Sites like LFRaid.com and Twitterland Raiding are two communities that have sprung up quickly in this new cross-realm raiding world. Twitterland Raiding is a website created for the Twitter WoW community to form up groups for raiding across server lines. With a centralized place to express interest in raiding as well as no server structure or logistics to worry about besides Real ID names (which gets immensely easier with the introduction of BattleTags), raiding can happen in greater volume and more quickly.

LFRaid.com is another site that has set up a system to advertise for raiding with a group in a cross-server community. The biggest difference between sites like these and guild recruiting sites is that they exist outside of the guild parameter. You do not have to spend money on a transfer as a new recruit to raid with a different group of people, and you skip that potentially expensive trial period that might not work out. LFRaid.com also has a great Teams Recruiting section that players can browse through to find a group that’s looking for a guy or girl just like you.

Choosing to create a community in a very different way, @vitaemachina on Twitter administers the Sleepy Hams public Mumble server. Originally created to streamline cross-realm raiding groups that wanted a place to use voice communication, Sleepy Hams has sort of taken on a life of its own.

Many people threw up their hands in protest over the Dungeon Finder’s unintended consequence of damaging server communities (or, in layman’s terms, asking in trade chat for two hours for a tank, because we thought that this was fun for over 10 years). Instead, we got a robust system of dungeon queuing that has been revised, tweaked, and added on to since halfway through Wrath of the Lich King. The Dungeon Finder and, by proxy, the Raid Finder may have potentially been among the most important innovations for the MMO genre to this day, if only because of how much content it made accessible to previously unknowing players. What these projects show is that no matter how much community you think Blizzard is removing, by adding features that greatly enhance accessibility, players will always find a way at creating communities with the people they want to play the game with.

You may be wondering why I’m using the past tense here. It’s for good reason — cogwheels are, essentially, a dead item. Introduced at the beginning of Cataclysm, they could be used in engineering crafted goggles, but that was it. Once players started raiding, those goggles were quickly replaced … and we never saw anything with a cogwheel in it again. For something that had me really excited about being an engineer, the cogwheel was a letdown of sorts. But that’s not the only thing that’s been a little off, professionally speaking, with Cataclysm.

The Grumpy Elf had a post the other day about “Cataclysm miscues” — spots where Cataclysm messed up. The first of these posts addresses the subject of potions — or rather, the lack of potions. And you know, I hadn’t given it a whole lot of thought over the course of the expansion. Rogues can pickpocket their own special potions, and I had a huge stockpile after months of Tol Barad dailies, so it just didn’t occur to me. But The Grumpy Elf is right: Cataclysm mobs don’t drop potions at all. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even know the names of this expansion’s potions until I looked them up on Wowhead, that’s how infrequently I’ve seen the things.

Even more interesting, however, is the point of how effective these potions really are in comparison to the other things you can get out there. Obviously, if I’m in a raiding situation, I’m going to choose a Potion of the Tol’vir over a healing potion any day. The DPS boost is far more worth it. If I need a bit of quick healing, I’ve always got a healthstone handy. Or I can just hit Recuperate, or I can Feint, or I can Cloak, or I can hit Evasion, or I can even Vanish if things get really bad. So a healing potion is literally the last thing I will use in any given fight.

Mobs don’t drop potions, so the only way to obtain these Mystical Healing Potions is to have an alchemist craft them. This, I understand to a degree. If you want a cut gem, most of the time, you want to find a jewelcrafter, and if you want an enchant, you’d better find an enchanter, and if you want tailored gear, you find a tailor … the list goes on. Therefore, it only makes sense that if you want a potion made, you should go to an alchemist. It gives alchemists something to do and makes them feel useful.

Trinkets do three things:
1.They keep your keys from being lonely
2.They hurt like hell when you forget to take them out of your pocket before playing pick-up basketball
3.They have the potential to increase your DPS more drastically than any other single gear slot in the game.
No other gear choice we make in this game will either positively or negatively impact our raw output than the two trinkets we select, and no other loot drop can be more infuriating to wait for. With trinkets, it’s imperative that you identify what you want, know where to go to get it, and then focus your efforts until you reach your goal.

With that in mind, let’s go over the best trinkets available for mages in the game right now, and where to go get them.

I will list each trinket in the order in which I believe they belong, from least powerful to most powerful. You will undoubtedly have differing opinions about the order I go with, and I want to hear about them in the comments. In addition to being the most important gear choices in the game, trinkets are also perhaps the most subjective in terms of raw stats. When you’re deciding between most gear, your comparison mainly involves seeing which item has a higher amount of intellect and then equipping that item. But when you’re choosing between a stacking intellect proc on a hidden internal cooldown and an on use ability listed as “Embrace the fel energies contained within,” that choice can be a little less black and white.

Welcome to another mail bag edition of The Lawbringer, ready to answer your questions, inqueries, and crazy considerations. A lot of you have been emailing me about SOPA and PIPA, the two bills currently being legislated on in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. These bills make it extremely easy for parties who feel that they are the victims of copyright infringement to take websites offline without much due process due to the overreaching aspects of the broadness of the respective legislations’ wording. We as a subculture of the internet do not like these pieces of legislation.

I chose not to talk about SOPA or PIPA because, honestly, I think everyone is saying what I would say better than I could say it. So many people much smarter than I have already said wonderful things about these bills that you should probably read those instead. If you’re looking for more information on SOPA, PIPA, and their general mechanics and potential fallout, hit up Wikipedia for a full FAQ about the bill and great links. For a different perspective, my good friend Chris put up a great discussion of SOPA from a non-legal standpoint as a developer and programmer.

My Lawbringer mail bag always has awesome questions, and I’m thankful to all of you who send them in. I try to get to as many of them as I can, and if you haven’t gotten a response, try sending your question in again. It might have just gotten lost or whatever. Email mat@wowinsider.com with any of your Lawbringer questions.

Once upon a time, decorating cakes consisted of homemade frosting and a spatula. These days, however, cake creation has developed into an art form that is technical enough to make one’s head spin. Cake, frosting and fondant have evolved from edible delicacies into full-on sculptural elements that can be used to create some jaw-dropping stuff, like the cake pictured above. You might not realize it at first glance, but the whole thing is completely edible.

Deathwing’s head was created to celebrate his demise in game — and what a delicious way to celebrate! Created by Domestic Scientist, Deathwing shows an amazing amount of patience and attention to detail — check out the veining on the horns and plates! For more photos and information on this amazing creation, check out The Domestic Scientist, and for more gorgeous cakes, follow after the break.

Speaking of amazing details, can you believe the cake pictured above is only an 8-inch round? From the careful attention to the character, including detailed pauldrons and tabard, to the tiny dark portal, huts, and even a miniature dragon, this cake is an impressive feat in sculpture. Created by Fondant Fetish over in the U.K., this is a tiny masterpiece of skill and creative prowess. And I’m guessing it tastes just as good as it looks!

For more photos of this fabulous cake, you can check out Fondant Fetish’s gallery over on Cakes We Bake, or check out the lovely video they put together for YouTube, which shows even more of the gorgeous, tiny details and the construction behind this beautifully intricate creation. And for more of the edible fabulousness of Fondant Fetish, you can check out her full list of galleries as well.

If you’re looking for elegance and flair, this stein cake may do the trick for you. The stein is completely edible and was made for a groom’s cake by Cup a Dee Cakes. This is not a tiny cake, by any stretch of imagination — the creation is nearly two feet tall and a masterpiece of design. The images on the sides are a combination of edible paper and painting, and the gold on top of the stein is actually modeling chocolate — completely edible and doubtless completely tasty, too!

With Mists of Pandaria coming up on the horizon, many holy paladins are looking ahead to the changes that the expansion will bring. Most of the talent and ability info is still very malleable at this point, and as such, I haven’t begun to worry or get excited just yet. One thing that we do know is that in Mists, intellect will finish the transformation that it started in Cataclysm. Intellect is going to become a throughput-only stat, as it will stop increasing our maximum mana.

Today, intellect and longevity are nearly synonymous. Replenishment and Divine Plea are two of our largest mana sources, and they both scale off of our intellect. Most paladins are sporting intellect gems and trinkets, and intellect flasks and food fill up our bags. Holy paladins have been leaning on intellect for a long time due to its versatility, and it seemed like the decision to roll spell power into intellect would permanently ensure intellect’s role as our best stat. By decoupling intellect and mana, the developers are changing everything we know about gearing a healer.

Forced to choose

Today, holy paladins are able to have their Conjured Mana Cake and eat it too. Intellect gives us everything we could want out of a single stat. Blizzard’s developers are forcing us to choose between the two most important aspects of healing: throughput and regeneration.

While I loved being able to socket my gear mindlessly with Brilliant Inferno Rubies, I understand that creating tension between stats ultimately results in a more interesting gearing environment. Our secondary stats are almost to the point now where all three are balanced, and moving intellect and spirit to that same system makes sense. We need to learn how to handle the balance between intellect and spirit now.

Fixed mana pools for everyone

The key change in Mists is that intellect will no longer provide us with 15 mana per point, effectively fixing the size of our mana pools. While we’ll still have mana pools up in the six-digit range, they won’t see any increase from tier to tier. Every raiding holy paladin will end up with the same amount of maximum mana. We don’t know how Divine Plea, Replenishment, or Arcane Torrent will scale under this model, but my money is on spirit becoming a factor here. As a thought, I wouldn’t mind seeing Arcane Torrent grant us holy power points instead of mana in Mists.

Because every holy paladin starts with the same mana pool, the only differentiator in our longevity will be spirit. If one holy paladin has more spirit than another, then they have more longevity. It’s as simple as that. Rather than trying to figure out whether one paladin’s extra intellect makes up for the other’s spirit trinkets, spirit will simply be the first and last word. Need more longevity? Get spirit. It will be as simple as that.

Most guilds use one or more various systems to make sure loot distribution is fair. Some employ a basic rule of civility; once you get gear in an a raid, it’s polite to defer further drops to other guildmates. Others use complicated but effective point systems, assigning dropped gear a point value that members can bid against. No matter what the general system for rolling on gear, the foundation of the system is based on all group members’ being part of a common team.

Pickup groups and Raid Finder groups possess no such commonality. The teams comprise random folks thrown together by Blizzard’s behind-the-scenes group-building algorithms. Basic roles are filled, a few rules followed — but basically anyone can get thrown together into a group.

Random groups rarely agree on loot etiquette before getting started. We all say we should agree on loot rules beforehand, but that rarely actually happens. Instead, most folks charge ahead into the dungeon operating under only a few basic assumptions about how loot will be divided. With that in mind, let’s review the basic etiquette of rolling on gear in groups.

Blizzard’s Rolling Tool: Use it

Blizzard’s rolling tool has come a long, long way. At this point, the tool knows whether your class can use a piece of gear, and the tool allows you to roll need, greed, or disenchant. Just in case there’s some horrible error, you can even trade gear among members of the instance for some time after the roll, unless it’s been disenchanted, of course. (You only get the disenchant option if you have a disenchanter in the group.)

As a general rule, you should use the rolling tool exactly as it is. Don’t try and modify it with freaky rules and regulations. Just click need, greed, or disenchant, and move on with your life.

The tool does have a few challenges. We’ll discuss them in just a second, but I want to underline: Don’t do anything but use the tool as intended without discussing it with the group first. In the attempt to be a good person regarding gear, you could very easily just screw yourself out of loot. No sense in trying to alter the rules if the group doesn’t agree to it beforehand.

Consideration in low-level dungeons

One of the places the rolling tool falls a bit short is in lower-level dungeons. A few natural situation illustrate why. First, groups are comprised of people leveling up through the game, and most characters won’t yet be settled into their final role. Along the way, tanks and healers especially will be trying to maintain two sets of gear: one for DPS and leveling, one for completing dungeons. Second, some group members will be trying to switch roles, collecting DPS gear while still tanking the instance you’re currently in.

While that dynamic shouldn’t give a person priority in a need role, it’s fair to say that’s a good reason not to disenchant an item that would otherwise see use. Most players agree that disenchanting is cool, but it’s better for a piece of gear to actually get used. Breaking a useful drop into a shard is kind of a putz move.

For this reason, check in with the group members to see if anyone might otherwise use gear before you start rolling disenchant. This should only take a second or three and can save some heartache for someone who’s trying to leave DPS behind to get into the tanking game.

It takes a heck of a lot of courage to parody a Beatles song, and it takes a heck of a lot of skill to pull it off correctly. SilverLetomi has managed to do both, and she’s recorded dozens of Warcraft parodies and collaborations over the years. With an enviable vocal ability and an incredible amount of skill in creating and producing music, Letomi’s tunes have long been a favorite of many on YouTube, and it’s no wonder why — the girl’s got a great set of pipes!

Letomi’s work didn’t start with Warcraft parodies, however. She’s got years of experience in performing and audio engineering, something that is reflected in every song she puts out for people to hear. So what does it take to put together songs for the listening public? Letomi was kind enough to sit down with us and fill us in.

World of WarCrafts: Hi Letomi! Tell us a little bit about how you got into WoW. How long have you been playing? What got you into gaming in general?

Letomi: Lessee … I’m a Wrath baby. I’ve been playing for about two years now. I started playing because my boyfriend of the time was addicted, and I’d been watching over his shoulder going, “Oh, is that World of Warcraft? I’ve heard that’s addictive.” And then he proceeded to addict me.

Before WoW, though, I hadn’t done much gaming. My parents gave me and my sister a Play Station 2 and a couple games there, like the Hercules game and Harry Potter and Kingdom Hearts and Dance Dance Revolution. We’ve got a Wii now too and on that thing, we play Rayman’s Raving Rabbids TV Party almost exclusively. And by almost exclusively I mean I know we have other games, but I don’t know what they are. But really, I haven’t played very many video games at all, and it’s kinda sad to me.

You have a set of pipes and a talent for tossing music together! How long have you been singing and doing music? What’s your music background, any schooling?

Yeah, I’ve got schooling! I was accepted into an arts magnet school in sixth grade with a vocal music focus. The school itself was a middle and high school combined, so I was there, singing in choir and taking solo voice lessons, for seven years. They taught mainly classical styles of singing, but a newer choir conductor started getting us jazz music and our voice teachers broadened us with foreign language pieces and Broadway tunes.

And if your healer gets angry with you for using your abilities, healing yourself, paying attention to the mechanics and the like, then don’t worry. You’re doing the right thing — and while you may have angered one of the 10 million or so people who play WoW, you’ll make many others very much more cheerful.

As the great dragon crashed down, I turned and began padding toward the entrance to the shrine. The padding quickly became walking as I assumed my elven form, feeling the familiar weight of armor settle around my body. Brushing the sand out of my cloak, I turned to the figure who had silently watched us battle.

“Now that we’ve killed you,” I began, “You can help us?”

“Yes. The path to the Dragon Soul is open. It must be retrieved if we are to have any chance of stopping Deathwing and saving our world. I will now take you there.” He gestured, and a portal coalesced into existence.

I couldn’t help myself. “Um, I know you’re the Aspect of Time and everything, but wouldn’t it make a bit more sense to just go warn the other Aspects about Neltharion before he betrays them? This seems rather roundabout.”

He stared back at me, expressionlessly.

“Right. I’ll just … take the portal, and Shred something. Sounds good.”

The Well of Eternity

Well of Eternity is the second of the new 5-man instances released with Patch 4.3, and it is full of Burning Crusade lore. (In my subjective opinion, it’s the best of the three, which further proves that Blizzard needs to go ahead and release The Burning Crusade 2: They’re Really On Fire Now.) After a quick intro fight with a demon, you’ll meet Illidan, who will promptly enlist you, cloak you, and then lead you around as you kill demons and break things. After a short while, you’ll meet Peroth’arn.

The first phase is quite simple. You will enter with 30 stacks of Shadow Walk, which will turn into 30 seconds of Shadow Ambusher, which will grant you some crazy damage. Just dodge the obvious void zones and do your thing. Assuming the other DPSers in your group are reasonable, you’ll likely push him below 60% before the buff wears off, which triggers the “run away” part of the fight.

At this point, everyone gets re-stealthed and has to dodge some floating eyes for a while. With your feral movement abilities, this is pretty simple, but many groups just let themselves be found immediately to get it over with. Either way, he doesn’t do anything new, so just finish him off and proceed to Queen Azshara.

Of course, you don’t actually get to fight Azshara yourself (yay, lore), so this is a battle against her magi, who will spawn in twos. They fling quite a few spells around, but their damage output is mostly trivial for a good healer to handle. If your healer needs help, though, all the magi are stunnable with Maim, and most of the spells can be interrupted (but don’t; you want to save your interrupt).

More important, however, are Azshara’s spells. First will be Hand of the Queen — a ghostly hand that will mind-control one of the players in your group. It has very little health, so just kill it quickly (or rage at your group when you get MCed and everyone ignores it … seen that, too). Second will be Total Obedience, an AoE MC that thankfully has an 8-second cast time. You’ll get a very obvious warning message, so just run over, Skull Bash her, and get back to what you’re doing. Some groups will attempt to assign someone, but that usually ends in disaster, I find.