Mage Talent Builds: The Alternate Fire Spec
Breathe New Life Into Your Mage Spec and…
19/52/00 Fire Mage
Become a Fire-Spewing Combat Monster!
When it comes to the Mage class in WoW these days, all I ever seem to see lately is a Pyroblast spec, or a non-Pyroblast spec.
How boring! I mean – I LOVE the spec, but when everyone is the Pyro, it becomes old.
I’m tired of seeing big chunky rocks of fire flying from Fire Mages in WoW, and I’m here to do something about it!
Introducing the “FireCane”, or “Dragon Breath” Mage.
If you’re cringing already at losing Pyroblast, you should probably leave now, because this build is as much about doing something different as it is making an effective Fire Mage spec.
And effective it is!
While you might lose Pyroblast and Blastwave, you also can now lose another 3 points from the Hotstreak talent.
Where do these missing 5 points go now that we’ve “lost” Pyroblast? Generally speaking – we’ve added utility, longevity, and flexibility where before we simply stretched for a few percent higher DPS.
Get the whole story of the build below, and the link to the build itself to the right. (more…)
Shaman PvP Build: Level 29 Elemental Spec
Own Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin
With This Elemental Shaman PvP Spec
Level 29 Elemental Shaman PvP Build
Low level Shaman’s can be great in PvP if you know what you’re doing.
The lack of massive burst damage can make them seem underpowered, and their staple spell in PvE, Lightning Bolt, just takes too long to cast for a lot of situations.
The other KEY problem at this level is the lack of Nature’s Swiftness which gives us an insta cast nature spell, and Elemental Mastery which gives us an insta cast Lightning, or Lava Burst spell, as well as a 15% increase crit chance for 15 seconds.
So what kind of build can make us competitve in PvP, and where does it shine?
Click the image to the right to go to WoW Europe’s Armory with the exact build, or read on to find the guide that goes with the spec. (more…)
Hunter Talent Builds: The Marksmanship Spec
Own From Afar With The Hunter Marksmanship Spec!
The Marksmanship Hunter build, or “MM build” is one of the most popular, and hated, builds around.
11/53/7 Marksmanship Build
As you might have guessed, its loved by hunters for its huge burst damage and overall high DPS, and loathed by its enemies in PvP.
The first time I got my aimed shot out and was causing big chunks of burst damage in PvP, I was sold.
But PvP isn’t the only arena MM Hunters shine, they’re also great in raids with high DPS, high survivability, and a range of helpful talents like Improved Hunter’s Mark.
Today I’d like to show you a 3.1 ready Marksmanship build that will allow you a lot of flexibility, and lets you easily tailor it to your needs. (more…)
Hunter Talent Builds: The Beast Master Spec
How to Use The Beast Mastery Build to its Best – A Hunter’s Guide
Hunter Beast Mastery Build
The Hunter is one of the most popular classes in WoW, and not just because they’re easy to solo and level fast, but because of the huge array of pets that come with them.
My other half plays a Hunter, and she loves all the different options she has as she levels up, from cats and wolves to raptors and owls.
So what are the advantages to having a strong pet build?
To me, higher survivability and less deaths are big points, and rank up there if you’re trying to level quickly.
Great flexibility in pets is another big plus, and with the correct selection of pets (cats are great), a very high DPS.
Combine high DPS and excellent survivability and you have an awesome class.
And so with all this talk of cool pets, here’s a quick run down on how to maximize your Hunter’s killing power through making the most of their pets. (more…)
Shaman Talent Builds: The Resto Shaman
Become Everyone’s Best Friend With Resto Spec
Resto Shaman Build
Secondary healers like Druids and Shamans are great fun – while you’re not being everyone’s best buddy by stopping them dying, you’re able to step in and do some DPS, and not to mention level at an “ok” rate when you’re out of grouping situations.
The other good thing about being the secondary healer is that everyone doesn’t expect you to hold everything together. If your main healer drops, and the rest of the group soon follows, it was his fault… right? 
With all my professions of a resto Shammy being able to do other stuff while he’s not healing groups, let me be clear – the restoration Shaman is NOT going to handle solo PvE well, and is a bit of a slouch on leveling speeds.
Because of that fact, this build is fairly specialized and doesn’t offer much in the way of options to tweak for different play styles.
Either you use this build to heal groups in PvP or in instances, or you just love the Resto Shammy and don’t care that you’re leveling a little slow.
Key tip: Resto Shamans are the king of chain heals, which means the Shaman will be in charge of healing groups of players at a time, particularly larger raid groups being hit by AoE’s.
Your healing wave spells are great and all, but Druids and obviously Priests trounce your single target heals. Chain heals are also great for PvP in battlegrounds or larger arena fights, but obviously you lose your biggest draw card in 2v2.
This build will be a good general purpose healing build for PvP or instances of any size. If you’re a raiding junkie I’d investigate optimizing your chain heals by picking up the appropriate gear and making every talent point count. (more…)
Shaman Talent Builds: The Elemental Shaman
Wield Nature’s Weapons With an Elemental Shaman
Elemental Shaman Build
Today I’m looking at an Elemental build for Shamans that has a monster crit strike bonus built in, and has some great utility spells to round it out.
This build is great for solo players, good for raiding shamans, and great for PvP play where you want to get off huge crits as often as possible.
These huge crits won’t hurt while you’re leveling, or while you’re grouping of course…!
This is another of my favorite Shaman builds – the Elemental Shaman to me is like fighting in bear form as a Druid, its what they were made for, you know?
But enough rambling – here’s the build. Its flexible, but definitely skewed to leveling or small groups where you can do secondary healing and secondary DPS duties. (more…)
Shaman Talent Builds: The Enhancement Shaman
How To Create an Enhancement Shaman That Can Stand Toe to Toe With Anyone
Enhancement/Elemental Shaman
Shaman’s are one of my favorite classes – they offer amazing flexibilty, and some really great tools that help you get by in your day to day leveling and adventuring.
One of those paths is the Enhancement Shaman. I’ve spent a lot of time putting together this Shaman spec to make it well suited for players who want some flexibility. One day you might be raiding, the next some PvP, and then maybe some solo and perhaps dailies when you level to that point.
With that in mind, the build below will serve well as a DPS focused build. This means you’ll be doing a lot of damage, and will be well suited for groups, PvP or solo work.
Solo is always better to do with a strong DPS build, and raids obviously will need an assortment of roles – DPS being one of them. (more…)
Priest Talent Builds: The Shadow Priest
Shadow Priests – How to Build a DPS Machine
Shadow Spec With Some Holy
Shadow Spec With Some Holy
Are you ready to crack those DPS problems that keep you from joining raids or PvP events?
Over the past month I have been fiddling around with the shadow talent tree hoping to boost my stats. The problem I ran into was with every increase in this talent tree I lost something big in another area.
Back and forth I went trying to come up with the right combination until I finally settled on something that I feel is perfect for people who want a flexible shadow priest. A shadow priest who can handle the DPS requirements of raids, take out PvP opponents with burst damage, and of course level up quickly.
Keep in mind additional rows will open up after every 5 talent points used.
Row 1 (Spirit Tap, Improved ST, and Darkness)
The 1st row is built around increasing your spell damage and regenerating mana. Any Priest knows you need a substantial amount of mana when healing others, so this will be important. Make sure you use 3 talent points in the Spirit Tap. I recommend skipping over the Improved Spirit Tap and focus on filling the Darkness ability with all 5 points.
Row 2 (Shadow Affinity, Improved Shadow Word: Pain, and Shadow Focus)
Add all 3 points to the Shadow Affinity and gain a 25% decrease in threat from Shadow spells. Also, fill the Shadow Focus with all 3 pts. You want to decrease as much mana cost as possible and this removes 6%.
Row 3 (Improved Psychic Scream, Improved Mind Blast, and Mind Flay)
You will need to fill the IPS if want the Silence ability (which I recommend). Plus, putting the lone point in Mind Flay will allow you to slow opponents by 50% – great for PvP priests.
Row 4 (Veiled Shadows, Shadow Reach, Shadow Weaving)
The two important abilities here are Shadow Reach and Weaving. Placing 2pts in Shadow Reach will give you an extra 20% range on Shadow Spells. Putting 3pts in Shadow Weaving will add a 100% chance to increase your Shadow damage by 2% for 15 seconds.
Row 5 (Silence, Vampiric Embrace, Improved Vampiric Embrace, Focused Mind)
Adding the 1pt needed for Silence allows you to keep an opponent from casting spells for 5 seconds, again great for PvP, especially against enemy spell casters.
Vampiric Embrace and Improved Vampiric Embrace should both be filled as well and will keep your health ticking along nicely during solo play or to top up after copping a few whacks in a tough dungeon. During a 5 minute period, any Shadow spell damage will revert 15% health to you and 3% to party members. The IVE allows a 67% health reimbursement. Then of course Focused Mind should be filled to reduce mana costs on all Mind spells by 15%.
Row 6 (Mind Melt, Improved Devouring Plague)
I’m not big on 4% critical strikes for Mind Melt, so unless you’re really heavy on PvP, I skip it. Fill up the Improved Devouring Plague talent… you will increase the total damage duration by 15% and deal a 15% instant strike of the total damage caused over time.
Row 7 (Shadowform, Shadow Power)
It’s very important to add the talent point needed for Shadowform. It adds 15% damage, decreases 15% damage to you, and reduces threat by 30%. However, the big boost is a 100% crit hit with Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague, and Vampiric Touch. Fill the Shadow Power as well so you can increase your Mind Blast, Flay, and SW: Death spell crit damage by 100%.
Row 8 (Improved Shadowform, Misery)
You definitely want to add the 2pts needed for IS. It allows you to remove movement impairing effects 100% of the time you use the Fade ability. Good for PvP, and good for running away from monsters… not that you’ll be doing any of that with this build… right? Improved Shadowform is also great for PvP when you’re trying to get a cast off on a melee class like a rogue or enhancement shaman who hit you with a flurry of attacks, no more watching your casting bar stay still!
Row 9 (Psychic Horror, Vampiric Touch, Pain and Suffering)
You will have to fill each one of these abilities in order to hit the next row. You’ve got a good fear spell here, and then Vampiric Touch and the nasty Pain and Suffering both boost your shadow damage.
Pain and Suffering is especially nasty for Shadow Priests as it refreshes your Shadow Word Pain ticks for even more damage.
Row 10 (Twisted Faith)
Place 5pts. here so you can increase your spell power by 10% of your total Spirit. There is also additional help to your Mind Blast and Flay by 10%. Combining spirit heavy gear with this talent can result in some really nice boosts to spellpower, so consider giving that a go if your bank account is up to the challenge.
Row 11 (Dispersion)
There will be times that this can be extremely useful – its a real “get out of jail free card, and can be intensely annoying to PvP opponenets. Its also gotten me out of more certain deaths than I care to recall.
Add a point here to finish out the tree and reduce your damage taken by 90%, regenerate mana over 6 seconds at 6% of total per second and eliminate several movement impairing effects.
Specialize Your Shadow Priest From Here
What to do with the other 20 points?
When you’re finished here you can go back and add the extra 20 points to your Shadow tree, or give your Priest a nice boost in other areas. Since I’m not sure what you use a lot, this will be up to you. In the end though, having a Shadow talent pool like this will help you become one of the better DPS dealers in your guild, make you survivable in groups and very hard to kill in PvP.
My personal pick for the last 20 points is putting it all into holy healing talents to make me useful in small parties, but if you’re into PvP I think its pretty hard to go past putting the rest into the balance.
That’s all there is to it. If you’re really mad keen on leveling quicker check out my Horde Leveling Guide front page for info on some commercial guides… They’re not really necessary, but are admittedly a nice luxury to have.
How Long Did Your Last Level Take? Could You Half That?
Unless you've leveled half a dozen toons to 80, you could probably use a guide that shows you the fastest questing routes. If you feel frustrated with the time it takes you to level, pair my leveling info with Dugi's popular "Ultimate Leveling Guide". I personally vouch for this guide because not only does it do a top job of leveling you fast, its also the best value in-game level guide out there (you get the Horde AND Alliance guide for the price most guides charge for each).
Priest Talent Builds: The Holy Priest Spec
Holy Priests – How to Build the Ultimate Group and Raiding Spec
Holy and Discipline Priest Build
When it’s time to be in a large raid group, or quest with a group of friends, getting the most out of your Holy talent tree is important. It’s the only tree where you can maximize your health regen and at the same time increase places like spirit, mana, and movement speed in your favor.
And now that you can duel-spec with the patch 3.1 changes, it will be important to keep the Holy talent tree set up for specific runs.
I’ve played my priest a lot, and actually respecced the guy so many times I’m almost embarrassed – but in the process I’ve worked out what really works in a hard-core raid.
This is it. (more…)
Priest Builds: The Discipline Priest
Why and How to Use The Discipline Priest Spec:
Discipline Build With Shadow
The discipline Priest is one of the least understood of all Priest builds. Is it good for PvP? Should I forget about discipline if I’m raiding or the primary healer? And what about solo – shadow is the clear choice right?
Those are the major questions being asked about discipline priests, and I’ll briefly answer them for you here…
Let me start with PvP.
PvP Discipline priest are an awesome sight to behold. One on one, discipline priests can be a really tough opponent to kill.
With reflective shield sending almost half the damage your receive back to your opponent (look out rogues), and then your basic healing skills backing you up, you can pretty much survive anything.
Your damage dealing isn’t quite as impressive, but if you play with a good team you can hold points until the cavalry arrives and punishes whoever thought it was a good idea to attack you.
So a big tick to discipline priests if you’re considering that route. (more…)
