With todays news that Hemorrhage is being buffed yet again in the latest build of patch 2.3, I'm getting more and more excited to take out my old rogue character and use my favorite ability again. Back in the days before The Burning Crusade I used to enjoy using Hemo to succeed as a rogue in PvP when latency and casual gear would have left me at a bad disadvantage otherwise. Hemo was just strong enough that it gave me a real chance at success sometimes, and all the other buffs to stealth in the Subtlety tree made me feel like a real rogue sneaking around and stunlocking people, rather than a warrior without the heavy armor, or a backstabber who could never seem to get behind anyone or crit often enough to kill things.

Once The Burning Crusade was released, I felt terribly disappointed to learn that there were few if any more very slow main-hand weapons at the new level cap. Today there are still very few with a 2.7 weapon speed, and even fewer with 2.8, which, before the expansion, was really the minimum weapon speed you needed to start making use of Hemo successfully. This is because Hemo is not "nomalized" like other abilities; it does progressively more damage the more time passes between weapon swings. With only one high-level 2.9 speed weapon in the game (and that a legendary), and all 2.8-speeds being either too low-level to be useful or to far out of my reach to attain, I feared my preferred playstyle would be dead and useless by the time my rogue reached 70.

But now I'm not so sure. I still don't know why Blizzard didn't add more slow weapons like they used to have in the old days, but I'm hoping these buffs to Hemo will make up for the loss, both in raids and in PvP. Still, I'm hardly the best rogue theorycrafter out there. Are any of you good mathematicians able to speak authoritatively on whether this change is enough to raise Hemo from the dead?

Serennia, a gnomish warrior on Tichondrius, believes that the changes to druid shape-shifting [shown in the video clip above] in patch 2.3 make it too easy for druids to get out of snares without being caught in their vulnerable caster form. She puts it very eloquently:

In 2.3, druids can shift from any form to any form (ie cat to bear; bear to travel, etc) without having to enter human form. But, it gets worse, they can shift from the same form to the same form also (bear to bear). Why is this significant? It's basically a free snare removal without ever having to expose themself in human form, making it much more difficult for anyone to kill them. It still costs them mana to do it, yes, but it's an easy trade-off for never being locked in caster form with no armor anymore to get away from a melee. So much for those well-timed caster-form kidney shots, right?

Druids needed help in 5v5 with a bit better caster form survivability, and they got that with the new Natural Perfection changes and a bit more utility. However, they did NOT need to be even harder to kill with this short-sighted change. Melee might as well not even attempt to catch a good druid anymore, and well, casters never could to begin with.

She says that this may or may not be what Blizzard was intending when they decided to go ahead with this change, but for my part, I think it's a buff druids really need, especially feral ones, who are likely to get the most use out of insta-shifting between forms. I've said before that, although restoration druids enjoy a lot of success in PvP, it's very hard for many feral druids, and personally, I think this sort of mobility can help make up for other areas where the druid is not as strong, and can provide more synergy between the druid's different forms and abilities without some of the risks that made this synergy impractical before. What do you think?

Welcome everyone to this week's edition of Ask WoW Insider, where we throw your questions out to the wisdom of crowds. Last week we looked at how to approach PuGs when everyone can see your spec in one click, and this week we have another talent-related question. David wants to know if there are any truly great builds that are highly viable in both PvP and PvE:

I'm on my second re-roll and finally have my character to 70, fairly well geared and have found myself in the exact same position as before... My PvE 5-man spec is entirely unsuitable for raids, or PVP, my raid spec is unsuitable for soloing or PvP, and my PvP spec is useless outside of BGs and Arenas! I was previously a Warrior, who needs to be Prot for tanking but Arms/Fury for Arena and I at least only had to bounce between two specs. Now I'm a Mage, and I have to consider bouncing between THREE specs to be what everyone expects me to be if I expect to be competitve!

I know the common answer is "suck it up and pay to respec whenever you want to do whatever you want to do" because dailies give out so much free money, but this doesn't work for my mage with however many hundreds of gold and hours of work put into getting my Frozen Shadoweave set. The problem is, I rolled a mage for the exclusive purpose of not HAVING to fill two roles with one character and not having to respec every time I wanted to branch out and experience multiple aspects of the game.

So, my question is this: Is there any class+spec out there, that is equally effective and in demand for 5-man instances, raids, solo play and PvP?

You heard the man -- what's your answer? How do you find a balance between PvP and PvE-oriented specs, and how do you maximize your ability to enjoy all the types of content you want to enjoy without spending a fortune respeccing every 5 minutes?

We know you've got questions, and Ask WoW Insider wants 'em! Send us your queries at ask AT wowinsider DOT com.

Thank you for all your comments on my first blog entry! Yes, PvP is indeed a volatile topic to write about, and I fully expect some of you to disagree passionately with me. I constantly seek to pull information, and opinions from a wide range of sources and players, so that we can all make better sense of this ever-changing beast we all love called PvP. I do not know it all - and I suspect nobody does - we can all learn something through this exchange of ideas.

"Nerf warlocks!"

A familiar refrain in the forums, in general chat, and even in guild chat. So familiar that OP has almost become an affectionate term for warlocks. But can anyone remember a time when people believed that Blizzard employees all played class x and when the prevailing QQ in the community was "Nerf class x!"?

Have you ever thought that a certain class was 'so madly imba' that you wished the devs would fix it immediately, especially after you've been mauled by that class?

The idea of 'balance' is seductive - imagine WoW where you walk into every fight confident that your character can beat any opponent. Is balance really about that? Is balance achievable? Even if we get it, do we, as players, really want it?

Patch day comes and with every nerf and/or buff, we assume that the devs are trying to reach that nirvana of Perfect Balance. Why is Blizzard happy with a rock-paper-scissors model? Wouldn't everyone be happier if there was Perfect Balance?

Big changes are coming to the Alterac Valley battleground in patch 2.3, and, as is often the case with these things, players are already expressing their discontent. Nethaera responded to a thread on the official forums yesterday in order to address such complaints. She reminded everyone that the developers are currently monitoring the changes to AV and are tweaking the honor earned in order to keep the overall gain as similar as possible to the current rate on the live realms.

The most interesting part of her post, of course, regards a change being implemented regarding the mechanics of capturing a mine. When a mine is captured by a player, his or her team will be awarded a steady stream of reinforcements. According to Neth, the capturing team will receive about one reinforcement every forty-five seconds or so. Since I haven't played the new AV on the PTR, it's difficult for me to develop an opinion on this change. What do you think?

Update: Blizzard poster Salthem has posted a few more details of the change to the mines.

Drysc confirms that the 75k honor cap isn't going away, in response to a post on the forums discussing the situation. Since I'm doing it myself, I know full well that a lot of posters are hoarding honor so that they can buy the Season 1 Arena gear as soon as it comes out for the honor system. Drysc points out that with 75,000 honor it's possible to buy the entire armor set whereas the arena is capped much lower, comparatively, and while in the past I've found myself disagreeing with him on this issue we're in synch. If anything, the honor cap is a bit too generous.

Honor hoarding for future gear isn't seen as a big problem by Blizzard right now. I would think one of the reasons for that is because they know that the honor cap will keep people from going too insane when the arena gear comes out, and that if the cap wasn't in place then they might well impose a lower one. I'm fairly sure that a whole lot of people are grinding various battlefields with Season Three in mind: I've been running a few arenas and am planning on getting more heavily involved once my wife's hunter has the patch behind it and we can form a 2x2 team. I also know that long-tern arena players are going to sneer at our gear and wipe the floor with us, since they've worked a lot harder to get their season 2 and (eventually) 3 gear and I'll be walking around with stuff I got from running a bunch of AV's. Of course, the goal in starting a 2x2 is that I hope to improve upon that, and I want to use the S1 gear as a base, not as my end goal, but I still don't imagine that folks who have been running the arenas for the past two seasons are particularly impressed by the complaints about the honor cap.

What do you think? Too low, too generous, what's your opinion about the honor cap?

Edited to add: because folks have asked and it seems pretty relevant, here's our previous post on Season 1 gear available for honor, with links to MMO-Champion. The weapons are included, not just the armor.

Although this is a bit disappointing, it is hardly unexpected, and there are so many upcoming positive changes that it's hard to be a sad panda for long. Currently, the devs are focused on improving Alterac Valley for patch 2.3 and creating new content for WotLK, which will include an outdoor PvP zone, Lake Wintergrasp. Following in the wake of Halaa's undeniable success, this zone will boast siege warfare, and many other innovations in world PvP.

As for what the new battleground will be like? I'd still love to see an Aldor vs. Scryers battleground; and as much as we all love to see new content drop, we can at least try to satiate ourselves knowing that what we will be getting will continue to advance PvP as we know it. Now; a little less sad panda face please!

A gentleman by the name of Rokhazulu from the guild Sociopath on the Smolderthorn server wrote a post on the general forums this morning that caught my attention.

In his thread titled "World of Carebearcraft", Mr. Rokhazulu cries out to his listeners, extolling the virtues of faction-based player versus player combat that "made Warcraft such a great strategy game for the generations." Mr. Rokhazulu seems to feel that even though the PvP feature is present in World of Warcraft, the PvP spirit is definitely not present.

I know lots of people who PvP. I know lots of people who literally live in battlegrounds. If I'm reading this right, what Rokhazulu wants is violence and carnage. He wants active rivalry and hostility between the two main factions and immersive world PvP.

Checking the server list, I find that Smolderthorn is indeed a PvP server. Are the PvP servers becoming carebear-infested wastelands? Are PvP players becoming – no pun intended – a dying breed? Do you think world PvP in World of Warcraft is viable as it is now? What do you think can be done to improve it?

Patch 2.3: the patch that just keeps on alternately disappointing and bringing joy to the player community. Apparently, the staggering 4000 honor that had been previously reported to be the reward of the new daily battleground quest was a typo, of the "extra zero" variety. The correct reward is 400 honor, still up from its original value of 200:

It's off by a factor of 10. Battleground Daily quest bonus honor is supposed to be equivalent to 20 player kills at your level, ie 400 honor at level 70. (Drysc)

The new Priest talent Focused Will, reported yesterday, is going to be redesigned, so don't bother commenting on it in its current state. This is a good thing, because as far as I know no-one really liked the talent they proposed that much.

We wanted you to know that we're going to be redesigning the new discipline talent, focused will, so please hold off on providing further feedback on the ability until the new version is announced and/or it's pushed to the public test realms. The goal of the talent will still focus on survivability. (Eyonix)

The intention of this talent is provide an alternative to the holy talent, blessed resilience, so the priest who desires a talent of this nature has more than one option, adding more flexibility to the talent choices they make leading up to either. (Eyonix)

And finally, the changed-up Shaman Elemental tree is under much scrutiny from the dev team at the moment:

Though not the best thread to plug this into give what was provided, I'd like to state that we are looking into this [Elemental] quite extensively at the moment. (Eyonix)

A few posts hit the forums today discussing the upcoming changeover between season two and season three. Although it has not been announced exactly when season three will start, it will, apparently, be sometime around the release of patch 2.3 (which makes sense, given the PvP item changes we've been seeing on the PTR):

Season 3 should start around the same time as patch 2.3 is released, but please keep in mind that season 3 may not start on the same date the patch is launched.

We have said that were planning to give a two weeks notice on the start of season 3, which still holds true. If there are any changes on this plan, we will let you know. (Vaneras)

The interesting thing here is that they say season three will be roughly simultaneous with patch 2.3, and they will give two weeks notice before the start of season three. Does this mean we'll have two weeks notice before 2.3 is released? One can only hope, although it is historically improbable for Blizzard to give a patch ETA that's more than a few days away.

The first poll on the official WoW forums was mentioned on WoW Insider when it was posted a few weeks ago, but since then a few more polls have been created. While one of them is obviously just for fun, the other two are more interesting.

When asked "What is your favorite arena?" the Ring of Trials in Nagrand won out as everyone's favorite with 46.3% of the votes. The Ruins of Lordaeron received second place with a tally of 25.14% of the votes. While I didn't vote in this particular poll, my choices would have matched these results.

Admittedly, I'm pretty much a noob to the arena. Like many other players, I mostly just get my ten matches a week to scrape up enough points for some welfare epics. Probably due to this fact, I dislike the Blade's Edge arena. The ramps, pillars, ropes and bridge create a lot of variables during an already hectic fight which can lead to panic, confusion and ultimately an inglorious defeat. Even more inglorious than normal, that is. Also, this arena in particular makes it more difficult for stealthy types (my 2v2 team is composed of a rogue and druid) to get the drop on their foes because the narrow catwalk makes a convenient place for an opposing team to make a stand with their AoE and stealth detection. What are your thoughts on the poll? Do they match the results?

Yesterday a new build of patch 2.3 went live on the PTRs, and while the blues don't seem to have updated the patch notes, World of Raids has the full scoop on the changes. Here's what's new:

• 5 new PvP trinkets, available for 30k honor plus 40 AV marks from the honor vendors, or for 75 Badges of Justice from G'eras (man, that guy's item list is getting long).
  
• A new Priest talent in Discipline, called Focused Will (see screenshot). It sits right next to Power Infusion, and has no specific prerequisite.
• The Retribution Paladin season 3 arena set, Gladiator's Vindication, has had its spell damage stats replaced with physical damage stats.
• The Restoration Druid season 3 arena set, Gladiator's Refuge, has had its recently-added spirit reverted back to mp5.
• "The new pvp daily quest now rewards 11g99s and 4192 honor (up from about 2000) Edit: this was a typo, apparently on Blizzard's part. The actual reward is 400 honor, but it no longer rewards marks of honor."
• Zul'Aman's starting event "improved"
• It is no longer possible to have both a PvP title and a PvE title at the same time.
• The fish-tracking manual has been found (fished up), as well as an item that starts a (currently bugged) fishing quest.
• Many ZA weapons and armor pieces have been recolored.

For more details on all of this, bounce on over to World of Raids. What do you guys think of Focused Will? It looks a little weak to me for being that deep in the tree (not to mention its name is distractingly similar to Force of Will). Obviously a PvP talent. Arena fiends, will you be taking it?

Between Arenas, V'Ming, aka Vims, spends his time as a 70 affliction lock feeling OP in AV, soaking arcane damage from the Curator and enslaving Olm's doggies.

Sometime in August, an LFM call was made from the rooftops of WoW Insider. I wrote in, pitching the idea of an Arena-centric column. The good people at WoW Insider liked what I had to offer – so here I am, the new kid on the blog!

I've been playing this game since May '05; ventured into DM North way too many times for the Rod of the Ogre Magi (in vain), then took a break from the game when I decided that 40-man raids weren't for me. I returned in a big way when Burning Crusade hit. Besides WoW – yes, there are other games – I've dabbled in DDO, Guild Wars, and even Saga of Ryzom. I've also been a player of Magic the Gathering for a couple of years, and have given the WoW TCG a spin, as a Gnome Rogue.

No, I did not grind to High Warlord, nor am I part of Power Trip. What I offer in this column is an experienced player's perspective of the Arena game – the theorycraft behind matchups, how to prepare for it, things to consider while going at it, and learning from the best in the business. Let's dive into the most basic of PvP encounters: 1v1.

The Care and Feeding of Warriors is being written right now on about 2 hours of sleep because Matthew Rossi has discovered the joy of introducing a new cat into a home that already has one. Oh, it's delightful, let me tell you, to listen to the high pitched shrieks of welcome and to constantly have to take part in the ritual greeting of cats, which apparently is where Blizzard got the idea for the Rogue class' Blade Flurry ability. Seriously, you haven't lived until your arms have been covered in scratches while two cats beat each other up like it's Marvin Hagler weekend and Sugar Ray Leonard just crashed it.

What defines the warrior class?

Is it poorly made PvP videos of big mortal strike crits with loud nu metal playing in the background? You know the ones, that conveniently edit out all the times you spend running away death coiled or the twenty seconds you spent as a sheep while your healer discovered a whole new and very painful definition of 'two for the price of one'. No, any class can make a bad video.

Is it big weapons? Sword and board? Good fury DPS? Let's look at this another way. What's the first thing other people complain about when they think of warriors?

"You shouldn't be able to do that and wear plate."

Even though paladins wear it too, and I'm sure they have to put up with their own version of the lament, since this is the column about warriors I'm going to discuss it from our side. Plate. It's what we get at level 40 that sets us apart from rogues, enhancement shamans, druids, not to mention those guys in dresses. Plate is where our high armor scores come from. Plate is one of the signature elements of the class.

Plate really is good for one thing, ultimately, and that's PvE damage mitigation on melee mobs. Combined with a shield it can allow a warrior to take more of a beating than anyone except a druid or paladin, but in PvP the high armor rating is much less useful against anyone, between armor penetration abilities like Expose Armor or Faerie Fire and the fact that unless you've decided to stack resistance gear, you're more or less naked to a caster. (And if you do PvP in resist gear, I admire your willingness to try and kill a warlock with 800 AP, if not your common sense.) The fact that Season Three of Arena gear seems to be stacking on the armor penetration as well means that any possibility of armor inflation is being kept to a minimum there as well.

Level 70 Elite Tauren guards (not to be confused with L70ETC) have been stationed outside Zul'Aman on the test server. I agree with Elizabeth that the race choice makes no sense, but according to CM Nethaera, the guards (in some form) are there to stay.

This is, of course, in response to the overwhelming complaints from Alliance players that have to go to Horde territory in order to try out the new instance.

Nethaera also says that they will be implementing a Contested Area around Zul'Aman to further alleviate the unbridled ganking currently occuring there. She says that in the past, they could only flag entire zones as contested, but now they have the ability to change the PvP status of just an area within a zone. This change will be implemented on the PTR first before coming to live servers.

They are also going to be surrounding other instances with contested areas, such as the Scarlet Monastery. Unfortunately for the Alliance players currently trying to farm the Headless Horseman, this change will come a bit late. But maybe it will be implemented in time for next year's event.

Players have been voicing concerns about changing the areas in lowbie zones to contested. How will it affect the level 10s trying to quest around these new contested areas?