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Nyambura — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:29:16 CDT

Guild Roster

Nyambura — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 11:51:55 CDT

Nikkie <Guild Master>	Other Important Positions Raid Leader: Lazana Guild Lockpicker: Putride	Silverbelle <Guild Mother>
Elixxir Evensong Parrish Uncensored	Officers & Advisors	Putride Breavis Rendwahar Kratz
Officers Evensong Parrish Rendwahar	General Advisors Parrish Breavis	Class Advisors Natureco - Druid Evensong - Hunter Uncensored - Mage Elixxir - Priest Putride - Rogue Kratz - Warlock Rendwahar - Warrior

The Recipe Book

Nyambura — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:25:57 CDT

Taco-Cheesy Burgeroni
Invented by Nikkie
Ingredients:
1 Lb. (0.45 Kg.) lean ground beef or venison
2 boxes Macaroni and Cheese
2 tsp. Cumin
1 tsp. Garlic Powder
1 1/2 tsp. Dried, Chopped Onions (from the spice isle)
1/2 Tbs. Olive Oil
3/4 c. Milk
1/2 c. Butter (1 stick)
1/2 c. Shredded Cheddar Cheese

Directions:
1. Cook burger in frying pan. As it's cooking, mix in all spices and olive oil. Remove from heat, cover, and set aside.
2. Boil macaroni until tender. Drain.
3. As macaroni is finishing cooking, melt butter in microwave. Wisk in milk and cheese sauce packet until smooth.
4. Add cheese sauce to burger and stir. Then add mixture to macaroni and stir until completely covered.
5. Mix in shredded cheddar and serve.

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Chicken Teriyaki "Wings" (not actually wings)
Makes 4 servings
Ingredients:
4 skinned chicken breast halves, boned and defatted
1/2 cup soy sauce
3 tsp. chopped fresh garlic
3 tsp. fresh ginger, minced (3/4 tsp. if powdered)
1 1/2 cup (1 12 oz. container) thawed apple juice cocentrate
1/2 cup finely chopped green onions

Preparation:
1. Combine all ingredients except onions and chicken in blender and process. Stir in the onions.
2. Place chicken in glass baking dish and pour marinade over chicken. Marinade 10 minutes to 1 hour. Turn chicken occasionally to distribute marinade evenly.
3. Preheat grill or broiler. Grill or broil 5 to 10 minutes each side or until chicken is cooked through
Donated by: Nikkie

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Rules

Nyambura — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 06:12:43 CDT

NEW RULES
-COMING SOON-

Many of you have a general idea of what the new rules are because you came to the guild meeting. I'm still working on writing them all out but everyone will be able to see the new rules and loot system by Friday. My goal is to finish up on Wednesday night when the advisors and myself finalize how the new DKP system is going to work. Good job this past weekend. Grats on downing Solarian.

-Nikkie

The Mage's Tower

Nukemar — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 01:40:44 CDT

The Mage is a class that is meant to do damage. Mages have three talent trees to choose from, each benefiting the mage in a different way. These trees are Frost, Fire, and Arcane. No matter what spec you are, you will be expected to provide an intellect buff, a table, and sheeps when you can on each run you do. Whether it be a raid or a 5 man, you will have the potential . I'll try to break down each spec to the best of my ability. I haven't been playing a mage for as long as I have of other classes, but I'm good at what I do. Please feel free to correct me on certain issues.

Abbreviations:
AB: Arcane Blast
AM: Arcane Missiles
FiB: Fireball
FrB: Frost Bolt
AE: Arcane Explosion
IL: Icelance

Frost: This first build here is the basic frost mage pvp build. It is cookie cutter... but for a reason! Improved counterspell is very nice in all arenas and very valuable in pvp in general. Unfortunatly, this talent build will not get you very far in instances so make sure to re-specialize before doing anything serious. When pvping with this talent build, the key thing to do is get shatter combos off. I will talk about them for a bit so you actually know what I'm talking about when I refer to it later. A shatter combo is when you start casting a frostbolt (keeping your finger on your icelance key) and when you're almost done hit your freeze key on your water elemental. Put the freeze on your target as your frostbolt is finishing and as soon as your frostbolt finishes hit your icelance key. If you have good enough spellcrit, or if you're lucky, you will get hopefully a 2k + frostbolt followed by a 1.5k+ icelance. Its still nice burst damage but not as amazing as fire. Icelance is one of your most valuable abilities, it has low mana cost and you can get nice fast crits off with it when you're on the go. You have to remember to keep your target frozen before you cast it though, or your damage will be next to nothing. This build has huge survivability so you don't have to keep moving around and on your toes as much as the fire spec. Once you get Ice Barrier up, you can stop a good chunk of damage from getting to you, even if some gets through thats still a nice thing to have up at all times. Ice block is a really awesome move, when fighting classes that you know when they're going to nuke you (like PoM pyro mages) you can time it so when they're about to hit you with something thats going to kill you, you can just hit iceblock and take the damage. Make sure to remember about taking iceblock off before the duration is up (top right portion of the screen) so you can jump back into action ASAP. Sometimes I use iceblock to wait out cooldowns on water elemental, cold snap, ice barrier, frostnova, or just to let my elemental do some damage while I'm immune. It's a really nice spell to have and now that its in all trees I just fucked up because I'm talking about it in the frost one. GG.

PvE Frost Spam Frostbolt? Pop water elemental on bosses when you know it's going to survive. 222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222 is what you're key rotation should look like.

Fire: 2/48/11 At the start of a fight (if it lasts longer than 15 seconds) load up scorch until you get 5 stacks. Spam Fireball. Hit scorch before it fades. Spam Fireball.... .. .. . ya. Pop Combustion, Icy Veins and a Trinket for nasty damage! Watch your threat because you'll be leet.

Arcane Frost 44/0/17 : This Build is best for thegeared PvE mage, giving you three "trinket" skills in PoM, Arcane Power, and Icy Veins. It allows you to bring out great damage in raids with very few resists due to the arcane focus talent which gives you an increased chance to hit with arcane spells (10%). Slow is to be used on anything that isn't immune, it significantly reduces any damage output they do. Spell rotation is ABx3, AMx1, FB x1. AB should be wearing off as your frostbolt ends.

Arcane Fire: 40/21/0
This is a gear reliant spec that allows huge damage, but you need a good mana pool and preferably the two set piece bonus of t5 mage. Rotation is ABx3, Scorch until AB wears off. AB should be wearing off as your scorch ends.

ZOMG ARENAS

K, first of all you must be skillz.
Classes you will fail against: ShS rogue, SL/SL lock, BM hunters, Disc priest (depends), Ret Pally (if he's good), Boomkin (If he isn't a fucking retard)
Classes you will rape: Warrior (watch spell reflect), Druid, Marks hunter (trink out of scatter shot).
Other classes are pretty much fair game. If you're good and don't mess up, you will win.

Shatter combo play - by - play:
Summon Water Elemental
Icy Veins *optional
Counterspell (if it's a mage, ret pally or something that can use magic effects to remove freezing effects)
Charge frostbolt
Use WE freeze as FB has ~1 second left.
Ice Lance as it's finishing.

Shatter can be used on a lot of classes, but on druids, rogues, hunters, and warlocks it can be hard to pull it off. A lot of time on these classes you should refrain from casting frostbolt so you dont get wtfpwned by interrupts.

Things I do on certain classes when 1v1:
Druid:
Resto:spam frostbolt, hope they dont gay of sight you. Try to get off a shatter - cast WE freeze at the very end. Counterspell Regrowth, Cyclone if you can. Spellsteal hots if you're getting low.
Feral: try and get him out of stealth by using rank one blizzard. Blink out of opener stun. Druids get frostbite procced on them a lot. so make sure you can scoop off a 2k icelance whenever you can. If a druid shifts into bear form, they're going to feral charge you. STOP CASTING FFS. Don't let him interrupt you! When he gets to you he'll probably pop his stun. Blink if you have it, if not pop your block. Usually if you block, they try to heal... usually a regrowth. Counterspell him and finish him off. If he doesn't heal just try to outlast him. Keep Ice Barrier up and use your ice block and freezes wisely. Keep fire blast on cooldown, ice lance a lot. Keep moving. Cone of cold works well. Pop mana gems as needed.
Doomkinftw:
You need to play line of sight well. trinket out of cyclone if you happen to let him cast it for some reason. Try and counterspell his nature but if he's got a starfire charging and you know you can't avoid it, counterspell that. You can't win in a burst fight, plain and simple. I don't have a strategy against boomkin 1v1 yet because there are so few that aren't completely stupid. Blink out of roots.

Hunter:
Beast Mastery: Try and outlast them until they're beastial wrath wears off. If you can, get them with frost nova/icelance at the start of the fight before they pop it. Keep ice barrier up and iceblock as his aimed shot hits you so you dont take that damage. Keep the full duration of iceblock to tick away as much of his time as possible. Keep Ice barrier up and play line of sight. If you're above 50% health by the time his Beastial Wrath fades, you can usually get him. Pop Icy veins in your shatter combo so you dont get mega pushback. Surviving through Bestial Wrath is key. Blink out of intimidation.
Marks: Basically keep ice barrier up, and nova him and his pet . get in his meelee range and try and shatter him. HE WILL USE SCATTER SHOT. Trinket out of this if you can. toss an icelance at him, then bring out your water elemental and shatter his ass. Pop icy veins too. Fireblast/cone of cold/arcane explosion spam should finish him. If not keep throwing instants at him and try and get another shatter off. Fight in his meelee to eliminate silencing shot. Block before a ranged attack hits you.

Mage:
Frost: Counterspell him before you shatter. keep frost ward up and block out of a shatter. Pop your trinket on his nova. Try and counterspell a frost if you can before you shatter. Before you block bring out your water elemental (thanks athree... faggot). throw out instants and keep your health up. Play aggressive and you'll win, use LOS to your advantage. Blink out of nova if you can.
Fire: Fireward, Ice Barrier. Pop your water elemental after he uses DB/BW. Try and counterspell a fire spell and finish him off within 4 seconds with a shatter.

Paladin:
Holy: Spam Frostbolt until he gets to less than 50% health. Spellsteal all his buffs so you can get Blessing of Freedom / Divine Favour / Divine Illumination easier. Once he gets to less than 50% from your frostbolt spamming, Counterspell him and shatter him down. If he's interrupted he can't bubble *Information from Kmer - Could be wrong. As soon as he bubbles (if you couldn't get him) pop a bandage and a mana gem and repeat.you should be able to get him within 8 seconds if he's at 50%. that's 3 Frostbolts and a fireblast
Ret: Most pain in the ass fight ever. Keep Ice Barrier up, and keep running. BLINK OUT OF HAMMER OF JUSTICE ONLY. Trinket out of Repetance. Make sure you spell steal his buffs and cone of cold him whenever you can. keep fire blast on cooldown. Counterspell b efore you shatter so he can't dispell it. When he bubbles, bandage up and try to survive. If you're outgeared, you will probably lose, unfortunatly. Spellsteal blessing of freedom and then cone of cold. Try and get some distance on him to sheep once you do this. If you can get a sheep off, shatter him normally without counterspell. Then again next time using frost nova and CS.

Priest:
Disc: Spellsteal all buffs to start. Pop mana gem afterwards. Play LOS for Mana burn (you can pop your blink) Trinket out of fears. Counterspell when you shatter. Spellsteal his PW shield if you can. Don't bother trying to kill shadowfiend unless you have about 100 penetration.
Shadow: trinket out of fear, counterspell a shadow when he's at ~50% then shatter him down. Frost bolt spam is alright.

Rogue: If the rogue's decent, there's going to a be a series of events that are going to take place.
Sap, Premed (?)
Cheap Shot -> Blink
Shadowstep, Kidney Shot -> Iceblock
Frost Nova -> Cloak of Shadows, Hemo x3.
Water Elemental Freeze -> Trinket or Deadly throw attempt on your frost bolt.

To Be continued... later/.... tierd..

Homeland's Raiding Tactics

Rendwahar — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 13:09:14 CDT

This is a page and forum where we can discuss the tactics of the up and coming fights that Homeland is going to encounter. here there will be videos, boss strategies, and other items we can utilize to maximize our ability to progress. When raiding with Homeland, you are not just out to top a meter, you will need to learn to play your class. The ability to change up, to do that off spec thing, and to anticipate is what seperates good raiders from bad. With a strong focus, and bringing everything we can to the table everyday, we can be that guild that does not throw our face against a boss for weeks upon weeks.

Use this page to learn the bosses, to help one another in the raid situation, but most of all, use this page so that we can go into these places and have a blast.

Most of these layouts are taken from Bosskillers.com so props to them for having the information.

The Lurker Below

Before The Fight

To do this fight, you should have Gruul down fairly consistently before Growth 15 and should have at least one well geared tank. Everyone needs, at the very least, 7-8k health fully buffed; anything below that and there is a chance that you can be killed in two hits by an unlucky Whirl/Geyser combination. Flasks are highly recommended for your tanks here, but they are not required. As for classes that are beneficial, it's nice to have a Restoration shaman, a couple of hunters, and a couple of mages.

Before you go into this fight, you should understand that there is not a single element of randomness in the encounter. Thus it's highly recommended that this be your entry level fight for SSC.

Group Makeup

3-Tanks. All of them need to be in full tanking gear. At least one needs high threat-per-second. At least one needs to have fairly good gear.
7-8 Healers. A shaman is very much preferable.
14-15 DPS. There is no preference towards melee or ranged in this fight, but you'll see why a few mages and hunters help in a bit.

The Water
If you haven't been to SSC yet, you're probably asking, "why can't I just swim there?" Well, Lurker and his trash control the state of the water. If Lurker is alive and his trash is alive, jumping in the water will cause Coilfang Frenzies to spawn. These do large amounts of damage. One fish spawns every 3 seconds, and each fish individually does around 300 DPS to plate. Once you kill all 6 Vashj'ir Honor Guards surrounding Lurker, the water begins to boil. Now, standing in the water will give a debuff that does 500 damage every 3 seconds. Once Lurker is killed, the water becomes harmless and you can swim in it freely.

It is simply not possible to do The Lurker Below without killing his trash first. You must make the water turn to Scalding Water.
One more quick thing to note about the Scalding Water is the fact that it is a debuff that causes damage as soon as it is applied. Thus, jumping up and down will actually cause you to take significantly more damage than if you just sat in the water. 500 damage every 3 seconds is very close to nothing. Typically, the lowest health someone might have is around 7000, which means that he could sit in the water without a heal for a good 42 seconds before he dies.

Basic Strategy Idea and Specific Group Makeups

This strategy uses the idea of group leads and really manipulates it well. The concept of group leads revolves around each group being self sufficient and having a clearly defined purpose. When Lurker dives underwater, 9 adds spawn and things can get a little hectic. Healing can also be difficult when Lurker is up as the platform is fairly large and people do take quite a bit of damage. However, if everyone is part of a group, and each group knows what their responsibilities are and is self sufficient in achieving them, then there shouldn't be a problem.
Boss Abilities Whirl: Often used immediately after a Spout (and occasionally after that), it is basically a Whirlwind with knockback. It deals about 2.4k damage to plate, 3.5kish damage to rogues, 4.5k to cloth. It will not hit you if you are standing on the outer ring. Though many boss mods will try to predict it, it is really only predictable right after a Spout.

Geyser: Targets a random person and hits them and everyone within 5-8 yards of them for 3.5k damage and knocks them back. To counter this, just stay spread out.

Spout: Signaled by the emote, "The Lurker Below takes a Deep Breath." He will shoot a giant cone of water out in front of him (starting at the tank), then rotate clockwise or counter-clockwise. His rotation is at a pretty good pace: 35 degrees every second (rough estimate). It lasts 12 seconds. It is countered by just getting in the water; it will only hit people who are standing on any of the platforms. It is also important to note that it actually goes round 420 degrees in total, not just 360.

Enrage Timer: This does not exist. Some guilds have tried to see if there is one; they went 30 minutes before they got too bored.

The Fight

Phase 1

Basic Positioning:

Each group is spread out around the platforms. Each of the three outside platforms will have a mage, a hunter, and another dps to aid in the phase 2 add roasting. All healers are assigned to heal their group first and the tank second. This leaves 3 healers completely dedicated to healing the tank while all other healers heal their group first and spot heal the tank. If you brought 8 healers, you'll just get even more heals on the tank. It is important that people be as spread out as possible to avoid the Geysers. If you have extra hunters, make sure they all go on the platforms, as they can use Freezing Traps to help out in phase 2. The tank should be in the inner pool while tanking Lurker. He should be swimming, not standing. He will get knocked back frequently, and it is important that he not get knocked out of Lurker's melee range. This also allows your tank to basically ignore Spouts if he is always swimming in the inner pool.

There are 2 parts to mastering phase 1. The first is adequately healing the raid and your tank, and the second is dealing with the Spouts.

Healing the raid is quite simple. All healers should heal their group first and the tank second. This leaves all the healers in group 1 healing the tank first as well. If you're having a little trouble healing, you can have healers drop off Renews and other Heals over Times on the tank between their group healing. Healing in this phase can be rough, especially for the melee group healer. Just have all healers watch their group and occasionally help each other out. Heal the tank when they're not busy. One last thing to say about healing is that there is a lot of value to being topped off in this fight, so try to be.

People should already be spread out to take minimal damage from the Geysers. Hunters should be out on the platforms to provide a little more room. No one should ever be within range of the tank. Lurker will be dealing a fair amount of raid damage to everyone with his Geysers and Spouts; you've just got to heal through it. Melee need to be ready and liberal with Healthstones / Health Potions in case of an unlucky Whirl/Spout combination.

The Spout is the second thing to master. It will truly reveal who in your raid is very smart and who in your raid is very lacking. You cannot lose people to Spouts; this fight becomes significantly harder as people die (as with every fight). Considering how easy the Spouts are to avoid, no one should ever die to them. However, you'll probably lose quite a few in the first few attempts.

When Lurker begins to cast Spout, the emote "The Lurker Below takes a deep breath" should appear. A few seconds later, a giant beam of water will come out of Lurker's mouth in the direction of the tank. Anyone hit by the Spout will most likely die (it hits for upwards of 14k). At this point, everyone should get in the water. Starting at the tank's position, the boss will rotate through 420 degrees. By being in the water, you essentially "go under" the Beam. Now, in order to do this, you need to be completely swimming in the water a good few seconds before the Spout gets to you. A good tip is that you must actually see the "swimming" animation. You don't have to go under the water, but you do need to be completely in it. You can go to either the inner or the outer pool, but it's smart to go to the outer one as it will help your healers (you won't take Whirl Damage when The Lurker Below is done Spouting).

Another common way for people to die to the Spout is by popping up too early. The Spout does about 35 degrees every second and lasts 12 seconds. This means that it is going to go about 420 degrees rather than just 360. A lot of tank healers will be eager to pop up early and get hit by the Spout when it comes back around. Tank healers need to be aware of this. Raid healers should watch the tank's health right after the Spout is finished. If your tank has some good trinkets, it's a good idea to use them right after the Spout is done, as you will be hit by a Whirl and then a melee strike while people are still trying to get out of the water.

Don't let people say, "I was in the water" when they die 100 yards away from the platform. Spout is not a "knock back" in the usual manner. It will only push you backwards; it will not push you up. Thus if you are completely in the water, it is impossible for you to get knocked away: it's against the game mechanics. The Spout in no way pushes "up", it cannot pull people out of the water and then push them back.

Also, it's better to get in the water too early than too late. As stated above, if you have 7500 health, you can sit in the water for 40 seconds before needing a heal. Get in the water early.

There is no enrage timer, so this is not a DPS race. Phase 1 is about survival while making a dent in Lurker's large health pool.

Do not lose people to Spouts. Do not lose people to Geysers or Whirls. The more people that die, the more of a strain phase 2 becomes. Once you eliminate any deaths in phase 1, the fight becomes very easy.

Phase 2
In phase 2, nine adds spawn. Three are Coilfang Guardians, six are Coilfang Ambushers.

They will be immune to attacks until they all reach their positions. It is strongly advised that tanks chain-use their Taunt on the Guardians until they land.

Coilfang Guardians: These mobs have 2 abilities and about 63k health.
- Cleave. It is nasty. It will one shot kill anyone in cloth and might one shot kill anyone in leather. You must keep them turned away from anyone DPS-ing them down. Everyone in the raid needs to be aware of this, not just the melee. It is common for a healer or someone else to walk right in front of one of these mobs without thinking about it (often for a battle resurrection). Avoid these mobs.
- Teleport. If the person who has aggro is not within 8 yards (or other pathing issues), the Coilfang Guardian will teleport to the player.

Coilfang Ambushers: These mobs have 2 abilities and about 27k health and are generally untank-able (all of their abilities are random). They don't melee hard; a rogue can take quite a few hits. Generally they'll spend most of their time shooting. They will not move.
- Shoot. Shoots a random target, with a basically unlimited range.
- Mutlishot. Multishots a random target. This can hurt, as it is a conic attack and nearly everyone is nearby. However, it doesn't do much damage, and the "cone" is very small (5-10 degrees).

These adds are susceptible to all types of crowd control. They can be stunned, feared, disarmed, polymorphed, trapped, Mind-Controlled: anything.

Ideally, all nine adds die before The Lurker Below emerges. In practice, a few Ambushers will still be up. It is necessary that all Guardians be dead; one being left alive is a huge threat to the raid. As soon as Lurker re-emerges, he's going to Spout, so you're going to want to have the Guardians dead so that their Cleave is not a threat while in the water. You will read elsewhere that if you keep an add crowd controlled throughout all of phase 1, it won't respawn. This is true; imagine the same exact mobs getting resurrected every time Lurker emerges. If you don't kill one, it won't be replaced. It is strongly discouraged to sheep a Guardian, however. If the sheep ever breaks, even for a second, it will teleport to your mage and one shot kill him and then proceed to kill off the rest of your raid. It is best to keep the raid focused on killing all nine adds each time.

However, that's not to say that you shouldn't use any crowd control at all. I would strongly recommend having hunters in various groups standing on the platforms where the Ambushers will spawn. Whenever Lurker emerges, have hunters drop Freezing Traps for the Ambushers to relieve some of the damage. Have mages sheep an Ambusher if they can. Have groups communicate as to which add they are crowd controlling so they know which one to unload on and which one to avoid.

Each group needs to know the order of the adds that they are killing. Before you start, each group should know where they're going to go and what adds they are going to kill. This is recommended:

The mage on each of the outer platforms (or other primary croud control) is to sheep one add, and then the platform's DPS is to kill the other, keeping the sheep on their platform until they finish the first. After killing their sheep, they aid the DPS on the inside platform.

Melee DPS is to follow the kill order marked on the tanks, which will typically be Skull, Cross, Star. After this help the ranged DPS finish up if needed.

The Rest Of The Fight
Phase 2 ends after a certain amount of time (or after you kill all the adds, whichever comes first). As soon as he re-appears, the boss will do one melee attack on the tank and cast Spout. Be ready to get in the water as soon as he pops back up. His Whirl and Spout often occur together in sequence, so melee needs to be especially careful about watching their health. It is recommended to have a Circle Of Healing priest along with a restoration shaman watching the melee group, just to make sure that nothing bad happens. Again, remember that the Spout goes 420 degrees rather than 360, so stay in the water until it is completely done.

Other than that, the fight stays exactly the same and is simply a matter of repeating the above steps.

Individual Role Breakdowns Tanks:
Main Tank: Tank Lurker in the central pool. You should try to be "sitting" in the water just next to Lurker. You can find a spot that prevents you from getting knocked back, using the platform as a "wall." The center pool also allows you to avoid a Spout. Sometimes healers will report having line of sight issues in this spot, so test out where you're going to be tanking him before you actually go. I would also highly recommend saving trinkets (such as the Pocket Watch) for after the first Spout (right before he Whirls). This can help a lot with healers, who are struggling to get out of the water and heal the raid.

Add Tanks: If you're tanking an add that is actively being DPS-ed down, go for high threat per second. Make sure it's turned away from anyone in the raid. Take responsibility for the cleave; if someone's about to walk in front of it, do something (stun it, fear it, etc). If your add isn't being burned down, go for defensive abilities first. For a warrior tank, for example, each time the add spawns, get a bit of aggro, then Disarm it, fear it, stun it, etc. It saves healers trouble.

Melee DPS:
- Make sure you watch your health. Be very liberal with Healthstones. Bring Health Potions for this fight. Do not die. You do have an aggro list, so don't pull aggro. If you die it is your own fault.
- Make sure you don't get cleaved. A lot of melee do.
- Make sure you know the order that you are killing adds. Generally, it should be killing a Guardian then going to clean up Ambushers.

Ranged DPS:
- Hunters, trap an Ambusher if you can. Mages sheep one at the start.
- Unload on the boss. There is no aggro list as long as you are on the outer rim of the ring.
- Burn adds quickly. You have to be the source of a lot of damage, and you get a huge advantage; you don't have to move nearly as much to DPS down separate adds. Ambushers have no aggro, so just unload.
- Do not die. Get in the water earlier rather than later.

Healers:
- If you're using the above strategy, heal your group first, the main tank second. The main tank has his own 3 healer group to take care of him.

One Last Thing

This fight starts a general tier 5 trend that you'd already began to see in tier 4. The trend is that if you die, it is your fault, and no one else's. The excuse of "no heals" doesn't work. You're either going to get one shot killed by the Spout, Whirled + Geysered, or some other bad combination. If you get cleaved, it's your fault. If you get hit by the spout, it is your fault. If you take 8k damage in 2 seconds and don't pop a Healthstone afterwards (like melee often will with the Whirl + Geyser combo), your death is your own fault. Do not die in this fight. Even though it's a huge group effort, downing the boss and downing the adds, it is also about your individual ability to survive.

Hydross the Unstable

With this strategy, you ideally have 5 tanks: 3 off-tanks and 2 main-tanks. It's recommended that the off-tanks be DPS warriors, protection paladins, or feral druids, while the main-tanks be protection warriors (it' elaborated on why protection warriors later). Unlike many other fights, there is no physical damage, so armor is not an issue.

What holds many guilds back from attempting Hydross is the resistance gear. Here is where the "best" crafted nature and frost resistance gear (along with enchantments) is available from:

Nature:
- Wildguard Helm (Plate, +50, Plans sold by Revered with Cenarion Expedition)
- Wildguard Leggings (Plate, +60, Plans sold by Revered with Cenarion Expedition)
- Wildguard Breastplate (Plate, +60, Plans sold by Exalted with Cenarion Expedition)
- The Natural Ward (Ring, +35, Design sold by Exalted with Cenarion Expedition)
- Glyph of Nature Warding (Helm Enchantment, +20, sold by Honored with Cenarion Expedition)
- Pendant of Withering (Neck, +30, Design sold by Revered with Scryers)
- Greater Nature Resistance (Cloak Enchantment, +15, Formula sold by Honored with Cenarion Circle)
- Gaea's Embrace (Cloak Enchantment, +20, Pattern sold by Revered with Cenarion Circle)
- Nature Resist Aura (Hunter Spell)

Frost:
- Iceguard Helm (Plate, +50, Plans sold by Honored with Violet Eye)
- Iceguard Breastplate (Plate, +60, Plans sold by Honored with Violet Eye)
- Iceguard Leggings (Plate, +60, Plans sold by Revered with Violet Eye)
- The Frozen Eye (Ring, +35, Design sold by Honored with Violet Eye)
- Pendant of Thawing (Neck, +30, Design sold by Revered with Lower City)
- Glyph of Frost Warding (Helm Enchantment, +20, sold by Honored with Keepers of Time)
- Greater Resistances (Cloak Enchantment, +7, random drop).
- Frost Resist Aura (Paladin Spell)
When seeking resistance gear, remember that armor does not matter. Your paladins and warriors are free to wear cloth; it will make no difference.

Main Tank Requirements

The frost tank needs at least 350 frost resistance fully buffed and should be "uncritable" (490 defense). The nature tank needs at least 365 nature resistance fully buffed and also should be "uncritable". Your frost tank can have less than the nature tank because he will be tanking only up to the 100% mark rather than the 250% mark (elaborated more on below). Both tanks must be "uncritable". Due to the length of this fight, any chance of chance at all of receiving a critical strike means it will probably happen at least once. If your tank is very close to being "uncritable", get a Flask Of Fortification. Get defense trinkets on. It would also help if your tanks have gotten some good hit-rating gear, but that's not always ideal.

The defense and resistances listed are minimum requirements. If your tank is crit-able, he will get critically hit in the fight, and if the critical hit is during a 100% mark, he will get killed in one hit. Bring Invisibility Potions for your frost tank!

Off Tank Requirements

Off tanks lose a lot less gear when gearing up for this fight. They need around 120 frost resistance and nature resistance fully buffed. Some guilds do it with their off-tanks having zero. It doesn't matter if they are "uncritable" or not. Ideally, they throw on a resistance helm, both rings, a neck, get a helm enchantment, and they're there. Practically, that won't always be the case. This is a significantly lesser requirement and there's a lot of room for error. In all honesty, your off-tanks aren't really ever taking much damage or doing much tanking, they're just holding mobs in place.

Suggested Raid Composition

5 tanks (3 off-tanks, 2 main tanks)
7-8 healers
12-13 DPS (The more AoE, the better. At least one hunter is required)
Hopefully at this point you are downing Gruul around Growth 13 and have either Void Reaver or Lurker down. This fight is a DPS race, but also a heavy execution fight. It's extremely easy for a single person to wipe the raid.
Boss Breakdown Health: About 3,500,00

Reset-able?: Practically, no. He is reset-able if you reach the large elevator. He will continue chasing people in the water and across the bridges.

Boss Phases

There are 2 phases in this fight, nature and frost. Hydross starts in the frost phase and appears as a water elemental. When you move him out from between the two pillars he starts in between, he switches to his nature phase and completely wipes aggro. Note this concept now: you and your raid control the phase changes.

Boss Abilities

Mark of Hydross: Cast in both the nature and frost phases. This causes the damage he deals in this phase to increase. It stacks, but is not linear. The first application is 10%, the second is 25%, the third is 50%, 100%, 250%, 500%, 1000%, 2500%, 5000%, etc. He casts this every 15 seconds. When he's in his frost phase, it will increase the frost damage you take. When he's in his nature phase, he will cast a different mark that increases the nature damage you take.

Water Tomb: Cast in his frost phase only, he targets a person (randomly) and stuns that target and everyone within 6-7 yards of that target for 4 seconds, dealing a hefty amount of damage. Note that the damage that is caused by this increases as you get more Frost Marks of Hydross.

Vile Sludge: Cast in his nature phase only, again, it is a random targeted ability. With no Nature Marks of Hydross, it does 500 damage every second for 24 seconds. It also decreases the damage and healing done by 50% (unlike Mortal Strike, which decreases healing received by 50%). Unlike Water Tomb, there is no AoE effect; it only hits one person. It can, however, be up on multiple targets simultaneously.

Enrage: 10 minutes after being engaged, Hydross will Enrage and become untankable, even with Shield Wall. He continues casting Vile Sludge and Water Tomb, which will also kill in one shot anyone they hit.

Summon Adds: Every time he changes phases, he summons 4 adds (elaborated on more below). When he changes into his nature form, he summons 4 nature adds. When he changes into his frost form, he summons 4 frost adds. These adds have about 60k health and hit very lightly, but their damage also scales with Mark of Hydross.

Aggro Wipe: Every time Hydross changes phases, his aggro list completely wipes. However, all DoT's and debuffs will still remain.

Strategy

The Pull

When you arrive, you will find a line of mobs patrolling from the right, stopping in front of Hydross, and then proceeding off the screen to the left. In order to make the pull, you must clear out some of these mobs. All remaining elementals, both cleansed and uncleansed, will aggro once Hydross is aggro-ed, thus it's best to deal with them before the pull rather than during the fight.

Mobs will continuously spawn along this trail as long as Hydross remains unengaged. You will want your tank and 3-4 high DPS players to go to the right, killing these elementals as they go. These mobs hit extremely lightly and the nature tank will not require a healer. You're basically swimming upstream.

Once this group of trash killers reaches the spawn point and kills all the remaining engaged elementals, the entire raid should leave combat. There will be a 2-3 second gap for the frost tank to consume an invisibility potion. At this point, he should start running in, ready to engage Hydross. It's important that everyone realizes the tank is invisible and not follow him in(!). Another elemental or two should spawn for the trash killing group to finish off. Once the frost tank reaches his position (shown below), he should use Blood Rage, thereby popping out of invisibility and beginning the Hydross fight.

The Fight

The Start

The start of the fight is your best time to DPS. Once your tank pops out from invisibility, everyone should move into their positions and begin maximum DPS. The tank should be taking minimal damage with no Marks of Hydross, giving people plenty of time to move up and spread out. A Misdirection should definitely be used here, as people need to go all out. The goal is to knock out a good 15-20% of his health before the first phase change becomes necessary. If you cannot get him below 90% before the first phase change, you simply do not have the DPS to down this boss and should abandon your efforts (sorry!). Be aware that threat can become an issue for all types of tanks. Warriors have sacrificed block value in their resistance gear, and thus Shield Slam hits for less. Druids have sacrificed critical hit chance and attack power, and lose threat through that. Paladins have sacrificed spell damage, and thus also lose threat.

Frost Phase

Positioning

Healers and Ranged DPS are spread out on the left and the right. Melee DPS are meleeing from behind Hydross. The nature tank and add tanks are in position for when Hydross is changed. It is crucial that both tanks do not get unnecessary Frost Tombs. If the Frost Tank takes a Frost Tomb from a melee DPS player, he will not only take extra damage, but will also be stunned for four seconds, leaving him unable to dodge or parry: lots of unnecessary damage. Another thing to watch out for is all the melee getting hit by a Frost Tomb. Chain Heal is an extremely effective way of healing through it. The other unfortunate thing that can happen is having your nature tank take a Frost Tomb right before the phase change and being stuck stunned when he is supposed to pick Hydross up. This shouldn't be an issue now because people are already spread out.

During the frost phase, the Frost Tomb hits for a lot and will become a major issue. With the exception of the melee, if more than one person ever gets hit by Frost Tomb, something is wrong. You should allocate at least 2 healers to healing the raid through Frost Tombs in this phase.

With 20 seconds left until the 250% Frost Mark, DoT's should stop (this is also 5 seconds before the 100% mark).

With 5 seconds left until the 250% Frost Mark, all DPS should stop and the phase change should occur. This is considered a "soft timer" because your tank can somewhat easily live through a few seconds of the 250% Mark. You'll see why this is important later. Several guilds decide to go 7 seconds before the 500% mark, but an unlucky Frost Tomb can lead to a wiped raid, and because the damage from Frost Tomb gets increased by such a significant amount from 100%-250%, it's best to just go early.

Nature Phase

Again, with about 5 seconds left until the 250% Frost Mark, you'll want to do your first transition. If you have only one Misdirection, save it for all the frost phase beginnings (as in, at the start of the fight and every time Hydross changes from Nature to Frost). ie. if you only have one Misdirection, do not use it here. If you have two, feel free to use a rotation.

If you're using warrior tanks, they should use this macro to make the transition very easy and very fast:

/cast [target=nameoftank] Intervene

The reason for using Intervene is that it gets Hydross deeper into the other "zone" and thus allows for more time to pick him up and so makes it more forgiving for a miss or a bad placement.

At some point during crossing the line shown above, Hydross will switch from his frost phase to his Nature Phase. Immediately upon switching, two things will happen, both of which need to be dealt with perfectly in order to have success in this fight.

The first is a complete aggro wipe. Now, what make makes this part difficult is that Hydross won't phase change immediately after crossing the line. It's somewhat random. He could change as soon as he crosses the line, or he could go a full 5 seconds before performing the actual change. It's important to note that he will still have all debuffs on him, so any DoT's ticking will generate quick aggro. To counter this, your nature tank must pick him up. If your nature tank is a warrior, he should have saved up rage from before the transition and should open with a Shield Slam and Heroic Strike then follow it with a Devastate. If he's a paladin, he should use his Damaging Judgment. They should do these things as soon as they either see the adds spawn, see Hydross himself turn green, or see a boss mod announce it. It is critical that no one be damaging Hydross.

The way to really mess up the aggro wipe is to DPS Hydross or leave DoT's ticking. The way to make it difficult is to throw up huge heals when he changes. The way to make it easy is to only have HoT's going during the change. A lot of guilds struggle with the transition due to healing the frost tank and healing through the Frost Tomb. You only want to heal the minimum amount. Your frost tank should have his health completely capped off before the transition. Once the transition occurs, he should be ready to drink a Health Potion in case Hydross takes a while to change. The other way a lot of warriors make this difficult is by going for high aggro as soon as Hydross crosses the line. You have to wait until he actually changes form; not just when he starts crossing the line.

Once Hydross has been picked up and the tank has been given a good 4-5 seconds of aggro, Melee DPS should resume on Hydross while ranged DPS and the other tanks deal with the adds.

The second thing that happens is four adds spawn. These adds must be picked up and tanked. A lot of guilds report that it helps a lot if a mage Frost Novas the adds once they spawn. However, this relies on your nature tank getting Hydross first.

The best strategy for dealing with which tanks tank which adds is to assign positions. Tank A always takes the north east add. Tank B always takes the north west. Tank C always takes the south west. And the "Hydross Tank" that's not tanking Hydross gets south east. A healer should be assigned to healing each tank (4 healers healing 4 tanks). While the adds are alive, Hydross himself will be doing minimal amounts of damage and can easily be solo or duo healed. Once each tank has their add under control and has a good 4-5 seconds of aggro, AoE should begin going all out on the adds. Everyone who has a non-nature AoE should be burning the adds down. The adds should be tanked near Hydross so that DPS warriors and rogues can activate Whirlwind and Blade Flurry when appropriate. Once the adds are dead, DPS resumes on Hydross.

There is no AoE attack from Hydross in this phase, and thus positioning isn't nearly as much of an issue.

In the nature phase, Hydross loses his Frost Tomb and gains Vile Sludge. Vile Sludge is really a joke; it does tiny amounts of damage and can be easily healed through, and because it doesn't "jump" to other people, it's almost a non-issue. It cannot be dispelled and will often be up on 2-3 targets at the same time.

The only other thing different about the nature phase is that you increase the time he is in this phase. Instead of going right before the 250% mark, you're going to transition before the 500% mark. Now, this means that your nature tank will be taking significantly more damage: 2.5 times as much to be exact. He will be getting hit for 7k-8k, which can kill many tanks in two shots. At 500%, Hydross is going to hit for unhealable amounts of damage. However, because Vile Sludge is so weak an attack and the "scale" that the Mark of Hydross causes is insignificant, it's to your advantage to leave DPS on Hydross a bit longer in the nature phase. The only thing you must note is that the tank will need more heals, and the raid will need less heals than they did in the frost phase.

With 23 seconds left until the 500% Frost Mark, DoT's should stop (8 seconds before the 250% mark).

With 7 seconds left until the 500% Frost Mark, all DPS should stop and the phase change should occur. This is a hard timer and cannot be missed. If Hydross casts the 500% Mark and melees the tank, he will hit for 12-14k and easily kill your tank in one shot. You must make sure that the phase change actually occurs before the 500% mark, and, because it can sometimes take several seconds even after crossing the line before the actual phase change occurs, you have to go a bit earlier. You simply can't risk your tank getting hit with the 500% Mark.

Nature to Frost Transition

If you have a Misdirection, use it here. The reason is explained below.

Before this transition occurs, your healers should get into position for the frost phase. The reason for this is that they will be extremely tempted to heal the nature tank after he crosses the line, and most of the time your healers will give in to that temptation. It becomes a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of situation. If they give big heals to the tank, they're likely to pull aggro after Hydross wipes his aggro table. However, if they stop healing the tank, he is likely to die.

To counter this, you should do two things:
1) You want to have your main Hydross tank healers basically stand on the line of the transition (as shown above). That way, if they do pull aggro off the tanks, they do not cause Hydross to change again and thereby wipe the raid. Obviously, all other DPS should have stopped.
2) Use your Misdirection.

Unlike the nature phase adds, these adds need to be moved before being AoE-ed. The reason is that the Frost Tomb still cannot hit the tank as it will leave him unable to dodge/parry at the start. So, once the adds spawn, you should have the tanks (assigned positions the same as in the nature phase) pick up their add and drag it as shown. Once the adds are in position, AoE should begin. Healers should be assigned to healing these tanks. Melee should be on Hydross and not on the adds. After the adds are under control and AoE-ed down, this becomes the same as the start of the fight. It's now just a matter of repeating this whole procedure.

Individual Role Breakdowns

Tanks

You have to be extremely quick on picking up Hydross and/or his adds. Make sure that you're not using any form of Shield Block, as you cannot block Hydross' attacks and it is a waste of rage/mana. This fight is, essentially, a DPS race, and thus you must maximize DPS by maximizing your threat. Really, this fight is not complicated as a tank (with the significant exception of the phase changes).

Make sure that, as the phase change occurs, you wait to see Hydross change colors, a DBM/BigWiggs announcement, or see the adds spawn. Then go for high aggro. Going for aggro beforehand is rather useless. Make sure that you also have rage built up before the phase change actually has to occur (start before it even gets close).

Melee DPS

The core of the DPS on Hydross needs to come from you guys. It's extremely important that you not be close to the tank during the frost phase and try to be as spread out as possible during the various phases. Go for maximum DPS, but do NOT pull aggro as Hydross will kill you in one shot.

Ranged DPS

Hunters: Be good on the Misdirections. Have nature resistance aura up. Watch your aggro. Read in the tank section above about how you shouldn't start firing for the Misdirection until you actually see an indication of the phase change.

Warlocks: Seed of Corruption is awesome here. Make sure you use it.

Mages: AoE down the adds. Hydross is immune to frost during the frost phase.

Healers

Healer Assignments
This is a typical healer assignments, but by no means the only one:

Healer	1) Start of Phase/Adds	2) After Adds Down
Paladin	Hydross Tank	Hydross Tank
Druid	Hydross Tank	Hydross Tank
Paladin	Non-Hydross Tank	Hydross Tank
Shaman	Raid	Raid
Healer	Add Tank	Raid
Healer	Add Tank	Hydross Tank and Raid
Healer	Add Tank	Hydross Tank and Raid

The "1" assignment is for the start of the phase change when adds are still up and attacking. The "Non-Hydross Tank" is a tank who is tanking an add instead of Hydross (so the frost tank during the nature phase, the nature tank during the frost phase). Once all adds are down, you move onto your "2" assignment. Prayer of Mending and Chain Heal are extremely effective at healing during the frost phase, as the bounce will jump quickly and the Chain Heal will hit everyone hit by the Frost Tomb.

Try your best to keep the tank alive but still use minimal heals after he Intervenes to the other tank. It is very common for healers to pull aggro and get killed by getting a big heal off just after the phase change occurs.

SSC and TK Tanking Needs

Rendwahar — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:36:47 CDT

I am going to throw this information out there as it will become needed the deeper we go. This is something all classes of tanking origin should look over. Alot of this research is going to come straight from Tankspot.com. Props for them to making me not have to calculate anything.

Gear: (Written by Kryax @ Tankspot.com)

Doesn’t matter what class you are and at what level, gear is an indication of the work you have put into the game and generally a person takes a lot of pride in it. Now in my own personal opinion, no class takes as much pride in its gear as a Tank. A good tank has read pages and pages of guides, has multiple combinations of gear, never throws any of the gear they earned away and is a constant walking talking work in progress.

Now you have cleared Kara and let’s say ZA also, your gear’s looking good, you’ve had some drops and you’ve spent some badges. You’ll find that your avoidance is beginning to look pretty good and you should at this early stage have stacked your stamina gems in regardless of the socket bonuses.

We should be looking around about:

14000-15000+ HP
14500-15500+ Armor
490-500 Defence, don’t go mad with defence, there’s no need at this stage. If you have an abundance of stamina and defence then start thinking about +hit and +expertise
16-19% Dodge
15-18% Parry
22-25% Block with a block value of around 300-400.

Unless you have done your homework and farmed A LOT of badges your +hit and expertise is probably still a little low. If you have farmed and spent a lot of badges (well) it is possible to get your hit to over 50/60 and your expertise to 18+ without gimping anything else.

Here’s the gear we should be looking at, note I’m only including what you should be going to SSC/TK with. If what you currently have isn’t on the list then it’s either too low, not pre SSC/TK or I’ve overlooked it because I’m forgetful!:

Head:

Eternium Greathelm - Items - World of Warcraft – Eternium Great Helm (Kara)
Warbringer Greathelm - Items - World of Warcraft – T4 Helm (Kara, Price)
Faceguard of Determination - Items - World of Warcraft – Faceguard of Determination (Badge Reward)
Tankatronic Goggles - Items - World of Warcraft – For you engineers out there, these things are great and there’s an awesome upgrade later in the game if you reach Sunwell.
Battleworn Tuskguard - Items - World of Warcraft – Great helm from Hex Lord in ZA

Neck:

Barbed Choker of Discipline - Items - World of Warcraft – Choker from Maiden in Kara
Necklace of the Juggernaut - Items - World of Warcraft – Badge reward neck
Brooch of Deftness - Items - World of Warcraft – Badge reward neck (Note this neck is great, but you need to make sure your gear/setup is ready to equip this without gimping yourself elsewhere)
Strength of the Untamed - Items - World of Warcraft – Cenarion Expedition rep reward

Shoulders:

Warbringer Shoulderguards - Items - World of Warcraft – T4 from High King in Gruuls lair
Mantle of Abrahmis - Items - World of Warcraft – Mantle from Netherspite in Kara
Pauldrons of Stone Resolve - Items - World of Warcraft – Pauldrons from timed event in ZA

Back:

Gilded Thorium Cloak - Items - World of Warcraft - Illhoof in Kara, not great!
Farstrider Defender's Cloak - Items - World of Warcraft - Waste of badges!
Slikk's Cloak of Placation - Items - World of Warcraft – Ahhh yes, here’s what you need!

Chest:

Warbringer Chestguard - Items - World of Warcraft – T4 Chest, need to kill Maggy to get it though and that’s fast becoming a thing of the past for many Guilds. Great chest though, will keep you happy for a good long while and allow you badges for gear without blowing 100 of them on the chest below….
Chestplate of Stoicism - Items - World of Warcraft – Nice, but expensive Badge reward, in my opinion if you have T4 or the Panzar, your badges are better spent elsewhere unless you have badges coming out your ears!
Panzar'Thar Breastplate - Items - World of Warcraft – Very nice chest from Nightbane in kara, see notes on T4 and Stoic chest.
Chestguard of the Warlord - Items - World of Warcraft – Another nice piece from Zul’Jin in ZA, nice upgrade on the Panz and T4 chest without speding 100 of your precious badges. If you can get past Hex Lord, Zul’jin will be a doddle!

Wrist:

Vambraces of Courage - Items - World of Warcraft – Probably your first epic from Kara after killing Attumen, tidy until you splash some badges on the below…
Bracers of the Ancient Phalanx - Items - World of Warcraft – Sweet as bracers from badge rewards and for the record, in my opinion, better than the Void Reaver ones which will probably be your next option for bracers.

Hands:

Iron Gauntlets of the Maiden - Items - World of Warcraft – From Maiden in Kara, these things are great, better than T4 and good until you can go for badges!
Warbringer Handguards - Items - World of Warcraft – T4 from Curator in Kara, +Parry is a great stat and for some that and a T4 set bonus is enough to favour these over the Maiden ones. Still you will upgrade from these to the ones below.
Bonefist Gauntlets - Items - World of Warcraft – Ohh yes, +Parry, +hit and two gem slots….thankyou Blizzard! Note: Don’t you dare take the T5 ones from Leo if you have these, give the T5 token to someone who really can make good use of it. Unless you're really desperate for the T5 set bonus, if not then let them be!

Belt:

Crimson Girdle of the Indomitable - Items - World of Warcraft – Moroes in Kara
Iron-tusk Girdle - Thottbot: World of Warcraft - Badge reward, upgrade on the Moroes and upgrade from this to the new badge reward belt below.
Girdle of the Fearless - Items - World of Warcraft – In my personal opinion, the first new 2.4 patch badge reward you should invest in.

Legs:

Warbringer Legguards - Items - World of Warcraft – T4 legs, nice enough but as many Tanks have done these get dropped straight away for the old badge reward ones below….plus many new Guilds, like Maggy, don’t favour Gruul runs anymore, big mistake I think, good encounter, teaches a new 25 man raid Guild some nice communication and co-ordination.
Unwavering Legguards - Items - World of Warcraft – Old badge reward legs, very nice, good to go on for as long as you need them to.
Sunguard Legplates - Items - World of Warcraft – New badge reward legs, much like the chest, don’t go blowing all your badges on these when you can go Bonefist hands and the Fearless Girdle for a real buff to your stamina and threat per second.

Boots:

Boots of Elusion - Items - World of Warcraft – Random epic from Kara, not great, you should upgrade these ideally before going to SSC.
Battlescar Boots - Items - World of Warcraft – Chess event in Kara, decent upgrade from whatever you might have had before but don’t plan to keep them for long….
Jungle Stompers - Items - World of Warcraft – Ah ha, drop from Nalorakk the Bear avatar in ZA, these are more like it.

Trinkets:

Ok, golden rule, whenever you get a trinket, never ever vendor it, you just never know when it will come in handy on a particular encounter. Let’s take a look at what you should be packing trinket wise in your bags.

Darkmoon Card: Vengeance - Items - World of Warcraft – Start collecting those Fury cards guys, great trinket for some extra TPS and a nice Stamina buff.
Romulo's Poison Vial - Items - World of Warcraft – Julianne, Opera event in Kara, nice if all your melee DPS have it, extra hit and a debuff is nice.
Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch - Items - World of Warcraft – Nice survivability trinket from Moroes in Kara.
Gnomeregan Auto-Blocker 600 - Items - World of Warcraft – Another nice survivability trinket from Badges this time.
Commendation of Kael'thas - Items - World of Warcraft – Blizzard loves us, this is a MUST from Delrissa in Heroic Magisters Terrace.
Shard of Contempt - Items - World of Warcraft – Very nice for a TPS boost when needed from our beloved Delrissa again in Heroic magisters Terrace.

There’s one or two nice blue trinkets from drops and quest rewards too which you will no doubt have picked up, like I said don’t throw any away, keep them in your bank you never know when they may come in handy.

Weapon:

If you have been farming Kara/ZA etc and maybe you’re a Blacksmith then you’re really only looking at four choices for weapons and as with trinkets, don’t go vendoring them!

The Sun Eater - Items - World of Warcraft – Heroic Mechanar from Pantheon, no excuses for not at least having this….farm, farm, farm and farm!
King's Defender - Items - World of Warcraft – Chess event in Kara, when you need it least, it will drop!
Blazefury - Items - World of Warcraft – Upgrade in blacksmithing from Blazeguard, nice TP tanking weapon with a nice chunk of stamina now you can also buy Nether Vortex’s this is very attainable.
Cleaver of the Unforgiving - Items - World of Warcraft – One word…YUM! Great until you can get the Lollipop Mallet of Tides from Lurker in SSC. Drops from Zul’jin in ZA, happy hunting!

Shield:

Shield of Impenetrable Darkness - Items - World of Warcraft – Another nice drop from our good friend Nightbane in Kara.
Aldori Legacy Defender - Items - World of Warcraft – Come on Gruul, you know you want to give us the shield….Drop it damn you! Very nice, will keep you rocking for ages unless you can get the ZA one of course, see below….
Bulwark of the Amani Empire - Items - World of Warcraft – Great shield courtesy of Jan’alai in ZA, happy hunting, upgrade for the Aldori Defender.
Dawnforged Defender - Items - World of Warcraft – If you can’t get the two above then here’s your easy option, rep reward from Shattered Sun Offensive.

You should all know by now what enchants you should be using on your gear, all I would add is don’t overlook Boars Speed on your feet over +12 agi or +stam. A little extra movement speed at times is surprisingly helpful!

Overview:

Ok so you have your gear, at this time you are favouring stamina gems I expect unless you’ve been farming Kara and ZA for so long that you’ve been able to get the major upgrades giving you a huge Stamina and defence boost that’s allowed you to play with the +hit and expertise items. Either way you are ready to go play in SSC and TK, the fun begins with new encounters and more study of what you should be doing and what you should be wearing to enable your Guild to progress.

There are things coming up for Druids, those that need to know.

Mage Gearing

Nukemar — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 03:01:55 CDT

Ok, so, you've hit level 70 and you're ready to go into Karazhan and owns some noobs. Wait! You should probably want to check out some of this gear before you head in there. Its 12 AM so please write to me in game if you find any mistakes.

Demonfang Ritual Helm
Vindicator's Pendant of Conquest
Mana-Etched Spaulders
Sethekk Oracle Cloak
Spellfire Robe
Vindicator's Silk Cuffs
Spellfire Gloves
Spellfire Belt
Mana-Etched Pantaloons
Extravagant Boots of Malice
Ryngo's Band of Ingenuity
Scintillating Coral Band
Scryer's Bloodgem
Quagmirron's Eye
Gladiator's War Staff

That should put you at 133 Spell hit. The yellow gem slots in that gear will easily put you over the hit cap if you use 3xGreat Dawnstone (8 Hit Rating). You can trade out 3 of those gems for Potent Noble Topaz (4 spell crit, 5 spell damage). For your Blue gems in the spellfire set, put in Glowing Nightseye (5 spell damage 6 stamina).

Yes, mages, it is possible possible to get spell hit capped without running karazhan. Even if it makes your eyes bleed.
I would strongly reccomend running a 2/48/11 build with this gear set because it is NOT gear reliant at all.

Morgan's Warrior talent builds!

Nukemar — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 01:05:29 CDT

Protection Build:
This talent build is a more healer heavy build, its for if you have decent gear for what you're trying to run. You wont have any trouble with rage generation in this build so if you're good on the keys, you should be able to generate a huge amount of threat per second (tps). Boss tanking build, where taunt isn't as useful :)

Fury build:
This build is the most common Fury DPS build as of 2.4. The extra critical strike bonus in the arms tree is key.

PvP Arms build:
This arena build is for survivability, not the most DPS you can get from an arms spec.

PvP Moderate DPS / Survivability build.
Probably the most common 2v2 arena build for warriors.

HeavyDPS build (Arena)
This is the 2h build thats going to get you the most DPS in arenas.

Raiding - Talent Spec, Gear, Gems, Enchants, and more

Evensong — Sat, 31 May 2008 16:59:16 CDT

Talent Tree Specs

Beast Mastery Builds:

Beast Mastery 41/20/0

This is a very standard type of spec that you will find most anyone who is Beast Mastery will use. The biggest decision will be if you choose to put 5/5 into Improved Hunters Mark, or into Efficiency. Since only one Hunter's Mark can be active at any given time, generally only one Hunter in your raid group will need to have this talent to help buff the raid.

Marksmanship Builds:

Marksmanship 20/41/0

This build will still give your pet some reasonable damage in the raid, as well as buffing your party and yourself. You can opt to put that additional point in Silencing Shot instead of Combat Experience, but remember, many bosses will be Immune to your Silencing Shot.

Marksmanship 0/42/19

A Marksmanship/Survival Build that is designed for a Hunter who will be required to make the most use of their trapping abilities.

Marksmanship 7/45/9

A very strong Marksmanship build that takes advantaged of many of the damage enhancing talents.

Survival Builds:

Hybrid 0/25/36

This is my most recommended Survival build for 25-man raids. It is the ultimate raid buffing spec as it gives you both Expose Weakness and Improved Hunter's Mark, but it requires a little more of a DPS sacrafice on the part of the Hunter.

Survival 0/20/41

This spec can be helpful with pulls. The Readiness Talent will give you the use of a dual Misdirection, boosting your tanks threat. However, since you will only have 2/3 points in Expose Weakness, this is not recommended unless you have more than 40% crit, fully buffed.

Survival 6/20/35

This spec will offer you the most for DPS, but you will have to sacrifice slighty, but it is a little more flexible, as you can switch around the points in Focused Fire, Expose Weakness and Thrill of the Hunt to a find a balance that best suits your play-style.

Base Stats

So you've quested, fought, and tamed your way to level 70, and are now ready to begin your exploration of all that Endgame content has to offer, beginning with Karazhan. However, before you grab your pet and run for Deadwind Pass, you need to stop and take a close look at your Stats and Gear. Karazhan is composed of many hard hitting bosses that require a lot from not only you, but your entire group. Following, you will find information on what kinds of Stats and DPS you should have to not only initially enter Karazhan, but how you should progress in order to continue into content following Karazhan.

Karazhan

Initial Base Stats - Unbuffed

6,000 - 8,000 Health
5,000 - 6,000 Mana
75 Hit Rating
200 Intellect

BM Hunters:
1300+ AP
20% Crit

MM Hunter:
1600+ AP
20% Crit

Surv Hunters:
1600+AP
26% Crit

Ideally, you should be doing at least 300 DPS individually, and about 450-500 DPS if you include your pet.

Hit Rating Cap for BM and MM Hunters: 142
Hit Rating Cap for Surv Hunters with 3/3 points in Surefooted: 95

This is the magic number for hunters that will guarantee that you will never miss. Once you reach this Hit Rating, you can redirect your focus to increasing your Attack Power and Crit.

Gruuls' Lair

Base Stats - Unbuffed

7,000 - 8,000 Health
6500 Mana
Capped Hit Rating
250 Intellect

BM Hunters:
1500+ AP
20% Crit

MM Hunters:
1750+ AP
20% Crit

Surv Hunters:
1700+ AP
30% Crit
with a Prefered Minimum of 650-700 Agility

To enter Gruul's Lair, you should be doing at least 500 DPS, and about 750-800 including your pet. As a Hybrid Survival build, you will be doing around 600 DPS but your Expose Weakness should proc the large majority of the time you are shooting.

Consumables

Many of the fights you will encounter are going to be much longer and more Mana intensive than anything you will have encountered in running any of the 5-mans. At this point, your Mana Pool, Shot Rotation, and use of Consumables will help you significantly. Ideally, MP5 bonuses on gear will help, but don't sacrifice Agility, Crit, or Attack Power for MP5.

Weapons:
Superior Mana Oil: 14 MP5

Battle Elixirs:
Elixir of Major Agility: +35 Agility, +20 Critical Strike

Guardian Elixirs:
Elixir of Major Mageblood: 16 MP5

Flasks:
Flask of Relentless Assault: +120 Attack Power

Well Fed Buffs:
Warp Burger: +20 Agility and Spirit
Grilled Mudfish: +20 Agility and Spirit
Ravager Dog: +40 Attack Power, +20 Spirit

Must Have Pots:
Super Mana Potion
Super Healing Potion

Pet Consumables:
Kibler's Bits
Sporeling Snack

GearEnchants

Head
Revered with Cenarion Expedition: Glyph of Ferocity.
Adds 34 Attack Power and 16 Hit Rating.

Shoulders
Honored with Scryers: Inscription of the Blade.
Adds 13 Critical Strike Rating. You will need 2 Arcane Tomes.
Exalted with Scryers: Greater Inscription of the Blade.
Adds 15 Critical Strike Rating, and 20 Attack Power. You will need 8 Arcane Tomes.

Honored with Aldor: Inscription of Vengeance.
Adds 26 Attack Power. You will need 2 Holy Dust.
Exalted with Aldor: Greater Inscription of Vengeance.
Adds 30 Attack Power and 10 Critical Strike. You will need 8 Holy Dust.

Cloak
Greater Agility:Adds 12 Agility.
Greater Planar Essence, 4x Arcane Dust, 1x Primal Air.

Chest
Exceptional Stats:Adds +6 to all Stats.
4x Large Prismatic Shard, 4x Arcane Dust, 4x Greater Planar Essence.

Bracers
Assault: Adds +24 Attack Power.
6x Arcane Dust

Gloves
Superior Agility: Adds +15 Agility
3x Small Prismatic Shard, 3x Greater Planar Essence, 2x Primal Air
Assault: Adds +26 Attack Power.
8x Arcane Dust

Legs
Nethercobra Leg Armor: Adds +50 Attack Power and +12 Critical Strike
4x Heavy Knothide, 4x Cobra Scales, 8x Primal Air, 1x Primal Nether

Feet
Dexterity: Adds +12 Agility
8x Greater Planar Essence, 8x Arcane Dust
Cat's Swiftness: Adds +6 Agility and minor movement speed increase.
8x Large Prismatic Shard, 8x Primal Air

I would Recommend the Dexterity over Cat's Swiftness, but it is a viable option.

2H Weapons
Major Agility: Adds +35 Agility
8x Large Prismatic Shard, 6x Greater Planar Essence, 20x Arcane Dust
Savagery: Adds +70 Attack Power
4x Large Prismatic Shard, 40x Arcane Dust

Again, I would strongly recommend using the Major Agility, unless you have plenty of Agility but are severly lacking in Attack Power. Savagery is genearly most useful for PvP Hunter Weapons.

Bows and Guns
Stabilized Eternium Scope: Adds +28 Critical Strike
2x Hardened Adamantite Tube, 6x Felsteel Stabilizer, 2x Star of Elune

This Scope does require a lot of mats, and itmight be difficult to find an engineer with the pattern. If you cannot obtain this scope, use the highest level scope with + Damage that you can obtain, or if you feel you might be replacing your Bow or Gun in the very near future.

Gems

Blue Quality Gems:
Balanced Nightseye: +8 Attack Power, +6 Stamina; Fits Yellow or Blue Socket
Jagged Talasite: +4 Critical Strike, +4 Stamina; Fits Yellow or Blue Socket
Shifting Nightseye: +4 Agility, +6 Stamina; Fits Red or Blue Socket
Infused Nightseye: +8 Attack Power, +2 MP5; Fits Red or Blue Socket
Delicate Living Ruby: +8 Agility; Fits Red Socket
Bright Living Ruby: +16 Attack Power; Fits Red Socket
Smooth Dawnstone: +8 Critical Strike; Fits Yellow Socket
Rigid Dawnstone: +8 Hit Rating; Fits Yellow Socket
Glinting Noble Topaz: +4 Hit Rating, +4 Agility, Fits Red or Yellow Socket
Wicked Noble Topaz: +4 Critical Strike, +8 Attack Power, Fits Red or Yellow Socket

Purple Quality Gems:
Jagged Seaspray Emerald: +5 Critical Strike, +7 Stamina; Fits Yellow or Blue Socket
Balanced ShadowsongAmethyst: +10 Attack Power, +7 Stamina; Fits Red or Blue Socket
Shifting Shadowsong Ametyst: +5 Agility, +7 Stamina; Fits Red or Blue Socket
Infused Shadowsong Amethyst: +10 Attack Power, +2 MP5; Fits Red or Blue Socket
Delicate Crimson Spinel: +10 Agility; Fits Red Socket
Bright Crimson Spinel: +20 Attack Power
Smooth Lionseye: +10 Critical Strike; Fits Yellow Socket
Rigid Lionseye: +10 Hit Rating; Fits Yellow Socket
Glinting Pyrestone: +5 Hit Rating, +5 Agility, Fits Red or Yellow Socket
Wicked Pyrestone: +5 Critical Strike, +10 Attack Power; Fits Red or Yellow Socket

The Hunter's Lodge

Evensong — Sat, 31 May 2008 16:53:57 CDT

It has been said that the Hunter is one of the easiest classes to play.

Don't be fooled by that comment.

Hunters are a difficult class to play to all of their abilities. They are responsible for much more than just shooting and telling their pet what to attack.

We act as crowd control by using our ability to chain trap.

We can assist with difficult pulls by using our ranged capabilities and our ability to Misdirect.

We are very useful for picking up and killing adds in certain boss fights.

Most importantly we can act as squishy protectors. Since many times we are standing near our healers, if we see a mob run for them, we can easily pick it up and detain it long enough to allow our tanks to re-establish threat. By doing this, we not only help protect our healers from being hit and possibly killed, we also allow them to stay focused on their job of healing the tank.

And of course, we provide stong, steady DPS to any fight.

Cheeky's Spreadsheet

This Spreadsheet is probably one of the most valuable tools for any Hunter looking to improve themselves and decide between gear, gems, and enchants. It takes into account not just what you wear, but it also calculates the value and impact of your Gear, Talents, Buffs, Shot Rotations, and your Pet and Pet Training. It will give you an overall look at all of your stats, as well as DPS. It's a great tool for comparing gear and helping you to determine which piece of gear will give you the best benefit. Keep in mind that this spreadsheet will show higher DPS values that you will see in game, as it is based on the assumption that you are standing still, and fighting 100% of the time, without any latency in game.

As a Hunter, you have 3 different Talent Trees that you can build into. Beast Mastery, Marksmanship, and Survival, and each provides it's own unique advantages. Deciding on which tree to build into will be determined by you stats as well as what you plan on doing. Some talents and builds will help a PvP Hunter stay at range and remain alive. Others will give a raid some very beneficial buffs or unique and helpful specialty shots.

Beast Mastery

Is by far the most common Talent Spec that you will find, as it is not only the easiest for leveling, but also the most viable in early raiding situations.

In a Beast Mastery build, you are augmenting your pets ability to deal damage. This reduces your down time between killing mobs since not only are you killing things faster, but you are also using less mana on your shots. Increased damage for you pets will also increase their threat generation, making it very difficult to pull the aggro off your pet in this kind of build.

Another large bonus to the Beast Mastery tree are Bestial Wrath and The Beast Within. This ability can be used to help break Crowd Control effects in both PvP as well as PvE, and render you immune any further traps, poly-morphing, or fear. Bestial Wrath will send your pet into a rage, and allow him to cause and additional 50% damage for 18 seconds. The Beast Within will also send you, the Hunter into a rage, allowing you to cause an addition 10% of damage, and will reduce the mana cost of your spells by 20%.

How is Beast Mastery viable to raids?
Itoffers some of the strongest DPS in early raiding while you are still building up your gear. Since a large protion of your damage is caused by your pet, he aids in displacing your threat,allowing you to shoot harder and faster. Your pets Kill Command also adds significant damage and won't disrupt your shot rotation. Ferocious Inspiration will also benefit your entire raid party, and will increase all damage dealt by 3%, and scales to each raid members individual gear, rather than being based on the Hunters Gear.

The biggest key however, is to ensure that your pet remains alive during a fight. This requires careful use and monitoring of your pet. Using your Mend Pet, a Heal over Time, at key moments, and being able to quickly pull your pet from a fight to minimize AOE damage is crucial. Knowing when and how to use your pet is extremely important.

Marksmanship

A solid Markmanship build early on in raiding is viable, but will reduce some of your damage output if your Attack Power is too low. Since you are reducing your pets damage capabilities, you will need to compensate with your level of Attack Power. However, in a situation where you have more than one Hunter, one in a Marksmanship build can become very useful.

Where a Marksmanship Hunter shines isin PvP situations, especiallyArenas. Specialty shots such as Silencing Shot, which prevents the target from being able to case for 3 seconds, and Scatter Shot, which will confuse your target for 4 seconds, are great ways to interupt casting and attacks. In many PvP situations, your pet can easily be removed from the situation by it being trapped by another hunter or even feared. You aren't relying so much on your pet to deal damage as your are using him for distractions and to help delay casters from either leaving combat or delaying their casting abilities.

Most other builds will dip into the very beginning of the Marksmanship build for a few specific bonuses. Lethal Shots will increase your Crit chance. Efficiency reduces the Mana cost of your shots and stings. Go For The Throat causes your ranged critical hits to generate focus for your pet. Aimed shot will increase ranged damage and also reduce healing on your target, and will lead to Mortal Shots that will increase the damage your critical hits do.

Survival

The Survival tree is all about getting your enemies out of your melee range, keeping them there, and well, ....surviving! It is not very often that you will see a Hunter with a full Survival Talent build as it is not designed to do high end damage. It's biggest benefit to end game raiding is it's augments to your trapping ability, and the Expose Weakness ability. A Survival Raiding spec might not show very much benefit for 5-mans and 10-mans, but a Survival hunter will shine and show their worth in the 25-man Raids. Unlike many specialty buffs that normally only augment those memebers in your party and not the whole raid, The Expose Weakness ability, when it procs, will raise the Damage of every single member in your raid hitting that target. However, only one Survival Hunter is needed in any given raid, and that Hunter must be willing to sacrafice their own personal DPS for the good of the Raid. Keep in mind that by giving up a little bit of your

The Survival tree also provides outstanding benefits to a PVP Hunter as well. You are creating longer lasting traps that are harder to break. You open up the Wyvern Sting ability that will put your target to sleep, allowing you to set traps and heal yourself. It gives you added range and an Improved Wing Clip. You get stronger resistance to movement impairing effects. And, if you should momentarily get stuck in melee range, it increases the amount of damage your melee attacks can do.

Raiding Infomation

Add-ons

Rendwahar — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:02:24 CDT

Mandatory for Raiding OMEN Deadly Boss Mods	Tanking TankTotals Outfitter Natur EnemyCastBar
Melee DPS GearDPS	Ranged DPS GearDPS
Caster DPS DoTimer Warlock Alert (warlock specific)	Healing Totemus *Shaman Decursive Healbot
Misc. KLH (alt threat meter) Multi Mail Atlas/Atlasloot Critline Itemrack	Interface/UI FuBar (Plus some Addons) Bongos Pearl ArcHUD

Interface pictures

Limbripper — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 15:26:48 CDT

Ok, here's the UI I'm running on and if you'd like to post your own UI, feel free to do so by tagging it below mine. Leave some space between them please, make it as detailed if you want... I just like to show you guys the possible hotkeys to use and where I've strategically placed mine.

Now that we have that big ass screenshot in there, let's talk about my key bindings.

`: Mount. I call this key the lazy key. only really useful to hit if you're not really concentrating on much, its just too far to be used in a tight situation.
1: Fireblast. I find that my "1" key can be a bit awkward to hit at times, so I put a spell I'm not using as often on it.
Q: Fireball. Easy to hit "Q" and it's my main damage move as fire spec. Q is a great key to bind one of your main skills to.
2: Frostbolt. Main damage move as frost, easy to hit key. another good key to bind to
3: Frost Nova. another easy key to bind, although I don't use this move a lot. I use it in every spec and in almost every situation.
E: Icelance. easy to hit, I love having it on E because I need to snap off an icelance quickly when I'm frost whenever I can. also a good key to hammer on when I'm a different spec and I'm trying to combo damage moves.
4: Arcane blast/scorch. I use "4" for my main stacking move. if I'm trying to open a fight up, I'll stick whatever move I'm using on 4, depending on the spec.
F: BLINK! I find F is the easiest key to find, since it has the lump on it telling you what key it is! I need to blink in sticky situations really quickly so I just hammer down on the lumpy key and I'm saved :)
5: spec move. In most of my builds, 5 is the move I don't really hit too often, it's usually blast wave, or ice barrier depending on what spec I am. In my arcane build it's scorch though, since it's generally easy to hit and I can trade off from 4 - 5 rather easily when changing spells.
6: Arcane Explosion: Basic AoE spell. easy to spam the 6 button when strafing around and using other moves with it.
G: Cone of Cold / Blast wave depending on the spec. Good in AoE situations but not much else, unless I'm trying to burst something down. G is kind of hard to reach in a tight spot, I have to shift my hand over a couple centimeters to hit it after hitting 1 sometimes, so I like to keep an ability that has a longer cooldown on it.
T: Wand... nice to hit the T button at the end of a fight and just sit back.
Y: Spellsteal. I hardly use this spell and Y is a difficult key to reach when you need it fast. During High king at about 2 seconds to the spellsteal is needed I shift my hand over to reach it. Good key to put your less used spells on it.
Z: Rank one frostbolt: I hardly ever use this, but now shooting off a rank 1 frostbolt with a 1 second cast time is always a nice thing to have available to you. I mapped it to Z in case I need it quickly.
V: Water Elemental Freeze. I only use this key in frost because its hard to hit after 2 (frostbolt). I have about 1 second to move my index finger over to the V for me to get the freeze off on my target and then hit it with the shatter. Combo is 2, v, e (ice lance). spamming E at the end of my frostbolt.
Shift `: Flying mount.
Shift 1: Arcane Missiles. Hard to hit shift one in a tight spot, believe me...
Shift Q: Elemental target attack. I find that Shift G and Shift Q are easy to hit together, so I can summon my elemental and get it to hit my target right away.
Shift 2: Frost Ward. Easy to hit in a tight situation.
Shift 3: Counterspell. Another easy key to hit when I need a counterspell really fast.
Shift E: Polymorph. I don't know why its mapped to a shift key, but it works for me. I dont have to use it every fight and its still pretty accessible when I really need it fast.
Shift 4: Fireward: Easy to hit in a tight situation.
Shift 5: Trinket. Great to combo with Shift G, Shift W. One of three cooldown buttons.
Shift W: Icy Veins, Arcane Power. One of three cooldown buttons.
Shift G: Water Elemental, Combustion, Presence of Mind. One of three cooldown buttons.
Shift T: Ice block. Easy to hit the T in a hurry. Sometimes you really need to hit Iceblock badly (High king... har har)
Shift D: Pyroblast. Only really useful when popping my Cooldowns. the buttons go like this. Shift W, Shift G, Shift 5, Shift D. Hard to use that combo on accident...
Shift F: Flamestrike. I don't use this move often, but when AoE farming as arcane its nice to hit with my cooldown moves to blast some guys out.
Shift R: Rank one blizzard: sometimes you just really need to get that rogue out of stealth before pawns you. Easy to hit.
Shift V: Quest Items. Now with all the dailies I like to have a key I can map different quest items to so I'm not clicking it in my bags all the time.
Shift 6: PvP trinket. Hard to accidently hit, so I like it where it is at right now.

Congratulations, you have now learned how to play a Nukmar. You must have been really bored to have read this through, or maybe you just skipped all the key bindings and read this. Smart guy.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

This here is my current interface setup. YES....there are A LOT of buttons....and I need to do a bit more work on my bindings at some point...I MUST learn how to use Shift ;-P

I do have a TON of add-on's...I don't even know where to begin. If you see something your interested in/curious about, just ask me and i'll be glad to share.

The addon's that you see on Screen that I use are: Bongos, X-perl, Fubar, Omen, Grid (which replaces my raid interface) Carbonite, Elkano's Buff Bars, Recount, and FarmIt for when I'm...yup, farming. I also have and use Auctioneer, MobInfo, Deadlyboss Mods, Crit Alert, and Outfitter....among a few others.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Numpad 7: Lightning Bolt
Scroll Down Numpad 7: Flame Shock(rank 1)
Numpad 8: Frost Shock
Scroll Down Numpad 8: Frost Shock(rank 1)
Numpad 9: Earth Shock
Scroll Down Numpad 9: Earth Shock(rank 1)
Numpad 4: Searing Totem Shift
/ : Windfury Totem
Numpad 5: Purge
Shift Numpad 7: Chain Lightning
Numpad 6: Tremor Totem
Numpad 1: Poison Cleansing Totem
Shift - : Battlemaster's Trinket
Numpad 2: Grounding Totem Shift Numpad 9: Master Macro (bloodlust, elemental mastery, etc)
- : PvP Trinket
F9: Lightning Shield
/ : Earthbind Totem
F10: Water Shield
* : Fire Nova Totem
F11: Flametounge Weapon
+ : Normally Nature's Swiftness
F12: Bloodlust
F5: Flameshock
F6: Normally Magma Totem or Stoneskin...depending in what mood I'm in.
Scroll Down Numpad 4: Rez partner
Scroll Down -: Drink
Scroll Down /: Ghost Wolf
Scroll Down +: Mount
Scroll Down *: Flying Mount

This is of course just my Elemental PvP setup. It changes dramatically between specs and is different for PvE and PvP. I could of course go through huge explanations of what does what like noobmare but I don't really feel like it lol. I was trying to get a cool picture with like Chain lightning lightning overloading on like 6 different people but I couldn't get lucky on the larger groups =/ There are also a couple more addons that show up during arena.

Addons Include:
Deadly Boss Mods
Control Arena
Totem Timers
Control Arena
Healbot
Natur Enemy Cast Bar
Recount
Bongo Bars
Titan Panel
Atlasloot Enhanced
Auctioneer
Gatherer
Itemrack
Xperl

The Shaman's Plateau

Limbripper — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 10:45:05 CDT

Introduction

If you have ever heard the phrase, "Jack of all trades, Master of none", then you know how to in one sentence describe the Shaman class. Shaman are the only true "hybrid" class in the game relying on melee and magic to overcome they're enemies. They can cast heals and deal massive damage to become a formidable enemy and feared if played to perfection. With three different talent trees; Elemental, Enhancement, and Restoration, Shaman are a perfect mix of balancing powers.

Talent Trees

Elemental - This talent is my personal favorite. The elemental tree is a caster spec and relies heavily on the use of totems, whether they be used to kite melee enemies or unleash chaos while stun-locked. If you are planning on doing arena, this spec is really only viable in 5v5 and some 3v3 teams. Without any form of CC or a way to remove crowd controlling effects from you character, it can be extremely difficult and frustrating at times. In high level content such as 25-man raids, elemental Shaman are valued for their totems and effective damage output. The totems which can increase damage done/ hit and spell crit rating/ increase mana regeneration and several others are valuable assets which can increase the effectiveness of any group. Elemental shaman will out-dps enhancement shaman but they are not the highest damage output class in WoW, which is completely realistic because of the fact that they are a hybrid class and not a class devoted to only one aspect of combat. For example, a mage with the same level gear should be able to out-dps an elemental shaman at any time. Rotations for most possible dps are LBx4 CL(if it is a short fight and your not worrying about mana). LBx5 FLS every ten seconds if there is a mage in your group keeping scorch up. Otherwise for really long boss fights just make sure you have water shield up and bind every key to LB and smash your face into the keyboard. Listed below are effective builds for PvP and PvE.

PvP Arena Build-----PvE Raiding Build

Enhancement - This spec relies on the skill to run down your enemy and hack them down with your dueling wielding weapons. The use of Wind Fury imbued weapons can be devastating to any class or NPC. In Arena they can be kited by any ranged class and have virtually no chance to defeat them. I don't like this spec because it seems that it's too much based on lucky WF procs (can only occur once every three seconds). If they don't crit then run around and spam your /moon /moan macros until you die = /. I don't recommend this spec unless you just really want be melee and are good at hugging pillars and playing it smart, as well as with your teammate. Patch 2.4 is supposed to help the Enhancement shaman in the 2v2 bracket with enhanced talents but I'm not sure how well it will actually work out. Enhancement is also a great way of leveling to 70 fairly quickly. Spell rotation would be SS with FLS because if SS gives the enemy a debuff that increases the damage done of the next two nature spells by 20%. I say to use FLS because If there is a boomkin or and elemental shaman in your group, their 20% damage will greatly out-do your 20% damage. Below are example builds that I think may work the best but I'm not sure because I have not played enhancement much at level 70. A good place to look would be the WoW forums if you want to try something different.

PvP Arena Build-----PvE Raiding Build

Restoration - This Shaman spec is a master of healing. Whether it be used in PvP or PvE, it is valued for its survivability with Earth Shield and mana duration with Water shield. Chain Heal is also one of the most powerful and most effective heals in the game. It is completely over-powered in battlegrounds but don't tell Blizz that because it might get nerfed just like everything else. If you love to heal and not have the ability to kill anything whatsoever, then this is the build for you. Your totems are your friends. Use them as much as possible, always keep a WF totem down for your warrior but rotate it every 11.5 sec for your grounding totem (with talents and pvp set bonus). The WF buff will remain on his weapon for about 10 secs so if you do it right, your partner will always have that buff, even if WF totem isn't down. Mana Tide is extremely important, make sure thought that you hide it as best you can because experienced teams will target it immediately. In 2v2 Arena, depending on your partner, your either going to want to kite enemies as much as you can or try and focus fire your target. For example, if you are fighting a druid/warrior team, then just keep Earth shield up on yourself and unleash as much havoc as possible on the druid. Just keep rotating WF and Ground totems and with shocks every 6 seconds and possibly an instant Chain lightning, you can kill the druid fairly easily. But be careful because the use of these spells will deplete your mana pool fairly quickly. Listed below are the best talents builds after patch 2.4.

PvP Arena Build-----PvE Raiding Build

These talent builds are just recommended but can be altered to more fit the style of play for you.

Professions

Alchemy- This is the profession that I am currently leveled in. I love it, it makes me like 17 buttloads of gold a day and I can supply valuable buffs to raids outside of the use of my totems. If you go alch make sure you also go herbie. It can be done without but its gonna really hurt you on the gold aspect of it. I recommend this profession.

Leatherworking- I used to be a LW, but because of low demand on leg patches and small profits for the work required, I switched. The epic sets are not even that great and could be easily replaced with badge loot. Not to mention it's like 36 primal air and 36 primal mana. Air which is nearly impossible to farm as elemental. If you can get your hands on epic pattern drops then this can be a good profession to have, but other then that I don't recommend it.

Enchanting- This is a great profession to have, especially if your big into PvP. The ring enchants add a nice bonus to damage or healing, depending on which you want. The profits from this can also be extremely fruitful. If you want to be have money and enchants that nobody else has then I reccommend this profession for your shaman.

Mining- Goes well with herbalism if you are trying to make money.

Jewelcrafting- Would be a nice profession to have. I recommend that you also have mining in order to mine the gems instead of having to buy them from the AH. Jewelcrafters are hard to come by, especially those with high level patterns. So, if your looking to be helpful and even make some nice cash. Then this would be a profession for you.

Blacksmithing- Pointless, don't do it. Unless you wanted to go enhancement and make Stormherald. THEN it might be worth something.

Herbalism- Easy money.

Tailoring- Meh...who wants to be a clothie.

The Warrior's Gauntlet

Rendwahar — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 14:28:34 CDT

Introduction

The warrior is a very important and useful class to any situation, be it raiding, pvp, or instances. Our ability to have a constant skill pool with rage, our skills based for both dealing and withstanding damage, and our diverse combination of armors and weapons make us ideal canidates for the meat shield rolls.

The first thing a warrior has to do is admit that yes, they are indeed a tanking class. To further this step, they must also prepare to play that role, if they want to see any real gear or respect with their toon. A stubborn warrior who will only ever swing is mighty two handed hammer, and never play sword and board, is more or less a useless meat sack which can be replaced. Now, this does not mean that every warrior should always tank. But always be willing. I have seen warriors play the off tank role in a raid situation, bringing good gear for the tank and for the dps positions, and in their own way becoming the anchor of the fights. In multiple mob fights, there is often not enough croud control to keep all non focus enemies in check. The warrior would sword and shield a mob, and when that role was done for him, on goes the hammer, and out come the screams.

Racial Benefits

Here is some input on the Horde races that can roll Warriors.

Orcs - a solid Warrior race for PvP or 2 handed DPS. their natural Enrage ability and resistance to stun can make them a menace in any situation. A solid choice for a warrior of any role.

Undead - a moderate choice, the Undead's ability to break fear can ruin a PvP or PvE encounter, and their Cannibalism ability can cut down time a decent amount. However, they have a lower stamina, and have no abilites to do much for the raiding or instance situation. Not the best PvE Warrior race in most standards.

Troll - the natural Beserking ability that trolls can use is a very powerful "trinket skill" that can make them strong off tanks or more so, good DPS races. A solid choice for solo/DPS, but a lower stamina might make tanking a slight bit tougher.

Tauren - probably the best race for a Warrior, the War Stomp ability is a free stun/spell stop for any encounter, their natural Stamina increase gives them a substantial boost for tanking, and their nature resistance can even perk up grinding a bit. Likely the best choice in all of WoW, and definitely the best choice for the Horde.

Talent Trees

The three talent trees availiable to a Warrior are Arms, Fury, and Protection. These three trees have their main advantages and disadvantages for any role and those will be covered here.

Arms - This tree is intended mostly for a 2 handed DPS or PvP build. Most of the commin builds will give a good flex in DPS, but this tree absolutely shines in PvP. This with a few good skill rotation macros (coming soon) can make a warrior shred his opponents. The Weapon Specialization can be customized to fit your weapon of choice, though maces in PvE (2 handers) are a severe loss in DPS. For a PvE Spec for raiding, the builds below for the fury tree will be stronger.

Arms PvP/PvE (5 Mans) Spec

The rotation for this build for DPS requires a swing timer (Quartz is strong). It revolves around using Slam right after your auto swing. What you would do in this rotation is observer your swing timer until you are below .5 seconds and then start your slam. This will generate your Slam in between swings, utilizing the Global Cooldown properly and making great use of your weapon's DPS. If done right, it can be like hitting dual wielding, but with 2 handed weapons. However, you need to be very particular in watching this rotation and doing it right, otherwise you will be hurting yourself for DPS. Here is the rotation for this warrior build.

Auto Attack ~~> Slam ~~> Mortal Strike

Auto Attack ~~> Slam ~~> Whirlwind

Auto Attack ~~> Slam ~~> Global Cooldown Free (Insert any needed shout renews, other cooldown skills here)

Then repeat this, over and over, run out of AoE/Voids, and then gather loot. If you do not have enough rage to do the MS or WW, that is fine, the bread and butter of this is your DPS. Save the rage, do it next time. Also, if you are over 50 Rage after a MS or WW, que up a heroic strike. Burns the rage, adds the DPS, no wrong doings there, and since it also works on your swing, a HS/Slam rotation can occur, and providing you are not near pulling threat, it will be fun to see.

The DPS generated by this build will be on average of 5-10% lower than the DPS of Dual wielding. However, What this build will do for the raid is give everyone doing non spell based damage a 4% increase whenever you crit. In Most cases, this spec will be critting enough to consistently keep this up. So, for example, if a warrior runs this, and there is a dual wielding warrior, shaman, and 2-3 rogues, In addition the tanks and hunters will see an increased benefit as well. So lets make a demo situation out of this. Warrior A is this Arms build, Warrior B is DW Fury, Rogue A B and C are all Combat, Tank A and B are tanking, and Hunter A B and C are Afkautoshooting.

Warrior A (2H Fury) 500DPS	Warrior A does the Arms build for 470 DPS, but keeps debuffs up
Warrior B (DW Fury) 500 DPS	Warrior B 520 DPS
Rogue A 600 DPS	Rogue A 624 DPS
Rogue B 600 DPS	Rogue B 624 DPS
Rogue C 600 DPS	Rogue C 624 DPS
Tank A 250 DPS, 1000 TPS	Tank A 260 DPS, 1040 TPS
Tank B 200 DPS, 750 TPS	Tank B 208 DPS, 780 TPS
Hunter A 700 DPS	Hunter A 728 DPS
Hunter B 700 DPS	Hunter B 728 DPS
Hunter C 700 DPS	Hunter C 728 DPS
Total: 5350 DPS, 1000 TPS MT	Total: 5514 DPS, 1040 TPS MT

So, in total point, if you are willing to better the raid, and PvP on any regular basis, this build will do you the most good if your hit rating is more than 89 and less than or at 142.

Fury - This tree shows nothing but brilliance in the roll of DPS in raids, or in the roll of Off tank. It also has the smoothest leveling, and does not require a weapon commitment like Arms. All in all, I rate this personally well above Arms as being a viable build for 10 man DPS. However, this will stack well with an arms warrior in 25s. For best benefit, go with what gear you can, and keep in mind Dual Wielding should be done with 142 hit rating or more. The no miss on both weapons is 393, I doubt you want to shoot for that, but 142 will prevent your yellow attacks from missing. On the flip side, the 2h Fury build only needs a 95 Hit rating to pull it off soundly. Your weapons will dictate your build here, but if you feel Fury is best for you, DW will normally coincide.

PvE Fury Spec

The normal rotation for this build is as follows.

Auto attack 55 Rage ~~> Blood Thirst ~~> Whirlwind ~~> Global Cooldown free ~~> BT ~~> GCD ~~> WW ~~> BT ~~> GCD ~~> GCD

Take note: Auto attack means keep your rage building til the next GCD is up here, as more likely you will get 2-3 hits per Cycle. Also, the GCD can be used as a Rage Battery, Shout/Rampage Renewal, or other things you need. Also, if you are over 50 Rage after you start your rotation, a heroic strike would be cool as long as you are not at the point of pulling threat.

Two Handed Fury Spec

This rotation is a bit more intensive, but if perfected it can still do some decent numbers. It is a very similar pattern to the Arms rotation above in that you need to time your Slams best with the Auto Attack, so again a Quartz or equivalent would be best here.

Auto attack ~~> Slam ~~> Whirlwind ~~>
Auto attack ~~> Slam ~~> Bloodthirst ~~>
Auto Attack ~~> Slam ~~> GCD Free (Rampage, Shouts)

Protection - The main tank, the most difficult person to find in all of WoW, even harder than a compitent healer. This tree is commonly filled with a huge majority of a prospective tank's points. One on one, there is no class who excells at tanking better than a warrior.

Of the different talents availiable, these points are the basis for what any tanking tree, or off tanking tree, should have.

Prot Warrior Root Talents

From this, you can develop the common MT spec for a raid, shown here.

Raid Main Tank

The best rotation for a tank usually works like this:

To start the fight and gain aggro
Engage Enemy/Pre Pull Preps ~~> Shield Slam ~~> Devastate X5 ~~> Shield Block
Pre Pull Prep should be Bloodrage ~~> Commanding Shout ~~> Pull(MD to you) ~~> Shield Block.

To maintain aggro
Queue Heroic Strike/Devastate (at the same time) ~~> Thunder Clap ~~> HS/Devastate ~~> Demo. Shout ~~>{ HS/Devastate ~~> HS/GCD Free}
Repeat this and keep Shield block on Cooldown at all times. It does not share a GCD with these abilities. Use Stuns as needed, use the GCD's to renew thunderclap or your shots. Note, the area in the brackets is what repeats for most of the fight.

Skill Macros

Disarm Macro
#show Disarm
/cast [nostance:2] Defensive Stance; Disarm
/cast [nostance:3] Berserker Stance

You can also use [nostance:1] Battle Stance to go back to that stance. This macro is for PvP or PvE, to disarm an opponent and resume your role.

Oh Crap I'm Tanking Macro
#show Taunt
/cast [stance:2] Taunt; [stance:1/3] Defensive Stance
/stopmacro [equipped:Shields]
/equipslot 16 King's Defender
/equip Aegis of the Sunbird

This macro is one to set aside in case the Main Tank dies, and you're the lucky pick up. The weapon an shield are subbed in with the name of your weapon and shield. Make sure you obey cases and spelling.

A Hunter's Pet

Evensong — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 12:57:19 CDT

*Please be patient, this page is under construction*

How do I pick that ever elusive perfect pet?

This site is as close to a bible for Hunter Pets as you can get:

Petopia

It contains a vast amount of information on the different families, tamable pets, what special skills they have, different colors and looks, and where you can find them based on level or zone.

The biggest factor in determining your pets characteristics is which pet family they belong to. Each pet will fall into one of the current 23 families, and it is the family that will determine everything else about your pet, including Diet, Learnable Skills, and their Base Stats.

Base Stats

The first thing you must do is determine exactly what you want your pet to do for you. Do you want an offensive pet that can deal a lot of damage? Or a defensive pet that can take the hits? Or would you like a pet that's well-rounded and can deal good damage as well as being able to take damage? This is where a pets Base Stats will become important. Each family determines the base amount of Damage, Armor, and Health, which will determine what your pet will be most suited for - regardless if they are Rare or Elite. Keep in mind that these base stats can and are effected by the skills that you pet can learn, as well as the skills, talents, and equipment of the Hunter.

This table is a listing of the base stats of each pet family.

	Damage	Armor	Health
Bat	+7%	+0%	+0%
Bear	-9%	+5%	+8%
Boar	-10%	+9%	+4%
Carrion Bird	+0%	+5%	+0%
Cat	+10%	+0%	-2%
Crab	-5%	+13%	-4%
Crocolisk	+0%	+10%	-5%
Dragonhawk	+0%	+0%	+0%
Gorilla	+2%	+0%	+4%
Hyena	+0%	+5%	+0%
Nether Ray	+3%	-10%	+10%
Owl	+7%	+0%	+0%
Raptor	+10%	+3%	-5%
Ravager	+10%	+5%	-7%
Scorpid	-6%	+10%	+0%
Serpent	+0%	+0%	+0%
Spider	+7%	+0%	+0%
Spore Bat	+0%	+0%	+0%
Tallstrider	+0%	+0%	+5%
Turtle	-10%	+13%	+0%
Warp Stalker	-6%	+5%	+0%
Wind Serpent	+7%	+0%	+0%
Wolf	+0%	+5%	+0%

As you can see from this table, several familes may have the desired base stats you are looking for. For example, if you were looking for a Damage dealing pet, Cats, Raptors, and Ravagers all fall into this catergory since they have a +10% bonus to their base damage. This is where the pets learnable skills become important.

Pet Training

I would recommend that you only keep 2 pets at any given time. Why you ask? Well, if at any time you wish to play with a potential new pet, or need to learn a new skill to train one of your current pets with, you cannnot tame another pet if you have all 3 pets that you are capable of possessing.

Scenery

Nyambura — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 12:29:59 CDT

If you would like a screenshot added to this page please email it to the guild email.

Badlands

Elwynn and Redridge

Feralas

Tirisfal Glades

Caverns of Time

Drunken Dwarf NPC in the Hinterlands

Sunrise at Shadowprey

Blackrock Depths

Shattrath City

Terokkar Forest

Loch Modan

Blades Edge Mountain

Rendwahar in Terokkar Forest
-he's actually flying upwards-

Maraudon

Deadwind Pass

Duskwood

The Priest's Temple

Elixxir — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:15:57 CDT

Welcome to The Priest's Temple, home of the scapegoat. If you’re already 70, kick your feet up and take a breather I'm sure the journey was treacherous. If you've just rolled a Priest, this silent prayer is for you. The roll of a Priest has many rewards that can be achieved by how well you hone your skills and how well you choose your friends.

Highly skilled healing or shadow Priests are one of the most sought after classes in the game because of the utility they bring to a group in buffing, healing and damage forms. A Discipline priest not only brings good healing to a group but also great survivability through efficient dispelling and stat boosting talents like Mental Strength, Enlightenment and Pain Suppression. Also buffs like Improved Divine Spirit and Power Infusion can significantly boost the amount of caster DPS in the group.

A holy Priest brings a ton of healing options to the table, from massive single target type heals, fast "Oh $#!t" type heals, to "this tank is way over geared I'm throwing up a renew and going to make a sandwich" type heals. They also have many group based heals such as Prayer of Healing, Binding Heal, Lightwell, Circle of Healing and the all mighty Prayer of Mending. Holy Priests are pretty much a staple in all raids because of their ability to heal almost any situation and change healing tactics on the fly.

Shadow Priests are also a mainstay in most endgame raids because of their ability to pump out massive damage and regen everyone in the group at the same time. Vampiric Embrace and Vampiric Touch bring back both health and mana to the priests group every time damage is done so with the right amount of +Spell Hit an d +Spell Damage shadow Priests can be very useful Casters love a skilled shadow Priest, they can make their mana pools last 2-3 times longer in some fights and more mana=more DPS.

Gear for a healing and shadow priest is very easy to obtain in The Burning Crusade, tailoring gives a fresh level 70 priest many options to build their gear. For healing getting the Primal Mooncloth set is quite easy and is good up until SSC/TK. Also if you can find someone who can make the Whitemend set having both these sets pretty much makes you ready for healing Karazhan and Gruul's Lair. For shadow being able to make the Frozen Shadow weave set is a good start and if you can find someone to make you the Spell Strike set you are well on your way to entering Tier 4 raids.

I hope you enjoy your stay in Homeland and always feel welcome in The Priest's Temple. You have made a good choice in choosing to play a Priest and have many options for how you want to play. If you have any questions please feel free to ask me and I will try to answer to the best of my knowledge or if you have any suggestions for this page I would love to hear them.

Elixxir
Homeland Priest Class Advisor.

News From The Priests Temple

Priest patch notes for the upcoming 2.4 patch:(Source)

Chastise no longer disorients the target, but now is instant cast and roots the target for 2 seconds.

Fear Ward is now usable while in Shadow form.

Focused Will now reduces damage by 2/3/4%, down from 1/3/5%.

Inner Focus: Chastise now benefits from Inner Focus. In addition, Starshards no longer consumes Inner Focus.

Mass Dispel now affects a maximum of 10 targets, increased from 5.

Power Infusion: Infuses the target with power, increasing their spell haste by 20% and reducing the mana cost of all spells by 20%. Lasts for 15 seconds.This will not stack with other haste effects, such as Heroism, Bloodlust, or Icy Veins.

Power Word: Shield: Using low ranks of this spell will now be penalized the same way healing spells are penalized.

Prayer of Mending: This spell will now fade from players who leave or enter an instance, change continents, or exit the game.

Reflective Shield: The reflective damage from this talent no longer breaks crowd control effects which break on taking damage.

Shadowguard: No longer consumes the charge of Inner Focus when triggered.

Silent Resolve:This talent now affects Surge of Light, Power Infusion, Inspiration, Spirit Tap, Blackout, Levitate, Shackle Undead, Touch of Weakness, Hex of Weakness, and Symbol of Hope.

Touch of Weakness: No longer consumes the charge of Inner Focus when triggered.It will also function properly even when the Priest with Touch of Weakness on is silenced or stunned.

Vampiric Touch: Casting lower ranks of this spell is now properly penalized like other healing and damage effects.

New Priest badge gear in 2.4(Roll over with mouse to see Badge cost):(Source)

Healing Gear

Shadow Gear

Priest Guides

Below are some resources for priests that I have come to find useful on everything from Spells, Talents, Gear and Enchants.

Complete Priest Spell Guide: http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/26205

Holy Priest Talent Guide: http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/26196

Discipline Priest Talent Guide: http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/26199

Shadow Priest Talent Guide: http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/26210

List Of Instance Priest Gear 1-60: http://www.wow-loot.com/v1-priest.htm

List Of Instance Priest Gear 60-70:http://www.wow-loot.com/priest.htm

Holy/Shadow Priest Enchant List: http://www.wow-loot.com/priest.htm#enchants

Future Updates: News From The Priest’s Temple, Gem Socket Guide, Raid Healing Guides.

Guild Calendar

Rendwahar — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 08:07:20 CDT

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

The Rogue's Blade

Rendwahar — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 08:21:49 CST

At home in the shadows and skilled at disappearing from sight, the Rogues of Azeroth are most comfortable when acting in the background. Twisting events to their favor, striking only when advantage is greatest: this is where a Rogue excels. With their cunning tricks, physical abilities, and mastery of concealment and disguise, Rogues have no trouble finding employment as thieves, cutthroats, spies, and assassins.

Without question, Rogues are the melee damage dealer of World of Warcraft. Rogues sacrifice the same level of defense that Warriors enjoy, in exchange for a boost in damage output through skills like backstab and swift strikes.
They can also coat their weapons in poisons, further topping up their damage potential. Stealth is an integral part of the Rogue's abilities in both PvE and PvP.

Combat for a Rogue is based highly on filling a set of 5 'bubbles' which correspond to the particular enemy they are fighting. To fill the bubbles, the rogue must perform 'opening moves' such as Backstab or Sinister Strike. While these opening moves are very powerful on their own, they pale in comparison to the 'finishing moves' that can be used when the bubbles are lit. Current examples include Kidney Shot (high damage plus a stun effect), Eviscerate (extreme damage), and Rupture (damage over time effect), with the move scaling in power according to how many bubbles were lit when it is used. After the use of a finishing move, all lit bubbles will become unlit.
Changing the target enemy during combat will also cause all lit bubbles to be lost.

Another impressive form of attack in the Rogue's arsenal comes with their stealth and the abilities that correspond to it. First, stealth for Rogues in WoW is based on a detection system determined by player skills. According to the skills of the Rogue and the detect level of other players or mobs, the Rogue can be either completely invisible or display varying levels of transparency. A Rogue can also pickpocket NPCs; however, any loot that they receive from such comes from a separately generated loot pool designed specifically for pickpocketing.

Assassination

Assassination includes a range of skills used mainly for dealing massive damage. A number of these are finishing moves, which increase in power depending on how many combo points the Rogue has on the current target. These include Eviscerate (causes extra damage), Slice and Dice (increases attack speed), Expose Armor (reduces the target's armor), Rupture (causes damage over time), and Kidney Shot (stuns the target). Also included are a few damaging abilities that can only be used from stealth: Garrote (causes damage over time), Ambush (causes extra damage), and Cheap Shot (stuns the target).

Combat

Combat provides the Rogue with a variety of combat movies, including quite a few which give combo points and can be used to increase the power of finishing moves. Some of the combo point skills are Sinister Strike (deals extra damage), Backstab (causes extra damage if behind the target), Gouge (causes extra damage and dazes the target), and Feint (reduces threat). Additional combat skills include Evasion (increases chance to evade) and Kick (has a chance to interrupt spellcasting).

Subtlety

Subtlety is a group of skills which use deception to gain an advantage. Primary among these is Stealth, the trademark Rogue ability. Stealth allows the Rogue to sneak around unseen at a reduced speed. A few Subtlety skills can only be used from stealth: Pick Pocket (steals additional loot from the target) and Sap (knocks the target out for a short period of time). Other skills can be used in the Rogue's defense, such as Sprint (greatly increases running speed for a short period of time), Vanish (allows the Rogue to instantly enter an improved stealth mode), Distract (distracts nearby
enemies for 10 seconds), and Blind (causes the target to wander in confusion).

Weapons

Although rogues excel at melee combat, they may only learn to use four types of melee weapons: daggers, fist weapons, one-handed maces and one-handed swords. For ranged weapons, rogues may learn to use bows, crossbows, guns and throwing weapons.

A rogue's choice of weapon depends upon a number of factors, such as style of play and desired role within a raiding group. Rogues who wish to serve as front-line fighters alongside tanks typically wield swords or maces, which
afford higher sustained DPS during raids and instances. Rogues who prefer hit-and-run tactics often rely on daggers, which permit use of various burst damage abilities and are therefore usually favored in battlegrounds and for PvP.

As with warriors, a rogue's choice of weapon typically affects distribution of talent points, and vice versa. For example: since rogues may specialize in any of the four melee weapons available to them, a rogue who primarily or exclusively uses daggers is likely to spend talent points in Dagger Specialization. Similarly, a rogue who relies on one-handed maces or swords will probably not spend points on Improved Ambush, since the Ambush ability requires use of a dagger in the rogue's main hand.

A rogue's most fundamental abilities, such as Sinister Strike, Eviscerate and Backstab, are instant attacks which inflict damage based on the weapon damage of the rogue's main-hand weapon. Many rogues therefore find it desirable to use a slow main-hand weapon to maximize their DPS, since slow weapons typically offer higher damage ranges than fast weapons.

Weapon speed does not affect the damage bonus provided by a rogue's attack power. Instead, damage is calculated according to the following formula:

Normalized Damage = Base Weapon Damage + (Base Multiplier × Attack Power ÷ 14)

The "base multiplier" depends on weapon type: 1.7 for daggers, and 2.4 for fist weapons, swords and maces. Although weapon speed for normalized attacks does not contribute to the bonus damage from attack power, slower weapons
generally have higher base damage and thus cause more damage overall. The exception to this rule involves Hemorrhage and Ghostly Strike. Neither ability is normalized, meaning that slow weapons with high damage ranges
will inflict greater overall damage than fast weapons with low damage ranges.

Weapons held in the off hand have only two instant attacks: Shiv and the off-hand component of Mutilate. Otherwise their damage contribution is reasonably straightforward. Off-hand attacks suffer a standard damage penalty. Fast off-hand weapons increase the application rate of poisons, since they will hit more frequently than a slow weapon and therefore increase the chances of applying poison to a target. Most players choose to use the same type of off-hand as the main hand in order to benefit from weapon specialization, but some prefer to use the fastest weapon available in order to quickly apply poisons and interrupt spellcasters. Faster weapons are also sometimes favored for by those rogues who rely heavily on Combat Potency, since that talent affords the opportunity to regain up to 15 energy on a successful off-hand hit.

Poisons

The Poisons skill is a secondary skill, similar to Cooking or First Aid, that is available only to Rogues. The Poisons skill allows the Rogue to brew poisons, which can then be applied to their weapons. Poisons generally either cause damage to the target (either instantly or as damage over time) or cause other effects (slowing the target, removing the effectiveness of healing on the target, etc.). Different weapons can have different poisons applied, and faster weapons cause the poison to proc more often.

Poisons are a temporary weapon buff, and as such do not stack with other enhancements such as sharpening stones or buffs from shaman totems.

All poisons have a timer, which formerly lasted 30 minutes but as of patch 2.3 was raised to 60 minutes. As of patch_2.1.0 a Rogue's poisons no longer have charges. The poison timer is displayed on the weapons properties when
you mouse over the weapon. As of patch 1.10 applying poison will not break stealth or shadowmeld; previously to this, applying poisons would break these states. As of Patch 2.0.1, poisons remain on weapons through zoning between continents or into instances.

A variety of talents in the Assassination skill tree enhance the use of poisons. Wearing 3 or more pieces of the Bloodfang Armor set increases the chance to apply poisons by 5%. Lockpicking Rogues have the ability to obtain the important skill Lockpicking. This ability allows them to open locked chests, lockboxes, and doors, depending on the Rogue's skill in lockpicking and the level of the locked object (note that blacksmiths can create keys to open locked chests and engineers can manufacture explosive charges that can open locked doors, in the case that a skilled Rogue is unavailable.) Lockboxes can be pickpocketed from mobs or found as loot and are essential to Rogues trying to level their lockpicking skill -- their color (grey - red) represents the skill necessary to open them (red means the Rogue's lockpicking skill is too low to open the object and must increase his/her skill level before attempting again.) Your
lockpicking increases at the same rate as weapon skills (5 * Level) to a maximum skill of 350 at level 70

Stuns, Incapacitates and/or Disorients

* Cheap Shot

Stuns a target for 4 seconds and awards 2 combo points for use on a finishing move. This is a very useful opener that requires stealth and usually allows the Rogue to get 1 or 2 instant attacks off in addition to auto-attacks before an opponent can recover.

* Kidney Shot

Kidney shot is an excellent finishing move which stuns for up to 6 seconds depending on skill rank and number of combo points. It can keep a PvP opponent stunned long enough for you to kill them (especially if you master
stun-locking). But in PvE it's also a great ability to help keep your group mates alive or to interrupt a spell being cast.

* Gouge

Gouge is not a stun, but is a very important skill that incapacitates your target. This is used frequently to stall an opponent allowing you time to regenerate energy and get behind your opponent to allow a backstab. Since it
is considered an incapacitating effect, any damage caused afterwards breaks the gouge. This ability turns off auto-attack when used.

* Blind

Allows you to stop an opponent for 10 seconds. More than enough time to bandage and restealth in pvp.

* Mace Specialization.

Placing talent points in mace specialization under the combat tree gives your maces a chance on hit to stun your opponent for 3 seconds. With one point in this talent you have a 1% chance of stunning your target and with 5 points you have a 6% chance.

Please note that diminishing returns apply to all effects that cause players to lose control of their character (stun, incapacitate, fear, etc.). Stuns are split into 2 categories, controlled and uncontrolled. Cheap Shot is an example of a controlled stun and other stuns of this class, such as a Warrior's Charge and Intercept or Paladin's Hammer of Justice, will diminish each other's stun duration on a target. Mace specialization is an example of an uncontrolled stun and other stuns of this class, such as a Mage's Impact or a Priest's Blackout, will diminish each other's stun duration on a target. Gouge is not a stun, but is in a class of its own, called incapacitate, which also includes Sap, Paladin's Repentance, Goblin Rocket Helm, and Horned Viking Helmet.