The class changes for patch 4.0.1 are listed after the break guys. This is the main systems change before Cataclysm, none of the world itself is being changed yet. This is kinda like when wrath hit, the class systems were changed to bring them into line with the new content. Anyway enough of my blabbing, hit the read more to see the full statement by blizzard.

Or hit this link to MMO Champion for the full breakdown.

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!

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.

I don’t know about you folks, but I’m pretty excited about 3.1. Granted, since I’ve rerolled Priest and am only at level 70, I can’t take advantage of the new raid (although I might break out my Paladin for a sneak peak), but one thing I can take advantage of is the swathe of changes that have been made to my class, and of course the other classes. As we’ve said, Grim has also rerolled, bringing in his Mage, ditching his obsession with tanking for an obsession with massive numbers. He’s even gone so far as to respec Fire for levelling. Last night we were hacking up some corpses, and discussing the changes in 3.1, and the subject of Glyphs came up. I was complaining as usual about the lack of Discipline glyphs when Grim reminded me that we have a swathe of new glyphs arriving. So, filled with enthusiasm I headed onto Google and got looking for the glyphic goodness that would arrive with 3.1.

Read on after the break to see what we’re getting!

First up, Glyphs:

Death Knight

• Glyph of Hungering Cold – Reduces the cost of Hungering Cold by 10 runic power.
• Glyph of Unholy Blight – Increases the duration of Unholy Blight by 10 sec.
• Glyph of Death Coil – Reduces the cost of Death Coil by 8 runic power.
• Glyph of Pestilence – Your Pestilence ability now refreshes disease durations on your primary target back to their maximum duration.
• Glyph of Howling Blast – Your Howling Blast ability now infects your targets with Frost Fever.

Now that is what I’m talking about.  Cost reductions aren’t really anything special, but the Glyphs of Pestilence, Howling Blast, and Unholy Blight are incredible. Unholy Blight can be devastating when used correctly, and the added duration makes it even more viable. Howling Blast infecting targets with Frost Fever is really good as well. Widespread plagues, anyone? In a similar vein, Pestilence will be excellent for keeping your main target in the hurt locker.

Druid

• Glyph of Berserk - Increases the duration of Berserk by 5 sec.
• Glyph of Wild Growth – Wild Growth now affects up to 6 targets.
• Glyph of Nourish – Your Nourish heals an additional 6% for each of your heal over time effects present on the target.
• Glyph of Savage Roar – Your Savage Roar ability grants an additional 6% bonus damage done.
• Glyph of Typhoon – Reduces the cooldown of your Typhoon spell by 3 sec.
• Glyph of Barkskin – Reduces the chance you’ll be critically hit by melee attacks by 1 to 0% while Barkskin is active.

Ah. Now here we have a problem. My knowledge of the Druid extends to the fact that they have 4 year old models. Still, from my limited experience, Savage Roar has been given a significant buff with that Glyph, as has Wild Growth. In fact, it seems Druids have been given some pretty good options. There’s a distinct lack of “reduces cooldown” rubbish.

Hunter

• Glyph of Chimera Shot - Reduces the cooldown of Chimera Shot by 1 sec.
• Glyph of Explosive Shot - Increases the critical strike chance of Explosive Shot by 4%.
• Glyph of Kill Shot – Reduces the cooldown of Kill Shot by 6 sec.
• Glyph of Explosive Trap - The periodic damage from your Explosive Trap can now be critical strikes.
• Glyph of Scatter Shot - Increases the range of Scatter Shot by 3 yards.
• Glyph of Raptor Strike - For 5 sec. after using Raptor Strike, you take 20% less damage.

The Glyphs of Explosive Shot and Trap should be a cause for happiness to all Survival Hunters everywhere. Raptor Strike looks pretty good, damage reduction is always welcome in PvP. Not too bad for those “Oh sh*t” PvE moments either.

Mage

• Glyph of Deep Freeze - Increases the range of Deep Freeze by 10 yards.
• Glyph of Living Bomb – The periodic damage from your Living Bomb can now be critical strikes.
• Glyph of Arcane Barrage – Reduces the mana cost of Arcane Barrage by 20%.
• Glyph of Mirror Image - Your Mirror Images gain the Winter’s Chill talent, granting their Frostbolt spell a 100% chance to apply the Winter’s Chill effect, which increases the chance spells will critically hit the target by 1% for 15 sec.  Stacks up to 5 times.
• Glyph of Ice Barrier – Increases the amount of damage absorbed by your Ice Barrier by 30%.

Well, I know Grim will be happy about the glyph of Living Bomb! Ice Barrier stands to be a very powerful survival tool with that extra 30% of absorbtion. Mirror Image looks to be even more devastating with the ability to increase crit chance on the target as well.

Paladin

• Glyph of Beacon of Light - Increases the duration of Beacon of Light by 30 sec.
• Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous - Your Hammer of the Righteous hits 1 additional target.
• Glyph of Divine Storm – Your Divine Storm now heals for an additional 15% of the damage it causes.
• Glyph of Shield of Righteousness - Reduces the mana cost of Shield of Righteousness by 1 to 6%.
• Glyph of Divine Plea - While Divine Plea is active, you take 3% reduced damage from all sources.
• Glyph of Holy Shock – Reduces the cooldown of Holy Shock by 1 sec.
• Glyph of Hand of Salvation – When you cast Hand of Salvation on yourself, it also reduces damage taken by 20%.

Well… this is nice then. Hammer of the Righteous, Shield of Righteousness, Divine Plea and Hand of Salvation all seem to have become a Protection Paladins dream. Extra mana conservation, reduced damage taken and an extra target for the Hammer? Incredible. Holy Shock is a bit meh, but Divine Storm is even better with this new Glyph.

Priest

• Glyph of Guardian Spirit – If your Guardian Spirit lasts its entire duration without being triggered, your Guardian Spirit cooldown is reset to 60 sec.
• Glyph of Penance – Reduces the cooldown of Penance by 2 sec.
• Glyph of Mind Sear – Increases the radius of effect on Mind Sear by 5 yards.
• Glyph of Hymn of Hope – Your Hymn of hope provides 3 times the normal amount of mana per time, but its duration is 50% shorter.
• Glyph of Pain Suppression – Allows Pain Suppression to be cast while stunned.

Good lord. That Guardian Spirit glyph is out of this world. Makes we want to spec Holy just so I can use it. Glyph of Penance, while only being a cooldown reduction is pretty nice since it’s the main Discipline heal. Hymn of Hope I’m not sure about, but time will tell. Pain Suppression is excellent.

Rogue

• Glyph of Killing Spree – Reduces the cooldown on Killing Spree by 45 sec.
• Glyph of Shadow Dance – Increases the duration of Shadow Dance by 4 sec.
• Glyph of Fan of Knives – Increases the damage done by Fan of Knives by 20%.
• Glyph of Tricks of the Trade – Your Tricks of the Trade grants an additional 10% bonus damage to your target.
• Glyph of Mutilate – Reduces the cost of Mutilate by 5 energy.
• Glyph of Cloak of Shadows – While Cloak of Shadows is active, you take 40% less physical damage.

Killing Spree looks good. That’s a very significant amount of time to have taken off the cooldown. Shadow Dance is excellent, as is Fan of Knives. Cloak of Shadows is incredible, and will end up being nerfed in short order.

Shaman

• Glyph of Thunderstorm – Reduces the cooldown on Thunderstorm by 7 sec.
• Glyph of Feral Spirit – Your spirit wolves gain an additional 30% of your attack power.
• Glyph of Riptide – Increases the duration of Riptide by 3 sec.
• Glyph of Earth Shield – Increases the amount healed by your Earth Shield by 20%.
• Glyph of Totem of Wrath - When you cast Totem of Wrath, you gain 30% of the totem’s bonus spell power for .
• Glyph of Hex – Increases the damage your Hex target can take before the Hex effect is removed by 20%.
• Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem – Your Stoneclaw Totem also places a damage absorb shield on you, equal to 4 times the strength of the shield it places on your totems.

Glyph of Feral Spirit is awesome. So is Earth Shield. And Riptide. And Hex. In fact, there is not a single new Shaman glyph that doesn’t impress me. Thunderstorm is a little dull, but hey it all helps with the mana regen doesn’t it?

Warlock

• Glyph of Haunt – The bonus damage granted by your Haunt spell is increased by an additional 3%.
• Glyph of Metamorphosis - Increases the duration of your Metamorphosis by 6 sec.
• Glyph of Chaos Bolt – Reduces the cooldown on Chaos Bolt by 2 sec.
• Glyph of Demonic Circle – Reduces the cooldown on Demonic Circle by 0.4 sec.
• Glyph of Shadowflame – Your Shadowflame also applies a 70% movement speed slow on its victims.
• Glyph of Soul Link - Increases the percentage of damage shared via your Soul Link by an additional 5%.
• Glyph of Life Tap – When you use Life Tap, you gain 20% of your spirit as spell power for 20 sec.

I’ve always been underwhelmed by Metamorphosis. Does this make it any better? I don’t know. The whole ability seems rather lacklustre in my opinion. The movement slow on Shadowflame looks good, and Life Tap looks good as well.

Warrior

• Glyph of Bladestorm – Reduces the cooldown on Bladestorm by 15 sec.
• Glyph of Shockwave – Reduces the cooldown on Shockwave by 3 sec.
• Glyph of Vigilance – Your Vigilance ability transfers an additional 5% of your target’s threat to you.
• Glyph of Enraged Regeneration – Your Enraged Regeneration ability heals for an additional 10% of your health over its duration.
• Glyph of Spell Reflection - Reduces the cooldown on Spell Reflection by 1 sec.
• Glyph of Shield Wall - Reduces the cooldown on Shield Wall by 3 min, but Shield Wall now only reduces damage taken by 40%.

Three cooldown reductions? Not brilliant… but Bladestorm is a great ability, so being able to cast it more often is never a bad thing. Same goes for Shockwave. The reduction of Spell Reflection is negligable really. Vigilance was good enough before, and now it’ll be even better. Enraged Regeneration is even more ridiculous, and looks even better for this glyph.

Following on from my previous article on gear to collect outside of raids, we’re now going to take a look at talent builds that you may wish to consider. I’ll let it be known from the get go that I don’t have extensive experience in these specs, so what I’m really showing you are the popular ideas that are floating around the message boards. What’s more, take these ideas as just that, ideas. Use them as templates and tweak them if you feel it necessary. This seems to be the done thing from research I’ve done, and for that reason, there are many variations upon the builds I’m going to list.

Read on and let’s get down to business.

FG/Ember – 0/41/30

This my current spec and I’m enjoying it very much. I believe it is one of the highest damage dealers currently only beaten by a deeper destruction spec which uses the imp. Things you may wish to change in the Demonology tree are moving a point from Master Conjuror to Demonic Sacrifice. Even with the avoidance boost all our demons received in patch 3, they can still suffer considerably on certain fights, particularly because this spec ommits Fel Synergy. So in these situations you wish to sacrifice an imp for that extra fire damage. Come patch 3.0.8, the Glyph of Felguard should be getting buffed from 10% to 20% attack power bonus. Something I need to investigate is which is better between Glyph of Curse of Agony, or Glyph of Corruption. Currently, Glyph of Curse of Agony is not actually a dps increase, it only decreases the frequency at which you need to cast it. Come patch 3.0.8, the glyph will actually become a dps increase. I like Glyph of Corruption because you should be using both Curse of Agony and Corruption in your spell rotation to proc Molten Core. Glyph of Corruption gives you the tier 4 affliction talent Nightfall, an instant cast shadowbolt. Very nice indeed. But when the next patch comes around, it may be better to use Glyph of Curse of Agony as the dps increase should also be increased by Demonic Spellstone which I think you should be using over Demonic Firestone.

So to summarise, the spell rotation for this build will be: CoA > Corr > Immo > Incinerate and popping Demonic Empowerment whenever it’s available. When I start a fight I pop in between CoA and Corruption because it’s not connected to the global cooldown. What you’ll find with the dots is that you can renew Corruption and Immolate as a pair as they have a similar duration (something which Blizzard are considering for simplifying the Affliction tree). This pair along with CoA will fade in and out of sync with each other after only a few rotations. So it’s a simple spec to play but is still good fun and keeps you alert to things going on. Your felguard should be cleaving automatically, don’t worry about CC, it won’t break anything anymore. Anguish should of course be switched off as should Intercept imo. I save that ability for emergency situations for example in a heroic where a loose mob is running after a clothy to give the tank a chance to taunt it back. You’ll only ever want 1 point in Mana Feed in my opinion. Given the new mana regen mechanics in raids, your pet should never have a problem. Given the amount of times you’ll be life tapping if you have the 4xt7 bonus, your pet will always be topped up. And remember with patch 3.0.8, you’ll probably want to swap Glyph of Corruption with Glyph of Curse of Agony.

Meta/Ruin – 0/56/15

This spec I played for quite a while during gearing myself up through heroics. It works very well for short fights but unfortunately for raiding it doesn’t cut the mustard. Metamorphosis is too infrequent and the Demonology tree itself isn’t a good damage dealer because you don’t gain any direct spell buffs or new dots or direct damage spells. This is something Blizzard are looking into improving in the distant future (perhaps in 3.1) by increasing pet damage output. I’ve put it here though because it may something to keep an eye on for the future and is kinda cool to play if you’re still working through heroics. The spells I used were the same as above, just using Shadowbolt instead of Incinerate.

MD(Imp)/S&F – 0/31/40

I guess all the old 0/21/40 raiders of BC just couldn’t let go of Shadow and Flame because it is after all a super talent. I believe this is the current top damage dealing spec. But from what I’ve read, it’s only really noticeable until you’re geared up in the best heroic raiding gear currently available from Naxx, Malygos and Obsidian Sanctum. I shall certainly give this spec a try when I’m closer or at that point. When patch 3.0.8 arrives, it may be worth getting yourself Conflagrate and adding that into your spell rotation. The reason is, currently, Conflagrate is not working with Emberstorm. That’ll be getting fixed and also, Glyph of Conflagrate shall be getting changed to something along the lines of “Your Conflagrate spell no longer purges your Immolate spell from the target”. So you’ll want to put this in place of Glyph of Corruption. That’s is you choose to invest a point in the talent. I’m quite sure I will as I expect it will be a dps increase, but it’ll also make the build a bit more interesting to play. You’ll still want to use CoA and Corruption to proc Molten Core remember. And the Imp now has almost the same amount of health points as a Felguard which is great for survivability, providing your pet isn’t getting meleed.

Standard Destruction – 0 /20/51

This is how I would go about a full destruction build. The standard template from Elitist Jerks is this and I’ve filled in how I would do it. I haven’t considered whether to put a point in Fel Domination or not but if I did it would have to come from Unholy Power. With patch 3.0.8, I’d have to change the spec to something like this as Conflagrate and subsequently Backdraft will become very nice dps increases. You’d also want to use a Firestone instead of a Spellstone as the vast majority of your damage will be coming from direct damage spells now. You should still use CoA and Corruption however to proc Molten Core. Thrown into the mix are Immolate, Chaos Bolt and Conflagrate (post 3.0.8). I haven’t tried this spec at all yet but may well consider it in the future. It may prove really nice on fights like Patchwerk because you never have to move from your spot. So you could have it in your dual spec setup whenever that comes around.

Haunt/Ruin – 56/0/15

This is another one of the top damage dealing builds according to many theorycrafters. It’s own downfall is it is too complicated to pull of really well. You’ll be juggling lots of timers and only firing off a few Shadowbolts in between. As mentioned earlier, this is something Blizzard are addressing in possibly making dots around the same duration as each other. This would give Ruin a much better chance to come into play also. With 3.0.8, Glyph of Curse of Agony will also become a dps increase. I don’t think Glyph of Shadow Bolt will be worth it as 10% isn’t a giant amount, especially in the current form of Affliction. You also have Nightfall now, but Glyph of Corruption will stack with this talent so it may still be worth going for if you wish. That choice is up to you. There are certainly a few options when it comes to glyphs for Affliction so think it through. Perhaps when playing this spec you will discover which glyphs will be more beneficial. As for spell rotations, to me it’s too confusing right now and I won’t be trying this tree in depth until Blizzard have simplified it. If you’re running through 5 man heroics right now this spec won’t do so well because fights are too short. But for 10 and 25 mans, it’ll definitely put you up at the top of the damage meters provided you play the spec right.

Those are the builds I think are worth mentioning right now. There are many variations of these which you can find by hunting around www.wowmb.net and www.elitistjerks.com. One generalisation I make personally with specs right now is not bothering with Improved Healthstone. Pre Wrath, it was a really good idea to bring warlocks along that had varying points invested in this talent so you could carry all 3 healthstones. Now that you can only carry 1, I see them as more of an emergency button that you use to keep you on 2 feet, regardless of precisely how much health it gives you. I don’t often find myself using them nowadays.

A couple of other resources you may be interested to check out are Leulier’s Spreadsheet. This is a fan made Excel spreadsheet that is able to draw your character information from the Armory and output your expected dps, taking into account latency and human reaction times. Although it is impossible to be 100% accurate, it does give you a very good idea of what to expect. Most importantly, you can see how different talent specs compare under the same conditions and parameters. You can change gear, gems and enchants to see how much of a dps increase you’ll be getting this way too. It’s very well made and I highly recommend it. You don’t have be a hardcore theorycrafter either as it’s very user friendly. Just remember if you’re using Excel to Enable Macros when the warning comes up.

Something the more hardcore theorycrafter may interested in is SimCraft. This a modeler that shows you how different talent builds scale alongside builds from other classes. You can create a talent build on wowhead.com, obtain the direct link to it, and punch it into the input plain text file. You need to use a DOS command prompt to run the exe. The raid_80.txt file tells you what to do at the top.

Lastly, something to keep an eye on is Rawr Model Development. It’s similar to SimCraft except it is more flexible and comes with its own GUI, making it a lot more user friendly. The only annoying thing is it currently doesn’t have any models for Warlocks which is a shame. Must be coded by a Mage. So if you’re interested, keep an eye out and hopefully it’ll be added in the future.

That’s all folks, hope you had a nice new year party.

Both of these rings are crafted by Jewelcrafters and the materials for it aren’t the easiest to come by. I spent around 1200 gold overall, only on materials that I couldn’t farm. The first ring is Ring of Northern Tears and the pattern is only obtainable by Jewelcrafters doing their profession daily quest. This ring is sublime for what it’s worth. The materials are dirt cheap. If you wanted to buy them all you’d probably spend around…300 gold maybe? Of course it depends on your server and in particular what you can get Northsea Pearls for. These are only obtainable by the clam vendor in northwest Borean Tundra where all those murlocs are. However, they’re in limited supply and cost 30 Winterfin Clam each. The timer on the stock is an hour I think but you may want to check wowhead on that. I just bought them for around 50 gold each on the AH. Whether that’s good or not I don’t know, I wasn’t really concerned as I have money to burn right now. Even if you buy all the materials it certainly won’t break the bank. The hit rating is brilliant and the socket bonus is for once something you should really go for. And you may as well because a blue gem will count towards the meta gem requirement. Two birds with one stone!

The second ring is great, but, if you’re not prepared to spend a fair amount of gold on it then maybe you can pass it. That’s up to you. Like the previous ring, the pattern is obtainable by jewelcrafters doing their profession daily quest. More important however is that some of the materials required to make it are only obtainable by the same method. This makes them quite expensive. The ring is Titanium Spellshock Ring. The stats are very nice and I’ve stuck an orange hit rating gem in there to push me over the cap and get the set bonus also. The pattern is Design: Titanium Spellshock Ring. If you’ve done a fair amount of heroics chances are you’ve won a roll on a Frozen Orb by now. Eternals are really easy to farm in Wintergrasp and the Titanium Bars are cheap. The Dragon’s Eye however are very expensive. They go for around 400 gold each last time I checked the AH. I got mine off a guildy for 1200 gold. These are generally cut into uber gems which only the jewelcrafters themselves can use, part of this unique advantage Blizzard has given each profession.

So there you have it. I seriously recommend the first ring because the materials are cheap and stats are great but as for the second one, that’s up to you. I wasn’t fussed about how much it cost particularly so I went for it. You can see what I’m currently wearing on the armory. I just need some more enchants and I’m all sorted. I no longer need the hit rating food to put me above the hit rating cap which I’m happy about too. I just need a few more enchants and I’m good to go.

There you have it. Happy holidays and have a crazy new year. And for the love of god, don’t spend it in Dalaran.

I love raiding. It’s the main reason I play the game. I love running heroics (most of them) and gearing up and experiencing all the content. The guild I’m in doesn’t start raiding until January so for me, there’s plenty of time to work through heroics and gear myself up so that I’m in the best possible shape come the time that we begin. If you’ve already started raiding Naxxramas, you may still find this guide useful, as Naxx 10 pieces are only a little better than those found in heroics. In terms of item level (ilevel), 5 man heroic epics are ilvl 200, blues are ilvl 200 (in heroics) and 187 on heroic sub bosses and Naxx 10 pieces are ilvl 200 & 213. So there’s not that much in it. And it’s common knowledge that Wrath content is easy. But if you’re like me, you’ve got time to collect stuff before you get stuck in. And I’m an absolute nut when it comes to hit rating. In my opinion, hit rating is the most important stat for any caster. Spell power, critical strike rating, haste rating are all at the mercy of whether your spells actually hit the target or not.

Open it up and lets get stuck in.

If you’ve read my previous post about hit rating and the hit rating cap, you will know that for all casters, the percentage we need to reach is 17%. If you have chosen your talent to increase your hit chance by 3% then the magic number to achieve is 368. If you haven’t chosen this talent then you’ll be needing 446. If you’re lucky enough to be running with a Shadow Priest, their ‘Misery‘ spell will also increase your chance to hit with spells by 3%. If you’re running with a druid specced into ‘Improved Faerie Fire‘ you’ll also get an increase of 3% chance to hit. If you’re the luckiest person on the planet, then you’ll always be raiding with both of these and your required hit rating will be something you can calculate yourself. But to be on the safe side, aim for 446. To perform at your best in heroic 5 mans, you’ll need 6% increased hit chance which equates to 158 hit rating. That’s pretty easily obtained. When I first looked at gear from Naxx and heroics, I noticed there was so much without any hit rating on it. I wondered, “how on earth will it be possible to be hit capped with this stuff?” Well, it is in fact possible.

Here is a list of stuff to put on your shopping list in preparation for raiding. Not every piece listed has hit rating on it, because you won’t need to fill every slot with items that have the stat to reach the cap. Use this list on a character planner such as www.chardev.org to see how you can improve on what you already have to reach the hit cap and to get an idea of what kinda stats you’ll be looking at when you’re ready. The items aren’t listede in any particular order but I have put what I consider the best item at the top of each section (in most cases). This is what you should aim for. I’ve listed a fair few items from various sources. I won’t include any normal instance drops unless they warrant particular mention. Most heroic drops are mentioned.

Some drops that could be useful to a warlock aren’t mentioned because there may be plenty of other options which may be prefered. For example there are items with stats such as haste and no spirit which are in my opinion more orientated towards a mage because as far as I know, all of their damage dealing is done via spells with a cast time unlike instant cast dots that warlocks have. Also, spirit is now very useful to a warlock because of Fel Armor. However, I wouldn’t go out of your way to obtain it. It’s just in some cases I will prefer it over items with haste and no spirit.

Head

Crown of Unbridled Magic – Cache of Eregos by defeating Ley Guardian Eregos in Oculus heroic. In my opinion this is the best one to get because it has a meta gem slot, a yellow slot (for a +hit rating gem) and also Spirit which is nice for Warlocks.

Cowl of the Dire Troll – Trollgore in Drak’tharon Keep heroic.

Elder Headpiece – Elder Nadox in Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom heroic.

Forgotten Shadow Hood – Salramm the Fleshcrafter in The Culling of Stratholme heroic. Similar to the Crown of Unbridled Magic but only second best.

Hat of Wintry Doom – Tailoring, taught at level 425. The hit is nice so if you think you will need it then craft it. Beware it looks pretty darn stupid though.

The Argent Skullcap – A quest reward from ‘The Crusaders’ Pinnacle‘ in Icecrown. May be worth holding on to if you’re in need of the +hit.

Neck

Encircling Burnished Gold Chains – Bought with 25 Emblem of Heroism. By far the best neck piece outside of raid loot. Make it one of your first purchases.

Amulet of the Spell Flinger – Amanitar in Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom heroic.

Dragon Prow Amulet – BoE, trash drop in Utgarde Keep heroic.

Necklace of Taldaram – Prince Taldaram in Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom heroic.

Necromancer’s Amulet – Salramm the Fleshcrafter in The Culling of Stratholme heroic.

Zuramat’s Necklace – Zuramat the Obliterator in Violet Hold heroic. Not the easiest of bosses. I would know. ><

Emeline’s Locket – Quest reward from ‘The Admiral Revealed’ in Icecrown. This is particularly nice because of the +hit rating, the yellow gem slot and the bonus.

Shoulders

Runecaster’s Mantle – Trash drop in Utgarde Keep heroic. Particularly desirable due to the gem slot.

Dark Runic Mantle – Trash drop in Halls of Stone heroic.

Mantle of Deceit – Dark Runed Chest by defeating Mal’ganis in The Culling of Stratholme heroic.

Mantle of the Tribunal – Tribunal Chest by completing the ‘Tribunal of Ages(?)’ event in Halls of Stone heroic.

Cloak

Deathchill Cloak – Tailoring. The pattern is learnt by completing the Loremaster of Northrend achievement. Not the easiest thing to obtain, but it’s certainly a very nice toy.

Reanimator’s Cloak – Trash in Drak’Tharon Keep heroic. The gem slot is nice and don’t concern yourself with the socket bonus, intellect is one of the lowest priorities for a warlock.

Shroud of Moorabi – Moorabi in Gundrak heroic. This might be the extra boss you get in heroic, I forget.

Subterranean Waterfall Shroud – Jedoga Shadowseeker in Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom heroic.

Dark Soldier Cape – Honored with Knights of The Ebon Blade. This is easily done by quests alone so it’s worth picking up when you can.

Chest

Ebonweave Robe – Tailoring 440. It looks great and has great stats on it. If you’re a tailor, get it. If you’re not, then it’s up to you whether you’re gonna fork out a fortune on it on the AH.

Drakewing Raiments – Drakos the Interrogator in Oculus heroic. I thought it worth a mention because of the gem slots.

Egg Sac Robes – Hadronox in Azjol-Nerub heroic. Same reasoning as above.

Robes of Lightning – Quest reward from ‘Whatever it Takes’, part of the questline that takes you through Halls of Lightning normal.

Turtle-Minders Robe – Honored with The Kalu’ak.

Bracers

Azure Cloth Bindings – Cyanigosa in Violet Hold heroic. A very nice item from an instance I somewhat despise.

Cuffs of Winged Levitation – Cache of Eregos by defeating Ley Guardian Eregos in Oculus heroic.

Ancestral Sinew Wristguards – Honored with Wyrmrest Accord. Mentioned because of the gem slot.

Verdisa’s Cuffs of Dreaming – Drakkos the Interrogator in Oculus normal. Mentioned for the same reason above.

Cuffs of the Trussed Hall – Svala Sorrowgrave in Utgarde Pinnacle heroic.

Gloves

Ebonweave Gloves – Tailoring 435. *druel*

Gloves of Glistening Runes – Keristraza in The Nexus heroic. Very nice because of the gem slot and spirit.

Overlook Handguards – The Prophet Tharon’jar in Drak’Tharon Keep heroic.

Giant-Hair Woven Gloves – Volkhan in Halls of Lightening heroic. Not that great, too magey for my liking. But if they’re an upgrade, go for it.

Gloves of Distorted Time – Chrono-Lord Epoch in The Culling of Stratholme heroic. Has Spirit and a nice gem slot.

Gloves of the Crystal Gardener – Omorok the Tree-Shaper in The Nexus heroic.

There are a fair few more glove options so if you’re really interested you can see this list on Wowhead.

Waist

Girdle of Bane – King Ymiron in Utgarde Pinnacle heroic. Sublime. Get this.

Plush Sash of Guzbah – Bought with 40 Emblem of Heroism. It’s pretty nice but at that price it’s quite as good as the above. Certainly due to the effort required to obtain it also. Worth a mention if you’re not having much luck in UP. But in my opinion your emblems are best spent elsewhere.

Sash of the Servant – Anub’arak in Azjol-Nerub heroic. More of a mage item but worth a mention.

Belt of Unified Souls – Meathook in The Culling of Stratholme heroic. Great for the +hit rating until you get the Girdle of Bane.

Flowing Sash of Order – Loken in Halls of Lightning heroic. Another great option, plus it comes with a gem slot.

Sash of the Wizened Wyrm – Honored with The Wyrmrest Accord. Also very nice, just a shame it has no spirit.

Legs

Woven Bracae Leggings – Loken in Halls of Lightning heroic. More of a mage item in my opinion but I think it’s the best option for warlocks outside of raids. Plus the high spell power is very nice.

Breeches of the Caller – Ingvar the Plunderer in Utgarde Keep heroic. 2 nice gem slots.

Cyanigosa’s Leggings – Cyanigose in Violet Hold heroic.

Opposed Stasis Leggings – Trash drop in The Nexus heroic. Compare it to the ones above.

Sorrowgrave’s Breeches – Svala Sorrowgrave in Utgarde Pinnacle heroic.

Feet

Sandals of Crimson Fury – Exalted with The Wyrmrest Accord. There’s not that many great options for warlocks when it comes to shoes. I think these are probably the best you’ll get though outside of raids.

Cleric’s Linen Shoes – Trash in The Nexus heroic.

Footwraps of Teleportation – Xevozz in Violet Hold heroic. These are nice for the gem slot but they’re a right pain to obtain. You need to be fortunate (or perhaps unfortunate) enough to get this boss in the first place and then he’s probably the hardest boss there is in that place.

Fingers

Annhylde’s Ring – Ingvar the Plunderer in Utgarde Keep heroic. Another magey item but one of the better options for warlocks.

Band of Guile – Dark Runed Chest by defeating Mal’ganis in The Culling of Stratholme heroic. As above.

Signet of the Kirin Tor – Bought from a vendor in Dalaran. What is it with the Kirin Tor and their hideously expensive items? I’ve listed it here to acknowledge its existense but I don’t think anyone with less than maybe 50k gold would fork out the cash for this.

Voodoo Signet – Quest reward from ‘For Prosperity’ which involves you running Gundrak normal. Quite nice for the hit rating.

It’s pretty much all stamina, intellect, haste/crit and spell power as far as rings go so here’s the list on Wowhead.

Trinkets – there are a lot of these, so I’ll mention the ones that stand out. However I think the only 2 you should get outside of raids are the first 2 I’ve listed.

Sundial of the Exiled – Bought with 40 Emblem of Heroism.

Mark of the War Prisoner – Cyanigosa in Violet Hold heroic.

Others worth particular mention:

Rune of Infinite Power – Quest reward from ‘Mystery of the Infinite, Redux‘

Forge Ember – Sjonnir the Ironshaper in Halls of Stone heroic.

Figurine – Twilight Serpent – Requires Jewelcrafting 400.

And many others found here.

Wands

Rod of the Fallen Monarch – Anub’arak in Azjol-Nerub heroic.

Wand of Ahnkahet – Herald Volazj in Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom heroic. Now there’s not much between this and the one above. So I think you can settle on whichever one you come across first.

Wand of Sseratus – Slad’ran in Gundrak heroic.

Ancient Measuring Rod – Loken in Halls of Lightning normal.

Wand of the San’layn – Prince Keleseth in Utgarde Keep heroic.

Off Hand

Ward of the Violet Citadel – Bought for 25 Emblem of Heroism. Make this one of your 3 purchases with these emblems. The other 2 are the neck and trinket. This is certainly the best available outside of Naxx.

Telestra’s Journal – Grand Magus Telestra in The Nexus heroic.

Main Hand (Daggers & Swords)

Flameheart Spell Scalpel – Revered with The Kirin Tor. This is very easily obtained. You can gain reputation via ‘championing’. That means, buy the Kirin Tor tabard at Friendly and wear it through heroics to gain lots of nice rep.

Cursed Lich Blade – Novos the Summoner in Drak’tharon Keep heroic. This is almost identical to the one above. You’ll notice the only differences are the critical strike rating and spirit stats interchanged. I forgot this existed before I searched it out. So I would say settle on whatever you get first but many would prefer the first one due to it being easily obtained.

Staves – The vast majority of the time, a main hand and off hand combo will be the best choice for warlocks. There may be the rare case where something will come along that is in fact more benefitial, such as the Zhardoom staff that Illidan (who? :P) drops. But largely, it’ll be the combo you’ll want. Saying that, here’s a few of the choices that stand out.

Staff of Draconic Combat – Cache of Eregos by defeating Ley Guardian Eregos in Oculus heroic.

Staff of Sinister Claws – Herald Volazj in Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom heroic.

Staff of Wayward Principles – Skadi the Ruthless in Utgarde Pinnacle heroic.

Chilly Slobberknocker – Quest reward from ‘The Champion of Anguish‘. My bet is that everyone reading this has this already.

Enchants

Enchant Boots – Icewalker

Enchant Gloves – Precision

Gems

Rigid Autumn’s Glow

Vivid Forest Emerald

Perfect Rigid Sun Crystal (if you’re fortunate)

Rigid Sun Crystal

That’s it as far as gear and their enhancements go. However, if you’re still lacking in hit rating, there is Elixir of Accuracy and also Recipe: Snapper Extreme. The latter is probably more easily obtainable if you are patient enough to fish. I’m a herbalist and tailor and have a high enough fishing skill for either. I go for the food as it’s much more easy to grind and besides, you’ll be wanting to use Flask of the Frost Wyrm when you raid.

So now you have this giant list at your disposal. Like I said at the start, you can use a site such as www.chardev.org to plan something for yourself. Either you can start from scratch or build upon what you already have. For example, I’m aiming for this. And I’ll use the Snapper Extreme food to push me past the cap. I don’t think it’s worth getting the very best enchants on this stuff yet. Get the less expensive ones for now. Just make sure you get the 2 enchants I’ve listed above. The reason I’ve used those 2 green gems is to count towards the 2 blue gem requirement to activate the meta gem. This is the best meta gem for warlocks.

I hope you find this useful in whatever way. In the coming days and weeks I’ll be writing at least 2 more articles. The next will be about talents specs to use in heroics and raiding. And the one after that will be a shopping list of stuff inside Naxxramas itself. So stuff to look forward to. Good luck!

This expansion I’ve had a few guildies asking me about what the new hit cap is for casters. And there are a lot of people out there who may still not know. So this article will break it down for you and explain what it is. If you’re not really interested in the finer details and just want to know the number, scroll down and look for the red text!

In Burning Crusade, you had a hit rating stat for melee, and a spell hit rating for casters. In Wrath, these 2 stats have been homogenized into the one stat, simply called ‘Hit Rating’. However, casters still in effect convert this stat into spell hit rating, because casters still require a different amount of it than melee classes do.

Hit Rating (an integer) is converted into hit chance (a percentage). At level 80, 26.23 points of hit rating is equal to 1% of hit chance for casters. For melee, 32.77 points of hit rating is equal to 1% hit chance. The mechanics of caster hit and melee hit is quite different, and my knowledge only covers the former. However, there is a nice explanation of melee hit for you on WoWWiki if you are interested. The rest of this article will be focused on casters.

Yup you guessed it, read the rest after the split.

The chance that your spells will hit or miss a target is dependant only on the level difference of the player and the target. Hit chance also differs between a player target and npc target. What is dependant on your particular level is the amount of hit rating required to achieve an increase of 1% hit chance. At level 70 it was 12.6 if my memory serves me well. At level 80 it is 26.23, more than double.

Your base chance to hit an npc of equal level is 96%. For 1 level higher: 95%. For 2 levels higher (end heroic bosses for example): 94%. For 3 levels higher (raid bosses) it plummets to – wait for it – 83%.

One significant change that came with patch 3.0 was the removal of the 99% hit cap. Prior to this patch, chance to hit was capped at 99%, meaning there was always that 1% chance you could miss with a spell, no matter how much spell hit rating you stacked. Also, oddly, if you missed with a spell, it would show as a resist rather than an actual miss. This I think was just an unintended error and was also fixed in patch 3.0. You may still get resists however, resistance and hit chance are 2 different mechanics, the former being a lot more complex.

So now it is possible to reach a point where you cannot miss with your spells. All Wrath raid bosses will be level 83, 3 levels higher than you, meaning you’ll need to acquire 17% of hit chance from somewhere. As mentioned earlier, at level 80, you need 26.23 points of hit rating to achieve an increase of 1% hit chance. So if we need 17%,

17 x 26.23 = 445.91

Now hit rating will only come as an integer (a whole number, not a decimal) so you’ll need a grand total of 446 hit rating to be capped. It is better to be overcapped than undercapped because of the old addage – a 1% increase of hit = 1% increase of dps…roughly speaking. It’s not quite as simple as that but it’s a good moral to live by.

Acquiring hit chance is mainly done via hit rating which is aquired mainly via gear. There are however potions and flasks and even food available to increase your hit rating. There are no doubt enchants which will do it too although I’ve yet to look them up.

Most importantly however, is that all classes have talents which will increase their chance to hit with spells. For all classes, you can get an increase of 3%, except for Boomkins who can get 4%. This may well prove invaluable in the early stages. If you do take these talents for the 3% increase, that will leave you needing only 14% more to be capped.

14 x 26.23 = 367.22 = 368

So there you have it, it’s not a particularly difficult figure to obtain, certainly not as difficult as I initially thought anyway. There are good pieces of loot dotted around, from badge vendors, crafting professions and even the odd quest reward. Remember if you hover over your hit rating value in your character window, it will tell your percentage so you can see how you are getting on. The target is 14% (368) with talents or 17% (446) without.

Good luck!

Even since the Wrath alpha information was being leaked out (perhaps even before that), there’s been a lot of fuss (at least from where I’m sitting) about what Wrath has given, and taken away in some cases, from the Warlock class. Now I don’t play any other class at least to the extent I play my warlock, but I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if the situation is the same for other classes too. Even now, with patch 3.0.4 on the horizon, there are a lot of meddlers of the dark arts who are passionate about their class and what Blizzard has done and is doing to them.

What grinds my gears sometimes is the way in which many seem to tell Blizzard, via the class forums what they need to do to Warlocks. Not considering the fact that Blizzard have a depth of knowledge and understanding about Warlocks that surpasses any player in the community. Of course Blizzard respect and encourage the input from the player base, but I certainly don’t think these kind of threads are constructive. What I do think is constructive are the suggestions that some people come up with, even now that Wrath is live.

Read on after the split.

I think you’ll rarely see any posts in the class forums which will congratulate and praise Blizzard for the work that they have done. Even if there are you can be sure it’ll be far outweighed by the many who think Blizzard need to change this and that. Personally I think Blizzard have done a superb job so far with the Warlocks. We naturally do great DPS, both on single targets and AoE, and they’ve expanded upon the talents to give us a more improved and fresh playstyle, particularly in the destruction tree, which needed it badly.

Some of the criticism I have seen is about Affliction being “too complicated” and Destruction “no longer about shadow.” My argument for the latter is that if you think about what the word ‘Destruction’ means, I think of fire, and if you think of the word ‘Affliction’ or being ‘Afflicted’ you may think of an illness or disease, something whose cause isn’t necessarily a physical thing in the macro sense, but rather something that happens on the inside i.e the ‘Shadows’. Let me just stress now that I don’t think about these things on a regular basis! As for the former, I echo that opinion also and it just so happens that Blizzard will be addressing that hopefully in the not too distant.

In the Burning Crusade, I raided as affliction through Kara, Gruul, Maggy and some of SCC & TK. It was a lot of fun for sure, juggling cooldowns and dots and it certainly had its advantages, for instance on Void Reaver where there may be a fair bit of moving around because with dots ticking away, you’ll be doing damage on the move. Especially the way my guild did it, which I still believe wasn’t the best way to go about it but hey, it worked! As soon as I got my 2nd piece of T5 from Kalithresh, I then specced into demonology to raid with the Felguard and I never looked back. In case you’re not aware, it wasn’t advised to spec into Demonology until you had the 2 part tier 5 set bonus which healed your pet for 15% of the damage you dealt. Thankfully Blizzard put that mechanic into the new Demonology tree via a talent called ‘Fel Synergy’ and also gave all pets an 80% AoE avoidance boost. My guild got to the cusp of killing Kael’thas before patch 3.0, at which point we strolled in and pretty much one shotted him.

When it was announced that the destruction talent ‘Ruin’ would be moved up a tier to make it available alongside 51 point talents, I was beaming I must say. I thought that was great. And right now I’m currently using a felguard with Ruin in heroics. My guild will be getting into Naxx in January, coincidentally with the first run scheduled on my 21st birthday.

The only complaint I have regarding the Wrath changes to warlocks as a whole, is Metamorphosis. When I first read about it I was so excited. It sounded so awesome and certainly put warlocks high up in the class ‘coolness’ ladder. An ability that turns you into a demon, and gives you new demonic abilities! It still sounds great. But this was all thwarted by the fact (I say ‘fact’) that Metamorphosis, at least for PvE, is pretty darn rubbish. Blizzard have however made it a little bit better but I personally don’t believe it’s sorted. My fear is that it will turn out to be like Shadowfury, the 41 point talent in BC that no one bothered with. I guess it’s early days yet.

The real problem I have with Metamorphosis is actually the point of it, the usefulness and the particular new demon abilities it gives you. In a recent video interview with Ghostcrawler, he explained how the old ethos with talent trees was that you’d have a tree (or trees) for PvE and another for PvP (it was something like that). This was certainly true for warlocks in BC with the wonderful SL/SL build that was unmatched and used to great effect in the Warrior, Lock, Druid (WLD) trio that was seen at the Blizzcon world 3v3 arena championships. But now Blizzard have got rid of the old ethos and have attempted to make all trees viable for both PvE and PvP. That’s cool, I like that. But, still, what’s up with these Metamorphosis abilities? In the early stages we had a demonic leap ability which got removed, why I don’t know. I can understand how it could be abused in PvP but surely the answer to that would be to put a cooldown on it? The abilities all tend towards a melee role of some kind. You have a taunt, a charge (useful in PvP), a shadow cleave (laughable), and an Immolation Aura, which actually does a giant amount of damage, but with it comes a lot of aggro. Even with a 600% armor boost you’re likely to get cut down quickly, at least if you use it in the wrong situation. Ghostcrawler said it may come in handy (in a novel way) if your tank dies in a 5 man. If it’s a heroic, and you have even 2 mobs on you, I’m quite sure you’d go down lack a sack of potatos. And if you use taunt, and immolation aura, Metamorphosis only lasts 30 seconds. So after 30 seconds you’ll return to your regular fragile clothy form, at which point the mobs will flick you with their finger and you’ll be sent flying (or crushed underfoot, whatever).

The initial outcry was that these few abilities weren’t enough. The response to that was you’d be able to use your regular abilities as well as the new demonic abilities whilst in this form. The problem with that is, all of the regular abilities are of ranged use mostly, certainly those abilities that have a cast time. If you’re in melee range you’re just going to get pushback and in PvP for example, the warrior will be unleashing their titans grip on you whilst running circles to avoid you facing them. Even the changes to spell pushback wouldn’t be enough for that, and the melee abilities themselves too weak to dish out the required damage. Immolation Aura on the other hand could be your saviour. I have heard some good things about Metamorphosis in PvP, bar your vulnerability to CC of all things. But I’m predominantly a PvE guy and I’m just not convinced that Metamorphosis is worth that talent point. I think the talent point itself, and the others required to get to it, are better spent elsewhere. It’s certainly better than it was, except for demonic leap perhaps, but I’m still not convinced it’s enough (when compared to 51 point talents across other classes), which to me, is a shame because I love demonology and was really excited at the prospect of a demon form, but has turned out to many to be a bit of a disappointment. Still, it’s early days yet and I like to be a positive person

Much of that positivity is actually in the rest of the Demonology tree. Funny that. I love that there are many abilities that buff your pet, particularly the damage of the Felguard, and Demonic Empowerment, and Master Conjuror. Wonderful, I’m still really pleased overall, just disappointed in Metamorphosis. I will certainly give it another try, but I think I’ll miss the talent points I currently have in place of them. That said, when it comes raiding time I may well have to rework things to give myself the 3% hit chance increase I imagine I will probably need.

As for Destruction, well I didn’t even give it a second thought in BC, one button mashing didn’t seem very appealing to me at all. I’ve yet to try the revamped version though, it sounds like a lot of fun. I had a go on the 3.0 PTR (I didn’t get into the beta unfortunately) and it seems similar to affliction in some respects, except it involves bigger numbers flashing at you.

My guild is built on a casual raiding platform, everyone is at least 18 years old, and the vast majority with families, jobs and commitments. However, there are the few (like me) who play a lot more than most (because I’m a student of course). I’ve seen a fair few heroics so far and have got myself a few epics already. We’re about 3 weeks into the expansion and I feel I’ve already done a lot, but I know there’s so much more to do and experience. More quests (I haven’t finished Icecrown yet!), dailies, achievements, raids, talents. Blizzard have created an absolutely sublime expansion, with the epicness I’ve always wanted to see.

And for Warlocks in particular, they’ve done a damn fine job. And there’s much more to come.