One of the key skills required for success in a group or raid for any damage dealing class is the capability of the player to manage their own threat levels and this is a skill best learned early on in your gameplay.

When you start out in early instances such as Deadmines and Wailing Caverns, mobs don’t have a huge amount of punch to them and so the penalty for poor threat management is low. However as your progress through higher-end content you will quickly find out one simple fact: if you pull aggro, chances are you will die and in the process may take other players to the graveyard with you; obviously this is something best avoided.

Luckily threat management is a simple skill to pick up, and there are numerous things you can do to ensure you do not pull aggro, ever!

The first measure any player should take is to install a threat meter into their UI, there are several out there but most rely on the other players in your raid or group to have the same meter installed for it to work properly. The best advice here is to ask other players in your guild or server what addon they use and then choose the most common one.

Failing that my personal favorite is Omen, which can be downloaded at http://wow.curse.com/downloads/details/9101/

What a threat meter will do is provide an accurate visual representation as to how close you are to pulling aggro from a mob.

At its most basic, threat management is simply making sure you never exceed the tanks’ threat on your meter but in reality that can cause your DPS to drop should you reach the point where you must stop nuking to avoid the buildup of threat.

As such there are various tips and tricks you can do to give you an easier time of controlling your threat till you feel confident that you don’t even need to look at your threat meter anymore.

The first trick is to think carefully about what spells and abilities you open up with against a mob; using an attack which causes a large amount of instant damage as your opening spell is a very bad idea!

A much better idea is to open up with DoT attacks and debuffs, for instance I tend to open up with insect swarm. This way you can still deal a large amount of damage right from the start of a fight but you delay the threat from it until your tank has had time to build up a decent amount of threat himself.

A second trick is to bring a paladin along with you, they can give you a buff called blessing of salvation that will reduce all threat you produce by 30%, it is quite rare to be able to pull aggro with salvation on unless you are deliberately attempting to do so.

The third trick is to utilize threat reducing talents and skills such as feign. However this measure should only be undertaken after trying a few instances without such threat reduction.

Talent choices for threat reduction or spending time actively reducing your threat will reduce your DPS and so should only be done as a last resort. It is much more preferable to manage your threat through other means.

Finally, certain classes get methods to completely reset their aggro. Mages can ice block or turn invisible, Rogues can Vanish and hunters can feign death. If you find yourself climbing the meters or actually pulling aggro from the tank then do not hesitate to use either one of these skills.

With these simple tricks you can ensure the ability for you to DPS mobs down without fear of reprisal, allowing smooth dominating runs throughout any instance in the game!

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Arena season 4 has now officially begun on all servers, and with it the new Brutal and Guardian PvP items are now available. The big twist this season however, is that team selling has truly been stamped out and most items now require a player to have a high enough personal rating to purchase them.

The quality of the items available however is extraordinarily high; high enough to match or exceed the power of loot obtained from heroic badges and so it is well worth players to look at entering the arena in order to gear up.

Most of the items available require a personal rating of 1700 and this should be an achievable goal for many players if you enter with a favorable team setup and a solid plan. Outlined here are some basic pointers in assembling your own arena team to help you hit that 1700 target.

Which Bracket?

The first question you should ask yourself is if you want to be playing 2v2, 3v3 or 5v5 arena. It is much easier to assemble a 2v2 team but your team setup is critical to success here and this bracket allows for few mistakes. 5v5 allows a much broader range of successful team setups since each player can compensate for their teammate’s weaknesses -  but it can be a large hassle to schedule times when your whole team can play.

3v3 is a comfortable medium between each bracket being both relatively simple to organize a team and allowing a reasonable variety in class composition. If you are fairly new to the arena, I would highly recommend the 3v3 bracket to you.

Forming the Team

The first thing you need to keep in mind first and foremost when forming your team is each individual’s survivability since this will have a huge impact on your tactics.

As an example, having a subtlety rogue in your team allows you to play rather offensively since he is difficult to directly attack and highly mobile, as such he will require little healing which allows him to successfully partner with a DPS class stacked team or a more offensive hybrid healer such as a moonkin or shadow priest.

In contrast a warrior has little in the way of escape measures but hits like a freight train to compensate, if he went with a fully offensive team he could easily be burned down and as such a warrior is best accompanied by a healing teammate.

By keeping in mind the survivability of your teammates you can ensure that your team composition supports each other to counter your weaknesses rather than just compounding the problems.

Making a Plan

The second most important thing in arena is to have an overall plan as to what the team strategy is to win and select classes that will accomplish that. There are several highly successful strategies common place in the arena that will work well for newcomers.

The first basic strategy is a drain team, this relies on having mana draining abilities available and in order  to accomplish this you require a hunter, priest or warlock present. The main idea is to have steady damage on the opposing team to wear them down while directly attacking the enemy healers’ mana. If you can make the enemy healers run out of mana before yours do then you can easily start killing off his team mates.

A similar strategy to this is a grind style team. These teams tend to have a high number of healers accompanied by a dps class whose damage does not ever “run dry” – usually a warrior. The goal here is to be so survivable that nobody in your team can easily be killed while slowly chipping away at the enemy team until something gives way, usually the enemy healers running out of mana.

The final basic strategy is the burst team. This style of team is very risky but can be quite effective due to its instant shock value. The trick is to take 3 dps classes that can dish out horrendous damage while supporting this with a high amount of crowd control and silences. What the plan entails is to hit one person as hard as you possibly can while stopping him from being healed.

The big risk however is that if your burst does not succeed then without a healer your team will gradually be picked off, as such it is vital to pick the correct target. Attacking someone who has an escape measure such as a paladins bubble or a mages iceblock will cause your attack to fail.

Attacking a class such as a warrior or shaman however yields a high success rate.

With these simple tips you should be able to construct a strong backbone to your arena team and be ready to dominate your way to that 1700 rating target.

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The Midsummer Fire festival won’t last forever!  You only have until July 4th to take advantage of all the buffs, gold making opportunities and last (but certainly not least) some really killer loot from Frost Lord Ahune.

Ahune <The Frost Lord> is a new boss which can be summoned inside Slave Pens, in Zangamarsh. Ahune can be completed on both normal and heroic modes, both with differing difficulty and different items dropped after defeating him.

Ahune  is a frost lord in Neptulon’s service. The Twilight’s Hammer plan to have him battle Ragnaros to start an elemental war on Azeroth. Players summon Ahune in the second room of the Slave Pens, at the Ice Stone to the left. He is only available during the Midsummer Fire Festival.

If this is your first time killing Ahune, he will drop an item called Shards of Ahune which starts the quest Shards of Ahune. Accept the quest and bring the shard to Luma Skymother, and she will reward you with Burning Blossom x20 and your choice of a unique tabard: the Tabard of Summer Skies or the Tabard of Summer Flame. You can only complete this quest once, so you will not be able to receive both tabards on the same character (well, not until next year at least)!

The quest to summon Ahune can only be completed once per day, per person. Which means that if you have a five person party, each person can complete the quest to summon him one time (provided you didn’t actually save yourself to the Heroic) and you could potentially do five runs, one after another. Even if you have killed the boss, as long as at least one person in your party is able to take the quest and summon him you’ll have yet another chance at some of the phat loot he drops!

In Normal Mode Ahune Can Drop:

Shared Loot for both Normal and Heroic Mode:

On Heroic Mode Only Ahune Can Drop:

Don’t dawdle any longer!  If you have a level 65 or above find you a group and start whacking at this big icicle until you get you some of this stuff.  Special event bosses have great gear and Ahune is certainly no exception.  You’ve only got a few more days – go dominate that dude!

Contributing Author – Slavrix

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(This post contains information that has been updated – the new post is Midsummer Fire Festival Bonfire Locations)

So everyone knows its Midsummer’s Fire Festival. Everyone’s farming the new boss in Slave Pens, trying to get that new epic scythe. Everyone’s doing the dailies, to get the petals for that Brazier of Dancing Flames. Afterwards, most people make the mistake of going back to doing their regular dailies.

Outside most settlements in Azeroth and Outland have been placed festival bonfires. They look a lot like the ones in the major cities that I’m sure you’ve seen. Alliance and Horde both have their own fires burning. At both factions bonfires you will find a quest.

At every friendly fire you will find an NPC with a quest called “Honor the Flame.” At any level, this will grant you 5 Burning Blossom. Even better, if you’re level 70, you will also receive 5g95s.

At every hostile fire you will find that the fire itself gives a quest called “Desecrate this Fire!” At any level this will give you 10 Burning Blossom. At level 70 you will also receive 11g99s. That’s the same as a daily!

For both these quests all you have to do is talk to the NPC or fire and you complete the quest automatically. A very easy way to make gold.

Now, last but not least, the four hostile cities. Within these are the big fires. These will be harder to put out, due to having to sneak past the guards as well as avoid combat with the opposing faction. However they are well worth it. For each one you will get a selection of some basic holiday items, 25 Burning Blossom and 9g10s. On top of all that if you turn in all of the opposing city flames, you will receive 5g70s and the item Crown of the Festive Fire.

Now you may think that’s all well and good, but you might think that if the gold is similar to what you get from dallies, surely it’s quicker just to complete all the quests in Quel’Danas for the same amount of gold – wrong.

I have done this with two of my level 70s so far and I’ve found the same thing. It should take you roughly 3 hours to reach every fire. I visited every bonfire in the game, and I was very surprised to find out that by doing so on one character I made more than 550+ gold.

As a Horde player at level 70, if you visit every bonfire you will gain a total of 178 gold 50 silver for the Horde bonfires and 383 gold 68 silver for the Alliance bonfires (562 gold 18 silver total).

As an Alliance player at level 70, if you visit every bonfire you will gain a total of 190 gold 40 silver for the Alliance bonfires and 359 gold 70 silver for the Horde bonfires (550 gold 10 silver total).

Eastern Kingdoms

• Arathi Highlands: Refuge Pointe [50,44] (A) / Hammerfall [74,41] (H)
• Badlands: Kargath [4,49] (H)
• Blasted Lands: Nethergarde Keep [58,17] (A)
• Burning Steppes: Morgan’s Vigil [80,62] (A) / Flame Crest [62,29] (H)
• Dun Morogh: Kharanos [46,46] (A)
• Duskwood: Darkshire [74,51] (A)
• Elwynn Forest: Goldshire [43,65] (A)
• Eversong Woods: North Sanctum [46,50] (H)
• Ghostlands: Tranquillien [46,26] (H)
• Hillsbrad Foothills: Southshore [50,46] (A) / Tarren Mill [58,25] (H)
• Loch Modan: Thelsamar [32,40] (A)
• Redridge Mountains: Lakeshire [24,59] (A)
• Silverpine Forest: The Sepulcher [49,38] (H)
• Stranglethorn Vale: Booty Bay [34,73] (A) / Booty Bay [33,75] (H)
• Swamp of Sorrows: Stonard [47,47] (H)
• The Hinterlands: Aerie Peak [14,50] (A) / Revantusk Village [76,74] (H)
• Tirisfal Glades: Brill [57,52] (H)
• Western Plaguelands: Chillwind Camp [43,82] (A)
• Westfall: Sentinel Hill [56,64] (A)
• Wetlands: Menethil Harbor [13,47] (A)

Kalimdor

• Ashenvale: Astranaar [37,54] (A) / Splintertree Post [70,69] (H)
• Azuremyst Isle: Azure Watch [44,53] (A)
• Bloodmyst Isle: Blood Watch [55,69] (A)
• Darkshore: Auberdine [37,46] (A)
• Desolace: Nijel’s Point [65,17] (A) / Shadowprey Village [26,76] (H)
• Durotar: Razor Hill [52,47] (H)
• Dustwallow Marsh: Theramore Isle [62,40] (A) / Brackenwall Village [33,30] (H)
• Feralas: Feathermoon Stronghold [28,43] (A) / Camp Mojache [72,47] (H)
• Mulgore: Bloodhoof Village [51,60] (H)
• Silithus: Cenarion Hold [57,34] (A) / Cenarion Hold [46,44] (H)
• Stonetalon Mountains: Sun Rock Retreat [50,60] (H)
• Tanaris: Gadgetzan [52,29] (A) / Gadgetzan [49,27] (H)
• Teldrassil: Dolanaar [55,60] (A)
• The Barrens: Crossroads [52,28] (H)
• Thousand Needles: Freewind Post [42,53] (H)
• Winterspring: Everlook [62,35] (A) / Everlook [59,35] (H)

Outland

• Blade’s Edge Mountains: Sylvanaar [42,66] (A) / Thunderlord Stronghold [50,59] (H)
• Hellfire Peninsula: Honor Hold [62,58] (A) / Thrallmar [55,40] (H)
• Nagrand: Telaar [50,70] (A) / Garadar [51,34] (H)
• Netherstorm: Area 52 [31,63] (A) / Area 52 [32,68] (H)
• Shadowmoon Valley: Wildhammer Stronghold [40,55] (A) / Shadowmoon Village [33,30] (H)
• Terokkar Forest: Allerian Stronghold [55,55] (A) / Stonebreaker Hold [52,43] (H)
• Zangarmarsh: Telredor [69,52] (A) / Zabra’Jin [36,52] (H)

Major Towns

Alliance:

• Darnassus (57, 93)
• Ironforge (64, 25)
• Stormwind (41, 61)
• The Exodar (41, 26)

Horde:

• Orgrimmar (47, 38)
• Silvermoon City (70, 43)
• Thunder Bluff (21, 26)
• Undercity (68, 9 [upstairs])

So get out there and start hunting down all the flames, honoring your own flames will grant you rewards, but remember that desecrating your enemies bonfires will not only get you more gold and blossoms, but will also grant your faction the zone buff, and remove it from your enemies – just be prepared to fight your way in, and out again.

Contributing Authors: Slavrix and David Norton

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Over the next 11 days you have a unique opportunity. If you’ve been thinking about starting a new toon or cruising one of your current alts up to level 70 don’t waste another minute!

The midsummer festival is in full swing right now all over the WoW landscape. While there are events associated with the festival that we will cover tomorrow (such as some serious gold to be made) today we wanted to let you in on how the festival can really buff your leveling runs.

In each zone there are bonfires burning. The bonfires are lit every midsummer to symbolize the hottest part of the year with flames. This all seems a little silly to me, but hey, people do silly stuff all the time when they are making up excuses to have a party! Wouldn’t ice cream be better for this time of year? Oh well, I guess fires when it’s already hot outside is fine.

When you visit a bonfire controlled by your faction (Alliance or Horde) there are several things you can do that will give you rewards or buffs. You can also earn some nice change by visiting bonfires controlled by the other faction and snuffing them out! Here’s how this festival is a once a year opportunity to level those alts.

When you complete midsummer festival quests you will receive an item called Burning Blossoms. These blossoms can be used at the bonfires to light them or you can collect a lot of them and turn them in for some fairly decent rewards. The quests are easy and mostly involve running to talk to various NPC’s so it’s pretty easy to collect the blossoms.

As you are out questing be sure to keep a few blossoms in your bag and be aware of the locations for all the bonfires in the zone as well as nearby zones. Whenever someone lights the bonfire (of your faction) for the zone you are in you will get a buff that adds a 30% chance to add fire damage to each attack you make. The amount of fire damage is pretty big and scales with the level of your character. At lower levels it normally results in a one-shot kill when it procs. At level 70 this buff adds a chance to do 700 fire dmg. But the fire damage buff is only the beginning!

You’ll want to stock up on burning blossoms for this next buff. If you use a burning blossom near a bonfire that is already lit you will also gain +3% to your critical hit rating. This buff also adds fire damage to each attack! You can actually gain this buff as well as the bonfire buff every time you light the fire yourself using a Burning Blossom. With both of the fire damage buffs and increased crit chance you will be blowing mobs up like an elite.

At each bonfire there is also a pole. Dancing around the pole gives you an experience per kill reward of +10%! To dance all you have to do is toggle the gear cursor when standing near the pole. Your toon will go into a frenzied spinning dance and you can watch the experience buff increase as you spin.

Be sure to dance for about 60 seconds every time you visit the pole. This buff has a sort of “slow fill” on the countdown timer. The longer you dance, the longer the buff lasts – up to 60 minutes.

You can see how stacking these three buffs can really speed up your leveling times. Don’t waste this chance to scoot through about 50 levels over the next 11 days. You won’t get an opportunity like this for another year. Get out there now and Dominate with those alts!

10 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

By now you know that we’re big fans of fishing for your main character. We know it seems like a big pain to level fishing, but it can become a good money-maker when combined with cooking in the end game. Beyond that, you can get lots of decent buffs from cooked fish – most of which are just as good, if not better, than buffs from high-end alchemy potions; and the mats are so much easier to get.

In the career of an angler, you can train the first two levels at the fishing trainers to get to skill level 150. after that, you have to get the book “Expert Fishing – The Bass and You.” From Old Man Hemming in Booty Bay. But once you reach level 225, you have to do a quest to get the Artisan level training. This guide is going to walk you through that quest chain. Once you finish this quest and can go to 325, all you have to do is grab the next book, “Master Fishing – The Art of Angling” from Juno Dufrain at Cenarion Refuge in Zangaramarsh.

But let’s take a look at the Artisan Quest and tell you the easiest way through the thing. There are a couple of starter quests you can do to help you find Nat Pagle, but we’ve never done them. Just go straight to Nat. He’s on a little Island in the bay almost due west of the piers of Theramore. His coordinates are 59,60 and here’s what the fellow looks like, just chillin’ on his own little island (and drinking a bit too much we might add).

It’s a little easier for Alliance to get to Nat than Horde, since Ally toons can just jump off the docks after taking the boat from Menethil to Theramore. Horde toons will have to run from the Barrens and then through the Dustwallow Marsh. Or they can fly to Brakenwall Village and then run over to the Bay.

The following Screen shots will walk you through getting to Nat if you’re Alliance. From where the boat docks, run to the second red block as shown on this shot from the mini map.

Pay attention to which way you should be facing – like this:

Now that you’re facing about the right direction, this is what you would see if you were looking back toward the docks.

From here, Swim straight toward this little lump in the distant mountains.

After swimming for about 20 seconds you’ll see this Island straight ahead:

Swim around this Island on the left side as shown with the red path. As soon as you round this island, you will be able see Nat standing on the one behind it.

If you take a look at the mini map, you can see what that will look like when you get close, as well as the path you should swim in red.

Here we are standing behind Nat, looking back toward Theramore, so you can get an idea of how to get back, as well as a shot of his location on the World Map.

Please note the level 42 Thresher in the water near the other Island. Those guys are all over the place, so swim carefully if you are under level 40.

For Horde, just take this path to the coast, and then hug the coastline, staying out of the water as much as possible until the coast breaks back to the west. From the Barrens, follow the Yellow path. Yes it is easier to run up the road and avoid as many mobs as possible. There are lots of Lobster guys in the water along the coast, so the going can be a little rough since they have a frost bolt attack that will slow you down and make running from them difficult – especially if they catch you in the water.

You can get this quest only after level 35 and only if you have completely maxed out your fishing skill at 225. And, honestly, you wouldn’t be able to go to the places you’re going to need to go until at least level 40, so don’t sweat this quest until then.

Here’s the link to the Quest on WoWhead – http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=6607

Nat asks you to go catch four unique fish and then return to him when you bag them all. In part two later this week on DYS we’re going to do is show you the fastest order to go get these fish, and the best spots to fish. If you follow our directions you should be able to complete this entire quest in about an hour, and that is truly dominating!

22 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

Melee classes have a large variety of meta gems to choose from that are highly effective in any given situation. But it does raise the question as to which meta gem is right for your melee class?

There are two factors to take into account when picking the right meta gem for you, the first is its requirements of other color gems, the second is how well it fits with your class mechanics, below is in-depth information behind the melee based meta gems to make that choice easier.

Brutal Earthstorm Diamond – +3 Melee damage + chance to stun

Requires 2 of each gem

The stun chance on this meta gem is 1% and does not have a cooldown, it does however cause diminishing returns on other stun procs such as mace spec for warriors and rogues and as such most classes with passive stun procs from talents or weaponry choose to pass over this gem.

The main advantage of this meta gem is its base 3 melee damage increase, however it needs to be said that this damage increase does not scale with your weapon speed. As such the damage boost is best for classes with a very fast attack rate, the best being a feral druid in cat form for who this meta gem adds an effective 42 attack power.

If you use slow weapons however, give this meta gem a pass unless you really want the stun proc.

Enigmatic Skyfire Diamond – +12 Critical strike rating +5% Snare and Root resist

Requires more red gems than yellow

Normally a crit based gem would be passed over in PvP due to resilience but due to this gems special effect it suddenly becomes much more viable. The snare and root resist effect stacks with the surefooted enchant along with any talented snare and root resists such as a rogues fleet footed talent.

With snare and root resists stacked up from multiple sources you become much more mobile and in PvP it can mean the difference between catching your target to finish them off or being stuck in a frost nova eating shatter combos.

The requirements for this metagem are equally simple to meet if you do not favour yellow gems.

Eternal Earthstorm Diamond – +12 Defense rating +10% Shield block value

Requires 2 blue gems and one yellow

Strictly a tanking gem for prot paladins and warriors, the gem requirements are defensivly orientated and so easy to meet for a tank and the increase in block value scales well with your equipment to make it the best option for shield using tanks.

On top of the extra mitigation provided, the higher block value will also increase the damage output of a warriors shield slams to increase his threat capacity.

Powerful Earthstorm Diamond – 18 Stamina + 5% Stun resist

Requires 3 blue gems

A defensive based PvP gem; the requirements end up taking away from your offensive capability however the stun resist can be worth it if you have other ways of boosting it up.

5% Stun resist alone is almost a non factor in PvP, throw on the orc racial stun resist however and things quickly become a different matter, add on top any stun resist talents your class may have and you quickly become a rogues worst nightmare.

The conditions to fully exploit this gem are rather specific, but if you can then the rewards for doing so are well worth it. If not, then it is just a glorified stamina gem and not the best use of your meta slot.

Relentless Earthstorm Diamond – 12 Agility + 3% Critical damage

Requires 2 of each gem

The best offensive melee gem going for PvE, this scales well as your kit and crit rate improve. Not quite as effective in PvP situations however due to the effect of resilience.

This gem also makes a good tanking meta choice for a druid both for threat generation and proccing improved leader of the pack for self heals.

The main drawback to this gem is its requirements which can detract from your offensive capabilities but for PvE the bonus to your critical damage more than makes up for this loss.

Swift Skyfire Diamond – 24 Attack power + Minor run speed increase

Requires 2 yellow and one red gem

This gem is mostly used by those who want a surefooted enchant but do not wish to lose out on a run speed increase for catching their opponents in PvP if they do not have a talented movement speed increase.

The requirements are simple to meet and it provides a solid damage boost making this a safe choice, though unless you specifically want both the surefooted enchant and a boost to your run speed there are likely better meta gems for you.

Thundering Skyfire Diamond – Chance to increase attack speed

Requires 2 of each gem

The proc from this gem provides 240 haste rating for 6 seconds with a cool-down of 40 seconds. For most situations a Relentless Earthstorm Diamond will provide you a higher dps increase due to the lack of an internal cool-down.

That said there is one situation in which this gem excels, and that is for a blood elf retribution paladin using seal of blood, a class for whom haste is key. For any other melee dps class there are better options available.

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One of the best ways to maintain you dominant advantage on your server is to be one step ahead of everyone else. The very best opportunities are often found in the patch notes for the PTR (Public Test Realm). If you don’t make it a habit of watching for updates and patch notes, you should.

The patch notes are great because they let you in on what’s coming well before it happens. I made a fortune in gold when I read that Shaman were going to get dual-wielding in a previous patch. All I did was go buy up all the axes on the ah for a couple of weeks and then put them all back up for sale the day the patch went live!

To see the latest patch notes, bookmark this link: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

The next patch is 2.4.3 and while there isn’t anything of interest from the gold-making perspective, it does contain some really big news that will get everyone in a tizzy. We wanted you to hear it from us first.

Mounts will now be available at level 30! That’s right, and not only that, but the cost for the apprentice riding training has been reduced to 35 gold. This is really going to speed things up when working on a new alt since your travel times from quest to quest will be drastically reduced for those classes without travel speed forms or talents.

Some other interesting tidbits in the next patch:

Tailoring – The cooldown for regular mooncloth will be removed completely
Rogue – Cheat death seems to be nerfed to a large degree
Shaman – Lightening Overload will also be nerfed, although it’s almost impossible to tell how much
Warlock – Curse of Shadows is gone completely, while Curse of Elements takes on shadow buff properties
Quests – Several quests have been fixed. One, the Blueleaf Tubers quest in RFK, has been broken for as long as I can remember – I’ve actually skipped it for years now.

Head over to the link above and check out the hundreds of minor details. It’s definitely worth the time to read the patch notes, there’s always a few exciting fixes, otherwise they wouldn’t go to the trouble to change them! OH, and get ready to enjoy your mount at level 30! Mounts at level 30 is a dominating occurrence in my book.

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The two most versatile classes are the druid and the paladin. Not only do both contribute to dps, tanking, and healing, they offer important buffs that are vital for carrying out grouping, raiding, and bg’ing.

The paladin is an amazing class. They have key ingredients for arenas and raids due to their special abilities. This guide will help you chose what spec is right for you from level 1 past level 70.

When starting out, it is safe to work down the retribution line. This gives the most solo capability for running through quests quickly and leveling. Even through instances up to ZF, retribution paladins can tank without protection points or even a shield.

After hitting outland it is smart to switch over to holy or protection, there is always a demand for healers and tanks for the 60+ dungeons. Even if you only plan on dealing with one spec, it is always wise to collect gear for all 3 specs. You never know when you might switch over.

For end game, most paladins are protection or holy. Retribution paladins are very rare in raids or heroics, due to the amount of dps and CC (crowd control) they are limited too. Some players do take the retribution line, for there is some awesome raid gear out there to be earned. Retribution dps can be effective.

Here is a brief run down of what you need to know for paladin specs:

The Healadin

The holy paladin is a strong class for raiding and pvp. They offer constant heals that are largely accumulated. Just thinking about characters in plate that can heal makes me grin.

• Relies on crit healing
• High amounts of mana regeneration
• Able to cast large heals consecutively in a short amount of time
• Due to abilities, very good class for arenas

The Retadin (aka Retardadin by popular demand)

The retribution line is harshly under rated. It does not necessarily yield the outstanding dps that other classes can put out in pve. But in pvp, this is an excellent talent line.

Retadins are just as rare in pvp as in pve, but a geared retadin can solo down any class with ease. They are reliant on burst damage in combination with their stun and timing. Even though they necessarily do not have movement slowing effects, the advantage of pursuit of justice used with seal of justice will make it so no enemy can ever escape you.

• Relies on strength, crit, and spell damage
• Use improved BoF (blessing of freedom) with seal of justice so no enemies escape you
  For mobs or characters that do not run, apply seal of crusade then phase through seal of command for the best dps outcome
• Use slowest 2h weapon for greatest proc damage

The Tankadin

Tankadins were not always favored as a main tank for guilds. However, people soon realized just how effective they are, especially in heroics. Their ability to control multiple mobs through consecration is far superior to warriors tabbing targets while spamming sunder. The tankadin doesn’t generate threat through physical damage and taunts, rather through spell damage. It is important for end game tanks to spec not only in defense and stamina, but in spell damage as well to hold max threat.

• Relies on stamina, defense, and spell damage
• Can easily control multiple mobs
• Extra buffs – BoS (blessing of Sanctuary) and BoK (Blessing of Kings)
• Can support groups with their special abilities where warriors can not (ie blessing of protection, resurrection, divine intervention)

It is great to be able to switch between different specs such as healing and tanking while using the same class. Crossing a geared pally can be harsh, especially when they are in combination with another good class. They are one of the most needed characters in raiding while doing some even more amazing things for the simple heroics.

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It has recently been announced by Blizzard that season 4 of arenas will begin on the 24^th and 25^th of this month on the US and European servers respectively and this presents a unique opportunity to all players to make a good sum of gold.

When season 4 goes live not only does the brutal gladiators’ set become available for the top arena players; but also season 2 equipment becomes purchasable for honor. Currently each servers’ PvP players are working diligently at stashing away masses of arena points and honor for season 4.

What this inevitably leads to is an astronomical one-off influx of new equipment into each and every server much larger than normal kit replacement. All this new kit will be needing gems and enchants, those prepared to provide the materials needed for these gear buffs stand to make a good deal of gold indeed as demand will far outstrip supply leading to inflated prices.

In an effort to aid you in exploiting this massive demand for enchants, let us explore exactly what will be in demand on a profession by profession basis.

Tailoring

Spellthread of all types will be in demand for leg enchants by all casters, and in order to create those threads large amounts of primals are needed.

The common ingredient to all spellthread is a primal nether, unfortunately these cannot really be farmed and are not worth spending badges on to resell the primal; if you have any spare nethers stashed away however, then this is the best opportunity to sell them you will likely ever have.

The next ingredient needed is either primal life or primal mana in very large quantities, both will see massive price escalation and so are ideally suited to being farmed for profit.

Leatherworking

Leatherworking creates leg enchants used by melee classes. These also use a large quantity of primals which can be farmed by anyone.

Once again primal nethers are required, creating an even larger demand for them. However this time it is primal earth and air that is required; unfortunately primal earth is almost always in surplus due to a high amount of miners in game so these are generally not worth farming. This is not the case with primal air – it always sells well.

Secondly, if you are a skinner, all leg armors require a large amount of knothide leather so it may be worth farming some to sell.

Jewelcrafting

Gems of all colours will be in high demand, however PvP kit comes with a mix of yellow and red sockets leading to a much higher demand for yellow and red gems over blue.

Since you have little control as to what gems specifically you get, just hold back any gems you have for sale once season 4 is released and you should see a price rise for all types.

Alchemy

Alchemists create the base meta gems before a jewelcrafter can cut them, and creating meta gems requires primals. Earth, water, fire and air will all be in demand.

Note that primal air is also required by tailors so having two professions requiring primal air only serves to further increase the demand for primals and motes of air – and as such raise its price even further.

Enchanting

All base enchanting materials will see a price hike as the demand for them will be overwhelming; when out farming other materials keep any greens you find for disenchanting either by yourself, if possible, or a friend.

Besides the basic materials though, enchanting requires an astronomical number of primals. Primal fire, water, life and mana are in demand for caster based enchants while a small amount of primal air is in demand for agility enchants.

Misc

On top of all these profesion based requirements, new shoulder enchants will be in demand which will lead to a rise in the price of arcane tomes and fel armaments; arcane tomes are more common due to the sunwell runs now available so if you plan to farm either then I suggest you farm fel armaments.

Once you have farmed a good amount it will be time to dominate the auction house on the 24^th/25^th for some good old fashioned profiteering.

Addition by Lawbringer:

After doing a test on this theory (and being flamed for it in the comments by Richard) I decided to post the results of my own experience with this information directly in the post for all to see.  The following screen shot show the bags of my banking toon on Fenris, Horde side, toon name “Moneybaggins.”  I sent every penny I had past 5,000 gold to my mule toon on Fenris to hold for the duration of this experiment.

With my 5,000 gold I spent the 22nd, and 23rd purchasing every available items for DE that would yield high level mats as well as purchasing every available Void Crystal, Large Prismatic Shard and Arcane Dust.  Fenris Horde has a fairly small AH, just over 160 pages on average (information from AADV).

On the morning of the 24th I re-posted every single enchanting mat I had gleaned from my purchases and DE efforts for approximately 150% more than market value based on data from AADV and Bottom Scanner.  Needless to say, since I had the only available mats in any sort of volume I was the only choice.  I would also spend some of my earning each day buying out people who tried to undercut my price by a significant percentage as well as any auctions of large stacks to make sure I kept nearly complete control of the market.

What was really amazing is that I was able to corner the market on a server as mature as Fenris with as little as 5,000 gold.

The following screen shot shows the results of this exercise as of the morning of July 5th, 2008.  You can see that I was able to far more than double my 5,000 gold and I still have a mailbox full of mats I sold at the ah I haven’t even opened yet.  If you doubt the existence of any of this, you are welcome to meet me on Fenris and I will be happy to show you first hand.

I certainly hope that many of you were able to profit as handsomely as I did from this tip and I look forward to more of these tips from Lithanial as well as the pointers Gavin and I try to give you when the fruit is ripe for the picking on the AH – we don’t just make this stuff up folks, we know how to make things work!

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