A new, exciting build of the Cataclysm beta has been released, implementing the promised overhaul to the talent trees. It’s still raw at this point, but we get a glimpse of the direction the developers want to take. The basic or starter abilities have been defined and although some of these may change, such as Divine Storm for retribution paladins (Ghostcrawler, lead systems designer, mentioned that it would probably go back into the talent tree), the changes feel solid and refreshing. One of the ideas the developers have is that “both the 31-point and the 10(-point) ability need to have more single-target use,” which means we should get very good one-on-one abilities early on as well as at higher levels. The trees are a long way off from being done, but that shouldn’t stop us from taking a look at them and picturing the possibilities.

One of the cooler, less noticeable things to come out of this build are the one-liner descriptions about each of the talent specs, allowing players to quickly grasp the concept of each spec. Blizzard seems committed to keeping this model, complete with talent tree lock-outs to prevent players from straying into other trees early on. As you might have suspected, the real culprit (or at least the most notable one) behind this change is PvP

I can’t say I disagree with that notion, although I’m pretty sure the Shockadin spec wasn’t a sneaky build intended for PvP … To all Shockadin loyalists (yes, all three of you), I’m sorry, but the spec is now all dead and not just mostly dead. My condolences. Hybrid specs will become a thing of the past, and the devs want you to embrace the concept of having one (well, two, since you can dual spec) major spec. It’s interesting how Blizzard viewed this method of speccing to be “breaking the rules” this whole time. In the expansion, players wishing to dedicate to a PvP spec will need to settle for the options provided by one tree. At best, players can invest or sub-spec up to 10 points or two tiers deep into a secondary tree at higher levels. Looking at the new talent trees, there are not a lot of options in that regard. Let’s take a look at what we have so far.

Shallow options

Under the new scenario, players only have until the first two tiers to sub-spec for PvP talents. Narrowing the options makes it easier for players to design talent trees and reduces the instances of min-maxing. It also makes it easier for Blizzard to predict the PvP landscape instead of getting caught with their pants down when players come up with something crazy like healing builds using the tanking tree. Hybrid specs that cherry-pick from two trees generally create imbalanced situations, forcing the developers to come up with clumsy, radical solutions such as moving talents deeper into the trees (e.g., Summon Gargoyle) to prevent other specs from picking them up.

It is also almost guaranteed that players will pick up the bottom-most talent in their chosen tree or spec, given that it is a mere one-point investment, again making it easier for players and developers alike to envision the PvP environment. In fact, the developers are already planning for this, peppering the upper tiers with talents that complement abilities exclusive to other specs such as Crusade from the paladin retribution tree, which helps Hammer of the Righteous at the bottom of protection, or Holy Shock, the bonus skill for the holy spec. There’s the strangely worded first-tier restoration talent Furor, which benefits feral and balance druids but has no direct benefits to restoration druids. Blizzard encourages taking talents from other trees, but it should no longer feel mandatory. Let’s take a quick glance at some of the top-tier talents out in this build of the beta.

Death knight The death knight trees along with a few other classes and specs are “nowhere near done,” according to Blizzard. That said, there are a few talents in the upper tiers worth looking at for PvP. There’s Lichborne from the frost tree, moved up a tier to make it accessible to other specs, and Unholy Command in the unholy tree. There’s also the runic power-generating Butchery in the blood tree, which becomes even more attractive because of the battlegrounds, where there are lots of killing blows to be had.

Druid The balance tree holds Lunar Justice, a new and wonderful — not to mention visually exciting — talent to have in the battlegrounds. The downside is that it’s on the second tier of the balance tree, and there’s nothing too compelling about the first tier other than Nature’s Grace, which works well for restoration. In the feral tree, the developers pulled up the awesome Predatory Strikes from the fourth tier to the first tier in what seems to suspiciously be an attempt to get other specs to pick it up. Blessing of the Grove on the first tier of restoration improves abilities commonly used by the other specs but seems a bit too passive to remain in its current state. The druid trees still seem to need a lot of work, but I get the feeling that Blizzard is once again trying to push more active, in-combat shapeshifting into the druid playstyle. We’ll see how well that works out in the coming weeks.

Hunter The hunter trees seem to be a little more fleshed out, and there are a lot of good talents in the upper tiers, especially for PvP. In the beast mastery tree, there’s One with Nature, which improves the focus regeneration of Aspect of the Fox, a critical new ability for hunter PvP. There’s also Pathfinding on the second tier, which grants mobility bonuses and should come in handy for group movement in the battlegrounds. Rapid Killing on the first tier of marksmanship has better value with the battlegrounds being on equal footing with arenas. Entrapment on the second tier of survival is extremely attractive now coupled with the Trap Launcher ability that allows hunters to fire traps at long range.

Mage Although Blizzard mentioned that the arcane tree still needs a lot of work, I should point out that a lot of very cool talents are available in the upper tiers of arcane. On the first tier, there’s Arcane Concentration for a flat-out 10% chance to proc Clearcasting every time the mage damages a target, and Torment of the Weak, which increases damage done to slowed or snared targets. Both talents work well in a battleground scenario simply because there are just a whole lot of targets for mages to damage, and there are just going to be a lot of snared or slowed targets courtesy of the mage’s teammates.

The good stuff is in the second tier, though … like Arcane Potency to make sense of Arcane Concentration. But the talent that seems to jump out as truly PvP-oriented is Arcane Repulsion, an awesome talent that gives mage armor a knockback effect and another line of defense against hurtful melee. Despite Zahrym’s statement that they would like to make the difference feel “less extreme” between PvP and PvE builds, lessening the instance of having two specs for two different aspects of the game, Arcane Repulsion is very much a PvP talent with almost no use in dungeons or raids. Likewise, Improved Blink on the same tier has been reworked to feel much more like a PvP talent with its bonus to mobility.

The fire tree’s top-tier talents aren’t all too interesting at this point, although there’s Improved Fire Blast, which should work nicely with the very PvP-oriented Impact on the second tier. The frost tree isn’t all that better, with most of the talents in the first and second tiers complementing frost spells, such as Frostbite and the extremely cool (literally and figuratively) Permafrost. Overall, the arcane tree seems to have the most PvP-oriented talents in the upper tiers for now.

Paladin Ghostcrawler has already said that “the paladin trees are the most changed in the game” and that “there are only a few of the current beta talents that survived the, um, cleansing,” which means that we can pretty much disregard the current trees. In fact, during the recently concluded Twitter developer chat, the developers revealed a new paladin resource called holy power, which is sort of like soul shards meets combo points meets runic power. So a whole lot will change.

That said, I’m going to take a look at some of the talents they’ve reworked that look as though they might continue in that direction. On the second tier of holy, the developers redesigned Unyielding Faith to reduce the casting time of the paladin’s next spell by 100% after coming off a fear or disorient effect. It’s a promising idea that I hope will make it out of beta (or even this next build).

Most of protection changes are just talents moved around, but the renamed Blessing of Sanctuary — now Sanctuary — looks interesting. None of this feels solid, though, and we’ll probably see a lot of changes in the coming weeks. Retribution is pretty much the same, but I’d like to point out that the Eye for an Eye redesign seems far more interesting than the any iteration of the talent we’ve ever seen. Blizzard will probably scrap it altogether given the state of development, but it’s definitely a promising train of thought. There’s always been the concern that Blizzard still doesn’t quite know where to take the paladin class even after five years, but we’ll see.

Priest The priest trees aren’t done, but they’ve got a good bunch of new talents all around, such as Evangelism on the second tier of discipline and its companion talent Archangel. Because Evangelism procs through Smite, it’s not quite intended for healers but has good PvP applications on top of helping the leveling process for discipline priests. There’s nothing too interesting in the holy tree for other specs to pick up in the current build, and almost all the talents with the exception of Inspiration are passive bonuses, so those are likely to change. Likewise, there aren’t any talents in the shadow tree that seem complementary to the other trees at the moment, although some good PvP talents are in there such as Improved Mind Blast and perhaps Spirit Tap.

Rogue Although the assassination tree was singled out among the rogue trees as being “far from done,” it has a few new interesting talents such as Deadly Momentum and Blackjack. Blackjack should make Sap a strategic part of PvP and gives rogues the real option of using Sap in the middle of an encounter. The combat tree has Improved Recuperate, improving on the new ability Recuperate, which promises to be frequently used in PvP. Improved Kick and Improved Sprint — both useful PvP talents — were moved up to the second tier, while the rest are passive talents that might be changed. The only notable thing in the subtlety tree is the move of Waylay from the eighth tier to the second, although the prerequisite Improved Ambush is a disincentive. More changes headed towards rogue trees for sure, though.

Shaman The shaman trees have some cool new toys, although the elemental tree is mostly a reshuffling affair. It’s quite likely that we’ll see more changes and less passive bonuses here — I’m fairly certain Improved Fire Nova doesn’t quite fit the developers’ idea of palpable talents — so we’ll give the elemental tree a pass. In the enhancement tree, there’s the new but otherwise unexciting Focused Strikes that other trees will probably skip. On the second tier is Ancestral Swiftness, which grants a passive bonus to movement speed making it a great choice for PvP.

The restoration tree has Ancestral Resolve on the first tier, another passive talent but should appeal to elemental shaman in PvP. There’s also Spark of Life, which is sort of like an improved version of paladin Divinity. Finally there’s Focused Insight, another new spell that has a more dynamic feel to it by working through a proc. It also appeals to both enhancement and elemental shaman because it procs off shock spells. Restoration shaman can use it to mix things up by tossing a shock before healing an ally. Very nice talents for shaman so far, it will be good to see what changes take effect in later builds, especially for elemental.

Warlock The warlock trees feel very unfinished at this point, with most of the talents just shuffled around. Nothing too interesting in all the trees, which have old, passive talents which are very likely to change as the beta moves forward. I will note, however, that Blizzard seems to be continuing the trend of allowing Soul Link to be easily accessible to all builds with its move up to the second tier. It seems like they really want warlocks to have it by default, anyway, and the developers acknowledged considering making the ability baseline. Demonic Embrace is a prerequisite now, but that passive, unexciting talent is likely to be changed. There isn’t much to see here yet, so we’ll move along.

Warrior Warriors, on the other hand, have a bunch of new if unfinished talents such as War Academy on the first tier of arms. It still reeks of passive, impalpable bonuses, so that might change. Right alongside it, though, is Field Dressing, which is not only an awesome ability for PvP, but it also references first aid and bandages (check out that icon!), which is a fun bonus. On the second tier is Blitz, a very cool talent which improves the already awesome Charge. More rage? Check. Stun an additional target? Check. Will probably be picked up for PvP builds? Check.

The other two trees don’t have much yet aside from moved talents. I’ll point out that Blood Craze in the fury tree has been moved one tier up, allowing warriors to pick up a self-healing talent, perhaps in conjunction with Field Dressing. Protection also doesn’t seem to invite branching out into, as most talents here seem fully geared towards improving the protection spec and playstyle. Even the new first-tier talent Hold the Line works best for protection. Some good abilities here, but expect to see a lot more shuffling in future builds of the beta.

A long way from done

It’s still too early in the beta to map out builds, but limiting our view to the first two tiers should give us an idea of what Blizzard will allow. Expect more talents that affect spells found exclusively in other trees to populate the first two tiers of talent trees. Although the developers are adamant about keeping players majorly in one spec and killing hybrid, cherry-picking builds, they seem to encourage picking complementary talents from the other two trees. It also gives us an insight as to what kind of playstyle they expect from classes or specs.

Limiting the choices to about 10 deep per secondary tree allows the developers to limit what kind of spells will be available to each spec. As mentioned, this reduces a lot of the guesswork involved in predicting the PvP landscape. Furthermore, developers can more easily sway players to pick up certain talents because they’re so easily accessible, such as Soul Link for PvP warlocks. The talent tree lock-out makes it easier for new players to work through their talent choices, and having a mere 10 points for complementary talents makes it easier to round out their builds once the other trees become available. This change impacts PvP min-maxers the most, but players will still have two tiers of talents in other trees to choose from. We’ll learn more as the talents get finalized as the beta progresses, and I’m pretty certain players will be able to pick out the most optimal (or imbalanced) PvP talents from other trees. The only difference is that this time around, Blizzard will be expecting it.

Looking to make more WoW gold?

Check out the secret tactics you can use to legally and easily generate up to 427 gold per hour or more in World of Warcraft without using hacks or cheats.

Get ready to make more gold playing WoW than you have ever seen before.

World of Warcraft In-game Leveling Guides

World of Warcraft leveling take a huge leap forward with Zygor Guides 2.0, the fastest, most powerful leveling guides in the world.

Leveling has NEVER been this easy! You will be leveling so fast with this, you might think you’re cheating. But you’re not, Joana’s leveling guide mod is 100% legal with Blizzard.

Related posts:

1. WoW Cataclysm Beta: The latest on shadow priests by Fox Van Allen I wasn’t always this excited for...
2. WoW Cataclysm Beta: Mage talents and specializations by Christian Belt A couple of brief disclaimers. This is...
3. WoW Cataclysm Beta: Balance Druid specialization and talent analysis by Adam Holisky Druids of all shapes and races will...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Cataclysm is still a while off, and now is as good a time as any to start PvPing. If nothing else, PvP gear is some of the best leveling gear around. The mix of offensive stats plus massive resilience gives you little downtime.

Wintergrasp

Do Wintergrasp every time it’s available. Wintergrasp tokens can be exchanged for honor if you aren’t going to use the gear that the tokens can buy. Several quests award lots of honor, as well; make sure to do them each time they become available.

If you are on a server where your faction is severely outnumbered, take the time to craft a PvP spec that can take advantage of Tenacity. For instance, if you are a warlock, you might want to consider a spec which uses Metamorphosis. I’ve heard of warlocks mashing Demon Charge into Immolation Aura, killing off 20+ players of the enemy faction and making 3,000ish honor in the matter of 10 to 15 seconds. Seriously, I’ve seen screenshots.

Vault of Archavon

Try to run both VoA 10 and VoA 25 every week — and make sure there aren’t too many of your class inside! Also, try to purchase your legs and hands on your main set last (just in case you get a sweet pair of S7 or S8 pants/gloves). You don’t want to waste honor that you spent in battlegrounds on a piece of gear you can easily get from a raid boss.

Battlegrounds

BGs are a necessary evil to the Wrath PvPer. In Cataclysm, we’ll see an influx of PvPers who enjoy doing BGs — and perhaps many of us who have grown bored with them will be interested in WoW PvP again.

Try to form premades with other top PvPers from your server whenever possible; just don’t go overboard on the amount you bring. Right now, the system seems to pair you up against other premades if you bring half (or more than half) of whatever amount of players the battleground can maximally hold.

For instance, if you’re entering a Warsong Gulch (10v10), be sure to only bring three other players so you don’t get stuck in a long queue. As long as you only have four people in your party, you should be paired up against other non-premades, which will put you at a distinct advantage. If you can get up to seven people, try queuing for Arathi Basin, Eye of the Storm or Strand of the Ancients.

Queuing randomly will also net you lots of additional honor, and you should queue randomly whenever you don’t have a premade on hand.

Heroics

Alternatively, if you don’t like grinding BGs but you do have a fantastic raiding guild, you might want to hit up some buddies and do chain heroics. Even if you aren’t a hardcore raider, doing a few heroics can break up the monotony of battleground after battleground.

I haven’t personally done the heroic grind for PvP gear, but apparently it can be fairly easy if you’re with a good group. My friends have chain run every single heroic in a day by taking a ICC-25 geared tank and a lot of AoE DPS.

Raids

Raiding is most important for weapons, as good PvP weapons aren’t found anywhere other than the higher tiers of arena play. Try to get a nice ICC-10 or ICC-25 weapon to hold you over until you can get an amazing PvP weapon.

The best PvP trinkets generally come from raiding as well. Try to get a variety of trinkets you might want to try out in PvP — that is, after you get your Medallion of the Alliance/Horde.

Arena

Make sure you meet all the requirements to get points every week! Even if you only get 200 points a week, if you’re gearing up for four weeks by just doing battlegrounds, heroics, raids and Wintergrasp, those 800 arena points are going to come in handy when you start ascending the ladders.

You don’t have to be exceptionally successful while you’re just gearing up. Just shoot for a goal, attain it, set another goal and keep moving. Set your goals low at first; it’ll help your confidence when you try to attain the next goal.

Dual spec for PvP

Unless your raiding guild requires two specs from you, try to use a secondary spec as a PvP spec. It will allow you to become better with your class and will also give you more honor per hour (sometimes drastically so).

Have fun

The most important aspect in all of this is to have a blast. If you’re not enjoying gearing up, just take a break and go do something else. Come back to it when you want to own some enemies. Sure, getting gladiator is awesome and everything, and that might be your destination when you set out to gear up — just make sure you enjoy the journey.

Other tips

• The Medallion of the Horde/Alliance is the most important piece of PvP gear you can attain (unless you’re human). Get it first; the effect is invaluable. Battlemaster trinkets are also good, but spending honor or badges on other pieces of PvP gear is considered more efficient.
• Upgrade your worst pieces of gear first. If you have all blue gear except for your green ring, shoot to replace the ring first.
• Get your legs/hands and battlemaster trinkets last, unless any one of them is an enormous upgrade compared to a measly one.
• The furious main set is usually a very good investment from triumph badges or from honor.
• The Wrathful neck, back, wrist and ring don’t require personal rating. The Wrathful belt and boots only require a 1,400 rating.
• Weapons are difficult to come by. The easiest route to a good weapon is usually raiding Icecrown. Heroic weapons are also fine to use for the lower ratings, but you’ll want to upgrade your weapon fairly quickly to advance to more easily advance to higher ratings.
• The Icecrown reputation ring (Ashen Verdict) is extremely good — look into using it and a Wrathful ring instead of two PvP rings (it might save you some time grinding honor or badges).

Looking to make more WoW gold?

Check out the secret tactics you can use to legally and easily generate up to 427 gold per hour or more in World of Warcraft without using hacks or cheats.

Get ready to make more gold playing WoW than you have ever seen before.

World of Warcraft In-game Leveling Guides

World of Warcraft leveling take a huge leap forward with Zygor Guides 2.0, the fastest, most powerful leveling guides in the world.

Leveling has NEVER been this easy! You will be leveling so fast with this, you might think you’re cheating. But you’re not, Joana’s leveling guide mod is 100% legal with Blizzard.

Related posts:

1. [Guide][Rogue] Gearing up for PvP Now, this is not a chronological list, it just lists...
2. Warriors Guide: Arms gearing for beginners by Matthew Rossi This column will be focused on a...
3. Gearing your Mage for PvP by Christian Belt @ wowinsider Of all the new stuff...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Today, we’ll discuss how to form our battleground dream team. Unlike battleground PUGs where we’re beggars taking scraps — figuratively, of course — we can actually choose whom to bring in our battleground premades. For a guild to earn achievements or XP, roughly 75% of the team has to belong to the same guild. It’s still unclear as to whether rated battlegrounds will function identically to arenas, where teams have set rosters at any given time … although in that scenario, guild recruitment seems like an easier way to assemble teams.

Healers

Healers are the backbone of any team. Much like in arenas, raids and dungeons, healers are a team’s glue. While one might say that healers in PvP — battleground PvP, at that — aren’t as critical as they would be in a raid setting, make no mistake that a team without healers will simply get trounced on the battlefield. Full DPS teams in arenas — much less successful ones — are extremely rare. In an environment where deaths are almost routine and everyone gets a chance to return to play thanks to the Spirit Healer, it’s tempting to think that teams can get by without a healer … But there are few things more dismaying than zoning into a battleground and finding that your PUG doesn’t have a single one.

There are a few essential differences between battleground healing and other scenarios such as raids or even arenas. For one thing, single-target healing is situational depending on the battleground, being far more useful in, say, Alterac Valley, where your team needs a tank, or in Warsong Gulch, where the flag carrier might need some focused heals. Blizzard is working to homogenize healing in Cataclysm somewhat, so any healer is essentially capable of filling any type of healing role with a few tweaks and tricks here and there. In battlegrounds, it’s all about the role, or part in the team.

The pocket healer Pocket healers are probably the most common type of premade healer (only technically a premade, since the most common ones join as a pair) in that many players queue up in the battlegrounds with a pocket healer to rack up some obscene killing blow numbers. Usually paired with a powerful DPS class, even the most mediocre players become truly formidable with a healer in their proverbial pocket. Things will change somewhat for the pocket healer in Cataclysm when rated battlegrounds come in, as they settle into bigger roles beyond propping up killing machines. Instead, teams will look to pocket healers for specialized roles as mentioned, but especially for flag carriers in Warsong Gulch and Twin Peaks.

Paladins and discipline priests typically make excellent pocket healers, but the more important thing is attitude and focus. A battleground pocket healer has an assignment and sticks to it, much like those assigned to tanks. In PUGs, healers often rendezvous with the flag carrier at the base, after they’ve made it across the battlefield. In premades, a healer or two will be focused on and keeping up with and keeping up the flag carrier from start to finish.

Flag carrier healers are natural targets for assaulting forces, so defensive skill is important. All healing classes have their own defenses — the paladin’s Divine Shield skill and Aura Mastery talent, for example, are obvious — but what matters is the ability to heal under duress. Staying cool and anticipating opponent movement is important, so constant communication with the flag carrier is key, making sure to move together as a unit. Make sure to get the most skilled player for this role, because in Warsong Gulch and Twin Peaks, the pocket healer just might be the most important cog in the machine.

Until we see the complete and final list of abilities in the expansion, it appears that priests edge out paladins as the best class for this role come Cataclysm thanks to Leap of Faith, otherwise known as Life Grip. The ability to remove the flag carrier from harm’s way is simply too good to ignore.

The group healer Maps such as Arathi Basin or Isle of Conquest are the perfect scenarios for group healers to shine. Shamans tossing Chain Heals into the fray or a druid using a well-timed Tranquility can mean the difference between capturing the node or losing it. The mantra for these types of battlegrounds is to fight on the flag, which usually results in a fun, chaotic pileup at the heart of the node with both teams jockeying to tag the flag. Group healing abilities or spells such as the priest’s Prayer of Mending allows your team to outlast your opponent, all things being equal.

Group healing won’t be as stressful as healing the flag carrier. After all, the task is essentially to make the team last longer than the other. Casualties are expected here, whereas the death of a flag carrier usually translates to the opposing team scoring a point. Furthermore, group healers aren’t usually targeted in a battleground — at least not in PUGs, where healers can get away with a lot by just hanging back and tossing group heals. In smaller groups such as 10-man teams for Warsong Gulch, group heals might be a luxury; in bigger battlegrounds, however, good group heals can give teams the edge in skirmishes.

It might be good to note that rated battlegrounds will change how teams treat enemy healers as well as focus targets. PUG battlegrounds are mostly uncoordinated brawls, but it’s probable that premades will call out focus targets and crowd control, so healers of any sort should be prepared.

Shamans have always been ideal for this role, and they’ll only get better at it in Cataclysm with the AoE healing spell Healing Rain and Spiritwalker’s Grace, which allows them to cast even while moving. Paladins are also getting tools to make them competitive in this area such as Guardian of the Ancient Kings (holy version) and Healing Hands, both AoE-type heals. We’ll see how those measure up against the shaman’s group utility.

Everybody else

In a battleground group, it’s basically healers and everybody else. There are many roles to fill, depending on the battleground, and it’ll be up to you to assign the players. Sometimes, some classes are better for the role than others, but battlegrounds will tend to be forgiving of team composition as opposed to the more restrictive arenas. Healers are the cornerstone of any good battleground group, but how you assemble the rest of the team is pretty important, too.

Flag carriers Druids have traditionally been the most ideal flag carriers in Warsong Gulch (and soon Twin Peaks) because of their superior mobility and their ability to take a beating when in Dire Bear Form, plus they can also heal in a pinch. With Stampeding Roar as part of their arsenal in Cataclysm, druids seem a lock to become staples in capture the flag groups. Teams can also opt to assign the role to tanks designed to withstand focus fire. Unlike arenas, flag carriers don’t necessarily need to hit back so they can focus on survivability and mitigation talents and gear — think of them as raid tanks who stack on resilience and stamina. Warriors make excellent alternatives to druids because of their mobility (clever use of Intervene) and their ability to hamper their opponents’ mobility (Hamstring) or crowd control them (Intimidating Shout). Second to healers, flag carriers in capture-the-flag maps are the next important piece of the puzzle.

Snipers Your ranged DPS are the snipers. Hunters, mages, warlocks … your team will need a decent complement of players who can attack from long range. The ability to engage the enemy from far away is good to have in an environment that allows significant freedom of movement. While hunters normally suffer in the confines of arenas, they thrive in the battlegrounds. Although not quite a necessity in the same way as flag carriers or healers, snipers or ranged DPS are great to have in, say, Alterac Valley. This isn’t so much of a specialized role as it is an awareness of what ranged DPS can do in particular maps — for example, ranged DPS can do significant damage with little fear of retaliation attacking from the ledges in Strand of the Ancients. Ranged DPS should also know to refrain from picking up a vehicle lest they waste their ability to attack from inside one.

Drivers Speaking of vehicles, players must know how to pilot the various vehicles in Strand of the Ancients and Isle of Conquest. A better understanding of vehicle movement and combat, as well as fair knowledge of the abilities should be the bare minimum for all team members. Glaive Throwers, for example, are excellent siege vehicles and knowing how and when to use Glaive Throw or Blade Salvo sets good teams apart from mediocre ones. At the very least, lesser geared teammates can use vehicles as a buffer. Use of vehicles also includes knowledge (and skill) of how to use a stationary turret in, say, Strand of the Ancients.

Defenders These are the guys who stay at the flag. More than anything, these are players who have very little ego, willing to sacrifice their personal numbers — killing blows or whatnot — for the unglamorous role of defending a node. This is important. Oftentimes it takes just one or two players to stay at a node in Arathi Basin or Eye of the Storm, and sometimes it happens that nothing happens. It’s far from the action, but node or base defense is just as critical to winning the game. In Alterac Valley, these are the guys who stay at the bunkers and towers and wait until the thing burns down. Players who can spot enemies from a distance, such as hunters and druids who can track humanoids on the mini-map, make excellent defenders.

Commandos For the most part, teams work best when moving as one unit. Sometimes, however, there are those players who perform exceptionally well on their own, possessing a high enough PvP IQ that they can be left to their own devices. Rogues and druids, the classes with stealth, are capable of moving around the battlefield without getting noticed. In some cases, these commandos can retake a flag in Warsong Gulch after laying in wait in the flag room while stealthed, preventing what would otherwise have been the enemy scoring a point. These players make great scouts and can even “ninja” undefended nodes in Arathi Basin.

Assembling your ideal battleground group should be a lot of fun, and will be much less precise compared to forming arena teams. More important is understanding the roles that one should play — and roles change depending on the battleground, so a sturdy flag-carrying tank might be the center of attention in Warsong Gulch or Twin Peaks, but they’ll be remarkably less useful in other maps. The more we learn about the abilities in Cataclysm, the clearer our picture will be as to what classes can perform best in what role. By the time the game is released, we’re sure to learn about cool abilities that should determine a class’ desirability in a team and what roles they can perform better. For now, all we can do is dream about our perfect team.

Looking to make more WoW gold?

Check out the secret tactics you can use to legally and easily generate up to 427 gold per hour or more in World of Warcraft without using hacks or cheats.

Get ready to make more gold playing WoW than you have ever seen before.

World of Warcraft In-game Leveling Guides

World of Warcraft leveling take a huge leap forward with Zygor Guides 2.0, the fastest, most powerful leveling guides in the world.

Leveling has NEVER been this easy! You will be leveling so fast with this, you might think you’re cheating. But you’re not, Joana’s leveling guide mod is 100% legal with Blizzard.

Related posts:

1. Increase your Arena team rating This is how it goes: 1) Make 2 arena teams...
2. 6 Achievements for the Warsong Gulch Holiday In the days since Echoes of Doom went live, I’ve spent pretty...
3. [WSG] Twink Pre-made tactics / hints / tips First i am going to show u a map of...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I often see players talking about their experiences in PvP, sometimes in trade chat or a battleground. Almost inevitably, after a few minutes of chatting, the old stereotypes about each class start coming out. They’ll start complaining about paladins having three lives, due to Divine Shield and Lay on Hands. They’ll label any arena composition with a warlock as a “drain team,” even though warlocks are clearly capable of massive burst damage now. If there’s an arena team composition that they don’t like to face, that comp is immediately labeled as cheesy or unskilled.

I don’t really care if warlocks get a bum rap, it’s up to them to convince the public that they can nuke too. What I am concerned about is that rogues have been stereotyped since the earliest days of vanilla WoW, and we need to break that cycle. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I would suggest watching the World of Roguecraft films. These early pieces of WoW machinima firmly cemented rogues as stunlocking gods in the minds of thousands of players. Even now, with Cataclysm putting the final nails in stunlocking’s coffin, we will still be thought of as dirty fighters that need to be nerfed.

Part of the problem with breaking the stunlock stereotype is that rogues are going to need a replacement style of play. While every class has their own abilities and tricks, you can boil down the role that a class plays in PvP pretty simply. The problem is that nearly every rogue mechanic becomes a double-edged sword in PvP. While cooldowns are great, they leave us vulnerable while not available. While stunlocks were great, we didn’t have the survivability to live if our target didn’t die. While stealth is great, it is only valuable for a few seconds a game. Even resilience worked against us, as most rogues couldn’t afford the damage loss of wearing PvP gear.

Toning down cooldowns

The first step towards establishing the PvP rogue of Cataclysm is to tone down the level of invincibility that rogues can achieve when all cooldowns are ready. Blizzard is actually taking action on this indirectly, by lengthening the amount of time that matches take to lessen the effect of cooldowns. I am sure they are committed to this by looking at the life pools of characters at level 85, I am sure a tank could top 100,000 HP if they wanted to.

Extended fights not only soften the blow of our cooldowns, but they also amplify their strategic importance. We have to be conscious of our opponents’ actions and abilities, so that we know when to use our cooldowns for the maximum effect. The same way that you wouldn’t use Blind against someone with their trinket up, you similarly wouldn’t use Adrenaline Rush when an enemy rogue has Combat Readiness available.

Rogues should be a bad target

Survivability has been something plaguing rogues for years. We are the only melee class that fights in leather, as druids are able to shapeshift into bear form if they need to survive. Our base armor was lower than even most cloth casters, due to their various buffs and talents. We also had no healing spell to speak of, and no damage reduction spell either. Rogues used to work off the idea that we could simply avoid damage instead of trying to reduce the damage we did take. This worked in the innocent time of vanilla WoW PvP, but it simply does not work in today’s environment. When a stun can completely negate all of our defensive abilities, you know that we’re in trouble. Every other melee class has a way to get around evasion, even rogues do via Shiv.

Reducing incoming damage is the only way for a target to stay alive reliably in PvP. We’ve got new talents in our Cataclysm trees that help us take less damage, by boosting our armor or reducing the damage outright. We’ve got a new finisher that not only heals us, but can be talented to do a variety of useful things. Our new ability Combat Readiness will ensure that any team that tries to train us will find themselves hitting for half damage. Finally, with a working Vanish in our tool belt after many long years, we can even escape when the time comes. We’ve come a long way from having Cheat Death as our only survivability tool, and I think that these changes are the right direction to making us “tanky” enough to handle PvP in a post-stunlock world.

The stunlock is gone

The stunlock has been bleeding out for years. Diminishing returns nearly killed the stunlock years ago. Taking Blind off of Preparation hurt it even further. The stunlock has been gone for a long time, but putting Cheap Shot and Kidney Shot on the same diminishing return category should be the last that we hear about it. With our classic Cheap Shot into Kidney Shot combo, we’ll only be stunning our targets for 7 seconds. That’s only a second longer than a Hammer of Justice, while ours cost us an opener, a 5-point finisher, and tons of energy. It will actually become better to do a reverse, that is, using Kidney Shot then using Vanish to Cheap Shot. That would yield us an 8-second stun, though also costing us Vanish.

Conclusion

People are still going to need to be stunned. Without Stealth or Vanish, our ability to stun hasn’t really changed. The only difference is that now players will have a chance to fight back after the stun has ended. While that may sound like the end of the world, the fact is that people actually like to play their characters. The other difference is that now we might actually have the survivability to take them on after the stun wears off. We need to get away from the idea of stunning our targets to keep ourselves alive, and we need to get away from the idea that avoidance is better than mitigation. We need to be compatible with the longer PvP encounters of Cataclysm, and it looks like our talent trees and new abilities are pointing the right direction to get us there.

Looking to make more WoW gold?

Check out the secret tactics you can use to legally and easily generate up to 427 gold per hour or more in World of Warcraft without using hacks or cheats.

Get ready to make more gold playing WoW than you have ever seen before.

World of Warcraft In-game Leveling Guides

World of Warcraft leveling take a huge leap forward with Zygor Guides 2.0, the fastest, most powerful leveling guides in the world.

Leveling has NEVER been this easy! You will be leveling so fast with this, you might think you’re cheating. But you’re not, Joana’s leveling guide mod is 100% legal with Blizzard.

Related posts:

1. ~Rogue Stunlocking~ NOTE: I did not write this. I got it from...
2. Rogue PvP Guide including abilities, when to use them, and strategies. Let’s start with some basic stuff. As a rogue, your...
3. [Guide] Rogue vs. Rogue PvP The Rogue vs. Rogue PvP is at the moment my...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

This week, we’re digging a bit deeper, getting to 20, rocking some instances and doing some PvP — that’s right, life as a priest is finally ready to begin.

Before you jump back into killing stuff …

When we last left off, our baby priest had just hit level 10, the first major milestone to the end game. World of Warcraft isn’t just about the wanton slaughter of the innocent. It’s also about broiling meats and sewing dresses. You’re allowed to grab two main professions on each character. They’re a terrific source of buffs and sellable materials.

A lot of you will probably pick your professions as soon as you can (level 5), but if you haven’t yet, this is definitely the time. If you’ve already grabbed your professions, now would be a good time to make sure you’re up to speed. As a good rule of thumb, you should increase your skill in each profession by five points per level. (That is, when you hit level 10, you’ll be well up to speed if your professional skills are all at 50 or better.)

Fishing and Cooking You should always grab these professions, as they don’t count against your limit of two. Fishing and Cooking are good to level side by side, since you can usually cook what you fish up. Eating food restores your health (and sometimes your mana), and usually puts a Well Fed buff on you as well. The buffs aren’t the best at these low levels, but they get increasingly valuable as you level.

First Aid is a pretty useless skill for a priest since we can cast healing spells. It’s also fairly expensive to level (Wool Cloth tends to be especially expensive Horde side), so don’t put too much effort into it. If it’s been a long time since you’ve leveled a character last, it’s worth noting that you don’t need to find First Aid books or complete quests to level this skill anymore — you can just visit a trainer now.

For our purposes here as a leveling shadow priest, I find that the duo of Tailoring and Enchanting work well together — you get to create the best armor for yourself as soon as it’s available, and then improve the stats on it. Alchemy and Herbalism also work well together — you can create long-lived spell casting buffs for yourself and sell whatever herbs you don’t need on the auction house for profit.

Making travel easy

Back in vanilla WoW, getting from place to place kinda stunk. You’d have to take flights (some of which last upwards of ten minutes) or wait impatiently on a dock for a ship to arrive. Nothing says fun like tabbing out of World of Warcraft during a lengthy travel session to go read some boring article on some stupid website or something.
To make things a little bit easier travel wise, offer a few gold in trade to buy a mage port to Dalaran. You can’t go questing in Northrend yet, of course, but Dalaran has portals to every major city of your faction. Just be sure to visit the innkeeper at the Legerdemain Inn and set your Hearthstone so you can get back on your own.

Spells from level 10 to 19

At Level 10, we have a very limited toolbox when it comes to spells — Smite, Mind Blast, and Power Word: Shield are the ones we’ll get most use of. As we head to level 20, we’ll again be learning new spells every 2 levels. There really is something worth getting every second level, so at the very least, try to visit your class trainer once every 4 levels.

• Level 12 At level 12, you learn Inner Fire, a buff that temporarily increases your armor. From here on out, if you’re playing a priest in World of Warcraft, you should have this buff active at all times. The good news is that the added armor makes your clothie priest as resilient to damage as a more hearty mail wearer; the bad news is that Inner Fire expires after you take 20 hits of damage (or after 32 hits, if you put talent points in Improved Inner Fire). You can only cast it on yourself.
• Level 14 At level 14, you learn new ranks of Smite and Renew, boosting the power of those two respective spells. You also learn two new spells: Cure Disease and Psychic Scream. The former does exactly what it advertises. The latter sends enemies attacking you in a random scatter, allowing you time to escape, regroup, or Shadowmeld (for those who are rolling Night Elves). Psychic Scream is a must-have spell in PvP, but it should only be used as a last resort in PvE — scattering your enemies in random directions typically leads to them running into packs of other enemies, which complicates matters exponentially.
• Level 16 At level 16, you learn Heal, a spell that does exactly what you think it does. You also learn a new rank of Mind Blast.
• Level 18 The new spell you learn at level 18 is Dispel Magic, which unfortunately does not find much use in leveling situations outside of PvP. That’s no reason to skip visiting your trainer, though — you also get new ranks of Power Word: Shield and Shadow Word: Pain at level 18.

So, which of these spells will find their way into your regular rotation as you make your way to level 20? Er … well … none of them, really. We’ll mostly be using Smite and Mind Blast to attack, and Power Word: Shield to defend ourselves through the onslaught of attacks (with the occasional healing spell thrown in).

Talent points

Once you hit level 10, you’ll start earning a talent point with each new level. Now listen — I know you want to be a shadow priest because we’re all shadowy and cool and slightly purple. But look at that flow chart above — you’re mostly going to be casting Smite over and over again, even through level 19. We’ll revisit our talent build at a number of points throughout the leveling process, but for now, you really do want to consider putting a handful of talent points into the holy tree.

The three best talents to consider while leveling to 20 are:

• Spirit Tap (3/3): A basic shadow tree talent to help with mana regen.
• Holy Specialization (5/5): Boosts your chance to get a critical hit with holy spells by 1% per point.
• Divine Fury (5/5): Reduces the cast time of major holy spells by 0.1 second per point.

Those three will get you throwing out more powerful blasts of Smite quicker, with the least amount of downtime between enemy pulls. This will not only make your early solo questing smoother, but also give you a nice boost if you ever decide to heal one of the early five-man instances. (More on that later.)

Early glyphs

At level 15, you’ll be able to further customize your priest by choosing one major and one minor glyph to give your abilities a boost. Your options at this low level are extremely limited — your best choices are the Glyph of Inner Fire (most recommended) and the Glyph of Power Word: Shield (another strong choice for leveling). As for minor glyphs, the only one worth picking up at this point is the Glyph of Fortitude.

Where to quest

A large part of World of Warcraft is the solo questing aspect. To get the most out of it, of course, you want to spend your time at the areas best aligned with your current level, otherwise you either won’t be able to pick up quests (or the quests you can pick up will be worth virtually nothing to finish).

Alliance characters will find quests available in Loch Modan (levels 10-19), Westfall (10-19), Bloodmyst Isle (10-19), Darkshore (10-19), and Duskwood (18+). Horde players should favor the Ghostlands (10-19), Silverpine Forest (10-19), and The Barrens (10-25). Alliance and Horde can find things to do in Redridge Mountains (15+), Ashenvale (18+), and Stonetalon Mountains (17+), though the first two are skewed more towards Alliance and the latter is skewed towards Horde.

Remember, a lot of the areas you’ll be visiting during this time will be experiencing grand makeovers in Cataclysm, so appreciate the scenery (and the lore-rich quests) now while you still can — they’ll only be around for another couple months.

Trying your hand at PvP

Once you pass level 10, you’ll find yourself able to enter battlegrounds with your newly minted priest — specifically, Warsong Gulch. Warsong Gulch is a 10 vs. 10 capture-the-flag-style game played the best three matches out of five. The entrance to Warsong Gulch is found in Ashenvale, though you can also sign up for a battle by visiting a Warsong Gulch Battlemaster in a capital city or pulling up your character’s PvP menu at any time.

At early levels, there’s not much PvP opportunity for shadow priests — the basic mechanics of battlegrounds encourage you to sling heals and use Power Word: Shield. It stinks not being the hero who gets to carry the flag, but keeping the flag carrier (or flag defender) buffed with PW:S and Renew is just as vital a job. And don’t forget your access to Psychic Scream — it’s a literal lifesaver in battlegrounds.

If PvP is not your thing, you can still take advantage of the Warsong Gulch rewards! In last week’s edition of this guide, I suggested you have a well-off level 80 alt send you a bind-on-account Wintergrasp Commendations, worth 2000 points of honor. Once you hit level 18, you’ll be able to use that currency to buy, equip and wear the Lorekeeper’s Ring [A] / Advisor’s Ring [H] and the Caretaker’s Cape [A] / Battle Healer’s Cloak [H]. Both are terrific bargains at 100 honor each, and unlike level 80 PvP items, they’re perfectly itemized for solo questing. You can get these from Illiyana Moonblaze [A] or Kelm Hargunth [H] at your faction’s entrance to the Warsong Gulch battleground in Ashenvale. In the old days, you’d actually need to grind multiple wins in Warsong to buy these, so take advantage of the latest patch changes!

Of course, even if you don’t have access to the “easy honor” of a level 80, grinding 100 points of honor should be a simple affair of running a couple Warsong Gulch battlegrounds. If this is the case, you probably don’t have heirlooms, so think about buying the caster staff (500 honor) and trinket (300 honor) while you’re there.

Instances and the dungeon finder tool

Patch 3.3 heralded the advent of the supremely useful dungeon finder tool, letting you queue up to run instances even from the safety of your own capitol city, starting at level 15. The benefits are obvious: lots of experience, and rare quality (blue) drops, plus an extra, random blue bind-on-pickup item if you finish a random dungeon. Oh, money too. The only thing you don’t have lavished on you is good looks (but thankfully, yours truly has enough of that to cover the both of us).

Remember, these early dungeons are supposed to be relatively easy in difficulty, so don’t fret too much about not having the right level of skill or gear to run these. True blue future shadow priests will choose to queue for dungeons as DPS, though you could cut the wait by queuing as a healer. There’s more pressure on you as a healer, but you should probably get the hang of things quickly given how forgiving the enemies are in these.

On the way to level 20, you’ll have access to five different instances (with the minimum level at which you can enter each using the dungeon finder tool in parentheses):

• Ragefire Chasm (minimum 15): Once available almost exclusively to Horde characters, any player of appropriate level can now try Ragefire Chasm (RFC) using the dungeon finder. Horde players will want to pick up the quests involving RFC for extra experience, though these are scattered in Undercity, Thunder Bluff, and Orgrimmar. Priests will be interested in trying to grab the Robe of Evocation that drops off Jergosh the Invoker and the Crystalline Cuffs that drop off Taragaman the Hungerer. Both have high drop rates (~33%) and are easily farmable. RFC makes for an excellent “beginners” dungeon where you can learn the mechanics of participating in a five-man group — grabbing aggro is seldom fatal (unless sustained).
• Deadmines (minimum 15): The Deadmines has higher level enemies than RFC does, but the rewards are slightly better. All available Deadmines quests are Alliance only — two are obtained in Westfall, and the third is obtained from Shoni the Silent in the Dwarven District of Stormwind. The prime drops to look for as a priest are the Lavishly Jeweled Ring from Gilnid, the Gold Flecked Gloves from Sneed, and Cookie’s Stirring Rod from Cookie. If you don’t have heirlooms, you’ll also want the Emberstone Staff from Captain Greenskin and the Corsair’s Overshirt from Edwin VanCleef. Alliance players should also loot VanCleef to get An Unsent Letter, which starts a quest.
• Wailing Caverns (minimum 15): Located in the Barrens, Wailing Caverns (WC) is similar to the Deadmines in difficulty. Most of the quests involving WC are for Horde characters, and start in Thunder Bluff of Crossroads, though both factions can pick up neutral quests in Ratchet. The boss drops to look for here are the Serpent Gloves off Lord Serpentis and the Deep Fathom Ring off Mutanus the Devourer. Those without heirlooms will have interest in the Robe of the Moccasin off Lord Cobrahn, the Slime-encrusted Pads (with some helpful mana regen), and Verdan the Everliving’s two-handed staff, the Living Root.
• Shadowfang Keep (minimum 16): Most of the Shadowfang Keep (SFK) quests are for Horde characters (starting at The Sepulcher and Undercity), but you’ll be hard pressed to pick any of them up at lower levels. The main drop you’ll want out of SFK is the Belt of Arugal off of Archmage Arugal himself. If you don’t have heirlooms, SFK is a goldmine of great drops: You can grab the Robes of Arugal off Archmage Arugal, Wolf Master Nandos drops the Feline Mantle, and stamina-hungry priests will like the Bloody Apron off Razorclaw the Butcher. Also keep an eye out for some great, sellable bind-on-equip drops that you can sell on auction (or equip, like the Witching Stave).
• Blackfathom Deeps (minimum 19): Noted here for the sake of completeness, since you technically can get in. The enemies in Blackfathom Deeps will be exceptionally difficult to hit before getting to level 20, and this will be a challenge to heal if you’re under 20, as well.

Looking to make more WoW gold?

Check out the secret tactics you can use to legally and easily generate up to 427 gold per hour or more in World of Warcraft without using hacks or cheats.

Get ready to make more gold playing WoW than you have ever seen before.

World of Warcraft In-game Leveling Guides

World of Warcraft leveling take a huge leap forward with Zygor Guides 2.0, the fastest, most powerful leveling guides in the world.

Leveling has NEVER been this easy! You will be leveling so fast with this, you might think you’re cheating. But you’re not, Joana’s leveling guide mod is 100% legal with Blizzard.

Related posts:

1. WoW Priest Guide: Leveling shadow priest from level 20 to level 40 by Fox Van Allen In this latest installment of the...
2. Low-Level Gold-Making Tip I was reading some articles this morning about farming. Eh,...
3. WoW Priest Guide: Starting a shadow priest from scratch by Fox Van Allen Playing dress up If this priest...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

With Wrath more or less winding down and only the Ruby Sanctum before us at some nebulous point in the future, a lot of us are wandering around with full PvE gear and currency tabs full of emblems looking for a place to go. One easy place to let off some of that steam is with PvP. Be it arena, battlegrounds or (admittedly pretty rare these days) world PvP, this article will give you some basic tips to get yourself squared away with the gear and spec you need to start off on the right foot.

This is by no means a complete guide to absolutely every aspect of death knight PvP. This’ll help you get your feet wet and get properly geared, but there’s always more to learn, especially in the dynamic, ever-changing world of PvP combat strategy and tactics. Still, nothing gives you a better start on the road to skill than a good foundation in stats and speccing, so let’s start this up.

Spec and talent advice

If you’re serious about PvP these days, you’re probably going to be speccing unholy, specifically something close to this 0/17/54 build. Unholy’s very useful because it not only gives you extra resistance to magic damage, but also allows you to stack massive, armor-ignoring magic damage between Scourge Strike, diseases and Death Coil, as well as giving you an extra form of crowd control and healer harassment via the Ghoul. What’s nearly as important, though, is how you spend points in the frost tree.

In the frost tree, you’ll want to grab Runic Power Mastery so you can churn out three Death Coils when you’re bursting down your target. Toughness will boost you to tier 2, and give you some resistance again snaring effects. In tier 2, grabbing Icy Reach will let you apply Chains of Ice from further away, and Black Ice makes your Death Coil hit that much harder. Of course, you’ll get what you really came here for in the next two tiers: Lichborne gives you another get-out-of-trouble-free card and a way to self-heal with Death Coil, and Endless Winter makes your Mind Freeze free to use and gives you some extra strength for bursting down enemies.

Stats to get

In deciding which stats to get, resilience and stamina are of course, of supreme importance. That said, you’ll get most of the stamina and resilience you really need from the PvP armor sets. if you’re kitting yourself out with PvP gear, you’ll get most of what you need. Besides staying alive, you also need to actually do damage, which means you need to focus on a few other stats:

• Hit rating 5% hit rating will let you hit people with your two-handed weapon and your weapon strikes. Let Virulence take care of the rest as far as spell hit goes, but you want that hit rating. Missing a key Scourge Strike or Strangulate could spell the difference between that priest dying or getting a heal off.
• Spell penetration You’ll want to have approximately 130 spell penetration. Spell penetration gets your spell-like effects past any innate or buff-granted resistances on your targets. You’ll be glad you have it when your Strangulate hits and stops that shaman from winding up another Chain Heal. Spell Penetration is also a lot easier to grab than you might imagine. Four Stormy Majestic Zircons will get you a cool 100 spell penetration, and you can use Spell Piercing on your cloak to get to 135 spell penetration.
• Strength and critical strike rating You’ll want these as well. While a death knight’s role in a PvP team is almost always primarily utility, you’ll still be bringing a lot of DPS pain, so you’ll want to buff your damage output as much as possible. Generally, strength is better than critical strike rating, but get a decent balance if you can. Your burst damage will thank you if you keep a decent critical strike rating. If you’re not killing people fast enough, it may be time to start enchanting and gemming for strength after spell penetration and hit, or to use PvE DPS pieces on your rings, neck and cloak slots. However, don’t overdo it on PvE pieces. You’ll still probably at least want your main armor slots to be PvP gear.

Playstyle and general tips

Essentially, a death knight’s role in group PvP will almost always be utility. We can dish out a decent amount of pain, but often it’s best to leave the specifics to other DPS while we crowd control, interrupt and otherwise harass the opposition, especially casters and healers. Essentially, you are going to want to be read to deploy Death Grip, Strangulate, Mind Freeze, Chains of Ice and your ghoul’s Gnaw ability at any time. Once you have that all ready to use, you’ll want to use it — but not all at once. Consider each button precious.

Learn to time skill use for when it’s most advantageous. For example, use Death Grip and Chains of Ice to wrangle in a mage or warlock after they’ve used Blink or Demonic Circle. That way, they can’t just teleport away. Use your Ghoul’s Gnaw to break up a stunlock by using it just as your enemy’s stun is about to wear off, giving yourself time to get away from them or put up your own defenses before they can recover (and in the case of rogues, use another stun). Death Grip is also great as an emergency interrupt.

Likewise, don’t forget to use Icebound Fortitude, Lichborne and Anti-Magic Shell. Learn what status effects each one cancels or avoids and be ready to use them to outlast and survive. For example, Lichborne will turn you undead, thus make you immune to most forms of traditional crowd control, and Anti-Magic Shell not only absorbs magic damage but poisons too, and it’ll leave you immune to negative effects such as traps and roots as well. Plus, the shell gives you plenty of runic power, so when it’s time to burst your target down, you have three Death Coils ready to go.

Another important tool to remember for a PvP death knight is Empower Rune Weapon. This can give you emergency runes for a Chains of Ice or Strangulate or another such spell, or it can be used while burst to provide you with another couple Scourge Strikes if your first burst doesn’t finish off your target. Keep this button handy for sure.

You’ll also want to learn Ghoul control. Don’t keep your abilities on autocast. You’ll want to be able to cast Leap, Gnaw or Huddle at a moment’s notice. You’ll especially want to get good at using Huddle and Leap to help your Ghoul outlast or escape if it gets focused for killing. Remember, your Ghoul can use Leap to leap to an ally as well, which can be great for support or escape purposes.

As far as which presence to use, all three have their place. Frost Presence is useful when you’re getting focus-fired, and many arena death knights like to keep it on at the beginning of a battle until they’re sure they aren’t going to be focused to start off. Blood Presence is still a good heavy hitter, but many death knights will stay in Unholy Presence in order to squeeze out more quick burst damage thanks to the shorter global cooldown and for the run speed increase.

As you fight more and more, you should start getting a better feel for what works and what doesn’t, so keep it at it. If you know what tricks the enemy’s expecting from you, it’s easier to figure out your own ways to counter.

Looking to make more WoW gold?

Check out the secret tactics you can use to legally and easily generate up to 427 gold per hour or more in World of Warcraft without using hacks or cheats.

Get ready to make more gold playing WoW than you have ever seen before.

World of Warcraft In-game Leveling Guides

World of Warcraft leveling take a huge leap forward with Zygor Guides 2.0, the fastest, most powerful leveling guides in the world.

Leveling has NEVER been this easy! You will be leveling so fast with this, you might think you’re cheating. But you’re not, Joana’s leveling guide mod is 100% legal with Blizzard.

Related posts:

1. WoW Death Knight Guide: Ruby Sanctum loot for death knights by Daniel Whitcomb The Ruby Sanctum is ostensibly the last...
2. WoW Death Knight Guide: Buttons more death knights should push by Daniel Whitcomb One of the most important things you...
3. WoW Death Knight Guide: Crimson Hall loot for death knights by Daniel Whitcomb The Blood Princes 10-Man The big thing...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

So you’re ready to venture into the thankless realm of healing? It’s not for the faint of heart. You will be begged to heal an instance you hate and blamed for deaths that aren’t your fault, only to lose gear upgrades to DPS — all in the same run! On the other hand, healing can be a nice diversion from faceroll macro-mashing, and it’s definitely nice to have instant dungeon queues.

Whether you’re changing specs at level 80 to help your guild progression, stepping into The Deadmines as a level 18 healer or twinking out a battleground medic — here are some helpful hints as you prepare to make those health bars greener.

5-man PvE
Regular dungeons, heroics and group quests in which you are the only healer

1. The tank is your #1 priority. Your tank is either a bear or the person in plate armor with the highest health. You must keep the tank alive at all costs so that the monsters can hit him or her instead of you. A dead tank almost always means a wipe.
2. You are your #2 priority. When the stuff hits the fan, someone might pull aggro and die. Dead DPS shouldn’t automatically mean the fight is over; many groups can still win the with the loss of just one DPSer. But a dead healer can’t heal the tank, and you can guess where that will probably end.
3. Learn and use your bread and butter spells. Every healing class has multiple spells designed for different circumstances. Learn your class’ abilities. Different types of spells include HOTs, shields, short- and long-casting direct heals, multiple-target heals, AoE heals and combinations of all of these. Though it will take practice to perfect your timing and use of them, knowing what you’ve got is half the battle!
4. Watch your mana bar. You can’t heal without mana, so make sure you always have plenty of drinks in your bag. If you’re out of combat and your mana bar isn’t full, drink. It could mean the difference between a sloppy pull that wipes your group and one that doesn’t.
5. Buff. Give the ones you’ve got, and don’t be shy to ask for buffs from your party members. Also remember to ask for a soulstone and healthstone from warlocks and conjured food and water from mages.

Raid PvE
Groups of 10+ in which you must cooperate with other healers

1. Talk about healing assignments. If the healers are grouped together, ask in party chat. If you’re not in the same group, make a channel for healers to discuss strategy. Each healer should be very clear on his or her specific target(s) and roles during the fight. This helps avoid confusion, mana waste and overlapping cooldowns.
2. Use the Set Focus feature. Right click on the main tank or off tank’s portrait and select Set Focus. You can switch back to your primary target quickly after throwing a heal on someone else.
3. Eat your consumables. Obvious advice is obvious, but you’d be amazed at how many moochers don’t want to spend the time and money on consumables. Bring your own if your guild doesn’t have an assigned consumable-giver. In PUGs, it’s safest to assume that no one else will bring the Fish Feast. At minimum, you should have a food buff and mana potions. For progression content, you will want to add elixirs and/or flasks. Pull your own weight and remember to buff your weakest area — if you never struggle with mana, better to buff your throughput, and vice versa.
4. Run a healing meter. Don’t obsess about being at the top. Like your GearScore, the meter is just a tool, not the total measure of a player. It’s much more important to perform your assigned role (see above) and keep one person alive than to top the meter.
5. Analyze the healing meter. Learn to read it. Pay attention to your playstyle. If you tend to run out of mana before the fight is over, look closely at your overhealing. Figure out where you can improve.

PvP
Healing in arenas and battlegrounds

1. If you want to win, use Vent. Arena playstyle depends totally on your team combination, so communicate with your teammates. Likewise, premade battlegrounds benefit enormously from voice communication.
2. Don’t wander off. Battleground play is a free-for-all. Stick close to your teammates — not many healing specs in healing gear can last long one on one versus a DPS class. If you go off on your own to cap a flag or whatever, you’ll probably die. Remember your support role and bring a DPSer or two with you.
3. Get a specialized UI. Special UIs are a requirement in arenas; you need unit frames that will show you critical information about the opposite team. Battlegrounds are the last vestige of 40-man raids — reason enough to ditch Blizzard’s cluttered raid UI. Also, mouseover macros are incredibly helpful.
4. Go on the defensive. Use your pre-emptive healing spells (particularly shields and HOTs) to absorb damage at the beginning, rather than waiting until everyone around you is at half health. Be proactive, not reactive.
5. Heal yourself first. If the other team is paying attention, they will try to interrupt your casting and focus fire you. Don’t let them. The longer you can keep yourself alive through their attack, the longer your teammates can DPS the people targeting you.

Of course, these tips don’t even begin to cover the complicated world of WoW healing. There is a wealth of information out there. When you have a question about your healer’s spec, gear, abilities or a particular fight — do your research. The best tip I can give you is to take advantage of the WoW community’s extensive resources. Know your class. Guilds and PUGs alike will be impressed, and you will gain a reputation for being a pro healer. Keeping your friends alive is a very rewarding job. You might even start to love it!

Looking to make more WoW gold?

Check out the secret tactics you can use to legally and easily generate up to 427 gold per hour or more in World of Warcraft without using hacks or cheats.

Get ready to make more gold playing WoW than you have ever seen before.

World of Warcraft In-game Leveling Guides

World of Warcraft leveling take a huge leap forward with Zygor Guides 2.0, the fastest, most powerful leveling guides in the world.

Leveling has NEVER been this easy! You will be leveling so fast with this, you might think you’re cheating. But you’re not, Joana’s leveling guide mod is 100% legal with Blizzard.

Related posts:

1. WoW: The Healers Guide to Instances and Raiding by Mem @ tentonhammer Playing a healer is (in my...
2. WoW Paladin Guide: Tips to become an all-star healer by Chase Christian Over the course of the past week,...
3. Healers’ Guide to Heroic Faction Champions by Matt Low After defeating Faction Champs in Trial of...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Hunter PvP is fun. It’s a lot of fun. It’s also something you can jump into any time, compared to raiding where you have to be in a guild that is managing to continue running content. A lot of people are getting into it for the first time but are having trouble getting started.

Start with the gear

The average hunter with a bit of PvE experience and gear will queue up for a random battleground and get mulched. Hunters are almost as squishy as mages, and until you get some resilience, you’re going to die a lot. The best thing you can do while you’re in this state is to use your cooldowns to extend your death, stick with healers and do as much damage as you can before you croak. Hunter damage is insanely high — the phrase “it goes to 11″ doesn’t begin to cover it. The problem is that if you can die to a single warlock DoT, you won’t be able to apply this pressure for long.

The process of getting the required resilience is fairly painless, if a little long. All the ilvl 264 non-set pieces are available for honor points. Assuming you want to start in battlegrounds, you want to aim for a balance between survivability (resilience and stamina) and offensive pressure (agility, AP, crit, int, and to a lesser extent, ArP and haste).

First off, take stock of your resources. The honor you have is part of it, but remember that Stone Keeper’s Shards, old battleground marks and Wintergrasp Marks of Honor are all tradable for honor.

Your hit list for gear is here. Of this list, you want to focus on pieces that either replace something very weak for PvP or have agility in addition to resilience. If you have any really strong pieces of PvE gear, don’t replace them at all until you’re able to use equally strong PvP gear. At the very top of your list, you want to get:

• the 264 PvP trinket
• the 264 wrists
• the 245 boots
• the 245 belt

Now let’s talk about gear sets. PvE gear has a lot of agility, attack power and crit, all of which are going to mean the most pressure in a fight. It’s not worth sacrificing 264 PvE gear for 232 PvP gear unless you really need the resilience. It is, however, worth getting at least two pieces of the 251 PvP gear for the awesome set bonus. Additionally, all the PvP set gloves have a nifty non-stat bonus on them. In our case, it’s a reduction of our tranq shot’s cooldown. Unless you’re sporting some really awesome PvE gloves, use the PvP ones. These 251 set pieces can be purchased with arena points and honor but have no minimum rating requirements, so you can get them with the arena points from winning a random BG per day.

Also, run VoA as often as you can. I lucked out and picked up the 270 wrathful legs that way! All the set bonuses are shared, so if you have a high-end drop from VoA and are forced to take a lower ilevel pair of gloves, you’ll still get the resil and attack power set bonuses.

It took me a couple of weeks, but I am now sporting 730 resilience and maintain a lot of the offensive pressure I can put out. If I ever decide to get into arena, I’ll probably start taking some of the other 264 offset pieces out of my bank that don’t have any agility on them and get to 1,000.

A few notes:

• Never, ever gem for resilience. I did this when I started, and it’s a straight up loss. You sacrifice way too much pressure for the little extra survivability you get.
• Enchants are mostly what you’d expect for PvE; however, Jurgwena, the outdps.com PvP writer, put together a pretty comprehensive list last year that you can use for reference.
• As SV or MM, you want a little spell penetration; 75 is the magic number for SV (which suffers from fire resist because explosive shot is fire damage), and MM can get away with a little less. I run with a single gem as MM, giving me 25 spell penetration.
• Your wolf will not cut it for PvP. The extra utility of having a PvP pet more than outweighs the extra AP from the wolf. Most hunters like spiders or crabs (for their Web and Pin). There are other differentiators, but what cinched my choice (spider) was that Cornered reduces all damage taken by 60% (which can easily be combined with Mend Pet and Cower to make this pet unfairly tough), and there is a level 80 tameable spider in Icecrown.

Now what?

Every single fight will be different. Positioning is hugely important, but the basics remain the same. Understand each class you fight, and use your strengths to their weaknesses. The defining attack of hunters in PvP is Aimed Shot. Unless you have a really good reason not to, always open with this. The healing debuff it applies allows you to out-DPS a healer if you have people with you. All specs also have access to Deterrence, Disengage and Tranquilizing Shot. Good hunters will learn when and how to use these.

• Tranq shot should be on a mouseover macro and used unless there’s a stalk of broccoli around lifeblooming everyone.
• The only attacks you can make when “pacified” by deterrence are traps, so make use of them. Also, macro a “/cancelaura deterrence” somewhere for when you need it.
• Disengage is an amazing tool, but you’ll need to learn to aim with your butt. It can be used to gain distance, cover distance and avoid death from falling (as your falling damage is recalculated based on where you disengage from).
• Master’s Call is awesome for rooting/snaring classes and can be used with mouseover macros to save allies.
• Roar of Recovery can be used to recharge during a fight, so be aware of your mana.

Looking to make more WoW gold?

Check out the secret tactics you can use to legally and easily generate up to 427 gold per hour or more in World of Warcraft without using hacks or cheats.

Get ready to make more gold playing WoW than you have ever seen before.

World of Warcraft In-game Leveling Guides

World of Warcraft leveling take a huge leap forward with Zygor Guides 2.0, the fastest, most powerful leveling guides in the world.

Leveling has NEVER been this easy! You will be leveling so fast with this, you might think you’re cheating. But you’re not, Joana’s leveling guide mod is 100% legal with Blizzard.

Related posts:

1. WoW Hunter Guide: PvP basic stats and specs by Brian Wood After a long and frustrating night of...
2. WoW Hunter Guide: Patch 3.3.3 hunter changes by Brian Wood Patch 3.3.3 has hit, bringing some surprises...
3. Hunter Guide: The misunderstood hunter abilities by Brian Wood We hunters are a misunderstood class in...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I’ve prepared a handy guide for you folks that should help you survive the wonderful world of battleground PUGs. After all, between now and Cataclysm, you just might need it.

Before anything else, understand that I’m advocating a stress-free battleground environment. These aren’t the rated battlegrounds. These aren’t arenas. Battleground grinds for honor should be fun, another means to enjoy the game. While I don’t condone ruining the experience for your fellow players by playing poorly — and by poorly I mean whether as an obnoxious armchair general, a road fighter or an AFKer — there’s no reason to take it so seriously. This brings me to my first survival tip.

Relax

Unlike deaths in any other area of the game, battleground deaths are largely inconsequential. In arenas, a death is pretty much permanent and often directly leads to your team’s defeat. In dungeons, raids and even questing, deaths burn a hole in the pocket as well as waste everyone’s time with corpse runs or rez resets. Battlegrounds are pretty unique in the sense that players don’t have to treat deaths as a game-breaker. Character deaths are part of the process. I will even go so far as to say they’re part of the fun.

Taking away the gravity of character death also takes away a lot of the pressure. This doesn’t mean I play recklessly and carelessly, though. Every second I spend with the Spirit Healer is a second spent away from a flag or tower. Every second I spend dead is a second that could have been spent dealing a killing blow. Basically, I hate dying in a battleground just as much as the next guy — probably more — but I understand that it’s not going to impact the game in the same way as it would in other areas of the game. This allows me to play at a more relaxed pace because there’s a much larger room for error for individual performance.

Of course, unlike dungeons or raids, there are clear winners and losers in a battleground match. But unless you’re pursuing achievements such as 100 wins in a battleground, losing really shouldn’t be a big deal. It will only really matter when rated games are implemented, but otherwise, you should be able to shrug it off and move on to the next game. Because you accrue honor even when you lose matches, it’s never a useless endeavor. In those times when you need a victory for your daily quest, it shouldn’t be too hard to secure at least one, right? Of course, in those occasions where everything just can’t seem to go your way, however, you can always …

Take a break

The beauty of pugging is that you can play at your own pace. The beauty of pugging a battleground is that you can stop any time you want. As opposed to dungeons or raids, leaving a battleground in the middle of a match or going AFK for a while without telling anyone won’t have disastrous consequences. Nobody will take it against you and you won’t gain a reputation for being a terrible party or raid member — not unless you make a habit of bailing on teammates or being AFK for long stretches. Taking the occasional break even while a match is ongoing is excusable. In fact, I recommend it.

There are periods of inactivity during a battleground match where your full attention won’t be required. At least, it won’t automatically spell doom for everyone in the group if you’re not entirely there. Watching over a flag while holding a sizable lead in Arathi Basin can bore anybody out of their wits. Sometimes, players crave action and unwisely leave their posts, heading elsewhere to jump into the fray. You can just as easily take a short break during these windows of dead time, but do have the courtesy of informing your team through the battleground chat. If you’re guarding a node with another person, a quick tell to let them know you’re not there to get their back should spare them the nasty surprise of finding out they’ve lost their backup when enemy players decide to hit the node.

Stand up, stretch, get yourself a cup of coffee (or in my case, some matcha), hit the toilet or even tab out of the game to tweet or feed your workers in Restaurant City. It’s fine. As long as you’re not deliberately handing the match over to your opponent, taking small breaks now and then is forgivable. If matches are going so awfully (or in some case, so awesomely that you aren’t needed), you’ll probably need breaks to maintain your sanity. In fact, if matches have been going so badly, you’re well within your right to AFK out of the match and stop playing battlegrounds for a while. That’s what the /afk feature is designed for.

Sometimes, you catch a really bad wave of players by queuing immediately after a loss, kicking off a cycle of being grouped with the same bad players over and over again. Taking a break from the queue can break that rhythm and sometimes get you better groups. Walking away from the game for a short while should let you shake off the bad vibes from losing games and allow you to get pumped up for another round. Take a quick nap or drive out for a Ristretto Grande Caffé Americano and Maple Oat Pecan Scone from Starbucks. A break can let you catch your second wind.

Play some music

I don’t always recommend music during PvP because I believe game sounds are an important part of game play. There are specific battleground sounds that indicate match progress, such as the capture of a flag or the tagging of a node, that aren’t present or even necessary in other areas of the game. I like having game sounds turned on and up during a match because I like to know if some fool abandoned the farm and let our flag get tagged. That said, when you just want to dive into battle and mix it up with enemies, it’s absolutely fun to throw in a soundtrack.

Depending on my mood, I can toss in anything from A Fine Frenzy to Street Sweeper Social Club to Barcelona to Rico Blanco. As I’d mentioned some time ago, there’s nothing more satisfying (or embarrassing, if your opponents ever knew about it) than bashing an opponent’s skull in to the tune of Mika’s Lollipop. Play music that helps you get in the mood. Something to make you relax or fired up — it’s up to you. Music can either get you intensely into the game or take the edge off it. PvP videos always use some hard rock or metal, but I like my PvP to different tunes.

Learn how to read — and ignore — battleground chat

My approach to the game or the battlegrounds has been, for the most part, to stay detached. I don’t often try to bark out instructions on battleground chat because I think it clutters everyone’s screen. As long as I play the battleground the right way, by understanding the basics of the map and knowing the flow of the game, I can pretty much go around without having to type a single thing in chat. This lets me worry less about how the game goes and not have to manage the entire team. It’s a PUG. I set my expectations pretty low.

On the other hand, it’s important — critical, really — to learn how to filter battleground chat for the important information such as enemy movement. Even if I’m playing relaxed, I like to know where our defenses are weak and where the enemy is heading. This is why I check the battleground map constantly to see player density in key locations. This shows me if certain areas need reinforcing or if I can skip a node because everyone and his uncle are already there. The most important lines in battleground chat are player updates and not orders, as well as map alerts such as when enemies have captured a node. Everything else can be ignored. There are addons that automate battleground warnings, but I sometimes prefer to type things out myself.

Lead by example. Use battleground chat to inform your team of player movement. Ask for help if you’re left alone at a node or if you see enemies coming. If you’re caught by surprise in a rogue stunlock, use the dead time to type for help. Don’t ever panic and don’t ever type in all caps. Players are less likely to listen to you if you’re yelling for help or barking expletives. Yes, there are probably morons on the battlefield, but if you go back to my first piece of advice, you really shouldn’t worry about it. Show everyone how it’s done by informing players in short, direct, to-the-point messages. Always give an approximate number of how many enemies are on their way to give your team an idea of how many should come your way for help.

Don’t be frustrated if nobody listens. Again, it’s a PUG. Expect the lowest common denominator and be surprised from there. This means you’ll need to relax and know when to take a break. Take the game as it comes to you and play as best you can, without getting too invested in the match’s outcome. There’s room for competitiveness and intense play, but battleground PUGs probably aren’t the best, ah, arenas for it.

Learn to PvP

No, really, learn to PvP while doing battlegrounds! PUG battlegrounds are about the most casual PvP experience in the game, making it the best place to hone your skills. You won’t get the best experience through duels and definitely not through arenas — at least, not for beginners. Players who typically abhor PvP can learn to enjoy it through the battlegrounds, where being under the learning curve is perfectly fine. It would serve you well to know your way around the map, at least, and understand how the game is played, but nobody will take you to task for not being able to trash opponents. The nature of battleground deaths make the environment absolutely perfect for learning. You can make mistakes on a player encounter level with minimal impact on the match.

Any expert on any subject will tell you that the best way to get better at something is to keep doing it. Treating the whole thing as a learning experience will help you survive it. Don’t put such great expectations on yourself or even the match if you’re not really honed or well versed in PvP. It’s infinitely more frustrating for PvP veterans to flounder with a PUG full of beginners than it is for beginners just finding their way around. Everything can be a learning experience and the battlegrounds are no exception. In fact, I would go so far as to say that battlegrounds have a conducive environment for learning if you approach it the right way.

It all goes back to the first argument. Deaths have little consequence here. The Spirit Healer mechanic plays a significant role in shaping battleground play — it allows so much more freedom and relaxation than players can normally expect elsewhere. Use that to your advantage. Enjoy it. Think of it as a course where you never really get a failing grade yet always get a chance to get a good marks, or as I’d like to put it … even when you lose, you win.

Looking to make more WoW gold?

Check out the secret tactics you can use to legally and easily generate up to 427 gold per hour or more in World of Warcraft without using hacks or cheats.

Get ready to make more gold playing WoW than you have ever seen before.

World of Warcraft In-game Leveling Guides

World of Warcraft leveling take a huge leap forward with Zygor Guides 2.0, the fastest, most powerful leveling guides in the world.

Leveling has NEVER been this easy! You will be leveling so fast with this, you might think you’re cheating. But you’re not, Joana’s leveling guide mod is 100% legal with Blizzard.

Related posts:

1. WoW Guide to Battleground Daily Quests Here are some need-to-know tidbits about the new BG Daily...
2. WoW Battleground: Guide to the Isle of Conquest by Zach Yonzon Patch 3.2 introduced a new 40-man raid...
3. Incredible Battleground Experience The battleground experience is really incredible at the moment in...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

This is for the healing shaman looking to get ready for rated battlegrounds and wondering what we have to offer besides healing.

The strength of a restoration shaman is its versatility in combat. They can heal and deal some damage while still offering buffs and a wide variety of support and survivability. To that end, the shaman class has a very versatile tool set for use in battle grounds from spells and talents to the various totems we have at our disposal. Let’s take a look at what we have to potentially offer besides our plethora of healing spells

Totems

Earth Bind Totem Mobility is one of the most important things in PvP. This totem allows you to slow opponents down so you can help keep them in one place to be attacked by your teammates, or so you can beat a hasty retreat and save your hide. Placement of this totem can count for a lot, such as placing the totem on a bridge or near the end of the bridge in Eye of the Storm.

Tremor Totem A long-time PvP staple, this crowd-control-breaking totem should always be placed for easy access.

Stoneclaw Totem This is an easily overlooked totem but can be useful for a few reasons. First, it places a protective shell on your other totems, allowing them to absorb some damage. Traditionally, our totems suffer from low health and quick death, and players with a totem stomp macro or pet macro to target and kill them can be quite annoying. This totem may not do much, but it may allow your other totems to live for a few seconds more. Second, it has a chance to stun whatever is attacking it. This may not seem useful, but I have used it to get away from a warlock pet or hunter pet a time or two.

Grounding Totem Another long-time PvP staple, this totem has a short, 45-second duration and a 15-second cooldown. Its value truly shows though when another player is launching a supercharged spell at you or one of your friends.

Sentry Totem Well, this totem has largely been seen as a joke, and soon enough it will be going away for good. However, it has still been useful in a few situations. I have found it handy for quickly checking the tunnel to the base in Warsong Gulch when hiding out at the top of the base with the flag carrier waiting to safely return the flag. I have also found use for it for quickly checking behind the bases or at the bridges in Eye of the Storm. Other than that, it is pretty useless — but hey, you never know.

Magma Totem This totem can be useful when trying to check for stealth classes around you.

Cleansing Totem This totem is also a staple of shaman PvP and is often times considered overpowered. Every three seconds, it will attempt to remove one disease and one poison from party members withing 30 yards. In the heat of battle, if this totem is left alone, it can wreak havoc on rogue poisons and warlock and priest diseases and take some of the burden of healing off of you.

Talents and spells

Guardian Totems This talent increases armor from Stoneskin Totem by 20%, but it also reduces the cooldown of grounding totem by two seconds. That may not seem like a lot, but in the fast-paced combat of PvP, two seconds can be life or death.

Earth’s Grasp Increasing the health of Stoneclaw Totem is nice, but increasing that radius of Earthbind Totem and reducing the cooldown can potentially come in handy.

Improved Ghost Wolf This talent is often overlooked by healers. It can be extremely useful in many PvP situations simply because you cannot mount while in combat. Being able to get out of Dodge quickly can be all the difference between staying alive or getting stomped into the dirt.

Healing Grace Helps keep your heals like Riptide and Earth Shield up on your targets longer improving their effectiveness.

Improved Reincarnation You will die in PvP; it is an inevitability. Sometimes though, as a shaman, you can give your opponents a surprise and rise back up to keep healing your friends. Reducing the cooldown of the Reincarnation, while increasing the amount of health and mana you return to life with, can be very useful in PvP.

Focused Mind Reducing the duration of Silence and interrupt effects can be quite useful. When facing off in PvP, there are a number of spell and abilities that people will potentially stun you or lock you out from spell casting. The quicker you can shrug these effects without using a PvP trinket, the sooner you can go back to healing and keeping you and your teammates alive.

Nature’s Guardian Not only can shaman rise from the dead, but you can have a chance to make yourself just a little bit harder to kill. The previous incarnations of Nature’s Guardian had a chance to heal you when you an attack brought you below 30% health. Now, however, it increases your health by 15% at maximum level, very similar to how the Battlemaster’s trinkets increase your maximum health. This will increase any effect that restores a percentage of your health and possibly help keep you alive just a little bit longer on your path to victory.

Wind Shear This interrupts your targets’ spellcasting and locks them out of the school of whatever spell you interrupted for a time. This can be handy or stopping opponents’ heals or interrupting a spell aimed at you.

Earth Shock Even as a healer, you have access to all of your shocks. The benefit of this one is that it reduces the melee speed of your target by 10%. That might not seem like a lot, but even a few fractions of a second you can buy with this can help keep yourself or your teammates alive.

Frost Shock This deals damage and slows the target’s movement speed down. Combining this with Earthbind Totem can be a great way to get away from your aggressors.

Purge Purge removes two beneficial magic effects from the affected target. This can be insanely useful for removing HoTs, buffs and bonuses from the target and can help your teammates bring their target down.

Hex This is a shaman’s form of Polymorph and is often a forgotten spell in our arsenal. Even as a healer, you can use this spell to transform an opponent into a harmless toad. The real benefit to this is that it can withstand some damage before it breaks. This means if your teammates are waling on an opponent and you cast this, they may get another couple swings in while your opponent is unable to defend himself. This can also be very handy for use as an interrupt, and unlike the mage spell, the target does not regenerate health while in toad form.

So as you can see, we have a lot of things that we can do in a fight, and it is this versatility that will be incredibly handy in those rated battlegrounds on the horizon.

Looking to make more WoW gold?

Check out the secret tactics you can use to legally and easily generate up to 427 gold per hour or more in World of Warcraft without using hacks or cheats.

Get ready to make more gold playing WoW than you have ever seen before.

World of Warcraft In-game Leveling Guides

World of Warcraft leveling take a huge leap forward with Zygor Guides 2.0, the fastest, most powerful leveling guides in the world.

Leveling has NEVER been this easy! You will be leveling so fast with this, you might think you’re cheating. But you’re not, Joana’s leveling guide mod is 100% legal with Blizzard.

Related posts:

1. Shaman Totem twisting macro Most shamans should know about totem twisting, Its where you...
2. [Tip] Raid Resto Shaman Build Howdy o’ folks; just looking around and thinking to myself…...
3. WoW Macro: Shaman Macros **Cleanse Poison/disease combo** Left-click abolish poison, right click remove disease....

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.