Dailies Guide for Gold Farming

Daily quests are an important part of World of Warcraft. They’re used for gold farming, reputation farming, and professions. Dailies are the quests that appear as a blue exclamation point instead of the standard gold one, and they can be done once a day, every day. Each of your characters can complete up to 25 daily quests per day, so you’ll want to pick and choose which ones you complete.

All daily quests will grant you some gold, but some will grant you more gold than others. Here’s a quick dailies guide for gold farming to help you pick out the daily quests that bring in the most gold. The highest paying gold dailies pay out 22 gold, but they do require having four other people to complete them, so we’re focusing this dailies guide on daily quests you can complete on your own.

Dailies Guide for Sholazar Basin

Each of the daily quest areas in Northrend have about the same number of dailies available, but Sholazar Basin has a couple of quests that do pay 20 gold. There are 15 gold farming dailies in Sholazar Basin, although seven of them only pay 6 gold each. However, three of the gold farming dailies in Sholazar Basin do pay 20 gold, and the rest of them pay 13 gold each. This makes Sholazar Basin one of the highest ranking places for gold farming through daily quests. Just remember to check both of the two daily quest areas in Sholazar Basin. They are the Rainspeaker Canopy and Frenzyheart Hill. One good thing about these two areas is that you will also earn reputation with either the Oracles or the Frenzyheart Tribe.

Dailies Guide for the Storm Peaks

If you’re looking for consistency as far as gold earned per daily quest, then you should check out the Storm Peaks. There are 13 daily quests available in the Storm Peaks, and most of them pay 13 gold each. Most of the dailies in the Storm Peaks are located in either Dun Niffelem or Brunnhildar Village, but there is also one located in K3 and one located in Frosthold. Completing the dailies in the Storm Peaks is a nice way to do several quests all at once and walk away with some nice bank in a short amount of time. Another note about the quests in the Storm Peaks is that most of them earn you reputation with the Sons of Hodir.

Dailies Guide for Icecrown Skybreaker

Another great place to do gold farming through daily quests is the Icecrown Skybreaker area. There are 11 daily quests on the Skybreaker, although two of them do require groups of five people. Those two pay out 22 gold, while the other 9 quests can be done on your own and pay out 13 gold each. The nice thing about the Skybreaker is that all of these quests are located in a rather small area, so there’s less time running around and gathering up your daily quests.

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.

Cataclysm Class Preview: Paladin

Quote from: Nethaera (Source)

In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm we’ll be making several changes to class talents and abilities across the board. While this list only outlines some of our plans for the paladin class, we want to give you a look at the new high-level abilities and an overview of how the new Mastery system will work with each talent spec.

New Paladin Spells

Blinding Shield (level 81): Causes damage and blinds all nearby targets. This effect might end up only damaging those facing the paladin’s shield, in a manner similar to Eadric the Pure's ability Radiance in Trial of the Champion. The Holy tree will have a talent to increase the damage and critical strike chance, while the Protection tree will have a talent to make this spell instant cast. 2-second base cast time. Requires a shield.

Healing Hands (level 83): Healing Hands is a new healing spell. The paladin radiates heals from him or herself, almost like a Healing Stream Totem. It has a short range, but a long enough duration that the paladin can cast other heals while Healing Hands remains active. 15-second cooldown. 6-second duration.

Guardian of Ancient Kings (level 85): Summons a temporary guardian that looks like a winged creature of light armed with a sword. The visual is similar to that of the Resurrection spell used by the paladin in Warcraft III. The guardian has a different effect depending on the talent spec of the paladin. For Holy paladins, the guardian heals the most wounded ally in the area. For Protection paladins, the guardian absorbs some incoming damage. For Retribution paladins, it damages an enemy, similar to the death knight Gargoyle or the Nibelung staff. 3-minute cooldown. 30-second duration (this might vary depending on which guardian appears).

Next you will find a list of some of the paladin spell and ability changes, followed by our intentions for improving each talent tree for the release of Cataclysm. There will be further changes, but those revealed below should offer some insight into our goals.


Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

• Crusader Strike will be a core ability for all paladins, gained at level 1. We think the paladin leveling experience is hurt by not having an instant attack. Retribution will be getting a new talent in its place that either modifies Crusader Strike or replaces it completely.
• Cleanse is being rebalanced to work with the new dispel system. It will dispel defensive magic (debuffs on friendly targets), diseases, and poisons.
• Blessing of Might will provide the benefit of Wisdom as well. If you have two paladins in your group, one will do Kings on everyone and the other will do Might on everyone. There should be much less need, and ideally no need, to provide specific buffs to specific classes.
• Holy Shock will be a core healing spell available to all paladins.

New Talents and Talent Changes

• We want to ease off the defensive capabilities of Retribution and Holy paladins slightly. We think the powerful paladin defenses have been one of the things holding Retribution paladins back, especially in Arenas. One change we’re considering is lowering Divine Shield’s duration by a couple of seconds. Having said that, Retribution does pretty well in Battlegrounds, and Battlegrounds will be a much bigger focus in Cataclysm since they can provide the best PvP rewards. Furthermore, the healing environment of Cataclysm is going to be different such that a paladin may not be able to fully heal themselves during the duration of Divine Shield to begin with, so this may not be a problem.
• We feel Retribution paladins need one more mechanic which involves some risk of the player pushing the wrong button, making the rotation a bit less forgiving. In addition, we want to add to this spec more PvP utility. Right now the successes of the Retribution paladin in PvP seem to be reduced to either doing decent burst damage, or just being good at staying alive.
• We want to increase the duration of Sacred Shield to 30 minutes and keep the limit to one target. The intention is that the paladin can use it on their main healing target. That said, we would like to improve the Holy paladin toolbox and niche so that they don’t feel quite like the obvious choice for tank healing while perceived as a weak group healer.
• We want to add to the Holy tree a nice big heal to correspond with Greater Heal. Flash of Light remains the expensive, fast heal and Holy Light is the go-to heal that has average efficiency and throughput. Beacon of Light will be changed to work with Flash of Light. We like the ability, but want paladins to use it intelligently and not be constantly healing for twice as much.
• Holy paladins will use spirit as their mana regeneration stat.
• Protection paladins need a different rotation between single-target and multi-target tanking. Likewise, we're looking to add the necessity to use an additional cooldown in each rotation.
• Holy Shield will no longer have charges. It will be designed to improve block chance while active, and will continue to provide a small amount of damage and threat.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Holy

• Healing
• Meditation
• Critical Healing Effect

Meditation: This is the spirit-to-mana conversion that the priest, druid, and shaman healers also share.

Critical Healing Effect: When the paladin gets a crit on a heal, it will heal for more.

Protection

• Damage Reduction
• Vengeance
• Block Amount

Vengeance: This is the damage-received-to-attack-power conversion that all tanks share.

Block Amount: We want to keep the kit of the paladin as a tank who blocks a lot. So by contrast, the warrior tank will sometimes get critical blocks, but the paladin will absorb more damage with normal blocks.

Retribution

• Melee Damage
• Melee Critical Damage
• Holy Damage

Holy Damage: Any attack that does Holy damage will have its damage increased.

This concludes this Cataclysm preview for the paladin class. The development of these changes will continue to evolve in the coming months. Please be sure to provide any feedback and thoughts you might have on what was covered here.

[...]

Here's a bit more clarification on some of these changes. Also, please keep in mind that this is merely a preview and we'll still have more to go in testing up to and including any other changes that aren't listed here in the preview.

We've updated the Flash of Light reference to make it a bit more clear in the original post as follows.

• Flash of Light remains a fast heal, but will be more expensive to justify the cast speed. Holy Light will be the go-to heal that has average efficiency and throughput. Beacon of Light needs to be changed so that its benefit is letting the paladin heal two targets at once, not letting the paladin get two heals for the mana cost of one. It’s intended to save GCDs and targeting time, not mana.

In addition we’re changing the paladin heal design to match that of the other healers. Holy Light is the middle heal. It’s very efficient, but not particularly fast and doesn’t have a lot of throughput. Flash of Light will be the faster heal that costs more mana. (Currently paladins sort of flip the model around by having a fast, efficient heal.) Holy paladins can talent into an additional heal that is like a giant Holy Light. It might take three of these big heals (or two crits) to get a tank from death’s door back to 100% health.

Currently on live, Beacon of Light is a tool that allows paladins to target more than just the main tank. In Cataclysm if it just doubles their healing, it is going to be overpowered. We have two ways we might handle this and we’ll experiment to see which feels better. The first is that Beacon only works on some heals, such as Flash of Light or Holy Light (but not the big one). An alternative idea is that Beacon increases the mana cost of a heal cast on a beaconed target, since you’re essentially getting a double heal. Under this model, Beacon itself would cost no mana.

Also on the live realms currently, paladins have huge mana pools and massive throughput. The trade-off is that they are excellent single target healers and much weaker in other roles. We want paladins to be slightly more interchangeable with other healers. In Cataclysm, you should be able to have a Holy priest on the tank and a Holy paladin on the raid. We’re not sure we’ll back off of the current healing roles completely, but we definitely want to add more breadth to those whose roles are currently too narrow.

As for the Guardian of Ancient Kings. First, it's important to understand that this is not a pet nor does it have a pet bar associated with it. Second, it's also not meant to last for very long. So, it's not a pet in the traditional sense. It's a friend in need when you need it, but not a permanent companion. 

Cataclysm Class Preview: Shaman – World of Warcraft

Quote from: Nethaera (Source)

In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, we'll be making lots of changes and additions to class talents and abilities across the board. In this preview, you'll get an early look at some of the changes in store for the shaman class, including a rundown of some of the new spells, abilities, and talents, and an overview of how the new Mastery system will work with the different talent specs.

New Shaman Spells

Primal Strike (available at level 3): Primal Strike is a new weapon-based attack that every shaman will learn very early in the game. Our goal with this ability is to make leveling as Enhancement rather than as Elemental more viable, since many key Enhancement talents become available at fairly high levels.

Healing Wave (level 4): While the shaman already has an ability called Healing Wave, we're adding another spell to the class's direct-healing arsenal and giving it a familiar name. The current Healing Wave will be renamed Greater Healing Wave, and the intent is for the 'new" Healing Wave to be the shaman's go-to heal. Lesser Healing Wave and Greater Healing Wave will be used on a more situational basis.

Unleash Weapon (level 81): Unleashes the power of your weapon enchants for additional effects (see below). A dual-wielding Enhancement shaman will activate the effects of both of their weapon enchants. Instant cast. 30-yard range. 15-second cooldown. Undispellable.

Here are a few examples of effects we're considering for this ability:

• Windfury Weapon – Hurls a spectral version of your weapon at a target, dealing 50% weapon damage and increasing the shaman's Haste for the next five swings.
• Flametongue Weapon – Deals instant Fire damage and buffs the shaman's next Fire attack by 20%.
• Earthliving Weapon – Heals the target slightly and buffs the shaman's next healing spell by 20%.

Healing Rain (level 83): An area-effect heal-over-time (HoT) spell that calls down rain in a selected area, healing all players within it. There is no limit to the number of players who can potentially be affected; however, there are diminishing returns when healing a large number of targets, much like the diminishing returns associated with AoE damage spells. This should give Restoration shaman another healing tool that improves their group-healing and heal-over-time capabilities. 2-second cast time. 30-yard range. 10-second duration. 10-second cooldown.

Spiritwalker's Grace (level 85): When this self-targeted buff is active, your spells are no longer interrupted by movement and possibly even by your own attacks. This will give shaman of all three specs another way to heal or do damage when it’s necessary to move in both PvE and PvP. Instant cast. 10-second duration. 2-minute cooldown.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

In addition to adding new spells, we're planning to make changes to some of the other abilities and mechanics you're familiar with. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we intend for each spec.

• Restoration shaman and other healing classes will need to pay attention to mana more than they've had to during Wrath of the Lich King. Spirit will be the Restoration shaman's primary mana-regeneration stat.
• We're making changes to which classes and specs are able to dispel magic, diseases, curses, and poison, largely for PvP purposes. Shaman will have Cleanse Spirit as a baseline ability, but it will only remove curses. Restoration shaman will have a talent that will improve Cleanse Spirit so that it also removes magic. Shaman will no longer be able to remove poison.
• Cleansing Totem will be removed from the game, as we want dispels to be a decision for players, not something done mindlessly. To that end, all dispels will cost slightly more mana, and you will waste the spell if you cast it when there is nothing to remove. (Currently, the dispel is only cast when there is something to remove, which encourages spamming 'just in case.") We will balance PvE dispelling with this new model in mind.
• Totem of Wrath now will replace Flametongue Totem for all shaman, and dropping this totem will buff the group's spell power by 4%. Elemental shaman will have a talent that lets all Fire totems provide +10% spell power, allowing them to drop Searing, Magma, or Fire Elemental Totems without losing their spell-damage buff. The 4% and 10% buffs will be exclusive with each other and with the warlock's Demonic Pact, so you can't benefit from all of them at once. We're also considering letting Elemental drop Searing Totem at range.
• We want to free up Enhancement global cooldowns to make the spec more dynamic to play. We're considering, for example, increasing the cooldown of Lava Lash so shaman have time to work other interesting abilities into their rotation.

New Talents and Talent Changes

• Elemental Reach will be simplified so shaman have a more consistent spell range.
• We plan to add Earthquake as a deep Elemental talent for targeted and persistent AoE.
• Spirit Link will likely be worked back into deep Restoration in some form. The idea is that you will be able to link targets together so they share damage. When we had previously tried to implement Spirit Link, it was hard to balance and a little confusing. However, we really liked the concept -- and so did players -- so we are trying to bring it back.
• Elemental will have a deep talent that allows Spirit (which will appear on the gear they share with Restoration shaman) to boost their Hit rating.
• Ancestral Knowledge will boost mana pool size, not Intellect.
• Enhancing Totems will be replaced with Focused Strikes, which will improve the damage of the new spell Primal Strike and Stormstrike.
• With the Mastery system, we're also considering removing a number of talents that grant passive bonuses, such as Mental Quickness, Improved Windfury Totem, Mental Dexterity, Call of Thunder, Tidal Mastery, Purification, Nature's Blessing, and others, to allow players more freedom to choose more interesting talents.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Elemental

• Spell damage
• Spell Crit
• Elemental Overload

Elemental Overload: Your direct-damage spells have a chance to proc a less powerful 'bonus" version of the spell. This will work much like the current Lightning Overload talent, but would also apply to Lava Burst.

Enhancement

• Melee damage
• Melee Haste
• Nature Damage

Nature Damage: This will provide a passive bonus to the Nature damage dealt by the Enhancement shaman.

Restoration

• Healing
• Meditation
• Deep Healing

Deep Healing: Your direct heals will do more healing when the target's health is lower. This will scale to damage (e.g. someone at 29% health would receive more healing than someone at 30%) rather than have arbitrary break points.

We hope you enjoyed this preview, and we're looking forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on Cataclysm continues.

Update
Just to clarify a few things:

Meditation – the amount of mana you regenerate in combat as a function of your Spirit.

Also of note, you only get one set of passive talent tree bonuses: the tree in which you’ve spent the most points. Sub-speccing in another tree will not net you those bonuses in addition.

Last but not least, it's the intention of Primal Strike to let shaman play as an Enhancement at low levels. Currently when leveling in this spec, you end up just using Lightning Bolt a lot so you feel like an Elemental shaman instead. At a higher level, Primal Strike gets replaced by Storm Strike. They share a cooldown so Enhancement just won’t ever use Primal Strike after that, in the same way that Prot warriors don’t use Sunder Armor once they have Devastate or Feral druids don’t use Claw once they get Mangle.

Quote from: Nethaera (Source)

We know there are a lot of additional questions and we'll do our best to answer what we can. Keep in mind, this is merely a preview of things to come.

Q: Will Maelstrom Weapon include Lava Burst?
A: That’s the plan currently.

Q: How can Elemental Overload proc Lava Burst when Lava Burst already hits so hard in PvP?
A: We’re going to change almost every number in Cataclysm to adjust for everything from single ranks of spells to larger health pools to new combat ratings. With much higher health pools, hopefully burst damage will go back to being a tool and not the only way to win matches.

Q: What happens to the Lightning Overload talent?
A: It provides a bonus to Elemental Overload.

Q: Elemental doesn’t want to drop Searing Totem at range. We want to drop Magma Totem.
A: Searing Totem needs to so more single-target damage than Magma. That said, if we’re happy with the ability to occasionally place totems at range there is no reason it couldn’t apply to any totem. Imagine, “After using this spell, the next totem you drop will appear at the feet of your target.”

Q: Will Elemental have to spend talent points just to get the Spirit to hit conversion?
A: It will be bundled with another attractive talent, such as Elemental Precision.

Q: Will Unleash Weapon work with Frostbrand?
A: Yes. We just provided some examples.

Q: Is Healing Rain channeled?
A: No, it's not a channeled spell.

Q: Is Earthquake channeled?
A: Probably, but we’ll see.

Q: Will Unleashed Weapon consume your enchants?
A: No.

Q: Does the 10% spell power buff from Elemental scale with the shaman or the target’s spell power?
A: It will scale with the target the same as Demonic Pact and other buffs that bring the same benefit.

Q: Are you supporting two-handed weapons for Enhancement?
A: Once you start to get into the dual-wield talents, then Enhancement is a dual-wield tree.

Q: You didn’t address Enhancement survivability or mobility or X and Y!
A: This was just a preview and is not a comprehensive list of every change. Much more will be revealed in beta and much will change during beta.

Q: You didn’t answer the most important shaman question! What about Sentry Totem?
A: The Cataclysm is a time of great upheaval. Deathwing’s return to Azeroth tore a hole in the fabric of the universe that tragically resulted in the ultimate and irrevocable destruction of all Sentry Totems. Level designers are contemplating a shrine for the Sentry Totem near that of Uther the Lightbringer. We know shaman players will greet this news with grief, but as with all class changes we’ll have to get into beta before anything is final.

Blue Post: Cataclysm Class Information Coming!

Quote from: Bashiok (Source)

Beginning Wednesday, April 7 we will begin releasing class previews containing an overview of some of the changes currently being planned for each of the 10 World of Warcraft classes. The type of information you can expect from these posts are a list of the new spells from 80-85, the new passive mastery bonuses for all talent trees, a brief outline of some of the talent changes we're currently planning, and in some cases new low level spells for select classes.

These changes will by no means be comprehensive, and are subject to change between now and the launch of the expansion. It's also important to understand that some classes are currently further along in the development process than others, and as a result the amount of information will vary from class to class. Please do not let this frustrate you should your class be amongst those which are on the "lighter" side of things, as all classes will receive the same level of design attention before the expansion is released. Additionally we'll be providing more information for all classes, especially as we move into the beta phase.

Below is the schedule for each class:

• Shaman - April 7
• Priest - April 7
• Warlock - April 7

• Warrior - April 8
• Death Knight - April 8
• Rogue - April 8

• Hunter - April 9
• Druid - April 9
• Mage - April 9

• Paladin - April 16*

These posts are being coordinated internationally so they'll be posted at different times throughout the day and night on the given dates to give players around the world the ability to see posts made at a convenient time. This thread will be updated with links directly to each class preview as they're posted.

*The paladin is still deep in development. Instead of giving a preview that would be potentially less comprehensive than the other classes we made the decision to post it when it's ready, in order to properly honor the paladin class and those that play them. The wait isn't too long however as we're expecting to be able to post it on April 16.

Aion Guides: Beginners PvP and PvPvE Guide

The Build

Now I know you want to get into all the juicy stuff such as strategy and what not, but before I discuss that you should first consider your character’s build. You can customize your characters strength and weakness threw the use of mana stones, enchanting, food, drinks, scrolls, etc. However to keep it basic for beginners; I will stick to manastone and enchanting discussion.

Now that being said you could build your character to be in a basic categories’: Offensive, Defensive, and hybrid. Each one adds valuable options to the group. In addition, each comes with there own strength and weakness.

Offensive builds is where you want to take your opponent out before it takes you out. In that sense you most be able to react faster and out maneuver your opponent to use this build to its full potential. If you fail to do so, you leave your self vulnerable to a counter attack to your opponent. That being said these type of builds excel in spike damage in groups, so they have the time to prepare a proper assault on an enemy player, while have the time to retreat to the safety of the group to avoid being counter attack. These builds are generally more vulnerable (not always) to taking more incoming damage then say if you built hybrid or defensive.

Defensive builds are the opposite in the sense you try to out last your opponent threw your increased survivability. In order to bring this build to its full potential you most have the patience to deal with longer fights and not lose focus. Your objective as a defensive build is to interrupt your opponent’s combo flow as much as possible forcing them to make a critical mistake, wasting their opportunity to spike you down. If you can play the fight longer and stay focused, you can force your opponent to trip up. This build is especially common for healers in group fights. For their success largely depends on their ability to hamper their enemies attempts to spike damage them.

Hybrid builds are mix offensive and defense nature. For example Crit has an offensive and defensive nature attached to it. When you land a Crit hit, you will do more damage. In addition, you also stun your opponent. Thanks to this nature, crt makes a perfect example of a build that be used offensively or defensively. In groups hybrid builds are useful in that they play an offensive and defensive role at the same time. For example a sin or ranger could crt lock a dps attempting to spike a healer. In this situation not only did you kill the enemy, In addition you stunned your opponent which saved your healer.

Manastone by categories:

• Offensive mana stones: Attack, Magic Boosting Power,
• Defensive mana stones: Shield defense, parry, evasion, magic defense
• Hybrid: HP, MP, Critical, Max flight time, Acc, magic acc

Please note I would advise against using mp and max flight time normally, as both of these problems can be easily countered by a pot. In addition I would advise against using Acc or Magic acc, as the benefits normally do not counter the use of other mana stones available.

Builds I would advise for classes as follows in no particular order of importance.

• Templar: Hybrid, Defensive
• Gladiator: Hybrid, Offensive
• Cleric: Hybrid, Defensive
• Chanter: Hybrid, Defensive
• Ranger: Hybrid, Offensive
• Sin: Hybrid, Offensive
• Sorcerer: Hybrid, Offensive
• Spirit Master: Hybrid, Offensive

For enchanting offensively you will want to focus on increasing your weapon first as you level. Defensive will want to focus on a shield first (if you have one and are going for a shield defense spec), and then proceed to upgrade armor. While in the future you may be able to afford both, doing so while leveling will be difficult.

For example my chanter is currently defensive specked since I live to pvp in groups with my legion. I use shield defense manastones and put priority on my shield, and then the rest of my armor.

I fly Solo

For those of you like to solo, there is good news and bad news for you. While the abyss grants the opportunity to attack unsuspecting opponents in a 1v1 scenario; one most use caution. In the abyss it is common to find solo players or small groups to pick off, the problem you say? Well to put it simply they, lets just say that their friendly faction isn’t to far away normally when they call for back up.

When you PvP alone, you keep what you kill. In other words all the abyss pts you earn threw damaging the target, go straight to you upon your opponent’s death. This is a bonus if you are trying to level up your abyss rank quickly. This is due to that if you are in a group, the pts are split evenly. Although this comes at great risk as well, for traveling alone increases your chance of death. If you die to an opponent in PvP, you will lose abyss points (note there is no exp penalty for dying in PvP).

Birds of a Feather Stick Together

If soling isn’t your thing, give group PvP a go. Just like solo PvP there are advantages and disadvantages. The advantage of Group play is that you can rack up more kills quickly and not have to run as much if the enemy calls in for back up. Also it is always nice to have a team mate watch your back, in case some one tries to return you the favor. In the abyss, small groups pick normally off solo or other enemy small groups. While there are bigger groups in the abyss, they are fare less common and mostly seen at places such as fort sieges.

The disadvantage is that your pts will be split for kills you earn as a group. This will slow down your abyss pt gain. Although, if you are continuously killing with out dying, it may pay off then continuously getting killed solo in attempt to hog all the abyss pts to yourself. It really depends on your class and builds which style of play will fit your needs for abyss pts.

Solo tactics

As a solo player you want to catch your opponent off guard and finish him/her off before they have time to react. Due to this more offensive/hybrid builds are preferred here. While you could attempt a defensive build solo ganking spree, you give your opponent more time to react for a counter attack or escape.

Now I know what your thinking, “should I kill my opponent if there currently attacking a mob?” This is a common ethics question asked in any PvP game. Basically you have to go with your beliefs on this one. If you feel it is wrong then don’t do it. However, don’t expect your enemy to return you the favor. As this strategy does give an advantage that some will defiantly consider taking in solo play.

When camping a particular area, it is always a good idea to bring a kisk with you. A kisk is a bind on the go item that remains stationary on the ground. Hiding it in weal covered area, or a hard to reach spot is advised. Once you have your kisk in a safe area nearby, you can quickly return the favor of the unsuspecting prey that just killed you going, “omg wth I just killed you haxor”:

In addition it is always good to be mobile. Once you begin to kill the enemy, it will not be long before they shout out your location. It is best to stay on the move so the Zerg doesn’t find you and take back some of those abyss pts earned.

Group tactics

In a group you want all 3 builds to be present. This way you can cover a little bit of everything, making it easier to overwhelm opponent(s). In addition in group vs. group fights it is very important to stay in formation. If you thin out to much, you just make easy pickings for your opponent(s)

Now then the formation my legion has used in the past and has found to work, Is to bunch up and push as a group. I know this sounds very simple and stupid just asking to be AoE'd… but it works. There are several reasons why this is a valid tactic and essential for survival in group play.

The first reason is the limit on healing range. Unlike most games, Aion is not very forgiving in healing range. If you move out of heal range, the healing spell will interrupt, if it is not instant cast. In addition, the range of healing magic in this game is noticeably smaller compared to others. That being said if some one runs to far ahead of the group two things happen. They die to focus fire from the enemy team, or the healer has to run an expose themselves to hostile fire to heal them. Obviously that is suicidal in both situations.

The second reason is the limit of ranged damage in Aion. Just like healing, the range is quite limited. Meaning if your ranged dps move to far ahead of the group, they expose themselves to melee attackers. In addition the same can be said about your opponents range. If you move as a group, you force your opponent ranged dps to expose them self to counter attack if they try to spike some one important such as a healer.

The third reason is to for retreating. If you retreat in a scattered formation, you will be picked off one by one and make it all the easier for a complete wipe. However if you retreat as a group, some of your opponent may get cocky and charge ahead of their group (you have no idea how often this actually happens…). In addition, backing off from the enemy group forces them to advance toward your groups new position to reestablish range. If they are unorganized, they will spread out a bit advancing on your groups position, making it all the easier to pick them off. Even better is if you retreat around a corner… as you break line of sight of rangers and healers, leaving any melee dumb enough to charge ahead after your group with out support… Usually leading to a very painful death.

When moving as a group you ideally want your stronger melees up front, such as Templar and Gladiator. In the middle you want your healers(to prevent melee ambush, and in the back you want your ranged dps… and your sins.
Now the sin role is pretty important here as they have to pivot a lot in the flow of combat. If they notice some one trying to ambush there back lines, they can stealth and return the favor to them; all the while warning there team of the threat. If your back lines are clear of enemies, the sin should focus on hit and run tactics threw out enemy lines. Kill the squishiest target you can find (cough Sorceress) and proceed to run away your pansy mane away back to your group before you get focus fired.

The Templar and Gladiator job is to hold the front lines of your group, all the while pressing into the lines of your enemy group. They key is to not to press to far in, but enough to pressure your opponents group to spit up. If your front line succeeds in this, your enemy squishes and healers become easy targets for your dps to spike down. In addition though Templar should focus on cc any one trying to advance into there group, or pull away opponents trying to flee or hiding in the mass of another group. The Gladiator should spam his AoE is up to continue to put pressure on the other group’s healer.

The healer servers as a guide point for the group. Your group leader should make your own healers, so your group doesn’t get carried away and out run there heal distance. It is also a good way to keep tabs on what is happening on your healers. Not only that but they make great rally points for knowing when to stop the advance or retreating, since they are in the middle of the formation. The ranged dps know not to pass the healers, while the templar and gladiators know to stay in front of healers. Having healers knowing when to move and where to hold there ground is essential to moving as a group basics.

The ranged dps obviously wants to hold up the back of the line as far as possible to slow down the incoming of melee dps attempting to kill them. However if the lack of melee dps threat, it is safe to move a bit closer to the melee lines. However, staying at the front of the group for long periods of time should be avoided…. for obvious reasons.

Example video moving as group… will post a better when vepo learns how to fraps so you get a better perspective… and not have to /facepalm at that newbie Arc.

Game Options

In order to aid you in PvP, I would advise messing with the game options tab until you feel comfortable. However, I know that is a lot of options to play with, so let me suggest a few to you.

• Camera: I would advise setting the camera to Max (this allows you to zoom out all the way with the camera, note you can still zoom in if you need to with this feature enabled.
• Show distance to target: Allows you to see how far away your current target is. This works on friendly and enemy targets.
• Fix Compass to North: This option helps keep a sense of direction. It is important to yell out incoming attacks; also this feature helps to call points to retreat or rally too.
• Disable click to move: Really depends on your class and preference here. Just note the click to move is defaulted off. If you prefer moving with keys I advise turning this feature on.
• View target’s target: Simple enough and very useful. If you click and enemy or ally you see who they currently have target. This helps with assisting if you picked an ally, or you can call out who is about to be attacked if your enemy is looking at an ally. Also pro tip here if a healer has them selves targeted it more then likely means they are about to or in the process of a heal/buff themselves (if non aoe). So if they change to them selves quickly, be ready to stun ASAP. This can interrupt instant heals if you get good at it (stunning them before they hit the instant heal).

Key Bindings

Key bindings help save a ton of time when it comes to pvp. Not only that but there is a bunch of features you can enable with key binding as well that would normally take much longer to do manually. However fear not clickers, as you can still be effective in PvP clicking. Although if you want my honest opinion as a healer in PvP; I find that using a combination of using clicking and key binding to be the most effective. Just play around with it until you feel comfortable, but keep in mind speed is very important in PvP. That being said here is a few key bindings you should consider.

Combat Key Bindings

• Select Nearest ally: This works like tab but instead of picking the nearest enemy, this feature will select the nearest friendly target. This is useful for healing or assisting those that are not in your group/force.
• Select Nearest Enemy: Used to cycle threw enemy targets. Useful for picking out hard to find enemies, or those hiding in a big group.
• Assist Target: This will change your target to the target’s target. Very useful for assisting for dps.
• Change Weapon: for those that change weapons this is extremely important. I find the starting change weapon feature to be a bit lagish (could just be me though). I personally prefer setting the key to a key bind for quick switches.
• Toggle Power shard: Good for physical dps users as this allow you to quickly turn off or on your power shards.

Group Key Bindings

• Select Yourself: Very important feature as a healer. Changing from a friend target to heal your self takes time, and you don’t have much of that to waste in PvP.
• Select Group Members: Very important for healers and melees. For healers this lets you heal your group members quickly by targeting them. For melees you can use this to target who ever your suppose to be assisting. Once you have selected the member, you can then hit the assist button to attack their target.

Sign Key Bindings

This is very important feature of Aion, as you can mark targets to make team work easier. The signs in Aion work on allies and opponents. What I would recommend is to mark your healers, your enemies’ healers, and your enemies’ glass cannons. You want to mark your healers as rally point as mentioned earlier in the guide, so your group stays in formation. You want to mark you opponents glass cannons (heavy dps, light defense) and kill them before they destroy your group. After the glass cannons are out of the way move on to enemy healers. In addition, you may want to assign some of your group members to cc/harass healers while you kill the glass cannons.

Conclusion

This is the end of the guide. Keep in mind this guide is made from my experience and what has worked. There are multiple ways to PvP, some of which that are not discussed in this guide simply because it would take to long to cover all of them. I hope you have found this guide useful and enjoy your PvP experience in Aion.