Hello and welcome to the Sunday Service here at the St Metzen Cathedral of Dalaran, I will be your magely spiritual guide as we take a look at some of the blogs from our wonderful community this week.  So without further ado, let us have some readings from the congregation.

General

The Grumpy Elf is spreading the Good News, the good news being that WoW has lost another 800,000 subscribers.  Of course The Grumpy Elf goes on to explain exactly why that is good news when you bother to look at the big picture.

Zellviren at Piercing Howl asks you to repent your evil ways or be banished from Azeroth forever.  Taking what appears to be a slightly elitist tone which I'm usually against, Zellviren goes on to explain why it is better for you to learn how to play your class than it is for Blizzard to nerf the content to accommodate your low skill level.  Zellviren took a lot of flak for posting a rather frank and honest opinion but I must admit, the case is argued well although addendums in the comments are more accurate that perhaps you should be banished from the raid progression group rather than the whole of Azeroth lol.

Gazimoff from Mana Obscura has an important reading regarding the great unknown, specifically the Unknown Warcraft Subscriber and how that unknown makes hypotheses of the factors for a decline in WoW subscriber numbers something akin to subjective opinion rather than fact supported objective analysis.

Stubborn at Sheep the Diamond returns us to an Age of Innocence and asks at what point do we lose our innocence in an MMO.  Let he hath not theorycrafted cast the first stone.

Mage

Vidyala at Manalicious has been exceptionally busy this week with not one, not two, but three readings prepared for us.  Hallelujah as some of my less reserved American counterparts might say.  Sometimes it feels as though it is easier to get a camel through the eye of a needle than it is to get into a decent raiding guild, well not when you have Vidyala's excellent advice on How To Get Into That Heroic Raiding Guild You've Always Wanted.  I think the title explains it all there.  Vidyala also asks us to watch out for our Arcane Brethren, and let them not follow the flock to the falsely prophesied cookie cutter spec like so many other sheep.  Finally Vidyala has kindly agreed to head this year's Winter Dance committee for the parish and has provided a list of suitable attire for Mages attending this year when Patch 4.3 is released. Vidyala is also in charge of tea and cookies after the service.

PvP

Finally, this parish is only too aware of conflict in Azeroth.  That's Cynwise at Cynwise's Battlefield Manual wants us all to be prepared for when the next Arena season starts and has prepared a handy guide for all the parishioners.

Well that concludes this week's service, I do hope you will all join us again next week.  This week we will close with the traditional prayer:

Our Metzen, who art at Blizzard

Hallowed be thy buffs

Your nerfs will come, your class balance done

In Lordaeron as they are in Kalimdor

Give us this day our Daily Quests

And forgive us our QQs

As we have also forgiven the ninjas

And lead us not into temptaion

But deliver us from gold sellers

For thine is the MMO, the power and the Nerf Mallet

Forever and ever

Amen

Runz and Tuek delve into the PTR for a preview of how transmogrifac... transmigran... transfusi... how changing the appearance of your gear will work in Patch 4.3 and offers some frank discussion on void storage and how the whole process works.

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As always leave a comment and some love XD

Probably need to start adding a new category such as news for posts like this (Patch notes, Dev Q&As etc etc) and maybe get a shiney news scroller or something.  Not sure yet, but def thhinking the site could do with a little bit of a revamp.  Let me know what you guys think, anyhoo on with the post.

So what with the recent Developer's Q&A and the news that Arena Season 10 could be ending as early as next week, I thought a timely Mage News post was in order.  Well as timely as I get anyway XD

End Of PvP Season

Blizzard recently announced that Season 10 of Arena (and Rated BGs) could be ending as early as Tuesday 15 November (UPDATE: Blizzard have confirmed that Arena Season 10 will end on 29 November).  I emphasised the could because it is not yet set in stone; there is still testing on Dragon Soul ongoing on the PTR and I imagine the date for 4.3 will largely be dependent on quite how much tweaking Blizzard needs to do to get it right but either way the season will be ending soon and 4.3 is likely to drop either in late November or early December (SPECULATION: The patch usually drops about a week after the end of the Arena season, so we can reasonably expect Patch 4.3 on or about the 06 December).  Personally I'm going with MMO Melting Pot's prediction of early December as a tactical decision to gazump the release of Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Anyway, I digress and the point is that it's time to start bringing your PvP gear purchases and Arena matches to a close and getting prepared to stockpile your honour points for the next set of honour gear.

If you aren't familiar with the way the new PvP season gear works and you want to give Rated Battlegrounds and Arena a try next season it's important to remember the following; next season's Honour Gear will be of a higher item level than this season's Conquest Gear.  Sure it will still be called Ruthless Gear, but it'll be Ruthless Gear Season 11 and you will find that even the best geared PvP'ers of this season will be grinding out honour to afford the lowest gear (outside of crafted) of next season.  Those few extra stat points can mean the difference between victory and death within the dreaded Arena.

So how do we prepare? Join me after the break to find out and also have a look at the Dev's Q&A about Mages.

Late on the 05 Nov, MMO Champion announced that Patch 4.3 was available on the Blizzard Background Downloader.  Now that doesn't mean that the patch is ready for release right now, or even in the immediate future (Dragon Soul is only just open for testing), but it does mean that several static elements that aren't likely to get changed, things such as the location of the new transmogrification, void storage and reforger vendors in Orgrimmar and Stormwind.  It does also provide a very timely reminder that we are very likely reaching the end of Arena Season 10 and I thought it was time to give you a little update on my PvP adventures.

You may remember back in June this year I wrote about getting into arena, and in particular the Arena Realm Tournament, something I had never before done as I'd always been a bit of a PvP noob and was much more focused on endgame progression raiding.  However, you guys are probably also very aware of how, for the past 18 months my endgame raiding had pretty much ceased owing to the double whammy of mounting work commitments and my growing family (my two young toddlers are the most demanding taskmasters you will ever meet).  As a result I had switched a lot of my attention over to PvP because it is something that can easily be dipped in and out of on an evening rather than requiring a dedicated solid block of three hours where getting up to go pee was on a timer so I didn't miss the boss pull.  Now I can do a Battleground, then make dinner, have a quick 10 - 15 minute arena match then eat dinner and put my boys to bed, another five matches (maybe about an hours worth of time give or take a little) then settle down to watch the box with Mrs Runz (or play Portal 2, Deus Ex 3, Shogun 2 or League of Legends if I'm away working again).  I only have to co-ordinate with two other people to sort out match times so all in, PvP suits my limited playtime a lot better than scrambling for a place in raid.  I still make sure I'm up to date with all my PvE theorycrafting (see the Arcane Mage guide) and I can certainly pull my weight should I be needed to fill in for an absent DPS despite my PvE gear limitations (I still only have the chest from the current tier and the items from the Firelands dailies).

No longer do I hang around Orgrimmar waiting on the Dungeon Finder to pop or wondering what I'm to do on an evening.  Now I'm in on a Battleground, kick some butt (sometimes I kick butt but I can't blag awesomeness here as most of you have probably seen my PvP videos lol) then finish up in time for tea and medals.  Do you really want to know a dirty little secret too?  I'm finding PvP a lot more engaging than PvE raids, or least more engaging than Cataclysm's raid offerings and I would definitely go so far to say that it has made me a much better player overall.  But so many raiders are reluctant to engage in PvP beyond the occasional unrated Battleground; well I'm here to say that PvP is a rich and inherent part of the game and even if you're a PvE'er by nature there are reasons you should a least dabble in a bit of PvP action.  So let's look at some of the problems, myths and advantages with PvP. (Click on the title or the Read More button to join me after the break).