by Dawn Moore

Back

• Greatcloak of the Turned Champion — 25-man Deathbringer Saurfang — There are two, level 264 badge vendor cloaks (Volde’s Cloak of the Night Sky and Drape of the Violet Tower) that this cloak off Saurfang is comparable to. Since the drop has spirit on it, this is a better catch for holy. Disc priests will find better itemization off the Drape of the Violet Tower, however if you find yourself frequently switching between holy, or even shadow, this drop (or the other badge cloak) are good multi-purpose cloaks.
• Frostbinder’s Shredded Cape — 25-man Valithria Dreamwalker — [Disclaimer: This item can't be confirmed as a drop until the fight goes live!] This is the throughput cloak that all the DPS are going to want. If you are good on mana regen, this will be your best in slot until hard modes. This is really one of those cases where you should try to be courteous to your fellow raiders though, as healers have 3 other great options.

Read the rest of this entry »

by Fox Van Allen

If you got left behind in the last patch or even if you’re a newly minted level 80, don’t worry — you can catch up quick. Here’s how.The release of every major patch coincides with a soft gear reset. Every random heroic dungeon you run earns you a slew of Emblems of Triumph, redeemable for level 245 epic gear, the same quality of items that drop from the 25-man version of Trial of the Crusader. You can also buy tier 9 armor, which come with desirable multi-piece bonuses.

If you’re starting from scratch, your first order of business should be to put together a two-piece tier set. The easiest and quickest route is to pick up Velen’s Handwraps of Conquest and Velen’s Mantle of Conquest, each of which cost 30 emblems. The two-piece tier 9 bonus, a longer lasting Vampiric Touch, is especially friendly to newer players who have trouble juggling their DoTs.

When putting together the rest of your Icecrown-ready gear set, keep the basics in mind. The shadow priest hit cap is 289, so aim to get your hit rating as close to that number as possible (for Draenei, the hit cap is 263). Spellpower is the best stat for shadow priests, but haste is very close behind. Critical strike rating is our third best stat, making gear with all three ideal. Continue enchanting for spellpower if you can.

Head
Those who need a new, “grindable” helmet should take a look at the Helm of Clouded Sight, available for 75 emblems. Fill that yellow gem slot with a Reckless Ametrine, which is the new yellow gem slot filler of choice for shadow priests. The meta gem of choice remains the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond — make sure you have at least two Purified Dreadstones on hand to activate the meta bonus.
Read the rest of this entry »

by Michael Sacco

here’s a quick rundown again for those who missed it: Hit rating, spell power, haste, and crit. These are the only four stats we’ll be looking for on elemental gear, besides the obvious intellect and stamina boosts that’ll be on nearly every piece of caster gear anyway.

If the above sounds like a pretty reasonable set of stats to look for, well, you’re not wrong. So I’ve got good news and bad news for you. The good news? There’s definitely elemental gear out there. The bad news? Good luck finding it. Elemental gearing has a lot of issues unique to both the shaman and this specific spec. And you’re not gonna like them.

First, shaman are the only caster class that uses mail as their highest available armor class. The issue that comes out of this is that there are two caster specs in our class, each with very different needs in terms of gear. What’s good for the goose (Resto) is not usually good for the gander (Ele). MP5, for example, is a stat that’s plenty good for Resto (and will be on nearly every piece of Resto gear), but offers no plausible benefit to elemental.

Want to downgrade to cloth or leather instead? Well, there are issues there, too. The majority of cloth and leather caster gear you encounter will have gobs of spirit on it, which is also of near-zero benefit to Elemental. Found a piece that doesn’t have spirit on it? You’ll be fighting with the other non-spirit caster specs for it, and they should rightfully have first dibs on their highest armor class anyway.

Read the rest of this entry »

by Gregg Reece

This week, we’re delving into the geist filled section known as the Plagueworks. Precious and Stinky aren’t technically bosses, but they’re still fun little encounters, so I figured I’d give at least one of the puppies center stage in today’s header. Last week, we looted our way through the lower spire in Icecrown if you want to go back and take a look. Otherwise, onto the loots!

Festergut’s innards
Spread out, don’t blow up, jump on spores, and spread out again. Oh, and for the love of all that is sacred and holy, try not to breathe in that stuff. It’s nasty.

• Holy
  • Signet of Putrefaction – 10 man – This ring is stacking haste and mp5 both on top of a red gem socket.
  • Festergut’s Gaseous Gloves – 10 man – A set of plate hands with a pair of gem slots (red and yellow) with a bunch of mp5 and a fair amount of crit. Intellect is paired evenly with stamina, so no big bonus there.
  • Holiday’s Grace – 25 man – This necklace has a yellow socket for an intellect gem giving you an additional five spell power. Otherwise, it’s stats are mp5 and crit in fairly equal amounts for itemization.
  • Plague Scientist’s Boots – 25 man – These are cloth boots, but they should still fit okay. A red and blue socket along side a lot of haste as well as some crit.
  • Horrific Flesh Epaulets – 25 man – Here’s a set of resto-shaman shoulders that has stats we like. One each of red and blue gem slots on top of crit and haste with the emphasis on crit.
  • Unclean Surgical Gloves – 25 man – Yeah, we’re still in resto-shaman gear, but this time it’s gloves. These also have red and blue gem slots as well as a healthy batch of haste and some mp5.
  • Faceplate of the Forgotten – 25 man – Here’s a spell plate helmet for you. It’s rocking high crit and equal (as far as itemization points go) mp5. There is a meta socket on this piece as well as a blue gem slot.
• Protection
  • Cloak of Many Skins – 10 man – This tanking cloak has a pretty decent chunk of stamina on it compared to strength. It also has a blue socket for stamina gems which means you’ll probably get that four additional dodge rating. The equip stats are split three ways with defense rating getting the most, then parry and dodge coming up in the rear.
  • Belt of Broken Bones – 25 man – This belt has a red and blue socket to start out with before worrying about adding a buckle. The stamina is fairly high and it also boosts up parry quite a bit. It also has defense rating and dodge rating as additional stats.
• Retribution
  • Festering Fingerguards – 10 man – These hands are fairly decent with a pair of sockets in red and yellow. However, a tank in need of either the hit or expertise these offer might also end up bidding over you if she’s in need of a threat upgrade. At this point in the game, they don’t have to worry as much about their def cap and can use some gear slots just for threat.
  • Fleshrending Gauntlets – 25 man – These gauntlets are on the ‘must have’ list for ret paladins. The critical strike rating and haste are both good and the two gem slots are nothing to sneeze at. However, remember that even though it’s a “best in slot” item, please gear intelligently and weigh it against your current stat needs.
  • Might of Blight – 25 man – This is an okay ring. It’s got a yellow gem slot which you could toss a red strength gem into and the crit isn’t bad on it, but I’m not a fan of armor penetration for paladins. Armor penetration only affects about a third of our total damage output. So, while it isn’t a horrible stat, it’s not at the top of my list.

Rotface’s toy chest
To the left, to the left. To the right, to the right. And if you step in the massive amounts of toxic waste, the only super power you’ll gain is the complete inability to contribute further to that particular fight.

• Holy
  • Choker of Filthy Diamonds – 10 man – This is a blue socketed necklace. It’s got a wee bit more stamina than intellect, but nothing detrimental. Side stats are haste and mp5.
  • Lockjaw – 10 man -This mace does favor stamina a little bit more than intellect. However, the haste and mp5 is fairly decent as well as the spell power. Overall, it’s not a bad weapon.
  • Bloodsunder’s Bracers – 25 man – While these mail bracers don’t show up as having a socket bonus, they really do. It got hotfixed in on the 4th of January and WoWhead’s info doesn’t show it. I can’t actually find a reference to what that socket bonus is though. So, uhm, yeah. The yellow socket is great for an intellect gem and the crit and haste isn’t shabby either. However, this is shaman gear and not actually plate.
  • Trauma – 25 man – This is a cool proc-based healing mace, but appears to only work within the group that the heal had a proc in. This means if you want the effect it grants to hit someone, you’d better be in the same party they are. The proc itself works similar to Althor’s Abacus with a HoT instead of a direct heal. Some are claiming that this is the greatest thing since hotdogs on a stick, but others are a little blah over it. The main issue is that if people are spread out or if you’re doing primarily direct heals, it’s not as useful as you have fewer chances to cause it to proc. Also, the limit to an individual party is a downside. However, it does have a lot of raw spellpower on it which is one of the upsides. Overall, your mileage will vary greatly from fight to fight. In some cases, it could be phenomenal. In other cases it will appear rather lackluster.
  • Rot-Resistant Breastplate – 25 man – This chest piece has three gem slots (one for each color) and stacks haste and crit as its equip stats.
• Protection
  • Bile-Encrusted Medallion – 25 man – Ah, a tanking necklace with armor on it. It has a single red gem socket if you want to toss some agility in there for extra dodge and armor or just a blue stamina gem for more health. The equip stats are dodge and defense rating, but the main point of interest is the armor on it.
  • Blightborne Warplate – 25 man – This chest piece has a substantial amount of stamina on it compared to the strength as well as three gem slots (red, blue, and yellow) and as such, the effective health potential on this item is fairly high. It also stacks large chunks of both dodge rating and defense rating with a little bit of hit rating on the side. Overall, a really nice tanking piece.
• Retribution
  • Flesh-Shaper’s Gurney Strap – 10 man – This belt has a decent strength to stamina ratio as well as two gem slots on it. The armor penetration on it isn’t all the impressive as I mentioned my view on that earlier, but it’s got a fair chunk of hit raiting as well. The strength stacking on it makes it a pretty decent belt for ret pallies.
  • Rotface’s Rupturing Ring – 10 man – This dps ring has a yellow gem slot in it that you can stack some strength into as well as some expertise and armor penetration.
  • Winding Sheet – 25 man – This is a great cape for ret paladins and probably the best you’ll see until hard modes. The gem slot allows for stacking some more strength and the crit and haste are always welcome to the party.
  • Raging Behemoth’s Shoulderplates – 25 man – The two gem slots on these shoulders as well the large stack of crit on it makes for a fairly decent choice for ret pallies. The addition of hit rating might put you over the cap, but it should give you room if you decide to swap some other gear around.

Read the rest of this entry »

by Gregg R

with the last of the loot being divvied up in these final days of Wrath, let’s go through Icecrown Citadel and make a shopping list of gear we’d kill for.

Lord Marrowgar’s frosty remains

After fighting waves of undead, tripping traps, and possibly even using crowd-control you’ve finally reached Marrowgar. He’s got his own special issues that have you destroying spikes and the avoidance of fire that’s really burning ice or something. I think he just pours out four bottles of freon. That’s just my theory. Let’s see what we pry from his cold, dead hands.

• Holy
  • Frost Needle – 10 man – This one-handed sword isn’t a great choice for your healadin. It has some hit on it, but if your weapon is lagging behind the rest of your gear, this would be a quick way to upgrade.
  • Ancient Skeletal Boots – 10 man – This set of boots goes for crit and mp5. It’s also got two sockets.
  • Corrupted Silverplate Leggings – 10 man – These legs give you crit and haste and three sockets.
  • Coldwraith Bracers – 10 man – While these are spell mail instead of spell plate, they’re not bad if you’re looking for an upgrade. It’s haste and mp5 gear with a red socket.
  • Sliver of Pure Ice – 10 man – Marrowgar drops this spellpower trinket with the on use ability to regain a bit of mana. The mana return is equivelant to about 67 mp5 in the long run which isn’t that shabby all things considered. However, being an on-use trinket, you’ll have to keep remembering to actually use it.
  • Marrowgar’s Frigid Eye – 25 man – A nice little spell ring. It’s also got some mp5, some haste, and a yellow socket for your gem of choice.
  • Rusted Bonespike Pauldrons – 25 man – These spell plate shoulders give you some crit and mp5. If you’d rather it have more of something, there are two gem slots awaiting blue and yellow gems.
  • Crushing Coldwraith Belt – 25 man – Here’s a cloth belt that’s sans spirit and sans hit which makes it a decent choice for pallies in need of healing upgrades. It’s got two slots for gems, some crit, and a large chunk of haste.
  • Bulwark of Smouldering Steel – 25 man – Here’s a spell power shield for you healadins. It’s got a fair amount of crit and haste on it .
• Protection
  • Marrowgar’s Scratching Choker – 10 man – This tank neck-piece has a single blue socket (yay, stocket bonuse) and ups your dodge and parry. Defense rating on it is a little low in my opinion, but at these gear levels, the defense cap isn’t usually an issue.
  • Bonebreaker Scepter – 10 man – This little mace is a really nice upgrade if you’ve been following the 10-man track. No sockets, but it has hit, dodge, and defense. I also like the model for it.
  • Bracers of Dark Reckoning – 25 man – Even more dodge/parry gear. As a tank, you start to miss seeing the occasional piece of block gear. However, this puppy has a good portion of its itemization towards stamina as well as including a yellow socket for gems.
  • Legguards of Lost Hope – 25 man – Protection pants sporting three gem slots (one of each). It’s got a little bit of hit on it as well as some dodge. It also has a not insignificant amount of defense rating on there in case you want to swap some gear around.
• Retribution
  • Citadel Enforcer’s Claymore – 10 man – Oh, look it’s a big two-handed sword. This puppy has a large chunk of hit on it as well as some crit. There’s also a yellow socket that would fit a Bold Cardinal Ruby just as well as any yellow gem.
  • Gendarme’s Cuirass – 25 man – Retadin pants with three, count’em three sockets (one in each color) with hit and crit as the equip stats.
  • Bryntroll, the Bone Arbiter – 25 man – Probably the best two-hander, besides Shadowmourne, we’ll see until Cataclysm ships. My one complaint is that it’s a fairly fast weapon, but the proc it has makes up for that. It has a chance on hit to steal over two thousand hit points from your opponent and thus boost you up. It also has two sockets on there, so you could significantly boost the strength if needed.

Read the rest of this entry »

by Fox Van Allen

If you got left behind in the last patch or even if you’re a newly minted level 80, don’t worry — you can catch up quick. Here’s how.The release of every major patch coincides with a soft gear reset. Every random heroic dungeon you run earns you a slew of Emblems of Triumph, redeemable for level 245 epic gear, the same quality of items that drop from the 25-man version of Trial of the Crusader. You can also buy tier 9 armor, which come with desirable multi-piece bonuses.

If you’re starting from scratch, your first order of business should be to put together a two-piece tier set. The easiest and quickest route is to pick up Velen’s Handwraps of Conquest and Velen’s Mantle of Conquest, each of which cost 30 emblems. The two-piece tier 9 bonus, a longer lasting Vampiric Touch, is especially friendly to newer players who have trouble juggling their DoTs.

When putting together the rest of your Icecrown-ready gear set, keep the basics in mind. The shadow priest hit cap is 289, so aim to get your hit rating as close to that number as possible (for Draenei, the hit cap is 263). Spellpower is the best stat for shadow priests, but haste is very close behind. Critical strike rating is our third best stat, making gear with all three ideal. Continue enchanting for spellpower if you can.

Head
Those who need a new, “grindable” helmet should take a look at the Helm of Clouded Sight, available for 75 emblems. Fill that yellow gem slot with a Reckless Ametrine, which is the new yellow gem slot filler of choice for shadow priests. The meta gem of choice remains the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond — make sure you have at least two Purified Dreadstones on hand to activate the meta bonus.
Read the rest of this entry »

by Messiah @ tentonhammer

How to play a Retribution Paladin

So you want to lay the holy smack down on the enemy? Want to prove that Paladins can dish it out as well as they can take it? Well, you have come to the right place. This guide will walk you through the basics of playing a Retribution spec’ed Paladin. Since part way through the Burning Crusade expansion Retribution Paladins have seen huge buffs in ability and utility. Through WotLK they have continued to be a strong DPS choice in any group.

Playing a Retribution based Paladin can be a lot of fun as long as you realize you may still not be to be at the top of all the DPS charts. You will however be able to hold your own in PvE and PvP content and level at a far faster rate than other paladin specs. Realize up front though that DPS classes and players FAR outnumber healers and tanks. In addition most players view Paladins as healers or tanks, so you will most likely be expected to have a heal or tanking offspec and gearset. Discuss your options with a group before joining so that they know what you are. If you are doing this for PvP then more power to you, explain to no one!

Talents and Glyphs

As a DPS Paladin you will be spending the majority of your talent points in the Retribution talent tree. You need to do this gain some serious damage causing abilities including some of your main damage abilities such as Crusader Strike and Divine Storm. There are also several other abilities that add a lot to your damage causing abilities through passive boosts to some of your key spells and stats.

Probably the most important talents are your Crusaders Strike and Divine Storm, since they will form 2 of the 5 main attacks that make up your DPS rotation. For more information on that rotation skip down to the Attack Rotation section of the guide. Crusader’s Strike is a single target attack with a short cooldown that will become a staple in all of your rotations, while Divine Storm hits multiple targets and factors in against groups of enemies.

Some of the other really critical talents in the Retribution tree are Judgements of the Wise, Sanctified Retribution, Swift Retribution and Heart of the Crusader. All of these talents grant you party or raid utility which is much needed since you are just a DPS player once you are in a group (Tanks and Healers being much more important in a group situation). Judgements of the Wise brings you the ability to replenish mana to up to 10 raid members, which your healers and casters will thank you for. Sanctified and Swift Retribution bring you a 3% damage and 3% haste buff that affects the whole raid as long as your retribution aura is active. Lastly, Heart of the Crusader puts a +3% crit debuff on any target you judge, once again boosting party damage output.

Read the rest of this entry »

by Mike Schramm

Now that players have had their hands on the Dungeon Finder out on the live realms for a while, they’re learning a few more tricks and tips about how to use it. As Rohan brings up over on the WoW Ladies LJ, it’s easy enough to keep a good player once you’ve found them through the system: as long as none of you drop group once you’re done with an instance, you can go back in and run as many as you want. Unfortunately, you can’t friend them yet (hopefully that will show up whenever Battle.net functionality does), but the comments on that post point out that if you both sign up for an unpopular instance at the same time, chances are good you’ll end up in the same group together (of course, that requires coordination, but maybe you can set up a time out of game).

Other tips we’ve heard: finding an instance as tank or healer will go even faster than trying to get in one as DPS, so if you can specialize into a more useful role and just want to grind out instances fast, do that. Damage meters are supposedly broken — they haven’t figured out how to track ranged damage across realms quite yet. Which may be a good thing, as lots of players never liked following those meters anyway. The vote kicking system seems to be working well — the number one reason we’ve heard that players are kicking each other is that they’re going AFK without notice, so if you’re in a random PuG queue, be sure to be ready when it pops up to do the instance ASAP. Oh, and let’s just agree right here and now: Frozen Orbs are Need, unless you don’t want them for some reason.

Read the rest of this entry »

by Matt Low

With patch 3.3 very close on the horizon, I figured now might be a good time to go over the few changes priests will be seeing. I’m also going to provide a list of possible juicy items for you to look forward to from the Icecrown Citadel raid, the Icecrown dungeons and the Emblem of Frost vendor. After all, you can’t look to take down Arthas without sporting some new threads, right?

Let’s start off with the class changes.

Divine Hymn: Cooldown reduced to 8 minutes (currently at 10 minutes). This was largely done to help ensure that certain cooldowns would become available faster when working on encounters with limited attempts. In other words, it sucked that Trial of the Grand Crusader attempts would last for about 3 minutes or so before a wipe was called. Another 7 minutes would be needed before the cooldowns were free again. This will help reduce the down time.

Power Word: Shield: You can cast this on non-raid and party targets who are friendly. Now you can keep Varian alive a little bit longer when Horde are beating him down.

That’s it for the healing changes. What about for our shadow guys? Shadow priests will be seeing some DPS increases for sure with these changes:

Improved Devouring Plague: The spell dishes out 10/20/30% of it’s periodic effect damage instantly (Currently does 5/10/15%).

Mind Flay: Increases the range of Mind Flay to 30 yards (Currently at 20). The other difference is that the Glyph of Mind Flay doesn’t provide the range increase since it’s already included in the base spell now. Instead, the new Glyph of Mind Flay increases the damage done by Mind Flay by an additional 10% when the target has Shadow Word: Pain.

Shadowform: The talent affects Devouring Plague and Vampiric Touch to see benefits from your haste rating. The period length and duration will be reduced by haste and the mana cost has been reduced from 32% to 13% of your base mana. This is a great help in case priests need to switch in and out of forms for specific reasons (like firing off a few heals during an intense part of an encounter).

Vampiric Embrace: The ability provides a 30 minute buff to the priest that cannot be dispelled (Currently is a debuff applied on targets that can be removed). The healing generated will result from single-target shadow damage spells only.

Read the rest of this entry »