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Good tuesday morning, everyone! It's an extended maintenance day this week, from 3AM - 11 AM Pacific time. Of course, while we've just gotten wind of another content patch, it's probably safe to say said patch is not dropping this week. All the same, we do have 8 hours of downtime. Whether your lack of WoW playing is enforced by your job or enforced by the downtime this morning, you now have plenty of time to Browse WoW Insider, right? Check out some of our best news and articles from the past week, from the Wrath Beta and elsewhere:

Hot News and Hot Features

• The Wrath Cinematic is out, and our sister site Big Download has direct downloads for you.
• Looking for a game or two to pass the time? Have you seen our crossword puzzles yet?
• Learn about phasing, the new technique Blizzard is using in Northrend to create dynamic content.
• You might also have some fun with the latest version of BlizzCon 08: The Game.
• As always, be sure to check out Ask a Beta Tester for answers to all your burning beta questions.
• Okay, so we're in the Wrath Beta. But it's not all fun and games!
• If you haven't seen all of our Wrath zone galleries, why not check them out now?

Wrath Class News

• In general class news, Ghostcrawler laid down Blizzard's new philosophy on class stacking in raids.
• In this week's Lichborne, we look at the ups and downs of the Blood talent tree.
• In Druid news, we have more Feral itemization discussion.
• While that annoying downranking nerf is still in, Blizzard's giving Shamans some Earth Shock relief. Speaking of rank 1 Earth Shock, how is enhancement doing anyway?
• Speaking of the downranking nerf, here's a primer on what this base mana switch means.
• Let Scattered Shots help you make sense of some of these crazy Hunter changes. Also, check out the new Hunter glyphs.
• Warlocks have some nice new glyphs as well.
• Yeah, we also have some Mage glyph analysis.
• In Encrypted Text, we discuss the Rogue Combat tree.
• The Warrior's Fury is tree is back in a big way in the latest Wrath Beta build. Arms and Protection got some changes too.
• Many Shadow Priests are concerned about their status in the expansion.

Items, Professions, and other stuff in Wrath

• Blizzard devs were rather talkative at the Leipzig Games Convention last week. Check out what they said.
• Sylvanas finally looks like a proper undead high elf. No more bouncing, woo!
• We cornered Breanni of Warcraft Pets and got his opinion on that doppleganger up in Dalaran.
• Tired of that silly unreplacable 16 slot backpack? Yeah, so are we. Luckily, there may be change coming.
• New jewelcrafting recipes are now available on the Beta. Check out our gallery.
• You might also want to check out all the awesome new engineering recipes as well.

Other news from the World of Warcraft

• Check out the newest set of World of Warcraft figurines, and kiss your Christmas shopping worries goodbye!
• Got an extra ticket to BlizzCon? Need a ride there? How about checking in with this Tauren?
• Arena Junkies threw together some unofficial Arena numbers. It's always rather interesting to see how the Gladiator ranking have risen and fallen for each class over the the seasons.
• Blizzard issued a cease and desist order to that handy iPhone armory app. Could this mean they'll give us their own version soon?

Tags: downtime, maintenance, roundup, scheduled-downtime, scheduled-maintenance, server-downtime, server-maintenance, the-tuesday-morning-post, tuesday-morning-post, wotlk-beta, wrath-beta

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items, Expansions, Wrath of the Lich King