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

• WoW in an Hour really enjoys doing the new raid weekly quest — nice raid rewards, under an hour of play.
• Chill of the Grave has some great suggestions for Death Knight gear to be found in the new 5-mans.
• HTFTMFW takes you through quick strategies for the first four bosses in Icecrown.
• Starnaglethron has a declaration of love for the Dungeon Finder (which most of you would probably echo).
• And finally, Pike has some bad news for you Glyph of Bestial Wrath addicts. There’s a new glyph in town and he’ll up your DPS.

Following up on their neat entry for Ulduar, Blizzard has released their newest Bosstiary, this time for The Frozen Halls, the collection of new Icecrown 5-man dungeons coming with Patch 3.3. The site serves as an encyclopedia of information on the many and varied bosses of the Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron, and Halls of Reflection.

The Bosstiaries often have information that the dungeons never really give you; for example, who knew that Auriaya was the Titans’ librarian? Nobody, that’s who. We just wondered why the heck she was wandering around Ulduar with a bunch of cats and a bad attitude. But now you can go into the Frozen Halls and know exactly who you’re fighting and why, replete with marks on the map indicating the position of the bosses and the instance entrance.

The Forge of Souls sees us freeing the souls of innocents from Arthas’ Soul Grinder machines, run by Bronjahm, Godfather of Souls. Guarding the machines and preventing souls from escaping is the Devourer of Souls.

The Pit of Saron is Arthas’ saronite mining operation; Krick, a leper gnome, oversees the operation from atop his abomination, Ick. Forgemaster Garfrost shapes the saronite into weapons of destruction under Arthas’ command, and Scourgelord Tyrannus lords over the pit with his fearsome Scourge powers.
The Halls of Reflection are Arthas’ private quarters, guarded by his lieutenants in life, Falric and Marwyn. Inside, Arthas himself keeps Frostmourne locked away from those who would try to use it against him.

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Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to Arthas. WoW.com’s Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.

It seems like every Wrath patch brings with it more items than the last by an order of magnitude. It was eight hundred of ‘em for 3.1, between the Argent Tournament and Ulduar, and now Ghostcrawler says that 1400 more PvE items will be packed in every box of Patch 3.3, including our big orange buddy up there.

Given the recent interview with Cory Stockton and our man GC, it seems like there’s a lot of attention going into itemization for all of the Icecrown gear, and thus it’s actually a little surprising that there’s so darn much of it. And there’s a ton of new kinds of procs, set bonuses, et cetera, building on the “Epic. Cool things. Proc’y stuff.” mentality that GC says Icecrown items are all based on.

Then again, with what’s going down with items in Cataclysm, fourteen hundred new items seem downright mundane in comparison. It must seem that way to Ghostcrawler, too, given that this whole comment off-handedly came out in a post where someone was loudly complaining about an itemization bug on a piece of Icecrown gear. That’s casual conversation for ol’ Greg. “Yeah, put the finishing touches on 1400 new items today. Figure later I’ll get the number of that waitress at Applebee’s. Tomorrow I personally reitemize all of the old-world quests for Cataclysm. I’ll get up around noon, probably leave work at 3:30 or so.”

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Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to Arthas. WoW.com’s Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.

Wowhead has been a go-to site to track what’s going on on the PTR for quite some time, and now there’s even more reason to go there. Their improved new items in patch 3.3 page features the following improvements:

• Categorization by item level, with breakdowns for the five levels of items that are coming at us (219, 232, 251, 264, and 277).
• You can now filter the new items and search within them.
• Items are also sortable.

And this isn’t a new feature, but it bears mentioning, at least if you’re a major news geek like me: you can get an RSS feed of the new items added to the Wowhead database. If you wanted to you could probably hook this up to Twitter, or put it on your blog, or whatever.

Anyway, if you want to know what items are coming at us along with Icecrown Citadel, I think there’s no better place to be. What items are you most excited about?

Blizzard has just released a lengthy statement on the way the new Icecrown raid in patch 3.3 will be progressively accessed. Some of the key points:

• Icecrown Citadel is going to be broken up into four distinct sections: The Lower Spire, Plagueworks, Crimson Hall, and Frostwing Halls. We plan on releasing these four sections of Icecrown Citadel over time and not all immediately when patch 3.3.0 goes live.
• The first section that opens will include the Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Icecrown Gunship Battle, and Deathbringer Saurfang encounters. “Several weeks” until the next encounters become available.
• Players may not attempt any Heroic versions of 10 player encounters until they have defeated the Lich King in a 10 player raid. The same goes for 25 mans. This means no heroic Icecrown until after the Lich King is defeated, which will apparently be, at the earliest, in a couple of months.
  
• The four most difficult bosses have a limited number of attempts on them each week. Once those attempts are gone, you have to wait another week to try again.
• There will be no explicit rewards for defeating the Lich King with a specific number of attempts remaining as there was with Trial of the Grand Crusader. There will also not be an achievement to complete Icecrown Citadel without being defeated by a boss encounter, or letting a raid member die. (i.e. A Tribute to Insanity).
  
• In the weeks and months after all twelve encounters are unlocked, additional attempts against the final four boss encounters become available.
• Over time, after all bosses are defeated, players will begin to get a buff, making defeating bosses easier.

This is a jam packed statement from Blizzard on the mechanics of the raid zone, and outlines exactly what your raiding guild will be doing in the weeks and months ahead. If you are going to ever set foot in the Icecrown Citadel raid, you need to know this information.

The full statement after the break.

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We’ve been waiting to see the end rewards for Patch 3.3’s Quel’delar questline, purported to be capable weapons, and it looks like this latest build revealed the stats for all of the weapon’s incarnations.

Swords:

• Quel’Delar, Ferocity of the Scorned
• Quel’Delar, Cunning of the Shadows
• Quel’Delar, Lens of the Mind
• Quel’Delar, Might of the Faithful

And if you can’t use swords, you can turn Quel’delar in for:

Maces:

• Cudgel of Furious Justice
• Hammer of Purified Flame
• Lightborn Spire

The stats are pretty good, actually! Not a bad reward at all. No tanking sword, though. Weird!

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Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to Arthas. WoW.com’s Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.

Sindragosa. Her very name strikes fear into the hearts of mortals. This once majestic dragon was a former member of the blue flight. In fact, she was a consort of Malygos. Sindragosa was available for testing earlier this evening and she’ll be another boss in the upcoming patch 3.3 Icecrown raid. If she looks familiar, you might’ve seen her in the Wrath of the Lich King intro cinematic. It’s the same dragon that Arthas summoned.

Of the two encounters I’ve seen so far, Sindragosa has proven to be the most fun to heal in Icecrown. I’ll tell you what you can expect when your raid faces her behind the cut below. Also, our Icecrown gallery has been updated with more Sindragosa screenshots.

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I’m on a boat!

That was the first thing that came to mind as I entered Icecrown for today’s Gunship encounter that will be coming in patch 3.3. It was another fun fight against those foul Horde forces although there were a few slight bugs in the mix. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to complete it because the Alliance cannons just didn’t seemed to be working properly. The goblins must have sabotaged it. Either that or someone forgot to reload them.

I added some screenshots of the event into the Icecrown gallery.

Anyway, it’s time to grab your sword and fight the Horde!

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There’s another new build on the PTR, which means we’re one step closer to seeing the new patch 3.3 drop. And while of course Icecrown probably holds its place as the biggest feature of the new patch, there’s a whole slew of other changes to look ahead to, from updated achievements and a new faction to run, a brand new LFG interface with cross-realm instances, the Kalu’ak fishing derby, speeded-up Northrend reputation grinds, and lots of other things. Man oh man this patch is building up to be quite the event.

So the question today is: what are you most looking forward to? Personally, I remain a fan of the 5-man instances — I’ve already run two of them on the PTR, but fighting enemies co-op in a small group like that is really why I play the game. And of course cross-realm LFG will probably be a big part of the excitement for me as well. While I do expect there to be a few issues, hopefully it’ll make jumping into a group as quick and easy as possible. And I’m looking forward to that fishing tournament, too — the last one was a good idea, but hopefully a new implementation will help freshen things up.

What are you looking forward to in patch 3.3?

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Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com’s Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.

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Breakfast Topic: Looking ahead to patch 3.3 originally appeared on WoW.com on Sat, 24 Oct 2009 08:00:00 EST.

There’s been a few achievements that have been added in the latest patch 3.3 build.

• As you can guess, taking down the Lich King has its rewards. If you manage to defeat Arthas in Icecrown Citadel in 10-player heroic mode, you will henceforth earn the title “Bane of the Fallen King.”
• A new faction for you to earn reputation with will be established as well. The Ashen Verdict, if you manage to earn exalted with them, will grant you a title reward that adds “Of the Ashen Verdict.” No serious details yet on how to grind out rep, but when I was on the PTR clearing trash to Festergut, I noticed I was gaining Ashen Verdict reputation by killing various mobs. They’re similar to the rates players earned rep with when working through Black Temple for the Ashtongue.
• Arena players have a new title and a Frostwyrm pet to look forward to for season 8. Good luck on earning the Wrathful Gladiator title!
• The players who are more into battlegrounds will be experiencing change as well. The achievements to gain exalted with Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin, and Alterac Valley factions have been removed from their Meta-Achievements. You’ll gain special titles if you manage to reach exalted with the factions at least.
• Glory of the Hero Meta-Achievement has been slightly changed. The Party’s Over achievement which involves killing Prince Taldaram on Heroic with under 5 people is no longer part of that particular meta. Although, personally I don’t think it’s that difficult to take out that boss with 4 players.
• Lastly, in case you missed the news earlier, Master Angler of Stranglethorn has been changed. It will be changed to Master Angler of Azeroth instead. You can gain this achievement by winning the Kalu’ak Fishing Derby or the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza.

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Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com’s Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.

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Patch 3.3 PTR: New and updated achievements on the PTR originally appeared on WoW.com on Sat, 24 Oct 2009 02:30:00 EST.