World of Warcraft:Tips

Chatty's Guide to Looting and Plunder!

So you've butchered yourself a trogg, and perhaps feasted upon its innards. But LO! What's this? A fine dagger of unparalleled sharpness? One dagger, five soldiers... What to do, what to do? Well, fleshies, there are two main categories of loot of which we need to be aware. When you have a look at an item, pay attention to its binding properties: Bind on Pickup, or Bind on Equip.

Items that Bind on Equip (BOE) are quite desirable! They can be sold at a profit in the auction house, or - preferably - traded amongst each other to keep our power within the family!

What should you do when faced with a BOE item?

Simple. If you can equip it, and it's better than what you have already, roll Need. Don't be shy! Otherwise, roll Greed or Pass, depending on how you feel and how full your bags are. Remember, these items will not bind to you immediately, so if it turns out that somebody in the group needs it more than you do - and we should always be mindful of each other, oh yes! - you can always discuss that and hand it to them afterward, perhaps after exacting all manner of disquieting concessions for your magnanimity!

If you win a greed roll for an item you don't need, you can sell it, disenchant it, or send it to Xaan - the choice is yours. However, there are some items that are definitely worth keeping in the guild - occasionally, a powerful BOE Blue item will drop. These are worth a great deal of money if you don't need them, but talk things out with the guild first. It could be that somebody within the guild could make great use of your new find, and is willing to compensate you for it.

But wait, what's this BOP thing I keep hearing?

Some items are bind-on-pickup. Pay very special attention to these, as they cannot be traded to anyone once they're picked up. If an item drops that is BOP (and they tend to be held by dangerous instance bosses), everybody in the group should pass! Even if you need it, pass! Thereupon, the group will discuss what to do, and who needs that item most. Don't pick it up off the boss monster's tasty, steaming corpse until you're satisfied that anybody else who can make use of it has cleared you to do just that!

If nobody in the group needs the dropped BOP item, there are two things you can do. You can always roll greed and sell the item to a vendor if you win(remember, it can't be traded, and therefore cannot be auctioned). If there is an enchanter in the party, however, the item could be used much better. Nobody needs it, after all! Better to disenchant the item for a shard or some essence. Shards can be tricky to come by, and the guild's enchanters will thank you!

So, to reiterate:

BOE

Better than what you've got? Roll need! Don't be shy.

Do be mindful that someone in the group might make better use of it than you. Some items are of use to everyone, but of MORE use to certain someones. Warriors can use agility, for instance, but be mindful of any rogues or hunters in your party. You should still roll need if it's better than what you have - if another person wants it, they'll pipe up and ask you for it, and you can discuss amongst yourselves how to resolve the issue. Do also be mindful of the attributes you need an item to have. Strength is as useless to a mage as a bonus to arcane damage is to a rogue.

BOP

Pass, and discuss. If several of your companions desire the item, show off what you have on in its place. It may be that someone in the group has a substandard item on, and that should be kept in mind. If multiple players still want the item after discussing, you can /roll on it, and trust in fate.

It's especially important with BOP items to keep in mind your party makeup. Many, many classes can use daggers, but some - like, say, mages - will not be meleeing with them anywhere near as much as a rogue, and some. That doesn't necessarily mean rogues should get every blue dagger that drops (after all, shamans, warriors and hunters can often make good use of them as well). But it does mean that they should be allowed a bit of priority.

Preferred items by class:

Warrior: Shields and all weapons. Mail before 40, Plate afterward. You want: Strength, Stamina, DPS, some Agility, proc effects.

Rogues: Daggers, sometimes maces and swords. Leather. You want: Agility, Stamina. Strength is tertiary. DPS, proc effects.

Hunter: Bows and guns, almost all weapons (but melee weapons are more of a priority for all other classes - you only fight up close when things go badly; likewise, melee classes that can make use of bows and guns should cede them to you if they're better than what you have). Leather before 40, mail afterwards. You want: Agility, Stamina. Strength and Intellect in smaller amounts. Procs on melee weapons are not as useful as stats, as you shouldn't be meleeing much.

Shaman: Shields, some weapons. Leather before 40, Mail afterwards. You want: Statistics are dependent on build, but usually a goodly mix of all of them. +Nature and +Healing are handy.

Druid: Some weapons. Leather. You want: Statistics dependent on build, but you don't need to mix it up as much as shamans. Caster druids will want caster stats and possibly some strength, feral druids will want warrior stats. Weapon procs and dps are meaningless for ferals, as they won't factor into your animal-form attacks. Attribute bonuses carry over. +Healing, +Nature and +Arcane can come in handy.

Mage: Staves, some 1-h weapons, off-hand items. Cloth. You want: Intellect, Stamina, Spirit tertiary. +fire, +ice and +arcane and +mana regen can be handy, but are of more use at higher levels than low.

Warlocks: Itemization as per mage. You want: Stamina first, THEN intellect. Spirit's just about useless, as you can Tap your health for mana. +shadow and +fire are handy. +mana regen... meh.

Priests: Itemization as per mage. You want: Intellect/Spirit, Stamina. +Shadow and +Healing are handy as well.

Tips, Tricks and Quirks: Advice for the Fledgling Adventurer

Have some knowledge to share? Do it! Edit the stubs as you like

For general information, visit www.wowwiki.com. All the content of the official forums, none of the aggravating 12-year olds!

Class Advice

Druid

Druids can be very squishy, but the real plus of the class is it's versatility. There is a bear form (basically a warrior class form), cat form (rogue-like, complete with stealth), water form (very helpful for both sea travel and breathing), and a travel form that lets you go 40% faster than normal running.

Druids are natural healers and can be very useful in groupwork, as long as you keep your eye on your team members health bars.

When questing alone, make sure to keep an eye on your own health bar, and don't be afraid to heal yourself in the middle of a fight. It can make all the difference.

Hunter

Hunters are probably the best class for soloing in the game. However, when you're in a group, you need to make some changes to your style of play.

The following tips will go a long way to solidifying your place in a group, and keep other playerse from yelling at you.

Marking Targets

Your Hunter's Mark is quite useful for guiding other players to a target. Use it to mark a target, so everyone can focus on the same mob and bring it down quickly. If there is a Mage in the party who can sheep, quickly discuss whether or not he thinks that target should be sheeped first instead. In some cases, Mages may be marking sheep targets with Detect Magic (a spell that causes no aggre, and creates a brief white swirl of light around a mob), so watch for those. Attacking a sheepmarked target is not a good way to make friends with the Mage, let alone the rest of the group!

Consider that a Mage's role in a group is crowd control as well as DPS, and they often have a better idea than you as how to go about their role; a good Mage isn't watching the target he's throwing spells at, he's watching for adds, or he's watching the sheep to make sure it isn't broken early, or both at the same time. If a Mage feels a target should be sheeped, it may be wise to defer to him or her and select a different target for pulling.

Pet Management

Part in qutes below is copied from here because it's expressed better than i can do it.

"DO NOT lose control of your pet. Perhaps the greatest source of peoples' trepidation about inviting Hunters to their groups is past experiences they had in which a Hunter's pet wiped them. Regardless of your talent choices, you are a master of wild beasts! Always know where your pet is. Always know what he's attacking and what he's going to attack when his current target dies. ALWAYS keep a firm leash on him and make sure you don't let him go anywhere that he'll aggro mobs you don't want to aggro. ALWAYS leave your pet on Passive mode in instances. If he is on Defensive mode, he will often react to things you don't want him to. Aggressive mode is right out of the question! Manually choose your pet's target and hit Ctrl-1 to make him attack. Pets also travel using the same system as NPCs, meaning that if you jump off a cliff, your pet may not. He could aggro a lot of mobs by taking the long way. If you have any doubt that your pet will follow you as you want him to, you can (1) tell the pet to stay and whistle for him later, (2) despawn him, or (3) use Eyes of the Beast to manually make him jump off a cliff ahead of you. If your pet ever does get away from you and aggro mobs, do whatever you can to make him stay away from you. You might be able to stay out of combat and let your pet die rather than train half an instance to you."

Nothing gets your groupmates more angry at you than a pet running wild, who then do thing like break sheeped mobs who automatically aggro on the mage, or running loose in an area with three, four or more mobs, who then aggro onto your group.

If you can't manage your pet, then perhaps you should consider a different class, or consider that you shouldn't be grouping until you can.

Mage

Tips for a great deal of damage

   The mage... The mage is the best class on WoW that can make very much damage... 

The best way that a mage can stay alve is to spend all ur talent points in FIRE so u can kill or be killed. END

   In other words: KOOL CLASS

Mage is very item dependant, not as much as a warrior but still items can make you a killer. As a mage and GM of an end game instance raiding guild, if I look to add a mage to our family, after personality fit I check their gear to see that they understand what makes a good mage. In PvE end game content, a mage should never draw aggro and hence stamina is not the end all. I'd look that they've researched items such as the Spiritshroud Leggings, Dragonrider Boots and Rod of the Ogre Magi. this shows they know what it takes to be a good mage - damage output. Next I'd check they've got a fair few pieces of their Magister to ensure they've had experience at 60 for a while. Finally I'd have a look that they've enchanted their everyday pieces and done so intelligently. Fire talent is the way to level a mage but end game, you have choices. Fire will make you run out of mana quite quickly and are useless against Geddon and Ragnaros in Molten Core and Vaelastrasz, Firemaw, Ebonroc, Flamegor and Nefarian in BWL. This is a generalised statement on Nefarian as the dragonkin before he becomes 'active' can often be hit by fire dependant on the brood colour of same. Frost won't hit as hard but will give you longevity across a longer fight without as many mana potions or evocation uses. It's individual style of play that counts and if you're a heavy farmer with lots of money, fire is still viable (just beware that arcane missiles don't have the range of your fireball or a frostbolt with arctic reach applied so on some encounters you'll be closer than you'd normally like as a fire mage - think ragnaros)

Priest

Tips for Healing in this post 3.0 world

As you level, practice healing in instances. Have a healing set even if you're specced Shadow because you can heal when off-spec if you have a good set of gear. An addon like DrDamage is great for seeing just how much your stats will let you heal for in both strength and duration. Get a feel for your heals and how much oomph they have compared to how long it takes to cast one. With no downranking and one mana potion per fight now, you will have to see what healing response is needed versus what your stats (mana, mana regen, +spellpower) can provide you.

The unspoken rule for instances as you level is "If the tank dies, it's the healer's fault. If the healer dies, it's the tank's fault. If the DPS die, it's their own fault." It's based on a series of agreements: The tank agrees to keep the aggro off of the healer. The healer agrees to heal the tank through the damage of keeping the aggro. The DPS agree not to take the threat off of the tank, thus taking a lot more damage that the healer has to heal which means that there is less healing (mana) available for the tank and also the greater threat generated by the healer when they try to keep the DPS from being a smear on the instance floor. (And everyone agrees to not stand in the fire.) As part of the agreement, there are the gear factors: If the tank is undergeared, you'll have to heal a lot more. If the healer is undergeared, you won't be able to keep the tank healed. If the DPS is overgeared, they will draw aggro and if they are undergeared, the mobs/boss might not die before the healer runs out of mana. Know your limits and watch the rest of your group. If you have a tank that can't keep aggro through small heals or your DPS can't keep from spamming their max damage every single pull, then it is better to save yourself the grief and the repair bills and bow out gracefully. Also be ready to bow out gracefully if _you_ are the problem.

Raiding - The addons Grid (or some raidframe equiv), Clique and possibly MendWatch (for seeing who has the Frisbee and for how long) are fantastic whether you're Holy or Disc.

For a good way to see what healing in a chaotic situation is like, try healing in an AV. (Yes, you will die. But that's not the point. It's seeing how to heal when everything is blowing up around you, how to triage. When you have 20 people all taking damage around you, who do you heal first? In a raid, who have you been assigned to heal? Has a healer that had a different assignment died? Can you keep your assignment up and have the time/mana to spare to help other healers? All big questions.)

Healing meters are bunk. Repeat that again. Trying to compare healing for a fight is like trying to compare apples and murlocs. You have who you're healing, how much damage they are taking, what's happening to the raid and a variety of other things like spec, how much spellpower you have and mana regen. For healing, the questions that you will ask/be asked: Did the boss die? Did your assignment stay alive? Did you run out of mana at the very end or in the middle of the fight? If the answer to the first one is yes, then congratulations! Everything else is fine-tuning your personal healing style and stats to the best that you want, whether it's jaw-droppingly huge heals or a mana regen that gives back more than you spend.

Just remember that in a raid, you are part of a team. Be ready to help out other healers if the situation calls for it. If other healers are needing to keep helping your assignments out, you may want to look at your healing style, stats and spec to see where work needs to be done.

Shaman

Mana Efficiency and You

You may have noticed by now that a couple of your big spells will drain your mana pool dry so quickly it will leave your head spinning. Even elemental-specced shamans with lots of +int gear will find their mana pool does not allow for prolonged battle... and a shaman without mana is very often a dead shaman.

Analyze your spells to see how much damage (or healing) they do per mana point spent. The ratios can change over time (lightning shield, for instance, starts off inefficient compared to everything else, but that changes quickly).

On the whole, you should find that efficiency scales like so: Searing totem, given enough time ---> healing ---> lightning shield ---> lightning bolt / chain lightning, given enough targets ---> flame shock, given enough time ---> other shocks. Earth Shock and Frost Shock are your big damage, but even fully synergized, they barely do more than 1 damage per mana. That's a shame, because the spell interrupt of ES, or the snare effect of FS are quite handy. It's a good thing the 30ish-mana Earth Shock 1 still interrupts spells then, innit?

So what does this all mean?

Well, if you don't want to drink every two minutes - and I say that without a hint of hyperbole - learn to use your mana efficiently. Spamming your shocks leads to big damage, but drains you dry. Unless you really need to put something down fast, stick to Lightning Bolts, Lightning Shield, Searing Totem and melee.

And never, ever leave home without water.

Weapon Buffs

I don't want to go into the mathematical analysis of it all, but here's the gist.

You have two weapon buffs. Rockbiter, and Windfury. But wait! What about Frost Brand? What about the fire buff?

Forget them. Frost rarely procs, and you can FS at will (cooldown permitting) to snare, or drop an Earthbind Totem. Flame? Well, it has its uses in the early game, but Rockbiter will always do more or equal damage.

Rockbiter grants you a lot of extra attack power, and it causes extra threat. That's great if you're (off-)tanking or soloing, but a liability otherwise. The fire buff should replace this in situations where you don't want aggro, until you get Windfury.

Windfury has a 20% chance of granting you two extra attacks with more attack power than the norm (although your base attack is not improved at all), and doesn't cause additional aggro. When it procs, you get a HUGE damage spike. When it doesn't, it's the equivalent of tapping your opponent on the shoulder. It's handier in PVP than Rockbiter, due to the bursty nature.

Over time, the damage improvement of Windfury and Rockbiter are more or less equal. Mathematically, Windfury can appear to come out a little bit ahead on the damage curve, especially with slow weapons. That doesn't take into account the fact that it's extremely unreliable, and - perhaps more importantly - it doesn't take into account the fact that Windfury can proc when you don't need it. Most shamans joke that it only ever goes off when your opponent is down to 3% of his hp and fleeing. Maybe it's selection bias, but I've noticed that too. Rockbiter is always the more dependable choice.

-TS

Dealing with Crowds

One-on-one, shamans are a match for almost any foe. But when the numbers are stacked against you, things get a little bit uglier. Shamans have more trouble with multiple foes than most classes, but with a bit of creativity, you can win or - at worst - get away.

Your main crowd-control option is Stoneclaw Totem (Earth), which is similar to an engineer's Dummies, but not as hardy or long-lived. Stoneclaw will "growl" at nearby enemies, and inspire them to attack it. It has a reasonable-ish amount of hit points, and will last until those are depleted or its 15 seconds of fame are up. Here's where you stop worrying about efficiency. Let Stoneclaw distract your adds, and nuke the bejeezus out of your attacker.

Apart from Stoneclaw, your only CC option is creative kiting, with Earthbind and Frost Shock. If you have the space, and are not likely to run into more aggro, you can keep one mob off you by Frost Shocking it and dragging the other around at full speed. Earthbind Totem (Earth) is less selective, but allows you to keep both mobs at range (it's an AOE snare and one of your most important tools - keep it easily accessible). It's the superior option if you're fond of doing damage with your spells. Do keep in mind that Earthbind and Stoneclaw are both earth totems. Dropping one will destroy the other.

If you can't divide-and-conquer, you can slug it out. I hope, first of all, that you're carrying a shield. Two-handed weapons are handy against spellcasters with poor melee skills, but shamans are a tad squishy themselves; a good shield will offset that nicely. Remember that you can heal yourself, and always keep some mana around for Lesser Healing Wave.

AOE damage is an option, but it's not a GOOD option until level 32 and Chain Lightning. Magma Totem (Fire) and Fire Nova Totem (Fire) are extremely expensive, and painfully inefficient. What's more, they draw aggro themselves, so if you haven't done something to attract the attention of every mob that's attacking you, one's bound to break off and kill the totem. There's nothing quite like spending a third of your mana to drop a Fire Nova totem, only to have it killed before it even goes off.

Tauren have a significant advantage in this area. Warstomp will stun mobs attacking you for 2 seconds. That may not sound significant, but consider this: Lesser Healing Wave casts in 1.5 seconds. So does a fully talented Chain Lightning.

Finally, know when to run. You may not be a druid, but you're no slouch when it comes to getting away. Drop an Earthbind or a Stoneclaw, or toss around some Frost Shocks, and run like hell. If you put enough distance between yourself and your attackers, you can cast Ghost Wolf (with 2 talent points, it casts in one second; if you have Nature's Swiftness from the Restoration tree, it can be cast instantly).

-TS

A primer on totems

Over the course of your shamanic career, you'll come into possession of totems. Dropping a totem is an insta-cast spell, and it puts the totem right where you're standing. Most totems are buffs of one kind or another and affect party members within a fairly generous radius. Sort of like the paladin's auras. Unlike the paladin's auras, totems fade away... and they have 5 hp. That's not usually an issue in PVE (fire totems are the exception), but in PVP some folks are smart enough to take your totems out. Good thing most of them are cheap.

You can drop up to four totems at a time, one for each element. Dropping a new totem of the same element as an existing one will destroy the original.

Few totems are useful in solo play. Or rather, they can be useful, but are normally too costly to use on simple grindy fights. After all, why drop a Stoneskin when you can save that mana and use it on healing? In a group setting, however, they can be very useful.

Earth

Stoneskin is an odd duck. A totem that decreases the damage you take by a flat amount, it can be a significant defensive improvement at lower levels... but doesn't scale at all well, and is expensive to boot. If you're soloing, you're best off dropping this totem only if you intend to use it over the span of more than one fight, or if you're fighting an enemy that hits often, but for small amounts of damage (rogues, cats, etc.).

Earthbind is glorious. It halves the running speed of all enemies in its area, lasts 45 seconds, and is on a relatively quick cooldown. Handy in getaways, very useful for elemental shamans who want some room to cast spells unmolested, and wreaks all sorts of havoc in battlegrounds.

Tremor is an anti-CC totem; once it's dropped, it has a chance to remove Sleep, Fear and the like from party members within its AOE. It's not useful all the time, but it's a lifesaver when it is. This is one of your key skills in Battlegrounds.

Stoneclaw is sort of like CC, but not that powerful. That said, it's all you have. See the section on crowds above.

Finally, Strength of Earth is a handy strength buff. If you've a lot of meleeists around, dropping one of these can't hurt.

Earth in summation: Earthbind is great. Tremor is great. Stoneskin can be handy. Stoneclaw is mostly worthless, but hey; it's all you got.

Fire

Searing Totem is a basic DOT totem. It shoots a tiny little fireball at your target every two seconds or so, doing unimpressive damage that can nonetheless add up. It's also pretty efficient, given enough time, and is very, very cheap.

Magma totem and Fire Nova totem suck, for reasons described in the Crowd Control section. They have their uses (Fire Nova can be handy in PVP, especially if talented), but everything they can do, Chain Lightning does better.

Frost Resistance totems are great, if you're fighting someone using frost magic. Think of them as Stoneskin against Ice Mages, but cheaper.

Flametongue totem (which grants an effect similar to yor Flametongue self-buff to all party members in its area) is misunderstood and unloved, usually because it's compared to the superior Windfury totem. That comparison isn't so bright. See, air has lots of useful totems. Fire doesn't. If you have a lot of meleeists around, it may be a good idea to drop this.

Fire in Summation: Searing Totem is small but free damage. Flametongue Totem is better than you think. Resistance is nice. The "big damage" totems are terrible.

Water

Healing Stream is the ultimate in non-scaled crap! By the time you get the first rank, it's already obsolete. As you move up through the ranks, it's still obsolete! Save your mana and cast a heal spell. This one doesn't do enough to matter. Especially when you consider the likelihood of everybody taking tiny amounts of damage, instead of a tank taking big hits.

Mana Spring, however, is handy. It restores a humble amount of mana to everyone in the totem's area. At first, the mana spring costs you more than it restores over time, but it soon becomes more efficient, giving back slightly more mana over time than it costs to drop. This is not relevant in solo play (the difference between mana cost and mana restoration is much too small for it to be used as an anti-downtime tool), but it's a nice thing in groups.

Mana Tide is a beefed up Mana Spring - and Restoration's 31-pt talent. Most shamans won't see this totem for a long time, but for those that spec to restoration for the end-game, it's an incredible tool. It doesn't last long, and it's got a hefty cooldown, but it restores a significant amount of mana quickly. Between this totem, mana spring and a class trinket called the Enamored Water Spirit (which is like a mini-Mana Tide on a 3-min cooldown), you can be an endless mana battery.

Poison Cleansing is useful against rogues in PVP, and any and all beasts that use poison in their main attacks. In for a long fight? Don't bother casting Cure Poison individually every time the warrior gets bitten. Just drop yourself one of these and let it do the work.

Disease Cleansing is exactly like Poison Cleansing, but disease is far less commonly used. I've never dropped this totem in my life, electing instead to Cure Disease manually.

Fire Resistance is groovy.

Water in summary: The totem that seems like it would be most useful is in fact least useful. The mana restoration totems are what you'll probably be using most often in a group context (later in the game, at least), but Poison Cleansing and Fire Resistance also get their moment in the sun from time to time. None of these totems (apart from Mana Tide) are handy in solo play, however.

Air

Grounding Totem doesn't work the way the tooltip says it does. Instead of absorbing enemy spells for a while before it disappears, it absorbs one and dies. This means the enhancement talent to improve its effect is broken, by the by, so don't take that. Despite all that, this remains a GREAT totem. Between Grounding Totem and Earth Shock, you can shut down a caster completely; it's also handy in group play if you're worried about aggroing with Earth Shock (that said, level 1 Earth Shocks still interrupt, and cause very little hate - don't be afraid to use them in parties).

Grace of Air is a big agility boost, and a wonderful thing to drop if you've got meleeists and hunters around.

Windwall is a stoneskin for ranged attacks. It sucks.

Windfury Totem is somewhat like Flametongue totem. It gives all of your party members a chance to proc a Windfury effect. Obviously, this is a big deal if you've a lot of meleeists in the group, but be aware that it can be a tricky thing with regard to aggro management. After all, if the rogue procs a Windfury for big damage and the Warrior doesn't, he may peel the warrior off. This totem is a HUGE damage boost for meleeists, but it can be undependable. If you're warrior-heavy, it's great. If you're rogue-heavy, Grace of Air and Flametongue are probably a better choice.

Nature Resistance is exactly what it sounds like. Note that it also affects poison resists, which makes it slightly more versatile than the other two resistance totems.

Tranquil Air is new, as of 1.9. It's an AOE aggro reduction.. but be VERY CAREFUL where you put it. You don't want your party's warrior to fall into the AOE while the priest doesn't. This is the best air totem to drop if you're heavy on the back-lines, but again: be careful with it.

Finally, Sentry Totem. Buh? You might say? Of what use is this? Battlegrounds. Watch the tunnel and the main room in WSG, or keep a clear view of the mine in AB. This is a useful and underestimated totem.

Air in summation: After some of the other elements, air is an embarassment of riches. There are MANY good choices here, and your party composition will influence the decision quite a bit. Keep grounding close at hand for solo play.

Warrior

Murglor's Guide to Tanking

(Or, 'Ow to Make Monsters Kick Yer Ass Even If Ya Can't Do Damage Worth Squat)

Now, I know Murglor doesn't do too much standin' in front of things gettin' hit fer the good o' the unit these days, but the ol' brain hasn't lost a beat. Listen well, and you'll get all the battle scars an' broken bones yer heart could possibly want.

So what, ya might be askin', is this Tankin' thing I'm chatterin' about? Well, it's a fine an' ancient art, which we call Tankin' on account of it's hard and t'ankless work, except when certain young Orc lasses 'ear about yer bravery and give ya a special kind o' thanks, like this one time in Redridge when - ah, well, ya won't be needin' to hear the details on that one. Anyway, Tankin' is all about makin' a enemies waste their time an' energy chewin' through yer thick armor rather'n just chompin' up the Mage lightin' 'em on fire or the priest keepin' ya alive.

The bad news is, ya gotta work at it. Unlike the sissies runnin' around in their dresses (and certain good-lookin' ol' Orcs what learned they like givin' more than takin', and got an 'ost of dirty ol' tricks to get it done), ya ain't exactly gonna strike terror into the 'earts o' monsters with yer fearsome attacks. All things bein' equal, the monster's gonna go straight after the person 'urtin' it most.

The good news is, all that pricy warrior trainin' isn't a complete waste. Ya got a lotta skills that'll piss a monster right off, no matter 'ow much actual 'arm ya do with 'em.

Let's go over the basics, eh?

Sunder Armor: think ya paid a lot fer that shiny suit o' plate or mail? Just imagine ya gotta grow it back whenever it gets busted. Monsters don't much like it when ya tear up their defenses, and makin' yer friends kill the bugger faster ain't exactly a bad thing neither. If ya ain't done this to a mob yet, do it - and a few more times fer good measure. Sunder armor is the meat an' potatoes o' the noble Tankin' profession.

Revenge: there ain't nothin' a monster 'ates more than bein' denied a tasty snack and then slapped upside the snout fer 'is trouble. Revenge ain't gonna be available all the time, but ya'd better use it when it is so ya don't miss the chance. It's got a damn big effect for 'ow little Rage it costs.

Shield Block: let's face it, shields ain't what they used to be. They're all well an' good for the pansies o' the monster world, but real enemies'll laugh 'em off and go straight through 'em. Still, this nifty little trick is the best way to make sure ya get a chance to fire off Revenge - no sense usin' it early in a fight, when ya still gotta use Sunder Armor to get the bugger's attention and Rage is 'ard to come by, but it's not bad later on.

Heroic Strike: it ain't very good. Oh, yeah, a warrior what thinks 'e's some sort o' rogue'll use it a lot, but that's not tankin'. Rage doesn't do no good at all if ya ain't usin' it, and this is one way to use up extra rage, but that's about it.

Taunt: now we're talkin'. This skill will get ya a monster's attention for a bit, but ya gotta smack 'im a few times if ya want it to stick once the stuff ya said about 'is mother starts to fade from memory. Great for lockin' down an enemy that's nearly dead so ya can start poundin' 'is friend, too.

Bloodrage: ya might not think this is a skill for tankin', but trust Ol' Murglor on it. Every point o' free rage ya get is good for about 5 points o' actually smackin' an enemy around, and then ya get to use the rage to piss off the enemy some more.

Last Stand: not every warrior is gonna have this skill, but it's a good one. Ya see, the first part o' tankin' is makin' sure the monster's attackin' ya instead o' yer friends. But the other part - and it's an important part - is stayin' alive. Last Stand gives ya a quick 'eal, good for 1/3 of yer life, but it's the sort o' first aid that isn't wasted if one of yer priest friends does get a spell in at the same time. It generates a fair bit o' fury from the monsters, and for a little bit, you're even tougher than ya were before usin' the skill.

Now, let's talk about puttin' it all into practice. First, I'm gonna talk about keepin' just one monster on you an' not lads in fine dresses.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

Macros and Interface Tricks

Languages

You may have noticed that some of us like to assault the guild chat with various languages! If you've ever wanted to discuss the succulence of a party member's braaaains with your fellow undead in privacy, click on the speech bubble in your chat tab. You should see a set of headings pop up; one of them is language. Just pick the language in which you'd like to speak, and chat normally.

Orcish is the common language of the Horde, and the only one we all can understand. It's also the only language orcs can speak, making you green lot subpar conspirators. Trolls, Undead and Tauren all have the option of speaking Orcish and their racial language.

Currently, there is no way to learn languages other than the ones available to your race by default.

Macros

Scripting macros is easy. To access your macro menu, type /macro. You should see a screen with (now) two divisions. General macros apply to all your characters, character-specific ones only to the toon in question. Hit New Macro, choose an icon, and type in a name. Then, in the box at the bottom of your macro screen, type in the commands you wish to script. You now have an icon that can be dragged to your quickbar!

Text Macros

Need a macro to tell your party that you're in trouble? Perhaps a battlecry to strike fear into the hearts of quillboars? Easy as pie. Just type in a regular chat script.

For instance, if you're a squishy priest whose healing has aggravated beasties, macro something like this to warn your party:

/p Healer has aggro!

Or, if you're the bloodthirsty type, you can broadcast a battlecry for all around you to hear. The %t below is a switch that will return the name of your target:

/s Prepare to die, %t!

It's possible to combine a text macro with a skill to warn your party and do what you need to, like so:

/s I'm sheeping %t
/Cast Polymorph

Trash Sales

Activate this macro while talking to a vendor, and it will search your bags and sell all grey items in your possession. A god-send.

/script for bag = 0,4,1 do for slot = 1, GetContainerNumSlots(bag), 1 do local name =
GetContainerItemLink(bag,slot); if name and string.find(name,"ff9d9d9d") then
DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("Selling "..name); UseContainerItem(bag,slot) end; end; end

Useful Mods

www.curse-gaming.com is your best source of interface mods for WoW. If you have favourites, list them here:

Auctioneer allows you to database the auction house, and then see average buyouts, vendor sell prices and the like in the tooltip when you mouse over an item. HIGHLY recommended.

Clique is a mouse-binding addon that lets you use mouseclick combinations directly with your raid frames.

Cosmos/Khaos is a very popular user interface package that includes a vast array of neat features including auction tracking, mob health tracking etc. However, Cosmos makes extensive custom modifications to the user interface and frequently gets broken by patches.

CTMod is one of the more popular user interface packages and includes a number of useful but not necessary features such as tracking your HP/MP regeneration, chat time stamps, tracking locations of herbs and minerals, etc.

CTRaid from the makers of CTMod is a raid tracking program that helps you keep track of large raids. It's unecessary for lower levels where raiding is rare but higher end and end-game raid groups may encourage you to use it.

FlagRSP flags you as a roleplayer, and allows you to enter a description, a surname, and other such RP stuff.

Gatherer marks nodes you've visited (herbs, ore and chests) on your map, and remembers where they are.

Grid is an example of a raid frame addon. A great help for healers in raids to keep an eye on as many health bars as possible with the minimum amount of screen space used.

Scrolling Combat Text shows damage and effects with floating text that appears above your character, allowing you to track damage done/taken and the casting of special effects such as buffs or debuffs. Useful for warriors for the "Overpower" text that appears when enemies dodge, so you don't have to stare at your Overpower button all day.

Totem Timer Shaman-specific; allows you to see how much time is left before your dropped totems disappear.

WeaponSwap Best for warriors, but anybody can use it. Allows you to make macros to switch between multiple weapon loadouts at a single click. For instance, for a warrior to switch from a 2-hander to a 1-h and shield.

Related Software

Teamspeak or TS is a stand-alone software that works with multiple games to allow voice chat. Like CTRaid, it isn't needed at lower levels but well organized high-end instances and Battlegrounds groups will frequently use it.

Ventrillo, also known as Vent, is similar to TS but apparently less popular.