Having been over both trees, I’m no closer to a decision. For this post, we’ll take a look at the Priest talents, focussing on the Discipline tree, since that’s the one I have the most experience with. The Discipline tree has seen some huge changes in the early tiers, and the changes are interesting to say the least. From the addition of Power Word: Barrier to a slew of DPS talents, this is not the Discipline tree that we’ve been used to during Wrath. Not by a long shot.

The two Tier 1 talents are the same as they always have been, Twin Disciplines for boosting damage and healing… and the amount absorbed by Power Word: Shield! That’s right, Twin Disciplines now boosts absorption by 5% on top of the current effects. Or at least it finally tells you in the tooltip that it does, anyway. Unbreakable Will is the same good old PvP talent that it always has been.

Tier 2 now holds Improved Inner Fire and Martyrdom , no change there. Focused Power has been moved up from Tier 6, and is joined by a new talent called Penitence, which is a 3 point talent. Penitence increases the critical effect chance of Smite and Penance. Sounds weird, right? You wait until we get to Tiers 4 and 5.

Tier 3 still features Inner Focus and Improved Power Word: Shield, but has a new addition in the form of Atonement, 3 points. Atonement is… interesting. When you deal damage with Smite, you instantly heal a nearby low health target for 45% of the damage. Repeat after me: Erm, what?

Tier 4 gives us Evangelism, which requires Penitence. Evangelism increases the damage done by your Smite, Holy Fire, Holy Nova and Penance spells by 4% and reduces the mana cost of those spells by 6% for 15 seconds. 2 points, stacks 5 times. Now… I’ll forgive you for yelling “But that’s for levelling, you idiot!” Bear with me though. Tier 5 holds a surprise. Tier 4 still holds Mental Agility and Improved Mana Burn, so it’s not all strange territory!

Tier 5… the most important set of talents that I’ve ever seen. Ever. We’ll start with the boring one: Enlightenment. Increase total mana and health by 6%. Ok? Ok. That’s that bit done. Now, for the good stuff:

Archangel: Consumes your Evangelism effects, instantly restoring 3% of your total mana and increasing your healing done by 3% for each stack. Also allows you to channel Penance while moving. Lasts 18 seconds.
That, ladies and gents, is insane. And you know what? I love it. We don’t yet know whether it’s an on use effect (I’m guessing so), or whether it’ll have a cooldown. I’m sure it will though.

The other amazing talent that we’ve been waiting for is…

Power Word: Barrier! Summons a holy barrier on the target location that absorbs 293.25 damage done to party or raid members within it each time they take damage. While within the barrier, spellcasting will not be interrupted by damage. The barrier lasts for 15 sec or until it absorbs 1955 damage.

That’s the new stuff, pretty much. Soul Warding has moved down to Tier 6, and is now a 3 point talent that reduces the cooldown by 3 seconds and reduces the mana cost of Power Word: Shield by 15%.
Everything under that is exactly as it always was, bar a little fiddling around of positions. The old staples of Rapture, Divine Aegis, Grace (with some changes to the stack effect, IE it now provides a 12% buff to healing), Pain Suppression, and of course Penance are still present.

Now, I may be reading the signals wrong, but I suspect that what’s happening here is that Blizzard are trying to push us towards a bit of combat healing. It’s not a playstyle that suits everyone, so it’s going to be very interesting to see how people react to this preview.

Personally, I think it’s a great idea. I’m not just saying that for the sake of agreeing with Blizzard either. I love dealing damage while in a healing capacity, not for the big numbers or anything like that, but for spicing up the encounters. This kind of meld between offensive and defensive spellcasting is perfectly suited for the Discipline tree. The DPS talents in the Discipline tree are perfectly complimented by a few similar talents in the base of the Holy tree. Talents like Divine Fury, and Searing Light which reduce the cast time and boost the damage of your DPS and Penance spells respectively. Divine Accuracy on the second Tier, which increase your chance to hit with Smite, Holy Fire, Holy Nova and Penance.

Holy, whilst containing DPS boosting talents, simply does not have the same synergy as Discipline when it comes to slipping in some Smites or Holy Fires whilst healing. Discipline is a mobile spec, you can run around the place without people dying in the time it takes to get from A to B. The addition of Atonement and Evangelism, and especially Archangel show a desire to get Discipline Priests doing more than just spamming bubbles and firing off Penance every 12 seconds.

If our Discipline tree looks anything like this preview when Cataclysm launches, I’ll be a very happy Priest.

Ah yeah, just as some food for thought… don’t expect it to last but, Discipline may well have another trick up it’s sleeve if Blizzard are feeling really generous:
http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#bVI0uGhckhsffRtMEzcc00000000M

There’s a single free point there. I’d like to draw your attention to a signature Holy talent on Tier 5. Something to think about, eh?

Blizzard has released information on the new talent trees for Druids, Priests, Rogues and Shamans.  We have started threads on our forums and would love it if you guys would jump in and start discussing what these changes could actually mean for you and your class.

Druid Forum

Priest Forum

Rogue Forum

Shaman Forum

We will add the other classes as the information comes out.

Check out the Cataclysm talent calculator on the link below too!

http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#h

Welcome to the first edition of Wipe Insurance, Waranvil.com’s new raiding column. This will be posted every monday, so make sure you come back every week for new strategies, tips and tricks! This week we are going to discuss when you are ready to raid. So you’ve just dinged 80 and all you’ve heard about since level 5 is endgame raiding – many people will tell you its where the real game is, you level up and may even do some raids at your level along the way. But entering the current endgame raiding is different. Theres tiers, caps, stat weights, enrage timers, gearscore, jerks, death knights in full tier 9 doing 2k dps (Theres a lot of them…), casual, hardcore, no-lifers, hard modes…its enough to make your head spin.

What should you run?

The number one thing I can recommend to people who want to start raiding is to know your limits.
The way blizzard tunes instances (Gearwise anyway) is so that it is just hard enough for people wearing gear from the last tier of content (and assuming a reasonable amount of skill). The problem with this is…people want the newest gear and freshly dinged 80’s want to run ICC. If you get into that ICC 10 group in your Naxx 10 or Uld 10 gear, there is a very (very) good chance you will not be up to the minimum requirements for that instance. This, boys and girls, is a carried player. Being carried will not get you invited back to runs, and it will most likely put you on a few players ignore lists, hurting your future raiding attempts – even after  you have the gear to pull your weight. Stay in your bracket and get gear, it doesn’t take long to move up the ladder.

Disclaimer: The badge leap

When WotLK first came out, there were 2 badge types you could get: Heroism and Valor. You got heroism from running heroics, and the 10 man tier 7 raids. The gear you got from badges was on par with running the raid content. These days, you can get a full set of tier 9, and its 25 man counterparts (245 gear) just from chain-running heroics. Thats great, its a great way to gear up -  but I still suggest doing the tier 7/tier 8 raids before jumping straight into ToC or ICC, they give excellent experience in your class and in raiding techniques. Below are the raid tiers and a dps mark of where you should be to do them. These are numbers are based on the way the encountered are tuned and failure to meet them may lead to your raid having difficulty. Think of it this way – if you dont meet the minimum, everyone else in the raid has to work harder to make sure it succeeds.

Tier 7

• Tier 7 is the entry level raiding tier in wrath – as such, the gear requirements are lax and you can pretty much jump into these raids with heroic gear.
• This tier comprises of Naxxramas, Obsidian Sanctum and The Eye of Eternity. To run tier 7, you can pretty much be a fresh 80. A few heroic drops, some level 200 craftables – your good to go. The main purpose for these raids is to wet your feet in raiding, give you a taste of its glory. By the time you have completed these raids and gotten a few pieces – you will be ready for the 25 man version of tier 7 and the 10 man Tier 8 stuff.
  • Fasttrack: The ToC 5 man dungeon will drop Naxx 10 level gear in normal mode and Ulduar 10 in normal. The ICC 5 man dungeons also drop Ulduar 10 level gear on normal. These are a great way to get gear without raiding the tier 7 stuff.
  • DPS Mark: 1.5-2.5k

Tier 8

• Tier 8 is comprised of the Ulduar raid, which is an amazingly well done raid that most players these days will never do. The prerequisites for this tier are gear from Tier 7 or higher.
  • Fasttrack: The ICC 5 man dungeons drop ToC 10 level gear on heroic. If you are in mostly Tier 7 or ToC 5H/ICC 5N gear these heroics are manageable and an excellent way to gear up.
  • DPS Mark: 2.5-3.5k

Tier 9

• Tier 9 is comprised of Trial of the Champion , which gets a real bad rep, and Onyxia’s Lair 2.0 (Which is easy if you understand the basics of movement) . Once you have farmed tier 8 or heroics, this will probably be where most of your upgrades are. As I said before, I highly suggest you do the previous tier raids before this. There is not a whole lot of room for error in these fights – you need to know how to play your class, what your utility is and how not to stand in the fire/slime/cloud.
  • DPS Mark: 3.5-5.5k

Tier 10

• Tier 10 is the final tier of raiding in Wrath, and is comprised of Icecrown Citadel and the soon to be released Ruby Sanctum.|
  Icecrown Citadel is the culmination of all that  you have done in wrath, and the fights are great – but some of them come with serious gear and skill checks.
  • DPS Mark: 5.5k-7.5k

With the badge changes in this expansion, it will be easy to get geared in a matter of time, but until you meet the gear requirements – try to resist the urge to go into runs you are not ready for. Now, I am a firm believer that skill heavily outweighs gear, and that a 200 piece can be better itemized than a 219, it happens. This brings me to my next point.

Know your class.

I know you know your class, but do you really know your class? Do you know what buffs you bring to the table? Is your spec giving you the best tools you need to do your job? Are you stacking stats that give you more of what you need to do your job?

Ok, I’m probably going to catch some flack for the numbers above, but if you are in a gear setup that the instance is tuned for (see above), you should not have problems meeting these numbers. If you are in all ToC 10 and 25 gear and can just barely hit 3k, ask yourself – “Do I really know my class?”. Blizzard tunes the enrage timers and add health around what they expect (from lots of data gathering) players wearing a certain gear setup to put out.

If you happen to be a tank, here are some numbers that are good checkpoints to START tanking a specific raid.Keep in mind these numbers are unbuffed. As you can see, health requirements scale up significantly, this is due to bosses progressively hitting harder as you go up in tier.

Minium Tank Requirements per instance: (ALWAYS at least 540 defense.)

• Heroics/Naxx 10: 20-23k health, 20-30% avoidance, 20-23k armor.
• Naxx 25/Ulduar 10: 23-25k health,30-40% avoidance, 22-25k armor.
• Ulduar 25/ToC 10: 27-29k health, 40-50% avoidance, 25-27k armor.
• ToC 25: 33-35k health, 45-50% avoidance, 27-28k armor.
• ICC 10: 35-38k health, 45-55% avoidance, 29-30k armor.
• ICC 25: 39-44k health, 50%+ Avoidance, 30k+ armor. (The icecrown numbers reflect the current 20% buff).

Be prepared.

There are mountains of information out there regarding raids, bosses and abilities. Videos, if you like to watch – text guides otherwise! Its all out there, It will even be here in this column. Theres no excuse for going into a run dry – if you have at least a passing familiarity of what the encounter is like, it will go a little smoother when you attempt it. Also, if this is content that is challenging for you (or geared towards you) be prepared with consumables. Bring your own flasks, pots, elixirs and food. Most groups will provide fish feasts, but is that the best food buff you can get? Always try to do your best.

Ok,I’m Ready! I got my flasks, know my class, and studied the encounters!

Great! Come back next week when we discuss the art of being a good pug, and until then happy raiding!

We’ll start with the Shaman. I enjoy healing with mine, and throwing on an Elemental spec and hurling balls of lightning and lava at people is just downright awesome as well, but I’ve always felt there’s something lacking about the class. Levelling is a pain, due to a confusing mix of ranged and melee range attacks, although downtime isn’t too bad now we have the increased health and mana regen at lower levels. I think my issue with the Shaman is that feeling of being nailed to the floor. You place your totems, and… well, you usually end up anchored to them. The lack of mobility and repetitive rotations make for a good, just not exciting playing experience.

I’m expecting big things of the Shaman come Cataclysm however. A melee attack gained at level 3 will push Enhancement to better performance at lower levels. A new heal at level 4 will keep the martyrs healers interested and give some extra survivability to those hellish points where you pull 3 mobs too many. Really though, the goodies start rolling in when enter the early 80s. Unleash Weapon (level 81): Unleashes the power of your weapon enchants for additional effects. The nature of the spell changes with the enchant, making it viable for every spec. It’s instant cast, with a shortish cooldown of 15 seconds… Shamans just got a new attack/heal to play with! There’s Healing Rain, which is pretty self explanatory. It rains, and people it rains on get healed. What more do you want? At 85 though, you get possibly the coolest spell Shamans could ask for: Spiritwalker’s Grace. For 10 seconds, you can move while casting. Let me repeat that again, just in case you missed it. You can move while casting. That there is going to be good. Really good. Really, really good. I said I was expecting big things of the Shaman. I suspect I will not be disappointed.

Priests! Without wanting to sound like I do nothing else with my life, I have an Undead Priest at 80, currently dual specced for Shadow and Discipline. I prefer Discipline (I liked it before it was cool, I’ll have you know), but you can’t go wrong melting some faces. I’m of the rare (and probably wrong) opinion that there’s not much you can do with Priests really. Every spec I’ve tried has been absolutely fine, but then I’m not ripping through ICC25 Heroic.

So far, we know that Priests are getting a basic nuke for those occasions where DoTs just aren’t going to cut it. That’s… alright I guess. Nothing special is it? An instant cast spell, on a caster class? Big whoop. Shadow gets a few more interesting abilities, such as Shadow Orbs, but overall I wasn’t expecting a lot of changes to that spec, and it seems we won’t be getting many either. Holy gets a neat little ability that increases the healing from a spell the more you use it, which is a good idea in theory. How well it will pan out is anyone’s guess, but provided it’s balanced right it should give some interesting results. An alternative to Inner Fire will apparently be available… and it’s sounds rubbish. Increased movement speed and 10% mana cost reduction on instant cast spells. As opposed to more armour and spellpower. Yeah… best leave that alone, for the moment. Finally, the big 85 ability will Leap of Faith, which is Death Grip in reverse. The potential for abuse of this spell is off the scale. It’s beyond the scale. It’s so far away from the scale that the scale is nothing more than a dot on the horizon. I can’t wait to see how long it lasts.

Oh yeah, and Discipline is getting Power Word: Barrier. Nearly forgot about that.*

*Best news of the expansion. Ever. EVER.

Finally, we’ll finish this segment off with the Rogue. Last time I played mine in Burning Crusade, stabbing people was the order of the day, and as far as I know that’s not changed. The Rogue only really does 2 things: Hit people, and hit people hard to make them wander around in a daze. They have a neat toolbox of little tricks, like lockpicking and disctracting mobs, but really it boils down to “Where is that guys spine and how do I stick something in it?”.

To that end, Rogues are getting the ability to move their combo points from one target to another on the fly, which should be good. They’re also getting a stacking damage reduction ability, which they need. My Hunter’s Hyena has more armour than a Rogue. They get killed far too easily if you get the jump on them. Finally, they get Smoke Bomb, which is kind of like Anti-Magic Zone, only unbelievably awesome. Throw down the smoke, and anything outside it’s area of effect loses it’s target on you, and cannot hit you with single target abilities. I see one major issue with this, however. I doubt Smoke Bomb will be a subtle ability. I suspect everyone will know when it’s happened, and the area it occupies will suddenly be the target of every AOE capable class in the game, all of them laying down the hurt.

Next time, Hunters, Mages and Warlocks. Tune in for Part 3 later in the week!

Hi there, as you may already know, we here at Waranvil.com want to make this site better, and we want to give you more content! A good way to start would be some regular class specific columns for you guys and girls! So welcome to the brand new Waranvil.com hunter column Double Killshot, making its debut here and continuing every wednesday! Ok, thats enough exlamations (thats what the kids like now, right? Exclamations?) To kick this column off we are going to do a standard “get to know your class stats” rundown.

Keep in mind these stat explanations are for PvE, leveling and beginning endgame. Extreme soloing is a different matter, and will most likely be discussed at a later time. There will also be a lot of talk about itemization points,and  that article will follow next week.

Base stats: We call these the base stats since they are basically our bread and butter. Pretty much every piece of gear you get from level 10 on will feature at least one of these.

• Agility: Agility is your number one stat. From just one point of Agility you get .012% crit and 1 attack power.
• Intellect: Intellect is a stat you will never gem for, but you will miss it at the early levels of endgame and leveling. Intellect, like all caster stats, will give you a bit of mana, a bit of mp5, and a small bit of spell crit. From a pure dps standpoint, int is nice because it lets us have less time in aspect of the viper, and less viper time = more damage. Also keep in mind that 1 point of intellect is equal to 1 ap if you took careful aim in the marks tree.
• Strength: Strength gives you MELEE ATTACK POWER. You don’t want strength. Move along. No, I don’t care that your pet uses your melee attack power and you specced beast mastery. Move along.
• Stamina: Stamina is tricky. If you are specced survival, it will provide a small dps boost (and piss off the druid tank you keep rolling against staves on). Other than that its only real value is giving you more padding against unavoidable damage. Avoidable damage is avoidable and you really don’t need to stack stamina.

Secondary stats: These are the secondary stats that appear on your gear (the green text), most of these you will not deal with until level 25 and higher, and are more of the contested and varying levels in your set.

Hit: Hit is important, you want to cap it at 8% (7% if you are, or know you will run with, a draenai). Anything over 8% is wasted itemization. Try to balance your gear around the hit cap if you can.

Crit: Critical Strike Rating is very important to us as hunters, a great deal of our trinkets and talents proc off of crits, so you want to make sure you keep a high crit rate to keep dps up.

Attack Power: Attack power is good. It scales our dps (like agility) very well. Not as good as agility, but close, due to the fact that you get double the itemization points.

Expertise: Like strength above, expertise is for melee classes. I understand there are some pieces that look pretty great when just gearing up (Uruka’s Band of Zeal, I’m looking at you.) and they are ok to take them as a stepping stone to better gear. Its just wasted itemization in the end though. (In case you are wondering about your pet, they get expertise equal to your hit rating.)

Spellpower: Back in Burning Crusade, Arcane Shot scaled from spellpower because…its arcane. Anyway, it doesn’t anymore, so stay away from spellpower-it does nothing for us.

Haste: Haste is not a bad stat, but not a great one either. It will speed up your steady shots and auto-shots (It becomes more valuable with 2t10, where more auto-shots = more procs), but it’s not worth gemming for.

Armor Penetration: Armor penetration, to put it simply (because the real explanation is very mathy) reduces the amount of armor your target has, thus increasing the amount of physical damage they take. It also gets better the more of it that you have! I do however have to issue the following big red warning label:

>>IF YOU ARE NOT IN FULL ICC 25/ICC 10 HEROIC GEAR, YOU SHOULD NOT BE GEMMING ARMOR PEN, YOU SHOULD NOT STOP USING ARCANE SHOT<<

Let me explain. There is a special spot in gearing for Marks hunters where ArP actually becomes worth more dps than agility. This is somewhere around the 850-950 ArP mark from gear alone. It also requires more than 4k attack power and over 50% crit. At this point, its usually more dps to drop the improved arcane shot talent and drop arcane shot from your rotation in order to get more steady shots off. It also comes with the condition that if you have to move, you will lose a good deal of dps.

I cannot tell you how many times I have zoned into a ToC or Ulduar run just to see a hunter with 100 ArP from gear, all gemmed up for ArP, just leaving potential dps on the floor.
Bottom line for ArP: Gem Agility, but take whatever ArP you can get from gear – as long as stat wise – its an upgrade.

Not all stats are created equal and we will go heavily into stat weights and itemization points next wednesday! All feedback is welcome in the comments, including column topics.

For those who are interested in my credentials: Armory

What’s got me thinking though, is wondering how deep the class changes are going to go. Blizzard have given a few hints and tips about what’s going to happen, but at this stage most of it is meaningless noise. That doesn’t stop us from being able to speculate and hope though, right? That’s what these guys were doing after a jaunt through Karazhan the other day:

A change that I’ve found interesting is the decision to make Tree of Life a cooldown, as opposed to a permanent form change for Druids. I only ever got into the early 30s with my Druid, but the defining feature of our nature loving friends is that they are capable of changing their form at will to augment and improve the abilities of their chosen spec. A Druid that stays in caster form… I don’t really know how to approach that idea. On the one hand, Tree of Life is currently a flat buff that happens to change the way you look, but then again so is Moonkin form and Shadowform. As yet, we’ve no suggestion that those forms are going to be altered in any way. Tree of Life will be something to keep an eye out on, I think. It’ll be… interesting, to see how that works out.

Warriors are getting their Rage normalised come Cataclysm, which sounds like a good idea on paper but I suspect will take a lot of tweaking come the time. At the moment my experience of Warriors in dungeons seems revolve around an equal split of them either having so much rage they don’t know what to do with it or so little that they either can’t keep aggro or can’t do enough DPS to stay on the meters at all. Normalising that vital component is going to take some work.

Death Knights… well, I don’t know how much change they’ll see. We already know that Blood is going to be the tanking tree, Frost the dual wield tree, and Unholy the 2hand DPS tree… so, basically it’s going to be how it is at end game now pretty much. Sounds like a big change, but really most of the ground work has already been done by the players. I’m intend to enjoy the last hurrah of Unholy tanking as I level my Death Knight, but I won’t be gutted when Blood becomes THE tree for that. As long as Unholy keeps the permanent Ghoul, I’m happy.

Now… a class close to my heart. The Paladin. I rolled mine well after they became popular. I started healing just after Holy got nerfed. I tanked before Ardent Defender got fixed. I even played Retribution, despite my deep dislike of DPSing. Whatever they do to Paladins, it can’t be enough. Despite my love my tankadin, Paladins are… boring. That’s it. They are boring. As Retribution, you get a choice 5 buttons to press. The way you decide which of these to press is simple. You press whichever button is linked to the ability which isn’t on cooldown. It’s mind numbing. As a tank, you start your 6969 rotation, and once you’ve started, you’re locked into it until either you or the mobs you’ve attacked are dead. Boring. As Holy, you cast Beacon of Light, maybe Judgement of Wisdom, and the Flash of Light, pretty much for the same duration as the tank does his rotation, i.e. until either you or the group of mobs are dead. BORING.

Whatever happens, I hope Blizzard do something to mix up the Paladin class a bit. It’s referred to as a face roll class, and as one of it’s staunchest supporters, I can honestly see why. It’s just so… BORING! The new cooldowns and abilities that are being added should be interesting, and provide a bit more in terms of choice and rotation for all 3 specs, but it’s going to take more than a few new shiny spells to make the class less dull and listless.

Part 2 will be up later in the week, after I’ve found things to moan about with my Priest and Shaman.

A couple weeks back as I was levelling an alt through Hillsbrad, when a level 71 Deathknight sends me a message.

Hey, I’m leaving the game do you want my gold?

Never in all the years I’ve played has anyone ever given me gold!  In fact its usually me giving out the gold to such choice characters as Kirioth (I’m sure he’ll only but agree).  So you can imagine, when I received this message I was in a state of shock.

Then it struck me, this can’t be real.  Its clearly somebody taking the piss.  Hell, this is World of Warcraft.

I replied, saying I’d only be to happy to get hold of this money as it could be put to good use.  Alts don’t magically get flying you know, some poor fool has to pay for it.  The Deathknight then assured me he’d send all his Azerothian wealth to me over the mail system.  If I get the money it would be great, if not….its just another goon messing around, I’d just have to take it on the chin like any other hero.

The next day, I have this waiting for me:

Holy shit!  He actually sent me the money.  Now I’m in a total state of shock and awe.  A random player contacts me, sends me a large sum of gold and waves goodbye.  I’m not a rich man in game by anyone’s stretch of the imagination so this gold will help me out loads.

Has this happened to anyone else?  Share it with us in the comments if it has!

So to you Daplff, if your out there.

Thanks /bow

I may not be an expert on being a druid, but I do know that strength is something very beneficial for us in cat and bear form.  And during this wonderful instance, I was in cat form as dps.  I was the lowest level in the instance by two levels.  The rest of the group were 49-54.

I suppose I wouldn’t have lost it had I not asked first.  I never need what I don’t need and when I do need I always ask.  I’m usually overly patient, and friendly when dealing with PUGs.  I was a little surprised by how I reacted, but I’m certainly glad I reacted the way that I did.

So the summoned boss, Atal’alarion drops Headspike.

I thought it was really nice and a way much faster weapon with more damage than what I had equipped.  Plus it still had strength and it had stamina too which is always nice.  The point is, everyone in the group selected greed.  And it wasn’t like it was a Mail item or a Sword for goodness sake.  Other than to vent my frustrations, I do believe it is important to discuss the importance of understanding the different stats and how it applies to your specific class.

Since the genius is on my server, and for the sake of respecting people’s anonymity I will make up names instead of using real ones.

***

Genius has selected Greed for: Headspike.

Shammy has selected Greed for: Headspike.

Tank has selected Greed for: Headspike.

DPS has selected Greed for: Headspike.

me:  Hey guys can I need?

Genius (level 54 who was also the healer and Dungeon Guide):  I don’t care

So I clicked on need.

me:  Thanks

Genius:  “WHYD YOU NEED?”

Genius:  WTF?

Genius:  omg

Genius:  WHY

Me:  it’s a polearm

Me:  and it has strength

Genius:  no

Genius: ITS NOT

Me:  ummm yes it is

Me:  can you not read?

Genius:  no its not

Genius: YES

me:  Linked Headspike

Genius:  IM A GENIOUS (who can’t even spell the word genius)

Genius:  THATS NOT A POLEARM

(at this point I wasn’t sure if he was just messing with me.  Clearly this weapon is a polearm!)

me:  yeah ok

Genius:  THATS AHEAD SPIKE

me:  you’re retarded

Genius:  NO

Shammy:  Druid’s don’t need strength

Genius:  IM A GENIOUS

me:  well genious…(clearly mocking him)

me:  it’s mine

Genius:  Druids need Agi your idiot

me:  whatever

Tank:  why kick?

Genius:  Rolled on loot that he didn’t need

You have been removed from the group.

Needless to say, Genius has been /ignored.  These are the kinds of dynamics you get into when doing random dungeons.  95% of the time, you end up grouped with some very decent players.  And the instance becomes fun, and you meet people you wish were actually on the same server as you.  The above conversation isn’t one of those times, but very comical.

So do Druids need strength or am I really an idiot?

What does strength mean for a feral druid?  What do the rest of the Attributes mean?

There are five primary attributes: strength, agility, stamina, intellect, and spirit.

These are known as simply “stats”.  (source)

Strength/Str

Increases AP (attack power) with melee weapons.  Warriors, Death Knights, Druids, and Paladins get 2 melee attack power for every point of Strength.  For example:  +15 strength, would give me the druid, 30 additional AP with my melee attacks.  This also applies to when I’m in cat form and bear form

Strength and Agility have a unique relationship to where they both affect dps-but on different levels.   Strength affects dps in a linear manner, while Agi affects dps by increasing the player’s chance to do critical damage.  The way it equates, there is a point of equilibrium where 1 point in Strength=1 point in Agility.  This point of equilibrium is when your dps equals 314.16 (This calculated equilibrium point is based on 100% increased damaged on Crit derived solely from Agi.  There are cases where you get a source of secondary crit such as feral druids or rogues that will make Agi more important than Str before the equilibrium point.  If you are more interested in PVP, Agi might also be preferred as it will give you more boost in spike damage compared to sustained damage.)  As long as your dps is below 314.16, it is more beneficial to put +1 Strength into your character, than +1 agility.  Usually you will break the point of equilibrium by the time you reach close to  L60 at which point, it will be more beneficial for you to concentrate on Agi vs. Str.   Right now, looking at recount, at level 47 my damage is at 111.1.  So Strength is more beneficial for my character than agility at this point.

Agility/Agi

Increases AP with ranged weapons (except for wands) and for melee weapons for certain classes.

For hunters, warriors and rogues, +1 agility gains them 1 ranged AP.

For druids (in cat form), hunters, shamans and rogues, +1 Agi equals +1 melee AP.

+1 Agi increases armor by 2.

It also increases the chance to score a critical hit with a weapon.

Depending on class and level, Agi can increase the chance to dodge attacks.

Stamina/Sta

Is wonderful for everyone.  Basically it increases your health, and if you have pets, it increases their health as well.  Certain classes get bonuses for stamina if they choose certain specs.  Druids for example get 2% Stamina bonus in bear form with Heart of the Wild.  Read the article about Stamina.  It is very easy to understand, and I couldn’t word it any better.

Intellect

Intellect has to do  with mana.  How much mana you have.  Which is extremely important for a lot of classes, especial those who heal..And yes, it is important if you are a druid and you’re a tree.  Intellect has the ability to help you with mana regeneration but is subject to diminishing returns, unlike the mana regen you get from spirit.  Read all about it here.  With Patch 3.0, Shammys also get +1 attack power for every point in Intellect.

Spirit

Spirit increases health and mana regeneration.  You can’t gain health while in combat, except if you’re a troll.  Trolls have a racial ability to gain 10% of their total health even during combat.

Your mana regenerates while in combat except for the first immediate five seconds after casting a spell.  This is known as The Five Second Rule, or FSR.

I hope that this article will be beneficial to some people and perhaps it will reduce the chance of people ever saying “Druids don’t need strength..”

Hey all, its patch day again!

Now before you go running screaming into the night and threatening to cancel your account, lets note that its just a minor patch – but it brings some nice changes.

Big General Changes:

• The long awaited equipment manager has made it live.
• Gear now scales SotA and Wintergrasp vehicles.
• Wintergrasp quests are now weekly instead of daily.

A few class tweaks and bug fixes in the full notes included after the jump.

General

• When enabled from the Interface Options menu, this feature will allow players to store sets of equipment, easily swap between saved sets using hotkeys, and pull items directly from backpacks or bank slots (must be at the bank to equip inventory from the bank).

• Equipment Manager
• New art textures have been added for Argent Tournament mounts. Any mounts already purchased from the Argent Tournament vendors will be updated automatically. Argent Tournament mounts with the old textures will still be available for purchase from the Argent Tournament vendors for a small Champion’s Seal and gold cost (standard faction requirements apply).
• Copied Test Realm characters will no longer be copied with their achievement history in order to better facilitate the character copy process.

PVP

• Vehicle health and damage output in Strand of the Ancients and Lake Wintergrasp now scale with the item level of the operator’s gear. Power scaling is now 1% damage and 1% health per average item level.
• All Lake Wintergrasp daily quests have been changed to a weekly format. The honor and Stone Keeper’s Shards rewarded for completing these quests have been increased to compensate.

Death Knights

• Improved Death Strike: This talent now also increases the healing from Death Strike by 25/50% and the tooltip has been adjusted to reflect the actual functionality after the hotfix in 3.1.0.
• Ghoul Frenzy: Now has a 10-second cooldown.

Druids

• Innervate: This ability has been redesigned to grant 450% of the casting Druid’s base mana pool to the target over 20 seconds.
• Improved Moonkin Form: Now grants 10/20/30% of spirit as spell power.

Hunters

Mages

• Mirror Images: The images summoned by this spell will now target the creature that most hates the Mage, and should no longer cast Fire Blast or Frostbolt on targets that are affected by crowd control debuffs that break immediately on damage unless they are already casting these spells when crowd control is applied.

Paladins

• Blessing of Wisdom and Greater Blessing of Wisdom: Now grant 92 mana per 5 seconds to prevent being overwritten by Mana Spring Totem.
• Exorcism: Can no longer be used on player-controlled creatures.

Priests

• Divine Hymn: Healing and healing scaling reduced by 30%. Buff on affected players changed from 15% to 10%.
• Renewed Hope: Effect can no longer be dispelled.
• Soul Warding: Mana cost reduction is now 15% down from 30%.

Warlocks

• Conflagrate updated: Consumes an Immolate or Shadowflame effect on the enemy target to instantly deal damage equal to 12 seconds of your Immolate, or 8 seconds of your Shadowflame. In addition, the increased critical strike chance of Conflagrate provided by this talent no longer requires the Immolate effect to have 5 seconds or fewer remaining on the target.
• Fire and Brimstone: Now increases the damage done by your Incinerate and Chaos Bolt by 3/6/9/12/15% on targets afflicted by Immolate, and increases the critical strike chance of your Conflagrate by 5/10/15/20/25%.
• Nether Protection reduced to 30% damage reduction, down from 60%.
• Sacrifice (Voidwalker) redesigned: Sacrifices a portion of the Voidwalker’s health, giving its master a shield that will absorb X damage for 30 seconds. While the shield holds, spell casting will not be interrupted by damage. 1-minute cooldown.
• Shadow and Flame: Now also includes Shadowburn.

Warriors

• Juggernaut: Critical strike chance bonus reduced to 25%, down from 100%.

Items

• Glyph of Innervate: Has been adjusted to grant the Druid 90% of his or her base mana pool over 20 seconds.
  Glyph of Mass Dispel: Now only decreases Mass Dispel cost by 35%.
  Glyph of Rapid Charge: Reduced to 7%, down from 20% cooldown reduction to Charge.
• Arena weapons with an item level of 239 have had their rating requirements increased to 2350.
• Darkruned Battlegear 2-Piece Set Bonus: The bonus critical strike chance for Frost Strike and Death Coil has been increased from 5% to 8%.
• Furious Gladiator’s Staff and Furious Gladiator’s Greatstaff: The agility values on these two items were too high. They have been reduced by 50%.
• Glyphs
• Guise of the Midgard Serpent: The base attack power on this item has been lowered to balance it against items of a similar quality.
• Increased the health and mana restored from Northrend food and drinks.
• Most scopes now have a level requirement and will bind the item to which they are applied.
• Nightsong Garb 4-Piece Set Bonus: Chance for Insect Swarm to trigger an instant Starfire changed to 15%.
• Scourgeborne Battlegear 4-Piece Set Bonus: The runic power gain has been reduced to 5 runic power from 10 runic power.
• Ulduar 10-player hard mode weapons have been updated to item level 232.

Professions

• Jewel of the Sewers: You can now fish in all parts of the Dalaran sewers for this quest.
  Phantom Ghostfish: Can now be caught from Nettlefish schools in Sholazar Basin.

User Interface

• For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros forum.

Bug Fixes

• Anti-magic Shell: Tooltip error corrected.
• Blood Boil: If no target is available for Blood Boil to hit, the spell will now cast and consume a blood rune but generate no runic power.

• Maim: Rank 2 of this ability is properly considered a stun and can be escaped by Blink.

• Go For The Throat: Explosive Shot critical strikes now trigger this talent.
• Lock and Load: The tooltip has been corrected to display its actual chance to occur.
• Rabid: This Hunter pet talent no longer lists a percentage chance to be triggered, as that chance varies by the attack speed of the pet.

• Divine Sacrifice: Damage done to the Paladin while this is active will no longer cause the effect to break early, and if it is dispelled or cancelled early, the damage counter will reset correctly the next time the spell is cast.

• Shadow Dance: Issues with action bars and ability use arising from using Stealth while Shadow Dance is active have been fixed.
• Tricks of the Trade: To prevent exploits, this ability can no longer be cast on non-player targets.

• Demonic Sacrifice: This spell will no longer appear in any Warlock’s spellbook.

• Swordguard Embroidery: Now correctly increases ranged attack power.
• Tailoring

• Ulduar
  • Hodir should now reset in a timely manner if a group fails to kill him.
  • 10-player bosses that drop Runed Orbs will also sometimes drop the recipes that use those orbs.
  • The Spark of Imagination: Characters that release in part of the boss room will no longer be ported to Westfall or The Barrens.

So there I am, sitting in stormwind, watching the hustle-and-bustle of the trade district all around me, when it pops into my chat window.

“I nedz 10g can i has plz thx” (actual spelling, yes.)

Now being the kind and compassionate light-following paladin that I am, I decided to engage our poor illiterate friend. Join me after the jump so you don’t be this guy.

[Me] “I’m sorry, what?”
[Poorboy] “nedz 10g”
[Me] “For what?”
[Poorboy] (After a 2 minute silence) “train”
[Me] “Training at level 5 does not cost 10g. Maybe, maybe 50s.”
[Poorboy] “I nedz can i has”
[Me] “Im going to ask you a question.”
[Poorboy] “k”
[Me] “What are your professions?”
[PB] “First aid mining”
[Me] “Ok, what you are going to want to do is march into that forest over there, and start mining copper. It should fetch you about 3g/stack on the AH.”
[PB] “whats ah”
[Me] “Auction House”
[PB] “k”
[Me] “Good luck.”
[PB] “can i has 5 g plz”
/ignore Poorboy

Well, I tried. OK, so it wasn’t an actual conversation, but it was based on a real one, with that same spelling and line of questioning. There was a guildie (we can just can just call him poorboy for now) who would ask – everyday- to borrow 3g. And everyday, I would get into the same line of questioning and conversation, like clockwork.

So I’ve decided, in an effort to stop these people, to help you crit your wallet as a low level character.

Questing

Now, while I shouldn’t have to say this… questing is a huge source of money, gear, rep and xp.
Its kind of a one-stop shop for everything you need while leveling, and there are so many quests to do.
Poorboy would often reply that he did not want to quest, because it was too hard.
So lets assume that you, like poorboy, cannot stand questing.
Since questing is such a great rewarder of all things, you are leaving yourself at a great disadvantage by not doing it.
But, you can use your professions to help make up that money.

Killing Humanoids

Killing things is one of those nice by-products of questing, and killing humanoids will net you a modest income. They drop money, cloth (which always sells in the auction house), grey trash (vendor it for more money) and greens/blues (Do not vendor these – put them in the auction house or disenchant.) See the Auction House topic further down.

Professions

Your character has the ability to learn two primary professions and unlimited (well up to three because there are only three) secondary professions. Some are better for money-making than others. You see, the professions themselves, they generate income. Its complex. (100 internets to anyone who gets the joke.)

Primary professions

There are eight primary professions to choose from and they are split into two seperate types: Gathering and Crafting.
Repeat the following after me:

• Gathering skills will give me money now and later. Income is steady and mostly reliable.
• Crafting skills will give me a good amount of money later, but will be a money sink early on. Income is great for higher levels, but can be sporatic.
• Crafting skills will allow me to enhance my own character and my friends.

Did you get that? If your goal is simply steady money – pick two gathering professions. If your goal is to enhance your own character – I highly suggest taking one gathering profession and one crafting of your choice (They all have their own benefits). Try to choose a gathering skills that funds your crafting skill to soften the blow.

• Mining (Gather)

  • Mining is a great gathering profession, as ore and bars are always needed by blacksmithing, engineering, and jewelcrafting.
  • Copper is easy to gather as a low level character and will give you about 3-5g a stack.
  • Always sell the ore, rather than the bars. It gets a higher price due to it being used by more professions in that form.
  • When you hit 450 – you can smelt titansteel once a day for a decent fee.
  • Each “level” of Mining gives you a passive 3/5/7/10/30/50 stamina. (Toughness)

• Skinning (Gather)
  

  • You see that beast you just killed? Skin it. Extra income. The easiest of the gathering professions.
  • Skinning produces leather, which is used for leatherworking and occasionally tailoring, blacksmithing and jewelcrafting.
  • You get good xp while farming due to the fact that your gathering requires you to kill things.
  • Each “level” of skinning gives you a passive +3/6/9/20/32 critical strike rating. (Master of Anatomy)

Herbalism (Gather)

• Enjoy the scenery as you walk through picking flowers.
• Herbs are used in alchemy, inscription and occasionally enchanting.
• Glyphs are big business right now, and potions are always in demand. (Glyph business will eventually taper off, but should still be steady income)
• Free heal over time spell, regardless of class. Lifeblood (Rank 1)

Thats all for right now. Join me for part 2 in a few days when we will discuss how to make money using crafting skills.