Kil’jaeden, the Sunwell Plateau end boss, has had a tough time lately. Since theEchoes of Doom patch, plenty of guilds have breezed through Sunwell and many of those have managed to kill him for the first time, signing off TBC raiding with a bang. Congratulations to them!

This is pretty symptomatic of raiding post-3.0.2 in general — while nothing on the surface has changed drastically, everything’s become a whole lot easier, as increased damage output, decreased mob health and relaxing of raid constraints all add up to great effect. Previously complex encounters become almost trivial and previously trivial encounters become hilarious, with a slight twist of nostalgia when remembering how hard they were first time round.
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Though I enjoy burning down raid bosses as much as the next Mage (especially now that the raid bosses in question are so much easier to burn down), I make no secret about the fact that my first love has always been burning down other players. When patch 3.0.2 landed so forcefully upon our heads, bearing with it a plethora of new and revamped spells and talents, I have to admit that my first burning question was not so much “how will this help me down Kil’jaeden,” as it was “how will this help me brutally slaughter the next Warlock I stumble across?”

Before the patch, Mage PvP could be distilled down to a couple of absolute truths. The first of these was: Spec Frost. The second was: You will lose to Warlocks, Druids, Priests, Hunters, and Rogues, and only reliably beat Warriors one on one. PvP was a known quantity. We knew based upon the matchup what our chances were, we knew our strengths and limitations, and we knew which spec worked the best (cough…17/0/44).
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It’s easy to be disappointed with Warlocks, really. The best tree we have right now is Affliction, and is just really fun to play while dealing incredible damage. This is sad news for a lot of players who enjoyed playing Demonology or liked pressing their Shadow Bolt button with a dead Succubus. For one thing, going deep Demonology nets us a half-baked 51-point talent (more on that later) and killing off your Succubus for 10% more Shadow damage doesn’t seem as compelling anymore.

To top it all off, we’re simply squishier than ever in PvP. We’ve lost Stamina, lowered survivability, and need to make major sacrifices in PvP if we’re to pursue deep Affliction or Destruction. Thankfully, Blizzard recognized this and –according to Ghostcrawler – will be making an important change to Soul Link by increasing the damage absorbed to 20%. It will still be inacessible if we take 51-point talents at Level 70, but it should be alright by Level 80. Unfortunately, when we finally get there, we’ll be sharing gear with lowlife Mages and Priests. I mean that literally — those guys simply used to have lower life totals.
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 First off, behold in all his cobbled together glory my orc shaman, wearing a miz of Karazhan, PvP, badge and heroic gear (with the exception of a blue mail chestplate from a quest) - wearing this gear I have successfully healed heroics, Headless Horseman attempts (but let us be honest, the new DPS and tanking abilities make that fight a complete joke at 70), and a variety of PuG raids including a relatively successful Black Temple PuG.

Right now, I’d say Restoration is a powerful healing spec, but the problem is, it’s hard to tell how powerful when all the content has been reduced to the point where fights that used to be hard can now just be muscled through. Prince Malchezzar, already a pushover once you’re in Tier 5 or better gear, died so fast on my most recent Kara run that I barely had time to cast a few Riptides. Phase 2? Oh, yeah, that already happened? This makes the effects of the downranking and potion changes on mana efficiency rather difficult to determine as we progress forward. For now, I have no mana issues whatsoever, because everything dies before I can even look crosseyed at my mana bar.
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Short and Simple guide for how to spec and spell rotations used for Warlocks soloing onyxia.

This is debatably the easiest and quickest class to solo Onyxia with, due to the newly released moves enabling Pet Mitigation and ae Scaling.( This said, i’m not sure how long it takes retardins these days).

During my attempts of this solo, i found that speccing 21 | 40 | 0 with the new Fel Synergy was the most efficient spec for this fight. Using a range of PvP gear ( stamina bonus) and PvE gear ( spell damage bonus) is not necessary, although it is advisable for a smoother, faster fight.

Spells to use: KEEP THEM DOTZ ROLLIN! Abuse life-drain as much as you want in this fight.
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With the advent of 3.0.2, Retribution Paladins have become absolute killing machines. Ret has joined the ranks of druids and holy paladins in the Onyxia soloing club.

WHAT YOU NEED:
-70 Retribution Paladin with T4+ gear (You can try this in blues, but I haven’t tried it).
-Patience (This fight can take in excess of 30 minutes solo)

WHAT YOU DON’T NEED:
-Fire resistance gear (In my experience, FR gear only gimps yourself in exchange for mediocre protection from fire. FR aura is sufficient.
-Consumables (You might need them if you’re doing this in blues, but like I said, T4 is all you need. You may wish to bring a couple extra healing potions just in case you lose mind of your health for some reason and can’t get a heal off.)
-Attunement (3.0.2 removed the need for the Drakefire Amulet to enter).
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My very first pet was a bat. As soon as my white-haired Troll turned Level 11, I hied off to Tirisfal Glades and sought out Ressan the Needler, one of only two tameable all-white bats in the game. Of course, some people mistook him for those semi-albino bats found in the Eastern Plaguelands, but true pet connoisseurs knew better. Even when Hunters started turning to those 1.0 speed bats from Zul’Gurub, I stuck to my white bat. All pets were eventually normalized but now in the Echoes of Doom, each pet has its own ability, making our choices of pets even more special and important.
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Now that the race of achievements has officially begun, players are going to great lengths to rack up some points. Some achievements are dead-easy, whileothers are going to take some work. 

Enter the fabled fish of Ironforge, stage left. [Old Ironjaw] is spoken of only in whispers, deep in the dwarven taverns. Rumors speculate that he is uncatchable, but this will not deter you. After all, you rival the legendary Nat Pagle, Angler Extreme with your fishing prowess.
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Now that the patch has been out for several days, players are slowly getting accustomed to various specs and talents. They’re trialing them now in raid situations to get a future handle for them when they hit raiding at 80. How well did they hold up?

Here’s a brief summary of the 3 raid specs I suggested:

14/47/0 (Traditional with CoH): Here’s the spec many Holy Priests are used to. Key talents include Meditation, Improved Power Word Fortitude, Surge of Light, Circle of Healing, Serendipity, and Improved Holy Concentration (up to 2 ranks). The emphasis is on trying to maximize your mana return as much as possible.

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