epic breadcrumb quest sequence. My spec was dual wield frost.

Just to give you an idea of where I'm coming from with this testing, I should note that I have been equipping quest rewards if they're itemized for death knight usage, even if they're downgrades, in order to get an idea of how much survivability and damage potential your average casual death knight will have.

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Filed under: Death Knight, (Death Knight) Lichborne, Cataclysm

I am of the opinion that the tuskarr are hiding something sinister, something malevolent and something dangerous. I am of the opinion that the leaders of the Kalu'ak, Elders Ko'nani, Muahit and Atuik, are in fervent service to their patron Loa and harbor (get it?) a dangerous, deep, abiding and protective nature towards the sea. The sea is the most sacred thing to the Kalu'ak people, and they will do anything and make any deal to protect it.

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Filed under: Breakfast Topics

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. The big news this week has the been the beta test of the new patch process and launcher, which allows you to play even when your patch is only partially done. I've tried it out myself, and I must say, it's quite a feeling logging into Acherus to see nothing but the Eastern Plaguelands spread out below you for miles as the hold itself shifts into being around you. It's sort of crazy. Still, I imagine most of the time I'll just wait for the download to finish.

There is, of course, plenty of other news to catch up on. If you're waiting out this morning's rolling restarts, why not check and see if you missed anything from the past few days? Our usual roundup awaits after the break.

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Filed under: Realm Status, News items

The latest Cataclysm screenshot from Blizzard is above. It's underwater. These are some of the most beautiful colors I've seen.

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

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

Icecrown Citadel has been out for eightmonths now, and with the availability of i264 emblem gear and the 30 percent zone buff, it's become accessible to raiders with a wide range of experience. Some players have downed the bosses 100+ times on various alts, and other players may be just starting out.

Regardless of your experience level, there are always interesting tricks about the fights that people learn over the course of time. Here are 32 of them.

• Warlocks, time your Seed of Corruption to hit as Bone Spike cast ends, and if everyone's stacked correctly in melee range, you'll be top damage on Bone Spikes.
• During Bone Storm casts, tanks should run to be farthest away from center of raid. Some 90 percent of the time, he'll target the farthest person away to move to.
• Any time you have to split your DPS into two groups (whether it's Thaddius or adds on Lady D or Valithria), an easy way to get balance is to go through Recount by damage done and put Nos. 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15 on damage done on one side and the rest on the other side.
• Spellsteal or Purge the Vampiric Might on fanatics.
• Boomkin rooting for Darnavan works especially well, but note that he's immune to Cyclone.

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Filed under: Raiding, Guest Posts

I pretty much fell in love with my current guild the moment I joined it. In the six (nearly seven now, isn't it?) years I've been playing World of Warcraft, I've belonged to very, very few guilds, and there's a reason for that -- once I find one I like, I stick with it. Despite belonging to only a handful of guilds in my WoW lifetime, I've run the gamut from casual to hardcore raiding to RP to casual raiding. Each guild was run a little differently, and each guild had its own methods of recruiting. Today we've got a handful of posts about guilds:

• Hots and Dots has an oldie but goodie: 10 tips to successfully apply to a raiding guild.
• Tastes Like Battle Chicken gives us a list of 5 things you should know before you app.
• World of Matticus has some words of wisdom when a raider is not a team member.
• Lastly, Bible of Dreams talks about leaving your guild without burning bridges.

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Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we should be following? Just leave us a comment, and you may see it here tomorrow! Be sure to check out our WoW Resources Guide for more WoW-related sites.

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Filed under: The Daily Quest

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

Roblinator may not work for the Venture Company, but this sure shows that the rest of the goblins aren't exactly environment-friendly. Putting rockets on chickens seems a bit irresponsible.

Poll results

• In a dead heat, elemental edged out enhancement for Shockbroker, by a nose.
• Prupher will be questing like the wind.
• The votes for a PvP event were for Gurubashi Beatdown, but Milanor's suggestion of Pirates vs. Ninjas seems rather popular. In fact, I won't repoll it. So start collecting Deviate Fish, adventurers. Expect this event in the very near future.

Schedule

• Adam Holisky as Adammentat, the level 56 tauren druid, will be on Monday at 10 p.m. EDT
• Anne Stickney as Annephora, the level 42 troll warrior, will be on Tuesday at 1 a.m. EDT (which is Monday at 11 p.m. Zangarmarsh time)
• Robin Torres as Roblinator the goblin huntress: Wednesday, 11 p.m. EDT
• Amy Schley as Patent, the level 24 troll rogue: Thursday, 10 p.m. EDT
• Lisa Poisso as Prupher the proofreading druid: Thursday, 10 p.m. EDT
• Fox Van Allen as Foxlight, the level 22 blood elf paladin: Friday, 8 p.m. EDT
• Michael Sacco as Shockbroker, the goblin shaman; Christian Belt, as Selfloathius, the level 16 blood elf warlock; Elizabeth Harper as Faience, the level 24 troll shaman; Matthew Rossi as Andrenorton, the level 17 troll mage; Michael Gray as Grayfields, the level 17 tauren hunter; and Gregg Reece as Sandwichdoc, the level 16 troll shaman, will be making appearances as they can.

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Please join us on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H) in <It came from the Blog>. Guild ranks of "Blog Lurker" or above can invite, so /whisper Robiness or any online member. You are all welcome as long as you play by our simple rules -- basically, don't be a funsucker! Visit the guild FAQ for more details.

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

Bloody tears stream from the eyes of the hopelessly insane, huddled silently in wait and separated from reality by the voices echoing within their minds. The whispers speak their names in bidding, and the horror lies not in their sinister calling but in knowledge of a dreaded fate if a summon were to go unanswered. This is the life, and death, of enslaved demons, warlock minions, and the Blood Pact they dare not deny their masters.

The darkest of salutations, warlocks.

Monday is upon us. You know what that means, don't you? It is time to check your kill quotas for the month, browse the local newspapers for a fine selection of newborn baby announcements (aka dinner plans) and peruse the obituary section for mage funerals to attend, corpses to desecrate and mourners to cast into mage heaven (read: a Celine Dion concert, aka warlock hell) with their fallen brethren. I hear that Julia Sunstriker is going to meet a timely, explosive, bright and violent death soon. It would be a pity to miss that party, wouldn't it?

But before we get too far ahead of ourselves with images of pain and our pleasure, Mondays also mean that we have class matters to attend to. And with the incoming Cataclysm on the not-so-distant horizon, we are going to continue processing the goodness that a lucky few of us are witnessing in the beta.

Last week, we spent a great deal of energy and saliva lusting over the devilishly delicious talents placed into the affliction tree -- I am still recovering from the loss of fluids. This week, we're going to switch specs and dissect, discuss, devour and digest the key changes made for those master summoners among us, the demonology warlocks. Needless to say, there will be what some may consider spoilers ahead, so if you're the type that wants to experience every detail of the expansion as a virgin and first hand, be careful where you click. That giant "Read more" is probably something you should stay away from.

Those of you who are yearning for more, you may want to grab some food and drink for sustenance and have a mop and bucket ready for easy cleanup, because this is going to get nasty -- in a good kind of way, of course.

Ready? Good. Let's press on.

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Filed under: Warlock, News items, (Warlock) Blood Pact, Cataclysm

Every Monday evening, WoW.com brings you a long list of WoW podcasts that were published the week (and weekend) before. If you don't see your favorite podcast listed, just let us know in the comments. Be sure to leave a link to it, and we'll pick it up next week.

All podcasts and content belong to their owners. WoW.com is not responsible for what you hear, and some of the content may not be safe for work.

• All Things Azeroth UndeadOnARaptorOnARocketOnASharkWithLaser EPIC!
  
• Blue Plz! Episode 26
  
• The Instance Hide Ya Kids! Hide Ya Wife!
  

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Filed under: Weekly Podcast Roundup

As alluded to in other sound files data-mined from the Cataclysm beta, traitors from the Horde and the Alliance are defecting from their respective factions to the new Twilight's Hammer cult. Previously, the identities of these traitors have remained unknown, but new sound files indicate we just might know now who is turning away from their own. Spoilers and sound clips after the jump.

WARNING: This post contains spoilers about the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion Cataclysm. Do not read further if you do not wish to be spoiled on major plot points.

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Filed under: Lore, Cataclysm