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Hey! Here's an article which (arguably) is right up my alley. Most of you know that I, in the days of 2008 and 9, was a creative writer myself. Now that I have had my time in the limelight, I think it only fair for me to bring other writers, stories, and movies to the get the same.

This article will be focused on a Machinima and one story, but the format can be changed to what I see.

Tales of the Past

This machinima, while old and on a little bit of a creative licence spree, I still saw as a really great story and a compelling one no less. Martin Falch of Denmark brought this great creation to life and I believe all 3 parts are in need of view. It is quite a long movie, so grab a bag of popcorn and hold on, for the story of Yimo, Blazer, and the Lich King. Receiving a 4.99/5 on WarcraftMovies.com as well as a proud and tearful expression from yours truly, this is definitely 3 hours of your life you can afford to waste.
Episode 1

The other two episodes of the series are also posted on youtube in sections as well as available for download on Warcraftmovies.com


Mantle of the Betrayer

Our other mention this week is Mantle of the Betrayer by ScottyB, posted in our own Creative Writing, Machinima & Lore forum.

Bringing to life the story of Achali, a druid turned demon hunter, Scotty really takes the story of Illidan to another level. Not only showing us a perspective of Illidan from one of his close friends and followers, but showing Achali that while a creature may be seen as evil, his intentions may be true. Of course, I cannot do this story justice on my own. Go over and take a look at what he cooked up.

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Hello all,
I'm a guy who wants to improve his writing. I went to college and learned how to write screenplays, but now that I'm in the real world, I'm realizing that it's never a bad thing to broaden your horizons. So I decided to participate in the Creative Writing Contest Blizzard just had; and in doing so, practice writing in literary format.
Problem is, unless I win (fingers crossed), I'm pretty sure Blizzard wont be sending me any feedback on how good it is. So, I was wondering, if anyone here gets bored during the the next server restart, I would really appreciate some feedback. It's a pretty quick read, just let me know if its good, great, or a rotten nugget of horse dung. - Don't worry, I've got thick skin, I interned in Beverly Hills.

Basically, its a short story about an apprentice trained by Illidan after he is freed from his prison in Barrow Deeps.

Thanks for your time, and enjoy!

Please feel free to contact me about your own stories, Machinimas or ones you find. I will be glad to take a look at them.

Hey guys and gals! For the vets out there, you may remember me as the resident creative corner poster. For those who aren't familiar with me, go ahead and check out my stories in the Machinima, Creative Writing and Lore board. Now I'm a content writer for the site! As a rule of thumb you can all expect tanking articles from me and some machinima and creative writing spotlights. This time around, I will give a quick perspective on the differences (or similarities) between the tanking classes.

Generally speaking, my tank articles will be pointed towards 10-mans, because that is what I am doing mostly now, but the principles can be applied to 25-man version.

The Tank
As most raiders know, being the tank is one of the three most stressful jobs in raiding. It requires preparation, patience and above all, teamwork. Having three amazing tanks doesn't do you much good if they don't talk at all and don't coordinate their movements. What is least understood about tanks by the general raid community is the strengths and weaknesses of having two or three class combinations for your tanks.

For this article, think of the Death Knight and Paladin as the "Spell Tank", considering the fact that a major portion of their threat is dealt by spell damage. Warriors and Druids fall into the "Physical Tank" category.

Generally speaking, in a raid setting, your tank setup does not matter (like Auriaya, Thorim, Twin Valkyr, and Gunship Battle). However, for certain fights, using a certain tank class (for fights such as General Vezax, Lord Jaraxxus, and Lady Deathwhisper (10)) can cause wipes for what seems to be no reason at all. In truth, these wipes are generally caused by Tank Synergy issues.

Synergy
"Professor? What is Tank Synergy?!"
Good question. As the name implies, Tank synergy is how, on the base level, certain tank classes work together, or are affected by boss mechanics. Tank synergy factors in the Tanks in question's gear, talent choice, proficiency in tanking using that class, and obviously, the class' abilities. Sometimes on certain boss encounters, using a certain combination can be fatal. In 10-mans, using a warrior+paladin setup or a druid+DK setup would be the ideal. (See chart below) But the ideal does not always happen. Sometimes you are stuck with Warrior+DK, DK+DK, Druid+Druid, etc. Each class has their strengths and weaknesses, displayed in the chart below.

	Strengths	Weaknesses
Death Knight	able to tank with any talent tree (ideally) many well meshed, powerful survival cooldowns abnormally strong against casters able to switch to dps quickly and easily good AoE threat many ways to heal self large visible health pool	unique and clunky resource system tagged by community as weak tanks raid buff severely time limited, but quickly refreshable unable to block two single target taunts (AoD takes a bit of time to cast, and is not considered)
Druid	abnormally large visible health pool able to switch to other forms (utility) able to heal self and others(although sparingly) powerful raid buff curse removal (while not being hit) battle resurrection capability (while not being hit) Fear Removal Tool	race limited (now and Cataclysm) fewer survivablity cooldowns unable to block or parry(Savage Defense is considered a "block") weak(er) against casters one single target taunt and one long cooldown AoE fixate
Paladin	diverse raid buffs short CD multi-target and single target taunts able to heal self multiple survival cooldowns debuff removal solid AoE Threat	some survival cooldowns are not chain-able weak against large groups of casters low(er) visible health pool race restricted on Horde (PRE-CATACLYSM)
Warrior	benefits significantly from block value vs pallys large visible health pool many utility abilities powerful and chain-able survival cooldowns race-selection non-issue fear removal from self strong against casters	controlling resources requires discipline weak(er) AoE Threat buffs are severely time limited long cooldown heal self ability one fixate, one single target taunt and long cooldown AoE fixate

For those unaware, there is a difference between a fixate and a taunt. I purposefully made the distinction. A fixate is any "taunt" that contains the words "forces the target to attack you" in it's tooltip. This means that you need to build threat on it manually.

As you can see, each tank has at least one line of symmetry or is the polar opposite of another. Learning what each player who plays a tank can do is nearly as important as learning what their class can do. More often than not, each class can transcend their base, for lack of a better term, designation with the abilities and practice of the player.

That concludes the first issue of Tank Talk with Zuelu. Next time around, I will talk about the stat changes in Cataclysm and how they affect tanks!

The PTR notes have been updated again today. There were no new models or textures and the size of the build was for music that will be used in Ruby Sanctum and the Echo Isles event.

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"We started using discipline priests in Ulduar. The discipline fight was Freya hard mode where Power Word: Shield would provide an effective health increase versus Ground Tremor. Before that, I can't even remember a discipline priest in a raid that wasn't someone who was too lazy to change from their PvP spec," says Nokaru, guild master of the US guild Deus Vox.

Discipline used to be the PvP spec for priests, a spec with no real place in PvE. That has changed. Somewhere in between tough Ulduar encounters, a Circle of Healing cooldown and the Soul Warding talent, discipline priests have become a staple of 25-man end game raiding, even threatening the holy hegemony.

Insane coefficient

Deus Vox has one full-time discipline priest, and one priest that alternates between disc and holy depending on the fight. So does the US guild Premonition. "We have two players who can swing holy or disc, and basically use both in almost every encounter. I think Vezax is when we started using discipline priests. Now, the hardest encounter in the game requires them," says Xav, officer and warrior in the guild.

The strength and niche of the discipline priest is their damage prevention. Power Word: Shield is spammable and scales extremely well. By shielding the raid, discipline priests increase the effective health of each player. A well-geared disc priest is able to pump out shields that absorb 9000 damage or more. Needless to say, this is particularly strong in fights with heavy, predictable burst damage.

"Power Word: Shield has an insane coefficient," says Lawliepop of the US guild Blood Legion. Playing a holy priest with a shadow offspec, the guild officer has two additional priests in her ranks, one full time discipline and one holy/discipline. About a month ago, they tested the Power Word: Shield coefficient. Their result was that the effective coefficient was 1,512803004. For those not into theorycrafting, this means that for every point of spellpower a discipline priest has, Power Word: Shield will gain 1,51 damage absorption.

WoW's best kept secret

Blood Legion has been using discipline priests for quite some time. While doing Sartharion with three drakes up, they had a discipline priest as tank healer. At the beginning of Ulduar, they got a full time disc priest. "I think having only one holy paladin sparked it. Honestly, I kind of had a something of a negative view on them. My previous experience with disc was mostly in the Wrath of the Lich King Beta at very low gear levels," Lawliepop explains.

Even as a holy priest, she recognises discipline as a very strong spec. "The priests in Blood Legion like to constantly joke about how disc is WoW's best kept secret, and we are scared that they are going to be nerfed. What they do is to stabilise the raid in a way no other class can. In 95 percent of the fights, you want at least one dedicated disc."

Because of the strength of discipline priests, it is fairly common for main spec holy priests to have a discipline offspec. Ensidia priest Poptisse used to play holy more or less exclusively. That has changed. She now has a discipline dual spec that she has to use quite frequently. "You are a fool if you don't use a disc priest. In fights where we only use one priest, it is a disc one rather than a holy. The burst damage in Icecrown Citadel can be so insane that people having 9000 more hit points is more important than getting a 4000 heal from Circle of Healing. It sucks, because holy is by far the most fun spec to play. But a disc priest brings something no one else can, and I think that is why they are the 'Flavour of the Instance'," she says.

Ensidia currently has two priests that can play both disc and holy. They started using discipline in Ulduar on encounters like Freya, but with Icecrown Citadel, it became a staple in their raids. "I like their utility, but whenever we use a disc priest it is for the sole purpose of spamming shields or getting the crit buff on tanks. It gets really boring to play. I only need one keybind and it makes me want to fall asleep rather than keep me awake. I hated having to play it, and I still do!" she reveals.

Required for Lich King

Right now, a lot of top guilds are working towards the last fight in the game that hasn't been done yet: The 25-man Lich King hard mode. Interestingly enough, this fight apparently requires multiple discipline priests in the raid. With Infest hitting for around 15 000 damage, shields seem to be the way most guilds choose to handle it. "I don't like the fact that this completely negates the 'Bring the player, not the class.' No one can do LK 25 hard mode without shields," Poptisse says.

With the strength of discipline discovered by more and more players, holy priests seem to be less desirable in raids. Until now, it is holy that has been nerfed, first with the cooldown added to Circle of Healing, then the effectiveness of Prayer of Healing took a hit. The question is if discipline will suffer the same fate. Poptisse doesn't think so.

"I don't think disc needs a nerf, I think holy needs a little boost - something that is not Lightwell or a 3 minute Guardian Spirit that never procs anyway. We need some kind of powerful tool to boost burst HPS a bit more, or maybe they could remove the cooldown on Circle of Healing! But really, Prayer of Healing is way too annoying. Circle of Healing has a cooldown. Renew can't even compare to Rejuvenation, and haste stacking shamans are laughing at holy priests at the moment. Even paladins do."

I wanted to put together something to highlight cool things from around the community today before heading off to GDC. Expect more great stuff from the content team today, and don't forget to check out Leviathonlx's coverage of the mastery system, which was the first full coverage of Eyonix and Ghostcrawler responding to community questions.

Anniversary Captions

Cameron kicked this thread off with his caption, and it quickly turned into a masterpiece with Chimina's excellent Wowroll. A creative combination of the WoW Anniversary wallpaper and the YouTube classic, the Rickroll!



Think you can come up with a great caption for the anniversary wallpaper? Upload it to the image gallery and then post it here!

Argent Tournament Failure

Ahh, the WoW forums. You never know what you're going to get when you visit them, but this sure turned out to be a gem! I took notice of it when it appeared on the blue tracker, and it's definitely worth a read. Check it out in full here.

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Starcraft II -- Wings of Liberty Protoss Units

A great video from Lore at TankSpot highlighting the Protoss units in StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. If you're in the beta and looking to play with others from WoR, stop by the StarCraft II thread!



And in closing, I wanted to congratulate katuka for reaching prestige rank 10 in Modern Warfare 2. While it's not something that takes a lot of skill, it's one hell of a grind when done legitimately, so congrats!