Warrior Leveling Guide

Some players really enjoy tanking and see no problem in leveling their Warrior as a Protection Warrior. Shield Slam and Revenge do decent damage and also Shockwave is nice at later levels. If you want to speed up your leveling though, you should definitely explore the Fury talent tree. Two one-handed weapons should be used until you can equip two two-handed weapons.

I have made two builds. One will also take the Impale and Deep Wounds of Arms while the other is even more focused on Fury. It is up to your preferences which ones you would choose.

Warrior Leveling Build With a Little Arms

Warrior Leveling Build Fury + Imp Charge

I would advise you to at least first take Improved Charge in the Arms Tree. Then you can continue with 5% crit rating in the Fury tree and go on down from there. Aim to get Death Wish, Precision and Weapon Mastery asap so you don’t miss that often and Deathwish is a nice damage boost. Flurry is extremely nice and after you take this ability you really get that ‘Rogue-in-plate’ feeling because you really make sushi out of your opponents.

Next in line is Blood Thirst which does not only do a great amount of damage, but also restores health over time. This ability is just great for leveling because it is one of the few life-giving abilities a Warrior has.

Now you will get to choose between some nice damage dealing abilities. Do move down in the tree though and pick up the remaining ones at later levels. Get Rampage as soon as possible, it is a great ability that boosts your damage significantly and only costs one talent point.

You can see that Blizzard wanted to improve the ever so useless Slam ability of the Warrior and you can see that they succeeded. You will have a 20% to instant cast Slam and its damage gets improved to. Whirlwind and Cleave as well get a damage boost in this three which makes the Warrior more capable to deal with multiple mobs at once.

Finally you got Titan’s Grip. Man did I love to see my Warrior looking ba%&$s with two two-handed weapons. Of course, it doesn’t only look great but it will also give you a whole different game play. Ok, you will need to get a lot of hit rating to make up for the hit rating loss but it is kinda cool that the Warrior, the weapon master that always could wield all weapons, can now wield two two-handed weapons instead of the Death Knights in example, which the words once spread before the release of WoTLK.

Warlock Leveling Guide

Warlock can be capable to level up really fast. Mana brakes is not a word you can should find in a Warlock’s dictionary because you should use Life Tap to convert health into mana and then use Drain Life to fill it up, if necessary, because most of the times your health will restore gradually while your pets are taking the hits or you are fearing the mobs.

Two great abilities that you should use all the time are the Create Healthstone and Create Soulstone abilities. Consuming a Healthstone will save your life many times and when you do die you have your Soulstone on you so you can resurrect on the spot.

As a Warlock you should stay Affliction until you reach level 70.

Warlock Leveling Build 1-70 Affliction

With the Affliction talent build you will increase all your DoT spells and will also gain a few great spells. It starts off nice with Improved Curse of Agony. Suppression and Improved Drain Soul will give you less mana problems. Soul Siphon and Improved Life Tap will also help you to maintain your health and mana.

Then you got Amplify Curse and Fel Concentration that will help you cast better and faster. Then you increase your range and some damage of some spells. Curse of Exhaustion is an option, handy for PvP realms. Siphon Life and Shadow Mastery are extremely good.

Two other great spells you will learn are Unstable Affliction and Haunt. Both are great damage spells. Improving your Felhunter goes well with Dark Pact.

Once you enter Northrend you should switch your build to a Demonology - Affliction build.

Warlock Leveling Build 70-80 Demonology - Affliction

So basically this build is about having a Felguard and Siphon Life. While boosting your Demon Pets you can still do good damage with the DoT’s the Warlock has. The Affliction tree offers a lot of health gains which you can of course convert to mana so basically a lock with this talent build will have no down time.

The Demonology is to mana consuming to be an effective leveling build. The Affliction tree is great though to preserve mana and deal a lot of damage. With an Affliction talent build however you should place all your dots on several mobs so the leveling speeds up a bit. You will have a lot of survivability through the Affliction tree and Demonology tree at later levels. The Felguards are also really nice and do add up to the damage. They can affectively tank a few mobs with their Cleave for a bit while you start placing the DoTs.

Shamans - Spiritual Casters With Lots of Totems

Shamans are a nice class with a lot of different spells and abilities. You can play a Shaman in several ways. You can choose to be either a Melee or Spell casting damage dealer or become a Healer. The Shamans could only be played by the Horde races until the release of the Burning Crusade when the Draenei of the Alliance made it possible to become an Alliance Shaman. Shamans can wear all weapons except swords and are dependent on leather armor till level 40 and can then wear mail armor.

Shamans are well known for their ability to place totems that boost both themselves and party members. There is a great variety of totems that can be cast and these are divided in four schools: fire, water, earth and air totems. Only one totem of each school can be active at a time. Besides the totems, a Shaman also has another great ability called Blood Lust, or Heroism for Draeneis, which boosts all party and raid members haste rating by 30% for 40 seconds. Not to forget, the Shaman can also summon a Fire and Earth Elemental from time to time.

Then there are several abilities that the Shaman can benefit greatly from during leveling and basically in any kind of scenario. The Shamans have an ability called Reincarnation which comes with a cooldown of one hour. The Shaman will be able to resurrect the moment he gets killed if this ability isn’t on cooldown. It does require a reagent called ‘Ankh’. The Shaman can also learn Ghost Wolf at level thirty which improves his running speed which is nice for leveling, even though mounts can be used at level 30 now as well. Shamans also have Astral Recall which basically serves as another Hearthstone, this one has only 15 minutes cool down though and doesn’t cost you a spot in your bag!

As you can read above, the Shaman truly does have some great abilities. The talent trees will provide you with even more cool spells and abilities.

To begin with there is the Elemental talent build which is meant for casting damage dealers. You will use lighting and fire attacks to maximize damage. A nice AoE spell that becomes available later is Thunderstorm which does nice damage and knocks back enemies.

Then there is the Enhancement talent build. This build is created for melee damage dealing Shamans. This build will allow the Shaman to equip two one-handed weapons and will also give him some great melee attacks. If the Enhancement build is followed to the end you will be able to summon two Spirit Wolves which are extremely powerful both in PvE and PvP.

Finally there is the Restoration build which is focused on healing. Shamans can be great healers with their Earth Shield, Chain Heals, Healing Waves, Mana Totems and Riptide. The Restoration talent tree does not only give new abilities but also gives great boosts to already existing abilities.

A Shaman is easy and fun to level with all these abilities. Another nice thing a Rogue in example does not have is that you can switch between melee damage, being a caster and a healer whenever you like.

Rogue Leveling Guide

A Rogue is a pure DPS class that wears leather armor and should focus on getting a lot of Agility which will give him some Dodge chance thus survivability while leveling. A Rogue also has some nice stunning attacks that should always be used to minimize damage done to him. First Aid is definitely necessary to minimize a Rogue’s downtime.

The Rogue has three nice talent trees and they all have their pros and cons. If you want to make a nice leveling build you should check out the one below because it takes a bit of all three talent trees and it will give you a lot of useful abilities and boosts to level up like crazy.

Rogue Leveling Build

You should start by putting some talents in the Combat tree. Start with Dual Wield Specialization and then go for Precision to make sure you hit a lot with both weapons. Now go for Deflection because you will encounter a lot of melee mobs and that makes 6% parry chance really nice. Skip Riposte but do take Endurance so the cooldown of Evasion and Sprint are much shorter. These two abilities are great while leveling. Now Improve your Spring and Dodge chance and finally take Blade Furry which is just great when you’re fighting two mobs at once. It increases your damage by 20% anyway for 15 seconds so even if you’re fighting one mob it’s quite good.

Now put five points in Malice at the Assassination. Take Ruthlessness and Puncturing Wounds. Do take Vigor asap because it is really nice to have 110 Energy. Take Lethality to improve the damage from your critical strikes and then go for Vile Poisons and Improved Poisons. Take Cold Blood which is a killer and Fleet Footed to increase your movement speed which is always welcome while leveling. Take Quick Recovery and then take Sealed Fate to apply combo points faster which is a nice combo with Cold Blood.

Take Overkill so you can do more damage when you come out of stealth and then take Deadly Brew so runners won’t be much of a menace since they get their movement speed reduced with 70%.

Take Deadened Nerved to reduce damage done to you and take Weaknesses to increase all damage done by 6%. Last but not least you should take Mutilate in this tree which is a nice attack.

Take Relentless Strikes and Opportunity from the Subtlety tree and you have a great leveling build.

With this build you will have more Energy-boosting talents, two great attacks in Mutilate and Blade Furry, increased movement speed, a lot of crit and hit rating, some Poison specialization, some Dodge and Parry chance, and you will have your Sprint and Evasion improved.

Priest Leveling Guide

A Priest is a great character to play, especially because he is by most recognized to be the best healing class at level 80. Getting a Priest to the level cap has never been really easy or fast. However, I recently leveled an Alliance Priest, after having leveled a Horde Priest 4 years ago, and I must say that the mana-issue while using the Shadow build wasn’t really a problem. You can’t expect to be Holy or Discipline and expect to level up as fast as a Shadow priest. Only if you have some friends that will boost you whenever you want to play you can consider this but if you know you are the one that has to do it, Shadow is the way to go.

Let’s have a look at the talent tree:

Priest Leveling Build

As you can see, all Shadow talents are chosen in this build. It speaks for itself that you do move down the talent tree as fast as possible and later take the less important leveling talents like Improved Spirit Tap, Shadow Affinity, Veiled Shadows, Psychic Scream, Silence etc. The talents are quite good though so at a later level they should definitely be taken.

The Shadow tree starts nice with Spirit Tap. While leveling this talent is so great because it greatly improves your mana regeneration after each kill. Once you got your points there you should skip Improved Spirit Tap and put two points in Blackout. Then put points in Improved Shadow Word Pain and Shadow Focus. Put a point in Mindflay once you hit level 20, it’s not that strong in the first few levels you’ll have it, especially if you have a nice wand but it will become stronger and stronger. Use four talent points in Improved Mindblast to reduce its cooldown.

Leave Veiled Shadows for what it is for now and go for Shadow reach and Shadow Weaving, both great talents. Now go straight for Vampiric Embrace which is a nice and free spell that will restore some hitpoints in your fights. Put three points in Focused mind and one in Improved Vampiric Embrace.

Now you can choose either between Darkness and Mind Melt before Shadow Form becomes available! Now this is what you have probably been waiting for while leveling. Your damage will be increased while damage taken will be decreased, it’s just too sweet. Also take the Improved version asap because of the reduced pushback which is nice for your Mind Flay among other spells.

Now take Vampiric Embrace when you get the chance because that is a great damage dealing and mana restoring ability.

All the talents in the downside of the tree are great and it’s up to your preferences which you’d like to take first. You should take Dispersion, a real life saver and mana-generator, whenever you get the chance.

Paladin Leveling Guide

A Paladin has received some great boosts with the WotLK expansion. It is especially their damage tree that has gained a lot of improvements. In this guide I will explain which talents should be used and for what reason.

Let’s first have a look at the build:

Paladin Leveling Build

You basically take all the Retribution talents except for Deflection and Divine Purpose, except if you plan to play with somebody else often, then you can make a few changes and use Divine Purpose.

What makes the Retribution tree so powerful? To begin with you will improve your Blessing of Might which is the Blessing you will be using on yourself all the time to increase your attack power. Then you got your Improved Judgment which allows you to use Judgments more often which also results in a lot more damage output.

Heart of the Crusader is not only great for single playing and can also increase the damage of entire parties and even raids. Pursuit of Justice is really great because it improves both your movement speed as well as the mounted movement speed by 16%!

Then you have some other nice talents and you will end up being able to choose Sanctified Retribution which allows you to turn on your Retribution Aura which increases Holy damage done by 10% which is really nice. This one gets even better when you get the Improved and Swift retribution upgrades more down in the talent tree.

You will also be able to take Repentance which is a great crowd control ability. The Art of War allows you to instantly heal when some of your damaging abilities have a critical strike and that is just great because it keep you going. You will need some mana however but that is provided through Judgements of the Wise which gives a nice boost to your Judgement spells: you will receive 15% of your mana whenever you cast a Judgement spell and you will also get the replenishment effect which restores even more mana.

With Crusader Strike and Divine Storm you will gain two ace abilities when it comes down to dealing great damage. Together with your Seal of Command and your Retribution Aura you will be able to deal out massive damage. Righteous Vengeance is also really nice and adds to all the damage dealt in the form of a DoT (damage over time) talent.

Al together you can say that the Retribution tree is just great for leveling. While still being able to heal you can dish out massive amounts of damage and hit that level cap in no-time.

Mage Leveling Guide

As a Mage you have some great advantages while leveling. Of course, many classes have their pros and cons but a Mage is great to level because he can make his own food and water, teleport to cities from one to another continent and is able to Blink which also reduces run-time. As for the best leveling build, the opinions are divided. Some would swear with the Frost build because it is more mana efficient. I however, would go for a Fire/Arcane build for the simple reason that you take down the enemies faster and the Arcane tree will provide you with mana regeneration and more stats.

Lets first have a look at the full Fire talent tree though.

Mage Leveling Build: Fire

As a Fire Mage you can start attacking with either a Fireball or a Pyroblast, shoot a 2^nd Fireball and then a Fire Blast. If the target isn’t dead yet you just Frost Nova, take a step back and make another Fireball+Fire Blast combo. Blast Wave and Dragon Breath will also become available at a later level and they can do the finishing touches as well.

Now why I didn’t take Improved Scorch is because you don’t use Scorch until you get the Hot Streak talent. Molten Shields, Fiery Payback and Blazing Speed are not necessary for leveling purposes. I did choose Impact (I know many Mages skip this one) because it’s nice for leveling. If you manage to use three or four Fire based spells before the mob reaches you, you have a 30-40% chance to stun the mob for two seconds before he even reaches you.

I took a bit of Frost because of the reduced mana cost of both Frost and Fire spells through the talent called Precision.

Another option, and my favorite, is to go Arcane+Fire which is a nice combination.

Mage Leveling Build: Fire/Arcane

This build has a mana preserving advantage because 60% of the regeneration continues while casting. You will also be surprised with the amount of critical hits you will get with this build which will also refund 30% of the spell’s costs. You will also have 10% more Spirit and 15% more Intellect. Arcane Concentration will allow about 10% of your spells to be cast free of costs.

This build will not give you AoE spells likes Blast Wave and Dragon Breath but will be mainly focused on Fireballs, Pyroblasts and Fire Blasts. Your Arcane Explosion will be boosted a bit so that is a good choice for AoE purposes. Presence of Mind and Arcane Power will give you two extra great abilities that will cause high burst damage when needed.

You can choose to go full Frost but especially in the first 30 levels you will be a lot worse of than the builds stated above. Shatter then becomes nice, and later you got Icy Veins, Water Elemental, Cold Snap etc. but the damage output of this build isn’t as high as compared to the ones above.

Hunter Leveling Guide

Hunters are known to be one of the easiest, if not easiest class to level. Send in your pet, put autofire on, go for a coffee, come back and see that your pet didn’t only kill the mob you wanted him to attack but also 3 other mobs that attacked you while you were AFK. No but seriously, a Hunter is easy to level.

How do your maximize your efficiency though and reach the level cap as soon as possible? The answer is quite easy for this one; The Beast Mastery Tree.

The Beast Mastery talent build will make your pet a lot stronger and this will make it easier for your pet to keep the enemy NPC’s attacking him while you do steady damage with your ranged weapon.

Here you can see a nice leveling build for a Hunter:

Hunter Leveling Build

Choose Hawk Eye and Lethal Shots to boost your damage and range a bit.

From the Beast Mastery talent tree you can skip Imp Aspect of the Monkey because you will not be the one taking the hits. Imp Revive Pet isn’t necessary for leveling. I would choose to put only one point into Imp Mend Pet because of the Dispelling purpose.

Thick Hide isn’t bad at all but I would rather go with some damage abilities instead of some bonus armor.

When you choose this build your pet will receive:

+10% Health
+10% Crit
+100% Focus Regeneration
+9% Dodge
+10% Attack speed
+15% Damage
+10% Movement speed
+4 Additional Skill points

This all together with a lot of nice abilities that will be gained in this talent tree like Intimidation, which make the pet stun a target and creates a high amount of threat, Bestial Wrath, which causes the pet to do 50% (!) bonus damage for 18 seconds.

The Hunter himself will also receive quite a few nice boosts through this talent tree like 20% Attack Speed, 5% Health, Improved Aspects and other nice boosts given through the pets abilities.

Besides these abilities the Hunter and his pet will also move around the areas quicker because the Aspect of the Cheetah and Aspect of the Pack abilities will become more effective, a 10% mounted speed increase is given as well as a 10% bonus to their normal running speed.

Another nice thing of this talent tree is that the Hunter can Tame some creatures that otherwise could not be Tamed.

Al together, the Beast Mastery talent tree is the way to go. The Marksmanship talent tree looks nice and it definitely gives a great boost to the Hunters damage. However, you will notice that your pet can’t keep the mobs on him and that they will come for you, which makes it all a bit less nice. The Survival talent tree is nice at later levels, especially for PvP.

Druid Leveling Guide

A Druid is a great class to level no matter if you choose to level as a Feral Druid or as a Balance Druid. Reason for this is that you are still able to heal up after you get some damage. In this article I will describe a great Feral Leveling build and a great Balance leveling build. The Restoration tree can be partially taken as you will see but a full Restoration build will slow down your leveling.

Feral Druid

As a Feral Druid that wants to level up fast you should specialize in your Cat Form ability because the damage done in Cat Form is better than the Bear Forms available. There are some talents that are better for Bears then for Cats so these can be skipped. Please note that this is a solo leveling build that focuses on maximizing the damage of your Cat Form.

Feral leveling build

Instead of saying why the talents that are chosen are chosen, I will tell you why you can skip the ones that are not:

Feral Instinct: Swipe is a Bear’s ability so you can skip it. The reduced chance to become visible is not important while leveling.

Thick Hide: This talent supports the tanking kind of Druids, not adding anything to quicker leveling.

Brutal Impact: It is more of a Bear ability since it reduces the cooldown of Bash and makes Bash last 1 more second. While for a cat it only gives an additional 1 second to his Pounce stun duration. It’s not bad though so that’s why you can spend a point here.

Natural Reaction: Pure Bear talent.

Primal Tenacity: Not good for leveling purposes since you will remain in Cat Form and fear and Stun effects are not a killer while leveling.

You should add some Restoration talents to this build because of three reasons: Improved Mark of the Wild which is still one of the better buffs out there, Naturalist which increases your damage done by 10%, and finally Omen of Clarity which gives you a chance to use your abilities without spending Energy.

Balance Druid

As a Balance Druid you just try to get as much possible damage but also don’t want to run out of mana too often.

Balance leveling build

Genesis: Isn’t really worth it since Moonfire and Wasp Swarm are the only Dot’s that can be used.

Brambles: Yes, a lot of Entangling Roots can be used while leveling + Thorns, Bark skin and Treants boosted.

Improved Faerie Fire: More something for raids, you don’t want to spend time casting this on a mob.

Both the Feral and Balance talent build focus on maximizing the damage output. Why? Well the answer is simple; you don’t need a lot of survivability because you can heal up from time to time anyway.

Death Knight Leveling Guide

Once you have created your Death Knight you will see that you have no talent points yet. That can be quite weird for a level 55 character but you shouldn’t worry. The quests in and around the Ebon Hold will all give you talent points. But how exactly should you use these to level up your Death Knight really fast?

Well, that’s what this guide is about. I will explain which talent build is nice and for what reason.

To start with I must say that the Death Knight is a great class that has nice abilities like a pet, great damaging spells, plate armor and heavy normal attacks. The talent trees are Blood, Frost, and Unholy.

What you are looking for while leveling is a build that allows you to continue fighting and speed you up in any other way possible. That’s the reason why I say that a Blood/Unholy build would be the best for leveling. Assuming that you will level solo, I have made the following build and you will see that this build is great for solo leveling:

Death Knight Leveling Guide

Let’s start with the Blood talents. Butchery is just great for leveling and should be taken no matter which build you decide to make if you want to level fast. Then you got some nice talents that improve your damage and then you see Rune Tap and the Improved Rune Tap talent. This is one of those talents that will keep you going because it will restore your HP. Then you have Vendetta, Mark of Blood, Blood Worms, Blood Aura, and Vampiric Blood that will also help you to keep your hit points up. With all these talents you basically can’t die while leveling.

With Hysteria, Hearth Strike, Might of Mograine, Blood Gorged and Dancing Rune Weapon you will have great damaging abilities.

The reason you should focus on Unholy a bit as well is that you will become a bit more effective when it comes to AoE damage with Morbidity and Corpse Explosion. Then you have a 5% Dodge chance through Anticipation and some extra stats from Shadow of Death. The reduced cooldown on Death Grip is also very handy. Last but definitely not least is On a Pale Horse. This talent is great for leveling and will reduce your traveling time. A side effect of this nice leveling talent is that your stun and fear effects will be reduced by 20%.

Altogether you can say that this build will keep you going because of all the health gaining abilities the Blood tree has to offer. The Blood tree also has a few nice damaging abilities while the Unholy tree adds a bit of AoE damage and reduces your traveling time. Nice thing about this talent tree is that you are also capable to deal with opponents in PvP situations, which is especially nice on PvP realms.

Warriors – Weapon Masters

Warriors are a great melee class. They are capable to Tank, and even by most considered to be the best tanking class still, but can also do great damage in both PvE and PvP. Masters of the melee fight as they are, they are capable to equip all the melee weapons and even Dual Wield. Next to that they can also wear Plate armor and Shields. Their special abilities can be used with the use of Rage which is gained by taking and dealing damage, and some talents and abilities.

The Warriors have stances they can choose between. The Defensive Stance is normally only used for tanking because it reduces the damage done by 10%. However, it does increase the threat made by 10% and the damage done to the Warrior is reduced by 10% as well. Then there is the Battle Stance which is their basic stance which doesn’t give any boosts or reductions and finally there is the Berserker Stance which increases the Warrior’s critical strike rating by 3% but also increases damage done to the Warrior by 10%. Some abilities can only be used when the Warrior is in a particular stance.

Warriors are strong and can take a few punches which make them easy to level because their damage output is good as well. One should carry a shield with him while leveling so you can tank an instance when you get the chance. At level eighty 70+ however you will definitely need to have a Protection build to tank the instances though. In my opinion Warriors are fast levelers because you can kill the mobs quite fast and then Charge into the next one. Because of the plate armor you will not lose a lot of health, though one does has a few abilities that restore hitpoints and otherwise some bandages can be used which isn’t that time-taking either.

All the races, except the Blood Elves, have Warriors in their ranks.

The Warriors have the Protection talent tree if they want to become good tanks. In this talent tree there are a lot of abilities that reduce the damage done to the Warrior. You will also improve your threat done with this talent tree and will gain some new nice abilities like Spell Reflection, Shield Slam, Shock Wave and Last Stand. A Warrior can be a great tank, in my opinion, Blizzard designed Warriors to be tanks and they are the best at it.

Since WoTLK, the Arms tree is considered to be the weakest talent tree by many Warriors. This is basically because the Fury talent tree has received some great talents that make the Fury talent tree just as good or maybe even better for PvP and it stayed better in PvE. The Arms tree was good because of the Mortal Strike’s debuff left on the character that reduced healing done on him by 50%. Now the Fury Warriors have something similar in the talent tree called Furious Attacks which also gives the same debuff of 50% healing reduced on the target. If you follow this tree you will be able to Dual Wield two two-handed weapons as only class in WoW! It doesn’t only look great but boosts the damage as well and puts the Arms build even more in the shadows. Then there is Heroic Fury, another PvP talent that removes immobilizing effects and removes the cooldown from your intercept.

Warlocks - Bring Fear Upon Thee

Warlocks have always been a nice class to play. For some reason they always looked great, Blizzard always made the nicest tiers sets for them, then they have those cool class mounts. However, it isn’t only the look that counts and the Warlocks have a lot more to offer. The Warlocks are great casters and use the Schools of Fire and Shadow damage as well as a variety of different Fear spells and a Demonic Pet to bring pain upon their enemies.

You can choose a different pet for different scenarios. You can choose between an Imp, Fel Hunter, Succubus, Fel Guard, and even a Fire Golem can be summoned.

A Warlock needs Soul Shards for some abilities. These can easily be obtained though by using Drain Soul on an enemy.

A Warlock is very nice in PvP because he has a lot of damage over time (DoT) spells. If he first casts a few DoT’s and then continuously fears his opponents while also his pet is chasing them around doing additional damage, he basically can win from most opponents. The Locks also have some nice AoE spells like most other casters and have some other specific abilities. One of them is the Ritual of Souls. With this ability he makes a Soulwell which all the party and raid members can use to get a Healthstone, which instantly restores health when used. Warlocks can also create a Soulstone on themselves or on other players. Once the player dies he would be able to resurrect. Last but not least is their ability to summon other players which comes in very handy from time to time.

If you want to play a Warlock you can choose between the following races: Gnome, Human, Orc, Undead, and Blood Elves.

There are three talent trees that all enhance the Warlocks damage.

Lets start with the Affliction talent tree. Favored by many PvP Warlocks is the Affliction build simply because it focuses on the DoT spells of a Warlock and even gives him some new ones. Also the fear spells become better when this build is followed. The tactic of DoTting and then fearing like said before is great for PvP.

Then you got the Demonology build which increases the damage output of the Warlock as well as the Pets one can summon. It also gives the Warlock the ability to sacrifice his pet to make him stronger. This build is also nice for both PvE and PvP. If the Demonology build is followed till the end you will even be able to transfer into a Demon yourself. As a Demon you will get a new set of abilities and become more of a melee character with increased damage for a period of time.

The name says it all; The Destruction spec focuses on the damaging spells that do a lot of damage like Shadowbolt and the Fire based spells. This build is developed to be able to top damage meters with powerful spells.

As a Lock you can of course choose to make sort of a hybrid build between Demonology and Destruction which is also seen quite often.

Shamans - Spiritual Casters With Lots of Totems

Shamans are a nice class with a lot of different spells and abilities. You can play a Shaman in several ways. You can choose to be either a Melee or Spell casting damage dealer or become a Healer. The Shamans could only be played by the Horde races until the release of the Burning Crusade when the Draenei of the Alliance made it possible to become an Alliance Shaman. Shamans can wear all weapons except swords and are dependent on leather armor till level 40 and can then wear mail armor.

Shamans are well known for their ability to place totems that boost both themselves and party members. There is a great variety of totems that can be cast and these are divided in four schools: fire, water, earth and air totems. Only one totem of each school can be active at a time. Besides the totems, a Shaman also has another great ability called Blood Lust, or Heroism for Draeneis, which boosts all party and raid members haste rating by 30% for 40 seconds. Not to forget, the Shaman can also summon a Fire and Earth Elemental from time to time.

Then there are several abilities that the Shaman can benefit greatly from during leveling and basically in any kind of scenario. The Shamans have an ability called Reincarnation which comes with a cooldown of one hour. The Shaman will be able to resurrect the moment he gets killed if this ability isn’t on cooldown. It does require a reagent called ‘Ankh’. The Shaman can also learn Ghost Wolf at level thirty which improves his running speed which is nice for leveling, even though mounts can be used at level 30 now as well. Shamans also have Astral Recall which basically serves as another Hearthstone, this one has only 15 minutes cool down though and doesn’t cost you a spot in your bag!

As you can read above, the Shaman truly does have some great abilities. The talent trees will provide you with even more cool spells and abilities.

To begin with there is the Elemental talent build which is meant for casting damage dealers. You will use lighting and fire attacks to maximize damage. A nice AoE spell that becomes available later is Thunderstorm which does nice damage and knocks back enemies.

Then there is the Enhancement talent build. This build is created for melee damage dealing Shamans. This build will allow the Shaman to equip two one-handed weapons and will also give him some great melee attacks. If the Enchancement build is followed to the end you will be able to summon two Spirit Wolves which are extremely powerful both in PvE and PvP.

Finally there is the Restoration build which is focused on healing. Shamans can be great healers with their Earth Shield, Chain Heals, Healing Waves, Mana Totems and Riptide. The Restoration talent tree does not only give new abilities but also gives great boosts to already existing abilities.

A Shaman is easy and fun to level with all these abilities. Another nice thing a Rogue in example does not have is that you can switch between melee damage, being a caster and a healer whenever you like.