We mention a ninja of the Onyxia mount in this week's Guildwatch, and while researching that, some other forum threads came up, including these two, both from General, where people say with conviction that given the chance, they'd take the Onyxia mount and never look back. They have a point -- it's one of the rarest random mounts in the game, on a raid that's definitely PuG-able. Chances are low that you'll ever see it, much less win it on a random roll, and so for a lot of people, it'd be worth the namechange and the server transfer you'd have to pay to escape your new ninja reputation.

Personally, I wouldn't do it, but that's really only because I know there are lots of rare mounts in the game that I'll never get (sigh, Red Proto-drake, I covet you), and one more isn't that big a deal. Not to mention that I like the guilds I'm in and the people I play with, and who knows what they'd think of me if I stole the mount from them or someone else. But not everyone feels the way I do, I'm sure, so let's ask: if you had the chance, in a PuG or a guild run, to steal the Onyxia mount as your own, would you take it? And if you would, is it just because it's so rare and special?

One of the easier ways to distinguish an older character from a reroll or alt is the presence (or absence) of a Feat of Strength. Feats of Strength, remnants of "the past glories of Azeroth," are among the most difficult achievements to get, and that's when they're even possible at all. Most, like the presence of an old-school PvP title, one of the original 100% mounts, or the Vengeful Nether Drake, are impossible to get these days, and are a sign that the person who has them is an experienced player. But with a little luck and a lot of elbow grease, even a new player can accrue some of these supposedly "past" glories.

I started playing WoW shortly after Burning Crusade launched and didn't expect to have a shot at most Feats, but a surprising number of them are still available. After getting The Fifth Element recently and being surprised to discover that: a). It's a Feat, and b). The original quest isn't even in the game anymore (man, I'm glad I'm such a quest packrat), I started nosing around the list of Feats to see what else a player could do even if they're new to the game. Moreover, there are two achievements you can get right now that will become Feats in 3.3, so let's get cracking.

Interesting weekend for me: My schedule is such that I can't really do weekend raids with my Alliance guild, but with fall coming the crummy weather seems to have led to a renaissance for my Horde side play, and suddenly I found myself running Onyxia and TotC 10 on Malfurion in my finest Tauren warrior self. (Tauren warriors: great race/class combo or the greatest race/class combo? The world may never know.) Since I'm fairly familiar with the fights in both cases, it seemed natural enough to explain them for people who hadn't done them.

And then I realized that, without really even paying attention, I'd sort of taken the job over entirely. It just seemed like what I should do: even when I forgot to mention an element of a fight like Gormok's spell lock, I just found myself calmly explaining things in a voice that, frankly, I didn't really even recognize. It was as if I was comfortable telling people what to do. Almost without realizing it I'd started telling people what to do in a raid, and they were doing it. The whole thing was somewhat surreal all told.

So how about you? Ever found yourself leading a raid, an instance, or just a charge across AV without really expecting it? Or are you always in charge in WoW? Are you a leader, a follower, or a bit of both?

Many whelps! Handle it! Oh wait, you did. In the Wake on Zul'jin (as you can see in the video above) was just one of the many guilds to take down Onyxia since she returned to the game in a more powerful form, and while obviously there wasn't much new to this fight, most guilds give it a thumbs up: it was a little old-school raiding taste in a new-school difficulty level. Not that it's too hard (c'mon, it's Onyxia), but it's nice to see the fight pretty faithfully recreated. Makes you wish for more, doesn't it?

Lots more raid downings, and of course the usual drama and recruitment notices in this week's Guildwatch. If you've got a tip for us about your guild or just one you saw on the forums, please send it along to guildwatch@wow.com, and please do your best to make it look like the ones below -- if you send us five pages on the entire history of your guild, it probably won't show up here. Read on for more.

We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.

• World of Raids highlights the Caith UI, a widescreen UI compilation.
• Runeforge Gossip gives a quick walkthrough of Rawr.
• WoW players that weren't around for Onyxia 1.0 might not know about this pretty sweet trick from OutDPS.
• Blessing of Kings asks... is Spell Haste bad for the game?
• We're coming up on Winter here in the States, so we might want to buddy up with this recipe soon.

Well, here we are at the weekend, and yet again we're all in danger. Alex Ziebart has been bitten by the dread PTR and is stalking the halls of Wow.com central, craving our succulent brains and/or posts about patch 3.3, while we struggle to survive. Or to provide him with PTR posts and patch details like, say, Quel'Delar, This weekend, it's not just a game, it's a battle to survive against a fiend more dead than alive! Well, until he gets his morning nosh, then he's usually okay. Woe betide thee that denies said nosh! A peckish zombie is a fearful adversary. Luckily, I have a character skilled in dealing with the undead and he just got himself a new toy.

But what about the gaming, you ask? I'm glad you did, because I'm awful at segues. Seriously, just awful. I mean, look at this one, it's just atrocious.

Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the rogue class. This week, we talk about a few of the most common rogue macros in use today.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've had the opportunity to play my rogue quite a bit more than I am typically able to. Brewfest and Onyxia have had me busy every night, helping my guild mates slay Coren Direbrew over and over again. I was able to pick up a Direbrew's Shanker 2.0, although it won't see much use, it's still nice to see one in my bank beside the previous versions.

I captured this bit of a World of Logs parse from one of the Onyxia attempts, where I was able to my AoE combination macro: it's a very deadly combination. Looking at numbers like these make me wonder if perhaps the great FoK nerf of 3.2.2 wasn't as heavy-handed as it was made up to be. With a Vanish fix on the horizon for patch 3.3 (who's PTR is coming "soon") and the red-hot topic of 'weapon swapping', I decided to do a bit of housecleaning and tidy up my macros and addons in anticipation.

We recorded our latest podcast last Saturday afternoon, and it was a good one -- not only did we have Eddie "Brigwyn" Carrington and Turpster on from here at WoW.com, but we welcomed two special guests: Fimlys and Nibuca from the Twisted Nether Blogcast. They were on to talk about their podcast and what they do with Twisted Nether, as well as their new Azeroth United project and what they'll be doing with that in the future. And of course, after we introduced everybody, we sat down and chatted about the most popular stories from the last week in Warcraft, including Brewfest and Onyxia, as well as patch 3.2.2 and the bugs contained therein. Enjoy the show.

And if you've heard something you'd like to respond to on the show, feel free to drop us a note via email -- the address is theshow@wow.com. We'll see you next Saturday as usual, thanks for listening!

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Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related. Onyxia's the latest raid boss to challenge healers. Here's some phase-by-phase tips to help you get through the ordeal.

I finally managed to heal this fight through a lag infested night when patch 3.2.2 landed. Onyxia was a pain in the butt to heal at level 60. Have things changed since then?

No, not by much. In some of the pickup Onyxia groups I joined on my alts, I've seen tanks drop several times. I don't want to guess who the blame should go on to (tank or healer) but I'll provide some pointers and observations for all the healing classes to help streamline the entire healing process.

My colleague, Matthew Rossi, has written a fairly detailed piece on what the entire raid can expect throughout Onyxia's various phases. While the encounter is easy in terms of theory, in practice it can still be challenging for healers if they let their guard down. Do not take Onyxia too lightly.

Hey hey, our podcast is finally back on the air this afternoon at 3:30pm Eastern, and it's gonna be a good one: Fimlys and Nibuca from the Twisted Nether Blogcast (and the new Azeroth United project) will join Turpster, Eddie "Brigwyn" Carrington and myself to talk about the past week in the World of Warcraft. I'm sure this week's events will come up, both the Brewfest celebration and the return of Onyxia, not to mention the new patch this week (and all of the problems we've seen with it). Sounds like a full show!

It all kicks off this afternoon at 3:30pm Eastern over on the Ustream page -- if you're around, you can tune in, listen live, and chat with us and all of our guests. Even if you're not around, you can always email us at theshow@wow.com, and then hit up the site here on Monday when we'll post the recording of the show over on iTunes. But as our commenters will probably tell you, the chat room is always a good time, so if you can make it, it will definitely be a lot of fun. See you there!

What's the WoW.com team playing this weekend? What are the WoW.com readers playing this weekend? Even before looking at our highly scientific poll data, I think it's safe to say that quite a few of have our eyes on the prize (which is to say one Violet Proto-Drake) and are working on Brewfest achievements. But as one or two of the team still insist on maintaining independent thought and action, below I have included a list of what we're all playing this weekend -- including those of us who aren't bothering with Brewfest.

Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses.

Hi howdy and hello, everyone. I'm Matthew Rossi, famous for being tail whipped into the cave on our first Onyxia 10 attempt yesterday. Twice. Despite having been a veteran of the original raid, which means I've heard this kind of ranting many, many times. What I'm getting at is, there are certain things you do not do in a successful Onyxia kill (then and now) and if you go in cocky, thinking that you're mister fancy pants Conquerer of Ulduar, then she's going to embarrass you. If, on the other hand, you just go in and kill her, it's much less embarrassing all told. As long as you keep her mechanics in mind, she's not a terribly complicated or hard fight, but she's been updated and tuned fairly well for an 80 raid.

Before we get to the meat of things, two caveats: one, she can hit very, very hard. On 10 man, as I dragged her back into position (we'll go more into that) I found that I went from 45k health to 11k health in two seconds. My healer actually screamed on vent. Later, we had a discussion about how mister tank doesn't go out of range on mister healer without warning. Secondly, I'm not sure if I'm just remembering it differently or if it has actually changed, but her hit box seems a lot smaller than it was at 60. It does not seem possible to melee her while she's in the air, for instance, and my melee DPS reporting having to come in fairly close to hit her.

Not to worry, though. You'll have plenty to do without being able to melee Ony. She brought friends! Oh, so many friends if you're not careful.

Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we talk about the new gear (mostly weapons) available in patch 3.2.2 and Brewfest.

Much to everyone's surprise, Blizzard released patch 3.2.2 this week. I've talked extensively about what this patch means for Assassination Rogues via the Deadly Poison and Envenom changes, and how hard the loss of Throwing Specialization and a 30% damage cut will be hitting Fan of Knives. With the recently stealth buffs to Volley that snuck their way into the 3.2.2 patch, I am already wondering where Rogues and Hunters will land in PvE after the dust settles. The FoK nerf will hurt some of our AoE-centric PvP builds and compositions, but I don't feel that these strategies had much going for them in the first place besides an obviously overpowered talent.

Patch 3.2.2 also brings us Onyxia reborn, completely re-tuned for all of her level 80 glory. This means that she's not only been buffed to challenge level 80 raiders, but her gear has been taken up a notch as well. With ilvl 232 rewards from her 10 man version, and ilvl 245 gear from slaying her with 24 friends, there will be many Rogues foraying into her lair. There are also a few new items available from the Brewfest holiday, one of which surprised even me. Read on for the full details.

Patch 3.2.2 is here today! The patch brings us back the big bad Brood Mother herself, Onyxia, in the form of an updated 10 and 25 man raid. Check out the loot and achievements for the new level 80 Onyxia.

For Patch 3.2.2 we've been steadily updating WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2.2. with everything we've written about the Patch 3.2.2 PTR. Included in there are links to the latest patch notes, class changes and analysis.

Check out the guide and all its updates for Patch 3.2.2 goodness!