Death by Warlock

Long time no death! Here it comes!

Affliction: First you feel a little ill. Then you get this burning sensation. Then some more illness- and then sheer agony. You feel as though spirits are ripping through you and you begin to feel weak. Suddenly you are confronted by your greatest fears, and you flee in horror. As you do so, you finally collapse and die.

Destruction: You get hit by fire. Then more fire. Then more fire. Then, rather than this normal looking fire, some green, missile shaped fire hits you and you fall over- somewhat dead.

Demonology: Walking along you are stunned as giant axe wielding demon charges you. You begin fighting with this enemy, but he doesn't seem to be taking damage- you look behind him to see a Warlock healing his minion, however, before you can attack the true threat, he transforms into a demon himself and charges you. He has an aura that burns you and his melee attacks are as bad as his minions. Before you can do anything, he makes you run in fear and begins burning away your soul with a fire spell. You collapse, your soul eternally captured- at least until he wants to summon a demon again.

More Evil!

You should never burn books. Books are awesome.

Warlocks in Cataclysm

I realized that I don't know druids all that well and since paladins are gonna get hit by the "lol-revamp-bat" I should best avoid writing about them in any detail.

So, on with the Warlockness!

Leveling is going to be a whole lot easier. Affliction locks are starting by getting Unstable Affliction, great for PvP and another dot for PvE- nothing too special there.

Demonology locks start off with a Fel Guard. This is hilarious, because Fel-Guards are great. Its also going to be really weird seeing Fel-Guards all over Elwynn forest. They don't belong there!

Destruction gets Conflagrate. While it is ok without the glyph (which is available at 15) it is alot better with it. In anycase, leveling destro locks have yet another nuke in their arsenal.

Right now Affliction locks higher tiers are not that great. Nothing much has changed and there are a lot of PvP talents that are required to get to the next tier. That sucks. So- not much to see here- move along folks.

Destro locks get some cool stuff. In the first two tiers they have Bane, and Emberstorm. The first two reduce the cast time of Soul Fire by 2 second each, bringing it down to a 2 second cast (from 6).  Now, as of now, my warlock (not gemmed/enchanted for haste at all) has about 15% haste. For your knowledge, 15% of 6 seconds (original cast time) is .9 seconds. Thus, the approximate cast time of soulfire for a decently geared warlock will be about 1.1 seconds. Now, if the target is below 35% health, (and you went Demo) the cast time is decreased a further 20% or 1.2 seconds. This is silly. You'll just be slamming out Soul Fires quickly and efficiently.

Elsewhere in destro is Bane of Havoc. This ability makes the target take 15% of all the damage you do. Now, image, on Onyxia, when the whelps spawn and you can pull upwards of 20-30k on the whelps, if Ony was also taking about 3-5k dps. This could be really overpowered if you could put it on multiple targets so that in the case of Twins or Councils, you could spread your damage around.

Now onto demo. Demo is really plain for the first few tiers and there is nothing special until tier 4. In tier four you can cast Hand of Guldan, a targets aoe burst, followed by an aoe dot (as in Flamestrike). You also get ancient Grimoire, which increases the time your Doomguard and Infernal stay around, which indicates that you will be getting those as trained spells, not as quest rewards. Improved Hellfire looks really cool, I mean, right now it has a decent radius, but expand it by that much, and allow you to cast while running- thats just the peak of awesome. As mentioned above in the Destro section, it looks like Decimate is going to be completely broken- insta-cast soulfires during the execute phase? Yes please!

And then you get improved hand of Guldan which has the dot refresh your immolates, so if you spread those around first and cast Hand four seconds before they fade, you get a good deal more out of them.

Now, it is important to note that Decimate will probably be fixed, because instant Soul Fires is just too good to be true. Also, the talent mentions Soul Shards, and according to Blizzard's plan (not an official statement, but just what I think they mean) they don't want spells to have to consume Soul Shards when cast normally. Also, Nemesis mentions Fel Domination, which is no longer a talent. It may be a trained skill, but I believe (again, nothing official) that it was intended to be an affect from using one of your Soul Shards.

Lots of words. And tomorrow Blizz will probably announce that Warlocks are going to have another resource- Fel Power.

On the fifth day...

He hit 60.

I really do have a problem. I really like the way this is going, I'm leveling quickly and smoothly and having quite a bit of fun.

I'm not sure why I'm doing this though. I mean, the rogue- while a fun class- isn't a very interesting class to play while soloing. Most of my work involves spamming Sinister Strike and then hitting Eviscerate. If I see too many mobs, I either Shadowmeld or Vanish. Or, if I think I can take em, I hit Blade Flurry, Adrenaline Rush and Lifeblood before going back to my normal rotation.

I don't get awesome procs, like Hot Streak, I don't get a pet, I don't get ridiculous crits, I can't even aoe for my life.

But I really am enjoying leveling this toon. Perhaps it is the breakneck pace that I'm leveling him at. Perhaps it is the change of pace from doing a ridiculous number of instances on my other toons. I mean, my main is a tank, and the vast majority of what she does is instances, then my warlock is just to help out other people who need a dps for their instance, my DK was leveled as a tank in the RDF and continues to tank instances, without much questing involved.

My druid is currently being leveled as a feral tank and so he is tanking instances. Perhaps its the fact that I'm not tanking, or that I'm not in instances anymore. Perhaps its the fact that it is something new.


By that reasoning, I should love my new job. I've never had a 9-5 before. I've never had an office job before. I've never been an intern before. I've never worked in the publishing industry before. Thus, if I like new, this is going to be fantastic. Now. Sleep. Because you get to wake up early for 9-5s.

Don't hit me with that... please?

Warlock does not like it when boss with pointy puts pointy in warlock.

Shrunk

I gotted shrunk! One of the things I love about WoW is the way you can change your character without changing anything at all.

Forays in Icecrown Citadel

In addition to my walks in that icy palace on my paladin with my guild, I have had the privilege of going there on my lock as a guest for another guild's alt-10s. Recently, the leader has announced that it will be extended until we manage to down the Lich King.

Last week, we one shot everything up to Putricide and three-shot him. This week we one shot the Princes, two shot the Blood Queen, and rescued Valithria on our first attempt.

Then we proceeded to bring Sindragosa to phase three four times, before the raid was called.

Now, all of their raiders were significantly better geared than those of TOC, but it was an educational experience nonetheless.

For the Blood Prince Council, they used only two tanks. They had their paladin tank Taldaram and Valanar while the bear tanked Keleseth. One hunter was on Kinetic bomb duty- he shot at one and his pet was on the other.

Proceeding to BQL, they had the ranged put themselves in the middle ring and had the her tanked on her platform. They called out who should be bitten. Those who were connected ran to the middle (which was empty) and those who had the flames ran to the outer ring (also empty). When she flew up and feared, the tanks and dps scattered on the platform and the ranged and healers were already spread out.

For Valithria, they had the two tanks call out the adds that spawned on their sides.

Priority was as follows:

1. Blazing Skeletons: have pets on passive and bring them to the middle. They do not cast Lay Waste until they have cast a fireball on their initial target, so they can be kited to be in range of everybody. (or so it appeared- this is not fact, only observation).
2. Rot Worms: A little AoE should handle them easily.
3. Suppressors: They only have 35k hp, so they can be taken care of easily. If one (or two) dps are assigned to them, it shouldn't be a problem.
4. Risen Archmage: Their Frostbolt Volley should be interrupted, rogues, DKs and Shamans are good at this job.
5. Blistering Zombies: Have a Hunter (or some other kiting class) kite these guys around so as to avoid the armor debuff on the tanks.
6. Gluttonous Abomination: Its not much of a threat (as compared to the rest) so it can be low priority.

Their strategy for Sindragosa was quite different from the Tankspot video and consequently deserves an article of its own, probably in a day or two.

Blood Prince Ranged-Tanks

After running the Blood Princes and having our Keleseth tank we a specialized tank spec/gear, I came up with some specs of my own:

Warlock
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#IcxMbhbhoZ0GchohZVfhVbhuhcb:jdw
In the affliction tree, I wanted to get to Siphon Life and thus put points to improve corruption where I could. I put points into Suppression to decrease the frequency with which the warlock would need to life tap and to increase hit chance so that they can garner more threat. Soul Siphon and Fel Concentration make it so that the lock can cast Drain Life, to make the healers' lives easier. Grim reach allows the lock to hit Kinetic Bombs (disco balls) and the Dark Nuclei from a greater distance. Also, if he gets knocked back, he can get back into action faster. I chose to glyph Siphon Life because it will increase the self healing by a good portion.

In Demononlogy, I didn't put points into the improved healthstone (nor did I use the Glyph) because I feel that it is not as useful as some of the other available talents. Demonic Embrace is an obvious choice and Fel Synergy will help keep your pet up via Soul Link. The pet of choice for this spec would be the Voidwalker and Demonic Brutality helps him immensely. You'll be using him mostly to soak damage via Soul Link and Sacrifice. Fel Vitality gives the Voidwalker a lot more health and increases the mana and health of the warlock- more survivability and less Life Tap. Demoic Aegis helps with Demon Armor. Demon Armor increases armor as well as healing received, a 30% boost is fairly significant. Finally, Soul Link will reduce all incoming damage by 20% and with the glyph, by 25%. This essentially makes your Voidwalker an extra Dark Nucleus.

For Destruction I put points in Bane for faster cast times, meaning that if the warlock needs to hit something quickly- ie: Disco Ball, Nucleus or a runaway boss, he can. Molten Skin increases survivability and Cataclysm is a going to be a great expansion. It also means that the warlock Life Taps less and so he is less likely to get insta-gibbed by an incoming shadow lance. Aftermath helps a little with maintaining threat via Immolate as well as keeping the disco balls up. I put a few points into Ruin, because a big crit with Searing Pain will garner a lot of threat, and that threat will be useful. Intensity again allows the Warlock to cast through being hit by a lance and so can hit what he needs to hit sooner. Searing Pain is probably the best way for the warlock to grab and hold onto things as it has a decent increase in threat. Devestation will also help with Searing Pain and with the Warlocks DPS. Improved Immolate is a point-dump, but it does help with damage and disco balls. Nether Protection can also act as an emergency Dark Nucleus- after getting hit by a shadow lance, it is possible that the warlock will take significantly less damage from the next (of the same class). Keleseth's cast time is about 1.5 seconds, so in an 8 second period he can get off five or six Shadow Lances, more likely than not, one of those will trigger Nether Protection, so it would constantly be up- which is another great damage soak. Soul Leech helps with healing via crits and I chose pyroclasm over emberstorm because it also effect corruption.

Priest
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bVcbuhh0oZfVtZGbcVRfzff:hbfVMc
I need to preface this by saying that my only priest got to level 21 before I stopped, so you priests probably know a huge amount more than I do. Like the Warlock spec, this is just a huge mish-mash of useful talents all thrown in together.

In the Discipline tree, I focused on improving Power Word: Shield, as that should be a useful buffer to have as it essentially adds to your current effective health. If there is a Disc priest in the raid, I don't think that it will be necessary to go that far into the tree, but it could be helpful. Imp Inner Fire is a point dump to get to Imp PW:S. The other points in that tree may not be entirely necessary if the caster does not have any mana problems or there is another Disc Priest in the group. The glyph for the shield just makes you last that little bit longer.

For Holy, I focused on getting some talents to help improve direct damage spells and healing. You can stick renew on yourself and any of your spells that have cast times- Holy Fire, Smite etc... won't be as slowed down, so you can hit the Nuclei more efficiently. Desperate Prayer should be very useful as a 'tanking' button to push when you get almost killed. I'm not sure how good the glpyh of renew is but it can be traded out for Glyph of SW:P.

For Shadow, I focus on more mana regen and getting those DoTs to work. Sticking SW:P onto the Nuclei should bring them to you. Spirit Tap increases mana regen and Darkness helps with threat. Shadow Focus drops mana costs andmakes you more likely to hit- which in turn means more mana. Imp MB lets you cast it more often, which we always like. Mind Flay will probably be the main workhorse of the spec, grabbing Nuclei and the bosses and potentially hitting Disco balls as well. For the rest of the shadow tree we continue to improve Mind Blast and Mind Flay while picking up Vampiric Embrace and Devouring plague for the healing abiltities. We stop before picking up Shadowform, because of the immense threat reduction that would make it very difficult to hold off other players.

As a final note on priests, it may be possible just to get a PvP Shadow spec to do the work and hit dispersion when he begins to cast his empowered lances to avoid that damage.

Mage
http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xml?cid=8&tal=03202520012003212300000000000000000000000000000000000000000533030310203103230132211100
This is Kyabetsu's build exported straight from his armory page. I definitely don't know mages as well as he does, so I'm going to throw together my own and compare the two

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#ocbfbubhdfZZVIccobksfzTbk:Rj
Here's what I came up with. 

The Important talents in Arcane are Prismatic Cloak for the damage reduction, Presence of Mind, in case you need to toss out a huge spell to grab aggro back, Improved Blink to dodge more spells and Arcane Shielding to increase the effectiveness of Mana Shield. Arcane Focus allows more hits and consequently more threat.

Fire doesn't really have any damage reduction talents, so its not necessary to go into that tree.

Frostbolt is the main nuke of this, so most of the points are in frost. Precision fills the same roll as Arcane Focus. Arctic Reach is our usual range increment, useful for reasons already mentioned. Frozen core reduces your damage taken further and Cold Snap can refresh the cooldowns on both Ice Block and Ice Barrier. Finish up by improving your frost spells some more, and poof. A spec.

Hunter
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#cVcGzxRZcZe00i0fMhxhA0so
Again, this is a class that I'm not very familiar with, so I had to look at all of the talents and figure out how to best alot them.

In Beast Mastery the Important talents are Endurance Training (for the HP), Imp Monkey (for the dodge), Aspect Mastery (5% damage Reduction), and Spirit Bond which increases heals to you(and has a steady HoT on you).

The Marksmanship talents are just for the hit- if you're capped without em, put em into Surv, where most of the points are. 

For Survival the Important talents are Hawk Eye, for the extra range to snag the Nuclei and K-bombs, Survival Instincts for the Damage Reduction, and Survivalist for the 10% Stam.

You could take all the points in Surv out of there and stick them into BM if you think that filling up that tree would be more effective than what I did. Again, since I don't know Hunters all that well, I don't know what would be best at holding aggro.

While doing this, the hunter pet can either be attacking the main target, or, using a simple macro, can be chasing after the falling K-Bombs:
/tar Kinetic Bomb
/petattack

Shaman
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hec0qcdIthfzqo0xxbcV:s
Finally, another class that I don't know. I'm going to look to amph to point out any obvious deficiencies.

I put points into Enhancement to get Anticipation and Toughness, for the survivability.

The (imo) vital talents in elemental are Elemental Warding for the damage reduction, Eye of the storm for fewest interuptions, Elemental Reach and precision for the normal reasons. And after that I just tossed in points to fill out the tree.
It may be a good idea to specialize in making the shocks really good so that you can just snap one out on a Nucleus (or a K-bomb) if you absolutely need to hit it immediately.

Druid
I ruled out Druids because of class mechanics. The useful talents in the Feral Tree would not affect the druid when it was in a caster for (either normal or boomkin). However, it could (in theory) be done. I just don't know how.

WoW in Real Life: Compilation

I've finally finished all the WoW in Real Life pieces- at least the first round. When the next expac comes around, I may have had enough experience to fill out this list better- but who knows. Anyways, they are as follows, in alphabetic (and chronological) order.

WoW in Real Life: Death Knights

WoW in Real Life: Druids

WoW in Real Life: Hunters

WoW in Real Life: Mages

WoW in Real Life: Paladins

WoW in Real Life: Priests

WoW in Real Life: Rogues

WoW in Real Life: Shamans

WoW in Real Life: Warlocks

WoW in Real Life: Warriors

WoW in Real Life: Warlocks

I've been a long time in doing this, so I might as well get back on track.

So- Warlocks have a large number of utility spells that are mighty interesting.

Leading by at least a dozen miles is Metamorphosis. You become a demon. With that ability come the abilities to radiate fire, get hit by a truck and not feel it, and cleave your opponents in twain. Plus, you have wings and you're a demon!

Next we have Ritual of Summoning. Who needs cars? Once you have three friends over at your place, you can summon anyone you want in the entire world just by 'targeting' them in your mind.

Then there are all the demons that warlocks can summon. Yeah- thats a lot of demons. Sadly, Warlocks can't control them all at the same time (it would be really cool if they did, except they were all ridiculously weakened so they would not be effective at all). You have all sorts of various capabilities, you have ranged damage, a tank, a CC'er, a anti-magic one and a melee dps. The last two are not permanent pets, but rather need to be enslaved.

Finally we have the Warlocks teleportation capabilities. You can go back up to forty yards away. This means that you can jump off a hundred foot building and just teleport back before you hit the ground.

Demo A Demo

So maybe I have a bunch of friends backing me up, but I punched Illidan Stormrage.

And I was in demon form. You can't beat that level of Bad-Assery.

Fel-Fire and Brimstone

I found a fun new way to kill low level mobs.

Metamorphosis.

Immolation Aura.

Run through them.

Laugh.

Leveling Guide: The Early Warlock 1-20

Hey lookie there! A leveling guide.

Now, when you choose to level a Warlock, your first choice is faction. It is generally personal preference. Then you pick your class. Alliance side you can choose Human or Gnome. Horde side you can pick between Orcs and Forsaken. And technically Blood Elves. But who would do that?

Originally, you had to do a little quest to get your imp. However, it is now available at level one from your local Warlock Trainer. He does cost a couple copper to buy, but now you can get him easily by level two, rather than waiting until at least level four, or possibly five or six.

At this point, you have a couple options with regards to your spell rotation.

You can either go with the affliction style of killing, or the destro/demo.

With either method, start by commanding your pet to attack your target. This will generally give him threat, and while you will be able to easily pass him, it will keep them off you for a blow or two, saving you a little bit of down time.

The simpler style is to just shoot the mob with Shadow Bolt until it falls over. The other method is to use your DOTs (Damage Over Time). Hit it with Immolation, Corruption and (once you get it) Curse of Agony.

At low levels, it is not actually efficient to cast CoA, because the mob will die before it gets in more than a tick or two.

Continue nuking your way through to level ten. At this point you get to make a few important decisions. Your first choice is your spec. Destruction is big on the big crits and is very mana intensive and not very good for leveling. When I was leveling as destro, I was able to one or two shot one level mobs, but after two fights, I would have to stop and drink for half a minute. If you do want the big crits, try this spec.

Demonology is not very strong in the early levels when you have weaker pets and have little in the way of resource control. If you want to go Demo, begin with this spec. It increases the capability of your voidwalker (we'll get to that in a minute) to keep threat off you and increases the survivability of you and your minion.

Affliction is one of the most popular leveling specs. It is both mana efficient and fast and you get to play with DOTs. Start off by taking this spec. After you put up your DOTs, use Drain Soul to get back 15% of your mana. However, I would strongly suggest either getting an addon to manage your Soulshards or put a large number of them in your bank. You cannot have more than 32 of them and they do not stack, but at low levels they can really cramp your bags.

Also at level ten, you gain your next pet, affectionately called by many as the Blueberry. You will have to do a quest for your voidwalker, but it is not difficult and is within your starting zone- unlike some other Warlock quests. Once you have this pet, you must choose between it and your imp. The imp does better damage, but cannot survive as much and does not have as much utility as the voidwalker.

As you level to twenty, remember to attack with your pet first, use Life Tap only if you really need it, Drain Soul on a regular basis so you have soulshards when you need them- to summon demons or to create a healthstone.

Matched set.

Me and Keyran (a guildie) were both on our way to Onyxia. We went this way, because the goblins hate us- guess why.

Guess! A warlock!

This isn't actually my warlock. However, it is a simple feat that can be replicated by any level 60 Warlock who really wishes to.

1) Get Metamorphosis.

2) Get a priest to levitate you.

3) Screenshot away.

When this happened we decided that a full raid of 40 Demo locks with the engineering-chute-capes should jump from Dala and pop meta. It would be epic.

I can make you TWO spaceships!

You want a spaceship? You want a spaceship? You want TWO spaceships? I can make you TWO spaceships!

I don't exactly know what that is about- but somehow, I will make it relevant.

Yeah- I gotcha! I'll talk about spacegoats!

Everyone loves the spacegoats.

They have a very lovely buff. Its called a +1% chance to hit.

It may not seem very helpful, but it can save you about 60+ hit rating at 80 for a melee.

That could be a whole nother 60 points of crit, or arp, or shtuff like that.

It means more dps. This makes us happy.

Anyways, the starting area is pretty cool, and killing belfs has never made anyone upset at all. They have some pretty classes, but sadly cannot be warlocks. A Draenei warlock would be absolutely terrifying. So would a tauren lock. Anways... about the two spaceships.

The origins of the Draenei come from the Eredar. They were led by three of their number, all well known folks in WoW lore. There was Kil'Jaeden, who became the final boss in Sunwell Plateua, Archimonde, the final boss in The Battle for Mount Hyjal, and Velen- prophet and leader of the Draenei people. So those three dudes were contacted by Sargeras- supreme evil guy of the multiverse, commander of the Burning Legion (of demons). Sargeras corrupted Kil'Jaeden and Archimonde and they became demons as well as all of their followers. Velen, being a prophet, foresaw this and ran the hell away with some exiles- the or 'Draenei'.

They fled from world to world, eventually landing on Outland, a place they called 'Exiles Refuge' or Draenor. They made friends with the orcs and hooked up one of their two spaceships in Netherstorm. The other carried on and crashed into Azeroth.

The blood elves eventually took over the one in Netherstorm, and it is called Tempest Keep (only a setback). The survivors of the crash made friends with the Alliance and their broken boat became their capital.

It is an interesting thing to note that if the Draenei had had warlocks, they could have easily cast 'enslave demon' on Kil'Jaeden, Archimonde or possibly Sargeras himself. Yeah. They could have enslaved a raid boss. Thats why warlocks are awesome. And thats why you always have two spaceships. One to be a infinite killing grounds for belfs and one to find you some warlocks.

Altoholicism

Yup, I'm an altoholic. When the new armory thingy came out I made poses for everyone of my Ursin alts. At one point I wanted to make a toon of every class and bring them to 80, and some people have done that.

Others have leveled 5 or so of the same class (generally shamans or paladins) in concert all the way to 80.

Even others have leveled 10 of the same class to 80, generally Warriors, but sometimes other classes.

There are those who level their alts in special ways. One leveled without dying once. Another leveled without wearing any armor- ever. One guy got a level 17 bank alt with the explorer title- he hadn't killed anything, just explored.

Personally, I find that I make loads of DK alts, the quest chain at the beginning is just so epic that I'm keep on running through it. Thats probably going to happen with the Worgen and Goblin zones as well. The nice thing about those though will be that after the initial craze is over I can go back there with any other toon that I make and go through that chain again.

As mentioned many times before, I love warlocks. I'm going to make a Worgen lock and I'll probably throw together a gnome and undead lock at some point.

I think thats about all- I'm pretty damn good at rambling and thats what I'm doing here so yeah....

Humorous

Personally I find all of the classes in WoW to be humorous in one way or another. Lets go through them one at a time- it'll be a good laugh for me.

Death Knight: Do I really have to say anything? At all? Seriously- it used to be huntards but now- its Stupid DKs. When you're leveling them up, they are ridiculously overpowered. When fighting Tusker at level 67- solo mind you, I started the fight at full health. I ended the fight at over full health. Even on my Retadin I didn't glide through that easily. Each of their talent trees can be formed to be a dps spec, tank spec, or PvP spec. Both Frost and Unholy can be duel-wielding specs, again for each of the above three.

Druid: I could just link you to Alamo's guide to druids... so I will. I've leveled a couple of druids. My first 'real' toon (second toon overall) got to level 26. I have one at 19 and one to 44. I've tried all the trees and have had a great time with all of them. The animations are always good for a laugh, and when leveling with bear druids... well- they like big butts... and cannot see their screen. Additionally- Boomkin. Everyone's favorite turkey. I'd love to point out this video to show how much fun being a oomkin is in PvP.

Hunter: "Don't be that hunter." "Thats hunter loot." "Huntard." All classic tales. Hunters for a long time were considered a very easy class to play- just tame a pet and make it do all the work. Because it was so easy, hunters did not really learn how to play (theoretically). Since it was so easy, all the little kids chose to be hunters. As little kids they did not know proper social etiquette. Combine all of those so you get a player who is easily defeated by a door boss, takes the loot, the accidentally pulls the next boss with his pet before dropping the party.

Mage: "Hai GUYS! I'm gonna blink!... or not." My personal favorite part about mages, when I'm on my paladin tanking around is that they are strudel vending machines. They makes the delicious free foods. Oh- and know they've gotten around to copying warlocks. They now have a permanent pet so they can be just like their betters. It always makes me laugh.

Paladin: I play a paladin. Paladins were fail during classic WoW. They were fail during TBC. They ruined everything that stood in their way in WotLK. As my paladin I was able to solo classic Ony in quest blues and greens. Once in AB in prot spec I was spamming Flash of Light on myself for 7k a hit. I have bubble, I have wings, I have a seven second stun. During some fights that don't require much movement (Instructor Rasuvious for one) I can bang on my keyboard and still be top dps. And I can bubble hearth. Sucker.

Priest: I find priests to be a joke. I've tried leveling one in full heirlooms and found that he was waaay to difficult to level. They really need someone to work with them or else they won't be able to get very far. But the best thing about a priest, they can kill someone who is two hundred feet in the air. Cast a couple dots, levitate and cast your flying mount again.

Rogue: Especially undead ones. They sneak up to you. Stab you dead. Defile your corpse. In a H-Gundrak I did today, one of our random party members asked for a summon ("Summon prz"). We could not do that because we were on different servers. We told him to use the 'teleport to dungeon' button. We told him where it was. He quit the group. We had cleared up to the second boss. At that point we rejoined the queue and another rogue joined the group. We began the encounter as soon as the rogue was in the instance. The rogue not only made it to the fight before we were a quarter of the way through, but managed to hit top dps for the fight and hit top overall damage dealth on the following trash pull, breaking 7k. The difference amused me- either they are like hunters or they are ridiculously good.

Shaman: My shaman, at level 13, in heirloom gear took out a level 18 mage. Even heirloom gear should not give me that much of a boost. I'm running around one shotting most of the mobs I face now that I'm level 17. Their totems are oh so pretty and they can do anything, even tank, although that is fairly difficult for them to do.

Warlock: They are, in my not quite humble opinion, the best class in the game. I mean, they can tank, they can dps, they can heal and they're not even a hybrid class! You don't believe me eh? Well then here's some proof. They were built for demolition, destruction, affliction and demonology. That there is your dpsness. They've been proven to be able to tank (at the time) the HARDEST raid boss in the game (sarth 3D or Illdian). Then they have some healing properties for their tank. Yeah- take that. And then there is Outland. See one of my previous posts.

Warrior: I'm gonna hit you with my big axe! But wait. I no has rage. And tanking Warriors are a conundrum. I get rage by being hit. And to be a better tank I need to get hit less. That way I can get less rage. And therefore I will have less threat. So I will be a worse tank. 'prz' explain this to me. I don't precisely understand this concept.

A no, I did not write this post over time. I turned it in before midnight.

Nurrrr....

I don't really feel like doing strategy guides/walkthroughs for Gundrak and DTK or Halls of Lightning and Stone so I'm going to go rant on something... Warlocks! Yeah, warlocks are cool. I've been leveling a Orc lock (four pieces of heirloom) and its been pretty fun so far. This is my first horde toon that I've 'seriously' leveled. I leveled a Belf lock about a year ago to 14, but after grinding him up to ten in my first sitting, I played him once or twice more and gave up. I've of course made a half dozen Horde DKs, just for some fun and got one of them up to 61. I hope to get this guy capped by Cataclysm, if not well geared.

Anywho, the leveling experience itself has been fun. I've learned the source of some in-jokes, Mankirk's Wife being the foremost among them and I've fully learned the story in the Barrens. To wit, centaurs, dinos, and harpies hurt the Horde's feelings. I've suffered some terrible escort quests and I've had fun slapping around Alliance NPCs.

So far I've specced affliction and will continue to do so until I hit Outland. Not only do I have the two coolest spells available to a Warlock in Demonology at 60, but guys- Its Outland. Its completely overrun by the Burning Legion. You know whats special about them? They're all demons. And you know whats special about demons? Warlocks can enslave them! At 58 they have a level +4 range on that spell. That means we can enslave demons up to level 62 right off the bat. Whats nice about this is that you can snag an elite demon. There are some easily found in Hellfire Peninsula, and when you get to 64 you can snag a 3 man Demon.

Rolling through both Outland and Northrend, things will be very interesting because of the unique view I will get on the lore. It seems that the cross-faction warfare steps up a bit during those stages and will guarantee some good times.

AN and AK:OK

So on today's plate we have more of what we had yesterday. I'll go over the two bug city instances in EXTREME detail. You read that right! EXTREME! So:

Azjol-Nerub: A not to difficult instance with plenty of fun little bits to kill your guildies.

1. Krik'thir the Gatewatcher: Its not a difficult fight, pull the packs one at a time, kill it all. Use lots of aoe etc etc.... The achievement is where it gets tricky there are four strategies. One- send in a druid to pull everything (EVERYTHING) using starfall, then get the hell out either using cat form with dash or bear with feral charge and then improved cat. Two- Pull each of the groups and kill the two small adds. The tank holds onto the named add and pulls the next group, do that again and then move in for the kill. Three- use two tanks either one for all the adds and one for the boss or one for the named adds and one for the boss. Four- CHEARG and dps the bastard down.
2. Hadronox: Like Krik'thir, this is an event, if you wipe on the trash, the whole thing resets. This is important to note for the achievement. When you fight her, make sure that the spiders are dead before you begin the encounter. If they die while she is fighting them she will gain health. If they don't die, they'll eat your face next. The way for the achievement is to drop someone down to the trash, have them die causing the encounter to reset. At that moment, book it down to the cavern where Hadronox starts the encounter and burn her down. When the spiders come, don't use aoe or they will die and she will gain her health back. Warlocks can also use their summon to reset the fight by jumping down and teleporting out of range.
3. Jump down the hole. This is when you use path of frost and water walking. Everyone dies. You laugh.
4. Get out of the pond and head to the stairs. If you levitate someone on these stairs they will slide down them and pull the trash. This is another excellent way to get a good laugh in.
5. Anub'arak: Bash him in the face. For the achievement, bash him in the face faster. Its helpful if you're tanking as a pally or DK to lay down consecration or D&D where the trash comes down from the ramp when he burrows.

Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom:

1. Elder Nakox: Another simple fight. Bash the big guy and then, when the add comes out kill that. For the achievement have a second tank stationed on one of the room he is in. The MT takes Nakox while the OT taunts the adds to his side of the room. The healer should stay in the middle able to heal everyone.
2. Prince Taldaram: Run away from the fire. Kill the vampire. For the achievement kick the guy who has been showing recount scores from trash. Then find someone else.
3. Amanitar: Mushrooms! Kill them! When you get sent to Wonderland eat the Good Shrooms, not the Bad Shrooms.
4. Jedoga Shadowseeker: Kill the add as it walks toward the circle, its not a difficult thing to do. For the achievement, don't. When she comes down she will hit you with a nasty whirlwind. You can either have the tank soak it, disarm her, kite her across the stage.
5. Herald Volazj: A tank n' spank, except he casts insanity. At that point you get to fight all four of your party members. They retain their class ability and are (usually) worse with them than the player. They have 12k hp and should not be to difficult to deal with, especially in better gear. Its generally a good idea to take out the healer first, then all the other classes that have healing capabilities. Save the tank for last, considering that they generally deal the least amount of damage. For the achievement, the fight is similar to Anub'arak. Kill it faster.
6. Nakox, Amanitar and Jedoga are all skippable fights. Many people will ask to skip them and equally as many will demand that you do not miss a single emblem.