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.

Hey ladies! Hey fellas! You know you’re doin’ good ’cause they’re jealous *Pop-Pop* And they only hate ya ’cause you’re a go-getter *Pop-Pop* Pop ya collar – Don’t let ‘em sweat ‘cha! *POP* No clue what I’m talking about? Trust me, it’s better that way. Though, if you don’t know why I’m talking about popped collars, let me direct you to the picture above. It would seem popped collars are all the rage in Icecrown Citadel. I don’t know what Blizzard was thinking with this, especially for priests. If anything, warlocks and mages are the frat boys of WoW. Or paladins. Well, whatever it is, this week I’ll be talking about loot drops in Icecrown Citadel.

But first, a story.

The other day, I was in 10-man ICC with my guild and a Thaumaturge’s Crackling Cowl dropped. At the time I was playing my new Alliance priest, and the helm was a significant upgrade from the Onyxia 10 helm that I was wearing. We’d been running with the default need over greed system all night, so I just hit need and went on my merry way, exploring Deathbringer Saurfang’s platform for the first time. It seems you Alliance folk don’t get a repair vendor (that I could find) after the Saurfang fight like the Horde do, but I guess this is the trade off for having a much shorter story sequence before the encounter. Anyway, a few moments later, while I was bouncing around inside the Skybreaker, the rolls went out and I won the helm with a 99. The only person who had rolled and lost against me was a mage.

That’s when the conflict started.

Well, at least the internal conflict. No one actually said anything about it, and since the raid was called for the night I was free to go stand on some crates in Stormwind while I performed my interior monologue for some rats. You see, I have always held the idea that when faced with an equal upgrade, a DPS should get loot before a healer.

Of course, this is a frequently disputed idea. Some players believe that if you gear your healers first they will have the equipment necessary to heal the raid through difficult progression. Other players, like myself, argue that if you gear your DPS first, you can blast your way through the content and the healers won’t need as much gear since they won’t need to endure such long encounters.

The way I see it, DPS don’t have ceilings the way healers do. What I mean by a ceiling is that there is a finite amount of healing you can do simply because your raid members only have so much health, and there is only so much damage. Even if the damage is constantly incoming, you will only be able to heal so much before you’re overhealing. For DPS though, there is no ceiling, just a finish line with a dead boss and shiny treasure. The sky is the limit. And yes, I know about that one encounter — I’m not changing my argument for one fight that gimmicks you into stacking paladins.

The other reason is a bit more subjective but deals with much the same ideology. Imagine that a progression encounter is a hill. The kill is at the peak and your raid is trying to climb up to it. When you get to that peak by killing the boss you find out there are two paths. The DPS go to the left, which leads up another hill, while the healers go to the right where there are changing rooms for them to suit up in their swim attire and play on a Slip ‘n’ Slide for the next 6 months. I hope that analogy wasn’t too convoluted… Basically what I’m saying is that after you kill a boss there is really no more work for the healers to do. Each week after the first kill, the encounter will constantly get easier and easier to heal. Meanwhile the DPS can keep going up and push the bar a little higher, making the fights shorter and the clearing of the content for the 20th time more bearable.

Now let’s go back to my priest though, since I mentioned a conflict. After my navel gazing above you’d think there wouldn’t have been a conflict. I would have just passed the helm to my mage buddy and gone on my way. Except as I said, this priest is a new character. She has six, level 200 blue items on and while the upgrade from a 232 helm to a 251 helm isn’t that big, I have so much heroic gear on my character that it would have helped get me closer to the gear level the rest of my guild’s healers are currently at. So for once, an upgrade going to a healer over a DPS made sense. What would you have done?

While that mulls over, let’s go ahead and look at the drops in ICC. For today, I’ll just be examining the 10-man drops since that’s what we’ve been talking about. Later this week, you can expect a write up on the 25-man drops, as well as their badge and crafted competition. I will also be discussing my thoughts on tier at that time. Now, without further ado:

Back

• Heartsick Mender’s Cape — 10-man Prince Valanar — This is a great cloak for any healer. Priests of either spec can look to this if they do not plan on buying a badge cloak (Volde’s Cloak of the Night Sky and Drape of the Violet Tower) or venturing into 25-man ICC.

Chest

• Bloodsoul Raiment — 10-man Prince Valanar — Depending on how you feel about tier, this may be an acceptable 251 upgrade for holy priests. Compared to the 251 tier 10 there is less spirit and spellpower on these robes, but the addition gem slot levels the difference.
• Robes of Azure Downfall — 10-man Sindragosa — [Disclaimer: This item can't be confirmed as a drop until the fight goes live!] Again, if you’re not going for tier bonuses, this is is a fine choice. Disc priests who are avoiding spirit like the plague can look to this if they do not want to save their badges for the Meteor Chaser’s Raiment.

Feet

• Pale Corpse Boots — 10-man Prince Valanar — These boots with spirit are more ideal for holy, but if you don’t plan on raiding 25-man plague wing for Plague Scientist’s Boots, there is no drop or crafted option for disc priests.

Finger

• Signet of Putrefaction — 10-man Festergut — The mp5 will create less competition for this ring. It is suitable for both holy and disc.
• Cerise Coiled Ring — 10-man Prince Valanar — A nice throughput ring for either spec priest. The tooltip doesn’t show a socket bonus, but a commenter on WoW Head states it as being 5 spellpower.

Hands

• Gloves of Broken Fingers — 10-man Rotface — Much like the Bloodsoul Raiment, this piece is about on par with the 251 tier 10. If you want your tier bonuses, you can skip these, but if you don’t they’re not bad. The 264 badge vendor gloves (Gloves of Ambivalence and Gloves of False Gestures) offer better itemization options for disc priests, though.

Head

• Thaumaturge’s Crackling Cowl — 10-man Deathbringer’s Cache — Just like other gear pieces with a tier alternative, this is a nice choice if you don’t care about set bonuses. If you value haste over crit, this is better in raw stats than the tier. Also, again, is the helm that dropped for me in the story. As you can see it doesn’t have the best itemization for disc due to the spirit.
• Cowl of Malefic Repose — 10-man Blood-Queen Lana’thel — If you don’t want tier, this is the option for disc priests or holy priests who want throughput over regen.

Legs

• Kilt of Untreated Wounds — 10-man Festergut — These are a fantastic leg option for priests of either spec. Compared to the tier 10, you gain both crit and an extra gem slot in exchange for the loss of spirit and set bonuses.
• Leggings of the Refracted Mind — 10-man Valithria Dreamwalker — [Disclaimer: This item can't be confirmed as a drop until the fight goes live!] If you’re a holy priest, these are a comparable stand in for 251 tier 10. There is less spirit on these legs, and no additional spellpower, but the extra gem socket makes up for it. The socket bonus can’t be confirmed until the fight goes live, unfortunately.

Main Hand

• Midnight Sun — 10-man Gunship Armory — Good for either holy or disc. It is nearly identical to the Lockjaw, but take in mind that paladin healers can’t use daggers, so you might want to shoot for this one to be nice to any paladin healers you might run with. Both options will look equally cool on your hip, though, in my opinion.
• Lockjaw — 10-man Rotface — Basically the Midnight Sun, in mace form. You get a bit more haste for a little less intellect and mp5. This is suitable for both holy and disc.

Neck

• Soulcleave Pendant — 10-man Deathbringer’s Cache — Great throughput neck for any caster. There are many neck options in 25-man ICC as well, so everyone should find something that works for them.
• Choker of Filthy Diamonds — 10-man Rotface — This neck will work for either disc or holy.

Shoulders

• Bloodstained Surgeon’s Shoulderguards — 10-man Festergut — Compared to the Crimson Acolyte Shoulderpads, the additional socket doesn’t make up for the differences in stats and tier bonuses, unless you are trying to socket one type of stat. These will save you the badges that you’d need to spend on tier, however.
• Stiffened Corpse Shoulderpads — Zone Drop — There are confirmation comments that these BoE, 264 shoulders drop in 10-man ICC off trash, but not enough to be certain. If they do, these are going to be your best choice if you don’t intend to raid 25-man content. There are currently no shoulder options without spirit, so disc will want these shoulders if they’re not going for tier.

Trinket

• Sliver of Pure Ice — 10-man Lord Marrowgar — I know that use effect trinkets are never as popular, but this one isn’t too bad given the spellpower on it. The mana regen works out to 67mp5 over 2 minutes, more or less depending on how long your encounters last.

Two-Hand

• Mag’hari Chieftain’s Staff — 10-man Deathbringer’s Cache — This is a great staff for a holy priest. The spirit doesn’t make it ideal for disc, but if you desperately need a weapon upgrade then this should be easily farmable. Unfortunately, the 25-man staff off Blood-Queen Lana’thel is the same way: lots of spirit. I suspect that if there is going to be a throughput staff in ICC it will drop from Arthas. One more thing as a note: the spellpower on this staff is the same as the Midnight Sun and Lockjaw. With the current off-hands in ICC, staff-wielders will be straggling behind rather significantly if the staff spellpower enchant doesn’t get a considerable buff.

Waist

• Cord of the Patronizing Practitioner — 10-man Lord Marrowgar — The spirit on this belt will make disc priests want to avoid it. Holy shouldn’t have any problems with it though.
• Cauterized Cord — 10-man Professor Putricide — This throughput belt is ideal for either spec priest, as well as all other cloth wearing casters.

Wand

• Lana’thel’s Bloody Nail — 10-man Blood-Queen Lana’thel — If you will not be raiding 25-man ICC, this is your only wand option in 10-man. That means priests of either spec can take this without hesitation.

Wrists

• Bracers of Dark Blessings — 10-man Lady Deathwhisper — These bracers are a tiny step above the crafted 245 bracers (Royal Moonshroud Bracers and Bejeweled Wizards Bracers). If you didn’t ever get those bracers made, this is an option, but they will be better for holy priests due to the spirit. Notice that there is even more spirit from the socket bonus.

With this list I hope you will find some convenience in deciding what gear you’ll be looking for in ICC. Remember to check back later this week for a 25-man version.

Now, back to my story: I ended up whispering my guild mate and having him come pick up the helm in exchange for a port to Dalaran. (What? My hearth was on cooldown.) I figured that, despite all my blue gear, in the long run that little bit of DPS would help out my raid more than me. Also, since I play disc in raids the itemization on the helm was better for him than me, because he can utilize the spirit for crit in combat. To further help me swallow the loss of such a pretty piece of gear (okay, not really, the popped collars are ridiculous) the mage was very appreciative, which made me feel very warm and fuzzy inside. He even whispered me after an hour of heroics to let me know it was a big upgrade for him. Granted, I didn’t ask how much a big upgrade was to him, but I don’t think that matters.

So why did I tell you this story? Because I wanted to force feed you more of my hippie healing philosophy, suckers! to give you all some food for thought. Again, what would you have done? What is your philosophy on who should get gear first? If you have a differing and constructive opinion I’d like to see them in the comments. Consider this open forum week at Spiritual Guidance. Make it good!

Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we discuss some of the tips and tricks to remember when raiding Icecrown Citadel’s second wing, the Plagueworks.

Blizzard has stepped up the pacing mechanic in Icecrown Citadel, releasing each new wing in two week intervals. With the latest wing, the Crimson Halls / Blood Wing (also called Vampire Wing if you’re a Twilight fan), recently unveiled, there’s bound to be a ton of interest in raiding ICC on your server. This week, I’d like to talk about the bosses that were released in the previous wing, the Plagueworks (Unholy). Once I get a chance to fight the Blood Princes and Blood Queen Lana’Thel first-hand, I’ll have a write-up posted here.

The Plagueworks revolves around Professor Putricide and his two abomination creations: Rotface and Festergut. Each of his children have a ‘dog’ to call their own, and plenty of trash guarding the way to their inner sanctum. These fights are a tier above what you’ve faced so far in Icecrown, and will push your DPS, your awareness, and your reaction times to the limit. Don’t hold back in the Plagueworks: use every consumable and tactic available to maximize your DPS, or find yourself facing one of a few very interesting enrage timers. Unfortunately for us, as you can see in the picture above, our view for the first two encounters involves standing behind bosses that resemble a pair of deformed potatoes.

Trash:

The trash guarding the Plagueworks has stepped it up a notch from their brethren downstairs. Your first opponent will be a simple Val’kyr warrior, with one special ability: summoning clones of your raid mates. She’ll make a couple of clones that will begin attacking / healing and causing problems for your group. If one of these copies is a healer, swap to that target and lock it down. The heals are potent and can cause problems killing the Val’kyr if you’re not careful. Once the Val’kyr is down, clean up the adds and move on.

The next few trash packs are going to be pretty simple, let the tank get aggro (and help out via Tricks of the Trade), and then go to town with Fan of Knives. You’ll fight some familiar trash mobs from Naxxramas, and eventually come up against Stinky and Precious. These are the Gluth-like protectors of Festergut and Rotface, respectively. You’ll want to focus on whichever dog you want to fight first, and make sure to tank them in a safe area. While fighting Stinky, you’ll be taking constant AoE damage. Use Feint to negate some of the damage, and focus on nuking the boss. While fighting Precious, he will summon a pack of adds to cause problems for your raid. Save Tricks of the Trade to send these to a tank or other designated kiter.

Festergut:

The first true boss of the Plagueworks, Festergut is quite possibly the most rogue-friendly fight in the game (this was the fight that was seen in last week’s raid damage analysis). A true tank-and-spank with a hard enrage timer and nothing to do besides unload damage. You’ll be tasked with standing behind Festergut for the entire fight, and making sure he goes down before the enrage timer goes off and he wipes the raid with a powerful belch of poisonous gas.

While there are several mechanics on this fight to worry about, the only one that concerns rogues involves a Spore debuff that will be placed on a few raid members. Think of these like the beneficial spores on Loatheb: everyone wants to be in range when it pops. As a melee, you’re usually tasked with standing still, and someone else (or another melee) will bring the spore to you. If you happen to have to run a Spore to the ranged group at your leader’s request, use Sprint, as that’s the only time you’ll need it. Otherwise, enjoy a long DPS burn with nothing else to worry about. Don’t bother using Feint to reduce any of the AoE damage you’re taking: every little bit of DPS is crucial to downing Festergut before his pretty tightly-tuned fight timers. Try to trade Tricks with another rogue, or use it to boost your raid’s DPS even higher. Use this as an opportunity to show your raid what you can really do when you have the perfect ‘rogue encounter’!

Rotface:

Of course, the next boss encounter would be a melee-unfriendly fight. Rotface plays like Grobbulus meets Razorgore (not Razorscale). There’s two key stages in this circular room: the boss area, and the add kiting area. You’ll want to maximize your time in the boss area, and minimize your time in the add area. Movement and reaction times are 90% of this fight, and keeping a cool head and zooming your camera out quite a bit will make all the difference in the world. One note on this fight: you’ll want to use Bloodlust early due to the boss’ pacing mechanics later in the fight, so pop all your cooldowns as soon as Bloodlust is called for.

The basic premise of the fight is that you’re fighting Grobbulus 2.0, with a few changes. The boss is still an ugly plague creation, and he will still spray some nasty poison in a cone in front of him. The difference is that now he will randomly turn to face a raider, and spray in their direction, then return to face the tank. You must always be cautious to be behind the boss, and you have to run out of his frontal cone when he turns to spit. If not, you’ll take some pretty hefty damage, which you can Feint if you absolutely can’t get away.

The second change is that Rotface doesn’t drop any slime or clouds of his own: Professor Putricide instead releases slime into the room on one of the four sides, which slows your movement and deals pretty heavy damage. As long as you remain near the boss, the slime on the room’s exterior shouldn’t bother you at all. Your off tank may be running through the goop, and so if you have to reach him, use Sprint and Cloak of Shadows to minimize your incoming damage. Why would you run to the tank in the slime? Good question!

The final change is the mechanic behind the slimes that Rotface spawns. Unlike Grobbulus’ slimes which can be killed, these slimes must be kited by an off tank. They’ll be kiting the slime around the room, making sure to stay clear of any raid members. The slime that is being kited will deal massive damage to anyone in melee range, regardless of threat, so avoid being anywhere near it at all costs. Rotface will begin marking raid members with an infection, which causes them to spawn a slime (instead of dropping a cloud). The trick is to merge all of the slimes together into a massive slime, like making a giant snowball. Once enough slimes are rolled together, the slime explodes, and shoots a Shadow Crash-like attack at all raid members. Find an empty spot on the floor (no slime or players there), and run to that spot when the slime explodes.

If you’re infected, you will soon spawn a small slime. It’s your duty to run to your off tank, standing in FRONT of the big slime being kited, and letting your small slime merge into the bigger slime. Your slime will leave you once you are near the big slime, so you can run back to the boss as soon as it leaves your side. It will take a few tries for you to get used to this mechanic, so observe what happens so you can refine your technique. Minimizing your downtime between running to the off tank and getting back to the boss, while avoiding the Slime Spray, will give you quite the challenge. Focus on maximizing your uptime on the boss, by using any speed boosts you have to reach the off tank faster, watching where the off tank is at all times so you know where to run, and even burning all of your energy before leaving the boss’ side.

Professor Putricide:

The father of the twin abominations you just crushed, the Professor is definitely the most potent boss you’ll face in ICC up to this point. He’s a 3 phase encounter, with phases 1 and 2 being pretty similar, and phase 3 switching to a pure DPS burn. The keys to succeeding are quick reaction times and target swaps to the spawning slime / gas adds, and avoiding the myriad of attacks the Professor will use against you. You only have 10 attempts per week to attempt the Professor (15 with this week’s release of the Blood Wing), and so keen awareness and avoiding stupid deaths to avoidable damage become paramount.

In phases 1 and 2, the boss will be spawning slimes (green) and gas clouds (orange), alternating between each. The raid will be focusing on killing these adds first and foremost, and so consult your raid leader with how they’d like to have melee handling the adds. Typically, I have the melee (including rogues) attack the green slimes once they’re within 15 yards of the targeted player, and I have the rogues stay on the boss for the orange slimes as the ranged classes work it down.

The green slimes explode when they reach their destination (they tunnel vision one player and go straight to them), and the resulting explosion has a meteor-like damage distribution: it is shared evenly between all players in range. It’s very important that you eat this explosion, and use Feint to absorb as much of it as possible. Follow the green slime to the intended target, and stand there as the explosion happens. Once it picks a new target, feel free to re-engage and destroy it.
If you’re targeted by the orange gas cloud, you need to run away from it ASAP. Try to stay in range of your healers, as you’ll be taking some serious damage from the gas cloud’s channeled attack. Use Sprint to avoid it, and let your casters do the rest of the work for you. Get back onto Putricide as quickly as possible: pushing him past the add-spawning phase is key, and melee DPS will be doing the majority of the damage to the boss.

During phase 2, Putricide will assault you with a variety of attacks. He’ll drop slime pools (he drops these in P1 too), and you need to stay away from them, or risk a 4,000 damage per second debuff. He’ll also drop Choking Gas bombs, which lower your chance to hit by 75% for a time, and deal massive damage when they explode. These look like orange, gas-shrouded lanterns on the floor. He also throws a Malleable Goo at any targets at range, so make sure you’re up close and personal with the boss to avoid being a target for one of these deadly attacks. Proper position will take some time to learn, but try to stay behind the boss while minimizing slime / gas damage and avoiding the gooey ooze he throws around.

Phase 3 introduces a far stronger Putricide, who begins flooding the room with slime. Eventually, this abundance of slime will fill the room, and cause your raid to wipe. If you took too long to get him to phase 3, which is the “burn” phase with no adds (but still plenty of traps on the ground), he will enrage after a time. Finally, if you spend too long in phase 3, he’ll start hitting the raid for such massive damage that you’ll surely die (think of Hodir’s Frozen Blows, except permanent and ever scaling upward). Three ways to die and only one way out: burn the boss so hard he dies before any of these enrage styles ends up on your Death Certificate.

Conclusion:

The Plagueworks represents a new level of difficulty in raid fights, and most of the bosses here are unlikely to be defeated by any true PUG, especially on 25 man. Focus on finding a regular group or guild you can attend with, and enjoy the opportunity to both show off your chart-topping DPS and your reaction times and situational awareness abilities on very unfriendly fights. With the Blood Wing recently released, there are only 3 more encounters between us and Arthas. If you want to be a part of the assassination of the Lich King and the fulfillment of our original mission in Northrend, being honing your skills and preparing for the battles that lie ahead.a

While it is certainly nothing new, it seems that you can’t spit without hitting someone who has, or has had, a compromised account. These WoW account predators are getting more clever by the day, with using everything from keyloggers, sham contests, betas and security checks, to even grabbing an account and immediately attaching an authenticator to it.
Now, any moderately-savvy internet user would just scoff, and say that they take all necessary precautions — what’s there to worry about? Fair enough, but what about those who, well, don’t?
Blizzard has said time and time again about safe-guarding your account information, yet people still jump onto those fake Cataclysm betas and fancy new mount prizes. Make something idiot-proof, and they’ll build a better idiot, eh?
That being said, what are you doing to protect your prized polygons? Do you have a good anti-virus installed? A malware scanner? If you don’t have an authenticator, how come? It’s only about the price of a grande Starbucks drink, and will provide a longer-lasting effect of happiness and joy to your life.

Discuss amongst yourselves!a

I absolutely loved the 8-bit opening. Not only was rendering Arthas in this fashion absolute genius, it was a nice little call out to the early roots of MMORPGs. It might sometimes seem tough to remember the old turn-based attack selection menus, but it still has a fun, historical feel to it.

The parody song is nearly as much fun, though. As one of those folks who just can’t help spamming jump while waiting for a group to get together, it brought a warm feeling to the cockles of my heart. While not everyone knows the joys of their spacebar, I think there’s at least more than a few night elves out there who this video will have jumping for joy.

The Worgen was created by Alexander Egeskog with the help of about a half-dozen people. The ultimate question for a movie like this is “Does the script and acting justify the longer film?” In my mind, I think it absolutely does. While some of the pacing could probably have been a little faster, I think the framework of the story sets up compelling reasons for a longer, more detailed approach to the film. Since the narrative is relayed from a father to a son, a certain amount of meandering and epic pacing is appropriate.

Ultimately, The Worgen was an engaging film to watch. I’m curious see what you thought of the movie, also, so please be sure to drop some comments if you have any feedback.

How many old-school Horde players used to use the “forest of totems” strategy on the trash packs in Blackwing Lair? Draenei shaman Vhaelor of <Deux Ex Machina> on Destromath missed out on this experience, being Alliance and all, so he decided to recreate it in the Stormwind castle. Unfortunately, Vhaelor himself couldn’t see his mighty forest, so it was up to his friends to inform him of this bug. His pal Whitepaws snapped this photo and sent it in to us. Thanks, guys!

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@wow.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, Val’kyr on mounts, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran. Older screenshots can be found here.

Welcome to another edition of the WoW.com Weekly Comic — Byron the Tauren Rogue!

Dear me! Those terrible, skin-eating, baby-stealing Horde are plotting to get into Stormwind! Or is our dear Dwarven passerby just over-reacting? Who knows? Stay tuned to find out!

Check out the full version right here, and tune in next Tuesday morning for a new page!

You can also check out all the previous pages in the gallery below.

• Arthas
• Beyond The Dark Portal
• Rise of the Horde
• Warcraft Archive

The contest is open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec), and everyone who enters must be 18 or older. To enter, leave a comment on this post before 12pm ET (noon) Friday, December 25, 2009. Please be sure to use a real email that you check often to enter, so we can contact you should you be the winner. You may enter only once and one winner will be selected randomly. The winner will receive 1 set of Christie Golden World of Warcaft novels including Arthas, Beyond The Dark Portal, Rise of the Horde and the Warcraft Archive with a total retail value of US$58. Click here to read the official contest rules.

And if you don’t win today (or even if you do!) check back later today for loot card giveaways and tomorrow for more contests — the prizes only get better as we count down the Twelve Days of Winter Veil!

Two things in particular stood out to me as clever takes on the style. First, the heavy use of Frostmourne as an iconic image mirrors the use of a gun in the James Bond trailers. Displaying a weapon in this kind of trailer gives the audience a sense of menace, and helps cement what genre the movie lives in.

The second clever touch was the cut-aways between Sylvanas and Blood-Queen Lana’thel. As you watch the video, there’s a still image of Sylvanas staring out at the audience. Small bits of glass float by the Dark Lady. When the glass is over her face, you instead see Lana’thel. It’s hard to tell what plot elements might be implied by this interaction, but it was still a pretty classy touch.

Ultimately, this was a fun trailer, and I really enjoyed it. I’ll be keeping an eye out to see what other fun stuff Kesudor might create.