When the average World of Warcraft player thinks of "competitive" gameplay, PvP/Arena is probably the first thing that comes to mind. But there is another aspect to competition in the world's most-popular MMO; a group of elite, hardcore players—many who train at the "professional" level—trying to make their way to the top of PvE gameplay. At the "local" level, these are the top-rated guilds on your server; the guilds that consistently earn the "Server First" achievements for endgame raid content. At the national and international levels, only the best guilds compete for "World First" raiding achievements (a few of which actually earn a living playing WoW by picking up corporate sponsorship deals).

The release of patch 3.3.2 last week—including the final chapter of the "Fall of the Lich King" endgame content in Icecrown Citadel—ushered in an especially-prominent event in WoW's living history; who would be the first to defeat the infamous Lich King? As many predicted, professional raiding guild Ensidia claimed the world's first 25-man kill. Around the same time, Blizzard announced an emergency hotfix to address a bug that allowed players to exploit the Lich King encounter, significantly reducing its difficulty. Shortly after, we learned that Ensidia did employ the exploit, and—regardless of the players' intent or ignorance—Blizzard revoked the achievement and slapped a 72-hour ban on guild. The WoW blogosphere ignited with scathing debates and talks of scandal—but more importantly, the community raised some fundamental and significant questions about raid design, as well.

Over on the European official forums, Ancilorn has posted a handful of changes that have been made to weapons that drop off the Lich King. The stats were re-optimized because the weapons "didn't meet with our expectations and the quality that the Lich King expects." Here are the changes straight from the post:

• Royal Scepter of Terenas II: MP5 replaced with Haste rating
• Archus, Greatstaff of Antonidas: Critical Strike replaced with Haste rating
• Heaven’s Fall, Kryss of a Thousand Lies: Armor Penetration replaced with Haste rating
• Stormfury, Black Blade of the Betrayer: Armor Penetration replaced with expertise rating
• Fal’inrush, Defender of Quel’thalas: Haste rating replaced with Armor Penetration

The changes affect both the Normal and Heroic versions of these weapons. So what do you think?

The other day, we reported that the crew at our sister site, Wowhead.com, had compiled its new "Love is in the Air" guide to reflect the new features and game mechanics of the in-game holiday event, which was revamped this year. As many players have already witnessed if they have logged in this weekend, the Valentine's Day-themed event is re-worked to better fall in line with most of Blizzard's other holiday events, featuring a unique "holiday quartermaster" that will trade prizes for Love Tokens (previously given to city guard NPCs).

Probably the most popular update to the holiday event is the inclusion of a new "holiday dungeon boss," similar to events like Brewfest, Hallow's End and the Midsummer Fire Festival, as we suspected last October. The boss includes a trio of Alchemists, beginning with Apothecary Hummel in the low-level Shadowfang Keep dungeon. Today you can check out the new loot table offered from the boss encounter, which includes a handful of decent iLevel 226 necklaces and some fun "toy"-like items. However, we suspect most players will hitting up the new boss encounter to obtain the Big Love Rocket, the new land/air mount. Make sure you check out this section of the guide for strategy info, because this editor had a pretty tough time figuring it out earlier this weekend with his PUG. Again, check out the full Wowhead guide to learn everything you need to know about the revitalized holiday event, including quest and achievement details.

The Love is in the Air event is set to begin this Sunday, Feb. 7, in World of Wacraft, and our friends over at Wowhead have posted a detailed guide to help you complete all of the seasonal quests and check some achievements off your list.

Malgayne would like to remind everyone that there's a lot of new content for the event this year, and most of it isn't public knowledge yet. With that being said, you can expect the Wowhead team to update the guide in real time once the event goes live.

Since the guide may change a bit this Sunday, it might be a good idea to bookmark Wowhead's Love is in the Air guide so you'll have easy access to it while you get to work on your quest log. Enjoy the event!

The multi-button Razer Naga mouse is touted as the ultimate tool for MMO players. The newest drivers allow players to remap in-game keys and macros to any of the Naga's 17 buttons, so we decided to go straight to Razer President Robert "Razerguy" Krakoff to find out exactly how this update can enhance your gameplay experience.

Krakoff tells us that he uses his Naga to play World of Warcraft, but he also finds it helps him save time in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. He also says that Razer hopes to have the key remapping drivers available for Mac users "within the quarter."

Keep reading after the jump for more details on the Naga update!

Blizzard has decided to make some adjustments to tank survivability in preparation for upcoming Heroic attempts in Icecrown Citadel, which has resulted in a paladin nerf and a death knight buff. Here's the details from Crygil's post:

Paladin:

• Sacred Duty now provides 2 / 4% Stamina, down from 4 / 8% Stamina. The cooldown advantages of the talent remain unchanged.

Death Knight:

• Frost Presence now provides 8% Stamina, up from 6% Stamina.
• Icebound Fortitude now provides 30% base damage reduction, up from 20% damage reduction. For a geared tank with high defense, this translates to 50% damage reduction, up from 40%.

"It’s important to note that we aren’t trying to single out paladins here," Crygil said. Blizzard decided this made more sense than buffing warriors, death knights and druids and then increasing boss damage accordingly.You can discuss the changes in this thread in our WoW general forum.

Blizzard has unveiled the 13th tile of the World of Warcraft Battlecry Mosaic, which in turn unlocked a black and white piece of art featuring a dwarven scout. The Mosaic launched in November 2009 but is only 65% complete, with 6,901 photos still needed to reach the 20,000 goal. Bornakk just addressed the delay on the official forums:

"It mainly slowed down when other bits of news (like patch 3.3) made it difficult to find the site. We have seen quite an increase in traffic lately and are making great progress on it. It will be complete... soon... Oh, and have you sent in a picture yet?"

When do you think the Mosaic will be complete? And to steal Bornakk's question, have you sent in a picture yet?

The latest edition of the Blizzard Insider newsletter contains an interview with Lead Encounter Designer Scott "Daelo" Mercer and Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street that focuses on the evolution of Arthas. While the interview doesn't contain any earth-shattering revelations, it's an interesting read. Perhaps the most noteworthy part comes at the very end, when Mercer discusses the planned in-game event for Cataclysm:

"We've already begun to hint at an in-game event surround the upcoming Cataclysm expansion that will be at least as big as the zombie invasion that kicked off the Wrath of the Lich King. Players already know that the Barrens are getting cut in half by a volcanic chasm, so we'll have to show you how that happens. The Cataclysm in-game event will probably hit in a patch before the actual expansion goes live. We're still figuring out the details, but whatever happens, it will be felt throughout the entire world, and it'll be just the beginning of the reign of Deathwing."

An event that changes Azeroth as we know it should be bigger than the zombie invasion, right? You can read the entire interview after the jump.

Replicas are a fanboy's dream. From the One Ring to a wholly accurate recreation of a phaser, every true fanatic wants to grip and hold their little piece of the imaginary world in their hands. So when the ZAM editors were handed the Tankard O' Terror, we wanted to make sure this piece was suitable for the true World of Warcraft fan.

So did it make the cut? Or was it less than expected? Click here to find out!

Bornakk just announced on the World of Warcraft official forums that Blizzard is working on a service "that will let players access the Auction House directly through the Armory website or Armory App for iPhone or iPod touch." While there's no release date set, Bornakk says the service will "offer auction functionality similar to what's available in-game" and certain elements of it will be premium-based, which we assume means players will have to pay for it.

You can read the full announcement after the jump. What are your thoughts on accessing the AH through the Armory and your iPhone/iPod? You can discuss the topic in this thread in our WoW general forum.