by Fox Van Allen

In this latest installment of the shadow priest leveling guide, we’re going to get you from level 20 to level 40. Why level 40? Because level 40 is when the game completely changes. We get Shadowform. We do more damage. We take less damage. We heal ourselves through causing pain. We’re able to make that fateful decision to forsake the light in exchange for causing more destruction more effectively. We become the gnome-destroying (and eating) machines we always knew we could be.

In short, at level 40, priests become awesome.

The spells: levels 20 through 40

Throughout the leveling process, you’ll want to visiting your trainer regularly. You can train to improve the strength of Mind Blast every sixth level (22, 28, 34, etc.) through the leveling process, and similarly improve the strength of Smite every eighth level (22, 30, 38). Beyond that, you’ll also learn the following new spells at key milestones.
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by Rich Maloy

With a new instance out everyone is asking, “What’s in it for me?” But my question is, “What’s in it for enhancement?”

The short answer is ArP. For a stat that’s going away in a few months, we’re seeing a lot of it in Ruby Sanctum gear from both the 10- and 25-man versions of the raid. Armor penetration (ArP) is not the ideal stat for enhancement. Not ideal, but definitely usable. There are some definite winners among the RS loot — on both 10 and 25.

I’ve created a new enhance gear spreadsheet on Google Docs including the new loot. It’s read-only, so either make a copy to your Google Docs file or save a copy to your desktop as an Excel file. I’ve also included some sample EP values for different levels of play, including EP values derived from the latest Elitist Jerks BiS gear, setup and rotation.

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by Fox Van Allen

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.)

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by Matthew Rossi

While the intro is mock grumpy, the basic message is accurate enough. It’s a good time to hit 80 with your aspiring fury warrior. The hit and expertise soft caps have never been easier to hit and with the dungeon finder; you can rapidly acquire solid gear that will allow you to begin raiding almost immediately, if that’s what you want to do. You can also PvP … Fury lacks in arenas but can solidly perform in battlegrounds. And PvP is both another source for solid gear and a reasonably fun pastime for a fury, with the playstyle meshing well with battlegrounds and Wintergrasp’s chaotic melee tumult.

This post will be more definitely aimed at what to do when you reach 80 — in other words, where to get the best gear you can as quickly as you can.

Heroics, heroics, heroics: the emblems are OK

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by Rich Maloy

As a melee class, weapons are our most important items. Not surprisingly, good weapons (emphasis on “good”) can’t be bought with emblems and only drop off a select few bosses, with the best weapons dropping off the hardest bosses. While trinkets can be hard to acquire (Death’s Choice/Verdict is a lie!), you can fill in the gaps with emblems or even some subpar trinket choices and not have as big an impact on overall damage as a good weapon. Nothing beats a big stick.

Today we’re looking at enhancement weapon options in dungeons, plus Trial of the Crusader and Icecrown Citadel in 10s and 25s, regular and heroic. I am skipping over Naxx, OS, EoE, Ulduar, and Ony because it seems to me that it’s far easier to get in and gear up in a ToC/ToGC PuG these days than any other raid. There are some good weapon choice in those older raids, but even starting out as a fresh 80 you should find ToC-10 PuGs doable.

Let’s dive in to our weapon options.

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by Fox Van Allen

My shadow priest will always be my first love, but since he’s already a Kingslayer, I’ve been playing more and more with Shammyfox. She’s a sassy little Draenei shaman who can Lava Burst with the best of ‘em. Or, at least, with the best of ‘em who have recently hit level 80.

Her gear right now isn’t the best, but I’d like to continue to progress her through the end game. Shadow priests are equipping different gear, of course, but the main challenge remains the same. It’s not easy to figure out what to buy when to get the most value out of your emblems — and your play time.

If you hit 80 shortly after the Wrath release, you’d have run regular instances to gear up for heroics, so you could gather enough blues and purples to take on Naxx, where you’d get gear to take on Ulduar, where you’d get gear to take on Trial of the Crusader and Trial of the Grand Crusader. Yeah, yeah, grandpa, we get it. You walked through ten feet of snow 87 miles a day to get to school. The old way is passé. We bypass old raid content with emblems and supercharged heroics now — great news for the casual player or dedicated altaholic. But how do you get the most out of those hard-earned emblems and get ICC ready without even stepping foot inside a raid instance?

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by Joe Perez

So you’ve hit that end goal of reaching level 80 and now you need to figure out what to do next right? So now that you’re at the level cap it is time to get geared up. Whether you stack resilience for PvP or get a set together to raid, you are going to need some gear to do it.

Before we start it should be noted this is not a best in slot list. There are many of those floating around everywhere and that will largely be influenced by your play style. Instead this is a rough idea of where to start gathering gear pre-raid to help you on your next steps.

To recap I placed the priority as follows, spell power, haste/crit then MP/5. The reasoning behind this is that it makes choosing upgrades very easy for a beginning player, and it allows for simple diversity in healing early on. Your stat priority will change if you choose to raid and depending on what role you pick, but that is a topic we will dive further into next week.

Shaman are the only caster class that uses mail as their highest available armor class. Lucky for us mail caster itemization in the game seems to favor the restoration talent tree, unlike our elemental brethren, and allows us many choices in upgrades along the way. So in a sea of choices where do you begin?

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by caleb @ Ensidia

When people whisper me in-game and I don’t answer there is usually a good reason for it. Please take no offense if it happens to you. I’m probably afk, or just busy with something else. I’ll try to answer questions on the forums (at least the ones that haven’t been answered already).

Some parts of this guide are taken from the previous guides, obviously the ones that apply for marksman as well in Icecrown Citadel. These are in italic, so you can just skip over it if you read the previous guide and got a general understanding of the appropriate section. This should make it easier if you are only interested in marksman specific information for the Icecrown Citadel dungeon. .

Hunter Guide for Icecrown Citadel

Introduction:

Welcome to the Hunter guide of Icecrown Citadel’s pre heroic mode stage. The guide will only cover raiding related concepts, such as:

-{ I } stats
-{ II } gems, enchants
-{ III } talents, glyphs
-{ IV } shot rotations
• { IV/1 } Kill Shot
• { IV/2 } Serpent Sting
• { IV/3 } Chimera Shot
• { IV/4 } Aimed Shot
• { IV/5 } Silencing Shot
• { IV/6 } Steady Shot
-{ V } a bit of gear selection
-{ VI } buffs, debuffs, consumables
-{ VII } macros
-{ VII } addon recommendation

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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.

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