The Colosseum takes us inside the world of the Gladiator (Brutal, Vengeful, Merciless, and otherwise), to interview some of the top Arena fighters in the battlegroups. Our goal is to bring a better understanding of the strategy, makeup, and work that goes into dueling it out for fame, fortune, and Netherdrakes Holy Paladins are a bit of a hot topic right now. While moment-captured statistics will certainly indicate they have a measure of power in Season 5, this isn’t the first time that’s happened. Back in Season 1, Holy Paladins were the class-to-have. But as soon as Resilience and mobility became popular in Arena compositions, Holy Paladins became a thing of the past. Even the so-called “lolret” seemed to fare better in the Arena that the plate-wearing healers. With all the uproar about Holy Paladins right now, it’s fair to take a second look at the class and tactics in the weekend Arena column. Meetsi of Auchindoun was kind enough to share his thought on the Arena with us, especially from the perspective of an Arena healer. You might also recognize him as partner to Infractus, from last week. WoW Insider: What are the strongest points of operating as a Paladin in the Arena? Meetsi: Paladins have

Those who participated in this year’s official arena tournament have been not-so-patiently awaiting their reward for playing 200 arena matches in the preliminary rounds on the tournament realm. It’s been quite awhile since players expected to get their hands on Murkimus, but Blizzard representatives have been giving a mid-May estimate that proved true today. Players who played their 200 matches should be logging into Murkimus in their mailbox today. You can stop panicking that Blizzard cheated you out of a pet. You can stop worrying that you missed some important detail. Enjoy your murloc, folks. Filed under: Items, Arena

A sudden wave of crashes has hit the North American WoW servers, with the Emberstorm and Whirlwind Battlegroups especially hard hit. As of this writing, most of the affected servers are still down. Blizzard is aware of the issue and is looking into it, but has no further information to give at this time. We’ll update this post when we hear more. UPDATE: According to Crygil, tonight’s issue was out of Blizzard’s control, but luckily things have resolved themselves. All realms should be up within the next half hour. [Thanks to everyone who gave us a heads up!] UPDATE: The 8 PM Pacific ETA has been removed from the original notice. This could be a long night. UPDATE: 8 PM Pacific time is the current ETA for the return of the affected servers.

Well, it’s that time of year again — that special time of year when a young man’s thoughts of buying BlizzCon tickets turn to a creeping psychosis. When dark whispers echo from the cavernous depths of the serpentine tunnels beneath the earth’s crust, their walls emblazoned with pulsing eldritch symbols unknown to any living civilization. When dreamers with minds unguarded bear witness to the psychic rumblings of beings lost to time. If you listen closely you can hear it, sussurating even now… Ïa! Ïa! BlizzCon tickets f’thagn! Oh, and it’s also that time of week (Saturday) where we check in with our many writers (and one Peruvian pygmy mummy) and see what the heck they’re doing this weekend. The two may intersect in ways you probably anticipated. So let’s see just what’s causing our writers’ sanity levels to drop dangerously low this weekend. Adam “Holisky: Trying to pull off 75 daily quests from Friday through Sunday. Alex Ziebart: I won’t be doing anything. I profaned an ancient tomb and now I’ve switched bodies with a Peruvian pygymy mummy! A primeval headhunter is running around in my body! If only I could alert an expert in mystical

Salty Jecaa of <The Illuminati> on Lightbringer-EU sends us this picture from General Vezax’s room in Ulduar, taken while his guild was preparing to fight Yogg-Saron. Why all the smashed stained glass? Perhaps Vezax, a hideous Zoidberg-like lobster creature, chose to destroy the beautiful artwork surrounding him so it wouldn’t contrast so vividly with his own monstrous visage. Or maybe Jecaa was careless with his staff. It looks like it could do a number on anything breakable in the vicinity. Do you have any unusual, beautiful or interesting World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We’d love to see them on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next! Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word “Azeroth” in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing — use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, double-mounts, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in

A new Patch 3.1 PTR build is out tonight, build #9626. This build adds some changes and brings a few undocumented changes into their proper documented status. And with this new build, we’re going to try something new here at WoW Insider. Each time the patch notes change, we’ll bring you a listing of significant changes to them. What’s a significant change? Non-grammatical, there are grammar and spelling errors in the patch notes. While people might like to make fun of them, they’re not of any consequence. Non-contextual, sometimes the context of a note changes but doesn’t really make any difference. Something like a Shield Bash change moved from the Arms tree (where it was mistakenly placed) to the Protection tree (where it belongs). Non-formatting, often times the format of the patch notes will change. This includes things like using “:” or “-” in the appropriate places. These don’t concern us. Sometimes the new changes to the patch notes will just be undocumented things becoming documented. But that’s important to know too. So after the break you’ll see our first go at this. A complete list of the changes from the initial Patch 3.1 PTR build to PTR