5punk

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:Death knights:

do whatever the fuck you like and still come out on top

It's like cheating but without the threat of Blizzard suspending your account.

Paladins

Right, gonna try and guide you lot on this one.

Paladins are basically Holy Knights of the Light. They pretty much pledge allegiance to it and it helps them out from time to time. The thing is, the Light doesn't really know the difference between good and evil - that's why there are good Paladins (i.e. Tirion Fordring) and evil paladins (i.e. Arthas Menethil). All they need is to be sure in their own minds that they are using the Light to do the Right Thing.

A Paladin is basically a Warrior that has some magic-based attacks. Pretty much all Pally spells use the Holy school (as you might expect). Their attacks are melee combined with a 'Seal and Judgement' system where you can apply a 'Seal' to yourself which usually procs when you hit an enemy, then apply a Judgement to the enemy which (generally) gives instant damage followed my some other DoT effect. Paladins wear Mail armor (Plate after lvl 40) and can use pretty much all one-handed and two-handed weapons, except for daggers, staves and fist weapons.

Paladins are capable of massive DPS, or being able to main tank or heal a raid, depending on how you set them up.

Retribution
This is the DPS spec, and the one recommended for easy levelling. Use a two-handed weapon and Judgements to effectively kick enemy arse. Generally, you'd go for Strength, then Stamina stats on Plate, with Int on rings and necklaces (it'll usually give you enough mana to last through a few fights before resting). Spell power is good, as well as hit and crit rating.
Recommended spec (mine) - http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZ0xZEfbtbIucrsguAo

Protection
This is the Tank spec. It doesn't put out as much damage as Retri, but it's still pretty good, and offers more survivability. A similar strategy to the one above works well, but you'll find you can handle more mobs at a time. Go for plate which offers Stam over Strength, the same thing as above regarding Int stats. Defense rating is a must.

Holy
Healing spec. A well-geared healer pally should be able to heal almost non-stop from the off and not run out of mana. To be honest, I'm no good at it, I might let Friz have his 2p on it, cause he has one

Um, I may update this as and when I remember things

Cheers Wiggy. What does proc mean?

Actually, maybe we should make a terminology post...

I've only played up to level 60-ish, so can't comment on top-level raiding and stuff. I'm also not someone who uses the target dummies to "tweak my DPS" to max levels, and pretty much every random who "inspects" my build says I'm doing it wrong, so what follows is mostly what I've used for fun and for levelling.

Warlocks
'Locks are versatile spellcasters who can deal large amounts of ranged damage like a sniper, or inflict creeping diseases causing damage over time on many enemies like a necromancer. Many spells have additional effects which can be used to debuff (reduce stats/abilities) or even control the enemies in various ways, including the ever-popular Fear spell. In addition Warlocks can summon various demons under their control, whose abilities are equally diverse. Warlocks have a spell or ability for almost every situation and are a great choice for solo questing or PvP.

Talent Trees
The three Warlock talent trees are as follows, while you will end up with a mix of two or more trees at level 60+, I find it's best to concentrate on one to start with and build your play style around it, and I use the not-very-scientific method of picking the one where I most like the look of the talents higher up and work wholly towards them. Note that you get most of the spells at a basic level as you progress, whatever talents you choose, but the talents reduce the cost or casting time, increase the range or effect and give you access to more powerful versions.

- Affliction. These are your basic curses and diseases. These deal damage over time and are most effective when used on multiple enemies, they have a short or instant cast time. They favour a patient playstyle, where you are content to manage the demon to keep the mobs (enemies) away from you and wait until everything falls down dead. You can only have one curse (per mob) active at a time, plus a disease (which will be Corruption for the most part) so it's useful to select the most effective for the situation. Curse of Agony is the utility one, used for most enemies, Curse of Weakness is good against melee-types, while Curse of Tongues stops magic-users in their tracks. Curse of Elements is good if you have a mage blasting away beside you, Curse of Recklessness is a great one to slap on those pesky mobs that always run away and Fear is most useful in emergency situations or PvP. A fully affliction-specced Warlock is probably the best debuffer in the game.

- Demonology. Not spells so much, but a set of buffs and abilities you learn to make your demons more powerful. As the name suggests, this play style is all about the demon - your job is to keep him alive and bashing the mobs, making sure you moderate the damage you cause so that they don't come after you. You should direct your early talents towards improving only the demons you use most, then go for the general demonology talents that give you added bonuses, plus the awesome Fel Domination/Master Summoner combo which effectively allows you to instantly (re)summon a demon. The creation of Health, Fire and Spell stones also falls within demonology, but I think any points spent in them are wasted - the first is good enough at it's lowest level to get you out of a scrape, but the other two create items which you apply to weapons, which you mainly don't ever use. Of limited use, but unquestionably fun is Enslave Demon - there aren't too many around at the start of the game, and you have to forfeit your regular demon to use it, but you can enslave an elite mob in a crowd and sit back while it obliterates all the regular ones around it. Similar fun can be had with the Infernus and Doomguard, but beware that unlike your regular demons, enslaved ones go apeshit bananas on you once the timer runs out. A fully demonology-specced Warlock has very high survivability, in questing, instances and PvP.

- Destruction. This lot's all about damage. Half shadow, half fire, these talents boost the effectiveness of your ranged and AoE (area of effect) spells. They have medium to long casting times, typically. The play style is basically geared towards dropping anything before it gets anywhere near you, leaving the demon to keep the stragglers busy. While it can be a lot of fun to play, and extremely effective if you are in a group with a proper tank (someone who makes the enemies attack them) it can go wrong quite badly if the mobs get close as your demon will have a hard time pulling them back off you with the damage you're causing. A fully destruction-specced Warlock can cause among the highest levels of DPS (damage per second) for a spellcaster.

Demons
Demons are what differentiate Warlocks from other spellcasting classes, but are distinct from Hunter's pets as they are (near) instantly interchangeable and (mostly) do as they're told without having to be looked after. A recent patch removed the requirement to buy spells for each demon, they now learn automatically as you level.

-Imp. The first demon you get, the only one to have a ranged attack. He also has two party buffs and a non-combat invisibility buff. Sacrificing him gives a buff to fire-based spells. (As with all demonic sacrifices, the effect lasts 30 minutes, or until another demon is summoned). Probably most useful with a powerful destructionist using fire-based spells, periodically resummoning and instantly sacrificing him. He goes down quickly, but doesn't require a Soul Shard to summon. In instances with parties, you should probably get him out - he causes no threat when invisible, leaving you free to DoT (use affliction spells) or nuke (use destruction spells) without getting in the way of the tank.

-Voidwalker. The keystone of the demonology Warlock's strategy he has two spells which taunt the enemy into attacking him, giving you a little more leeway in the damage you cause. Has an out of combat, self-heal ability, plus a self-sacrifice spell that grants a shield bubble to the Warlock, which isn't dispelled by resummoning. The regular sacrifice gives health restoration. Certainly one for the demonologist, great for crowd control and questing/grinding through pretty much all levels. Can be a nightmare in instances with a party as he likes to pull mobs from all over, meaning the real tank has to chase them.

Crabladder wrote:I hate you, Kongrave

-Succubus. Produces a high amount of melee damage compared to the earlier demons, but struggles to hold aggro (enemies want to attack her), indeed has two spells which reduce her threat (likelihood of retaining aggro). She has a powerful debuff Seduction which only works on humanoids, which I feel should have been extended to all enemies, but as it is she provides decent cover for a careful afflictionist, though sacrificing her gives a good shadow buff, so is good for the shadow bolt nuker destructionist who's happy to work without a demon out. An okay choice for partied instances, with her Soothing Kiss on manual should she accidentally steal aggro, and can provide a crafty one-time trick for PvP with her invisibility fooling oppenents into thinking you have no demon - Rogues particularly hate the fact you've used their trick on them - if you're lucky her Seduction will do them in.

-Felhunter. Useful chiefly against spellcasters - if NPCs could be afraid, they'd be afraid of this mutant puppy. Its basic ability is to eat buffs and debuffs, from the enemy and you respectively, making it a seriously useful PvP tool where everyone's trying to cast nasty stuff on you all the time. It's weak against melee-characters, though - so you should avoid them. Sacrificing one regenerates mana.

-Felguard. Awesome damage and good threat generation make this a great choice for questing. A sacrifice yields all the benefits of the previous demons put together. Two damage-boosting effects, plus a taunt and a defense move. Good for sending out fighting in PvP while you observe the carnage from afar.

-Infernus/DoomGuard. Like an enslaved demon, these are never fully under your control in the way your minions are - you can try to re-enslave them but it gets harder each time the timer runs out and in my experience almost never works. Infernus require an Infernal Stone (from a reagent seller) to summon. Good for fun, but be sure to let any friends know when it's about to break free. You can put them on stay put and leg it as the timer gets close and they usually get dispelled.

The rest of this guide is focused on Warlocks with the Demonology spec, but may be of help to others.

Casting Cycles

-PvE. For general grinding you should send out your pet and start casting a Curse at the same time (see the Affliction section for the requisite curse). They should hit at about the same time (as the demon needs to travel - I'd recommend a Voidwalker for this, until you get a few spells on the Felguard). Then give it the insta-casting Corruption. If anything's heading towards you, switch targets and do this again. Once everything's on the demon, you could risk a Shadow Bolt if you're impatient, otherwise use the combo Life Tap, Drain Life, Health Funnel - this converts some of your health to mana, sucks health back from the mob, then gives it to your demon. Finish off by shooting your wand at it, or use Drain Soul if you're short on Soul Shards. When the mob drops you should both be ready to carry on almost indefinitely. Here's a handy macro to do it for you: -Instances. In parties you'll likely have a tank, so sacrfice your minion for the half-hour bonus, or keep one on defensive for protection only. Either spam each mob with Shadow Bolt until it dies, or put a Curse and Corruption on everything in sight. The latter is probably more useful to a group, even one with multiple Warlocks, as they stack with other Warlock's Curses and can thin a crowd pretty quickly.

-PvP. These usually boil down to a series of duels, and while the ideal combination differs for each class, it's inconvenient to switch minions in mid-battle. You should be using the Felhunter, as it will eat any nasties they put on you and maybe remove their buffs, to make it harder for them to do the same put Detect Invisibility and Unending Breath on yourself, they won't help you but with luck they'll dispell those instead of anything useful.
Basically you should try to get a Death Coil (fear+damage) off as soon as you can, while sending the demon to attack the other player. If they have a pet, or initially resist your spell, then use your regular Fear spell, or Howl of Terror (AoE fear) if they get in your face. If they have a demon, Banish it. Now they're happily running around like a headless chicken, Curse them and blast them with Shadow Bolt, being ready to re-fear them as needed.
A sneaky tactic in PvP capture maps is to get out the Infernus, then hide - under a bridge is good if you have Unending Breath. People tend to overestimate him and without a softy clothy in evidence will usually find somewhere else to go capturing, also he'll keep going even if you die.

-PvP vs Warlock (for other classes). Not sure I should give tips on this, but it's useful for a Warlock to know what to watch out for. Basically all spellcasters hate being punched in the face while trying to cast spells, so ignore their demon and attack them. Rogues can stun-lock, Warriors can do roars which knock you about and can break fear, Hunters can paralyse you, Shamans can stomp out totems which keep hurting you when you're trying to cast and worst of all Priests and other Warlocks can fear you right back.

Emergency situations (PvE)
Sometimes you get a bit cocky and take on too much, but it's important not to panic. If your demon's about to expire, but you have health, use the Health Funnel to heal him. If you're low on health, use Drain Life, on mana use Drain Mana or Mana Tap (if you have the health for it). If all these fail, pop a potion and carry on and if you already did that, then a Healthstone can help you out of a squeeze, provided you made one in advance - your DoT spells really creep up on the enemy (including Shadow Bolt, to a degree) so just staying alive a few more precious seconds could see you unexpectedly victorious.

When it's gone bad though, is when you're surrounded by enemies beating on you instead of the demon - this is usually because you let him die, which you should never do, but can be because they snuck up on you. You could maybe risk a Hellfire, but it's a lottery as to whether you'll survive.

As I said, it's bad form to let your demon die, but actually it's also wasteful. That's because if he's definately about to buy the farm, you should Demonic Sacrifice him. This gives you various bonuses as mentioned in the Demons section, which may help you to get away, but usually don't. What you need is another demon, pronto, and with the Fel Domination/Master Summoner talent combo mentioned earlier, you can summon one almost instantly. He'll have full HP and mana and instantly cast any threat-generating spells he has, hopefully leaving you clear to carry on - but since Fel Domination has a cooldown, you'll likely only get away with this once.
Help is at hand, though - because if you use the Voidwalker, instead of using the regular Demonic Sacrifice, you can use his own Sacrifice spell. This surrounds you in a nice protective bubble, free of attacks, to cast another Summon - and you can continue this cycle until you run out of Soul Shards. Handy macro time: If this all fails though, then it's time to scarper. Drop a Fear, Death Coil or Howl of Terror if there's more than one mob on you, and put the demon on passive to stop him chasing after them. While the demon is expendable in these situations, there's always something that comes to bite your bum as you run away - so put him straight back on defensive and start running away. Hopefully he'll keep up with you and catch anything that attacks you - get clear then passive-defensive him again so he keeps up.

Fj, to Chickenz after unleasing a horde of undead into a Southshore filled with L??s wrote:Leg it

Cool Toys
Apart from the fun already discussed with enslaved demons Warlocks have a few more tricks up their (ahem) sleeves.

Detect Invisibility is more a parlour trick than anything else, as it helps not a jot with stealthed enemies, which the majority of invisible foes are, but it can be cast on anyone so is good for giving newcomers to the Ruins of Lordaeron (Undercity entrance) a scare.

Unending Breath gives you 30 minutes worth of breath. While there are only a handful of quests that require it, they can be a pain in the scrote if you're not a Shaman, undead, a stupid-face-seal druid or potion-maker. I've made quite a few pals for life with the simple application of this spell, which too can be cast on anyone, party or no.

Eye of Kilrogg makes a glowing green orb you can drive and see through. Very useful for finding what's inside buildings and scouting out where the NPCs you want are, without having to kill everything on the way.

Ritual of Summoning can summon a party member anywhere, with the help of two other party members. Occasionally Warlocks recieve requests from people who've looked at the 'players on line' screen and want you to summon them to where you are, for payment. While this is annoying if you then have to ask randoms in your location to form a party, is an easy gig if you're in one already. Did this in Ratchet with Crabladder and Chickenz once, and the dude chucked them some gold, too.

Crabladder wrote:You whore

Soul Shards are actually a not cool toy. You need them for summoning, and Stone creation. You just have to accept that you lose a bag slot to them and carry at least 10 around always. They can be made from any dying enemy you gain XP from, with Drain Soul.

Create Soulstone creates a volatile (disappears past 15 minutes of logout) item that you can apply to any party member (once every half-hour, whether activated or not) which allows them to self-ressurrect. Nifty.

Kill yourself, but not your friends. Hellfire and Mana Tap are two Warlock spells which along with disobedient enslaved demons actually allow you to kill yourself on demand. Can help you ghost through locked doors, very occasionally.

Horses. Warlocks get (nearly) free horses at L30 and L60. Win.

Round them up, put them in a field, and nuke the bastards. Your demon can be sent out to attack any foe within visible range. When set back to passive, he'll then move directly back towards you. With careful application of these two commands, he can round up a whole collection of mobs and drag them all back to you, for a nice demonstration of your Rain of Fire spell. You can stop him getting too close by putting him back on defensive. Fun on low-level mobs you or a lower-level friend need to do a big collection quest on.

Equipment and Enchants
Go with anything that boosts your stamina, as it boosts the demon's health too, as well as giving you a larger pool of health to convert to mana with Life Tap as needed. Later on, spell damage is good.

Professions
Tailoring can make you some okay clothes, but is mostly a feeder for Enchanting - make yourself a decent wand and put Stamina+ chants on everything you posess. Make friends with an Inscriptor who can create scrolls to make your enchantments portable, and thus, sellable without hawking your skills all the while.

From what I understand 'proc' means trigger - so if you have some sort of buff that has a 30% chance to heal you every time you do damage, when that effect triggers it is referred to as proc.

I think.

Possibly.

Shaman

Shaman are a versatile class, able to specialise in ranged damage, melee damage or healing. Draenei, Orcs, Trolls and Tauren can be Shaman. Racially there are advantages to each, and none is considered to be better than another. Shaman start off wearing leather armour, progressing to mail at level 40. They can use staffs, daggers, maces, axes, fist weapons, and shields. They have no ranged weapon capability, but can dual wield by choosing the right talents.

Elemental
The elemental talent tree specialises in damaging spells. The mail armour of an enhancement spec Shaman lends them a little more survivability than other spellcasters, they have a good ranged DPS output, and their choice of items will lend well to restoration spells making them versatile as a secondary healer.

Enhancement
Enhancement specialised Shaman are melee damage orientated spellcasters. Their high DPS and reasonable armour give them good survivability in solo PvE, and coupled with healing wave and water shield they have very little downtime. Most of their efforts will go into buffs that make them hit harder, faster, and more often. The weapon damage is then supplemented by a few instant cast damage spells. Enhancement spec Shaman can suffer in PvP due to their vulnerability to snare effects.

Equipping:
Obviously an enhancement Shaman will need to spec for DPS. DPS is the primary concern, but weapon speed should be noted, the slower the better generally for 1-h or dual wield. Hit rating and expertise are probably the most important to factor in, as you'll be doing no damage if you can't hit your opponent. Agility and intellect both provide attack power in equal amounts, both slightly more than strength. Finally, crit rating, attack power, spell power and armour penetration in decreasing order.

Points to note:
Keep your weapon buff (Windfury is generally most effective) and shield up.
Aim for a weapon speed as close to 3s as possible, as windfury weapon has a hidden cooldown.
Don't be afraid to combat heal. With maelstrom weapon this can become instant cadt.
Earth Shock will interrupt spellcasters. Use it as much as your mana allows (use water shield if neccessary), and time it with enemy heals in particular for fast takedowns.

Restoration
Restoration spec Shaman are specialised healers who can offer group heal and mana regen. While having little damage output, restoration spec Shaman are excellent healers who are in great demand in both PvP and PvE groups. While able to hold their own as a general healer, in a raid a Resto Shaman will likely be utilised to raid heal - that is to heal the masses while the main healer concentrates on the tank. The Shaman's chain heal spell allows this, and is arguably the best AoE heal in the game.
Unlike other healers, the Resto Shaman has no capacity to regenerate mana while casting. Mana control, therefore, is an important part of playing a Resto Shaman, and utilising riptide to heal over time and Earthshield to heal the target when they are damaged are essential to maximise efficiency and prolong that vital blue. When shopping for items, spel power and critical chance are obviously useful, but given the mana control issues Resto Shamans have, MP5 should have a high priority. After all, the best healer in the world is useless without any mana.

Totems

All Shaman utilise totems for various effects, regardless of specialisation, although the different talent trees will emphasise differen totems and effects. Totems are static items that are placed by the Shaman and which will continue to provide their effect until they expire or are destroyed. Effects include group buffs, damage over time, area damage over time, healing, and basically anything a spell could provide. Totems require a totem item to be carried in order to be used. There are four of these, earth, air, fire, and water, and each will support a totem of the same type. Relic totems (found at high level and carried as equipment in the relic slot) negate the need to carry one of each type of totem, freeing up four bag slots. A list of the totems is shown below with a brief description. As can be seen, most are party buffs or AOE damage, and as such are especially useful in groups. Also worth noting is Totemic Call, which will dispell all your totems and restore 25% of their mana cost.

Earthbind - earth - slows enemies within area of effect
Fire Elemental - fire - summons a fire elemental
Fire Nova - fire - blast of fire after 5 seconds, like a time bomb
Magma - fire - area DoT
Searing - fire - DoT
Stoneclaw - earth - aggros neaby enemies and stuns those who hit it. Stoneclaw is useful for dropping as you run away, but it generally lasts only a short while (as it has low hits) so is of limited use in combat.
Earth Elemental - earth - summons an earth elemental
Fire Resistance - fire - party buff (resist fire)
Flametongue - fire - party buff (increases spell damage and healing)
Frost Resistance - fire - party buff (resist frost)
Grounding - earth - absorbs one hostile spell cast on any friendly within area. Useful for bosses.
Nature Resistance - air - party buff (resist nature)
Sentry - air - allows the Shaman to toggle being able to see through the totem, making it useful in PvP. It also alerts the Shaman of enemy attacking it.
Stoneskin - earth - party buff (increases armour)
Strength of Earth - earth - party buff (increases strength and agility)
Windfury - air - party buff (increases melee haste)
Wrath of Air - air - party buff (increases spell haste)
Disease Cleansing - water - removes one disease effect from each party member
Healing Stream - water - area heal over time
Mana Spring - water - area mana regen over time. From experience this is negligable, but might improve for restoration spec
Poison Cleansing - water - removes one poison effect from each party member
Tremor - earth - removes fear/charm/sleep effects from party members

Cool Toys
Shaman get a few useful spells which few others do, further enhancing their versatility.

Water Walking allows the Shaman to, as the name suggests, walk on the surface of the water. This can also be used while mounted, a trick which only Shaman and Death Knights can pull. It vanished once combat is entered though, which can lead to the caster being 'dragged under' by swimming gribblies. The spell requires fish oil as a reagent.

Water Breathing allows the caster to breathe underwater for 10 minutes. While not used too often, it comes in very useful on the occassional underwater quest. The spell required shiny fish scales as a reagent

Reincarnation is a very handy spell that allows a Shaman to instantly self res with about 1/3 health and mana. The cooldown is something like 45 mins, so make sure you won't get insta-spanged by whatever killed you while you're on low health and end up having to res at a graveyard anyway. It happens quite often, but necking a potion or casting healing wave right off can help prevent it. Reincarnation uses ankhs as a reagent.

Astral Recall allows a Shaman to teleport back to their home in, effectively giving them a second hearthstone. This comes in extremely useful once a character reaches Shattrath or Dalaran where you'll need to go to a capital in Azeroth then back to your city.

Spirit Wolf allows a Shaman to shapeshift into a ghostly wolf. This can be used as a substitute travel method, being faster than on foot but not as fast as a mount. It is available before mounts, so proves useful at low level. From personal experience I've noticed that a Shaman in Spirit Wolf form has a much smaller aggro range, allowing them to sneak through monster infested countryside without having to stop and fight every few seconds.

Ancestral Spirit allows the Shaman to res friendly players. The cooldown is negligable, so it can be used as long as you have mana. Combined with Reincarnation this is very useful in party wipes on instances.

Cure Poison/Disease are occasionally useful for enemies who cast nasty poison or disease DoTs.

Professions
The leather/mail armour a Shaman wears makes Leatherworking an ideal profession for them, but realistically only an Enhancement spec will actually require the protection. Elemental and Restoration might consider the enchanting/tailoring combo for the spellcasting bonuses that you get from cloth armour. Personally I went with alchemy/herbalism, which hasn't proved that useful but starts making decent money at high levels from the potions and transmutations, and having a decent supply of heal/mama potions is useful for Enhancement specs as you go through both like water early on.

Roman Totale wrote:From what I understand 'proc' means trigger - so if you have some sort of buff that has a 30% chance to heal you every time you do damage, when that effect triggers it is referred to as proc.

I think.

Possibly.

This is what I understand it to mean, yes.

Warlocks pt 2

[moved to main post]

Is it worth editing that into your other post so that the link from the first post includes everything? Either that or I can create further links.

Still learning about my build. This morning I changed the enchant to my offhand weapon, and swapped out my lightning shield for water shield (mana regen) and I now do more damage, have zero downtime, and can pretty much tank because I can heal faster than they can damage me without running out of mana. I just wish I could work out a decent kit strategy.

Basics of crafting, (i.e. making stuff)

As mentioned before about Professions, it is not required that you have a gathering and a crafting skill together in order to make things. Gathering being mining/skinning/herbology, and crafting being all the others! (ok, enchanting falls into both categories somewhat, as it gives you the ability to disenchant AND enchant)

It is worth mentioning that each profession does offer a small buff to your stats as well, so the statistically minded player should consider those when choosing their professions as well. My paladin is a miner for a stamina bonus, and a skinner for a critical hit bonus, and feeds materials, (mats in game speak) to my crafting characters.

You can see why two professions often go together easily. Leatherworking and skinning, mining and blacksmithing/egineering, but there are combinations that make less sense, but work well. Tailoring/enchanting are basically two productions skills, but since you can create magical items with tailoring, and disenchant them with enchanting for materials for better enchantments, they fit particularly well. Also, no gathering skill is required for tailoring, just drops from humanoid NPC's. So you can gather scraps of cloth and join them into 'bolts' for selling or use, or make items to fuel your enchanting skills!

Levelling up professions

I feel this is a somewhat frustrating system, but it's how the game works, so here's the best way (I've found) to work with it.

Every profession starts off with a few 'recipes', or for some of the gathering skills, level restrictions of what you can gather. For instance, in tailoring, you can make some low level cloth items, and for mining, you can mine and smelt copper. When you open the menus for these skills, you'll notice some are in orange (challenging, and guaranteed to give you a skill point if you make one) yellow, (less challenging with a reduced chance to give you a skill point) green, (old hat, small chance you'll earn a skill point for making it), and gray, (you can make it in your sleep, nothing left to learn by making it). The same applies to gathering skills, when you click on a corpse/mining node/plant, it's name will appear in one of the aforementioned colors, and you'll receive skill points accordingly.

When you've earned a number of skill points, you're forced to return to your trainer to 'learn a bit more'. This includes new 'recipes' to make different items, as well as upgrading your 'level' i.e. from apprentice to expert. This allows you to earn more skill points, and repeat the process until you're much further along at them than I am.

Since every profession requires materials, and they take up bag space from other lootables, it is helpful to leave most of your materials at the bank, and collect them only when you're going to do some crafting. (Unless of course you're only collecting bits to sell, then you can just take them to market!) You'll often run into materials that are used by other professions from loot drops or chests. These can be sold, or sent via mail to an alt with those professions. Levelling up an army of alts takes time though, so is only to be undertaken if you REALLY want to do everything yourself. If this is not you, utilize the auction houses to get the materials you can't get yourself.


Each profession has it's good and less good points, but that level of detail is well covered by other sites such as this one

One last bit that I'm unsure of, but have deep interest in for those solo style players, is lockpicking. Lockpicking is a rogue skill, but a blacksmith can create skeleton keys to attempt the same thing. Engineers can produce 'charges' to destroy locks as well. So if you're a solo play style person, these could come in handy for the random 'locked chest' that you sometimes come across in instances. It requires practice on locked items to gain in 'lockpick skill' but practice areas can be found in game.

centerededgedesign wrote:I believe that engineers can create 'charges' to destroy locks as well.

This is true, although they require a much higher skill level to make than the Rogue lockpicking equivalent.

Dog Pants wrote:Is it worth editing that into your other post so that the link from the first post includes everything? Either that or I can create further links.

I'll edit it all into the first one once I've finished the rest.

Finished the lock guide, and edited it into the monsterpost. Will add in any stuff other warlock players have who have played outside my experience of 1-60 demonology or see that I've missed.

Fuck me FJ, that's one hell of a post. I think that's the basis we should use for our other guides. However, I couldn't even manage that level of detail with my main's spec let alone the whole class. Writing mine and reading yours has shown me that I've an awful lot to learn about this game/my character.

I'm rather tempted to make a Warlock now...

I've got a level 19 on Anery's server and they're quite fun. Rather refreshing solo as they don't really compare to much else apart from maybe Hunters.

protip: put 5-6 levels into your secondary profs (especially fishing) every time you ding, it'll make you happy. (and not have to spend days fishing)

ive not read your entire post FJ but i think you have missed out the reason for stamina boosts on warlocks. this is due to their ability to convert health into mana, the warlock doesnt want a mana reserve from the amount of intelligence they have like the mage does rather they want shit loads of health so when they are running low on mana they can sacrifice health for mana.

as i said i could be wrong and you could have already mentioned this in your post im just too lazy to read through it all

First of many edits to the Shaman guide, expanding on useful spells.