L2Tank – Two Paths To Domination

Gear comes to every tanks mind once they start to raid, but some people don’t always know which road to take. This guide will help you understand what stats, mitigation, and blocking all comes down to.

Values and what they mean:

Mitigation – this is the combined percent of your miss, dodge, parry, and block chances.
Block Chance – this is the percent that you have to block attacks with a shield.
Block Value – the amount of damage reduced when blocking an attack.
Evasion – not a technical term for WoW, but is considered the amount of dodge, parry, and miss combined (your total percentage to totally evade an attack).

Tanks usually don’t care about stats or values when looking at gear, just rolling with the highest set is safe and standard. But there are effective ways to equip your tank right to get the max outcome from their abilities.

Mitigation (Evasion) Tanking

Players tell me all the time, “You are so much easier to heal.” That’s because my warrior is a mitigation tank. He has around 56% total evasion unbuffed, meaning each attack from a boss has a 56% chance to not hit and cause damage. Every socket is either a parry, dodge or the both plus stamina. By having an insane amount of mitigation, you will be able to take less damage from bosses and tank more mobs or groups of mobs at a time.

Pros

• When compared to block, evasion is an act where no damage is taken
• Gaining evasion stats is easier than trying to obtain block and block value, easier to gem
• You’ll be taking less damage on specific fights like pathwerk, and healers will note how much easier it is to keep you alive.
• With a little skill, and enough evasion, you can pull a mass amount of mobs for speed runs ect

It’s obvious to assume that specing in a stat that will completely evade a damaging blow is better then something that will just reduce its damage when blocked. However, talents come into play, and there is a catch 22 on being a complete evasion tank

Cons

Theres only real con, and that is spell damage or other non-pysical damaging attacks. When trying to reach maximum evasion, stamina is a value reserved for only if need be, otherwise reaching 55%+ evasion (not mitigation, but evasion) wouldn’t be possible.  So evasion tanks will have less health, due to being able to miss a great amount of attacks. But when a boss comes into play that does a harsh amount of magic damage (ie Malygos), the evasion tank can only parry and dodge what is physical.

Another attack we are seeing in ulduar, is bombs and or beams from mechanical units. This is a deep blow to mitigation tanks as health is being an issue with surviving a lot of these attacks.

Of course, this is easy to fix. Simply substitute enough evasion with health. You won’t be reaching levels of 55-60% of evasion though, but the health is worth it.

Shield Tanking

• A lot of warrior tanks were pissed off when shield block was changed for LK. However, on the up side, block gear and block value is now attainable en large and gearing up as a shield tank is much more feasible.
• Using talents reduces shield block for 40 second cool down and a 100% block chance for an amount of time is better than a chance per hit, we can now plan specifically during harder parts of an encounter when to supplement our damage reduction
• Gemming is directed towards stamina, giving healers more leeway. This makes it easier to heal in some cases like Malygos

High mitigation tanks will be seeing 55% and higher evasion which is a great deal. Shield tanks will see around 35% evasion but have a higher mitigation if speced correctly in block chance and byusing abilities. A lot of people mock tanks that enter an instance with only 30k health. But smart healers will soon realize how much easier it is to keep mitigation tanks up, and that health is inferior against totally evading an attack.

Special Note: Night Elves have a 2% chance to be missed (racial passive), increasing evasion by that much more. In my opinion, the best tanking class.

Wanderer Dominating In BG’s As Arms Warrior

As of patch 3.1, arms warrior dps > fury in pve. For pvp reasons, fury isn’t even a plausible spec, you are either arms or prot unless you want to get face rolled all day.

PvE

Despite only having crap ten man gear and welfare epics, I still enter 25 raids and top charts, especially over fury warriors who out-gear me by a couple thousand via gear score.  I can’t give people a reason why this is the way it is, but what I can do is explain how to get the best dps from your arms warrior.

Arms PvE Spec for Patch 3.1+

What you do with the last 2 points doesn’t matter.   Having anger management and improved bloodrage will help keep your rage up, especially at the end of fights when you are spamming execute. Most of the best weapons in the game are axes, but obviously go with the spec you have your weapon with. I’ve been waiting for ironsoul to drop from Leviathan since Uldaur came out, because I want to test how much armor penetration I can reach. Right now I am sitting at 20% unbuffed, adding mace spec will up that to 35% with a goal of 40-45% in mind.

Rotation Priority

• Charge/Rend – The first thing in battle you will do is charge then apply rend. After, use up the juggernaut proc with mortal strike.
• Bladestorm – When your tank has established agro, use bladestorm right away. A lot of people like to save their special abilities, but this is foolish. Unless you know there is a specific part you must save your special cooldowns for, use them up right away. Bladestorm is the highest dps we have, so get that right off the bat so the cooldown can begin its process.
• Execute is the highest priority ability during the fight. Execute crits will do the most damage over the rest of your abilities and you want to use this immediately so your white hits can proc it again.
• Overpower is your next highest dps ability, mostly because it will always crit. With taste for blood, you will always have an overpower proc with a cooldown of six seconds.
• Mortal Strike – is your base attack, you should be using this whenever the cooldown is over, give execute priority though.
• Rend – must always be applied to the target. Using Glyph of Rending helps keep this up.
• Slam – With improved slam, this ability will be used whenever there is a small opening. Usually when you don’t have any execute procs and MS is on cooldown, improved slam is the fill in. It won’t be until you fully understand and get the rotation down solid, that you will see the small openings to add this ability every now and then.
• Sweeping Strikes - should be used whenever there is more than one opponent around. Combining this with bladestorm will give you a massive burst dps but by doing that you are not getting the best dps outcome. Don’t use sweeping strikes with bladestorm, use it with your regular rotation and you will get much more damage applying overpower crits and executes  – only then should you add the standard damage of bladestorm (use both together in pvp in certain situations).
• Don’t ever use heroic strike or cleave. It will rob you of your rage and there isn’t even much damage it will add.

What you need to know about overpower
- When overpower procs, you have 9 seconds to use it and 6 seconds to use it so that it will not reset your charge. Meaning, when your overpower procs, you don’t necessarily have to use it right away. If you get an overpower proc and an execute proc at the same time, you still have 6 seconds to use that overpower and it won’t mess up the 6 second cooldown timer. What this means is, use overpower right before the timer hits 4 seconds, if you do this another overpower will proc right after. Using your overpower rotation correctly will yield more dps. Even if a mortal strike cooldown ends the same time an overpower proc does, use the MS and then carry out the overpower. You are getting much more dps this way. The thirst for blood overpower proc does not tie in to the basic overpower proc (when an opponent dodges). However, reaching an expertise cap should be applied so none of your attacks are dodged. You could think, “But if an attack is dodged I could just overpower crit it back.” This will actually hurt your rotation and your damage, especially if you are giving up execute crits.

Glyphs

Major

• Glyph of Rending
• Glyph of Whirlwind
• Glyph of Mortal Strike

Minor

• Glyph of Charge
• Glyph of Bloodrage

PvP

Arms PvP 3.1 Max DPS Neckstomper Build

The PvP build is not much different, you are switching things like improved slam or improved bloodrage to reach bloodcraze in the fury tree. Bloodcraze is the best survival trait in pvp and must be active.  Piercing howl and anger management are more of a choice.

The advantage of using piercing howl over hamstring (other than the AoE effect) is that it can’t be dodged, blocked or parry. The best instance to use this is if a hunter gets a wing clip on you and your hamstring fails, you’re his toy until charge reaches its cooldown.

Glyphs

Major

• Glyph of Rapid Charge
• Glyph of Mortal Strike
• Glyph of Bladestorm
• Glyph of Hamstring – replace MS if you wanna spec in this

Minor

• Glyph of Charge
• Glyph of Bloodrage
• Glyph of Battle

Another way down the road is hamstring spec. By dropping anger management piercing howl you can apply two points to improved hamstring and then glyph in it.  Either way, you should be able (with a little practice) make life miserable for your opponents and Dominate in Battlegrounds or any other PvP situation using this spec.

Here’s the spec, study it and be enlightened;
Eviscerate Rogue Spec Build

Why go with this spec?

• Honor Among Thieves – Through honor among thieves, a new era of sub rogues has come into play. Combo points are accumulated faster than any other type of spec, even in 5 man instances. As long as people are critting, you will be laying out welfare damage all over the place.
• Obtaining the highest stats – Through the sub tree we get our 15% agility and 10% attack power. No other combination is deadlier for maxing out stats to obtain highest damage.
• Hit and offhand still a factor – Now that we have our stats maxed, using 5/5 dual wield spec and precision will give our white damage the most it can pump out. Heading down the combat line more doesn’t help out your white damage. Just these two specs in the tree need to be fulfilled; it’s just ironic bliss that it leads right to aggression.
• Eviscerate – It’s obvious to get improved eviscerate, what we should be grateful is that aggression is only third tier in the combat tree, allowing us for this complex, yet unique build. Eviscerate is what you will be spamming other than keeping slice and dice active.
• Hemorrhage – This is not to be a main attack or even a concentrated damage source. All it does is allow a combo point whenever need be. Hemorrhage is cheaper in energy compared to sinister strike, and it also provides the only raid buff that rogues give. The raid however, will be only seeing a little of this. Keeping hemorrhage up is not important; it is just a tool for when the opportunity of adding more combo points arrives.

Rotation Complication?

Not at all. Rotation is simple. Eviscerate, eviscerate, eviscerate, rinse lather and repeat. Through relentless strikes and not having to rely on a combo maker, energy will rarely be a problem. Still keep in mind that slice ‘n dice is to be up at all times.

Glyphs

• Glyph of Eviscerate (duh)
• Glyph of Fan of Knives
• Glyph of Cloak of Shadows (OR)
• Slice ‘n Dice

I prefer shadows, sometimes survivability is the best offense, you can’t dps if you’re dead. 3 seconds of extra time on Slice n Dice doesn’t amaze me, but it does up add a lot of downtime that could have been used for an eviscerate.

Fists vs Daggers

It really doesn’t matter, just as long as one of the two are equipped for close quarters combat.  Using a fist main hand weapon will give you an extra hundred damage or so every time hemo is used, but hemo is rarely going to be used. So use the highest dps and stat weapon available. Faster weapons are always first choice for poison application, so using daggers like Webbed Death in both hands is very appropriate.

Not many people still use eviscerate, even though it’s the most basic finishing move since using a rogue from level 1, I’m just glad to finally get a use of it at end game, finally. This strat also works for pvp’ers, but compared to bleeding, using a finishing source that is direct damage is inferior. I do suggest it for rogues smart enough to exploit the kiting that we have. When kiting, bleeds are a waste of time. So getting a 5-point combo maker from cheap shot to 7k eviscerate then a blind to start it all over isn’t such a bad strat.

We have gotten a lot of questions lately on the Mage class, and it’s about time we covered them.  Before we get into anything too highfalutin’ though, we better start with getting you guys to 80.  Well, there are two ways you can play a mage.  You can do it like a lot of people and do it like this:

Funny, yes.  Good information – not so much.  But that is the way a lot of folks ham through the game.  What you end up with is a level 10 mage collecting dust or an 8 month run to 80.  None of that here, please.

So, may we offer you a much better solution to this squishy glass cannon?  Enter the AoE Frost mage.  It’s not like this is anything new, but it’s great because it’s olds.  Olds that stick around this long are news because they work like a charm.

Here’s how to put the power of the frost mage to perfect use to powerlevel yourself all the way to 80 in ridiculous time.  First, the spec: Frost talents that you need- other than these, feel free to put extra points wherever you see fit.

Even before the spell Blizzard was able to crit, skilled players still used this strategy starting at level 24. Frost has come a long way since old times, and now, AoE killing mobs with blizzard is a lot easier and even more commendable for taking on even the largest of mob clusters.  The only stats to focus on are intellect and stamina such as “of the eagle” gear.

I could spend 10 pages trying to describe exactly how to do this, but it works much better to just show you.   So here is a video demonstrating how to successfully clear large mob groups using only a mage.

Even despite going against a group of 14, I still only used a regular rotation. Having abilities like ice block, cold snap, and the water elemental summon are my back ups in case something goes wrong (like a mob resisting my frost nova).

I see a lot of videos where people have to use almost all their cool downs just to get 8 or 10 mobs down.  As long as you know your limits and stay in control, you will not have to rely on these cool downs every battle – giving you much faster leveling times.

Combine this with questing and there is no reason why a mage cannot level faster than any other class in the game at this time.  It’s also great for farming certain kinds of mats and what not.  Sure, it takes a little practice, but it’s very, very Dominating.

This guide will show you what is needed for a hit and expertise cap as fury and arms dps.  First off, you need to educate yourself on just exactly what hit and expertise are, and why they are important.

I. Soft Cap and White Cap

• White Cap – At level 80, players have a 5% base chance to have their regular attacks miss (white damage). When dual wielding, this chance increases to 24%.
• Soft Cap –soft cap is the amount of hit required to make your special abilities never miss (also called yellow attacks). For fury, the soft cap is also 5%. For arms warrior, the soft cap and hit cap are the same.

How Much Hit is Needed for Raiding

When I say the hit cap is 5% base, that means at level 80 we need a 5% hit increase to never miss an attack on another level 80. But when we go into those daring raids the bosses aren’t level 80, they are level 83. Testing has shown now that the hit cap is 8.0% (rounded). But what does this all mean?
Hit to Percentage – At level 80, 32.79 hit rating = 1%. Meaning a total of 262.32 = 8% = hit cap.

• Arms Hit Cap – White and Yellow hit cap need to be at 8% to never be missed. You will see that obtaining a full white hit cap for fury is not plausible, but is vital for arms.
• Fury Hit cap – The yellow hit cap for arms warriors is at 8% and the same goes for fury. The yellow cap is a must and can easily be obtained. First, you should already have the talent precision to increase hit chance by 3% when maxxed. So to obtain a soft hit cap of 5% at level 80, a fury warrior player needs only 163.95 hit.

Some things to think about

There is still controversy over how much white hit damage a fury warrior needs. Many dps testers say that specing into hit is a waste, and you will benefit more from strength through your yellow abilities (which should be hit capped). A more in-depth article will be written on this, but if you’re looking for an average number to obtain, try to reach around 290 hit rating with precision.

Always be behind the target – Before you understand expertise, you need to know exactly how hitting mobs works. When you are in front of the target you are taking a major dps nerf. Growing up as a rogue since the day WoW started, it has been a law to always be behind your target if you are melee dps. Players that are behind NPC targets cannot be parried or blocked, but can be dodged. Not only does this up your damage output, but some mobs/bosses have counterattack abilities that are triggered when they are blocked or parried. By being in front of the target, not only are you losing damage output, but you could be hurting your tank.

• Expertise Rating – Expertise rating reduces chance to not be dodged and parried. Since you are ALWAYS behind your target, expertise only helps your chance to not be dodged.
• Expertise Cap – At level 80, 32.79 expertise = 1% chance to not be dodged or parried. To figure out a definite cap you would need to know the boss’s dodge chance, which can vary, but testing tends to point towards a universal rating of 6.5% chance. To negate this, players need 215 expertise rating.

Arms – Blizzard has been changing this around lately, but as for now the talent weapon mastery (2% chance to not be dodged) is in the 6th tier of the arms tree. Therefore, an expertise rating of 148 is all you would need.

Fury – Expertise is a vital stat for fury players and the 215 cap should be considered strongly. However, you will get most of the expertise you need from the set stats on your gear. Never gem or enchant your gear for expertise as a dps, stats like str and crit should be given priority.

Summary

Arms

• Hit cap – 262.32
• Yellow cap – 262.32
• Expertise Cap – 215

Fury

• Hit cap – 786.96 with 3/3 precision. This is not plausible so aim for around 260-300 with 3/3 precision.
• Yellow cap – 163.95 with 3/3 precision.
• Expertise cap – 215

Special Notes:

• If there is a draenei present in the raid then everyone has a universal  1% hit chance increase. Don’t rely on this unless you know you will always have a Draenei present.
• Humans gain 3 expertise from sword and mace spec racial passive.
• Dwarves gain 5 expertise from mace spec racial passive.
• Orcs gain 5 expertise form Ax spec racial passive.

Everyone is stoked with the new patch 3.0.2. Something new that blizzard specifically added was the achievements. The achievements is a new system that offers combined game content that players can earn by completing the selected field. This can range from doing a certain amount of quests to exploring the world of Azeroth, Outland, and soon Northrend.

What achievements offer is for players to get that complete feel of domination towards WoW, and it most certainly helps. What people really want to know is what does the achievement system have to offer?

Although most of the specific rewards are still unknown, the bounty of completing certain achievements will give each player the right to earn certain rewards and titles. For example, if you are rep’d (exalted) fully in all five major cities you will receive a special title for doing this. Another is if you collect 50 mounts you will receive a special mount.

We won’t know everything until the xpac comes out, but this is just a little taste of what to expect. What I want to tell you is a little secret I discovered with this new system.

One of the achievements available is to earn 50 pets. By doing this, players can earn a special pet when completed. Pets can be a pain to collect, but there are gamers out there that want to help their fellow man (what?), or profit themselves. Whatever you motive is this small guide will help!

High level players will pay anything to get what they want, when they want it and they want it right now. If it costs 50g for a pet, they will pay just that so they can complete their achievement list. Below are listed pets that you can obtain very easily, then turn around and sell them for a 1000% profit or more on the AH.

Ancona Chicken – This is sold by Magus Tirth in the shimmering flats. Not many people know about this guy and even more so, they don’t know he sells a pet. Both sides can obtain it easily. It costs 1g and I have sold them for 25g in the alliance ah. It may depend different on your server, no one may not be selling them at all. Take advantage and put it up for 50g, they will sell. Some may have already figured this out and the prices dropped to 10g. A 9g profit is still a big percentage and it adds up when you sell a lot of them.

This next strategy calls for having a toon on both horde and alliance sides. Saying this, pvp servers won’t be able to profit. Take your toon and buy up a bunch of the opposite server pets, such as cats in SW or dragonhawks at fairbreeze village. Then use the neutral AH and have your buddy buy them from your character. Check your ah and be prepared to make a lot of gold, chances are none will be listed allowing you to set the price.

On my server, the alliance AH are selling dragonhawks for 75g BO and there are not for sale yet at the AH. Even if people know how to obtain the opposite faction pets, they are still willing to pay a certain price just so they don’t have to hassle with the neutral AH exchange. So get those pets collected and dominate your AH with such a simple strategy yielding huge profits!

You can take a look at this page from Warcraftpets.com to see all 33 pets available from vendors. Stock up on these and sell them at the AH for a nice profit.

http://warcraftpets.com/wow.pets/filter.asp?filter=vendor

Inscription is the new profession coming to WotLK. This will not be something that is optional for player enhancement; everyone will be using it in one way or another.

The common reason players will be subjugated to inscription is the need for glyphs. Glyphs are the main feature of inscription and what they do is power the player in certain abilities depending on what glyphs they decide to get.

Glyphs are kind of like gems and enchanting combined. They offer small enchants to certain aspects of a certain class. Unlike gems however, they are placed in their own little fancy UI (user interface), not on equipment or into sockets.

As of now, players can have a total of 6 glyphs (3 major and 3 minor). Major glyphs provide vital enhancement to spells and abilities such as an extra 5 yrd range to ambush or 50% to avoid interruption while casting wrath. Minor glyphs provide small and unique enhancement to spells and abilities such as lowering spell costs or changing an animation.

How glyphs differ from enchanting and gemming is that the enhancements are not a boost to stats. Instead, glyphs provide enhancements to abilities and spells. This is what will make inscription so unique and demanding, every player will need it.

Even at lower level glyphs are available. The number of glyphs able to use are lowered according to levels, as well as the types of glyphs used. Here is a list of what players should expect at what level:

· Level 1-14: None

· Level 15-29: 1 Major, 1 Minor

· Level 30-44: 2 Major, 2 Minor

· Level 45-59: 2 Major, 2 Minor

· Level 60 and up: 3 Major, 3 Minor

As for what glyphs to get, each glyph is made for a specific ability for a specific class. Here is a list of some glyphs to expect (1 of each class):

Glyph of Lifebloom – Increase the duration of lifebloom by 1 sec

Glyph of Steady Shot – Damage of steady shot increased by 10% when target is effect by serpent sting

Glyph of Death Coil – Increase duration of death coil by .5 seconds

Glyph of Blade Flurry – Reduce energy cost of Blade Flurry by 100%

Glyph of Dispel Magic – When you dispel the target it heals them for 6% of total health

Glyph of Healing Wave – Your Healing Wave also heals you for 20% of the effect when you heal someone else

Glyph of Fireball – Increase initial damage dealt of fireball by 5% but removes the DoT effect

Glyph of Flash of Light – Your flash of light heals 50% less, but also heals for 200% of initial effect over 15 sec

Just these few examples show how powerful glyphs can be. In a way, they are somewhat more of an improved talent point, furthering the specialization of how you want you to be. Glyphs bring a more unique feel of how you play your character.

Blizzard holidays are never dull in the slightest. Aside from some of the neat and interesting activities they provide, there is usually a temporary boss that can also drop interesting items.

Right now the Brewfest is going on, and if you haven’t participated in the festivities you are missing out. Even if you are a party pooper and do not participate in the activities, there is a certain NPC that will interest you.

Coren Direbrew is out there, trying to ruin the Brewfest, and it is up to you to stop him. Even if you don’t feel up to doing the chain quest, you don’t have to. This holiday boss resides within Blackrock Depths (BRD). Oh yes, time to drag up those fond pre-BC memories.

Even though Coren is pretty far in, it is actually really simple to get there. Once you enter BRD, turn directly to the right. There will be 3 level 70 NPCs guarding these little contraptions. Take them out then right click on the doodles and be on your way.

You will be transported to the bar area in just a few seconds, (quite appropriate considering the theme). Once you land, there will be an NPC with the blue exclamation mark (!) over his head. This is a daily quest, you can fight Coren 1x per person. That means you will be able to fight him 5x per group.

Coren is fairly simple, not as easy as a regular boss, but just under the heroic level. Once you get the daily quest, talk to Coren and the battle will start.

There are a couple of things to watch out for. First off, there are additional mobs. Depending on how well geared your group is, you can literally ignore these. Having a paladin tank helps. If not, take them out, they are just regular mobs.

Coren has two abilities; the first is a whirlwind which deals a nice chunk of damage and also disarms melee ranged targets. This whirlwind is very slow and easy to avoid, so all melee classes be sure to evade this.

The second ability is this drill that will come up from the ground. Although this is harder to avoid at first, be sure to move once it comes up. Along with damage, the drill will pop the target back.

Coren also will spawn a female dwarf (Ursula or llsa Direbrew). These chicks can be kind of annoying. They will stun a target for 6 seconds from “Brewmaiden’s Stun” and also have another ability called “Barrelled,” which will disorient and slow the target for 8 seconds. This is troublesome for healers and can even cause a wipe.

The females are elite mobs, so they take a while to kill. It is actually wise to ignore both of them completely, focus dps on Coren and make sure your healer isn’t taking damage from adds. Follow these simple steps, along with avoiding his whirlwind, and you’ll be saving the Brewfest festival with ease.

Of course what everyone wants to know is what goodies Coren will drop. The answer is trinkets, lots of trinkets. There is a trinket for every necessity and an ‘extra’ one that is really fit for everyone. There is also an epic dagger called “Direbrew’s Shanker,” which looks like a broken glass bottle when equipped.

The trinkets compliment each spec: healing done, spell damage, attack power, block value, and then two stamina trinkets that can be used once every ten minutes. The two stamina trinkets either summon a brewmaiden who will smite your foes, or a brewmaiden who will bolster your party’s vigor.

The dagger is nice since the stats offer AP, agility, and stamina. It is a slow speed, 2.0, which is actually pretty rare. They are not unique so two can be wielded for those mutilate rogues out there. I enchanted one of mine with 7 weapon damage just to see if the glow would be seen and it did.

The equipment is on par with Karazhan epics, which is really nice for how easily they are obtained. Aside from the items that are used in battle there are, of course, some Brewfest items related to the whole theme.

A rare trinket which is dropped, called “Direbrew’s Remote,” will allow the party to teleport to the Grim Guzzler (where Direbrew is). This isn’t all that special, but more of a convenience for the festival. I wonder if it will still work when this is all over.

The last thing is really great for you rare mount collectors. There is a low drop percentage for the party to obtain either a Brewfest Kodo or a Brewfest Ram, a great way to compliment your character while running around naked in the Brewfest festival. (Role-playing?)

Holidays are always interesting in the World of Warcraft; it really does spice up the game.

Everyone is stoked about the new talent trees in the upcoming expansion. There are an extreme amount of new abilities that come into context, creating a whole new field of strategies. WotLK will certainly shift the way we play not only in PvP, but PvE as well.

If you haven’t checked out the new talent points then get your butt over to Blizzard’s website and be amazed.

Rogue beta talents

Of all the characters out there, I am glad to say rogues look insanely sick. I think they are finally getting the true buff they deserve in certain aspects. Now don’t get me wrong, rogues already have a great advantage in the PvP world. But it is pretty basic; stunlock and hemo.

Rogues in PvP only have 1 of 2 choices. That is, go 20/41 assassination/hemo or go combat fists and pray you have a good priest (2v2 only). But what about the good old days when rogues use to deal that large burst of DPS via ambush? We still have a high DPS rate right now, but it is more of a consistent damage rather than a good burst. This being due to the resilience gear making such talents like ambush and backstab basically useless.

As we look at the different talent trees for the rogue, what is blizzard trying to tell us? Look at the subtlety tree, here is where it really excited me the most; Waylay and Slaughter from the Shadows. Nothing but pure ambush/backstab buffs.

With those two buffs, ambush rogues finally have their place back in the WoW society of what they should be; assassins striking from out of the shadows with a vicious dagger. What really pulls it all together is the shadow dance. This is the main feature that blizzard sticks out saying, ‘Hey, ambush rogues are back in the game.”

If you realize what shadow dance does, then there is no other substitution then using ambush between stealths. Using garrote over and over will be a vigorous waste, while cheap shot would be pointless with diminishing returns. This talent point was made directly for multiple ambush uses; anything else is not even an option.

Even though ambush rogues are very rare right now, I still play the spec (as well as every other spec). Using a 2k AP unbuffed rogue will crit SS ambushes at around 4-5.5k points of damage. If you add resilience into the picture you can lose up to about 1k of damage depending on the resilience rating.

I hit S3 warriors around 3k of SS ambush damage; it’s really only a chip in their side with their massive 13k hps+ and daunting plate armor. Now let’s bring blade dance into the picture. I can open up with a 3k ambush through SS, then I trigger blade dance. This gives me 3 extra opportunity attacks to use ambush at will, with 2.5k points of damage per strike. Do the math, even with resilience gear the warrior will be down over 10k of damage within a short period of time. And the best part; there will be no stun locking, which in turn procs second wind.

This is still assuming that I can get all 3 strikes from the blade dance off. Who knows what factors will be brought in, such as rend or a lock’s magic spell causing a dot on the rogue, disabling stealth. Then again, this should happen so fast that a warrior shouldn’t be able to do anything but /beg.  As soon as he turns around the blade dance should be set in motion, confusing him and hopefully creating outright terror. I would definitely panic if I got hit like that.

Now another scenario; let’s assume a decently geared mage but with NO resilience is attacked by this set up. Rouges with 2k AP can SS ambush crit mages for 5k damage easy (resilience drops this down to 3.5-4k). Using blade dance, a mage will be dead in seconds if they do not think fast by using frost nova, blinking out, or ice block (POM polymorph FTW). What other choice do they have? Any character is automatically thrown into the defensive while the rogue can have their way with them and be in total domination of the battle. That is, after all, the whole idea of a rogue; getting the opportunity attack.

The real questions are: How will this all play out at level 80? How much AP will rogues have that level? Is resilience going to destroy their DD (direct damage) like it has now?

All I can say is, I am very excited to find out.

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.