I'm an admitted and proud fishing junkie, but had long ago resigned myself to the fact that my favorite ingame pasttime was never going to be a source of revenue. But Alterac Volley has a great post on the degree to which fishing has actually (gasp, shock, horror) become a moneymaking endeavor in Wrath. While I'll grant that on most servers it's probably nothing compared to, say, Mining or Herbalism, there's gold to be made in them there streams -- and this is all the more true if your server hosts a large raiding population.

AV observes that there are four types of fish most likely to be lucrative, and it's no accident that three of them (the Musselback Sculpin, the Glacial Salmon, and the Nettlefish) are the main ingredients of the Fish Feast, a valuable (although generalized) raid buff. I spend roughly an hour a week fishing up the materials for these to cover our raids and had never even looked to see what they retailed for. After reading over AV's comments, I took a peek at my server's AH and had a /headdesk moment discovering that my main could have been a much wealthier character if I'd just spent a little time yanking up a few extra fish here and there.

So if your character is at or close to the Northrend fishing cap (and especially if you're still on the lookout for the Sea Turtle, which requires you to fish in Northrend pools anyway), give your AH a look and see how the fish are selling. You might be pleasantly surprised. And, as always, I highly recommend El's Extreme Anglin' as a great resource for the beginning and advanced fishermen out there.

Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.

Over the past few days, some upcoming professions changes for Patch 3.2 have been announced, and although they are not as detailed as they could be, several of the changes will have quite an impact.

First and foremost, every profession-specific buff is being upgraded. This includes an Enchanter's ability to enhance their own rings, a Leatherworker's bracer enchants, and more. For a complete list of the current profession bonuses, check out Insider Trader's guide to Profession-Specific Buffs, parts one through three.

These buffs also answer some of the concerns surrounding the upcoming Jewelcrafting nerf that epic gems might be introduced without a buff to the Dragon's Eyes, which, in combination with the fact that these gems will no longer be prismatic, would effectively squash the Jewelcrafting bonus.

Jewelcrafters will also do well to note that they will be able to acquire epic gems by prospecting Titanium. Combined with a Blacksmith's two extra prismatic sockets, this powerful duo is one of the most popular profession combinations.

In addition, Engineers will be seeing some welcome changes to their profession that may make it more appealing. Unfortunately, some of the details have not been made public, so the competitiveness of their self buffs, for example, remains to be seen.

We've picked up some more details about professions in Patch 3.2. Some of the changes were covered a few days ago by Eliah. The notes made today elaborate more on engineering, alchemy, fishing and cooking changes.

Alchemy

• Stackable potions now stack to 20.
• Five new epic gem transmute recipes are available from the Northrend trainer. The recipe for transmuting a Cardinal Ruby can be learned from a quest, given by Linzy Blackbolt in Dalaran.
• Rage potions can now be used by druids.

I have an entire guild bank tab filled with nothing but Mana Injectors. I was both saddened and delighted when I heard that potions now stack to 20. Big plus to Potion of Speed and Potion of Wild Magic since those will be stackable now. But are they going to be completely useless? Nope! Wait until you see the Engineering changes. It means I don't have to make any more injectors! New epic gem transmutes are on the way too!

More profession changes after the jump.

Blizzard EU Community Blue Ancilorn has posted a poll over on the EU forums asking players about one of the more prickly pieces of loot in the game: Mr. Pinchy. Usually with loot, Blizzard has been pretty good lately: if there's a piece that you want, there are usually a few different ways to get it, one of which usually requires grinding (i.e. picking up tons of Badges) rather than just getting really, really lucky. But with vanity stuff, it seems like they feel free to just put us at the will of the dice roll, and almost no other pet is more random than Mr. Pinchy. Not only do you need to level fishing (which, admittedly, is much less random than it used to be), and not only do you need to fish up a random item, but then, you need to hit a random choice of five different options. It's a slim chance on a rare chance on a nearly impossible chance.

Which explains why even those who have been trying for him for so long (ahem, me -- as you've probably heard on our podcast) haven't picked him up yet. The biggest percentage in the poll (about 26% of respondents, as of this writing) says they've been trying a lot and haven't gotten him. But strangely enough, the lowest percentage says "an absolutely enormous amount" of effort went into getting him. Which suggests that the people who are getting him are underestimating the amount of time they're putting in -- just how much fishing is "a moderate amount"?

At any rate, it seems like Ancilorn is just asking to be asking. Mr. Pinchy is definitely as much of a vanity item as they come, and there should at least be some items in the game that are very, very rare. It does seem at times that every time I suggest Blizzard won't move on something, they do, but I'd say in this case Mr. Pinchy will stay as rare as he is.

While Blizzard's managed to do pretty well lately in adding quirks and surprises to make fishing more tolerable (or at least more desirable), the fact remains that it's still ultimately pretty boring to skill up and use altogether, and many people believe it's well overdue for a revamp.

It looks like Blizzard agrees, as Zarhym recently revealed that they plan to revamp it. Of course, he had no details or time frame, but that's par for the course for Blizzard.

As to how the revamp should go down, Insider Trader actually recently discussed some ideas. Myself, I'm in favor of the minigame approach. If Popcap can import Peggle, you have to figure it's possible to set up a pretty robust fishing mini-game in WoW. Of course, if all else fails, they could always just let us actually use a Goblin Fishing Pole.

Crygil's been getting to the bottom of the sea -- sea turtle, that is (sorry about that one). Some players wondered if it's getting picked up in just Northrend pools or all over Northrend waters, but as we originally told you in our guide to getting one of the game's coolest new mounts, it is supposed to come only from fishing in pools in Northrend. People are reporting it appearing from elsewhere, but straight from Blizzard's blue text, that's where it's supposed to come from.

As for when you'll get it, that we don't know -- all we know so far about droprates is that it's "extremely rare," which is about as rare as items in Azeroth get. We've heard from quite a few people who've gotten it already, but for any given catch, the chance is really, really small that you'll pull up a mount along with your fish. Still, it's not impossible, and especially if you're leveling fishing (which you should be -- it's lots of fun nowadays), it's definitely something to keep your eyes open for.

This is a weird one -- we've been doing Ulduar epics lately, but here's something a little different for you to hunt down.

Name: Porcelain Bell (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory)
Type: Poor Salvage Item
Damage/Speed: N/A
Attributes:

• Embellished with a figure reaching toward a swan. This is a grey piece of vendor trash, probably the worst quality item we've ever featured here.
• Wait a minute Mike, I can hear you saying, this is supposed to be Phat Loot Phriday. Why are you showing us a piece of vendor junk? Because, my friends, in the eyes of the vendors, this little bell is worth more than the Warglaives of Azzinoth combined (and you could even throw in Thori'dal, too). Yes, this little bell sells to vendors for... wait for it... 100g.

WoW is a many-faceted game. One of the facets that I've really been enjoying recently is fishing; after getting my Dark Herring last weekend, I only need to polish off my last few Northrend pools to ding Accomplished Angler on my rogue. I also pulled up a sea turtle last weekend, and let me tell you, that thing is fun, especially because I don't have my flying mount yet (three more levels to go on that character), so it's the fastest way I have to get around aquatic areas.

I'm impressed with the way they've expanded on fishing in Wrath of the Lich King, especially with the new fishing dailies and the other changes that came to my favorite secondary profession in patch 3.1. My biggest gripe is that the Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat still evades me. The fishing gods even went so far as to taunt me with a Battered Jungle Hat last time I turned in the daily. That's just not cool, man. Not cool.

Has anyone else been having a great time fishing lately?

I have to say, I still have a pretty soft spot for the Tuskarr. They're sort of minor players in Northrend, overall. You help them kidnap some kids and fight off some vikings, grab a penguin pet and a fishing pole, and you're done, and on to bigger and better things in other zones. They don't even merit art for their females. Still, they're always pretty jovial, they look like big fat and happy dudes, and they got turtle boats. It's difficult not to like them.

One of the things they did is spur me to finally get a character maxed out fishing. I was always sort of planning to, one of these days, seriously, but it took the Tuskarr to push me over the edge, just because they made it so chill and awesome. Ok, so the epic fishing pole probably had something to do with it too, but still.

Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.

Patch 3.1 brought many welcome changes to the Fishing profession, including a Turtle mount and new Fishing daily quests.

These not only add incentives to go out and fish, they also make doing a little fishing each day easier.

Of course, players can never have enough improvements, and still have many gripes about the way that the profession works.

This week, I will be discussing different perspectives on the activity, as well as the challenges that Blizzard faces when considering which changes to make, and which feedback to tackle.

I have to say: I am so happy that we have fishing dailies back in the game. Leafshine has found a new addiction to fishing, and I have, too: though I'm a little underwhelmed with the actual rewards (while I was a little taken aback by the cooking daily awards system when it first came out, now I really like it, and wish they'd come up with a version of that for fishing), I like the quests, and I like taking my hard-earned Mastercraft Kalua'k Fishing Pole and going out into the world to find some fish. Leafshine is exactly right: it's a terrific way to kill a few minutes that really doesn't feel like a grind at all. And while you're out fishing, there's no better time to keep an eye out for pools, too -- you never know when that Turtle mount might drop.

You might say that fishing is boring, and it is -- though they've made some really generous changes to how it levels up, you're still going to be clicking a bobber for a long, long time. But it's never been so rewarding in terms of what you can get, and it is probably the most fleshed-out minigame in Azeroth. If you, like me, sometimes prefer a little break from the usual combat (the war, if you will, of Warcraft), I can't recommend Fishing highly enough.

Each week Arcane Brilliance brings you a column about Mages and all things Mage-related. That's right, Arcane Brilliance is nothing if not consistent. You won't find any server instability here. We're never down, we're always up, and you can always enter our instanced content. And the best part? Arcane Brilliance doesn't charge you 15 bucks a month. Although, donations are totally welcome.

So how's everything? Did you make it through patch day unscathed? Did you log in, like me, and find that your Mage's face, forearms, and feet were gone, and there was a hole through his chest (pro tip: upgrade your video card drivers more than once every three years)? Are you running out of mana at an outrageous clip? Are your crit numbers from Molten Armor up or down? Did your guild manage to make it into Ulduar yet, and if so, did you manage to snag any phat loot? Did you dual spec your Mage so he can now both DPS and DPS? I went Frostfire/Firefrost, myself. When triple-specs hit, I'm taking a Frarcano-fire spec. Mark my words.

All in all, I'd say 3.1 wasn't too bad. We have some new glyphs to play with, the Argent Tournament is good, clean fun, our mounts can swim, and we have a whole new batch of loot-pinatas to blow up. Our DPS seems to be down a bit, but we're still beating Warlocks, so I'm not going to mail any angry, expletive-laced letters to Blizzard just yet. I've written them--rest assured--but I'm not yet prepared to actually invest in stamps for them. Those things are like a buck apiece these days.

So now we turn to the third and final installment in our guide to professions for Mages. If you missed them, the first two parts can be found here and here. This week we'll investigate the merits of Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, and Engineering. As an added bonus, we'll take a quick peek at the three secondary professions and enumerate the reasons for investing in them. Yes, even though you can conjure Strudel from the very air around you with but a word and a snap of your fingers, you still need to learn how to cook

We're listening in to your replies on Twitter about what you're all planning to do when you log into 3.1 for the first time, and an astounding number of people are planning to go for the fishing mount. Yes, despite the fact that everything Blizzard has told us points to the Turtle mount obtained via fishing being extremely rare, lots of players are after it anyway. We've decided, then, to wish you luck. And to help you out, we'll give you a few tips that just might help make the almost assuredly long, boring, clicking grind bearable.

1. Learn to fish (and cook). If you're going to be fishing for the mount, you might as well learn to fish and cook while you do it. The mount itself drops from fishing pools in Northrend, so if all you're doing is going for those, it'll take you a little longer to level than just sitting in Stormwind and leveling fishing (which you can definitely do), but you might as well up your profession while you do it. El's Angling is the guide of choice -- follow it closely and you'll be 450 Fishing/Cooking in no time.

2. Find Fish. If you follow El's guide, you'll figure this out along the line, but even if you've already leveled fishing, you'll definitely want to make sure you've got the Find Fish ability, obtained from the Weather-Beaten Journal, which you get from -- you guessed it -- fishing. This will help you find fish pools on the minimap tracker, and since you need to fish in pools in Northrend to get the mount, it'll be a huge help, if not invaluable.

One of the complaints heard from the Horde is that they have fewer buyable mounts than the Alliance side, making it intrinsically harder for them to gain the 100 mount achievement. 3.1 will see some steps taken to amend that gap, as the Horde will now be able to purchase a Black Wolf, a White Kodo, and a Black Skeletal Horse.

Some Horde are still not satisfied, saying that at least one of those mounts should be Epic to truly equalize numbers, but for now, there's at least more easy mounts to get toward the Red Dragonhawk (Which is honestly a lot cooler looking than the silly blue one Alliance get, seriously).

Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.

Patch 3.1 is looming ever closer, and things are about to change in a big way. Today I'll be discussing how the patch is going to affect your professions, and how you can take advantage of this by maximizing your profits on the Auction House.

Players have become increasingly bored with raiding because the content that was released with the expansion pack, Wrath of the Lich King, was too quickly conquered. Across the board, players are showing up to raids on an inconsistent basis, and many people now spend much of their time on the Public Test Realm playing through Ulduar.

This has contributed to falling prices on the Auction House for raiding materials and consumables, because not only have many people stopped raiding, many others have decided to save their gold and raid without being buffed to the gills.

What should you do in these tight times? Aside from the things for which you are currently saving, the patch will bring with it a 1000g bill to learn how to dual spec, costs to fund raid wipes, bring new consumables, and enchant and gem new gear.

By learning what to sell and purchase and when, you can minimize your post-patch costs and make some gold while you're at it.