HP today announced the industry's first convertible notebook PC with multi-touch technology designed specifically for consumers.

The enhanced HP MediaSmart digital entertainment software suite on the HP TouchSmart tx2 allows users to more naturally select, organize and manipulate digital files such as photos, music, video and web content by simply touching the screen. 

"Breezing through websites and enjoying photos or video at the tap, whisk or flick of a finger is an entirely new way to enjoy digital content on a notebook PC," said Ted Clark, senior vice president and general manager, Notebook Global Business Unit, Personal Systems Group, HP. "With the introduction of the TouchSmart tx2, HP is providing users an easier, more natural way to interact with their PCs, and furthering touch innovation." 

HP's multi-touch display delivers quick and easy access to information, entertainment and other social media. The tx2 recognizes simultaneous input from more than one finger using "capacitive multi-touch technology," which enables the use of gestures such as pinch, rotate, arc, flick, press and drag, and single and double tap.

The convertible design with a twist hinge allows consumers to enjoy the TouchSmart in three modes: PC, display and tablet. With a rechargeable digital ink pen, users can turn the tx2 into a tablet PC to write, sketch, draw, take notes or graph right onto the screen - and then automatically convert handwriting into typed text.

Starting at less than 4.5 pounds, the tx2 possesses a 12.1-inch diagonal BrightView LED display and an HP Imprint "Reaction" design.

Powered by the AMD Turion X2 Ultra Dual-Core Mobile Processor or AMD Turion X2 Dual-Core Mobile Processor and built on Windows Vista Home Premium, the tx2 will be made available worldwide in an array of configure-to-order options.

The HP TouchSmart tx2 is available for ordering today in the United States at www.hpdirect.com with a starting U.S. price of $1,149.

Warrior Class in WotLK

Now these guys have lost the powerful, effective and bloody annoying mace stun, will they really be as good as they were before?

 

The answer is yes, I am actually surprised how the most gear based class is coping so well so early into the expansion, this scares me and I am sure others of what the future will hold for Warriors.

 

Generally you can expect to see the majority speccing Arms, but what will be quite refreshing is the odd Fury Warrior holding their own in arena and who knows, the ideal setup for a warrior may be best used specced Fury, definitely has the potential there. The biggest thing for warriors is having their old 30min cd abilties put on a 5 min (3?) cooldown allowing warriors the option to use Shield Wall giving them that very much needed anti-LOL ITZA A WARRIOR NUUUUUUKE feeling that was going around throughout the TBC arena seasons. Despite this I will still expect Warrior to be one of the favoured nuking targets for a lot of comps.

 

Who should tank better? Warrior, Druid, Paladin? – the stupid and endless debate for noobs

People out-tank other people regardless of class. I know plenty of prot paladins and feral druids that can tank circles around warriors, even in situations that would be biased to favor a warrior.
Which bring me to the point: skill and gear being even, circumstances dictate who is the best choice.

Once again, skill and gear being even:

Warriors work best against powerful single mobs with fairly constant DPS (i.e. not a lot of big bursts). It is also relatively easy for them to become practically un-crushable by bosses. In AoE pulls, especially groups of more than 5, warriors are fairly ineffective, and will have difficulty holding on to all the mobs.

Druids will have higher armor and health, which works great for tanking mobs with high potential burst DPS. The larger HP pool acts as kind of a "cushion" to give healers more time to react to sudden bursts. However, druids cannot block or parry attacks, only dodge or be missed. Hence they are susceptible to being crushed often and probably don't have the defense to be uncritable (because it is an inferior stat for druids, they get about half the benefit from it that warriors and paladins do). Therefore druids can be a poor choice for raid boss tanks, but are excellent offtanks for mobs that cannot make crushing blows, because they are able to soak damage with high HP and armor. In AoE pulls, especially those of more than 3 mobs, Druids are fairly ineffective, and will have difficulty holding on to all the mobs.

Paladins will generally have lower HP and will have much more difficulty becoming uncrushable relative to a warrior. Thier threat gen versus multiple mobs is top notch however, due to Consecration and Holy Shield. This is especially true if the mobs are undead or demons, as paladins can then use Exorcism and Holy Wrath. Due to their relatively small HP pool however, paladins make an inferior choice for tanking a raid boss.

Each class also provides some nice utility as well. Warriors have shouts, however the benefit of them is generally confined to thier group. Druids can give Mark of the Wild to the entire raid, as well as provide thier group with Leader of the Pack buff. Paladin blessings are probably the best individual buffs in the game, and they also provide auras to their group. So in terms of overall utility: Paladin > Druid > Warrior.

Long story short:

Warriors - best raid boss tanks

Druids - best offtanks

Paladins - best AoE tanks

However, each class can perform all of those roles if necessary.

Arena Season 5: Death Knight

Hello all once again,

Today im going to look into the first hero class of the newest WoW Expansion Wrath of the Lich King (WotLK) and how I feel he will deal with the coming season.

Meet the Death Knight

As you can imagine, throwing a new class into the mix can pretty much change everything and in the case of this class, it has. The Death Knight has 3 primary specs - all of which are literally split by talent builds; Blood, Frost and Unholy.

I will first quickly sum up Blood and Frost:- these will not be ideal for start of the season, simply because of the problem many will face, of being locked out and of virtual no use. However its not quite that black and white in DKs case, a Blood spec DK can be without doubt a competitive member, however you will need to get the comp right so you do not have the DK as the easy choice. Blood does have the burst that is important in these early times and as long as you can give him a chance to breathe, he will be able to destroy the other team. However the other enemy will most likely know of this and successfully focus him down, and without any real self defense compared to Unholy, most comps will not have too much trouble of taking them down quite quickly. Though the core talent that interests me in Blood is Hysteria, it effeively removes any CC that would otherwise break on damage, and can be cast anytime during the CC. I have made the suggestion of a 31/0/40 spec that gives the Death Knight a lot of the Unholy survival options, along with this insane CC breaker that can change a fight completely. However a lot of Death Knights were put off by the lack of burst damage they will lose, taking away a lot of the reason why they are there. There obviously is a sacrfice of burst for versatility and may require a specific comp to make this spec effective in any way, if at all.

Now onto the important spec - Unholy. Unholy offers crazy burst and continuous dps along with survival for themselves and the group that can almost turn a team with only 1 healer into what will feel like a "Turtle" comp. I will say this to all right now, do not bother trying to kill the Unholy DK first, not only do they respawn (with a few second delay which is critical) as a ghoul which still provides good damage and survival they also have amazing defenses vs both melee and casters. I doubt even a 3 dps team would be able to take one of these down provided there is at least 1 healer (even a hybrid healer would probably be enough). I cannot see Blizzard allowing things to stay the way things are right now, however I still forsee that their core strengths will remain and they will always be a high contender in every arena bracket going. Their lack of CC is made up by possibly the strongest peel-off ability in the game. Despite the cooldown, when well timed it will totally ruin a timed nuke by the opposing team and not to forget their chains of ice ability that can put a complete stop to any melee trying to stick onto your caster. Its so good I can see many people using trinket on this alone. When your first nuke fails, don't expect a second attempt with an Unholy Death Knight sitting on you.

In conclusion, be afraid. My only only advice is to slow them and run, however don't get too excited when you manage to kill his teammates with all your players still remaining. Agaisnt a cooldown used, half health, low mana group of 3 people, the Unholy DK which you would have been stupid to try and do damage to prior, will put up a very good fight and if they are good, then try and not be shocked when they take all 3 of you out.

Opinion/Thoughts on Warlocks

Overpowered as hell. There are three (3) classes in the game that can do consistent damage without relying on mana: Warlocks, warriors, and rogues. Warriors have to deal with berserker stance and limited cc/escape options, rogues have to deal with dependancy on cooldowns, and warlocks have to deal with... global cooldowns between lifetap and drains? In all seriousness, warlocks are really the only mana-based class that doesn't rely on mana. It's been said before and I'll say it again, lifetap and drains need tuning (aka nerfing) for it to be more balanced, but at the same time, I feel warlock pets should be buffed, on the other hand. I personally don't think drains should persist when line of sight breaks on the target for more than maybe one second of the drain, and I think lifetap needs a negative aspect to it (for example, +25% increased damage taken for x seconds after using it) so warlocks would actually have to think about using it appropriately. However, I do feel warlock pets without benefitting from spell hit, spell penetration, or resilience need to be buffed in those regards with at least some of those stats transferring over. Warlocks obviously have their weaknesses and can be killed rather easily if you know their weaknesses (like banishing their pet so they lose soul link), but on the whole, they are still more powerful than I feel the playerbase thinks they should be.

General Tip for Warriors in WoW

Pick up a skillherald or s3 mace, bind at least half of your keys to mortal strike and hamstring, and faceroll your way to victory? In all seriousness though, becoming good in 1v1 is a bit different from doing arena with a healer. It really takes a strong understanding of other classes and their strengths/weaknesses and that only happens through practice or even sometimes watching others do it. I'll just give a quick example of what I mean.

Let's say you're fighting a feral druid 1v1 (often thought of as impossible for warriors to beat). There are a few key things to remember here:

1) They have really high dodge rate in bear form, so it's often better to stay in battle stance, overpowering, and staying out of melee range until overpower cooldown is up because it almost will guaranteed to be lit up next time you swing at them

2) Their feral charge gives you second wind. If you can bait a druid into using that on you, you'll heal for a large amount of HP every time. Just make sure you get a hamstring and possibly spell reflect on them before they move away from you after a charge in case they try to CC/heal after it.

3) Lacerate damage stacks up and does significant damage when fully stacked by a feral druid. If they do this, you can't let them constantly refresh a five stack, you should kite them until it wears off."In order to be effective 1v1, you need a good understanding of your opponents and the limitations of their class."

4) Spell reflection eats nature's grasp if you reflect then hit them with your one-handed weapon while it's still on.

5) If they trinket at any point during the fight from an intercept or mace stun, etc, you can always wait until you no longer have any running DoT's and do a fear -> bandage

That's just a small list of things, but the point stands that in order to be effective 1v1, you need a good understanding of your opponents and the limitations of their class. Once you have that, the rest just comes down to practice.

Blood Sport: Warrior-Druid overpowered?

A quick look at the chart above and one thing clearly leaps out. Clue: it has to do with mortal strikes, HoTs and cyclones.

Well, every third team you meet nowadays in 2v2 will probably be a Warrior-Druid team. This comp (short for composition) seems to be running away with the 2v2 bracket currently: 20 of the top 50 US teams are Warrior-Druid comps - that's 40%. For teams with ratings greater than 2200, close to 30% are Warrior-Druid. They also make up almost a quarter of all 2v2 teams, regardless of rating. That's a lot of Warrior-Druid teams.

What makes the comp tick?

In this comp, the Warrior is obviously the main, durable source of almost inexhaustible DPS. The Druid, usually specced resto (8/11/42), adds to the Warrior's survivability and brings versatility to the team. The win condition of this comp is simple: outlast their opponents.

The Warrior-Druid team will generally open with the Druid stealthed in cat form. This effectively hides the higher priority (healer) target from the other team, until heals are called for. The Warrior can usually hold the fort for a few seconds, while dismantling softer targets of the other team: clothies or other healers. They generally want to establish control while surviving as long as possible before their teammates step in with some healing love.

Resto druids are extremely mobile healers, with fire-and-forget HoTs cast on the go, travel form to zip around maps and immunity to polymorph. Their mobility is augmented by various abilities to immobilize threats: roots, cyclone, maim, and even bash and charge in bear form. Their job in the Arena is largely defensive and evasive - staying out of trouble by using LOS and CC abilities. That said, a well-timed CC on the other team's healer can be a devastating offensive move by this versatile class.

A match against a Warrior-Druid team often feels like the Warrior is unkillable, with the wily healer just prancing out of reach and LOS. This often forces their opponents to blow their cooldowns in an effort to burst down either, which is probably what the Warrior-Druid team wants. The premise of the team, after all, is to survive everything their opponents throw at them while maintaining a healthy mana for the Druid, so that the Warrior can continue to DPS the way to victory.

In a gaming environment, when one archetype is prevalent, we can expect a second archetype to emerge as an answer or counter to the dominant archetype. Looking at the three most popular team comps at the top of the 2v2 bracket, we have:

Warrior-Druid 29.5% (-4.5% from last week)
Rogue-Priest 15.2% (-0.8%)
Warlock-Druid 10.6% (not in top three last week)

Of the top 50 Rogue-Priest teams, about half field a shadow Priest (20/0/41). This is significant as only about 6% of priests in top Arena teams are specced shadow, with the vast majority being discipline priests. In other words, most of the shadow priests in 2v2 are represented in Rogue-Priest teams. It comes as no surprise that this comp, while good against other archetypes, is probably also one of the tougher comps a Warrior-Druid team can find itself up against.

A Priest can dispel HoTs and silence the Druid - definitely cramping the latter's healing potential. Abolish Poison can also be dispelled, allowing time for the Rogue's wound poison to stack and further reducing the effectiveness of druidic healing. Most shadow priest and rogue teams will focus their fire on the Warrior to quickly force the Druid out of hiding. Thereafter, the Rogue will go after the healer while the shadow priest continues to wear the Warrior down. In this scenario of split DPS, Warrior-Druid teams will play very defensively to buy time for HoTs, exhaust the Rogue's tricks, and hopefully deplete the Priest's mana.

Interestingly, the Rogue and discipline Priest comp is considered less dangerous by Warrior-Druid teams. While the Priest may try to dispel, silence or mana burn the Druid, the Warrior's damage output on the Rogue will force the Priest to focus keeping his teammate alive. In this matchup, both the Warrior's durability and the Druid's mobility against Rogue DPS are definitely assets.

A Warlock-Druid matchup is almost an endurance match, with both teams very capable of keep their main DPSer alive. The Warlock will try to take down the opposing Druid; mobility is important here for the Druid, to duck out of LOS of the Warlock's nukes and fear.

While the Warrior generally has nothing to fear (heh) from the Warlock, interference from the opposing Druid will make the durable Warlock hard to dispatch. The Warrior may also go after the Warlock's pet (twice if necessary, for Demonology warlocks) in an effort to disable Soul Link or other disruptive pet abilities. In this matchup, the toons will seem to be running in circles: Warrior hunts Warlock, Warlock hunts Druid A, Druid A trys to CC Druid B, Druid B tries to heal Warlock and CC Warrior. Thankfully, Druid B's mana is not inexhaustible and again, the Warrior-Druid team may triumph by simply outlasting their opponents.

A strategy that has emerged to counter the MS Warrior's ubiquity in all brackets is the 'Warrior gib'. The premise of this strategy is to burst gib the Warrior with multiple sources of burst DPS before his or her healers have any chance of healing. In the 2v2 bracket, this means two sources of burst DPS - which I suspect aren't fast enough to take down a well-geared Warrior who has stacked up on resilience. A dual-DPS team like the Rogue-Mage also means no healers. Against a field of other DPS-heal archetypes, dual-DPS teams probably do not do well enough to pose a viable threat. Rogue-Mage teams form only about 4% of the field in the US 2v2 bracket.

Are you in a Warrior-Druid team, and if you are, what are your experiences? Do you think that this comp is the "best" in 2v2? What other counter-strategies can you suggest against this team?

In other brackets, the most popular comps for top-level teams on the US servers are:

5v5
Warrior-Paladin-Priest-Shaman-Warlock 16.9% (-0.2% from last week)
Warrior-Paladin-Priest-Shaman-Mage 12.4% (+1%)
Warrior-Paladin-Priest-Hunter-Warlock 5.6% (-0.1%)

3v3
Rogue-Priest-Mage 18.9% (+1.3%)
Rogue-Druid-Warlock 8.7% (-1.1%)
Warrior-Priest-Druid 7.9% (-0.9%)

In the chart above, warlocks seemed to have relinquished their dueling superiority to the Warrior-Druid combo, although they are still the third most represented class in 2v2. Hunters have all but shrugged off their 'red-headed stepchild of Arenas' status by maintaining their fourth most represented class standing in 2v2. Pallies and shammies fill the 5v5 bracket, leaving their hybrid brethren - druids - to dominate the smaller brackets. Rogues are peculiarly prevalent in the middle-of-the-road 3v3 bracket.