Warlords of Draenor Guide website

The biggest thing about Warlords of Draenor is the increased level cap to 100: farming even more experience and levels can be a tedious task and a huge time sink, and WoW is the kind of game which you truly start enjoying only when you hit the level cap. This guide includes a step-by-step leveling walkthrough with proven farming and grinding techniques which will get you to 100 in just a couple of short days of casual play, or even less if you’re truly dedicated: record leveling time with this guide so far is less than 10 hours of actual gameplay! It’s packed with juicy info on quests, bosses, areas, and dungeons, and it’s a must-read for anyone looking to level quickly in Warlords.

Killerguides Warlords of Draenor guide doesn’t stop at just leveling. There are many more chapters explaining different aspects of the game and revealing secrets very few players know. The guide is written by veteran players who already put in hundreds of hours into the expansion and know it’s intricacies. Below we’ll take a short look at the most important info and chapters in this guide.

Dungeons guide

Dungeons are some of the most fun encounters in World of Warcraft. Grabbing your friends or random players doesn’t have to be frustrating and take forever, as with the dungeon walkthroughs explained here you will know exactly what to do and how to efficiently and quickly clear any of the 7 new dungeons introduced in Draenor.

Raids guide

You can finally feel more confident about joining raids with comprehensive guides on bosses and their strategies. New raids in Warlords of Draenor are harder than ever and it’s crucial you come prepared. Also included are guides for beating raids in the new Mythic difficulty, and if you’re into high end raiding with your guild this part will be invaluable.

Garrison mode guide

The constant onslaught of orcs requires having an efficient Garrison to hold them back. With Killerguide you will have the exact blueprint to building an impenetrable fortress and be on a fast track to unlock all the special items and prestige that comes with it. Eventually you can even become a master Garrison manager and boost your own character’s power and wealth, so be sure to not skip this part!

PvP guide

PvP has been one of the most energizing and ludicrously fun aspects of World of Warcraft for years. With Warlords of Draenor a new cross-realm PvP zone called Ashran opens up, which gives the opportunity for hundreds of players to fight each other simultaneously. This massive scale player versus player encounter makes it hard to coordinate everything correctly but every single player participating can make a huge difference in the outcome of the battle, which is why knowing the map objectives, key points in the zone and other tactics can be invaluable to anyone trying to compete in Ashran.

Gold guide

Making gold has been a fundamental problem for majority of the population. Unless you’re bringing vast riches from previous expansions (or even if you’re looking to increase it), this guide will prove invaluable. Gold makes character development so much easier, as you can obtain some of the best gear and enchants more easily and sooner than most other can. This guide provides various gold-making tactics and strategies for increasing your riches, and it’s highly efficient with your time. Whether you want a 10-minute gold boost or a sustained long-term income, the guide has you covered. And best of all, you will never have to resort to any grinding which can be incredibly tedious and boring.

All of the above is not the end of this all-in-one strategy guide though. It includes other chapters as well which explain every new feature introduced in the expansion, as well as old ones. If you’re curious to find out which talents are most effective, how new character builds work out in PvP or dungeons, or which item sets are the new must-have, this guide will tell it all. For anyone looking to get the most out of their play time in World of Warcraft the Killerguides Warlords of Draenor guide is essential to staying competitive, learning the game quickly, and actually enjoying it!

This feral druid PvP guide, written by Natz from Hellfire-EU will surely help you get familiarized with the class in the 9th arena season.

Contents:

1. Acronyms and PvP Terms
2. Reasons to Play Feral
3. Professions
4. Talents and Glyphs
5. Keybinds
6. Stats and Gems
7. Viable Arena Setups
8. Feral Playstyle
9. Macros
10. Random General Stuff

1. Acronyms and PvP Terms

Before I get started on the actual guide, you should know what certain things actually are in pvp, such as “Crowd Control” next to that, you can also find acronyms that I’ll use later in the guide here. The pvp terms im quickly explaining here are very basic, so for a more experienced pvp’er it’s best to skip these.

CC – Crowd control: This is the term that players use that describes everything that makes you loose (partial) control of your character. For example: Cyclone, Sheep, Entangling roots, Fear and Kidney Shot are all forms of CC’s.

DR – Dimishing Returns: After you CC a player, he will suffer from DR so you cant control him endlessly. DR means that the second CC you land will have a shorter duration then the first one. The first CC will have 100% duration, the second wil have 50% duration, and the third 25%. After this, the player will be immune to that type of crowd control. The effect of DR ends 15 seconds after your CC ends.

For example: You sheep player A and he is sheeped for 10 seconds. 2 seconds after that you sheep him again, and it’s now a 5 second duration.
Or: You sheep player A and he is sheeped for 10 seconds. 25 seconds later (15 seconds after he leaves the sheep) you sheep him again, and he is sheeped for 10 seconds once again.

Next to this, some spells share DR with eachother, even though they’re different spells. Fear and blind have this for example. If you blind a person directly after a fear, the DR effect will cause it to be only 50% of it’s duration. A full list of CC’s that share DR with eachother can be found here: http://www.wowwiki.com/Diminishing_returns.

LoS – Line of sight: If the direct sight of you on another player is blocked by a pillar, or something similar – you are out of LoS and won’t be able to cast on that player, and his casts wont land on you either. LoS is often used to prevent from getting CC’d. If you see a player cast a CC on you, you can quickly step behind a pillar and the cast will not land on you.

Peel/peeling – Peeling using abilities, like maim or cyclone, to control or slow an opponent. This is mostly used to prevent them from doing damage – so your team can recover from damage taken.

GCD – Global cooldown: The GCD is the time it takes for you to be able to use your next ability after using an instant cast. The GCD is 1.5 seconds for everyone exept: Rogues, Ferals in catform and Death knights in unholy presence.

Then some feral acronyms that are often used ingame and on forums:

• FB – Ferocious Bite
• SI – Surviving Instincts
• SR – Savage Roar
• BS – Barkskin
• FR – Frenzied Regeneration

2. Reasons to Play Feral

Feral has always provided a unique playstyle, combining the attacks from a rogue with the utility from a frost mage. Ferals are, and have always been, an amazing support class. Now, in Season 9, ferals have also gotten tools so they can play very aggressive, and drop healers on their own.

If this isn’t enough reason, feral druids also have one of the most awesome communities of all specs. If you plan to play a feral, don’t forget that old school ferals don’t play a feral, but ARE a feral. This is mostly because of ferals being dogshit for a very long time. Unfortunately, the spec is good now and was pretty good in Wotlk as well, so this is slowly changing.

3. Professions

There’s not a big difference between professions anymore, but these are the ones you do NOT take.

• Herbalism: Haste isn’t very good for feral, so you don’t want to take this!
• Mining: Stamina is nice, but it’s definitely not great.
• Skinning: Crit is a great secondary stat, but it’s just not good enough with other professions giving agility.

Next to this there is a debate of engineering at the moment. The main use of it seems to be rocket gloves, wich do quite low damage. I personally still really like rocket gloves though, but not for the damage component. You can use the rocket gloves to quickly kill a grounding totem, or maybe get down a spell reflect. This can save you a GCD, and getting a cyclone off 1 GCD sooner can be game breaking.

I think all other professions are a good choice as well at the moment. But Leatherworking seems to give the biggest benefit to ferals at the moment.

4. Talents and Glyphs

Ferals only have a few floater points at the moment, but we all start of with the same basic talent spec:

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZfrMcRzrdbczMcz

There’s dozens of small variations possible though. Some people prefer not to take “Primal Madness” and get some extra survivability instead. I’m personally running with the following spec: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZfrMcRdrdrczMcz. If you are facing a lot of wizard cleaves on your battlegroup, and you are dying against them, I would recommend the following spec: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZfrMckdrzrczMcu. In the end it really comes down to what talent you prefer though!

For the glyphs, it’s quite straightforward as well, but there are always options to be made!

Prime:

• Glyph of Berserk: Increases the duration of Berserk by 5 sec.
• Glyph of Mangle: Increases the damage done by Mangle by 10%.
• Glyph of Rip: Increases the periodic damage of your Rip by 15%.
• Glyph of Savage Roar: Your Savage Roar ability grants an additional 5% bonus damage done.
• Glyph of Shred: Each time you Shred, the duration of your Rip on the target is extended by 2 sec, up to a maximum of 6 sec.
• Glyph of Tiger’s Fury: Reduces the cooldown of your Tiger’s Fury ability by 3 sec.

Again it’s a bit dependent on your personal preferences which ones you take here. Two of them are really standard though. Almost every feral you see will be using Glyph of Berserk and Glyph of Rip. Glyph of rip speaks for itself, extra damage on our top damage ability. Glyph of Berserk is something that you’ll only see in PvP though. In PvE this glyph isn’t considered great, because you run out of energy after 15 seconds uptime on a boss, even with berserk. However, in PvP it’s very unlikely you’ll be able to get the full 15 seconds uptime on your target, meaning you’ll usually have energy left after those 15 seconds, that you can use on cheaper attacks thanks to this glyph. And 5 seconds extra fear immunity isn’t bad either of course!

For the third pick, I would choose between Mangle or Tiger’s Fury. The savage roar and shred glyph are both great as well, but only if you get a lot of uptime on targets, and can do a nice rotation into them, like the PvE’ers do! If you end up mangling a lot in games, use the mangle glyph – otherwise go for Tiger’s Fury.

Major:

• Glyph of Entangling Roots: Reduces the cast time of your Entangling Roots by 100%, but increases its cooldown by 5 sec.
• Glyph of Feral Charge: Reduces the cooldown of your Feral Charge (Cat) ability by 2 sec and the cooldown of your Feral Charge (Bear) ability by 1 second.
• Glyph of Thorns: Reduces the cooldown of your Thorns spell by 20 sec.
• Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration: While Frenzied Regeneration is active, healing effects on you are 30% more powerful but causes your Frenzied Regeneration to no longer regenerate HP
• Glyph of Ferocious Bite: Your Ferocious Bite ability no longer converts extra energy into additional damage.
• Glyph of Barkskin: Reduces the chance you’ll be critically hit by melee attacks by 25% while Barkskin is active.

One easy pick here; Glyph of Entangling Roots. This glyph is so amazingly overpowered that you always want to use it! Be careful though, the roots still use your instant nature spell proc you gain from combo points.

After that most ferals go for Glyph of Charge – shorter cooldown on such an important ability is great to have. The third glyph is hardest though, Thorns does great damage – but has limited use against most teams. But if you happen to face a feral/rogue/x team it’s really insanely awesome.

Frenzied Regeneration glyph used to be horrible, but after the nerf on the healing it does, it’s something I’ll have to check. The problem with this glyph is that you usually need to use cooldowns because your healer is CC’d, and if he’s CC’d he doesn’t heal, so you don’t gain anything out of it unless you live long enough to receive heals again.

Glyph of Ferocious Bite is something that depends on the situation again. In some situations an opponent is low on HP and you want a big fat ferocious bite to finish him off. In other situations you rather save that energy to build up new combo points with. I’m planning to try it out a bit more, but at the moment it doesn’t seem to great.

And last, Glyph of Barkskin. In my opinion the best pick at the moment, purely because of the damage warriors can put out. When warrior’s get toned down I think I’ll swap it out again, because melee is something ferals can deal with very well!

Minor:

Really easy! You’ll want to use Dash, Mark of the Wild and Aquatic form. If you’re tanking in the same spec, swap out MotW or Aquatic form for Challenging roar.

5. Keybinds

Out of all specs, ferals have the biggest need for keybinds. If you’re clicking it becomes even harder to get behind your target, and shred. If you are still clicking, swap to keybinds as soon as you can! I used to click myself as well, and swapping to keybinds really makes a huge difference.

6. Stats and Gems

As a feral druid there really are 2 main stats that you want to have: Agility and Resilience. Next to these the other stats relevant for feral pvp are (in order of importance):

• Spell Penetration
• Hit
• Mastery
• Crit
• Haste
• Expertise

Your goal with gearing up is to get pieces with agility on them, strength is good as well – but agility is better (an epic strength ring is usually better then a rare agility ring). Next to this you want to avoid haste and expertise as much as you can. If you happen to get it anyway, that’s what you want to reforge into something else.

There is caps for hit and spell penetration you want to hit, so you don’t miss, or get spells resisted. For hit this is 5% – 600 hit , and you’ll also need 97 spell penetration. Once you have hit these caps, you can completely ignore these stats, because they’re now your worst. As a feral, there is no spell penetration on gear – so to hit the spell penetration cap, you’ll need to use 2x 50 spell penetration gems. Conveniently, these go into blue sockets and can be used to activate socket bonuses.

To get to the hit cap, you’ll want to reforge stats to hit. You can also gem hit – but one point of agility is twice as good as one point of mastery – so if you gem hit you’ll be wasting damage! I generally go with the following setup:

• Red: 40agility or 20agility/20resi
• Yellow: 20agility/20resi, or 40resi
• Blue: 50spellpen, 20agi/20hit or 20resi/20hit if spellpen capped, and 20agi/30stam or 20resi/30stam if hit and spellpen capped.

The metagem is the hardest to choose. The best metagem for us is the Relentless Earthsiege Diamond, but the gem requirements are hard to hit. That’s why I swapped to the Fleet Shadowspirit Diamond, giving 54 mastery and movement speed increase. If you can get the gem requirements for the Relentless metagem – use that one instead. Other options are:

• Effulgent Shadowspirit Diamond (82stamina 2% less spell damage taken)
• Powerful Shadowspirit Diamond (82stamina and 10% les stun duration on you)
• Destructive Shadowspirit Diamond (54 crit and 1% chance to reflect spells)

7. Viable Arena Setups

I’ll be updating this with the most common feral setups, and how they work, so it’s easier for you to find a combo you like. With the season just starting it’s a bit hard for me to see what comps are good right now, so I’ll list the 3 most common feral comps of the past seasons.

1: Feral/Mage/healer

This comp used to be played with a priest, but with priests being crap right now you’ll probably want to replace the priest with a paladin or restoshaman. This is my old combo, and I personally think it’s the most fun feral setup by far! This setup gets its kills out of long CC chains on the opponents healer, meaning that you will need good coordination with your teammates, about who CCs what opponent and what time. I expect this combo to do really good this season, with both feral/mage being very strong classes at the moment.

2: Feral/Warrior/Paladin

A strong combo that simply does an awful lot of damage. It’s the least CC based combo a feral can play. With the paladin keeping your warrior mobile, and your ability to shift from snares, it can always keep up a high amount of preasure, slowly forcing cooldowns and eventually get a kill.

3: Feral/Rogue/Healer

I’ve always seen this as a “pop all cooldowns in the first minute and hope something dies” kind of combo, even though it also did a good job at outlasting teams back in WotLK. In Cataclysm however, I don’t see how a rogue/feral/healer team is going to outlast players. If you want to play a zergcomp, I would go for this.

8. Feral Playstyle

Playing Offensive

Ferals have a priority system. Our bleeds a do a lot more damage if you have Mangle up you’ll want it on a target when you’re hitting it. Shred does more damage on targets that are bleeding. Don’t Shred till Rake or Rip is on the target. Our finishing moves, Rip and Ferocious Bite, are designed to be used on 5 combo points. Using Rip on anything less is a waste. If you need fast damage, a 3 or 4 point Ferocious Bite can be used instead of waiting on Shred energy.

Those are the basics. After that the talents come into play. Tiger’s Fury also increases our damage by 15% for 6 seconds, next to restoring 60 (80) energy. Bleeds applied during this increased damage effect, will profit from it for their entire duration! Meaning, that if it’s possible – you should apply your bleeds during Tigers Fury – allowing you to create more preasure afterwarts. Don’t use Tiger’s Fury for the extra damage though! It’s an energy generator, so use it on 25 or less energy. And, do not use it at all if you think it will be good to have 10 seconds later.

Another important talent is Stampede, giving you a free Ravage after you charge an enemy. There are several uses for this. If you charge someone before you open or when they’re running away, you can use it there for extra combo points. Make sure to use something else first though. If you’re on 100 energy and you use it, you’re wasting the energy that could have been regenerated if you used another global first. I generally hit Rrake first, then Mangle and Ravage after that. You can’t use it much later, because Ravage also gets 50% increased crit chance against players above 80% hp.

Next to all this it is VERY important to not just mindlessly spam abilities. It’s a good idea to keep your energy high for when you can create preasure. And even if you are creating preasure, make sure to save energy so you’re able to kick at all times.

Next to saving energy for kick, there’s another thing you should do if you’re getting used to feral PvP. Our Kick has 13 yard range, and combined with our 145% movement speed, it’s a really good kick. Always keep an eye on the opponents healer position, so you can kick his heals – even if you’re not hitting him but his partner! You should always try to keep the enemies healer partners close to him, so you can kick the heals. If you know you won’t need your kick, you can also use it as a small gap closer.

One of the most important parts of playing aggressive, is your CC. Being a feral druid, your damage has a small ramp up time. The damage starts to come when your bleeds are up. That’s why, generally, you wait with CC’ing their healer until their partner is bleeding. If you CC him before that, you wont do as much damage and the healer will be on DR, making you cause a lot less preasure. If you throw a Cyclone after you get Rip/Rake up, those bleeds are ticking already while you’re cycloning and you regenerate energy even though you’re not in catform. Causing you to hardly loose any damage, exept 3 autoattacks.

And as last point for aggressive play, Savage Roar. Savage Roar gives quite a bit of extra damage, but not enough for you to have in a standard opener anymore. However, if you have spare combo points on a target you’re not hitting anymore – use them for savage roar. If you got combo points on a target and you’re trying to restealth, use Savage Roar just before you restealth. This way you’ll get a fair bit of extra preasure out.

Playing Defensive

There are 2 categories of defensive play. The first one involves keeping yourself alive, the second one is keeping your partners alive.

As a feral you’ve got a lot of ways to peel for your partners. Your options are:

1. Cyclone
2. Entangling Roots
3. Mangle slow
4. Feral Charge immobilize
5. Cat or bear stun
6. Taunt

You can’t use everything in the same situation though. If you’re partner is running away from a melee class, or trying to LoS a caster following him – root or charge is your best bet. But when your partner is stunned by a melee that is already hitting him, rooting won’t do a damn thing! Cyclone is by far the safest peel you can use. Always be prepared for an opponent trinketting though. It’s often a good idea to cast a second cyclone immediately after your first one if your partner is in a lot of trouble. 4/5 times they’ll trinket and get right into another cyclone. After that you got some times to run up there, and use Bash. This should give your partner plenty of time to get away, especially if you give them a quick movement speed increase with stampeding roar.

And, I wasn’t joking about taunt. You can Taunt or Challenging Roar most pets, which will then attack you for the duration. It used to be like that at least, this might have been patched. Will try to find out about that as fast as I can!

Now that your partners are still alive, it’s time to look after yourself. Most of the peels described above will also work to peel of yourself. But, because you’re a feral – it gets a bit easier. The best thing to do to keep yourself alive, is to be close to a pillar at all times. This way you’ll only need a small window to pop behind a pillar on your own, and throw some quick heals to get decent HP again. If you’re far away from a pillar, a nice trick is to charge a hostile player, totem or pet that might be near a pillar, and run around the corner there. Make sure you keep your healer up to date about what’s going on if you’re doing this though!

If you can’t get away, and your healer is CCd it’s often smart to go bear form – especially against melee. You’ll take a bit les damage from your talents and higher armor, and you can use an extra defensive cooldown: FR is best used under 30% hp, because it restores hp up to 30% hp instantly. Keep in mind that trying to save it very long can kill you as well though. If your healer is free to cast, it’s usually better to stay in catform. You’ll take 20% extra healing in catform, and you also get combopoints to use on instant casts. When im getting close to dying, I often just Savage Roar on low combopoints hoping to get a lifesaving instant proc.

9. Macros

I’m using a couple of macros which I find useful myself, mostly are focus target macros. If you use other macros just leave them in a post and I’ll add them.

Kick

Uses the right kick for the form you’re in:

#show Skull Bash(Cat Form)
/cast [stance:1] Skull Bash(Bear Form); [stance:1] Skull Bash(Bear Form);
/cast [stance:3] Skull Bash(Cat Form); [stance:3] Skull Bash(Cat Form);

One click snarebreaker

#showtooltip
#show
/cast [stance:1] !Dire Bear Form; [stance:4] !Travel form; [stance:3] !Cat Form; [stance:5]

This will shapeshift you out and back in the form you where already in without delay, breaking snares.

#showtooltip
/cast [target=focus] [stance:1] Feral Charge - Bear;[stance:3] Feral Charge – Cat

Focus macros

#showtooltip
/cast [target=focus] [stance:1] Feral Charge - Bear;[stance:3] Feral Charge – Cat

• /cast [target=focus] Cyclone
• /cast [target=focus] Entangling Roots
• /cast [target=focus] Hibernate (really helpful against resto druids)
• /cast [target=focus] Faerie Fire (Feral) – nice against warlocks to prevent Dispels from his Felhunter on, for example, Fear or Sheep
• /cast [target=name] Remove Curse – change “name” with whoever you want to be able to dispel fast
• /cast [target=name] Innervate – Because hitting the wrong target and innervating myself is just so stupid…

#showtooltip
/cast [target=focus] [stance:1] Feral Charge - Bear;[stance:3] Feral Charge – Cat
#show Skull Bash(Cat Form)
/cast [stance:1, target=focus] Skull Bash(Bear Form); [stance:1] Skull Bash(Bear Form);
/cast [stance:3, target=focus] Skull Bash(Cat Form); [stance:3] Skull Bash(Cat Form);

10. Random General Stuff

Just writing random general stuff here that didn’t seem right or important enough to write somewhere else.

• Feral charge cat is an insanely fun spell. You can use it to jump up ledges if an enemy is there, and even better is that you can jump down, and charge back up while your enemy is following you. If you do this right, you’ll be on top again and he’ll be below you.
• Practice makes perfect. Hopefully this guide helped a bit as well, but in the end it’s just a wall of text. In game practice is what teaches you the most.
• Don’t forget about your racials. Unless you’re a Worgen that is, your racial is so useless you might as well forget about it!
• Duels – will add some dueling tactics after I’ve dueled more!
• Comp specific tactics I hope some other druids can add, because I myself can only play one comp on my feral due to being on a shitty realm.

If you spot anything that’s wrong, or you think should be added, please say so!

Contents:

• Entrance Location
• Notable Trash
• Boss Guides
  • General Umbriss
  • Forgemaster Throngus
  • Drahga Shadowburner
  • Erudax

ENTRANCE LOCATION

Notable Trash

After clearing two or three trash groups, you will notice a number of dragons that are tied down. Free them for the next stage.

It is now possible to ride these drakes. When you mount them, your action bar will change, like any other vehicle. You will only have one attack, the dragon’s breath.

Press 1 on your keyboard then click on the ground to shoot your flame breath. As you fly over the instance, use the breath to damage all of the trash between there and the final boss. It is possible, if planned perfectly, to kill all of the trash in the instance except those directly by the forge, and the last boss. Usually however, you’ll damage most groups to about half HP, possibly killing one or two. Either way, the more effectively you use the dragons, the faster the rest of the instance will be.

BOSS GUIDES

General Umbriss

Abilities:

• Bleeding Wound – Deals weapon damage as well as an additional ~10,000 Physical damage every 2 seconds for 10 seconds or until the target is healed to at least 90% health.
• Blitz – General Umbriss charges an enemy location, dealing physical damage and knocking them up if impacted!
• Frenzy – General Umbriss goes into a frenzy, increasing his attack speed by 50% and his Physical damage by 50%.
• Ground Siege – Inflicts 60,000 Physical damage to all players and stuns them for 4 seconds.

Notes:

Heal the Bleeding Wound targets quickly.

1. Spread out to avoid multiple players getting hit by Blitz.
2. One of the adds spawned will be larger than the others, and purple in colour. This add must be killed away from the boss, or it will cause him to frenzy. Do this by either having a DPS taunt it, stun it away from the boss, death grip, Distracting shot, whatever works to get that add away from the boss.
3. This is the key component of the fight, as when he frenzies, a blitz will one shot even a Tank.

Forgemaster Throngus

Abilities:

• Disorienting Roar – The Disorienting Shout decreases cast and attack speed by 50% per charge, depleting a charge every time an ability is cast. Starts with 3 charges.
  Impaling Slam – Charges an enemy, impaling it and inflicting 19500 to 20500 Fire damage every 1 sec for 5 sec.
• Mighty Stomp – The Mighty Stomp creates a Cave In.
• Pick Weapon – The Forgemaster ponders which weapon he wants to use to bludgeon his enemies.
  • Mace – Throngus gains Encumbered, reducing his movement speed by 70%, but increasing his physical damage by 300%.
  • Shield – Throngus gains Personal Phalanx, decreasing damage taken from the front by 99%. Also summons Twilight Archers that cannot be targeted, but attack with Flaming Arrows.
  • Swords – Throngus gains Dual Blades, increasing his chance to hit by 20%, and giving each of his attack chance to gain 2 extra attacks.

Notes:

1. For Mace, have a hunter taunt, or simply kite the boss until the buff expires, dps will have to watch threat as the tank will get pounded trying to TPS.
2. For Shield, the boss will also breathe fire directed at a random party member, which will continue either until the shield buff expires, or no party members are standing in the flame. Constantly move from this ability as it hurts, a lot. Healer should switch to AoE heals as tank damage is minimal.
3. For swords, simply use a Tank or Healer cooldown to get through it. Tank and spank here.
4. Avoid the created cave ins, shown by the shower of rocks, much like the earth adds in VoA.
5. There are a pair of lone NPCs which patrol between certain mob groups. Pull them mid patrol, so they’re not next to any of the other groups. When agroed, they will summon a Twilight Drake to assist them, DPS it as per normal. Only thing to note here is the dragon spawns fire on the ground. Move out of it.

Drahga Shadowburner

Abilities:

Phase 1: 100% – 20%

• Burning Shadowbolt – Inflicts 14625 to 15375 Shadowflame damage.
• Invocation of Flame – Summons a Invoked Flaming Spirit that fixates on a target. When the Spirit reaches its target it causes a Supernova, inflicting 48750 to 51250 Fire damage in a 0 yard radius around the Spirit.
• Twilight Protection – Protected by the aura of the Twilight, Drahga takes 90% less damage!

Phase 2: 20%

• Devouring Flames – Devouring Flames inflicts 50000 Shadow damage every 1 sec, the damage is lower the further the target is from the origin of the Devouring Flames.
• Shredding Swipe – The brutal Shredding Swipe inflicts 100% weapon damage and tears a rift to the Twilight Realm.
• Twilight Shift – Valiona shifts into the twilight, allowing her to escape without harm!

Notes:

1. This is a two boss, two phase fight. The first boss is an NPC with less than a mil HP, he will die relatively quickly. Get him to 20% and he will spawn the 2nd boss with the usual expected HP. When this second boss is brought to 10%, it will fly away, and the first boss will return. The fight ends when his HP drops from the original 20%, to 0.
   Throughout the entire fight, the highest priority of DPS will always be the adds. Large fire elementals will spawn randomly throughout the room, and after a moment, target a random play and move towards them, much like the PP gases in ICC. Like the gases, run away from the adds until they pick their target (shown by a beam of orange flame) then burn them as fast as possible.
2. These adds have no agro table, and are susceptible to every trick in the book. Stuns, slows, knock backs, the works. Use anything available to stop the add reaching its target, as if it makes contact, it will deal upwards of 120k damage; an almost guaranteed 1 shot. This damage is AoE.

In phase 2:

1. Fire will spawn randomly throughout the room, and simply must be avoided, not a huge issue.
2. For the Tank, the boss will spawn a large pool of magma beneath the tank’s feet, and they must move out of this quickly. Be careful when moving, as you don’t want to move towards an add that has you targeted.
3. Devouring Flames is a mana drain on the healer more-so than a raid wiper. The group members have two options here. If you’re near the boss’ pivot point in the room, simply move behind it when it turns to cast devouring flames, however if you cannot make it within a few steps, move as far away from the boss as you can, as it does less damage the further away you are. The Tank should never be hit by this ability.

Erudax

Abilities:

• Binding Shadows – The Bindings Shadows drains 0 life every 5 sec and root players within 0 yards of the target for until cancelled.
• Enfeebling Blow – The Enfeebling Blow inflicts 75% weapon damage as Shadow damage, knocking the target back and causing their mind to become feeble.
• Shadow Gale – Channels a Gale of Shadows inflicting increasing Shadow damage over time to enemies that are not in the eye of the Shadow Gale.
• Summon Faceless Corruptor – Summons 2 Faceless Corruptors at the entrance of the room. The Faceless will try to run to any egg an use Twilight Corruption on it. On successful cast, the egg will spawn two Twilight Hatchlings. The Corruptors will also try to use Umbral Mending on Erudax. And finally, they will cast Siphon Essence.

Notes:

1. Enfeebling blow, when used on the tank, should be used as a period to kite the boss until the debuff expires.
2. The Faceless Corruptors’ healing spell that is cast on the boss can be interrupted.
3. These adds will only cast their spells when they reach their designated positions in the room and they have no agro table. They are immune to stuns, but slows are still effective. They should be burned quickly to avoid consequences, as the dps do not need to worry about pulling agro.
4. The eye of Shadow Gale is not definitively outlined; stand as close to the centre as you can to avoid excess ticks.
5. It is possible to DPS the boss while inside the gale, however threat may be an issue as the Tank may be unable to TPS the boss due to range issues.
6. Binding Shadows will root players with a magical debuff and drain their health. This lasts until the target is dispelled, or freed from the movement restriction by Hand of Freedom or equivalent. It is possible to avoid the transparent rotating cloud if you react fast enough.
7. The issue here will be two things, Healer mana, and boss HP. If the adds get their heals off, unless your DPS is insane, it’s almost a guaranteed wipe.

Players will need to be level 80 and find the entrance to Blackrock Caverns in order to use the Dungeon Finder for the instance. The entrance is just off of the main ring in Blackrock Mountain on the non-jumping path to Blackrock Spire. Head to the eastern side of the ring to see the summoning stone for Blackrock Spire and follow the path. As it turns north there is a blockade blocking the way. Look right to see the instance line.

Contents:

• Entrance Location
• Boss Guide
  • Rom’ogg Bonecrusher
  • Corla, Herald of Twilight
  • Karsh Steelbender
  • Beauty
  • Ascendant Lord Obsidius

ENTRANCE LOCATION

BOSS GUIDE

Rom’ogg Bonecrusher

Abilities:

• Call for Help – Rom’ogg calls for nearby minions to assist him.
• Quake – Inflicts 3,000 Physical damage every second to all players within 40 yards of Rom’ogg. Lasts 3 seconds.
• Wounding Strike – Inflicts 125% weapon damage to the current target and reduces healing done by 25% for 10 seconds.
• Chains of Woe – Summons Chains of Woe around all players, rendering them unable to move for 20 seconds or until the Chains are destroyed. Starts casting The Skullcracker immediately after.
• The Skullcracker – Inflicts ~100,000 Shadow damage to all players within 10-15 yards of Rom’ogg. Begins casting immediately after Chains of Woe. Has 8 seconds cast time.

Notes:

1. It is recommended you clear all of the adds near Rom’ogg before you engage him, this should avoid unnecessary deaths to adds.
2. Number One DPS priority in this fight is the Chains of Woe. The Boss will pull the entire group in next to him, and shackle them with Chains of Woe. Like bosses such as Blood princes, the chains have a shared health pool, so DPS whichever is closest (or furthest, Hunters).
3. As soon as Chains of Woe is cast, the boss will begin to cast The Skullcracker, which at lower tiers of gear, and even at higher ones, is a guaranteed, immediate, group wipe.
4. Kill the Chains, and then move at least 20 yards from the boss. This includes the Tank. The boss will not move while casting The Skullcracker, so make use of your boot enchants or talents, and get a running.
5. The boss will periodically summon a number of adds, these should be picked up by the Tank, and DPSed down. Lower kill order priority than Chains of Woe. DPS, watch your cleaves, the Tank’s job is hard enough as is.
6. Note, it is also possible to kill the adds using the boss’ Skullcracker. Doing so will require a well timed Frost Nova or other such effect, or some skilled positioning from the Tank.
7. A Cooldown, either from the healer or the Tank, is recommended, for Wounding Strike, as when combined with adds, this can and will cause issues.
8. Unless you have some extreme range, you’re going to be hit by Quake. Defensive cooldowns from the DPS are never a bad thing, especially in lower levels of gear. Save a wipe, save Healer mana.
9. The really really big mobs here have an attack which -must- be interrupted.
10. They are patrols to careful not to aggro one when dealing with another pack.

Corla, Herald of Twilight

Abilities:

• Aura of Acceleration – Increases the movement speed by 50% and attack speed by 100% of all Twilight Cultists within 50 yards of Corla.
• Dark Command – Inflicts 7,500 Shadow damage every second to a random player, and causes them to flee in terror. Lasts 4 seconds.
• Death Grip – Draws a random player to Corla.
• Drain Essence – Corla channels nether energies in a beam from the nether dragon’s corpse by the ceiling to the three Twilight Zealots. The beams stack Evolution on their target every second.
• Evolution – The target of the nether beams gains a stack of Evolution every second they stay in the beam. When Evolution reaches 100 stacks, players are affected by Twilight Evolution, and Zealots become Evolved Twilight Zealots.
• Twilight Evolution – Brings a player under Corla’s control, increasing their health by 600%. Lasts 5 minutes.
• Evolved Twilight Zealot – Twilight Zealots with 100 stacks of Evolution become Evolved. Evolved Zealots have Force Blast, Gravity Strike, Grievous Whirl, and Shadow Strike.

Notes:

1. The first thing you may notice is the Boss, accompanied by a trio of kneeling Zealots.
2. The aim with this fight is relatively simplistic, kill the boss and don’t let any of the adds evolve.
3. The Zealots are passive until they are evolved, and do not need to be Tanked.
4. It is recommended you eliminate the patrol that moves in front of the boss, down on the floor from the ramp before pulling the boss. If a fear gets off, you don’t want more mobs pulled.
5. For this fight you will need 3 volunteers, one for each Zealot.
6. What each person must do, is position themselves between the Zealots and the incoming purple beams. The beams will stack Evolution on the target closest to the origin. The aim here is to stop Evolution from reaching 100 stacks, on either the Zealots or players. Do this by moving in and out of the beam, resetting your stacks in between. The recommended number of stacks to look for is 75. Get to 75, and move out of the beam, let the Zealot take the stacks until yours reset, then re-enter the beam. Continue this until the boss is dead.
7. You will need to assign at least one person to watch for Dark Command. A 2 second cast, if this is not interrupted, it can spell almost instant disaster. Don’t let her complete the cast.
8. The Tank should attempt to hold the boss in front of the central Zealot, as this will allow any melee DPS who are controlling Evolution stacks, to also DPS the boss.
9. It is possible for a Healer to control stacks on a Zealot, and is recommended in situations where your group is heavy on Melee. It is also possible for the Tank to control the stacks on a Zealot; however this will take a lot of awareness and coordination and is only recommended as a last resort.
10. As a come all, end all; Iceblock and equivalents can be used to clear any Evolution stacks.
11. If an add transforms, or worse a team mate, it is almost a guaranteed wipe. Gravity Strike deals 60% of the target’s current HP as damage. It will never outright kill you, as with 1k HP it would do 600 damage, but combined with Shadow Strike, which deals 70,000 Shadow damage *from behind* the target… I think you get the picture.
12. If you get Death Gripped out of a beam you were interrupting, use this as a chance to reset your stacks. Do not immediately return to the add, as the timers on the Evolution stacks will differ, and you or the Zealot may well end up transforming.
13. You will notice here, a pair of roaming fire elementals and a vast number of silver ‘blobs’ all around the room.The two elementals must be killed, they are the ‘trash’. The blobs are Quicksilver.When an elemental is near a Quicksilver, the quicksilver will heat up, and form an NPC which acts as any other mobs and must be tanked.Pull the elementals back into the doorway, away from the majority of the Quicksilver. The the NPC, ignore the Quicksilver, as after a few seconds of the elemental being killed, the Quicksilver will re-harden back into a ‘blob’.

Karsh Steelbender

Abilities:

• Quicksilver Armor – Reduces all damage taken by 99%.
• Superheated Quicksilver Armor – Increases damage taken by 5% per stack. Melee attacks inflict 2,000 Fire damage per stack to everyone in the room. Lasts 12 seconds, refreshed with new applications. Stacks every second Karsh remains in the central pillar of molten metal.
• Cleave – Inflicts 110% weapon damage to players in front of Karsh.

Notes:

1. When looking at the boss before the pull, he will have Quicksilver Armor activated at all times.
2. Begin the pull with the boss on the far side of the room from the group, as this will cause him to run through the central pillar of Lava to reach the group, and spend very little time in the beam itself.
3. The boss needs to be pulled through the lava beam in order for the Quicksilver Armor to become Superheated, and allow DPS to commence.
4. Once heated, the boss’ armour remains heated for 12 seconds, before he will need to be re-dunked in fire.
5. The longer the boss is kept in the Lava, the more damage he will deal and receive. It is best to aim for something about 5 stacks. Too high and it becomes unhealable.
6. The boss cleaves. This is a responsibility of the DPS just as much as the Tank to make sure they’re not taking damage. Work with your Tank, not against them.
7. Whenever Superheated Quicksilver Armor drops off the boss, a wall of flame will erupt around the central circle of the encounter area. Be sure you’re not standing in it.
8. Pools of Lava will spawn beneath the feet of players. Much like Firefighter in Ulduar, simply stack the group up on one spot, and move in one direction whenever the lava spawns. This will stop it getting out of control. The Pools of Lava also have the same effect as the Lava Pillar in the centre of the room. The longer the boss stands in one, the more damage he takes and gives. This can either be a blessing or a curse, either way; don’t let him stand in a puddle or a pillar too long.
9. During the fight, a number of Flame adds will spawn, Unless you’re a Hunter or a Rogue, I’d recommend leaving these be until the Tank has them under control, then burn them.
10. Directly after the previous boss, there are a pair of trash groups on either side of the path onwards into the instance. It is recommended you pull these back into the area where you fought the previous boss, as a pair of fire elementals patrol next to the trash groups, and will agro on sight.
11. These groups contain casters, so either have a Hunter MD with the Tank standing a good distance back, or simply silence, Death Grip, etc to get them all within a workable area.

Beauty

Abilities:

• Berserker Charge – Charges a random player, inflicting ~17,000 Physical damage and knocking them back.
• Flamebreak – Inflicts ~12,000 Fire damage to all players within 10 yards, knocking them back.
• Magma Spit – Inflicts ~4,000 Fire damage to a random target, as well as another 4,000 every 3 seconds for 9 seconds. Explodes when removed.
• Terrifying Roar – Causes all players to flee in fear for 5 sec.

Notes:

1. Boss + 3 ‘Puppies’
2. CC Puppy on the left, and Puppy on the right. Preferably by first pulling them to near the entrance to Beauty’s chamber so they’re out of the way.
3. Kill the central Pup’. Then Kill the boss, remembering to reapply CC to the other Puppies.
4. Spread out to avoid Magma Spit hitting multiple targets.
5. You may wish to Tank the boss against a wall, so Flamebreak will not cause unnecessary boss movement.
6. Pretty basic “Tank ‘n’ Spank” with some CC thrown in to boot.

Ascendant Lord Obsidius

Abilities:

• Stone Blow – Inflicts 150% melee damage and knocks the target down.
• Thunderclap – Inflicts ~12,000 Physical damage to all players around Obsidius. Also reduces movement speed of the affected targets by 50% for 8 seconds.
• Twilight Corruption – Inflicts 8,000 Shadow damage every 2 seconds for 12 seconds.

Notes:

1. The Boss comes with bonus adds that are required to be kited.
2. There are 3 adds in total, which, when in melee range of their target, reduce the healing received by that target.
3. These adds are unusual, as they posses a buff labelled only as ‘Twitchy’. In short, rather than attack the target with the highest threat, like most other NPCs, they will attack the *latest* target to generate threat.
4. A DoT is highly recommended here, or a multi target ability like Multi-Shot. The Adds can be Slowed, Rooted, Stunned, etc. Use this to your advantage.
5. Periodically the boss will switch places and posses one of the adds being kited. The Tank must immediately retrieve the boss, while simultaneously avoid adding threat to the ex-boss, turned add, that must be pulled away from the group and kited.
6. Be careful when kiting too close to the boss,  Thunderclap will land you in trouble very quickly. Have a Hand of Freedom or equivalent ready just in case.
7. Twilight Corruption can be dispelled, and it is recommended to do so.

WHAT IS ALL THIS DEFENSE STUFF I’M HEARING ABOUT?

Defense is a statistic which has 2 uses. Firstly, the higher your defense is, the less likely that a mob can critically hit you. A plate wearing tank needs to have 535 Defense to be un-critable in heroics and 540 to become un-critable by Raid bosses. Secondly, Defense will raise your avoidance statistics just like Dodge and Parry, but by a lesser amount. That is why it is prudent to stack true avoidance instead of Defense once you reach 540.

CAN YOU BREAK DOWN THE MATH BEHIND DEFENSE RATING FOR ME?

Of course!

• Defense Rating is a statistic which is linked to Defense
• Try to think of Defense Rating as the building blocks of defense.
• A level 80 Paladin with no gear or buffs has 400 defense.
• In order to become un-critable you need 540 defense.
• 4.92 Defense Rating = 1 Defense.

Using these numbers, we can write an equation to tell us how much defense rating is needed to become un-critable.

((540-400)*4.92) = 689

So you need to add 689 Defense rating from gear and such to become un-critable by raid bosses. That being said, there is no downside to having Defense higher than 540, especially when true avoidance gear is hard to come by (Pre-Raid).

WHAT IS ALL THIS I HEAR ABOUT RESILIENCE?

Resilience does in-fact reduce your chance to be critically hit just like Defense. The problem is; that is all it does for a tank. Defense on the other hand reduces enemy critical strike chance as well as raises your avoidance stats.

The only resilience you should have on your gear is the PvP shoulder enchant. Ignore the resilience and still stack defense to 540. It’s not worth doing the math just because you want to tank a heroic an hour in advance. Wearing PvP gear in a PvE Environment is a bad habit.

WHAT DO I STACK AFTER I GET 540 DEF?

Start stacking Stamina and avoidance stats; Parry, Agility, Dodge and…. Block (good for heroic trash mobs, not so useful in ICC25). Strength is very useful but it comes naturally and doesn’t need to be focused on. Your aggro will be fine with the static Strength that is on all of your gear. Never Gem or Enchant for Strength.

Although Hit and Expertise are ‘good’ stats you should never gem/enchant for them. Every other tanking stat is more useful. Most of your threat is from magic damage. Missing a white auto attack won’t affect your tanking in any noticeable way.

The glyph of SoV is the only expertise you should go out of your way to get. The rest will come naturally is of little concern to tanks.

WHAT SEAL DO I USE?

For almost every encounter you want to use, Seal of Vengeance. There may be times when you will think to yourself, “Seal of (whatever) would work better here!”. Don’t bother, just use Vengeance and be happy that you’re getting a ton of expertise from the glyph. You did take the glyph didn’t you?

YEAH! WHAT ABOUT GLYPHS??????////SLASH/?QUESTIONMARK?/?

Relax pumpkin. Read on and be enlightened. There is some debate about the ‘best’ glyph combinations. What follows is a list of good tanking glyphs and a list of what glyphs I use personally.

• Glyph of Righteous Defense – You can use this until you get some hit on your gear, honestly, it’s not that great.
• Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous – It is just amazing for 90% of tanking. I never take it off. It makes those groups of 4 mobs stick to you like glue.
• Glyph of Divine Plea – Perfect for Tanking, No down-falls. Take this one.
• Glyph of Seal of Vengeance – ALMOST MANDATORY until upper tier raiding (10 expertise is huge).
• Glyph of Judgment – Meh choice really, it slightly increases single target threat.
• Glyph of Hand of Salvation – it isn’t as useful as you would think.
• Glyph of Avenger’s Shield – It is good for owning clothies in pvp, not useful otherwise.

This is my glyph setup: DP, HotR, SoV or HoS, SoV, RD depending on the situation. Don’t flip out if you see a tank with something else, individual tanks have… individuality. Besides, we can’t stop here. This is bat country. You can take whatever minor glyphs you want. Most people take Glyph of Sense Un-dead or Glyph of Invincible Auto-Tanking.

I THINK YOU MADE A MISTAKE WRECKY! YOU FORGOT TO LIST GLYPH OF CONSECRATION!

No, I didn’t. It screws up your rotation. Glyph of Consecration = Tanking Fail

WHAT BE THIS ‘ROTATION’ THOU SPEAKS OF??

Actually, it is quite simple. You are going to want to use what is lovingly referred to as the 969 rotation. If it is followed correctly, this rotation will produce the maximum amount of threat with a minimum amount of leakage.

Here is how you want to rotate your attacks; Pull with Avenger’s Shield.

Cast

• Holy Shield
• Hammer of the Righteous
• Consecrate
• Shield of the Righteous
• Judgment
• Repeat.

There is one catch to this however… You need to ALTERNATE between Shield of the Righteous and Hammer of the Righteous every full rotation to optimize your cool-downs for threat. I’m met some tanks who use a 2 button macro to tank. I DO NOT suggest you do this. Being a meat shield is as much about flexibility as it is about protection (No
Innuendo intended).

THAT’S A LOT OF CONFUSING INFORMATION TO ABSORB! CAN YOU DUMB IT DOWN FOR ME?

No.

WRECKY, I WOULD LIKE TO EXTEND TO YOU AN INVITATION TO THE PANTS PARTY.

No, thank you. I don’t wear or own pants.

DO I NEED ADDONS?

No, they are not required. That being said, some are very helpful. Here is a short list of what I use. Some are for Tanking some are for Banking, some are for Ranking and some are for Boss Encounters (bet’cha thought I was gonna end that in ‘anking…) You know you did, don’t lie, you ain’t gotta lie to kick it.

• Sexymap
• Omen Threat Meter
• Pally Power
• Deadly Boss Mods
• Recount
• Spartanui
• Bagnon

Seriously though: All game content can be cleared using the standard Blizzard UI. There is nothing in this game that REQUIRES Macros, Key-Binding or Add-ons. Those being said, if you want them, then by all means, use them (I do).

WHAT SPEC SHOULD I USE; ARMS, UNHOLY OR DISC?

There are numerous tanking specs which are all viable. Please refer to the official World of Warcraft Paladin forums for spec advice. I’m too old and too tired to list them all out here. If you absolutely require some spec advice please read the following AFTER checking out a few cookie cutter specs.

Here are some talent change suggestions from yours truly.

• Dropping Divine Sacrifice and Divine guardian and taking 3 points in Reckoning.

This is recommended for those of you who will never be raiding.

• Throwing another point into Divine Plea (This can be useful if you have mana problems. For most tanks though, 1 point is all that is needed.

WHY DID YOU TAKE SEAL OF COMMAND?

I took that seal for two reasons:

• It’s good to use in heroics because most mobs will die before they get 5 stacks of vengeance.
• Because you touch yourself at night.

WHY DID YOU TAKE ONE-HANDED WEAPON SPECIALIZATION?

I took that talent because my right hand is usually very busy whenever i’m on my computer and i just don’t have the ability to use both… Actually, I took it because it’s an amazing threat talent. Read the tool-tip very carefully. This talent increases ALL damage done when you have a 1-handed weapon equipped, not just weapon damage. It is a Flat increase in damage and threat for EVERY attack you have. It is just beautiful. As long as you have 1 point into Improved Judgments and you have all the actual Tanking talents (Damage Mitigation, Attacks that end in the word “Shield”, you will be fine).

TELL ME SOMETHING ELSE WRECKY!

My dog has no nose.

HOW DOES IT SMELL?

Awful.

COMON BUDDY, CAN YOU AT LEAST TELL ME WHAT TALENTS NOT TO TAKE?

I’ll try to help you. Here are some talents that look good at first glance but later
they end up stealing your jeans and burning a hole in your couch with a cigarette
before puking on your bed and hitting on your mother.

• Divinity (nothing but over healing)
• Stoicism
• Guardians Favor (Obviously)

THAT ADVICE IS USELESS. THANKS FOR NOTHING WRECKY, I DON’T THINK I LOVE YOU ANYMORE.

That’s fine, I want to see other people anyway, and you’ve really let yourself go. Just ignore PVP talents and you can’t go wrong.

CAN I TANK WITH A 2-HANDER?

hehehe… Oh, you are serious. Let me laugh harder! MWAHAHAHAHAHA! Leave the 2-handers to the DK tanks. Without a shield and one-handed weapon equipped the following attacks will NOT be available:

• Holy Shield
• Avenger’s Shield
• Shield of the Righteous
• Hammer of the Righteous

That is roughly 80% of your threat. Also you will become very squishy. Armor is THE most important tanking stat. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Armor negates more damage than anything else. What’s that? You don’t believe me? Go ahead check for yourself.

I’ll wait for you…

*Break for Milk and Cookies*

See? I told you so.

HOW MUCH STAMINA DO I WANT?

All of it.

I DON’T UNDERSTAND THAT.

You will.

SERIOUSLY THOUGH, WHY DON’T I WANT BLOCK AND BLOCK VALUE?

Because blocking 2K damage from a 19K hit isn’t going to keep you kicking. It’s better to avoid that damage all together. Holy shield and the static blocking stats on your gear is all the blocking potential you’re really going to need. There are tanks who disagree with this statement. If you want to follow their advice then by all means, do it. I won’t judge you (First and only paladin pun).

WHAT AURA DO I USE?

Devotion Aura.

HOW ABOUT RET AURA?

No. That was useful in Burning Crusade. Now it provides a -7.230×36012 increase in threat at the expense of a huge amount of mitigation.

WHERE CAN I GET MORE ADVICE ABOUT TANKING?

Here are some good resources for Pally’s of all specs.

• Maxdps.com
• Wowwiki.com
• Tankspot.com (Highly Recommended)
• Elitistjerks.com (Highly Recommended)
• I also highly recommend the orange chicken salad.

OK, I’M SOLD, WHAT GEMS DO I WANT?

Stamina gems.

HOW ABOUT AVOIDANCE GEMS?

Stamina gems.

I NEED TO ACTIVATE THE POINTLESS META ON MY UNCOMMON LEATHER DPS HELM, WHAT GEMS DO I USE?

Use spirit gems to activate your meta, use intellect gems for good socket bonuses. I’m kidding… You will want to use stamina gems and double-color gems that provide stamina and avoidance stats.

WHAT IS UP WITH YOU AND STAMINA? WHAT ABOUT BALANCE? WHAT ABOUT MITIGATION? WHAT ABOUT SOCKET BONUSES?

Stamina.

FINE… HOW ABOUT MY ENCHANTS?

Real tanks don’t use enchants but if you insist here is some advice. You are going to want Stamina enchants wherever possible. If you can’t get stamina on something then enchant for defense, agility or avoidance. For your weapon you get to choose between some under-powered enchants. Just take Mongoose if you want to look cool, Blade Ward if your rich or Black Magic if you are an idiot.

A weapon chain is decent if you can’t afford anything else or you are using a mining pick. I suggest you use the PVP enchant for your shoulders it is actually better than any PvE enchant. Ignore the resilience and love the stamina boost. Shield Spikes can be really useful at lower levels too.

WHAT META DO I WANT?

Stamina and armor is the choice that most tanks take.

HOW DO I GET TO CARNEGIE HALL?

Practice man… Practice.

IM A TAYLOR AND AN HERBALIST, IS THAT GOOD?

Not really. You can take Blacksmithing and Jewel-Crafting if you want maximum tanking potential. You can also take Mining for a stamina boost and Enchanting for some stamina ring enchants. It’s really not that important because the difference between the good tanking professions is a relatively small amount of stamina. The following professions provide some good tanking bonuses:

• Jewel-Crafting
• Blacksmithing
• Enchanting
• Mining
• Alchemy (More useful than you might think)

The other professions provide helpful stats and such, but they simply aren’t the best for a tank. Take them if you want. It’s not that big of a difference really. Honestly, JC is probably the best tanking profession. BoP Trinkets and Gems are hard-core baby!

DOES YOUR DOG BITE?

No.

*pets dog*

*dog bites*

I THOUGHT YOU SAID THAT YOUR DOG DIDN’T BITE!?

That’s not my dog.

WHERE CAN I GET SOME TANKING GEAR? I JUST HIT 80 AND I WANT TO BE A BEAST!

Go to the auction house:

• Buy the ‘Tempered Saronite Set’
• Buy a ‘Titansteel Shield Wall’
• Buy a ‘Tempered Titansteel Helm’
• Buy some green tanking rings, neck and cloak.
• If your insanely rich buy some ‘Spiked Death Dealers’

Buy any other tanking gear you can afford, there are many more pieces available than the ones I am listing. You can also buy good gear and enchants from the following reputation vendors:

• Son’s of Hordir
• Argent Crusade
• Wyrmrest Accord

Fill in the holes with stamina and strength gear. Gem and Enchant to 535 Defense, then gem and enchant for stamina. Now you can tank heroics… barely… Or, if you’re in a good guild you can have them carry your squishy butt through the following instances:

• Regular TotC (Trinket, Boots, Belt, Legs, Gloves)
• Regular HoL (Trinket)
• Heroic UK (Sword)
• Heroic VH (Legs, Trinket)
• Heroic OK (Bracers)
• Heroic AN (Trinket)
• Heroic UP (Sword)
• Heroic TotC (Neck, Sword, Helm, Shoulder, Ring)

Once you are geared enough from these heroics, it’s time to start buying Triumph Gear and running the 3 new instances which contain a lot of nice ilevel232 gear. Honestly, with the new Random Dungeon system and the amount of Triumph badges you can obtain, It is entirely possible to deck yourself out in 245‘s in 2-3 days.

THIS DK KEEPS DEATH-GRIPPING MY MOBS HALP!

First ask them politely to stop. If that does not work use hand of protection on them for a few pulls. If they still don’t stop then remind them that your queue time is 3-5 seconds. It also works for dps who can’t wait for mobs to reach you before they attack.

I HAVE 539 DEFENSE. ISN’T THAT GOOD ENOUGH TO TANK RAIDS? IT’S ONLY ONE POINT… HOW BAD COULD IT BE?

I suggest that you find a way to squeeze out that last point. Here is a video example of what can go wrong:

Defense, 540, ‘nuff said.

HOW DO I PULL A GROUP OF 4?

• Firstly, tell your DPS and healer to hold off until they all the mobs have been standing directly in front of you for 3-5 seconds.
• Cast Exorcism (not HoR, you should save that for taunting) on the one farthest to your right.
• Cast Avenger’s Shield on the one farthest to your left.
• Cast Holy shield.
• Cast Consecrate.
• Hammer of the Righteous when they all get close.
• Proceed with your normal rotation.

DUDE, I CAN’T HOLD AGGRO AT ALL! YOUR ADVICE SUCKS!

Turn on Righteous Fury. OH. Yeah.

I’M RUNNING OUT OF MANA AFTER EVERY PULL. SHOULD I PUT SOME INTEL GEAR ON?

No. Use Divine Plea and Blessing of Sanctuary and Judgment of Wisdom. Make sure you have 1 point into Spiritual Attunement and 2 points into Guarded by the Light. Having 2 points in Spiritual Attunement is overkill if you’re having mana problems but there is nothing stopping you if you want to slap another point in it.

DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING ELSE TO ADD?

Yes I do. With the addition of ‘The Trial of the Champion‘, you now have access to some very nice tanking epics which are WAY too easy to get. You should be running regular TotC non-stop until there is no more gear for you to get. Then you should switch to heroic and farm the shit out of that one too. That one instance has made gearing a fresh tank insanely easy.

You don’t have to farm Molten Core for 3 years to get a nice tanking sword anymore. Here is what I consider the MINIMUM for tanking raids. Do not expect to get into groups without these stats:

• 540 Def
• 28K Armor
• 35K Health (Un-buffed)
• 50% Avoidance (Combined Dodge and Parry)

Sadly, these are also the stats that most heroic groups are looking for. People are looking for geared and experienced tanks for emblem runs. They want a smooth run that takes no time or effort. In short, 90% of Random Heroic groups are extremely under-geared and expect to be carried. Deal with it, it’s nice to top the damage meters while tanking.

When in doubt, stack a lot of stamina. Chances are – if your sporting 35K health, your group isn’t going to give a darn what your avoidance is.
I agree that it is a sad state of affairs but regrettably, this is the way of the world… of Warcraft.

If you have followed this guide then your fresh 80 tank should now be geared/experienced enough to run all heroic instances and all 10 man raids (excluding ICC and hard modes) As well as the majority of 25 man raids. You should now be well on your way to kicking the Lich King right in his small sensitive ice cubes.

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Author: Wrecky

World of Warcraft is currently the most played MMORPG game with nearly 12 million players and growing every day. Cataclysm will surely bring a lot of new players to the servers and without a doubt change the entire World of Warcraft. If you want to prepare yourself for the World of Warcraft Cataclysm quests, classes, dungeons and other features be sure to check out the leveling and strategy guides below.

1. Zygor WoW Leveling Guide

Rating: ★★★★★ 

No doubt the most popular and well known leveling guide for World of Warcraft is the one from Zygor. Zygor is a recognizable brand and rightfully so, because his WoW leveling guides have always been one step ahead others. It’s been the number one player’s favorite guide for several years now, and the recent Cataclysm update brings it right back up there on the top of WoW leveling guides.

Zygor guide has four full 1-60 guides, 2 new Goblin and Worgen starter guides, and 5 level 80-85 guides. Basically, a very detailed and in my opinion best leveling guide you can get. However, what makes Zygors guide stand out from the rest  is a great deal of additional features and extras you will find nowhere else. Firstly, an in-game addon which shows you what, how and where to complete which quests: a much better and detailed version than other free addons of the same sort. An in-game talent points advisor will also tell you where you should put points each time you level up: it’s priceless and a huge time saver.

Additonally, Zygor contains a free Archeology guide, Guild Leveling Perks guide, Auctioneer Appraiser guide, annd Food and Drink Stats guide. For a complete 1-85 detailed and flexible in-game leveling guide, with all the exclusive bonuses you won’t find anywhere else, Zygor guide is a bargain and a must have!

2. Killerguides WoW Cataclysm Leveling Guide

Rating: ★★★★½ 

Killerguides, one of my favorite publishers already has more than a dozen successful World of Warcraft guides published. They always manage to be the first when it comes to writing guides for MMO games which many players take advantage of. Their guides are also frequently updated with the latest strategies and tactics so regardless of new patches or changes Blizzard does you always have up-to-date guides. Cataclysm however changes simply too much to be included in all other guides and is the reason why this guide was published.

Killerguides Cataclysm Strategy Guide includes a leveling guide which helps you gain experience faster than your guildmates. In addition to a leveling guide, there’s also plenty of other guides for dungeons and mechanics, as well as detailed analysis of spell and talent changes for all classes. There’s also plenty of gold making strategies helping you take advantage of the market; while everyone else struggles with making gold you’ll know exactly how to earn tens of thousands even before you hit the level cap.

If you’re confused with new talent trees and masteries, need help with leveling or simply want (a lot) more information on Cataclysm that’s not published elsewhere, the insider strategies and tips in this Killerguide leveling and strategy guide will surely help you!