by Zach Yonzon
Today, we’ll talk a little about how the class works and why this defines their limitations and playing style. A deeper understanding of how the class works should give you a better idea of how to handle them.
Combo points
Rogues have a unique class mechanic called combo points, with two sets of abilities that either grant them or consume them and scale according to how many combo points are on a target. The more combo points on a target, the most devastating the effect of their finishing ability. This means that rogues are basically single-target killing machines. Once a rogue chooses a target, they have tunnel vision on that target until that target is dead or are forced to change.
What does this mean for PvP? This essentially means rogues can’t switch targets as easily as other classes. It penalizes them. They won’t lose the combo points when they select another target, but combo points are lost when they apply even a single point on someone else. A rogue focusing on one of your allies is a great target for you because you’re sure to get a lot of free damage in with little fear that she will switch quickly. Rogues are trained through their leveling to keep at one target until it’s dead before moving on to the next one, with very few AoE options, Fan of Knives notwithstanding. After the jump, I’ll break down a list of builders, or strikes that grant combo points, and finishers, or abilities that consume them.
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by Rich Maloy
Being a hybrid class means there’s not a lot of wiggle room when it comes to making specs as one spec can serve us well through 10s, 25s, dungeons, and soloing. While PvE builds don’t leave much room for experimentation, I’ve seen far more variance in PvP specs, mostly depending on play-style.
Of course there are distinct PvP talents built into the trees and there are core talents for both PvE and PvP without which we’re just not enhancement shamans. But depending on your gear, team, and how your play you can customize your PvP specs for defensive, offensive, mana-rich, or anywhere in between.
Let’s start right out with the two of the more common builds right now:
PvE – 19/52/0 – this spec will serve most all enhancers well across all levels on content and is the spec I use on Stoney.
PvP – 16/55/0 – as I mentioned above there is far more flexibility in specs for PvP. I chose this one because it’s a good starter PvP spec that is highly mana-conservative and defensive focused. I’ve seen many different takes on enhancement PvP specs and experienced players will alter to suit their own play style. But if you need a place to start, go with this.
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by Allison Robert
Once WoW’s most disparaged profession, Fishing has experienced a resurgence in Wrath — and it may get even better in Cataclysm, with developers studying fishing from other games like Animal Crossing in order to make it more fun. As far as I’m concerned, as long as they cook up another distraction like the Dalaran fountain in Cataclysm, I’ll be happy.
Accomplished Angler is a very work- and time-intensive meta-achievement, so I’ve taken the liberty of splitting this guide up. The first set of achievements you’ll need:
Grand Master Fisherman
Sorry, folks, there’s no real way to shorten this one; you’ve just got to keep fishing. One of the nice things about the profession is that you can level it anywhere — the only penalty to leveling it in an area with higher “fishing skill” than you currently have is the amount of junk you’ll catch versus actual fish. But on your way to Grand Master, you’ll have put a lot of work in towards:
1000 Fish
No way to cheese this one either, but fortunately it counts objects as fish too. If you’re starting from scratch, the best way to do it might be to combine 1000 Fish with the following achievement, angling for a fish from a low-level area:
One That Didn’t Get Away
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by Zach Yonzon
Rogues. Those sneaky little bastards could be anywhere. Out of all the classes in the game, there is perhaps no class no more feared for their PvP prowess than rogues. Rogues gain a fearsome reputation by virtue of the nature of the class alone — they can Stealth. Because of rogues, everyone has to literally watch their backs. No place is safe because a rogue can be lying in lurking in some dark corner waiting to strike at the proper time. Through years of leveling in a PvP server, there is no sound in the game more unsettling than the low humming whoosh of a nearby stealthed rogue. In fact, rogue (and by extension, feral druid) stealth is the single biggest reason why I don’t PvP with music on.
And for rogues, it’s all about timing. In the Battlegrounds, it isn’t uncommon to find rogues preying on the weak, those low on life, the defenseless players eating or drinking. They can’t help it. It’s in their nature. The class encourages foul play through Stealth and a wonderful repertoire of attacks from behind. Rogues are at their best when catching their opponents off guard and are extremely capable of doing so. After the jump, we’ll take a closer look at the basic things to expect when fighting a rogue regardless of their spec.
Stealth
As mentioned, Stealth is a rogue’s defining ability. Learned at Level 1, every rogue learns to sneak around and pounce on an opponent. It’s their single biggest trump card, the ability to remain unseen. In Arena play, it’s critical for the rogue to get the opener, as some of her most powerful attacks require her to be stealthed. Taking a rogue out of stealth removes the element of surprise so it’s important to be on your toes. If you see a rogue from a distance entering stealth, always be on the ready. While it is practically impossible to get the jump on a very good rogue, the good news is that there are quite a lot of mediocre rogues who get too close to an opponent assuming their stealth will keep them undetected.
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by Brian Wood
today we’re going to run down the advantages of the tier 9 and tier 10 hunter set bonuses for each of the three hunter specs, and suggest which way you should gear your hunter.
Older Sets
We’re only interested in the tier 9 and tier 10 sets. Anything older isn’t worthwhile for hunters. We don’t even care about the tier 9 4-piece bonus (not even if you’re BM). The only other older set that we’d ever want to hang onto is the tier 5 2-piece (from BC raids) for extreme soloing situations (it lets us automatically heal our pets for 15% of the damage we do).
Before we get into the spec by spec details, lets hit a quick review of our tier 9 and 10 sets.
Tier 9: Windrunner
There are three versions of the hunter tier 9 set:
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by Fox Van Allen
As promised, follow me after the break for the shadow priest’s guide to the Icecrown Plagueworks.
Your Mission: Stay alive. Inoculate yourself and others against Festergut’s raid-wide mega-attack. Pull out all the stops to maximize DPS, cause dude needs to die quick. Marvel at the guest appearance of Koffing above your head.
Festergut, especially in 25-man mode, is a pretty brutal DPS check. This means, of course, that your entire raid could do everything right, and you can still find yourself getting wiped by the enrage timer. To add to the challenge, as a ranged player, you’ll find that there’s a lot of movement involved and your DPS will lag behind the melee classes. Still, shadow priests bring more to a raid than just DPS, and it’s that extra utility that lets us shine here.
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by Gregg Reece
1. Typical PvE talent setup
The base talent build we’re going to look at is a very retribution build of 5/5/55 which gives us six points to do with as we wish. Now, there are generally two viewpoints on what you should do with these depending on which type of utility you want to provide. If you want access to Divine Sacrifice then you’d go 5/11/55 with those six points all in protection. However, if you’d rather provide a little debuff to your target’s attack power as well as have a wee bit more survivability, then you’d take Vindication as well as fill out the rest of the retribution tree with 5/5/61.
2. Talent overview
Talents in italics are optional, and you can flex your build to pick up or drop these based on utility you want to provide. If a talent is struck out, avoid it, as it provides little or no benefit to you as a damage dealer. I’ll only be covering the protection and holy talents that are relevant for a ret paladin to pursue.
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by Daniel Whitcomb
One of the most important things you can do to become a good death knight is to solidify your damage (or threat) rotation or priority system so that you can consistently keep your runes on cool down and your damage high. That said, it’s far from the only thing that marks a good DPS or tank. Another thing is flexibility.
Death Knights have a wide variety of tools and tricks that can turn the tide of a battle. These tricks can be hard to weave into your existing system without giving up your rotation, but there are tricks to making it easier, and sometimes the benefit outweighs having to mess up your rotation for a few seconds. Let’s take a look at 5 specific buttons that more death knight should be pushing.
Rune Strike
I’ve heard complaints from some death knights that their threat just doesn’t measure up to other tanks. Most of those death knights, I think, probably aren’t make full use of Rune Strike. Rune Strike is, if nothing else, the best way you can spend your runic power if you’re looking to gain threat. To truly maximize your threat, you should pretty much be hitting it every time it’s available (That is, right after a dodge or parry when you have the runic power). Of course, one major problem here is that it’s definitely a pain to remember to press it every time. Luckily, that’s when macros come to the rescue. For all of your major weapon strikes, simply create macros such as this:
#showtooltip
/cast (Ability)
/cast !Rune Strike
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by C. Christian Moore
The alliance have historically had worse PvP racials than their horde counterparts, but this might have changed in WotLK.
Remember back to a time when race changes didn’t exist. In vanilla WoW and The Burning Crusade, players had to reroll or deal with the racials that they originally chose, even if those racials got nerfed or buffed. These racials were also far more imbalanced than they are today, which added insult to injury for certain race / class combinations.
Dwarf
Stoneform: Activate to remove poison, disease, and bleed effects; +10% Armor; Lasts 8 seconds. 2 minute cooldown.
This racial is a shadow of what it once was. Pre-WotLK, this racial would give a 8 second immunity to poison, disease, and bleed effects. The difference is enormous — removing a 50% healing debuff in Wound Poison for an 8 second window allowed the dwarf to receive some massive heals. The racial was also on a three minute cooldown, but most PvPers will tell you that the shortened cooldown does not make up for the 8 second immunity. Dwarf priests and hunters had a much easier time surviving against rogues in The Burning Crusade, which is probably the reason the racial was nerfed for WotLK.
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by C. Christian Moore
Tauren
War Stomp: Activate to stun opponents – Stuns up to 5 enemies within 8 yards for 2 seconds. 2 minute cooldown.
This might just be personal bias, but I absolutely love War Stomp. It’s a racial that is often under-utilized — I see PvPers trying to use it defensively a lot of times. This thing is nothing short of an extra stun in a kill-target lockdown repertoire. It can also double as a silence to interrupt healers.
While War Stomp isn’t strictly better than Arcane Torrent, it comes pretty close. War stomp has a .5 second cast time, but works on everyone (silencing melee doesn’t do that much). The .5 second cast time can actually be a benefit, as you have more time off the global cooldown once the ability affects your target.
For an active racial (as opposed to a passive racial), it doesn’t get any better than War Stomp.
Endurance: Base health increased by 5%.
Because it’s only base health, this isn’t a big deal. If someone can tell me exactly how much hp this is, that would be awesome.
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