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.

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.

Rogue - Shadow Stalkers

Rogue’s have a clear purpose in WoW, dealing damage. Rogues are a melee class that can use several high damage abilities to make sushi out of their opponents, whether in PvE or PvP. Rogues can Dual Wield every kind of one-handed weapon there that can be found in WoW. There are able to use their special abilities with the use of Energy. With some of these special abilities, one can apply a combo point on their target. The Rogue also has some finishing moves that are more effective when more combo points are applied on the target. There can be a maximum of five combo points on a target and they disappear once a finishing move is being used.

Next to their great damage dealing capability the Rogues are also known because of their ability to stealth and their preference to attack from behind with their backstab ability. They walk around stealthed in battlegrounds and arenas, sneak up behind their enemies and have an edge over them. Being able to stealth also comes in handy in PvE scenarios because there is an ability called sap which can be used on Humanoid mobs which keeps them out of combat for up to sixty seconds. They are also able to Blind a enemy for 12 second, making him incapable to do anything.

Rogues also have some stunning and disrupting abilities which makes them great for both PvE and PvP purposes. Some good Rogues are able to stunlock enemy NPC’s or players, which basically means that they can hardly move, cast or attack.

Rogues can also use some poisons on their weapons that either boost their damage or put some other debuff on a target.

The following races have Rogues in their ranks: Dwarves, Gnomes, Humans, Trolls, Undead, Orcs, and Blood Elves.

A Rogue can choose to specialize in the Assassination, Combat, or Subtlety build, or choose to combine either one of these talent trees. All the trees are there to increase the damage output of a Rogue, since tanking or healing are definitely not his thing and can even be considered as a Rogue’s weak spots. It is for the player to decide which talent tree suits him best. All the trees got their pros and cons, the one player likes this, the other likes that, discussions go on and on but basically it comes down to preferences.

What can be said is that the Assassination tree is usually chosen for leveling and focuses on the crit rate and poison aspects of the Rogue, while the combat build offers the Rogue the chance to specialize in a particular type of weapon, which is why this build is probably better at 80 once you got some steady weapons.

The Subtlety build focuses on the Survivability, crowd control and Stealth aspects of the Rogue. This build gives the Rogue some burst damage and this is probably why a lot of PvP Rogues go for this build.

Priest - What Makes a Priest The Best Healer?

The Priest is a caster class and is considered by most to be the best all-round healer in WoW. His spells are Holy and Shadow based. A Priest can also do quite a bit of damage but is mainly known for his great healing capabilities in both PvE and PvP.

One of the downsides of playing a Priest is the leveling. Even though the Shadow talent tree is available, which greatly increases a Priest’s damage done, it can still be time taking because the spells cost a lot of Mana. Once you get to the higher levels though, you can always count on a spot in any kind of party or raid wherever they are going because a Priest is just great and everybody knows it.

All the Priests are able to cast a Stamina buff on themselves and party and raid members. If a few points in the Discipline tree are spent another buff called Divine Spirit becomes available. This buff boosts the Spirit of players. A Priest’s healing spells are based on Holy power and one has a variety of instant, small, big, HoT and AoE heals to choose from which make the priest the best overall healer. If a Priest prefers to do damage he is pretty much stuck on the Shadow spells if he wants to get the best out of his Priest.

You can choose from quite a few races if you want to play a Priest. The Human Spirit and Blood Elf’s Arcane Spirit racials make them nice choices. Other races you can choose from are Dwarves, Night Elves, Draenei, Trolls, and Undead.

A Priest can choose to go for a full Discipline build if he likes to heal and likes to play PvP. There are some great talents in the tree that make the Priest tougher, his heals more effective and the Priest will also gain some new abilities like Pain Suppression and Power Infusion. The Discipline Priests are great single target healers. This, together with abilities like the ones mentioned above make the Discipline Priests great for PvP as well.

The Holy tree is also great for healing. It’s probably a bit better when it comes to raw healing then the Discipline tree. Some other healing spells like Circle of Healing are learned which make the Priest even a better healer. The Holy build gives more bonus healing and is normally considered to be better for PvE purposes when it comes to healing.

Finally, the Shadow build. Priests make great healers but they sure can do good damage as well. His damage is based on Damage over Time (DoT), and fast spells like Mind Blast and Mind Flay. The great thing about a Shadow Priest is that he can also support his group by placing some debuffs on a target like Vampiric Embrace and Vampiric Touch which will convert some damage done to mana and hitpoints for both the Priest and his group members.

Paladins - Holy Warriors

The Paladin is a hybrid class, capable to tank, heal and do damage. The Paladin can wear plate armor, shields and most melee weapons. The Paladin uses the Holy magic school and physical attacks for most of his abilities.

One of the most well known abilities of the Paladin is Divine Shield, often called ‘Bubble’. The Divine Shield is an instantly casted spell that protects the Paladin from any damage for 12 seconds. Divine Intervention is almost as good as Divine Shield and can even be casted on party or raid members. It protects the target from all physical attacks. The Paladin also has various auras that affect the entire party and several buffs that can also be cast on different players. The Paladins abilities cost Mana, no matter what build one chooses.

The following races have Paladins in their ranks: Humans, Dwarves, Draenei, and Blood Elves.

A Paladin can be a very capable tank when the Protection talent tree is used. While using a shield and some abilities that create high amounts of threat, the Paladin can easily tank in dungeons. A Paladin tank is probably the best tank when it comes down to keeping aggro on multiple targets. This comes at a cost though meaning that he isn’t as good as a Warrior Tank in example when it comes to single target tanking. Some buffs also become available in this talent tree like Blessing of Sanctuary and Blessing of Kings, even though the last one doesn’t have to be chosen since it requires quite a few talent points.

A healing Paladin should use the Holy talent tree to maximize the effect of his healing spells and to obtain some other healing spells that will make him a great healer. A Holy Paladin is a very capable healer known for his fast heals. Known to be one of the best single target healers while his weak spot is the lack in heals that can heal an entire group. A Holy Paladin should focus on getting a lot of critical strike rating, because his heals will heal more and a lot of his heals will refund Mana this way.

Finally there is the Retribution Paladin. While wielding a 2h weapon and being able to use several abilities that deal great amounts of damage, the Retribution Paladin is a great class for both PvE and PvP. This hasn’t always been the case; before the WotLK, Retribution Paladins were almost never welcome in either raids or PvP teams. This is probably why they have received a great boost and are now one of the stronger PvP classes and builds out there.

A Paladin is a strong class, fighting one can be really annoying as it seems that they have multiple lives sometimes. Playing one is a great experience. A nice thing about a Paladin is that you can gather different types of gear and then change from a tank to a healer or DPS if you get a bit bored with your build.