Table of Contents:

1 – Stats.
2 – Gems & Enchants.
3 – Specs and Glyphs.
            3.1 – Combat.

            3.2 – Assassination.

            3.3 – Subtlety.

4 – General tips and Rotation.

1 – Stats:

Rogues have 4 key stats for DPS:

1 – Hit: you can’t do any damage if you don’t hit anything, so this stat should be your priority till you get it up to ~340. You need 220 hit rating to be hit capped with your special attacks, 346 hit rating to be hit capped with poisons, and ~600 to be hit capped for white/normal melee attacks. You shouldn’t try to go above 350 hit rating because at that point you are giving up other valuable stats for a very small DPS increase.

2 – Agility: this is the most useful stat after hit, as it gives you attack power, and crit.

3 – Attack Power and Crit: personally, I like attack power over crit rating because I like my non critical hits to hit hard, rather than have spiky unreliable damage.

2.1 – Gems:

Delicate Cardinal Ruby

Delicate Scarlet Ruby

Deadly Amertine

Deadly Monarch topaz

Balanced Dreadstone

Balanced Twilight Opal

Rigid King’s Amber

Rigid Autumn’s Glow.

Nightmare Tear

 These 9 gems are all you should ever need. If you need hit rating, it is better to go all out hit rather than get a mix of stats. Nightmare Tear is a good addition to a Blue slot, as it is slightly more beneficial than the Balanced Dreadstone.

2.2 – Enchants:

50 Attack Power to Bracers

20 Agility to gloves

23 Agility to cloak

12 hit, 12 crit

+10 all stats

Berserking

 75 AP, 22 crit

40 AP, 15 crit

50 AP, 20 crit

Eternal Belt Buckle

 Enchanting only:

40 AP to ring

 Engineering only:

24 crit rating

Hyperspeed Accelerators (340 haste rating every minute).

1600 – 2000 damage every 45 seconds

 Leatherworking only:

130 AP to bracers

3.1 – Combat

 15/51/5 – Combat spec

 This build is centered around Sinister Strike, and it augments this ability through several talents, such as Improved Sinister Strike, Aggression, and Blade Twisting. There are also a few other talents that affect this ability indirectly, such as Lightning Reflexes, Weapon Expertise, Vitality, Savage Combat, Relentless Strikes, Malice, and Lethality. With Blood Spatter, this build also increases the damage done by your rupture by 30%. All of which are passive bonuses, i.e. you do not have to push a button for them to become active.

This build has only 3 moves that require precise timing to use effectively, Adrenaline rush, Blade Flurry, and Killing Spree. The use of these three moves is situational, and does not have a massive impact on your DPS.

This spec is designed for axe/sword specialization, and those 5 points can be placed in any of the other weapon specializations to suit your weapons.

The optimal choice for glyphs for this spec is Sinister Strike, Rupture, and Killing Spree. As for minor glyphs, the only one that would help your survival is Vanish.

3.2 – Assassination

51/13/7 – Assassination spec

 This build is centered around Mutilate, and has a few abilities increasing its potency, such as Opportunity, Puncturing Wounds and Find Weakness. There are also a few talents that affect this ability indirectly, such as Malice, Lethality, Focused Attacks, Relentless Strikes, and Close quarters combat. With Blood Spatter, this build also increases the damage done by your rupture by 30%, and Improved Poisons. All of which are passive bonuses, i.e. you do not have to push a button for them to become active.

 To use this build to its maximum potential, you have to learn to cope with the random number generator, so you can maximize the benefits from, Turn the Tables, Cut to the Chase, and the combo points generated from Seal Fate.

 The optimal glyphs for this spec are, Mutilate, Rupture, and Hunger for Blood. As for minor glyphs, the only one that would help your survival is Vanish.

 Combat and Assassination roughly do the same amount of damage, so it’s really based on preference. Combat is the fast paced tree, mainly because the main attack only 40 energy and the Combat Potency talent. Assassination is a bit slower than Combat, mainly because its main attack needs 60 energy, 55 energy with the glyph.

3.3 – Subtlety

If you are planning to use this spec, you should know that it is completely based on utility, and utility doesn’t show up on the meters.

 9/10/52 – Subtlety spec

 This build is centered around Hemorrhage, which is more of a “utility”, i.e. increasing the damage output of your fellow raiders, than your own damage. There are two abilities that directly increase the potency of Hemorrhage, and that is Slaughter from the Shadows and Sinister Calling. It also has a few abilities that increase its damage indirectly, such as Serrated Blades, Deadliness, Precision and Malice. This build passively increases the potency of rupture, and also, your attack power and agility.

 The main objective of the subtlety tree is survival and utility, damage is a secondary concern. There are a vast number of tools available to you for survival, such as Sleight of Hand, Preparation, Ghostly Strike, Elusiveness. Although there is a bit of randomness due to Honor Among Thieves, you would hardly notice it, and may be considered as a passive buff.

4 – General Tips and Rotations:

 As a Rogue, there should be only two things that stops you from dpsing, and that is your energy regeneration, and the chance of you dying if you don’t stop dpsing.

 When your DPS reaches that alarming rate where you pull aggro off the tank, rather than stopping, simply vanish and use Tricks of the Trade on the tank, and open even harder, this does several things, by using vanish, you reduce the risk of pulling aggro, by using Tricks of the Trade on the tank and opening even harder than before, you are setting a cushion for the other DPS, and they can DPS harder as well.

 Here is a rotation I use in the combat spec:

 Garrote > Adrenaline Rush > Sinister Strike till you get 5 points > Rupture > Sinister Strike till you get 5 points > Eviscerate, or Envenom if you have 5 deadly poison stacks > Killing Spree > Blade Flurry > Slice and Dice > Sinister Strike till you get 5 points, rinse and repeat till the boss is dead.

 The basic idea of this rotation is to keep up Rupture and Slice and Dice up at all times, and follow up an Envenom with a Killing Spree when possible.  Chaining Envenom and Killing Spree increases your damage dramatically, because of Envenom’s after effect, which increases the application of Deadly Poison by 75%, this lasts 1 second for each combo point used.

 Here is a rotation I use in the assassination spec:

 Garrote > Mutilate till 5 points > Rupture > Mutilate > Slice and Dice > Mutilate till you get 5 points > Eviscerate/Envenom (Envenom if you have 5 Deadly Poison stacks), rinse repeat.

 The basic idea of this rotation is to keep up Slice and Dice by utilizing the Cut to the Chase talent, and keep up rupture up at all times.

 After looking at all three specs, I hope you realize the pros and cons of each spec, and also realize the value of passive talents.

 Here is a rotation I use in the subtlety spec:

 Garrote > Hemorrhage till you have 5 points > Rupture > Hemorrhage till 2-3 points > Slice and Dice > Hemorrhage till 5 points > Shadowstep > Eviscerate > Hemorrhage till 2 points > Slice and Dice, rinse repeat.

 The basic idea about this rotation is to keep up Rupture up at all times, as that is where the majority of your damage is going to come from, as it’s effect is increased by 60%, thanks to Serrated Blades and Blood Spatter. You should also combine Shadowstep with your Eviscerates as it increases the damage of your next ability by 20%.

 Lastly, the easiest way to increase your DPS is by “chaining” your cooldowns, i.e. using them one after another in quick succession, rather than using them all at once, and use your cooldowns as often as you can. This does two things, first, gives you sustained DPS over a period of time, and second, by using your bigger cooldowns first, you can get them to be up again faster. For example: if you are combat spec, you have Adrenaline Rush, Blade Flurry and Killing Spree. There is a right way and a wrong way to use these cooldowns:

 Wrong way: Using Adrenaline Rush and Blade Flurry at the same time, and follow it with Killing Spree. Doing this will put your Adrenaline Rush and Blade Flurry on cooldown at the same time, and they wont be up for another 3 minutes. A lot of people think that their DPS will increase by using them both at the same time, because blade flurry increases your haste by 20%, but what some don’t realize is that Adrenaline Rush makes your Sinister Strikes’ instant, so Blade Flurry is wasted.

 Right way: Using Adrenaline Rush, then Blade Flurry, then Killing Spree. By simply using them one after another, you can greatly increase your DPS. What this does is use your biggest cooldown first, so when you use Blade Flurry and Killing Spree, and you can use Adrenaline Rush roughly 40 seconds sooner, because it has been cooling off while you were using it and the other cooldowns, and when you do that, you can use your other cooldowns faster too.

(Written by Sudhee) (Write for us!)

“DK’s can tank in all 3 specs.” Tired of hearing that without knowing why? Well, read on…

1. Starter DK tanking gear for heroics.
2. Tanking stats.
3. Blood tanking spec.
4. Frost 2h tanking spec.
5. Frost DW tanking spec.
6. Unholy tanking spec.

Starter DK tanking gear for heroics:

Tempered Titansteel Helm (BOE – epic) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41387

Crusader’s Square Pauldrons (BOE – rare) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37115

Tempered Saronite Breastplate(BOE- rare) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40672

Tempered Saronite Bracers (BOE – rare) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41116

Waistguard of the Risen Knight (BOE – rare) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37801

Daunting Legplates (BOE – rare) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41345

Daunting handguards (BOE – rare) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41357

Tempered Saronite Boots (BOE – rare) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40671

Durable Nerubhide Cape (BOE – epic) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43565

Ring of Earthen Might (BOE – rare) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43250

Titanium Earthguard Ring (BOE – epic) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=42643

Torta’s Oversized Choker (BOE – rare) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37794

Titansteel Destroyer (BOE – epic) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41257

Essence of Gossamer (BOP – rare) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37220

The Black Heart (BOP – epic) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47216

There are no sigils before level 80, so you need to do heroics to get a decent sigil.

Enchants to get:

Stoneskin Gargoyle – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41257

Enchant Chest – Greater Defense – http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=47766

Enchant Cloak – Titanweave – http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=44591

Austere Earthsiege Diamond – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41380

3x Thick Autumn’s Glow – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40015

I have purposefully left out the head and shoulder enchants, as they need faction reputation, but, you can get:

Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector (Head enchant) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40015

Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle (Shoulder enchant) – http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44136

One trip to the Auction House, and you will be able to buy everything but the trinkets. With all the BOE armor, enchants and gems, you will hit exactly 537 defense rating, which is what you need to tank heroics, and 10 man Naxxramas, but anything beyond that, will be troublesome.

Tanking stats:

Till you get 540 defense, its defense > stamina > parry/dodge > strength/agility

After you get 540 defense, its stamina > parry/dodge > strength/agility

540 is the defense cap where you can no longer be crit, so it is unnecessary to go over that, and your time would be better spent going for stamina.

Strength is used for Attack Power as well as Parry rating, because Forceful Deflection gives you parry rating equal to 25% of your total strength. So it helps generate threat as well as help you tank.

Agility is used for Crit and Dodge, but since you have very little crit as a tank, it is almost negligible, and in most cases it is better to go for strength.

Blood Tanking spec:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#j0EGVh0Icbofsox0xZ0gh0xz:iGd

At a glance: Blood mainly deals with single target threat generation and health regeneration with Death Strike.

Rotation: Keep up Icy Touch and Plague Strike up on all targets at all times, use Heart Strike before Death Strike, so you can benefit from the Death Strike glyph.

The main tanking talents you need to get for this spec are Blade Barrier, Veteran of the Third War, Improved Death Strike, Vampiric Blood and Will of the Necropolis, Toughness and Anticipation.

The main threat generating talents in this spec are, Bladed Armor, Scent of Blood, Dark Conviction, Bloody Strikes, Bloody Vengeance, Abomination’s Might, Sudden Doom, Heart Strike, Morbidity, and Necrosis.

After getting these talents, you can play around with the spec, to see what suits you best.

The spec given above is designed to generate massive amounts of threat rather than survivability, but it is an excellent spec to tank heroics.

Frost 2H Tanking spec:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#jcxZhxxxAbIoc0buzAo0th:sadVMm

At a glance: Frost is geared towards tanking melee, because of the haste debuffs you can put on your targets, and the talents that increase the chance for melee attacks to miss you.

Rotation: Keep up Icy Touch and Plague Strike on all targets at, all times, and rotate with Howling blast (whenever it’s up), Obliterate (for threat generation) and Blood Strike (to keep up the Blade Barrier talent).

The main tanking talents to get for this spec are Blade Barrier, Toughness, Icy Talons, Frigid Dreadplate, Annihilation, Improved Frost Presence, Unbreakable Armor, and Anticipation.

The main threat generating talents in this spec are Killing Machine, Deathchill, Frost Strike, Howling Blast, and Morbidity.

After getting these talents, you can play around with the spec, to see what suits you best.

The given spec is based on getting snap aggro on a number of mobs, and survivability, more than single target threat generation.

Frost DW Tanking spec:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#jcxhZhxe0NbI0c0fuzAo0xb:adsVMm

This spec will be more viable after patch 3.2.2, when they let Threat of Thassarian affect Rune Strike.

At a glance: Frost is geared towards tanking melee, because of the haste debuffs you can put on your targets, and the talents that increase the chance for melee attacks to miss you.

Rotation: Keep up Icy Touch and Plague Strike on all targets at, all times, and rotate with Howling blast (whenever it’s up), Obliterate (for threat generation) and Blood Strike (to keep up the Blade Barrier talent).

The main tanking talents to get for this spec are Blade Barrier, Toughness, Annihilation, Icy Talons, Nerves of Cold Steel, Threat of Thassarian, Frigid Dreadplate, Improved Frost Presence, Unbreakable Armor, and Anticipation.

The main threat generating talents in this spec are Killing Machine, Deathchill, Frost Strike, Scent of Blood, Howling Blast, and Morbidity.

After getting these talents, you can play around with the spec, to see what suits you best.

The given spec is based on getting snap aggro on a number of mobs, and survivability, more than single target threat generation.

Unholy Tanking spec:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#jcxhMZ0xZbxhIx0zg0hx0uIq:rMomVM

At a glance: The Unholy tree is based around dealing magic damage, this spec is very potent when you have around 50% avoidance, because that makes your Bone Shield last longer.

Rotation: Keep up Icy Touch, and Plague Strike on all targets at all times, then rotate between Blood Strikes and Scourge Strikes as you see fit.

The main Tanking talents to get for this spec are, Blade Barrier, Toughness, Anticipation, Bone Shield, and Rage of Rivendare.

The main threat generating talents in this tree are, Subversion (after 3.2.2, when it affects Scourge Strike), Scent of Blood, Dark Conviction, Vicious Strikes, Morbidity, Outbreak, Necrosis, Ravenous Dead, Impurity, Desolation, Ebon Plaguebringer, and Wandering Plague.

After getting these talents, you can play around with the spec, to see what suits you best.

As you may have noticed, there are a lot more threat generating talents than there are tanking talents in this tree, and a lot of those talents do AOE damage, so it is very suitable for AOE tanking, as well as excellent single target threat generation as well, second only to Blood.

To conclude, I hope you have learned something useful about Death Knight tanks, hope you enjoy tanking!

*Please Note: This was all accurate as of the 3.2 Patch On Live as of the date written. (09-15-09)-JC

(Written by Jason Cox) (Write for us!)

Most people think that healing as a Restoration Shaman is nothing more than spamming chain heal which is incorrect. Chain heal actually only should be accounting for depending on the fight around 50-60% of your total healing. I’ll touch on this a bit more later.

1. Basic Healing Information:

Healing as a shaman is not as difficult as many may imagine. One of the most difficult parts I have personally found is high mobility fights as we are turret healers. Meaning we need to be standing still to do any healing other than riptide, which even with the T9 bonuses still isn’t the greatest.

Healing in high mobility fights is one of the biggest challenges you will face healing as a shaman as the only instant heals we have are Gift of the Naaru on a 3 minute cooldown and Riptide on a six second cooldown of which generally is not enough to keep someone alive by itself. Make sure to keep your tanks at full life along with as many others as you can. The basic strategy for high mobility fights tend to be difficult to explain as the fights will vary tremendously. Just make sure to listen to your raid leader and just make sure you know the bosses. You want to make sure this is done before you actually go into a raid where you will be fighting them for your first time.

1. Gear Choices:

You are able to get multiple high end pieces just from heroics so this would be the best place to start. With that in mind you actually can get two pieces of Tier 8-Item Level 226 gear directly from the badges. The cost is 58 badges of Conquest each, this includes the helm and chest. The set bonuses themselves for Tier 8 are not all that (Two pieces gets you a 1 second reduction on your Riptide cool down) great but when coupled with 2 pieces of Tier 8 and two pieces of Tier 9 (20% increased effects of Riptide) it becomes much more effective.

Your primary stats as a healer are:

Spell Power: This is what will determine the amount of each heal. This is also known as SP

MP5: This is very important as well as this is how much mana you will regen both in and out of combat every 5 seconds.

Haste: Just as important as others will speed up your cast time of your spells. This will be much more useful in later Tiers of raid content.

Intellect: Increases your max mana pool,this is abbreviated as Int or Intell

Critical Strike Rating: However one of the lower stats however the passive heals you will give due to the talent Ancestral Awakening. This is also known as Crit. Crit will also allow the ability to proc your water shield and returning mana to you.

Stamina: Increases your life, you do not want to die to a mass area of effect that you would have lived through had you had the appropriate amount of life to sustain the damage. This is abbreviated as Int.

1. Recommended Enchants:

• Head: Arcanum Of Blissful Mending: 30 SP/ 10 Mp5 (Wyrmrest Accord Revered is required.)

• Shoulder: Greater Inscription Of The Crag-24 SP/8 Mp5 (Sons Of Hodir Exalted is required.)

• Back: Enchant Cloak-Greater Speed: Provides +23 haste.

• Gloves: Enchant Gloves-Exceptional Spell power: +28 SP

• Chest: Either of these enchants are fine.

  • • Greater Mana Restoration: 10 Mp5

    • Powerful Stats: +10 To All Stats (Some like and dislike this however consider also it will increase your total max health and mana pools which will help out when you begin into ToTC where that extra mana and health will actually play a key in your survival and ability to not go totally out of mana.
      

• Waist: Eternal Belt Buckle Provides An Extra Gem Slot. This will allow you the use of an additional gem slot known as prismatic.

• Legs: Sapphire Spellthread: 50 SP/30 Sta.

• Boots: Enchant Boots-Greater Vitality: 7 Mp5/ 5 Hp5

• Weapon: Enchant Weapon-Exceptional Spellpower: +50 SP

• Offhand: Enchant Shield-Greater Intellect: +25 Intellect

1. Glyphs:

The recommended glyphs that should be used by any raiding Restro Shaman are:

• Glyph Of Earth Shield: This actually accounts for more of your overall healing than you may expect.

• Glyph Of Chain Heal: Since the recent patch changes this actually has a lower reduction per jump with an increase in how far it can jump per target making the extra jump worth it.

• Glyph Of Lesser Healing Wave,or Glyph of Riptide, Or Glyph of Healing Stream Totem. All are good totems, Lesser Healing Wave is nice as it adds 10% to your heals if your target has earth shield on it. This is great for 5 mans. For Raiding however your best bet will be to stick with healing stream or riptide either is fine and each have their own unique benefits.

1. Talent Distribution:

Here is the general cookie cutter Resto Shaman Build:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?shaman#f9wAjXVnDIz52,-RtOHR,10433

There are a few variations in which you could use as some prefer the spell knock back however this is still one of the most viable and useful raid specs to date.

1. Healing Priority:

This is not something all healers do although they should be. Healing Priority meaning your a raid healer and you see a healer and a dps about to die. You have to prioritize and heal the healer first as an example..The order in which I would put priority on is:

• Tanks

• Healers

• Special Roles: IE someone assigned to spell steal or purge and with out could cause a wipe

• DPS

Healing In High Mobility Fights: Recommended Mods:

The only recommended mods some of which is recommended for all classes. One of these mods you will want being a healer. The links listed below are from a very well trusted site called Curse which I would say provides most every WoW user with the Mods he or she may need. You can find them at http://www.curse.com

• Healbot: One of the most important Mods a healer can have. It has the ability to click a persons name in a box and perform a heal with the combo of left click,middle click,right click. You also can set it perform other spells with Shift+ Ones listed above and Alt+ ones listed above. It will show you many buffs when they wear off on you or a tank, show threat and many other features you will want as a healer. This is the ultimate healing mod. 10 man content you can get away without this but when you start doing 25 man I would say its almost a required mod for a healer.

  http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/heal-bot-continued.aspx

• Deadlyboss Mods: This will aid you by showing you timers on special boss abilities which are vital to know so as to avoid them if possible.

http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/deadly-boss-mods.aspx

• Omen Threat Meter: You do not want to surpass the tank in threat however rare since the threat reworking blizzard did in WOTLK it is still possible. This is also good to have so that if you have a dps who may surpass a tanks threat your able to prepare to heal them or HOT them up to keep them alive if they do end up pulling threat.

http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/omen-threat-meter.aspx

1. Conclusion:

Being a healer is a very demanding and a very stressful job however it has many rewards of its own. Some enjoy healing while others do not. Generally if your good as a healer you will be invited by many people for other raids outside your guild along with other heroics and such which aids in attaining your gearing faster and becoming more experienced.

For the purpose of gaining experience in being a raid healer prior to entering a raid I would highly suggest spending a couple days in Battle Grounds with your healbot. This or Wintergrasp will work also. Doing a little PVP will provide you invaluable raid healing experience where as raid healing is a bit different with coordinated fights and such it will at least provide you the basic feeling of what it is like to be a raid healer. It will also aid you in fine tuning your spell rotations to maximize your healing per second (HPS).

Article Written By Jason Cox-Kaynwinters/Dalaran

(Written by Karch) (Write for us!)

For mages looking to improve their DPS, there are 3 basic questions you should ask:

1)      Are you spec’d right?

2)      Are you geared/gemmed/enchanted right?

3)      Are you using the right rotation?

Today we’re dealing with the first of those questions.  While there are a handful of proper PvE builds and mages can debate which one is best for them, a few misplaced talent points can sabotage even skilled mages.

So, let’s list the “acceptable” talent builds for raiding mages, explain why these are the most popular (and best), and identify some places where new raiding mages get tripped up.  Note that recommended glyphs are also included.

Frostfire

(0/53/18):  http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#oZfVcbRhIhVubhctbIccoc:IiLo0m

Explanation:   The basic Frostfire build that’s been around since the launch of Wrath of the Lich King.  Note that you have the ability here to stack the scorch debuff, but the glyph setup assumes that you’re not regularly being asked to do so.  If you are, then you should replace either the living bomb or molten armor glyph with the glyph of improved scorch.  If you know you are not going to ever need to stack scorch, you can always move those three points over to Improved Blizzard in the frost tree.

Where people get tripped up: The fire talents are pretty straightforward, but I’ve seen a fair share of frostfire mages with their frost trees messed up.  It’s important to remember that the talents Piercing Ice and Ice Shards both affect your frostfire bolt, and therefore are absolutely crucial talents to frostfire mages.  You are not, as some people believe, just trying to get to Icy Veins here.  Additionally, the mana cost reduction from Frost Channeling is a big reason why frostfire mages are so mana efficient.

Deep Fire

(19/52/0):  http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#of0Vck0sZ0EcbRhIhVhbhct:ViLo0m

Explanation:  With deep fire (unlike frostfire and arcane), you’ve got a few talent points that can be moved around depending on your preference – there are perfectly acceptable 18/53/0 and 20/51/0 deep fire builds as well.  Specifically, the single points in Student of the Mind and Arcane Meditation could be moved to Magic Absorption if you so desire.  You could also use one for Combustion in the fire tree if your crit is a little low (although well-geared deep fire mages don’t need Combustion).  As with frostfire, you are capable of stacking the scorch debuff with this spec, although if you are asked to do so regularly you should really get the scorch glyph.

Where people get tripped up:  This spec is a little complicated (primarily because you have to spend 5 talent points on useless talents in the first level of the arcane tree), and you could go a lot of different ways with it.  Just remember that any deep fire spec absolutely requires Spell Impact, Focus Magic, and Torment of the Weak in the arcane tree, and no points whatsoever in the frost tree.

Arcane

(57/3/11):  http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#ofhVsz0IzxGuMxedcZbGc0o

Explanation:  You can switch a few points around, but if you’re seriously playing arcane, you’re going to have a 57/3/11 point distribution.  The main source of moveable points is the first row of the arcane tree (you can mix and match those talents based on preference, hit rating, threat sensitivity, etc.), Magic Attunement, and Student of the Mind.  The rest of the talents are basically required.

Note that there is a viable Magic Absorption build that really works well on some Ulduar fights, but since I’m writing for mages that are relatively new to raiding, I’m not going to confuse anyone with a situational build that relies heavily upon priests putting shields on you and you intentionally taking damage.

Where people get tripped up:  I can’t stress enough how important the 3 points in fire and 11 in frost are.  The arcane tree has a ton of interesting talents and it’s tempting to leech some points from the other trees to get them, but you really don’t want to do this.  The fire tree gives you 6% crit on your main nuke – uh, yes please.  The frost tree not only lowers your hit cap, but gives you Icy Veins, which is vital to a spec that relies heavily on burst damage.

(Written by Nicholas) (Write for us!)

This guide will provide a general overview of how to best use a paladin tank, and the gear requirements and stats that you require to tank successfully in the level 80 raids.

1.Gear Requirements

A paladin tank needs to have gear with a minimum of 540 defence rating for Naxx and subsequent raids, and 535 defence rating for heroics. This is the  minimum level at which you cannot be critically hit by bosses. This can be accomplished fairly easily between crafted items and drops from various dungeons. Also, assuming you have the reputation, you can get items from the various faction quartermasters.

Rather than go into the exact gear required and where to get it from I will explain what the mechanics are and what you need from your gear. This gives you the basis to make your own choice in gear and allows you to adapt to any given situation.

Defence should be your first priority for tanking, and you will find as you gear up that you will need to have a selection of gear to ensure you stay above the 540 threshold. Sometimes you’ll get a piece of gear with more dodge and less defence for example, so quite often you need to use different combinations to keep that level. With that in mind it’s a good idea to keep the gear you collect from dungeons to ensure you can switch as needed until it no longer becomes an issue.

In terms of mitigation stats the priority after defence is dodge – parry- block.
Dodge is the most important stat overall as it provides complete mitigation from a blow that could hit for a few thousand damage.

Parry is similar, but as you gain more points in dodge and parry, both are subject to diminishing returns. This means that it takes more points in each stat per 1% of mitigation. Dodge provides the best ratio of points/1%, hence it is better to stack dodge.

Shield block is less useful against bosses as it only mitigates a certain amount of the damage, never the full amount. It does have its uses in aoe tanking against trash etc, but it is less useful than either of the other two stats if you are MT in a raid due to the large damage output of most of the bosses.

In terms of aggro generation, the most important stat is strength. This has changed from spell power since the BC days, due to different game mechanics. Suffice it to say that you don’t need spell power on any gear now, including weapons. A paladin’s gear should be similar to a warriors in terms of stats.

The next important stat is Hit, this is not so important at the heroic level and it can be hard to find items with enough until you get into Naxx 10man’s and above. Realistically you need to be near capped in this which is 263assuming you have no other hit modifiers in your raid. I would advise having at least 100+ in hit rating going into Naxx, preferably more. Enchants and gems can help provide this, IE Precision on gloves(+20) and using a titanium weapon chain to start with is a must on your weapon. I did tank in Naxx with just over 100 hit rating without too many problems with aggro from the dps, but the sooner you can get it up the less problems you will have.

Stamina is a dual use spec now as it provides the obvious high hit points a tank needs to survive, but also provides your spell power for aggro generation. In general terms you are aiming for around 23-25k hp for heroics and 26k upwards for 10/25man raids unbuffed.

Expertise provides a little extra hit rating and can be useful against bosses who parry and dodge, but as most of a paladins threat comes from spell damage it is not as useful for paladins as for warriors. Some expertise helps, but it is not as important as strength and hit.

Agility does have some use as it improves your mitigation from your armour value, and gives a small amount to avoidance and crit chance and if you are aiming for avoidance over mitigation then enchanting your cloak or weapon can be useful. This will probably not be an option when you start tanking as I found all my enchants were in defence or hit rating. As you improve your gear it is an option worth looking at.

The other stats such as crit, intellect, spirit and haste are all pretty much useless for doing anything positive for a tank. There are always other more effective ways to improve your mitigation and threat generation.

2.Talents

A protection paladin should have the following kind of build as a basis.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sZV0tAbuMusIufdxo

This build provides the main abilities you need to tank successfully. I’ll explain each of the chosen talents in more detail and the options for each, then explain the other options available from each tree assuming this build.

Protection Tree

Divine Strength – Fairly obvious choice to increase your threat and mitigation through shield block.

Anticipation – Gives an extra 5% dodge rating which is a must, and is not subject to diminishing returns unlike that dodge on gear.

Toughness – This provides more mitigation from armour and the lesser duration on movement effects can be useful.

Righteous Fury – Provides 6% mitigation from all damage, again a necessity.

Divine Sacrifice – This is probably a more optional talent based on what your raid is doing and what part you are playing in the raid. It can be a raid saver on certain bosses, i.e. Sapphiron in Naxx or Malygos in the Eye of Eternity when the whole raid is taking damage. It should only be used in conjunction with Divine Protection for obvious reasons(i.e. you die otherwise).

Improved Devotion Aura – This gives an extra 6% healing for the raid, which takes some pressure off the healers and helps generally. When you are just starting tanking it’s a good idea to use the devotion aura for the increased mitigation, but as you progress you can use Retribution aura, or any of the elemental resistance aura’s as the situation requires.

Blessing of Sanctuary – Provides mitigation for the tank, as well as some mana regeneration. It is the main blessing for a paladin tank and it is the best choice at the start of a tanks raiding.

Sacred Duty – With and 8% stamina increase for 2points this is a no brainer.

One Handed Weapon Specialization – This is again about threat generation and overall dps. While tanking is not about damage output, it still helps if the tank can do as much as possible.

Spiritual Attunement – This provides mana to the tank from healing which is no bad thing. If you are finding your mana pool running low then put 2 points in this. When I started tanking I had 2 points in this at all times and never had a problem with mana regen.

Holy Shield – Provides extra block rating while active and extra threat generation due to holy damage, thus a necessity for tanking.

Ardent Defender – This talent provides an extra fail safe when things go wrong. It can be bypassed by a large amount of damage, i.e. 35%-0% in one hit, but it can and does let you take an extra hit when healers may be just out of range and need a second to get to you.

Combat Expertise – The 6% stamina on its own makes this a necessity. The expertise and critical strike increase make this an excellent talent to have.

Redoubt – The block value  provides damage mitigation and is a great talent when tanking multiple trash mobs if your holy shield charges are used up.

Touched by the Light – This is where your main threat will come from, and while the healing aspect is not much use it can help in situations where you have just finished off tanking a mob and you need an extra heal, or a healer needs help.

Avenger’s Shield – The prime pulling spell for a protection paladin, its required without exception.

Guarded by the Light – This gives damage mitigation against spells which helps in a lot of situations where armour is useless. The additional effect of renewing Divine Plea after hitting an enemy makes this vital.

Shield of the Templar – This is about damage mitigation again, with the advantage of being able to silence casters on the initial pull.

Judgements of the Just – The main advantage to this is the slowing of melee attack speed. Less attacks = less damage. The HoJ reduced cool down is less useful in pve than pvp, but of you need to control mobs it has its uses.

Hammer of the Righteous – This is simply a must have for tanks, tanking trash you can hold aggro on 3 targets at once with no problems.

Retribution Tree

Deflection – This, like anticipation in the prot tree, is a necessity. Again it is not affected by diminishing returns, thus it gives a full 5% parry.

Improved Judgements – The point in this gives your Judgements a 9 sec cool down, which is useful if you use the spell rotation I will describe later.

Optional Talents

With the remaining 12 points you have a choice. In the Holy tree the only talent I personally put points into is Seals of the Pure. It increases damage of your judgements and their seals. It is not a huge damage increase but until you are Naxx 25 geared or better it can give a boost. After you are well enough geared 5 points in Conviction from the Retribution tree is slightly better dps overall.

The Retribution tree provides a few more options, Heart of the Crusader helps your group overall with and extra 3% crit chance on the enemy, which if you don’t have a retri paladin can be useful.

Benediction is of little use as you get mana from 3 different sources, so it is of limited benefit getting a 10% reduction on spell costs.

Improved Blessing of Might can be useful if you are buffing a raid group, again I personally raid with retri paladins so it is of limited use for me. Your group composition should dictate whether this is useful or not.

Conviction is a talent which I have usually got maxed out to improve my dps overall. It is a useful way to increase damage, but not to be used as a substitute for steady high threat generation. Make sure you are not relying on crits to build your threat quickly, this is a bad idea and can go wrong quickly.

Vindication and Seal of Command are pvp talents as your normal seal will be Seal of Vengence/Corruption, and bosses are immune to vindication.

Pursuit of justice I personally don’t use, but it can be useful for moving targets more quickly into a position. My own feeling is that it is better suited for pvp.

Sanctity of Battle and Crusade can both have points in them, the extra damage from Crusade can be 6% depending what enemies you are facing and quite often is the full amount. The crit chance from SoB is useful and the extra damage on exorcism can help if you need to do burst damage quickly on a mob.

There is a lot to take in regarding your talents and the options within them, but when you understand them and how they can help in various situations it allows you to vary your style as necessary.

3.Spells/Abilities

There are many spells in a paladins arsenal, some of which you will use frequently, some rarely. I will present a general overview of these and their various uses in tanking.

There are 5 main spells you will be using – Holy Shield, Hammer of the Righteous, Judgement, Consecration and Shield of the Righteous. These should be used in such a way that maximises threat and minimizes wasted cooldowns. For this we have a spell rotation, i.e. a set of spells which used properly should be being used throughout the fight one after another.

The initial pull should be done with your Avenger’s shield, which gives threat on the target immediately. When you engage in melee combat the following rotation of spells is typically used-

1)Shield of the Righteous(6sec cd)
2)Holy Shield(9sec cd)
3)Hammer of the Righteous(6sec cd)
4)Consecration(9sec cd)
5)Shield of the Righteous(6sec cd)
6)Judgement(9sec cd)
7)Repeat ad infinitum(till boss is down)

This is the basic rotation of spells which a paladin tank will use to generate threat on the mob. The cooldowns(cd’s) on each spell are not exact here, i.e. consecration has an 8 sec cd as does holy shield, but the overall importance is that the pattern can continue in a smooth way without gaps where you are not generating threat.

This is the normal pattern but there may be reasons to change it, i.e. perhaps you have to let another tank taunt the boss off you due to a stacking debuff. It is best not to be using this sequence then as you may overaggro the other tank, especially if you are better geared than the tank in question.

The other spells which you will use a lot consist of your taunts, damage instants and Seals/Judgements.

The judgement I normally choose is Judgement of Wisdom(JoW) to keep my mana pool up. Judgement of Light(JoL) and Judgement of the Just(JotJ) can be used depending on the circumstances, thought JotJ is mainly for pvp usage.

The Seal of Vengence/Corruption(SoV/C) is the seal of choice for a tank, the other seals I very rarely use. That being said there are reasons to use them.

Seal of Blood(SoB) can be used when your gear surpasses the instance you are in to help mana regeneration from healing. For example if I’m tanking Violet Hold heroic I simply don’t take enough damage with my gear, so using this seal helps stop my mana from becoming too low.

Seal of Light/Wisdom(SoL/SoW) I use if I am running solo and I need a little healing/mana, i.e. in 70heroics or an old school raid.

Seal of Righteousness(SoR) gives more burst threat at the start but lacks the constant threat generation of SoV/C.

Seal of Justice(SoJ) in my opinion is mainly a pvp seal though against caster mobs it could be useful to interrupt casts.

Your taunts consist of Hand of Reckoning(HoR) and Righteous Defence(RD). The HoR is a one target taunt which I usually find is my taunt of choice for pulling enemies. RD pulls three mobs which can be useful in situations where a healer has aggro from adds, but bear in mind it can be a nightmare if you a get a pull wrong. I have made mistakes with this on Sartharion with many adds and pulled a drake by mistake, and likewise on Grobbulus when we had more than one slime and I accidentally pulled the boss of the main tank. It is useful but be very careful what you pull, it might just bite a little too hard .

Another possibility for using as a taunt would be your Exorcism spell. It can only be used as an initial pull, but it does add another option to your abilities if your Avenger’s shield would cause problems or is on cool down

 As your main tanking blessing I would always use Blessing of Sanctuary(BS). Blessing of Kings(BoK) does give a nice stamina boost to tanks and if you need to soak up a lot of damage this can be useful, though in my experience there are usually other paladins to give this buff anyway.

Blessing of Wisdom(BoW) and Blessing of Might(BoM) are given to buff others. There is no reason a tank would use either of these in any situation where they are tanking. With regard to the blessings I usually ask which people prefer, as some priests for example prefer BoK, other BoW.

The final set of spells you will use are the various protection spells.

Cleanse can be used to remove a debuff of poison, disease or magic and comes in useful against bosses like Heigan and Maexnna in Naxx.

Divine Shield is only used if you are not the main tank and you want to prevent all damage.

Hand of protection(HoP) is similar to divine shield but only prevents physical damage. Neither of these abilities can be used if you are tanking at the time as you will loose aggro immediately. However in combination with Hand of Sacrifice or Divine sacrifice, which redirect some damage to you they can help reduce individual or raid wide damage in a situation where you are not tanking a boss or adds.

For example against Sapphiron in Naxx you could use this ability while he is in the air if a healer gets iceblocked and a blizzard is nearly on top of a group, thus giving more chance that everyone will survive it.

Divine Protection is a good spell to use if you are in trouble. It reduces damage by 50% and is my spell of choice if I am getting into problems. It can also be used when a boss soft enrages, i.e. damage increases, this can give the healers time to adjust if they weren’t quite ready for the enrage.

Lay on Hands like Divine Protection I use if my health bar is dangerously low and I feel that I could die. It should be saved for emergencies but its your call to make if you think things are going wrong, better to use it and be wrong, than not use it and be right.

Hand of salvation(HoS) I have very rarely found time to use when tanking as I have to keep my threat high and concentrate on the boss, however it can help if only 1 dps is going too high on threat. The main problem I have found is targeting the player in question in a 25man raid. I have managed it once or twice but generally the dps should be able to manage their own aggro.

Hand of Freedom(HoF) is another spell I have not really had much reason to use. In the right situation it can be used on yourself and other players, and has the advantage of making them immune to movement reducing effects for 10 seconds.

Righteous Fury is your main threat generation spell and as such should be on all the time to increase your holy damage threat. Rebuff it often so that you don’t lose it in the middle of a fight, it is disastrous if this happens, trust me!

The other spell of note is your Divine Plea which should be activated just before you pull and with the appropriate glyph provides a 3% damage mitigation and a constant stream of mana as long as you are hitting something(preferably the boss:P).

4.Glyphs

The 3 main glyphs a paladin tank should be using are as follows-

1.Glyph of Divine Plea
2.Glyph of Seal of Vengeance
3.Glyph of Righteous Defense

The 1st Glyph is a necessity, the other 2 are more a personal choice. There are a few major glyphs which do not make good choices.

The Glyph of Consecration and the Glyph of Spiritual Attunement aren’t that useful. The first puts your 69696 rotation out of sync which isn’t ideal and the second simply won’t make enough of a difference to your mana regeneration.

The Glyph of Exorcism isn’t useful as this is not a generally used spell for a protection paladin. The Glyph of Seal of Righteousness and Turn Evil have a similar problem to Exorcism, they are simply not used enough by a protection paladin.

In terms of minor glyphs my own choice would be -

        1.  Glyph of Sense Undead
        2.  Glyph of Lay on Hands
        3.  Glyph of Blessing of Kings

These provide small but useful enhancements to each of the spells/abilities. The other minor glyphs are not really worth getting at this time.

Tanking Strategies

So with all the above your probably thinking that tanking is quite complicated and requires a lot of thinking. Well, it is and it does. To be competent requires a great deal of versatility and a real understanding of how to best apply your abilities in any any given situation.

That being said you can’t learn exactly how to react in a given situation unless you are in said situation. The key to learning how to tank well is to simply to get on with tanking. After each dungeon or raid analyse what you did well and what didn’t work. If you wiped a lot try and be constructive in dealing with it. Try not to blame anybody, it never helps a raids’ morale when someone is being critical.

So with the above in mind let me give a few examples of situations where things go wrong and how to think about them.

1.You are in Violet Hold heroic. You are tanking Xevozz, the captured Ethereal with a pug group. You start kiting him from the bottom of the stairs and pulling him up to follow your usual path around the room. You find your health suddenly takes a hit and no healing seems to be happening just as you go around the corner at the top of the stairs. Then you take another hit 2 secs later and die. The group wipes and you have to start over again.

Now typically in this situation you get a load of grumbling about the healer and/or tank and usually if you don’t do it first try people leave. So what went wrong?  The main problem here is lack of communication, which is quite often the case with pug’s(random groups found through the looking for group channel). You need to explain before the boss starts where you are going so the healer doesn’t loose line of sight(los). Also you could have used Lay on Hands and divine shield to give your healer time to get in to a better position. Don’t assume just because you know what your plan is, that everyone does. Any fight like this where there is a lot of movement requires planning to ensure that everyone knows what their role is, and where to be at any given moment.

2.You are off-tanking Grobbulus in Naxx, picking up the slimes as the spawn. Suddenly 3 slimes spawn due to the boss turning as he does his slime spray. You use Righteous Defence on one of the slimes and end up pulling the boss which the MT fails to taunt back in time, you end up being killed and the group wipes.

This situation happens a lot in this fight. It is not necessarily any one persons fault, but the key to dealing with it is being aware it exists. The biggest reason most guilds fail at certain points is because the members blame each other for mistakes. Again the key to this is being aware of your abilities and the MTs’ abilities. Don’t panic when this sort of situation occurs. If you and the MT have talked before the fight then he knows this can happen and simply to taunt the boss back at this time. On your end this is a time to use HoR, to pull the slimes individually, if you can. The Mt can take a few extra hits and will have a couple of healers on him so let him take the aggro for a few secs until you can taunt the slimes to you. When you have them you should be using your Divine protection to help the healers as you will take a fair hit in damage. The main point is – Do Not Panic – difficult to do if you are trying to do things well, but when you learn to deal with things logically and realise that no run is going to be completely smooth then you will find you improve and your overall enjoyment of the game improves.

3.You are doing the Obsidium Sanctum in a 25man with 3 Drakes up. Your normal warrior tank who is on the fire elemental adds is unavailable so you have been asked to do this in his stead. On your first try you lose aggro to dps and healers and feel as if your letting the side down. After several more attempts you are getting criticized by some of the members as you can’t do this job as well as they think you should.

The key to this is the fact that this is the hardest job for any tank, controlling adds, especially in this fight. Do Not let peoples criticism get you down. I have done this fight and it is nigh impossible for a paladin tank to do this as his consecration just doesn’t generate aggro quickly enough and you are running about a lot in this fight. Yes you have to do the best you can, but realise that this is not your strongest point, and that in this particular fight a warrior is far superior to a paladin because of his instant burst aggro abilities. Any raid leader with experience knows this and should realise that this is not the best raid setup for the task. Unfortunately you are always going to get those who criticize and you have to try and be as constructive as possible with them. A whisper to the raid leader may help, as they can rearrange things and possibly talk to the critical members of the group.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to think about the situation you are going into before it happens, as the above examples show it makes everyones gaming experience easier and hopefully more enjoyable. That being said you will wipe many times in raids and it is part of how you learn to improve.

General Raid Guidelines

1.Always make sure you have studied the tactics of any raid you are going into, ideally watch videos which are available on wowwiki.com, or a site you know and prefer. This is always my preference as it shows exactly what is happening and if you get a narrated video it can be extremely helpful to understand the fights in the raid.
2.Always bring along any flasks and food you need, for tanks this is Strength/Stamina food and Stoneblood Flasks. Don’t rely on others to provide you with them. Part of raiding is being self sufficient. It is expected that you have everything you need with you.
3.Don’t criticize others or slag others off because they make mistakes, you will make mistakes as well, and it is much more fun to play in a relaxed atmosphere.
4.In most guilds there are addon’s which are required for raiding. The following are my addon’s and help immensely with any raid.

        Deadly Boss Mod’s(DBM) – Alerts you when specific abilities are     going to happen.
        Omen threat Meter – Shows your threat in comparison to the raid.
        Pally Power – Helps give the various blessings to the raid members.
       
These are the 3 main addon’s most guilds use. There are others out there so you will have to see if you have any preference for some of the other options available to you, ie BigWigs – Similar function to DBM, but not one I have used.

Conclusion

I hope this guide has proved useful to readers in understanding how to play a paladin tank. It is complicated but take it one stage at a time and through a combination of practical experience and the theory you will improve and become an asset to any raid or guild you are a part of.

The following article is a WoW Confidential readers guest submission, I’d like to thank Karch for this fantastic guide on PvE raiding for Mages, you can visit his new blog at http://magekarch.wordpress.com/ which is a site devoted to mage PvE discussion.

The two guides below are designed to help mages who are just getting into raiding, or who feel like they’re seriously under-performing.

How to Play Frostfire Mage

Currently, as of the date of this posting, there are only three viable raiding specs for mages:  Frostfire, Arcane, and Fire (with enough points in arcane for torment of the weak).  Right now I’m only planning to do write-ups for Frostfire and Arcane – even though deep fire can compete with both, my experience is that not a whole lot of people play it.  As someone who raided as deep fire for quite a while at level 70, let me tell you:  fire is boring as hell.  It’s like frostfire but without the big crits.  If you play it, then more power to you, I just think frostfire and arcane cover all your raiding needs.

So without further ado, let’s talk about Frostfire!

Spec

There’s not a whole lot of variation here; if you’re going to play Frostfire, you’re going to be using something very similar to this 0/53/18 spec.

Sure you can debate a couple talent points – but the bottom line is that if you use the above spec, you will be set up just fine for raiding.

Glyphs

Don’t forget your glyphs!  If you’re serious about raiding, you’re pretty much locked in to the following three major glyphs:

• Glyph of Frostfire Bolt (2% damage and 2% crit to your Frostfire Bolt)
• Glyph of Improved Scorch (Each scorch stacks the scorch debuff 3 times)
• Glyph of Molten Armor (2% more crit to your molten armor)

For all practical purposes, there’s really no reason to use anything else.

Rotation

This is what separates good mages from the many, many, MANY bad ones.  An enormous number of players simply have no concept of a “spell rotation” – they just cast what they feel like, and figure that the damage will take care of itself.

This, of course, is stupid.

With frostfire, there’s really only one rotation you need to use.  From the very beginning of every boss fight (we’re only worried about raid boss fights in this blog), you are using this same rotation, applying the same concepts, and rarely making any modifications.  So let’s get right to the rotation:

1. When the fight starts, cast Living Bomb on the boss.  This is a damage-over-time spell which does no initial damage, and therefore causes negligible threat.  This works nicely at the start of fights, because there’s very little risk that you pull aggro off the tank (whereas if you just started spamming frostfire bolts you probably would).
2. Cast Scorch twice.  Assuming you have the Glyph of Improved Scorch, this will stack the scorch debuff 5 times, giving all casters in the raid, including yourself, a bonus 10% crit on the boss.
3. Spam Frostfire Bolt.  This is your primary nuke.  When in doubt, cast frostfire bolt.  Over and over and over again.  Most of your damage is going to come from this, so you want to be casting it as much as possible.  Of course, you’ll also want to use your “cooldowns” as early as possible (more on this a couple paragraphs down; we’re keeping it basic for now).
4. Pyroblast is not castable unless the “Hot Streak” buff procs from getting two consecutive crits.  This temporary buff will make your next pyroblast an instant cast, and therefore it’s your top priority to cast it when it comes up.

That’s it.  Those are your four spells, and all you’ve got to do is manage them.  What do I mean by “manage”?  Well, let’s go to the three key concepts:

1. You need to keep the scorch debuff active.  Though it takes two scorch casts to apply it initially, each future application only takes one scorch cast, provided you didn’t let the debuff go away.  And you should NEVER, EVER let it go away.  Once you cast your two initial scorches, watch the debuff under the boss’ health bar – it lasts for 30 seconds, and when it’s getting close to running out, just stop casting frostfire bolt for a second to throw in a scorch to refresh it.  You can use an add-on like Scorchio (get it from curse.com) if you have trouble seeing the debuff.
2. Living bomb needs to be re-applied as soon as possible.  When you cast living bomb, it will tick for 12 seconds, doing minor damage – then it will explode for a significant amount of damage.  Once it explodes, you need to cast it again as soon as possible, and repeat that until the boss is dead.  A lot of mages think living bomb isn’t worth casting, but it will consistently account for 10-12% of your overall damage – you’re telling me that’s not worth it?
3. Hit Pyroblast any time the “Hot Streak” buff comes up.  It takes a little (but not much) practice to see the Hot Streak buff (you can also listen for it, or get an add-on), but you’ll pick it up soon enough.  Your next pyroblast will be an instant cast when hot streak comes up, and in general there’s little downside to hitting it as soon as possible.

It really is that simple.  We’ll just touch on one more thing:  Cooldowns.  “Cooldowns” are spells that you can use every couple minutes that provide you with a temporary buff of some kind.   As a Frostfire mage, here are the ones you have:

1. Combustion:  Increases your crit chance 10% per cast until you crit 3 times.  You can use this every 3 minutes.
2. Icy Veins:  Increases your cast speed 20% for 15 seconds.  With the talent build above, you can use this every 2.4 minutes.
3. Mirror Image:  Creates 3 mini-yous that do a small but sorta non-negligible amount of damage.  These guys will also effectively prevent you from pulling aggro for 30 seconds (your attacks will still generate threat, but it won’t be applied to you until the 30 seconds is up).
4. Any trinkets you have that have a “Use”.   Some trinkets will increase your spell power, haste, etc. for a limited amount of time when you use them.  These usually have a 2-3 minute cooldown.

In general, you want to use your cooldowns at the same time, to get the most ‘bang for your buck.’  Putting them in a macro works well – just type /macro to bring up the interface, create a macro, and type the following:

/cast icy veins
/cast combustion
/use [name of your trinket, if you have one]
/cast mirror image

Then put that button somewhere convenient, and you’re good to go.  Just hit that after you’ve cast your living bomb and scorchx2, and you can really go crazy with frostfire bolts right off the start of boss fights.  By the time your mirror image runs out of time, the tank should have plenty of threat so you don’t pull aggro.  If the fight lasts long enough for you to use your cooldowns a second time, use them when the boss is under 35% health so your cooldowns benefit from the 12% damage you’re getting from the Molten Fury talent.  This is also the ideal time for a shaman in your raid to use Heroism/Bloodlust.

So let’s do a quick review of how the standard boss fight should go:

1. Start boss fights by applying living bomb, then casting two scorches.  When living bomb explodes 12 seconds later, cast it again.  When the scorch debuff has nearly run out, cast it again.  Repeat this until the boss is dead.
2. Hit all your cooldowns and start spamming frostfire bolt.
3. Only stop casting frostfire bolts to cast an instant pyroblast when hot streak procs, to reapply scorch, to reapply living bomb, or to use a mana gem.

Well, that’s about it!  It really isn’t that complicated, and with a week of practice you too can be topping the damage charts even if you don’t have the best gear!

How to Play Arcane Mage

In deciding whether to play frostfire or arcane, there are a couple key factors to consider:

• Frostfire scales very well with crit, arcane does not.  Frostfire crits gain a huge damage bonus (over 300%) and can proc hot streak.  Arcane crits have about half that damage bonus, and can’t proc anything.
• Likewise, arcane scales well with intellect (and, potentially, spirit), frostfire does not.
• Mana is a very real issue with arcane.  You can easily burn through 25k mana is 30 seconds if you want to.  On the other hand, it would take you 7 or 8 minutes to burn that much mana with frostfire.  Think of the specs like cars:  arcane has about 5 gears that you must shift between, frostfire has 1 and only 1 gear.
• And because of that, arcane is a much more “involved” spec.  You can ramp up your damage when needed (for example, when you’re standing in two damage buffs on Malygos), and scale down to recover mana.  This makes the spec more fun, but also more dangerous.  If you are arcane spec’d, there is a VERY REAL possibility that you will end up having to wand a boss, if you’re not careful.

So, if you’re just starting out raiding, I recommend beginning with frostfire.  The playstyle is easy to figure out with a little practice, and if you are geared at the same level as the other dps in your raid, you should be at or near the top of the damage meters on boss fights (if you follow the guide in the post below).

But if you stay frostfire a while, you will probably get bored.  The fights do tend to get monotonous, and it’s also frustrating because your damage on any given fight largely depends on factors largely out of your control (how many times you crit consecutively to proc hot streak, for example).

Before you re-spec, however, remember that Frostfire provides 10% crit to all dps casters in your raid, whereas Arcane provides no such utility.  Therefore, for 25-mans or dps caster-heavy 10-mans, you are doing your guild a disservice if you respec to arcane unless you regularly run with a frostfire mage.  Just keep that in mind.

For those of you still ready to take on Arcane, let’s get right into it!

Spec

Unlike Frostfire, there is plenty of room for debate when it comes to the ‘best’ arcane spec.  No spec involving scorch (or pyroblast) is really viable for raiding, so forget about that.  The most popular distribution of talents is 57/3/11, though which exact arcane talents you take is up for debate.  Here is an example build that should serve you just fine.  The only flexible talents in the arcane tree are the three top-level ones:

• Arcane Focus (depending on how much hit rating you have, you can lose a point or two)
• Arcane Stability (I like the pushback protection because there are a number of raid fights where damage pushback will screw you up, but it’s your call.  This talent will not help you at all on, say, Patchwerk)
• Arcane Subtlety (you could reasonably run with only one point here if you manage your threat well)

You can mix and match points in those, and if you’ve got a couple leftover you could invest in Magic Attunement, Student of the Mind, Incanter’s Absorption, Slow, or another peripheral talent.

Glyphs

A few viable choices here, let’s list them:

• Glyph of Arcane Blast:  Required.
• Glyph of Mage Armor/Glyph of Molten Armor:  Depending on which one you use, or you could glyph both.  It’s up to you to determine whether you want to raid with the 5% crit from glyphed molten armor, or the extra mp5 from glyphed mage armor.  I switch my armor depending on the expected fight length and group composition, so I run with both glyphs.
• Glyph of Arcane Power:  Gives you an extra 3 seconds of arcane power, which is nice, but not necessary.  If you feel like you’re always going to be running with either molten or mage armor, this would be the choice for your third major glyph slot.

Note that Glyph of Mana Gem and Glyph of Arcane Missiles might seem a little tempting, but they’re both weak choices.

Rotation

Here’s where it gets interesting.  The general idea of arcane is as follows:

1. Arcane Blast is your bread-and-butter spell.  Casting it increases the damage your arcane spells do by 15% (18% with glyph), but also increases the mana cost of arcane blast itself.  You can stack it up to three times, which gives you a massive damage buff – but at that point arcane blast costs over 1,000 mana to cast!
2. The way you “dump” the buff is by casting another arcane spell (arcane barrage or arcane missiles).  This spell will benefit from the stacks of the arcane blast buff you have, and then clear the buff itself.
3. Ideally, you want to stack Arcane Blast three times before casting another spell.

Think of it as “charging up.”  You “charge up” by casting arcane blast up to 3 times, then you dump the charge by casting either arcane barrage or arcane missiles.  How do you know which one to use?  Well…

• All of your arcane spells have a chance to proc “Missile Barrage,” which makes your next arcane missiles cast super fast.  If, after stacking your three arcane blasts, you DO proc missile barrage, then you should cast arcane missiles immediately followed by arcane barrage.
• If missile barrage does NOT proc while stacking your three arcane blasts, you should just cast arcane barrage.
• Regardless of what you cast, you should immediately go back to stacking three more arcane blasts, and repeat the process until the boss is dead.

So why is this more complicated than frostfire?  Well, try it and see just how quick you run out of mana.  Between the stacked arcane blasts and the hugely expensive arcane missiles, you’re going to be blowing through your mana very fast.  How do you counter this?   A few ways:

• Mana gems:  Use them aggressively, and aim to use all three every boss fight.  I generally use one within the first 15 seconds of any fight, as soon as I’ve burned enough mana to warrant it.  Do not wait until you are low on mana to use one.
• Evocation: While frostfire mages rarely if ever have to evocate, arcane mages may find themselves evocating three times during a boss fight!  Thanks to the 2-minute cooldown from talents, evocation can and should be used aggressively to restore your mana pool.  If you can time it to where you start casting it in the final second of icy veins, then all the better.
• Runic Mana Potions:  You only get one per fight, so make it count.
• Mage Armor:  If you’re having serious mana issues, consider switching from molten to glyphed mage armor.

And finally, if you’re still finding yourself having to resort to wanding on boss fights:

• Change your rotation.  If you start stacking arcane blast twice instead of three times, the spec is much, MUCH more mana efficient.  Of course this seriously hurts your dps, so you want to avoid it as much as possible, but sometimes you can’t.  The essence of playing arcane is to know when to hit hard and to know when to scale back.  This depends on too many factors to count:  your gear, the raid you’re in, the fight itself, whether you get an innervate, etc.  Therefore, it’s impossible to generalize about this stuff – it just takes experience.

Let’s talk about cooldown management.  The cooldowns you’ll have available are:

• Icy Veins:  20% cast speed increase, no spell pushback for 20 seconds.  Can use every 2.4 mins with talents.
• Arcane Power:  Increases your damage 30%, but also increases the mana cost of spells 30%, for 15 seconds (18 with glyph).
• Presence of Mind:  Makes your next spell an instant cast, and (with talents) increases it’s chance to crit by 30%.  You want to use this with arcane blast.
• Mirror Image:  Creates three mini-yous who do a little damage, and ensure that you don’t pull aggro for 30 seconds.  When they go away, the threat you accumulated while they were up is given back to you.
• Any trinkets you have with a “Use”.

As with frostfire, you usually want to use these early in the fight, and all at the same time.  The macro I have is:

/cast icy veins
/cast arcane power
/cast presence of mind
/use [name of your useable trinket, if you have one]
/cast mirror image

I just hit that right off the bat of boss fights and go crazy.  The earlier you use your first mana gem and evocation, the earlier you can use them a second time – so it’s generally to your benefit to burn your mana early if you can safely recover it.

What arcane does is give you the ability to control the rate at which you convert your mana into damage.   Your goal in boss fights is for you to always have enough mana to fully dps the boss when he’s alive, and to have as close to zero mana as possible when the boss dies.  This means that, if the boss is down to 10% and you have a near-full mana bar (after an evocate, for example), you can go into full-on kick ass mode and just spam arcane blast, ignoring other spells.  You’ll just be chain casting super powerful, super expensive arcane blasts – which should drain your mana nice and fast, and give you a pretty sweet dps boost.  Just make sure to time it so you don’t run out of mana before the boss dies!

Alright, let’s get to the summary:

• Your standard high-dps rotation is three arcane blasts followed by arcane missiles (only if missile barrage procs), followed by arcane barrage.
• Use your mana gems and evocation aggressively, and don’t be afraid to switch to mage armor if you continually struggle with your mana.
• Arcane often requires you to “switch gears.”  If you are worried about your mana, start casting two arcane blasts rather than three.  If the fight is almost over or you need to do a lot of dps in a little bit of time , consider just chain casting arcane blasts.

That’s about it!  Good luck out there.

Macros take away a lot of the redundancy while leveling or raiding by reducing the button mashing you are doing and lets you focus more on the task at hand. There are even some macros that do some of the thinking for you and will only cast spells or do certain abilities once special requirements are met.

Read the full guide here.

In order for your guild to progress to higher end content, you must not only have well geared members and the right strategies, but those members must also know their classes and excute them properly. 

While most of us use SWSTATS to track our DPS, HPS and various other metrics to see whose lacking or which builds are best for certain bosses, there is another option out there that can give you a more drilled down version of all this information.

 It’s called WOW Web Stats, You can use their search feature to find statistics on various different bosses to see how your guild compares to the best guids in world of warcraft. After each boss attempt your guild has you can share your private report with other guildmates to see a vast amount of statistics.

Here’s how it works:

1. download Loggerhead : this program will increase your combat log limit from 40 to 200 yards. Unzip it into your   addons folder

2. Type “/combatlog” when you enter an instance with your guild (SSC/The Eye etc..)  this will start a log file in “/log/WoWcombatlog.log”

3. Have at least 3 – 4 people running this log that are in the instance to get the most accurate information, send it all to one person that submits it, which is uploaded to the wow web stats page for your guild to view.

Go here for a sample of what WOW Webstats covers.

There are many ways to increase your dps as a caster:

1. Gear -> Spell damage, Spell hit, Spell Crit
2. Talents
3. Player Skill -> Spell sequences, reaction time, ability in situational encounters

However, as you progress as a DPS caster class, there starts to become a ceiling to your dps, something beyond the control of the 3 points above. That limiting factor is server lag created between your connection and the server which can be anywhere between 0.1 seconds to a full second of lost dps per spell!

1 second doesn’t sound like much, but lets break it down in an example boss encounter:

In Gruul’s Lair DPS is vital due to the incrementing grow stages which make Gruul hit harder on your tank. There becomes a limit to the amount of punishment your tank and healers can handle before it is a sure wipe.

Here you are with your fireball spell that takes 3 seconds to cast (with talents of course) shooting away trying to take him down (as well as top the damage meters) in this 10 minute encounter. So if you could chain cast your fireball spell for that whole duration you should be able to cast 200 fireballs, well not with server lag. This will bring the amount of fireballs you can cast down to 150! that is a 25% drop in your overall dps the entire encounter.

 So how do you overcome server lag? That is what I’m going to share with you.

 There is an add-on called Quartz (<- download link) which measures the amount of latency you are experiencing from the server and shows this lag on your own casting bar. The red area on the casting bar (shown below) is the time in which you could interrupt casting your spell (which is the true end of your spell according to the server) and begin casting the next spell right away.

When the bar reaches the red area, cast your next fireball (or desired spell). In order to do this though you will need to make a quick macro on each of your spells you are planning to do this with.

 To make a macro type  “/macro”  and then click “new”, pick a picture to correspond with your spell, then in the command area type   “/stopcasting”   on the first line,  on the second line type   “/cast (your spell here)”

It should look like this:  

Take the time and set up this macro, it may take a little getting used to at first. Make sure you don’t cast your next spell too soon before the red area or your whole spell will be interrupted.

Let me know how much this has increased your dps, your feedback is great to hear.