With how fascinated players are with using Onyxia as a benchmark, it was only a matter of time before our new legions of Death Knights tried their hand at it. Scarblade, a poster from the MMO-Champion forums, seems to hold the prize for world first solo Onyxia kill by a Death Knight. At least, as far as we know, and as of the latest beta patch. Will it count when Wrath goes retail? Who knows? We're a fickle bunch. Either way, I sincerely doubt many others attempted this as a Death Knight before Scarblade, because running around doing those attunement quests on the beta realms must be brutal even at level 80. You're just going to have to do it all over again!

Still, Scarblade was a trooper and went through the whole ridiculous attunement process. He says he tried both Frost and Blood specs before ultimately settling on an Unholy build that won the day for him. Personally, I expected this kill to have been done using a deep Blood talent spec with how well they solo. I suppose Onyxia isn't the same as your random elite thug hanging out in the middle of a field somewhere, so it makes sense that what works there might not be best in Ony's Lair. Unholy does make sense though, controlling those whelps can make or break an Onyxia attempt no matter how many people you take with you. Unholy Blight is a beautiful thing.

Yes, Scarblade did earn an Achievement for killing the ol' gal. Two, actually. One for just plain killing her, and one for killing her solo.

[ via MMO-Champion ]

The WotLK EU Bestiary has been updated with a new creature: the Wendigo. Rumored to be related to the wendigo living in Dun Morogh, the wendigo of Northrend seem to lurk close to their caves. And, like other family-minded spawns of Northrend, these wendigo are fiercely protective of their relatives. The Bestiary warns of "the sound of their savage bellows," so I definitely hope to see some kind of sonic-based attack from the cool looking monster. The Bestiary also talks about the wendigo's bone-piles, so they might have a little more habitat in their spawning areas than we're used to seeing.

Like Alex mentioned previously, the Darkfallen are the hypothetical next-to-be-revealed monster. But there's only three unrevealed mobs on the total list, so at worst, the Darkfallen have a 33% chance to be the next spotlighted critter. I'm most curious about the Proto-Dragon, so my money says that's going to be the last one detailed.

This post contains spoilers about Wrath of the Lich King. Before the cut, the spoilers will be mild. After the cut, the spoilers will be complete, and more powerful than you could possibly imagine. (Well, more than you could imagine if you don't check out behind the cut.)

One of Blizzard's hallmarks in the World of Warcraft has long been the subtle digs and nods to pop culture. These Easter Eggs can bring a lot of fun, though I know some folks feel the little references ruin their immersion. I kind of like them, and still giggle this day about the idea of purchasing Gigantique bags from Haris Pilton while avoiding her spectral friend. This new one, lurking mildly in Northrend, made me giggle a bit in delight, though. One might even say, I muttered a faint "Squee!"

Go behind the cut and see the latest easter egg in Wrath ... if you dare!

Good tuesday morning, everyone! It's an extended maintenance day this week, from 3AM - 11 AM Pacific time. Of course, while we've just gotten wind of another content patch, it's probably safe to say said patch is not dropping this week. All the same, we do have 8 hours of downtime. Whether your lack of WoW playing is enforced by your job or enforced by the downtime this morning, you now have plenty of time to Browse WoW Insider, right? Check out some of our best news and articles from the past week, from the Wrath Beta and elsewhere:

Hot News and Hot Features

• The Wrath Cinematic is out, and our sister site Big Download has direct downloads for you.
• Looking for a game or two to pass the time? Have you seen our crossword puzzles yet?
• Learn about phasing, the new technique Blizzard is using in Northrend to create dynamic content.
• You might also have some fun with the latest version of BlizzCon 08: The Game.
• As always, be sure to check out Ask a Beta Tester for answers to all your burning beta questions.
• Okay, so we're in the Wrath Beta. But it's not all fun and games!
• If you haven't seen all of our Wrath zone galleries, why not check them out now?

Hold on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen. In a sign that Wrath of the Lich King is quickly moving toward release, Eyonix officially announced today that we will see a new content patch "in the coming weeks."

This patch will introduce a good portion of the old world Wrath-related content and UI improvements, and will probably start the pre-Wrath opening event (If you don't mind spoilers, you can get some info on what that event may entail from us). Check out Eyonix's list of what is being implemented and what it may mean after the break.

We heard just last week that J. Allen Brack said Blizzard was definitely considering a graphical overhaul for WoW in the future (something players have been asking about for a while), and now WorldofWar has asked Brack to clarify exactly what's going on with the game's graphics. And he's answered. He says that Blizzard's approach to updating the game's graphics will likely be very different than other games' attempts -- they want to do it organically and iteratively rather than all in one go.

Which follows with what's happened already -- Burning Crusade got a few tweaks and upgrades, and Wrath has its own. Not only will they implement that shader system we heard about way back, but the shadows for each model ingame will be updated (and real-time, very cool), and Blizzard is increasing the view distance (to help out with vehicular combat, we hope?). But other changes, Brack says, will come in waves, not all at once.

He does mention an upgrade of how the water in the game looks, though of course he doesn't say when that might happen, only that Blizzard is looking at it. But it seems like a pretty sure bet not to expect an upcoming content patch to be "the graphical update patch." Blizzard is improving the way the world looks, but they're doing it one step at a time.

Our sister site Big Download, purveyor of all things PC games, have released their list of the most anticipated PC titles for the rest of the year, and as you might imagine, Wrath of the Lich King is posted in there, nestled in among other sure-to-be-giants like Spore and Left 4 Dead. The game that's expected to be WoW's big MMO competition this fall, Warhammer Online, is in there as well, so for those of you who are PC gamers, the Fall and Winter future looks particularly bright (even if it does seem a little slow lately).

Of course, we have no idea how WoW's second expansion will fare on retail shelves this Fall, but all of the ingredients are there -- WoW is experiencing a resurgence lately (thanks in part to Blizzard's Recuit-a-friend promotion), and the news out of the beta has been nothing but encouraging for most everybody. Burning Crusade was gigantic, and that was back when 8 million were playing the game. All indications are that Blizzard stands to rake in the cash when their expansion goes on sale later this year.

BusinessWeek spent some time examining the indisputable success of our Blizzard overlords. At the very beginning of the article, BusinessWeek credits Blizzard's mastery of gaming to the often-spoken, often-hated "when it's ready." In a quote from Jay Wilson, Blizzard says that if "a product isn't good enough, we cancel it."

The BusinessWeek article talks a lot about the overwhelmingly involved culture of Blizzard employees. The developers play their own games, both on the clock and off the clock. Dedicated "strike teams" spend lunch cruising the games' latest builds. Players in beta provide instant feedback, which executives and designers hungrily consume to make the best possible decisions. And if a game isn't deemed "fun enough," it's sent off to black-can land, where it will never see the light of day.

According to the article, though, Blizzard still plans on releasing a new expansion every year. This is in addition to Starcraft II and Diablo III. While we can obviously expect these games to show up "when they're ready," it paints a very active, competitive future for the Activision Blizzard group. The article does credit a new milestone for our beloved World of Warcraft. According to BusinessWeek, the subscriber base is now nearly 11 million. With the Recruit-a-Friend benefits, I hope we see this number grow to 12 million by the end of the year.

Last week we talked a bit about gear and spell power, and various related things. I mostly approached it as supplying my personal experiences, but a lot of people wanted numbers. Specifically, how your current gear will translate into the new spell power mechanic.

A kind fellow named Dan helped us out with a little bit of that in the comments section last week, so let's expand upon it somewhat. Again, this will focus mostly on the Healer and Caster aspects of the Hybrids. You Melee guys don't really need to worry about how spell power will change your gear.

Alright, so the question is this: If you have a choice between taking +Damage gear or +Healing gear in the current game right now, which would be a better choice for taking with you into Wrath of the Lich King leveling? Let's make liberal use of Wowhead, shall we?

If you tend to be a strictly weekend-centric WoW Insider reader, you may have missed some of the best stuff to come out of the Wrath beta thus far: the eye candy! Class updates, mechanics changes, pfft, who needs that stuff? No no my friends, me, I'm all about the shinies. Okay, and I like all of that other stuff, too. Luckily, we have a little bit of everything, and in case you did miss our eye candy, let's take a look back at some of it, shall we? Be warned, however, that most of these galleries contain some minor spoilers. If you don't want to be spoiled, be careful!

	The Borean Tundra The Borean Tundra, accessed from either the Orgrimmar zeppelin tower or the Stormwind Harbor, is one of two starter zones in Northrend. The Tundra houses Valiance Keep, Warsong Hold, D.E.H.T.A. the Coldarra (home of the Blue Dragonflight) and much more.
	The Howling Fjord The Howling Fjord is the second of the two Northrend starter zones, accessed via Menethil Harbor or the Tirisfal zeppelin towers. The Howling Fjord is home to Valgarde, the Forsaken's Vengeance Landing, the Vrykul fortress Utgarde, and the Ember Clutch.

Each week, Arcane Brilliance inscribes a glyph into the greater glyph slot of your Saturday afternoon. It's called the Glyph of Mageosity, and it Mageifies the entire rest of your day. A few words of warning, once your day has been Mageified: you may find fire bursting from your fingers at inopportune times. You might discover that certain nearby people who were formerly human may now be sheep. Also, for the rest of the day, you may want to avoid any contact with Rogues or Warlocks.

As you may have noticed, build 8820 has touched down in beta land, and with it we Mages finally have our first real taste of how Inscription will affect us as a class. There are still a great many things we don't know about these glyphs, but just having a list and knowing that Glyph of the Penguin won't be our only reason to track down an Inscriber in the expansion is newsworthy. I mean, I'm as excited to turn a Warlock into a penguin as the next Mage, but I'm glad to finally have some idea what our other glyph options will be.

Now, I'm still not one of the fortunate few who've gotten into the beta, so sadly I have no first-hand information to pass on to you. I'm sure that a goodly number of Mages more blessed than I are logged into the beta, busy testing out damage numbers as we speak, and I look forward to reading their euphoric and/or rage-filled forum posts later on...reading and dreaming and plotting to kill them and steal their beta keys. For now, though, you'll have to make do with my own uninformed and hastily formulated analysis of these forthcoming glyphs. Frankly, I wouldn't offer you anything less.

Join me after the break for the full list of Mage glyphs, and as much hyperbole and bias as you can shake a Chilly Slobberknocker at.

Groups of Words' anonyomous blogger bought up a rather interesting theory regarding World of Warcraft expansions: They're actually more like sequels, in that they change a lot of the basic groundwork of the game and the classes to such a point that it feels like a completely different game.

As evidence of this, he puts forth a large list things that have changed between original WoW and Burning Crusade. Being a semi-old-timer to WoW, I certainly recognized pretty much all of the changes, and thinking back, a lot of them have been doozies.

It has finally happened, ladies and gentlemen. Sylvanas has finally received her true High Elf model in the latest beta push. It's about time! The lighting of Undercity does her a bit of an injustice when she doesn't have a Night Elf's skin, but things are as they should be now. Don't worry, this isn't another fake or 'fan interpretation' or anything like that. It's the real deal, seen in Undercity with my own two eyes.

We haven't seen her in Northrend yet, my personal guess is that she'll be in Icecrown once that has opened up, and she'll probably look much cooler out there. This beta patch brought us the Storm Peaks, so I would guess Icecrown isn't too far off. If you want a close-up of the shiny new Sylvanas, just click the link below.

Yeah. I mean... yeah. Hard to come up with a response to that, isn't it? Well, okay, I had one. I believe I turned to my wife (lovely and talented mistress of beasts and long time WoW partner) and I began gibbering like a maniac who had just stumbled upon a shipment of new chainsaws. As I write this, the download is 41 percent complete, and I am nearly losing my mind with each slow, incremental tick of the bar towards completion. Titan's Grip with no speed penalty? Furious Attack? You're telling me that I'm going to be able to main hand this with no speed penalty at all? That my white hits are going to have 100% chance to debuff healing by up to 50% for up to 8 seconds? That my melee critical hits are going to increase the melee criticals of myself and everyone within 20 yards of me by 5% for 10 seconds?

I'm not even talking about the arms tree buffs yet. I hereby dub this beta patch "The patch warriors will never actually see go live" because it's simply too amazing. While yes, mace specialization has been nerfed, I honestly hated it anyway: getting stunlocked is bad enough, but it's even worse when it's another warrior doing it. The new version doesn't really offer much, though, I can't imagine anyone taking it over Sword or Poleaxe.