The WoW Insider Show podcast returned on Saturday, bringing with it your suspiciously-Italian-host-and-co-host team, Sacco and Rossi, along with WoW.com’s own rogue (and now holy paladin!) columnist Chase Christian. We talked about keeping raid and pug habits separate, updating the game’s character models, and other topics, as well as answering your emails.

If you’re wondering why this download is available so late in the week, well, we’re wondering that too. It’s probably for the same reason that I keep getting lost to the aether during the podcast call. We’re streamlining the process of getting the podcast everywhere it needs to go, though, so starting this week it should be available every Monday on the dot.

As always, you can email theshow@wow.com to have your email answered on the air, and if you have any guests you’d like to see on the show (or you’d like to be a guest yourself!) you can get a hold of us the same way.

Surprise! Editor’s note: Don’t worry, we’ll have more of the GaGa for you next week

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com’s daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today.

Puppies. Puppies.

Aliceness asked …

“Where might Blizzard go in terms of (maybe) implementing a new class for the next expansion? What kind of class haven’t we seen?”

If and when we get a new hero class, you can probably count on it being a healer/DPS hybrid that wears mail at maximum level. We only have two specs that take advantage of spellpower mail, and they’re both the same class. We also could probably use a new perspective on healing like death knights did for tanking. But, of course, they couldn’t be only healers, because that’s not how classes in the game work (anymore).

That’s my prediction, and I’m sticking to it.

Also — Blizzard has said many times there will not be a new class for Cataclysm, so this is a ways off.

Danielspeaks asked …

“With the introduction of reshaping Azeroth in Cataclysm, do you think they’ll create new low level instances? Or even change ‘em?”

Blizzard has said that while they may not create any new 1-60 instances in Azeroth, they’ll be redesigning some older instances with current design philosophies (and the Dungeon Finder) in mind.

Mousewrites asked …

“For the achievements Epic and Superior, must you have purple/blue shirts and tabards as well?”

Nope.

Davelea asked …

“Will the goblin and worgen mounts be available to the other classes at Exalted, and if so should I stock up on Runecloth?”

We have no idea, but it’s very likely given how racial mounts have worked in the game up until now.

Dosman711 asked …

“When is WoW.com going to update their prot paladin guides? It would be great to have a new-to-80 tanking, stats, and gear guide.”

We’ve had a few other new-to-80/new-to-the-class guides for other classes and specs go up recently, and there’ll definitely be more in the weeks to come, so if you’re interested in a similar guide for protection paladins, you can do one of two things — check out previous TLaHTSI posts where Gregg Reece talks about prot tanking, or ask him to create a Prot 101.

Curse Client version 4 for Mac has been in open alpha for some time now, and I’m happy to report it’s pretty good — far better than version 3 ever was. I have no idea how the Windows version is, but the Mac one is probably better than WoWMatrix ever was, from a usability standpoint, without that nagging “steals bandwidth from hosting sites” issue.

Things I like about it:

• It’s pretty fast. It doesn’t lock up for seconds at a time, and it doesn’t max out my CPU.
• It works well with links on the Curse site to install addons; it also makes it pretty easy to get new addons from within the updater.
• It’s easy to update all your addons; one click does it.
• The changelog for a new version is pretty easy to bring up, in case you’re wondering whether to update.

Things I don’t like as much:

• The icons on the “Update All,” “Install/Update,” and “Uninstall” buttons are completely unintuitive, especially the relationship between “Update” and “Update All.” Since when does a circle mean “all”?
• There are still some addons that aren’t in Curse’s database. That’s not really Curse’s fault, but it does hurt how useful the app is a bit.
• The fact that you have to mouse over an app in the preferences dialog to see the path to the app is absurd. The path should be below the app name in (possibly smaller) gray text.
• “Get More Addons” should not display addons you already have.
• The icon is too shiny. (I know, I know. But it is.)

As you can see, though, the points I like are much bigger than the points I don’t. Most of the minuses are little details. It’s worth noting that I think the Update All functionality is limited to premium accounts (which Curse seems to have given me one of for free); I tried to make a regular account to test, but that one seemed to be flagged as premium too. I’m not sure what the deal is there.

Anyway, if you haven’t used the Mac Curse Client since v3, it’s worth giving v4 a look. You’re likely to be pleasantly surprised. I would also like to say to the Curse dev team (if you’re reading) that you’ve made huge progress in this version, and I really enjoy it.

We are getting numerous tips that servers are crashing. Blue poster Aredek says it is a realm connectivity problem and that their technicians are looking into it. Currently, there is no time for when they will have an update.

We will keep you posted as usual.

Update 6:45pm: The realms are expected to be back up by 7:30pm EST.

Update 6:27pm: The Realm Status forum has posted the realms affected, which we have listed after the break.

[Thanks to all who sent this in!]

Cenarius
Cenarion Circle
Echo Isles
Hyjal
The Forgotten Coast
Fenris
Anub’arak
Blackwater Raiders
Vashj
Korialstrasz
Darrowmere
Bladefist
Winterhoof
Maiev
Rivendare
Nordrassil
Tortheldrin
Drak’Tharon
Antonidas
Shandris
Moon Guard
Nazgrel
Farstriders
Borean Tundra
Quel’dorei
Garrosh
Mok’Nathal
Nesingwary
Drenden

With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and helps with the puppet shows at the Argent Ren Faire up in Icecrown.

Sometimes, you just have that maddening compulsion to make your wish list of various things you want to acquire. I’ve got one on Amazon for a woodworking shop and another of things I want on WoW (which does happen to include a pony, Ghostcrawler). However, with the last of the loot being divvied up in these final days of Wrath, let’s go through Icecrown Citadel and make a shopping list of gear we’d kill for.

Lord Marrowgar’s frosty remains

After fighting waves of undead, tripping traps, and possibly even using crowd-control you’ve finally reached Marrowgar. He’s got his own special issues that have you destroying spikes and the avoidance of fire that’s really burning ice or something. I think he just pours out four bottles of freon. That’s just my theory. Let’s see what we pry from his cold, dead hands.

• Holy
  • Frost Needle – 10 man – This one-handed sword isn’t a great choice for your healadin. It has some hit on it, but if your weapon is lagging behind the rest of your gear, this would be a quick way to upgrade.
  • Ancient Skeletal Boots – 10 man – This set of boots goes for crit and mp5. It’s also got two sockets.
  • Corrupted Silverplate Leggings – 10 man – These legs give you crit and haste and three sockets.
  • Coldwraith Bracers – 10 man – While these are spell mail instead of spell plate, they’re not bad if you’re looking for an upgrade. It’s haste and mp5 gear with a red socket.
  • Sliver of Pure Ice – 10 man – Marrowgar drops this spellpower trinket with the on use ability to regain a bit of mana. The mana return is equivelant to about 67 mp5 in the long run which isn’t that shabby all things considered. However, being an on-use trinket, you’ll have to keep remembering to actually use it.
  • Marrowgar’s Frigid Eye – 25 man – A nice little spell ring. It’s also got some mp5, some haste, and a yellow socket for your gem of choice.
  • Rusted Bonespike Pauldrons – 25 man – These spell plate shoulders give you some crit and mp5. If you’d rather it have more of something, there are two gem slots awaiting blue and yellow gems.
  • Crushing Coldwraith Belt – 25 man – Here’s a cloth belt that’s sans spirit and sans hit which makes it a decent choice for pallies in need of healing upgrades. It’s got two slots for gems, some crit, and a large chunk of haste.
  • Bulwark of Smouldering Steel – 25 man – Here’s a spell power shield for you healadins. It’s got a fair amount of crit and haste on it .
• Protection
  • Marrowgar’s Scratching Choker – 10 man – This tank neck-piece has a single blue socket (yay, stocket bonuse) and ups your dodge and parry. Defense rating on it is a little low in my opinion, but at these gear levels, the defense cap isn’t usually an issue.
  • Bonebreaker Scepter – 10 man – This little mace is a really nice upgrade if you’ve been following the 10-man track. No sockets, but it has hit, dodge, and defense. I also like the model for it.
  • Bracers of Dark Reckoning – 25 man – Even more dodge/parry gear. As a tank, you start to miss seeing the occasional piece of block gear. However, this puppy has a good portion of its itemization towards stamina as well as including a yellow socket for gems.
  • Legguards of Lost Hope – 25 man – Protection pants sporting three gem slots (one of each). It’s got a little bit of hit on it as well as some dodge. It also has a not insignificant amount of defense rating on there in case you want to swap some gear around.
• Retribution
  • Citadel Enforcer’s Claymore – 10 man – Oh, look it’s a big two-handed sword. This puppy has a large chunk of hit on it as well as some crit. There’s also a yellow socket that would fit a Bold Cardinal Ruby just as well as any yellow gem.
  • Gendarme’s Cuirass – 25 man – Retadin pants with three, count’em three sockets (one in each color) with hit and crit as the equip stats.
  • Bryntroll, the Bone Arbiter – 25 man – Probably the best two-hander, besides Shadowmourne, we’ll see until Cataclysm ships. My one complaint is that it’s a fairly fast weapon, but the proc it has makes up for that. It has a chance on hit to steal over two thousand hit points from your opponent and thus boost you up. It also has two sockets on there, so you could significantly boost the strength if needed.

Lady Deathwhisper and her adds

Kill this, kite that, don’t stand in bad stuff, and for the love of all that is sacred, don’t tank her for too long. I’m still trying to figure out why she was delivering speeches while standing on an elevator. However, now that she’s dead, let’s go through her pockets.

• Holy
  • Deathspeaker Disciple’s Belt – 10 man – Again, we’re taking a look at resto-shaman gear and in this case, a belt. It’s stacking haste rating and mp5. It also has two gem slots on it which can be increased to three with a buckle.
  • Necrophotic Greaves – 25 man – Yes, I’m still looting shaman gear. We’ve got two gem slots, crit, and a fair chunk of mp5. If you’re looking for haste, this is not the item for you.
  • Fallen Lord’s Handguards – 25 man – Here we go, some real spell plate gloves. We’ve got our crit. We’ve got our haste. And most important, we’ve got two gem slots to play with.
• Protection
  • Ghoul Commander’s Cuirass – 10 man – Here’s the first tanking chest upgrade you’ll probably have in ICC. It has three sockets, two of which are even blue and uses the standard death knight tanking stats of defense, dodge, and parry.
  • Broken Ram Skull Helm – 25 man – This tanking helm has a meta socket as well as a red gem socket on it. As for equip stats, it’s got defense, dodge, and hit. Another note is that it has almost twice as much stamina as it does strength (which will probably be doubled after gemming and enchanting).
  • Juggernaut Band – 25 man – This tanking ring has a red gem slot as well as the standard parry, dodge, and defense itemization.
• Retribution
  • Deathspeaker Zealot’s Helm – 10 man – This melee helm has a meta socket and a blue gem slot. As for equip stats, it’s boasting some haste as well as a decent chunk of crit rating.
  • Whispering Fanged Skull – 10 man – Imagine an upgraded version of the old Mirror of Truth we got from the Emblem of Heroism badge vendor and that’s what you’re looking at here. Some nice crunchy crit with a side of attack power proc. Not a shabby trinket at all. I just wish it wasn’t unique.
  • Ahn’kahar Onyx Neckguard – 25 man – This is hit and crit necklace with a blue gem socket tossed in for good measure. If you’re using a blue gem to activate your helm’s meta gem, you can put it in here for the +4 strength socket bonus. It’s not much, but ever point of strength adds up.
  • Blood-Soaked Saronite Stompers – 25 man – These are more warrior dps boots than ret boots, but they’ve still got critical strike rating. The two gems slots are nice, but the armor penetration leaves me cold. These still might be an upgrade for you, so don’t dismiss them immediately. a

Every Sunday, Spiritual Guidance offers Holy and Discipline priests advice on how to wield the holy light and groove to the disco night. Your hostess Dawn Moore will provide the music.

For my introductory article I dreamed of writing a stunning opener that would be attention grabbing and witty. After an hour of contemplating bad diamond clichés such as Earthsiege Diamonds are forever, or Lucifron and the Skyflare Diamonds (which really makes no sense), I decided I’m just going to come out and say it straight: I hate the Insightful Earthsiege Diamond.

Despite my loathing, according to Armory Data Mining, the Insightful Earthsiege Diamond is the most popular meta gem selected by level 80 priests, both holy and discipline. So, I am going to shed some light on this mysterious meta gem by explaining its pluses and minuses, as well as discuss some alternative options should you choose to switch.

The Insightful Earthsiege Diamond provides 21 intellect and a “chance to restore mana on spellcast.” The words are vague but certainly appealing. The chance effect is unique among other level 80 meta gems; but as I said before, I hate this meta. The vague description is a siren’s song, luring in innocent and unsuspecting priests.

Let me explain the details. The chance effect on the Insightful Earthsiege meta has a supposed 15 second internal cool down, which at +600 mana on proc, gives it the potential to provide an additional 200mp5. Don’t be fooled! I’ve tested this gem rather thoroughly and the actual return averages to about 60mp5. Most tests yielded 3 to 4 procs in 3 minute test times, but there were several instances when I casted for a full minute and never saw a proc.

If you need some perspective, 60mp5 is about the mp5 you would get from the old all-star trinket, the Je’tze Bell. For more perspective, this is a third of the mp5 you’ll see on trinkets valued in more recent content, such as Solace of the Fallen. Please don’t let me be misunderstood at this point though – I do think that overall, a meta gem that functions as half of a trinket is pretty useful.

But don’t forget the first part of the meta gem: 21 intellect. If you’re not a big fan of cross multiplication, I can tell you that each point of intellect is worth about 15 mana points. Multiply that by 21 and you get 315 mana. The additional intellect will also give you a tiny benefit to mana regeneration and critical strike rating, but I have to stress the benefits are extremely small and only being noted to show they weren’t overlooked.

So what you get from the Insightful Earthsiege Diamond is: 315 mana and an average of 60mp5.

Now you know the details on the Insightful Earthsiege, so let’s talk about the competition: the Ember Skyflare Diamond and the Beaming Earthsiege Diamond.

The Ember Skyflare Diamond gives 25 spell power and 2% intellect. The Beaming Earthsiege Diamond gives 21 crit strike rating and 2% mana. For both gems, the mana you gain will be determined by your individual gear, so I cannot give you a universal bonus number to compare to the Insightful Earthsiege. So in this case, I will use myself as an example. I am a disc priest with around 24,000 mana, which many would consider low for tier 9 gear. (More explanation on this next week.) Based on my numbers, both gems net me about 480 bonus mana. That means for all you priests with 30,000+ mana pools, you’re looking at a much bigger benefit (+600 mana) from the Ember Skyflare or the Beaming Earthsiege. For all priests who are in the process of gearing up, and have smaller mana pools, the number will scale downward appropriately.

There are also some marginal differences to note with these two meta gems. +2% mana will technically net you more mana than +2% intellect, but intellect will subtly benefit your mana regeneration (in addition to the marginal amount of crit I mentioned earlier when we spoke about the Insightful Earthsiege). Inside a raid or party with replenishment, +2% mana will grant a bigger (though still subtle) effect from replenishment. For my 24,000 mana pool, the difference between the Ember Skyflare and the Beaming Earthsiege was .8 mana. For the Ember Skyflare, the bonus mana regeneration while casting was +3 mana (not casting was +6), and the bonus crit from intellect was around .1%. There is a lot more math that can be discussed but it’s better left to the best of theorycrafters.

So, if you’re choosing between the Ember Skyflare or the Beaming Earthsiege, it really comes down to personal preference. Do you prefer to have an additional 25 spell power on every spell you cast? Or do you prefer an additional 21 crit strike rating? (21 crit rating is about .5% by the way) It’s up to you, as both stats are beneficial to priest healers of either spec. It should be said, however, that the Beaming Earthsiege Diamond is sometimes hard to find. The design for the gem is a random world drop that was added in patch 3.0.8. If you choose to go with the Beaming, you may want to stockpile a few if you’re not a jewelcrafter, as you may have trouble finding one later.

Anyway, in summary, the two metas give the following:

Ember Skyflare Diamond: 25 SP and 2% intellect.
Beaming Earthsiege Diamond: .5% crit chance and 2% mana.

Now the question is, how do these three meta gems stand up to each other? The Ember Skyflare and Beaming Earthsiege certainly trump the Insightful Earthsiege on bonus mana given the current gear levels of the average raiding priest, but neither the Ember nor Beaming have a mana return component. The Ember Skyflare and Beaming Earthsiege do not rely on a low proc rate, where as the Insightful Earthsiege does.

So… here is the reason I hate the Insightful Earthsiege Diamond – the dealbreaker that makes the difference between an innocent, ordinary meta gem versus a nefarious, plotting, top hat wearing meta gem: the blue gem activation requirement. Look over all three gems again. The Ember Skyflare requires 3 red gems to activate – the Beaming Earthsiege requires 2 red gems and 1 yellow gem – the Insightful Earthsiege requires 1 red, 1 yellow, and 1 blue. The average healer is more than happy to socket red gems. Yellow gems might be hit or miss, but there is a fine selection of orange gems if you don’t want to go pure intellect or haste. Blue gems are very limited in versatility, though, and some of them are down-right bizarre. Did you know there is a Crit + Spirit gem?

Of course, to the average holy priest, all this QQ about blue gems not being versatile isn’t a big deal since holy priests benefit from spirit in combat. If a holy priest wishes to activate the Insightful Earthsiege Diamond, whether he gems heavily for spirit or not, he will find there are particular pieces of gear (such as the tier 9 and 10 helms) where utilizing the blue socket bonus with a SP+Spirit gem makes sense due to the Spiritual Guidance talent. The same situation does not exist for discipline unfortunately. Trying to socket blue spirit gems is like trying to socket lumps of coal, and a prismatic Nightmare Tear offers no better options than a Seer’s Eye of Zul. A discipline priest’s best choices would be with a Royal Dreadstone or a Dazzling Eye of Zul, but ultimately it still clashes with the fact that discipline priests are not having mana problems. Neither are holy priests for that matter.

And this is the crux of my argument: if mana is no issue then the entire appeal of the Insightful Earthsiege Diamond is lost on me. This is why I go with the Ember Skyflare or the Beaming Earthsiege. My personal choice is usually dependent on the auction house prices at the time, but I do enjoy the Beaming Earthsiege since I run with a lot of haste. Also it’s rare and thus cooler. (In a world of meta gems, the Beaming Earthsiege Diamond wears sunglasses… at night.)

But despite my preferences, this is where I have to tell you that I can’t choose your meta gem for you. Whether you’re holy or discipline, mana might be an issue for you for any number of reasons. You might have longer encounters because your raid dps isn’t up to par. You might still be working on your gear and the mana return from the Insightful meta could far outweigh the bonuses you get from Ember or Beaming. You might be too lazy to not have the resources available to utilize mp5 consumables for encounters that require more strain on your mana pool. There are so many variables to consider and they will vary for every priest. The purpose of this write up is to encourage you to weigh your meta options if you haven’t already, and I hope that you will. And honestly, for all my hating, the Insightful Earthsiege meta was very good last year around this time when we were still in Naxxramas. Our gear is better now though, so you may find you have a lot more flexibility available to you and can allocate more stats to help your raid instead of your mana pool. Think it over.

The healer is the most important member of a five man group in World of Warcraft, hands down. The healer is the backbone of the group. The healer is the motive force that allows things to proceed. If the tank is mediocre, the DPS good, and the healer good, you might progress or might not. If the tank is good, the DPS is good, and the healer is mediocre, you’ll have a much harder time adjusting to any sudden surprises, If the tank and healer are both good, as long as the DPS can put out ANY DPS and there’s no enrage timer, things will die.

This isn’t meant to denigrate DPS or tanks. Heck, I’m a tank or DPS more than I’m a healer nowadays. But I believe strongly that healing is the silent motive force for a successful run, that a great deal of the pressure is placed on a healer’s shoulders without the showy nature of the tanking role or the meter busting fun of the DPS roles. Healers are like the drummer, often ignored, but absolutely vital.

So here’s your chance to agree or disagree, as well as to go even further. Are DPS the guitar? Is the tank the bass player? Have I gone completely insane? Do we even need that last question?

Weekend’s done, it’s back to work. How was everybody’s New Year’s celebration? I hope everyone’s sober and up and running to start your Monday. It’s the start of the week, after all, hopefully you’re all not still hungover from the very long weekend. Then again, it’s not always a bad thing to be a little out of sorts, especially when playing World of Warcraft. Some of my most memorable raids have actually happened when one or (regrettably) more raid members have been, how do we say, ah, rambunctious with the help of a little liquid courage. We didn’t necessarily have smooth runs, but they sure were a riot, especially over vent.

Did you guys use the long break to play the game? Or did you use it to actually catch up on real life? If you guys played, did you do it with a little more eggnog than necessary? Or maybe you loaded up on sweets like candy canes and played with a little sugar rush? Did you go through the break wearing real life Beer Goggles? With the long vacation over and the new year ushering us all back to work, school, or anything that isn’t inactivity, let’s use this sobering breakfast topic to talk about what we did over the long holidays. Heck, regale us with tales of inebriated raiding or playing. Since I’m something of a teetotaler myself, reading those stories should be a vicarious treat.

Behold the miracle of confection. Made by Christina Drylie of Apple Valley, California it’s one of the 10 winning entries in this year’s Blizzard Holiday Desert contest. Warning: may erupt from Deepholm and unleash elemental devastation. In addition to the Aspect of Earth, we have Moonkin, Murlocs, Lord Marrowgar and Icecrown Citadel in edible form. Hasten yourselves to go forth and consume their images. Unfortunately you won’t be able to actually eat any of the deserts, but it’s the web, we haven’t worked out how to make hypertext work for creating cake.

If done right, a Warcraft cartoon has a lot of potential. I think quite a few fans of animation could point at various styles that would work for the franchise… I would personally stay away from the overtly computer animation of a Clone Wars (unless we could somehow get Pixar to do it. I mean, while I’m dreaming) and would try to go with something more like the actual game, with deliberately exaggerated and unrealistic lines. But I’ll leave it up to you: who should star? Who would you choose to do their voices? What art style, what kind of direction would you take it? The sky’s the limit for the Warcraft animated series, because as far as we know it’s not going to happen.