1 . Introduction
2 . Version History
3 . FAQ
4 . Why a Paladin?
5 . Why Not a Paladin?
6 . Which Race?
7 . Your first few days
8 . Skills and Talents
9 . Professions
10. Equipment
11. General Tips and Hints
12. Mini Instance Guide
13. Battlegrounds
14. Thank You's
15. Legal Mumbo Jumbo
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1. Introduction
---------------
Hi there. I've only been playing World Of Warcraft for about a month now, but I
can honestly say it is one of the single best games I have ever played, and
I've played a lot of games. I mean this game would be brilliant as a single
player game, but as an MMORPG it is superb. The classes complement each other
very well and none are at a massive disadvantage when it comes to dishing out
the damage. The graphics look beautiful and the world is incredibly well
realised. If you've ever played a Warcraft game before you'll instantly
recognize the look, the slighty cartoony graphics complement the world
brilliantly and make you feel like you've been press ganged into some higher
beings game of Warcraft 3. If you've never played a Warcraft game before, go
out and buy the lot. You won't be disappointed. Of course, if you totally
refuse to play any of Blizzards previous outings you won't be confused. A
working knowledge of the world is great fun, because you can explore places
you've only seen from above before. Wandering around the human capital
Stormwind having seen it in a previous game is a wonderful experience. But,
like I said, its not essential. Anyway, with this in mind, I can honestly say,
that if your mind isn't made up yet you should just go out and buy the game.
At only £8.99 a month its an absolute bargain. Down my way thats about the
same as 3 pints and a pack of crisps, and for a months entertainment, you
can't say fairer than that.
My E-mail address is grantnewby88@hotmail.com, and feel free to e-Mail me with
any comments, corrections or other tips you might want to share with me and
the world. I should point out that most of this guide is based on my opinions
and there will be people out there who think I'm dead wrong, and thats their
right. Feel free to e-Mail me explaining your grievance and what you think,
but if its a matter of contention about a minor matter, don't expect to see it
in the guide. The swords vs maces arguement is old news, and there is no right
answer.
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2. Version History
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28/06/05 23:55
Suddenly decided I wanted to write a walkthrough for WOW. I'm watching Top Gear
on the telly. Life is good. Just started. Wrote the introduction, but not sure
how far I'm going to get tonight.
28/06/05 01:10
Made a start on the FAQ section, without realizing how much there is to this
game. My eyes hurt and there's nothing on telly so I'm going to bed.
01/07/05 15:34
Got bored so I finished off the FAQ's section and watched Countdown. Shame
about Richard Whitely, he seemed like a nice bloke really. Oh well, we're here
for a good time, not a long time.
03/07/05 16:30
Having just helped my mate move house, I am now bed ridden. I feel like I've
been mauled by Jesus. If I could have my back removed I would. On the plus
side, I get time to write this and listen to music. Mighty Mighty Bosstones and
Jimmy Eat World rule. Fact. Done the Why a Paladin? section and some other bits
and bobs.
04/07/05 00:10
I have been typing for ages. My neck is killing me. I managed to do the Why not
a Paladin, Which Race and Your First Day chapters, as well as making a good
start on the Skills and Talents. If I never see notepad ever again, it'll be
too damn soon. It might be a while before I add anymore, as I have my second
Paladin quest to do at some point, and that involves going down BlackFathom
Deeps amongst other places. This may involve a large amount of dying. I'll let
you know.
05/07/05 11:55
TV really has taken a turn for the worse these days. I mean, why in the name of
santas butt hole would I want to watch a group of morons sleep for 3 hours on
Big Brother Live. I'd rather fist myself. Still at least I'm working on this
again. Gonna try and finish the Skills and Talents section tonight, and maybe
do some work on the Professions section. Whether I will or not remains to be
seen.
06/07/05 02:10
Yawn. I should probably go to bed now. My mate wants a hand painting his flat
tommorrow, so I might pretend to be ill and play WoW for 12 hours straight.
Finished the Professions section pretty much, though I forgot most of what I
was gonna write for the Skills and Talents section, so I'll polish that off
another time. Probably. I'm still only lvl 26 in game, so its not like I've
even seen all the skills. Oh well. Level 26+ Paladins probably won't be
reading this anyhow. Night y'all.
06/07/05 23:19
Not a bad day at all today. Played a lot of WoW, got on a bit with my Paladin
quest. London won the Olympics, and somewhat sweeter we beat the french. Yay.
I managed to finish off the Equipment, Thank You's and Legal Mumbo Jumbo
sections, so I guess thats it, until I get massive piles of mail from people
telling me how wrong I am. Oh well. You Live and Learn. Well you live anyway.
11/07/05 22:44
I haven't written for a few days, as I was in London when the bombs went off.
Luckily, I was nowhere near them at the time, but that doesn't take anything
away from a cowardly and callous act by a bunch of insane zealots. This is
why I'm an atheist. Anyway, I decided to write up my current Paladin quest
under the Your First Days Section.
12/07/05 22:29
The lesson for today is remember to talk to everyone about your quest. I
forgot to talk to an Elf in Auberdine, and then I went down Blackfathom
Depths. Unfortunately, if you don't talk to him, the Naga don't drop the
corrupted Kor gems you need. What a Bastard, because lets face it, its not
a short walk. Oh well. Wrote a load of new skills and talents in the relevant
section. Thats enough for today. I hope finish off my paladin quest tomorrow,
so I'll write it up then. Night y'all.
13/07/05 11:56
Went too the cinema tonight and watched Sin City, which is a great film. I
suggest you all go and watch it, unless your not a fan of gore in which case
you should probably only watch about half of it, and close your eyes for the
rest. I wrote up the Blackfathom Deeps part of the next Paladin quest, and
plan to do Shadowfang keep tomorrow.
14/07/05 15:41
Late night last night, and I've only just got up, so thought I'd finish off
the rest of the next Paladin quest. This is a damn hard place, so be advised
don't go by yourself. Anyway, gotta hurry the hell up, gotta by my mate a
birthday present (for 10 days ago) and then get ready for the next Harry
Potter book to come out. If you don't like it, get bent.
16/07/05 23:14
Finally got to sleep this morining at 11am after reading the entire Harry
Potter book the whole way through. That was heavy going. Its a good book,
but like most of the Harry Potter books, its a bit depressing at the end.
Decided to write a general tips section tonight, just to get my advice
about etiquette, looting and whatnot across.
20/07/05 22:55
Made the biggest mistake in the history of mankind. I got a job with longer
hours. Full on withdrawal symptons are setting in. I keep looking behind me
while I'm walking down the street wandering where Conkers (my mechanical
squirrel) has got to. I now call dogs, Gnolls. I may be losing it. Had my
first Battleground experience today, and I must say I enjoyed it more than
I've enjoyed anything (in game) for a while. It was great fun, I came top
of the leaderboard both times I played, and racked up 50 honorable kills in
2 matches. Lost the first one though. Kudos to both teams, for excellent
matches. Special mention to the undead rogue player who kept on running away
from me. Smartest thing I saw a person do all game. Gonna write a bit about
Battlegrounds in the General Tips section.
12/08/05 08:13
First Big update ever on the guide. Like I said before, I (stupidly) went
and got a job, so I really don't have much time to do anything to this
guide at the moment, though I did just manage an 8 and a half hour session
on WoW, at a friends place. Managed to hit level 33 before logging off.
Just a few basic things updated, more stuff in the thank you's and new
question for all you trivia buffs. Be good, y'all.
16/10/05 14:47
Sorry its been so long, but like I may have said before, the stupid job
is kicking my ass. I added a few things mentioned in peoples e-Mails, as
well as a few things I already thought I needed to add. Best place to
look is the end of the My First Day and Skills and Talents section.
18/10/05 00:10
Hey hey. Decided to add an instance guide to this guide in general.
Figured it might come in handy. Only done the Deadmines for now,
gonna have to drag myself down the Stockades again soon for practice.
Also added an entire section on Battlegrounds, though I still haven't
been to Alterac Valley. Anyway, be good y'all.
18/10/05 20:52
Finished off the New Battlegrounds section by writing a bit about
Arathi, though I'm no expert on this particular area, so any tactics
and advice would be much appreciated. I may even give you credit, unless
they're really good ideas, then I'm just gonna nick em ;). Also added a
bit more info on engineering in the Professions section and about
Divine Shield into the Skills section. Hope you all enjoy it.
Peace y'all.
20/11/05 23:14
Finally got around to my "long awaited" update including all the info
I got sent by various people. Thanks a lot for all your advice and
many thanks for your kind words. It may seem silly, but it means a
lot to me when people say they enjoyed my guide and it helped them,
even if it was just in a small way. Hope your all well. Laters.
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3. FAQ
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Q. So how does the game work?
A. Its really very simple as far as game mechanics go. You gain experience
for doing quests and killing monsters that are around your level. Killing
monsters 5 levels or 20% of your level (whichever is higher) below your
characters level won't net you any experience. So if your level 10, for
example, killing anything up to lvl 4 won't get you anything but loot. When
you level up you don't have to worry about putting points into different
statistics, as this is done for you behind the scenes. In fact your only
choices when levelling up are your talents and you don't get them til level
10. Apart from this, every even level you'll get access to new skills.
Q. Whats a Skill then?
A. In this game, your skills are the things you use in battle, such as
healing powers and special attacks. Every time you hit an even numbered
level its worth visiting your skill trainer. These are the guys who train
you, and are specific to each class, i.e. there are Paladin Trainers, Rogue
Trainers, Priest Trainers, etc. Getting new skills and improving your old
ones costs money, though at the start the cost is pretty negligble.
Q. How does the money work in this game?
A. Its very simple. Money comes in 3 flavours, Copper, Silver and Gold. 100
copper = 1 silver, 100 silver = 1 gold. For the most part you won't be
earning gold, unless your selling high level stuff at the Auction House.
Most monsters will only drop copper and silver, though over time this adds
up. You can supplement your income by selling stuff you make or collect
from your professions.
Q. What are professions?
A. A profession is a skill you have that allows you to gather materials or
create items, and here they are.
You can only have 2 of these skills at a time, so deciding which ones you
want is quite important and will affect your game for quite a while.
Here's a quick run down of what the various skills involve, and what
they're good for.
Herbalism: Allows you to gather plants. Plants are pretty plentiful
around the world, but the rarer ones are in the higher level areas. Herbs
are used in a lot of professions, but mainly Alchemy, making
Herbalism/Alchemy an ideal combonation. Most herbs can sell at the
Auction House for a reasonable profit, if you have an excess of them.
Mining: Allows you to gather ores from mineral veins and to smelt them
down into metals. Again, the rarer metals are located in the higher
level areas. Metals are used in mainly in Blacksmithing and Engineering,
though occasionally they are used in other professions. Stacks of Ores
or Metals usually sell quite well at the Auction House with the Rare Ores
and Metals selling for a small fortune.
Skinning: Allows you to skin beast class monsters. From these monsters
you get a variety of Leathers, which are used for mainly Leatherworking
and sometimes in Tailoring and Blacksmithing, as well as the other
professions.Leather sells quite well at the Auction House, as it is
needed by Tailoring and Blacksmithing, both of which are popular
professions. The high level Leathers are vital in certain other
professions, and like the Mining and Herbalism, they sell very well.
(As an aside, I'm informed by Adam Rees that certain Demons and
Humanoids (Yeti's, I think) can be skinned as well).
Alchemy: Alchemy is the science of making potions from various ingriedients,
mainly herbs. You'll need a decent supply of vials to keep your potions in
once you've made them. Once you've made the potions you can use them, give
them to friends or sell them at the auction house. Once you get to the
really high level potions you can make quite a bit of money flogging
impressive potions to other players.
Blacksmithing: Blacksmithing is the art of making Weapons and Armour from
Metal. When it comes to armour you can only make Mail armour, which is used
by Paladins, Warriors and later Hunters, and Plate which is usable by
Paladins and Warriors at lvl 40, though weapons can be used by anyone with
those skills. Daggers are of course a popular choice because they are used
by rogues, mages, warlocks and a variety of other classes. If you are a
Warrior or Paladin, its nice to be able to make your own armour and weapons.
You can also make various items, such as keys and rods, which enchanters use.
Once you reach a high level of Smithing you can choose to branch out into a
specific area. You can become an Armoursmith or a Weaponsmith. Later, the
Weaponsmith category branches out into Swordsmith, Axesmith and Macesmith.
(Thanks again to Adam Rees for reminding me of this).
Enchanting: Enchanters break down green and better items into other items.
Green items are magical in nature, and when broken down turn into various
magical reagents. With these reagents Enchanters can put spells on armour
and weapons to improve them. Early on, the various enchantments aren't very
good, and as such getting green items to break down is a bit of a money pit.
But as you progress, you can start to do various different enchantments that
people will pay a mint for. Plus they make your weapon glow, and there isn't
a warrior or rogue out there who doesn't want a red glowy sword.
Engineering: Engineering is easily the most fun profession in the game, though
you'll make a lot less money. As an engineer, you'll mainly be using metals
and ores as well as some leather. As an engineer, you can make a variety of
headgear, weapon enhancements and other useful items such as bombs, and
explosive sheep. The problem with this is that most of the items made
by Engineers are only usuable by Engineers, and as such, they can make their
own as opposed to buying them. Still, you can make a lot of really cool stuff
and you'll be pretty popular in dungeon parties when you whip out your Gnomish
Death Ray.
Leatherworking: Leatherworkers are skilled at making items from leather,
mostly armour. Leather armour is quite popular in WOW being extensively used by
Rogues, Hunters (before lvl 40) and other classes. You can also make Leather
Armour Patches which are very popular amongst all classes, as they add a
certain amount of extra armour to one of your pieces. At the later levels the
Armour patches give you an extra 40 armour per each of the 4 slots you can apply
them to. For a warrior or paladin this isn't too much of a difference, but for a
Mage, Warlock or Priest its an absolute life saver. Bear in mind Leatherworkers
also make cloaks, which are used by everybody. Leatherworking can also be
branched out towards the higher levels to Dragonscale (Mail armour), Tribal
(damage output) and Elemental (Elemental damage and resistance). Thanks to
Adam Rees again for this info. He's a walking, talking version of Thottbot.
Tailoring: Only the Mage, Priest and Warlock classes use cloth armour, as it is
the weakest armour available. However, if its all you got, its all you got, and
making your own armour is a great way to help keep yourself alive. Aside from
armour, Tailors also make other items such as Bags and various costumes like
wedding dresses, tuxedos and kilts. Everyone needs bags, and the best ones will
sell for a huge mark up. Tailoring usually goes with Enchanting, as it is
usually used by mages and warlocks.
There are also 3 Secondary classes, these are: Cooking, Fishing and First Aid.
At the moment I haven't really got into the secondary professions, except for
fishing which is a great change from the hectic world of melee combat. At the
end of the day, its nice to sit down and have a good old fish at the edge of
your local river or lake.
Q. What are Talents?
A. At level 10 you get access to talents. These are class specific and will
help your character improve over time. These can vary from improvements to
blocking or parrying, all the way up to new skills. I won't go into detail
over Talents (except Paladin ones) in this guide as there are literrally
hundreds and there are other guides out there.
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4. Why a Paladin?
-----------------
There are many good answers to this. I'm a paladin because I like what they
stand for. They a force of good and justice for people who can't get any.
They are the kind of goody goody, but really hard, characters i like to play.
Good, but dangerous.
In game terms Paladins have some great skills. The ability to heal yourself
in battle without the use of potions is only usually reserved for Priests and
they can't take a good kicking like we can. You also get some excellent buffs
and aura's that are useful to both yourself and your party, as well as some
handy combat skills. As a warrior/healer, you have a very useful part to play
in parties. You can double as a tank and a healer giving the best of both
worlds to your party, as well as being able to dish out some impressive
damage occasionally. You also specialize in holy skills and anti-undead
abilites with both Turn Undead and Excorcize. Please note, these skills don't
work against undead players, only undead monsters. The ability to dish out
extra holy damage with each hit is very handy especially when your soloing, as
are the healing skills. One of the best skills you get is called Lay on Hands.
This allows you to heal any friendly character, including yourself, for the
amount of your maximum health. This means if you cast it on yourself, you'll
heal yourself fully. This is very handy if your about to die, but can still
win the fight, if you can survive for a little bit longer. Its also an instant
cast spell, which means it can't be interuppted, though it does take an hour to
recharge or "cooldown".
Aside from these pluses, you also have a Ressurection spell called Redemption,
you get it at level 10 - 12 (which is about 3 days play). This is very handy
in a party and allows you to be friendly if you see another player die. Stand
back, wait for the monster to wander off and ressurect or "rez" the dead man.
He'll probably be pretty grateful, and its always nice to be nice.
One last piece of good news. Most people have to pay 100 gold for a mount at
level 40, 80 gold for the horse/ram/mechastrider and 20 gold for the training
to use it. We get both free at level 40 with a Paladin specific quest, in which
we recieve a warhorse. Which means you can spend your gold on armour and weapons
and fireworks and stuff, and not have to worry about saving your money for a
mount later.
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5. Why Not a Paladin?
---------------------
Theres a bit of a set back with Paladins. As you specialize in a couple of
different things, your not as good at them as some. You'll never be as good a
tank as a warrior with the same skill level. Equally, you'll never be as good a
healer as a priest of a similar level. Because of this some groups won't take
you, over a priest or warrior, because they want the best they can get, not a
combonation of both. Don't hate them for it, their just making their game time
easier. Another minor problem with the paladin is your damage potential. Over
time you'll do a similar amount of damage to a mage or rogue, but in short
bursts you simply won't be able to match them. Your strong point is longevity,
not explosive damage. If you want someone who can really kick ass for about 30
seconds at a time, choose a mage or rogue. If you want someone who can fight
well for hours at a time, choose a paladin.
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6. Which Race?
--------------
When it comes to Paladins, their are only 2 choices. You can be Human, or
you can be Dwarf. Here's a quick rundown of the 2 races.
Note: Skills noted as Passive are always on, and don't need to be
activated.
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Dwarves
-------
Frost Resistance: Gives +10 to frost resistance (passive)
Gun Specialization: Gives +5 to Guns skill (passive)
Stoneform: Makes you immune to all poisons, diseases and bleed, and gives
a 5% armour bonus. Lasts 20 secs and has a 3 minute cooldown.
Treasure Finding: Shows all treasure chests on the map when activated.
Stays on until cancelled or replaced.
Okay, first things first. Paladins can't use guns, no ranged weapons
allowed. In light of this, Gun specialization is really not much use. In
fact, it's useless. Oh well.
Frost resistance is always good. Quite a few monsters use frost magic,
not to mention PC (player Character) mages. However, +10 isn't a massive
advantage, but any damage resistance is always good.
Stoneform is surprisingly handy, but not often used. The 3 minute cooldown
is a bit off putting, and I swear reading somewhere that it slows you down,
though i could be wrong. It wouldn't be the first time. (I've just had this
confirmed by Bob McForman, who tells me that your speed is reduced to 70%
of its original value. Thanks Bob). Treasure finding is a bit of a mixed
blessing, being able to find chests is handy, though if you've chosen
Mining or Herbalism it will replace your find minerals/herbs skill, which
is a bit of a pain.
------
Humans
------
Diplomacy: Gives a 10% bonus to all Faction point gains. (passive)
Human Spirit: Gives a 5% bonus to spirit. (passive)
Mace Specialization: Gives +5 to all Mace skills. (passive)
Sword Specialization: Gives +5 to all Sword skills. (passive)
Perception: Increases the detection of stealthed enemies and players.
Lasts 20 secs and has a 3 minute cooldown.
Well, I must admit, most of these skills are pretty useful. Gaining
faction points decreases the amount of money things from that faction
cost you. Its always nice to get a discount from people, though its not
vital, and it doesn't take to long to get the discount without it. Also,
if you reach exalted status with a faction, you can then purchase their
racial mount. This means if you hit Exalted with the Night Elves (their
faction is called Darnassus, all the factions are named after their capital
cities, and there are a few more besides) then you can purchase a cool
tiger to ride around on. Any bonus to stats is always handy, and spirit
especially so. Spirit increases the regeneration speed of your health and
mana in and out of combat, so its pretty useful. Towards the higher levels
your spirit will be pushing 100-150, so the extra 5 to 7 points isn't going
to be that much, but still useful. Mace and Sword Specializations are both
very useful. The first weapons you'll likey use, will be swords and maces,
and being one step ahead of the competition is always a good thing. Again
though, +5 is not a huge bonus. Every level your maximum learnable skill
increases by 5 anyway, but just remember, if someones the same level as you,
and you've both been keeping up with your weapon training, your gonna be 5
higher than him. Feel free to scorn him. I'm not a great fan of perception,
it doesn't have that many uses. The number of stealthed enemies in this
game is minute, and the problem with player rogues is that you can't see
them until its too late, and then you can't use the skill. Handy if your
duelling a rogue, someone claims they saw one or one of them vanishes and
tries to run from you in PVP, but still not great.
Apart from these differences, there are of course the stat differences.
These are not huge as it is, and towards the end of the game will make a
negligible amount of difference. The humans have a slighty better build
for Paladins, but only very slightly. The way I see it, if you want to be
a dwarf paladin, go right ahead. If your anything like me, you'd rather
have fun than be the hardest thing on the face of your server. Remember,
some people actually buy in games items for real money. Feel free to scorn
such people as obsessive and scary (not to mention stupid). Have fun first,
be the best later, and besides if you intend to have a life based in reality
then your probably not ever gonna be the best player on your server. Just
remember, there are people out there who are shockingly obsessive about this
sort of game, and your unlikely to better them. Take some consolation that
they probably pee in a cup and haven't seen another real person for weeks.
----------------------
7. Your First Few Days
----------------------
Right, you've now been dumped into the game with just a pair of raggedy
looking pants and a weapon which probably started life as a meat tenderizer,
and has never hit anything harder than a nail. If you chose to be a Human,
your now standing near Northshire Abbey, in Elwynn Forest, looking somewhat
skint. If you chose to be Dwarf, your now freezing your nips off in Anvilmar,
a small town in Dun Morogh, but luckily you've probably got a beard to keep
you warm. I'm not gonna go on about specific quests in this guide, it'll
just be general advice, which applies equally to both races.
First off, have a wander around your general area. None of the monsters will
attack you, even if you go up to them and insinuate their mothers were not of
good breeding. All the monsters within a couple of minutes walk of your start
are neutral. This means they won't attack you unless you attack them first.
The way to tell this is to put your mouse over them, and look at the tool tip
in the bottom right hand corner. If the name of the monster is in Yellow,
then they're neutral and won't attack you. If its Red, then they're
aggressive, and if you get too close they'll likely come over and try to
seperate your head from your shoulders, or something equally unpleasent.
Throughout the game you'll find most enemies are aggressive, except for
the more sedate types of nature, such as Boars and other such grazing animals,
who tend to be neutral. Just remember, just because the wolves in your start
area are reasonably friendly, doesn't mean they're gonna be nice in other
places.
Right, time to get questing. The people with yellow exclamation marks (!) over
there heads are quest givers. These people will happily give you nice little
jobs to do, that vary from "Go to see someone" to "Kill everything unfriendly
within a 6 mile radius" ;). Most likely, your first real job will be to kill
some really easy piggies or wolves or whatever. First thing to do is check your
quickbar. All your starting skills are listed here (not your Racial ones, if
you want to use these you'll have to put them on yourself, more on how to do
this later). You start with 2 skills, Seal of Righteousness and Holy Light.
Seal of Righteousness adds extra holy damage to your next attack and should be
used as much as possible without draining too much mana. Holy light is your
bread and butter healing spell, it heals a fair amount of health, though it
has a casting time. This means it not only takes 3 seconds (ish) to cast, but
if your attacked while your casting it, it'll take even longer every time your
hit. This means if you've got 3 monsters wailing on you it's unlikely to work
unless your very lucky or you can dodge like a coked-up rabbit.
Now you know what your skills do, go out and mercilessly slay whichever poor
creature your being paid to kill. If you see another player having trouble
feel free to heal them or wade in and help them. As long as they have hit the
creature first you won't get any of their EXP or loot. Its almost impossible
to offend people doing this and most will actively thank you. However, be
careful about going after creatures someone else is lining up to hit, as this
is a sure way to piss off other players.
Once your done killing harmless animals, head back to the guy who asked you
to do it and demand money from him, if your lucky he might even give you
something. If you have a choice between armour types always go for the mail
armour, as you can use it, it has the best armour rating and if it does have
any stat bonuses, they're likely to complement your needed stats which are
mainly Strength, Stamina and Intellect. This will likely apply throughout the
game, or at least until you start going to find specific items and start using
Plate. (You learn this skill at lvl 40). Once your done with this fella,
continue to knock around doing quests until you get a quest asking you to go
see your trainer. You'll find him knocking around your start area somewhere,
the Human one is in Northshire Abbey, though I can't remember where. You'll
find him. At this point you should be about level 4 so you can purchase your
first skill. You'll get a couple of skills at this point the best one being
Divine Protection which gives you 6 seconds of immunity, though you can't
attack. This is great if you get in trouble and have to leg it. Cast it and
run like hell until the monsters stop following you. You also get Devotion
Aura, a great spell that adds armour to your character and all people in your
party. Very handy.
At some point soon you'll have finished all the quests in your starting area,
and will have a quest asking you to go somewhere else (Kharanos for the
Dwarves, Goldshire for the Humans). Head off down here and make sure you find
your trainer, he will be able to offer you more skills than the previous
trainer. The next quests are easy to find, just make sure you explore
everywhere you can, every building, every clearing, and you should get all
the available quests. If someone has a quest you can't yet do, the ! over
there head will be gray. After you level up, go back and see them, and see if
they're interested.
You should have easily hit level 6 by now, so heres a quick run down of the
skills you can expect to see at your trainer. You will get Holy Light Rank 2.
As this is a new skill, you'll need to replace your old Holy Light skill. To
do this, drag the old Holy Light spell off the toolbar and click on the screen
somewhere to get rid of it. Then open your spellbook, and drag the new Holy
Light skill onto your toolbar. This also applies to new spells, though you'll
want to drag them into empty spaces. You will also get Purify which is a great
skill, but not quite yet. At the moment, if you get poisoned it tends to last
no more than 5 - 10 seconds, and as such theres little point in curing it.
Give it time though and you'll soon find creatures that can poison or disease
you for ages and then its very handy. No one wants their stats reduced for 5
mins or to take 800 damage over 2 mins, so get purifying when you start getting
the serious poisons and diseases.
You'll probably hit level 7 on your first day, as levelling up is really quite
quick at the start. This will slow down when you hit level 8 and it'll only get
slower as you go. Some levels will go quickly as you hand in a whole bunch of
quests all at once, and some will take ages as you only get EXP from killing
monsters. You should be getting the hang of questing now, and you may have even
ganged up with some other players to do quests. If your having real trouble
with a quest, don't be afraid to ask for help, or to ask for a group. If you
type /4 into the chat window, you'll type into the Looking For Group channel,
where you should put someting along the lines of "LFG to do Hogger. I'm a lvl
9 Paladin." Remember to include the name of your quest, and preferably your lvl
and class. Incidentally, Hogger is a quest in Elwynn Forest that is typically
popular for groups as he is an Elite monster. Being an Elite means he has nearly
triple the hit points of the usual monster of that level and maybe even some
special moves. Hogger for example is a lvl 11 Elite Gnoll, and is very hard
even for a lvl 11 character, because he almost certainly will have a few of his
lesser gnoll mates with him. So, take a few friends. It'll set you in good stead
for later in the game.
You get some interesting new skills at level 8, most particularly Parry. This
gives you a chance to block all the damage an enemy does for 1 hit, and is
always worth having. You also pick up the second rank of Holy Strike, doing more
holy damage per hit, and a skill called Blessing of Protection. This allows you
to cast divine protection on another player in your group. I have actually never
used this skill because, like I said, when it comes to running away, its every
man for himslef. Plus some members of your group may have useful abilites to
slow down or stop the enemies chasing you, and Blessing of Protection stops the
use of certain skills. This ones a candidate for being left, but frankly it
doesn't cost very much and priests might be able to use it and heal at the same
time. E-mail me if anyones tested this or has any bright ideas about what to do
with this skill that I've missed.
Sooner or later, you'll hit level 10 and get some new skills and your first
class quest. First, the new skills. First your Devotion Aura gets an update,
giving you and anyone in your party even more armour. You also get a new seal,
called Crusader Strike. This improves your attack rating and the speed of your
attacks, though you'll do less damage per hit, but more damage over time.
It lasts for 30 secs, so you'll have to cast it every other fight at least.
You also get Hammer of Justice, a very handy spell as it causes a stun effect
on your target for 4 secs. This is great for spellcasters as if they're
casting a spell, hitting them with this will cancel the spell and stun them
too. The other skill you get is Lay On Hands. This is your hardcore healing
spell, for use in the emergency situations. It will use all your mana and will
heal the target for an amount equal to your maximum health. This means if you
cast it on yourself, you'll instantly return to full health, but with no mana.
Be careful using this spell. Having full health doesn't make it easier to run
away from a large group of monsters, and the major downside is that this spell
has a 1 hour long cooldown. This means if you use it, you then can't use it
again for at least an hour.
******* Correction *******
You get this quest at lvl 12, not lvl 10, don't know where I got this idea
from, but a couple of people have written to me saying they thought it was
10, but its in fact 12. Maybe its been changed since we started.
Thanks to Miguel for this info.
Anyway, back to the class quest. I only know for sure what the human paladin
quest involves, but I reckon the dwarf one will be at least similar in length
and content. You can start this quest at level 10, but it might be an idea to
let it wait for a couple of levels, unless your feeling quite sneaky or
you've got a friend who'll come with you for the second half. Anyway, on to
the quest. Your trainer will give it to you, and you'll need to visit a chap
in Stormwind (bear in mind the dwarf quest will probably tell you to go to
Ironforge, but I'm telling this from the Human point of view). When you visit
him, he'll tell you to do something good for someone. This will involve going
into town and visiting the lady who owns the orphanage. She's over near the
front gates. She will want you to get some linen for her, which you can get
by killing most humanoids, such as Defias, Gnolls or Murlocs. If your reading
this ahead of time, remember to hold on to some of your linen for this moment.
Once you've got the linen (I think you need 6 pieces) head back to her and then
back to the Cathredral, where you got the quest. Right, that was easy, the next
part is a bit more difficult.
When you get back to the cathedral, the quest giver will send you to see an
injured dwarf. His friend got himself killed by some defias over at Stone Cairn
Lake, its in the very North East corner of the Elwynn Forest map, just north of
the Murloc village near Eastvale Logging Camp, and he wants you to go and
ressurect him. He'll give you an item that allows you a one shot ressurection.
If you mess this up, you can go back and get another one from the chap in
Stormwind. The dead dwarf is on the west side of the island on a small hill.
Unfortunately, the island is absolutely covered in Defias wizards, and a couple
of them can really put a dent in your chances of surviving. There are 2 ways to
do this quest really. You can either head north from the large murloc village
and kill the defias wizards one at a time, until you get to the west of the
island, or you can do it the way I did it, and follow the mountains along the
Northern border, until you get to the edge of the river over to the island.
Then just swim across, kill a couple of the defias wizards and find the dwarf
with little hassle. Use the item to ressurect him, have a quick chat, and then
head back to Stormwind and go to the Cathedral. Here you will be given the skill
Redemption, which is a ressurection power. This will make you quite popular as
you can save a lot of people a fair bit of time doing corpse runs by rezzing
them on the spot. Unfortunately, you can't use it on yourself, as your dead, but
use it on other people as they'll be grateful to be back so quick and who knows,
one day you might need their help. Also, if your the only rezzer in a party, its
in peoples best interests to keep you alive, especially if your miles from a
graveyard, or your down an instance.
Right, that concludes the first couple of days section. When you hit level 12,
you'll probably be off to a new area (Westfall for the Humans, Loch Modan for
the Dwarves). Here you'll find new quests and new challenges. Every even level,
go back to your trainer and see what new skills he's offering for you, read the
description and decide which ones you need most. If you've got plenty of money,
buy them all and keep doing so. If your a bit shorter on money, decide which
skills your gonna use most and put your money into them. Best of Luck, Paladin.
May the Light Bless You.
------------------
Other Class Quests
------------------
This section is about other important Paladin quests. You have to bear in mind
that I've been playing as a Human Paladin, so the Dwarf quests might be
different. I can't say for sure, they might be the same, but I just don't know.
The second paladin quest is given by the chap in the Cathredral of Light who
gave you the last Paladin quest. He will start a series of quests called The
Tome of Valor. Your job here is to head off to Westfall and protect a lady
named Daphne. You'll find her in the south-west corner, just outside her house
in the garden. You will most likely need friends for this bit. First, you will
be attacked by 3 Defias (approx lvl 18). Daphne will shoot at them from the back
but she won't be a great deal of help. After you finish these fools, 4 more will
attack you, then 5 of them. This is why you'll need help. They will go straight
for you as opposed to Daphne, so having 5 people beat on you isn't much fun.
Like I said, bring a friend. I personally teamed up with another Paladin (level
23, I think, and thinking about it he was a dwarf). Its a lot easier with a
couple of friends. I was about level 23 when I did this, but I think the minimum
level is 20. Best of luck.
When your done head back to the Cathedral of Light and recieve the Sense Undead
skill, and a cool shield called the [Bastion of Stormwind]. This is an excellent
shield and if your using a one-handed weapon, it should probably be your shield
unless you've come across one thats better, or have been given one, but if
you've not got a load of money or some high-level friends your unlikely to have
better. The chap (Dunthorian, I think his name was), will then send you to
Ironforge to tell Daphne's husband that she's alright. So get on the tram, or
gryphon if you've got the flight plan.
The chap your looking for is conveniently placed just outside IronForge, so
he's not to hard to find. He will thank you and offer to make you a weapon. A
great weapon, the two-handed mace [Verigan's Fist]. This does about 25 DPS, so
its most likely gonna be quite a bit better than your current weapon.
Unfortunately, there is some stuff you have to do to get it. Quite a lot of
stuff, in fact. And most of it isn't terribly easy either.
There are 4 items to collect in this quest. Here they are in order of ease
along with a quick description of how to get them. First off is Whitestone
Oak Lumber. This is dropped by the Goblins who work in the Deadmines, in
Westfall. This is in the instance however, and quite far down, so you'll
need to get a posse together, because you won't be able to get down there
yourself. Once you hit the goblins, you should get your lumber on the first
drop. Next up is, an ore shipment, stolen by the ogres in Loch Modan. Before
heading off over there, you'll need to talk to a dwarf in Thelsamar, though
I forget what his name is. He'll send you over to the Ogres to get his Ore
back. If you head over there, you can most likely do it by yourself, unless
you want to head deep into the camp on another quest, I know for a fact the
leader of the Ogre's is called Chok'sul and he's a quest objective, and
quite a hard one. If you want to do this, take a group of mates, or local
players who will doubtless be glad of your leadership. The Ore shipment is
in pretty much the middle of the outside section of the Ogre camp, and they
usually wander around in ones and can be easily done over by themselves
without the need for help from others. Play it by ear.
The next place I went was BlackFathom Deeps. At this point, you have to
remember to talk to Thundris in Auberdine. If you don't, the gem won't drop
from the Naga. This is highly annoying. I should point out I did these last
2 items at about level 29. Blackfathom is located in the Northwest corner
of Ashenvale which is south of Darkshore. To get here you'll have to go to
Menethil Harbour in the Wetlands, which is north of Loch Modan, and then get
a boat to the other continent Kalimdor. Convieniently, the boat will drop you
off in Auberdine, so you can see Thundris, and then make your way to
BlackFathom. I just about managed to solo the evil bastards who live down
BlackFathom Deeps at this level, so if your trying this earlier than that you
may want to take some friends. There are 2 types of enemy down here, the
Satyrs and the Naga. The Satyrs are demons with the traditional horns and what
not, and come in fighter and rogue flavours. They are level 19 - 21 elites, so
if you are soloing, try to take them on their own. If you get into trouble,
whack on Divine Protection and leggit back to the water where you came in.
The Naga are kind of corrupt mermaid types, like the ones just outside
BlackFathom, but harder, these are approx. the same level as the Satyrs, so
try and take em individually, or if not, kill one of em, DP (Divine
Protection) and run. They mainly use frost magic, but they also have heals,
so save your Hammer of Justice for when they start to do their healing spells
(look for the yellow light on their hands). These are the enemies who drop the
gem your after, though I had to kill 6 or 7 of them before I got the drop.
Also, the enemies respawn in this place, so be careful not to get done over
from behind. When you've got the gem, head back to Auberdine and give it to
Thundris, who'll fix it for you, and get a boat back to Menethil. Next stop
Shadowfang Keep, in Silverpine Forest. Bring some friends. Preferably a few
of them.
Right, Shadowfang keep is located in Silverpine Forest, which is just south
of the undead capital of Undercity. If you haven't explored much (like me)
then you most likely nearest place you've been will be the Wetlands. From
here, head north into the Arathi Highlands, remembering to stop at Refuge
Pointe to get the flighpath from the Gryphon master. From here follow the
road west into the Hillsbrad foothills. Here you'll want to stop at Southshore
to pick up the flight path, and then continue west into Silverpine forest.
Thankfully, when you get there Shadowfang keep is nicely signposted all the
way, so just follow the signs. As a side note, if your on a PvP server, this
may end up being a bloody hard journey for you. All the places you have just
been through are contested territories, and Silverpine is absolutely full of
Undead players, so do it late at night or early in the morning to avoid most
players. When you reach Shadowfang keep you'll notice that there is no before
section to the instance, its straight into the glowy portal. Now, I tried this
at level 29 and the first time round I made it a fair distance, but there's a
problem. At one point in the level you'll need to be able to kill 3 level 18-19
elites as well as a level 20 elite who's their boss. Now if your doing this
alone, your gonna have to be pretty high level, and then your reward isn't
going to be as good if you've already got a better weapon. So get some mates
together, and head there. The instance is a very linear affair, follow the
stairs, kill the jailor, free the sorcerer, get him to unlock the door to the
courtyard, head for the stables. The courtyard is absolutely crawling with
various types of bad elite monsters, so be careful not to pull loads of them
and get your party killed. At the far end of the courtyard is a stable (filled
with bloody meat) and inside you'll find Jordan's Smithing Hammer on top of a
crate. Grab it, thank your friends and head for the exit, or use your
hearthstone to get out of there.
You've got everything, so head for the gates of Ironforge and give Jordan the
ingreidients and wait for him to make you your hammer. Depending on what level
you get this will depend on how good it is, but I got it at nearly lvl 30 and
its still easily the best weapon. Best of luck, fellow Paladins. May the light
be with you.
------------
Further Tips
------------
When I hit about level 35 I ground to a bit of a halt, I couldn't figure out
where I was supposed to be questing. At this point I was wandering around the
Arathi Highlands with a whole bunch of level 38-39 quests, involving elites,
and anytime me and a friend tried it we got a bloody good kicking. It was
clearly time to find somewhere else to do some questing. You have a couple of
choices at this point, the best of which is to head to StrangleThorn Vale.
This place is south of the Duskwood and is full of 30 - 40 enemies. Great
place to quest, its absolutely choc-a-bloc with quest givers, and it even has
its own mixed faction town, Booty Bay at the far south of the map. Between the
Rebel Camp in the north, Nesingways Expedition slighty to the south and Booty
Bay, you should be able to fill your quest log up with worthwhile quests. You
may notice that many of the humanoid enemies in this place drop pages from a
book called "The Green Hills of Stranglethorn". Keep hold of these you have to
collect 15 different pages for one of the quests in Nesingways expedition, and
you can sell replica pages to other players for a decent wedge of cash. If you
have trouble finding a certain page, then I recommend a trip to the auction
house in IF and pick up the offending pages there. They should only cost you
about 10s each, and the quest reward included a pair of plate boots for me, and
they were well worth getting. Your other option is too bum around Arathi
grinding and looking to get into a higher level group to get your quests done,
or you could head to the Badlands. Some of the wildlife here is only level
36-37, so you should be able to take them, and there are a few people around
offering reasonably low level quests. Be warned, If your on a PvP server, there
are plenty of both Horde and Alliance players here, its where the Uldaman
dungeon is located, as well as being one of the better places to get items for
Darkmoon Faire quests, so be careful.
At level 40 you'll learn how to use plate armour and you'll get a free
mount. The free mount is a good thing, because chances are you'll only have
maybe 1 piece of plate, and the next few bits are pretty few and far between.
If you've got about 10 gold to spare (you should have by now), then nip to
the nearest AH and go on a bit of a spending spree. Remember to only buy plate
around the 40/41 area, otherwise you'll be ages before you can use it. I'm
level 41 now, and with an armour rating of 4500, I can take a hell of a
kicking. Most of the plate will have similar stats to your mail, unless you've
gone out of your way to collect a cracking set of mail armour like the Scarlet
Crusade Armour, in which case it might be an idea to wait a few levels before
migrating to plate. If not, then go snap some up at your local AH, and see if
you can get at least a reasonable matching set. If you've been working hard on
your blacksmithing, then you might even be able to make yourself some stuff. I
had a friend called Llobo make me a set Ornate Mithril Pants, and they're
excellent, and I'm told they can come as a set. So, make your decision based
on what you have to play with, and get hard. As for your free mount, there
isn't even a quest involved, you just have to go to your local Paladin quest
giver and he'll give you your free horsey. Feel free to lord it over the level
38 - 39 players and the level 40's who are saving hard, just so they can get a
horse without any barding. The fools.
---------------------
8. Skills and Talents
---------------------
I'm not gonna reproduce the reams of info on the net in this guide, but I will
tell you a few of my favourite skills and talents and why I like them. They've
been pretty good for me, and I hope they work for you too. You have to bear in
mind that I'm only level 30, so I haven't seen all the skills, so I'll update
this as I go.
------
Skills
------
Blessing of Might
This is my standard 5 minute blessing that i usually use. It adds a fair amount
to your attack power and if you plan to be spending most of your time hitting
people, thats a good thing. In a party, if your the primary healer you might
want to give yourself Blessing of Wisdom to beef up your mana, but until you
get the Blessing of Kings, this will be an excellent staple blessing for you
and your party. Always cast it on other warrior's, rogues's and other melee
characters, including Hunter's pets. They'll love you for it.
Blessing of Wisdom
Not a great skill for you, but brilliant if your in a party that has magic
users. It adds 10 mana every 5 seconds making the mana regeneration rate
for whoever has it cast on them much better. Give it to Warlocks, Priests,
Mages and Druids who are casting. They'll be very happy and will most
likely keep you buffed in return.
Hammer of Justice
I love this skill for 3 reasons, its instant cast, which means it'll go off
straight away, even in the middle of a fight. It stops the casting of spells,
so if you see an enemy spell caster trying to cast something, run up to them
and slap em with this bad boy. Not only does their spell fail, but they're
stunned for a number of seconds. Thirdly, its a great way to get away from a
fight going badly, or buy yourself some time. Say 2 monsters are wailing on
you, and your having trouble getting your Holy Light spell off. Stun one of
them and your bound to get it cast. Or say you got into a fight with an enemy
who's giving you a good kicking. Stun him, turn around and leggit to safety.
Then come back with mates, and give him a damn good pasting.
Devotion Aura
This is by far the best aura I have at the moment. It gives me and everyone
else in my party 275 extra armour (its on Rank 3, I think). If your soloing,
then this is easily the best aura to keep you alive. If theres more than one
Paladin in a group, work out which of you has the best devotion aura and have
him use it. Then use another aura. Aura of Retribution is always a good choice
(it deals 5 holy damage to any monster that hits any member of your party), or
if you have a large amount of spellcasters in your group then Aura of
Concentration is a fairly safe bet (it reduces the chance of a spell being
interrupted by 35%).
Holy Light
Easily the best healing spell you'll ever have. It takes a little while to
cast, but it heals an awful lot of health when you first get it, though when
you near the next rank you'll find its not healing as much health as it used
to. This is because as you level up, the skill doesn't, therefore as your
health increases the amount healed by the spell doesn't. But, as soon as you
get a new rank of this, all is forgiven as you can heal yourself from nearly
empty to nearly full in 3.5 secs. Brill.
Seal of Command
The single best seal in the entire game, no contest, and if you use your
talents sensibly you can have it at lvl 20, as well. Like I said, you get this
skill by spending talent points and you have to put 10 of them into the
Retribution, before you can get this one. On the plus side, it puts your
damage potential through the roof. Basically, it gives you an oppurtunity to
deal double damage. In my experience, it hits once every 3 or 4 times, but
when it does, woah! At the moment, I tend to hit for 90 - 110 damage per hit
with my one handed sword, the [Cruel Barb]. When this thing comes off I can
hit for 130 - 150 (thats 260 - 300 on a critical) and then straight after a
similar amount of Holy damage. Thats nearly 600 damage. The best I remember
hitting is when i hit for 220 regular and 306 holy damage. The amount of
killing you can do with this, is just shocking, so get it and be a happy
defender of the peace. There is nothing better in this game than when 2 or
3 of these come off in a row. People will look at you in a whole new way.
You'll be plodding along happily slaying people, and then suddenly everyone
within a few feet of you will be dead. This works especially well in PvP
when you suddenly hit for 4 times your normal damage and your opponent
starts to panic.
Purify
Purify is a very handy skill when you hit the Westfall/ Loch Modan type area.
In these places you can get some serious diseases and poisons, that can do a
lot of damage or give you a lot of downtime while you wait to get your stats
back up. With Purify you'll never have this problem, and you'll be able to
help others out as well. Its always useful to have in a group, as you want
your groupmates working at full capacity. It also costs practically no mana,
which is handy. Unfortunately it doesn't cure ressurection sickness.
Redemption
You get this as a reward for your first class quest. It is of course a
ressurection spell, and even though you'll never use it on yourself, it is
a very handy spell. As a rezzer, you earn yourself a special place in the
group, because if you die, and theres no other rezzer in the group, then
they're screwed, especially if your in an instance. Because of this, special
precautions will usually be taken to prevent your death, including getting
soulstones from the warlock and other characters taking aggro for you, so
you can swing away and not die. Make sure your good with it though, if there
are still enemies around rez your tank first, this will usually be a warrior,
so he can protect you while you rez the rest of the group safely.
Seal of Justice
There is a skill out there called Seal of Justice, and whilst the affect of
the actual seal escapes me, the affect of the judement is very handy. If you
don't know, a judgement incurs a penalty on the enemy based on what seal your
using when you choose to judge them. They all do different things, I think SoC
causes 48 damage everytime an enemy is stunned, but Seal of Justice has a very
handy effect. When used as a judgement, it prevents enemies from running away
for 30 secs. As you can imagine, in a very busy place this is pretty handy,
especially if you don't want some damn fool enemy running backwards and aggroing
6 of his mates. This kind of thing causes wipes, so keep a special place on your
quickbar for Seal of Justice, and Judgement, and make sure to put your SoC back
on afterwards.
Divine Protection
This skill will make you invulnerable for a number of seconds depending on
the rank. It has quite a cooldown on it (5 mins, I think), and you can't hit
people while using it. So what use is it? Best thing to do, is cast it, and
then heal yourself a couple of times. This is one of the most infuriating
things that can happen in PVP and you'll likely get a lot of crap from horde
players. Feel free to tell them where to shove it, as you stove their heads
in for the Light. Watch out for experienced players though. They'll use this
oppurtunity to debuff you or cast fear on you so you can't cast your heals,
and many will take this oppurtunity to heal themselves or run away if their
in trouble.
Consecration
Finally, a AoE spell (Area of Effect). This will hit everyone within about
10 ft for 120 Holy damage over 8 seconds. It is also easily your prettiest
spell so far, so use it to impress new players. If you get ganged up on by a
group of monsters this is very handy, as it does a reasonable amount of
damage, and you don't even have to hit people to get it. The cooldown is only
8 secs, which is useful, though the problem is the amount of mana it uses,
235. This is about a quarter of my mana at the moment, so I don't use it that
often in a single fight. You'll need to put 20 talent points into the
Retribution tree to get this skill (much like Seal of Command), but it is well
worth it. Just be careful not to aggro extra monsters when using it,
especially if your in a crowd of neutral monsters and you only plan on
fighting them one at a time. This is also a good spell to use in a party,
wander up to your front line and fire it off a couple of times to increase
the damage speed. Again, be careful not to get too much aggro on yourself.
Blessing Of Protection
First things first, you can use blessing of protection on
yourself. It'll replace your current blessing, and it will also only block
against physical damage, NOT magical damage, so its no use if your taking
a kicking from a spellcaster. As for stuff you can do whilst under the
influence, you can cast all your usual spells, on yourself and allies, but
you can't hit people or cast offensive spells. You'll also lose all
your aggro, so look out for the enemies running off to hit your cloth
wearers if your in a group. At my level of the spell it lasts for 10 seconds
which is plenty of time to get off a couple of holy lights, which should put
you back to near enough full health. Have fun! Thanks to Jeff and various
others for this info.
Divine Shield
Divine Shield is a lot like Divine Protection, but its a lot better, its
even on the same timer, so as soon as you get it, you should replace your
use of Divine Protection with this bad boy. For a start it lasts 10 secs,
which is longer than DP, and you can hit people and cast offensive spells
whilst its on. These 2 things make it the best invulnerability spell
you've got and it should definitely be used whenever its needed. You also
have plenty of time to knock off a couple of Holy Lights if you need healing
so have fun with this.
------
Talents
-------
Improved Blessing of Might
This improves the attack bonus you get from your blessing of might. If you
put 5 points into it you get a 20% bonus, which isn't to be sneezed at,
especially as you'll use this blessing quite a lot. Even at 4% a point its
a pretty good deal, bearing in mind that this will help you deal a fair
amount of extra damage. As a bonus, its on the retribution tree in the talents,
so it counts towards the 10 points you have to put in it to get Seal of
Command. Woooo.
Two Handed Weapon Specialization
This add 1% per point to the damage of your 2-handed weapons. This doesn't
sound like much, but when you hit 5% you can see it making a difference.
2-handed weapons are very handy throughout the game, especially when you
get your specialist weapon, [Verigans Fist] from one of your Paladin quest.
This is even more useful when you start to get towards the end of the game,
and your doing more damage, and therefore getting a bigger bonus.
Spiritual Focus
This isn't in the Retribution tree, but it is still a very handy talent once
you've got your Seal of Command. Basically, each time you put a point in it,
you get a chance not to be interrupted by an enemy hitting you when you use
Holy Light or Flash of Light (Like Holy Light, but quicker and less potent).
Once you stick 5 points in it you'll get a 70% chance not to be delayed when
casting. This means 7 out of 10 hits aren't gonna slow up your healing, which
is handy.
Improved Devotion Aura
Each point invested in this will give a 5% cumulative bonus to the amount of
armour your Devotion Aura gives you and your party. This is, of course, quite
handy as it is your staple aura for soloing and very useful for party play.
My Devotion Aura gives me 275 armour at the moment, but if I sank 5 points
into this it would be up to 344 armour. Which is nice.
Vengeance
This is a personal favourite of mine. With 5 points in it, it gives you a 15%
bonus to your physical and holy damage, after you deal a critical hit. If you
start off a fight with a crit, this means for the next 8 secs, you do 15% more
damage on both your hits if your using Seal of Command. Thats an extra 30%
damage, which is an extra hit every 3 strikes. Which is bloody useful.
Conviction
Each point in this skill gives you an extra 1% chance of getting a critical
hit, so with 5 points in it you get an extra 5%. This doesn't sound like much,
but its an extra crit every 20 hits or so. So if you usually hit 2 crits per
20 hits this will bump it up to 3. Again this doesn't sound like very much,
but its pretty handy. Aside from this, you'll need to have 5 points in
Vengeance to get this, so you'll want as many critical hits as you can get.
Critical hits equal more damage. More crits equals more damage. More crits
equals good. Work it out from that.
--------------
9. Professions
--------------
The Obvious Choice
The way I see it, there are only 2 professions worth going for. Mining and
Blacksmithing. The ability to make reasonable sets of mail armour at the
start of the game is a godsend. While the others are wandering around wearing
a vivid mix of leather, mail, cloth and lycra, you'll look pretty dashing in
your matching set of copper gear, if a little orange. As you progress through
the game you'll eventually find better stuff, dropped from monsters or as
quest rewards. This is a fact of life, just because you made something doesn't
make it too special, though in fairness, certain items will last you an age. I
made my [Ironforge Breastplate] ages ago, but I'm still wearing it. But,
equally I got my [Chausses of Westfall] pants ages ago as a quest item and I'm
just getting good enough to consider replacing them with something homemade.
As you make more stuff, your smithing skill will improve over time, and you'll
be able to head back to your trainer and learn new stuff to make, as well as
some of the rarer plans being dropped by hard monsters. Before a huge amount
of time, you'll be able to make some decent quality stuff and flog it in the
auction house to all the foolish people who went out and became enchanters.
You'll find you have to make quite a lot of stuff to reach a high level of
blacksmithing, and your best off flogging your early efforts to vendors as no
one will buy them at the AH. But as soon as you start hitting the Ironforge
Breastplate area consider going to the Ah to sell your wares. Your first
concern though, should always be to level up your smithing skill by making new
and difficult to make items.
You'll soon find that you start needing more than just metal to make armour,
before long you'll need various types of stone (you'll find these as you mine,
and can convert them to grinding stones on your smithing screen), flux (you
can buy this from trade vendors, its the only place you can get it, but its
cheap), leather (trade with a leatherworker for a weapon or something, or
failing that pick some up at the AH), and the worst to find, gems. Gems are
rare drops on monsters and you can rarely get them from mining. Most likely,
you'll probably have to buy them from the AH if you need a few, but a full on
mining session can net you quite a few, though this could take hours.
A quick word on mining. All you need to mine is a pick and a rock to hit it
with. These rocks look, well, like rocks, but with chunks of ore sticking out
of them. The first ones you'll see are the copper ones, so look for rocks with
copper chunks sticking out. With your find ore skill, this is much easier as
they appear on your mini-map as gold dots. Best place to look, fairly obviously,
is down mines and caves. Whenever you get a chance, have a crack at them, as
they'll increase your mining skill and provide you with raw materials. Be
careful of monsters while mining though. If you see someone fighting monsters
near an ore vein, they might be clearing the area to do some mining, so ask
them if thats what they're doing, and if they are go off and find another vein.
Stealing other peoples ore is frowned upon and a bad reputation can really
screw you up later when you need to get in a group, and everyone thinks your
a twat.
There will be times, when your skill levels grind to a halt. At this point, its
time for a large mining push. This basically involves putting aside a couple of
hours, and going down some lower level mines and beating the hell outta some
rocks. The problem here is you don't get copper in high level areas, just like
you don't get mithril in low level areas. This means you may well have to go
back to another area, and almost certainly earn no EXP for your monster killing
efforts. I usually find this is a good time to help out new players. Say your
back in Elwynn forest to get some copper. You've moved on to Redridge, and your
well into the level 20 - 22 area. Killing level 6 - 8 Kobolds isn't going to be
even a little bit challenging and the loot is going to be crap. Go onto the
General or LookingForGroup channels and say your going mining and if anyone has
any quests down any of the mines that they're welcome to join you. Mention your
high level. Tell them the only catch is, they've got to let you have all the
ore. If they agree, great have a blast killing really easy monsters and
collecting ore. The warm fuzzy feeling you get from helping people is nice too.
Remember a game is only as good as its community. If you don't believe me, try
Neocron 2. What a bunch of bastards.
Other Professions
-----------------
Okay, so your not typical eh? Wanna buck the trend? You could make leather
armour or cloth armour even, though you'd have practically no use for it.
If you don't want to be a Miner/Smithy, there are a couple of other reasonable
paths. You could take up Alchemy/Herbalism and make potions for yourself,
though I've never tried this, it could be good. Personally, I'm not very big
on potions, though I know some players who swear by them.
There is one choice that does make some sense, not only to your stuff, but
to your playing style. If you pick Engineering, you'll suddenly find
yourself with a ranged attack at last. Thats right, if you take up
engineering you'll find yourself able to lob some dynamite around, though
I've only just started experimenting with Engineering with my Gnome Rogue
but as soon as I can make some more stuff, I'll let you know what it does
and if its any good. You'll also probably wanna take Mining with Engineering
as it needs quite a lot of metal parts, and more importantly rock parts, and
they are very hard to obtain outside mining, as no-one really drops em, and
people don't bother selling them on the AH, especially the earlier ones.
Your other obvious choice is to go the path of the almighty gold. Make money,
lots of money. Take a couple of gathering professions, say Skinning and
Herbalism, and skin every beast, and pick every plant, then flog the lot at
the AH. You will net a fortune doing this, but you'll probably end up using
it all to buy new armour and weapons. The other problem is with Skinning
specifically. Most of the time, especially at the start of the game, you'll
be skinning [Ruined Leather Scraps]. You can turn 3 of these into 1 [Light
Leather], but unfortunately, only if you've got Leatherworking. So, if you
really want to make a killing, take Herbalism and Mining. I know I would,
if I was a soulless capatalist (I am working on becoming one, but I'm too
nice ;)).
-------------
10. Equipment
-------------
------
Armour
------
For the first 40 levels you'll be using mainly mail armour. It is that much
better than leather and cloth, and early on in the game there's no good
reason to wear a piece of cloth armour over a piece of mail armour. Even if
the other armour offers a stat or other bonus, you'll be much better off
with the mail armour. As you go on, you'll find the different types of
armour will crop up as drops at about the same rate, so you should never
feel a piece of cloth or leather armour is better than your current piece
of mail. When you hit level 40, you'll be able to purchase the plate skill.
This will allow you to wear plate armour, which is of course the single best
type of armour in the game. However, I'm pretty sure its dropped by only the
highest level monsters, but you can buy yourself a set, either from a vendor
or from the auction house. It will however, be worth it, as plate armour is
well hard. Use the money you save on buying a mount to finance your plate
needs, so don't go wasting your money and remember to save a bit at least.
-------
Weapons
-------
Well here is where your real choice lies. If your going for tradition then
the obvious choice is the two-handed hammer, the symbol of the Paladin and
the Order of Light. They also hit pretty hard, and look pretty cool. You
can of course, go off to Stormwind and learn to fight with both types of
Swords and Axes. In my opinion, its worth learning all the weapon styles,
and keeping them up to date in training, because you never know when your
gonna come across a bloody brilliant 2-handed axe, and then find you can't
use it. Bearing this in mind, save up some money, go to Stormwind and train
yourself up. You'll find your new skill will be pretty woeful, so don't
expect to go straight back to what you were doing before, head back to your
starting area and help some noobs while getting your skill up. When your
about 20 below your maximum skill level (thats about 4 actual levels below),
you should be getting back to the point where you can do enough damage to
head back to your previous callings, remember if you get in big trouble you
can always switch back to your old weapon. Remember to keep training your
skills every level, or you'll end up finding a great sword and hitting like
a pansy because your skill is too low.
-------
Shields
-------
When tanking the shield will be your best friend, as it adds a huge amount
to your armour class. The balance here is the difference in damage between
1-handed and 2-handed varients of weapons. To use a shield, you can only
have a 1-handed weapon equppied, so you'll be doing much less damage.
Fortunately, I have a great one handed sword, the [Cruel Barb] which does
15.5 DPS, whereas my current 2-handed sword [Executioners Blade] only does
15.9 DPS, which ain't a huge amount more. With this in mind I almost always
use my 1-handed sword and my shield [Bastion of Stormwind]. The only time I
currently use my 2-handed sword is when I want to train it, though it still
hits plenty hard, so I don't have to go back to easier enemies to train.
So in conclusion, go with whatever you feel is your best weapon. Hammers
are traditional and at level 20, you get a quest for a superb 25.9 DPS
2-handed hammer called [Verigans Fist]. Bear this in mind when your training
your skills. But equally, if you really want to use a sword, then no-ones
gonna hold it against you. As a side note, bear in mind that you can't learn
any ranged weapons, as the Order of Light consider ranged combat to be
without honour. The first ranged skill you get is Exorcise at level 20, and
that only works on the undead. Don't worry about this too much, ranged
weapons only cause trouble anyway.
--------------------------
11. General Tips and Hints
--------------------------
Well, this section is about general in game stuff. Just some things, useful
to all classes, that I've picked up whilst playing this stupidly brilliant
game.
1. Talk to everyone, and I mean everyone, you can. Quests for places in some
zones have to be gotten from other places. Good examples are the Deadmines,
because their are 2 quests for this place in Stormwind, an Inn in the Dwarf
Quarter to be precise. The quests for the Stockades are spread all over the
damn place, including Redridge and Darkshire.
2. Join a guild as soon as you can. Having a ready source of info about the
game world, professions, and everything else is really very handy. If you
decide the guild isn't for you, you're free to leave at any time, by typing
/gquit into the chat bar. If you do leave, don't just suddenly go missing.
Thank whoevers online for their help and say goodbye to everybody, and explain
your reasons for quitting. If its something they've done, I'm sure they'll
appreciate knowing why you don't want to be a member anymore. Plus, if you
part on good terms and come across them later in your WoW life they'll be more
willing to help you if you didn't tell them to fist themselves a couple of
weeks previously.
3. Etiquette is very, very important. There is nothing more annoying than a
player who doesn't play fair when it comes to looting and working in a party.
First things first, Party Dynamics. Your party leader should be a combonation
of your fastest typer and your most experienced member. This is not
necessarily the highest level player, as you could have a lower level player
with 3 level 60 alts, who knows a lot more about the game and the area you
are in than you do. Once you've decided on your party leader, pay attention
to him. Let him decide the puller, healer and damage dealers of the group. If
you disagree with something he says, then tell him, but be prepared to justify
your arguement. If he says stop, then stop. If you are the group leader, then
be prepared to lay down the law. When people are doing well, tell them. A little
praise goes a long way. In the same vain, if someone is doing something wrong,
tell them and ask them not too. If they persist, tell them they have one last
chance before you kick them from the group. If they still don't stop, then kick
them and ignore them if they bitch. You warned them already, they should have
listened. There is also a case for kicking people immediately, if they do
something grossly silly. I remember one case when me and a group were down the
deadmines, and our parties warlock suddenly sent her VoidWalker (a large dark
blue blob of nastiness that sometimes follow Warlocks around) straight across
the floor of the Foundry (an area filled with goblins) picking up about 10
other gobbos and getting the whole party wiped out.This is patently stupid
behaviour and she deserved to be kicked off the group.
Other points if your the group leader is to give clear instructions. Don't
give all your instructions in anagrams (OOM = Out of Mana, INC = Incoming!,
etc) if some of the group don't understand them. If you absolutely have to
speak in code, make sure everyone knows what that means, and more importantly,
what it means to them. If you use a healing anagram, (such as INH which stands
for I Need Healing) make sure your priest/paladin/druid knows what your
talking about.
Another point is to know whats coming. If your down the deadmines, for
instance, you should know that every time you kill a mini boss, a patrol of 3
elite defias will spawn some distance behind you and make their way down. This
is a right pain in the ass, especially if everyones running around looting,
trading, doing train impressions and telling jokes. The last thing you need is
for your priest to get mobbed by 3 defias and killed, leaving you with no
rezzer.
Right, looting rules. When it comes to looting, you've got 3 real options, and
here they are.
A. Group loot. Everyone takes it in turns and when a magic item comes up people
are allowed to roll for it. Rolling for it involves the computer coming up with
a random number between 1 - 100. The person with the highest number wins the
item. Now this is a fairly good way of deciding who gets what, but it does have
its setbacks. For a start, if everyone rolls on everything, you'll get a lot of
mages getting mail armour and warriors getting cloth armour they have no
intention of using. This is where the "v and n" rule comes in. When you find a
magic item, check the details. If you need the item (i.e. it will increase your
armour or weapon damage or stats) then type n. Bear in mind that people can
check your equipment, using the inspect command, so they can tell if you have
no intention of using the items you say you need. So if you don't need it,
don't say that you do. This is a surefire way of getting kicked from a group
and getting a bad reputation. One last point, if your an enchanter, and you
plan to disenchant an item, that doesn't count as needing it. If you don't
need the item or you plan to disenchant it type v. This stands for Vendor,
as you intend to sell it, give it away or disenchant it. Once everyone has
typed "v or n" then its time to roll. If one or more people have typed n then
let them roll, and you should pass on the item. If you don't need it, but
someone else does, don't roll. If you do this, you'll get a lot of respect
back when you find you need something. If everyone types v for it, then all
roll for it. This way, people get what they need, and everyone gets a fair
share of the loot that no one really needs. If you have a load of money and
your adventuring with a bunch of lower level characters, it might be worth
passing on some items, as the lower level players will need them more. Just
try to be courteous and nice to people. If you happen to be going to a dungeon
on the plan of picking up a specific item then let your group know. If your
straight up about going down the deadmines to pick up part of the Blackened
Defias set of armour for your alt, then your group are gonna be a lot more
understanding than if you tell them when you get there. Be prepared to make
concessions to the leather wearers in the group if this is the case.
B. Round Robin. Everyone takes it in turns to loot a corpse and they get to keep
whatever is on the corpse. This is easily the fairest method of distributing
loot, but people rarely get what they want. If your planning on just going down
an instance to get money then this is probably your best bet for a fair
distribution of the loot. Otherwise, stick to group loot and hope people are
honest.
C. Need Before Greed. This is a strange one really. Under this set of rules,
you can only roll on stuff you can use. So, for example, you can only roll on
one handed swords if you have the one handed sword skill. While this seems very
sensible, there is a bit of a setback. For a start, while mages can only roll
for cloth armour, Warriors, Paladins and other classes, can roll for any pieces
of armour as they can use them all. As long as eveyone is sensible, this isn't
too bad, but if you plan on distributing the loot evenly, especially the stuff
that isn't needed by anyone, then this isn't going to cut it. Its not fair if
most of the classes can't roll on mail armour even if no-one else needs it. This
is okay, if you've got a ninja looter type spellcaster who is always rolling for
mail items even if he doesn't need them and other people do.
So basically, A is the best method of looting for most people, especially when
using the "v and n" rules. The other methods have they're place, but they just
simply aren't as good in a fair group.
4. Okay, heres an important one. Be nice to people. If you ask a question on
the general channel don't say something like "Is Kor gem group drop", take
some time to type it properly like "Does anyone know if the Kor Gem is a group
drop or a single drop?" The little extra effort will mean your question is more
likely to be answered. If people do answer you, make sure to say thank you to
each of them. Feel free to buff anyone who happens to pass you. If someone needs
a hand, help them. Take some time to go to the Newbie areas and help new players
out if they're having problems. If you need a reason to help them consider doing
some mining or whatever while your there. Just generally be nice to people. If
someone wants help, considerhelping them, even if your busy. You can make your
server a better place to play, and your example will certianly inspire others.
5. Murlocs are evil bastard fish things and should be killed as much as
possible.
6. Don't expect to people to help you if you don't ask nicely. Higher level
players are trying to level up too, and if you say "You, help me now" don't
expect a reply let alone any help. Ask nicely, and you've got a much better
chance of help, or at the very least an apology and reason why they can't
help you.
7. If you can't find the info you need in game, try the net. Gamefaqs.com
has a variety of good guides (including this one) and failing that
www.thottbot.com will certainly be able to help. Thottbot is an internet
search page devoted entirely to World of Warcraft. If you need to know
anything about any quest or item, then head there and you'll find a variety
of info taken directly from the game and also a discussion page on every item
and quest. Most of these are full of morons arguing over whether Horde or
Alliance are better, but there's also plenty of handy info, so skip past the
fools who write such things and find the sensible info. A good rule is,
iF iTs WrItTEn LiKE tHiS, its probably a pile of crap, so don't read it.
8. Take up Duelling. Duelling is fun and there is nothing to lose when doing
so, so knock yourself out. Only ask for and accept duels from people within 5
levels of you. If a level 25 player challenges you at level 15, don't bother
fighting him, you won't win, and he's just looking to make you feel stupid.
Of course, if a player a lot lower than you challenges you, feel free to wail
on him, though you may want to ask him if he's sure he wants to do this. Me
and my guild are planning to start holding regular duelling contests in
Goldshire with prizes and everything. Such things should be encouraged, as they
foster a sense fun and community. If someone gets pissy with you because you won
a duel, just ignore them or comment on their poor losing qualities.
9. Have fun. This is the most important rule.
-----------------------
12. Mini Instance Guide
-----------------------
Okay, time to write some stuff about instances. First off, some advice.
Pay attention now.
At level 40 you will be able to solo the Deadmines, but until then your
gonna need a group. If you can, try and get a group of people you've
enjoyed working with before. There's nothing like a good group who know
what they're doing. Next thing, know your role. Not a catchphrase from
a crap wrestling series, but an excellent piece of advice. If your group
is heavy on warriors and rogues, your gonna need to be the healer,
whereas if your group is big on Cloth wearers, your gonna have to be the
tank for them. Obviously feel free to freelance a bit when required, but
if you need to be a healer, then don't go wasting your mana on
consecrating every few seconds. Your other main concern should be
keeping your entire party buffed, Wisdom on the Mages, Warlocks, Priests
and maybe the Druids, as long as there not being a Bear or Cat, in which
case give them Might like the rest.
The Deadmines are a fairly straightforward instance, you start at one
end, kill everything you see, and you come out the other end. Here's a
few tips to help you through. Make sure you don't pull too many enemies
at once. As I discovered 6 enemies can be pretty close to deadly, even
to a level 40 character if you end up with all of them at once. Leave the
pulling to someone with a ranged attack, preferably a warrior with a gun
or bow. If you know your gonna get a load of enemies, have a rogue sap
one or the mage polymorph one, or both if you need it. These 2 enemies
will be out of the fight for the next 25-30 seconds as long as you don't
damage them in any way. This should be plenty of time to take the other
enemies and then get onto the unconcious ones. Using this method should
easily get you most of the way through the mines. There are a few things
to watch out for. After each boss, there is a small patrol of people who
come from behind you, numbering around the 2 or 3 area they are elites,
so be careful of these and don't just run on after each boss fight, or
these people will catch up with you, and give you 3 more elite things to
worry about. So be Careful. The first boss is an ogre called Rhank'Zor.
He's you standard hit people until they die type character, so just get
his aggro onto a warrior, and have everyone lay into him and he'll go
down easy, just make sure your healer is paying attention to the health
of whoever he's wailing on. If you pull him from outside the room, your
much less likely to aggro his friends, so have someone shoot him when
he's furthest from his friends, and then deal with them when your
finished with him. The next boss is Sneed's Shredder. As opposed to
dealing with him first, you'll be wanting to deal with all the goblins
in the room first. Be careful not to accidentally pull the shredder, as
he'll most likely bring all the goblins with him and your probably not
gonna survive that. As soon as your done with the goblins, lay into the
Shredder with everything you've got and bear in mind, when the shredder
is dead, Sneed jumps out and has a go at you too. Neither of them should
be a problem for a well organised party, remember the patrol coming from
behind though. The next area is the foundry and a bad pull here can be a
total wipe for the group, so be very careful, and make sure you kill off
the goblins before they have a chance to run from you. When you reach the
bottom, do your best to thin out the goblin numbers with well placed
pulls before you face Gilnid the Smelter and his two goblin friends. He
shouldn't be too much hassle. Again, he's just a straightforward beat you
up kinda guy. Again, watch for the patrol, but it takes them much longer
to reach you as they have to walk down the foundry. There is a forge and
anvil here as well, so if you need it, feel free to smelt your ore and
make anything needed for the group. I remember having to make some
dipstick some armour because he forgot to repair his armour before he
came, and it broke half way down, the dumbass. After all the pirates,
and what not you'll finally reach a chest and Mr.Smite the first mate.
Now, this is quite a challenging fight for most people. Smite comes with
2 friends who are stealthed near the ramp to the ship. The most important
thing in this fight is too kill the 2 rogue type enemies first, because
twice in the fight, Smite will stun your entire party, while he changes
his weaponry, and the last thing you need is 2 people beating on you
with impunity whilst you stand there like a lemon. So kill them first
and then lay into Smite with all you got. Keep an eye on everyones health,
and you'll be fine. Onto the ship and the number of pirates per square
inch increases, so be careful not to get a bad pull and have loads of
them after you. There's a murloc on one side of the boat who drops a
sweet one handed mace, or a wand, and sometimes a cat which is nice. His
name is Cookie, and as long as you don't get any of the sailors involved
at the same time he'll be a push over. Heading up the ship, you'll soon
find a Captain Greenskin, who patrols the decks with a couple of pirates,
so pull him when he's nearest to the ramp onto the boat, so to make sure
he doesn't completely kick your ass by getting Van Cleef at the same
time. After you finish off the captain its on to the main event. If
you've found it pretty straightforward up to now, then you've got a
pretty good chance of success, but if you struggled to get this far, its
suddenly gonna get a lot harder. Van Cleef is not an easy fight, and to
make matters worse, he comes with 2 friends, like Smite's and he calls 2
more when he's down to half health. With this in mind, its important to
kill his 2 friends first, preferably while one of the group takes all of
Van Cleefs aggro. Keep an eye on this chaps health, as Van Cleef hits
pretty hard and often. Once your done with the first set of friends,
wail on Van Cleef, with the designated healer keeping an eye on the
health of whoevers getting the aggro. When the next 2 appear have most
of the group peel off and deal with them, leaving the tank to take Van
Cleef's aggro and the healer keeping a close eye on his health. The
other 3 people should have no trouble wiping out the other 2 rogue
types, and as soon as they have, have everyone jump back on Van Cleef.
Once he's dead, make off with his stuff, get his head and make a dash
for the exit. Deadmines done. Congratulations.
Okay, y'all. This section is all about Battlegrounds. To those of you
playing on PvP servers, you'll be well versed in beating each other
up if your above level 20, though if your on a PvE server the most
you've probably done is hurled some insults at some horde/alliance
and thats about it. Thats where Battlegrounds come in. Its a place
where Alliance and Horde can come to beat each other up and there's
usually a pretty good reward for doing it.
The other good side of Battlegrounds and PvP in General is Honour.
Every time you kill a member of the opposite faction, who's around
your level, you get an Honourable Kill. You get a number of honour
points for your honourable kills, depending on your level, and the
level of your victim. You don't have to strike the final blow, but
you do have to be generally involved in the kill, though this can
include healing one of the fighters, so don't worry if your a
priest. Capturing flags, control points, and a variety of other
activites can also accrue you Honour points. The more honour points
you have, the higher your rank, which determines stuff you can buy
from certain vendors around the world. The highest level lets you
buy the best stuff, so its worth getting a good amount of honour
points together, and besides, PvP is actually pretty fun when your
not getting ganked by a level 60 when your only level 20.
Battlegrounds (BG's from now on) are arranged into level tiers, so
that both teams have similar level players on the field. In a recent
patch Blizzard added a lower tier, so now levels 10-19 can have some
fun along with the other tiers, that go up by 10 levels at a time.
The tiers used to run 21-30, 31-40, etc, but they don't anymore, so
don't get to level 30 then go, or you'll be fodder for the higher
level players.
Warsong Gulch
-------------
Warsong Gulch is likely to be the first BG you go too, though you do
have a choice, I would go here first. Its the easiest BG to do, as far
as I know, and its a good place to start slaying the horde/alliance.
This BG follows the basic rules of Capture the Flag, the popular FPS
team based game type where you have to steal the other teams flag and
bring it back to your base. Your flag has to be at your base to score
a point, and you can return your flag by killing the man carrying the
flag and right clicking on it. Players on the other team can pick it
up as well, though this takes a touch longer, so you have a better
chance of returning it than grabbing it, especially if the person
killed was nearby their killer. The game runs to the first to 3
captures, and the winner gets an item from the BG which they can
redeem for EXP and cash. Warsong is a 10 man a side match.
The basic layout of Warsong is simple. There is a base at each end, one
alliance and one horde, and there is a fairly large middle area in
between the two which has to be negotiated. Basically, whoever controls
the middle area has the best chance of winning. They have the best
chance of stopping an enemy flag carrier, and the best chance of
defending their own on the way back to their base. Here's a quick
breakdown of, in my humble opinion, the best way to win Warsong.
First things first. Get everyone on the side to get into a raid group.
This makes communication much easier, and you can easily co-ordinate
attacks and defense with your other team mates. Next thing, you should
split up into 3 groups, 2 groups of 3 and 1 of 4. The first group of 3
should be the attack group. This should doubtless include a rogue, who
is easily the best way to steal the flag. With the 2 skills, Sprint and
Evasion, they have the best chance of getting the flag. Basically, they
stealth in, wait for for their friends to start the fight, then steal
the flag and hit these 2 skills. This lets them run faster and dodge
better, which prevents them being wounded, and more importantly, slowed.
An important point to make is that you can stealth whilst running with
the flag, BUT you will be forced to drop it, so don't unless your miles
from the nearest enemy and your going to give it to a fellow player,
possibly one with more health, for a safer run back to your base.
Another good choice for the attack team is a mage, because you want
someone who can snare most of the opposition, tying them down, whilst
your rogue friend runs like hell back to your base. Mages are perfect
for this, as with the spell Frost Nova they can stop most, if not all
the opposition from following the flag carrier. Another good plan is
to have the mage Polymorph one of the opposition and maybe, if your
feeling hopeful you can have a rogue Sap one of them too. If this
is the Flag grabbing rogue, he will likely be spotted, so be careful
to co-ordinate your attack carefully. If your on the Horde side, there
is no better choice for your flag carrier than a Shaman. With their
ghost wolf spell, they can turn stealthy and quick, and keep hold of
the flag making them the obvious choice for the flag runs, even over
any rogues you may have going spare. Other good choices for the
attack team are Priests (Power Word: Shield is always handy when
running for it), Paladins (ditto, Blessing of Protection), and Hunters
especially if they can set up some well placed Freeze traps.
Next 3 man team is the defense team. This should be made up of people
who are good at escaping stuns (like Paladins) and any Gnomes, using
their racial skill, Escape artist. You should also have people who
can dish out plenty of their own stuns. Rogues with gouge are good
for this, or hiding near the exits ready to use kidney punch. Other
good examples are again Mages, Paladins (Hammer of Justice has a
pretty long range for a melee skill), and Druids are excellent for
running down escaping flag carriers with their Cat form. The defense
team should always follow the flag, the idea being to trap the enemy
flag carrier between the defenders and the middle group.
The 4 man group should be the middle group, who can be made up of
anyone and everyone. This group will be doing a lot of fighting, and
ideally they should stick together and should certainly have a
healer with them to keep them fighting fit most of the time. Their
job is to intercept attacks before they hit the defense team and if
not totally stop them, then certainly slow them down, provide a
warning, including numbers and classes coming and thin out the numbers
for the defense team. If there's a choice then they should target the
most effective flag carriers, i.e. Rogues and Shamans, first and then
the healers. Druids are also reasonable flag carriers, so feel free to
smack them around a bit as well. If you have Rogues and Mages, remember
to use Sap and Poly if you can, as the less people in the fight the
more likely you are to win and the quicker you can finish it.
Arathi Basin
------------
Arathi is a bit different to Warsong, mainly in game type. This map is
more like the Battlefield series of games, or possibly the domination
game type from the Unreal series of games. Your basic job is too
capture control points on the map and hold them for as long as
possible. The longer you hold them, the more resource points you get
the quicker you win. The objective of this map is too reach 2000
resource points. There are 5 control points and to hold them you have
to go up to the flags and right click on them. It takes a little while
to capture the point, so some kind of defense is going to be needed,
even if the enemy are a while away, as this process takes about a minute.
Please note, you only have to start the process, you can fight whilst
its going on and you don't have too stand still next to the flag for
the whole minute, that would just suck. Both teams have a base at each
end of the map, and the 5 control points are in the middle area. All
the control points have their own graveyards, so you'll respawn at
your nearest control point, and failing that back at your base.
Arathi is a 20 man a side match.
I remain somewhat torn about the tactics to use on Arathi. Many people
swear the best thing to do is head straight for the Blacksmith (the
middle control point) and then try and run things from there, and in
fairness it is a good plan. Certainly it gives you an excellent base
for launching your attacks and a good place for everyone to respawn
if push comes to shove. The danger of this approach, is that the
enemy know exactly where to find you once they see the Blacksmith
control point turn your color. A massed attack has a very good chance
of dislodging you, especially if you've sent half your team off to
capture the other control points. I find the better tactic is to have
your entire team roll over the map taking what they can and leaving
a couple of people in defense to act as a warning system and to slow
up any attacks on your bases until the rest of your team can get
there. This way, you will almost always have the benefit of numbers
and thats the surest way to win a fight. If anyone has any tactics
relating to Arathi, please feel free to mail em to me, as I've
only played this map with the one character.
---------------
14. Thank You's
---------------
First, thank you to Blizzard for not only this game, but their many others.
Diablo 2 is still one of the best RPG's available on the PC, and this game
only furthers their reputation as a great developer. Bravo.
Second, Thank you to everyone in my Guild, Light of Dawn, on the
Shadowsong server. You know who you are. ***LoD is now gone. RIP.***
I'd like to thank my new guild, the Red Army. They haven't been any help
on the guide, but they are a nice bunch.
Also many thanks to Jason Tong who wrote the Talent and Race FAQ's on
GameFAQs.com which I referenced whilst writing this guide. Nice job mate.
Next up, thanks to my mate Bert who lent me his laptop to write this on.
Find him in game as a player called Tepik (Shadowsong Server, as well) and
give him some gold. He'll need it, he doesn't get a free mount at lvl 40.
HAHAHA.
Thanks much to my mate Pete who lets me play WoW on his computer when mine
packs in. This is a fairly regular occurence. Also find him on the
Shadowsong server as a Night Elf Rogue called Paetre. Give him money, he
deserves some.
Thanks to all the people on my friends list in game for their input and
help on this guide. Llobo in particular, for being no help at all, but
amusing all the same.
Bob McForman for info regarding Stoneform, Holy Strikes new name, and a
few other bits and bobs. (No pun intended).
Adam Rees for a big long list of stuff on Professions. Nice one mate,
very good job.
Dupre of Terenas for a few pieces of info. He's also a pally, so he's
clearly smart and handsome. Probably.
Miguel who sent me a long list of various pointers that were very handy if
not particularly relevant. Good job mate.
Heres a list of people who got my question right (though any quiz that
involves using the internet is probably not gonna be too hard).
Colton Shott
Tylor Speas-Norgard
Krzysztof Seliga
Shadowolf of Eonar
Tigerpaw
Dustin Hotz
Miguel
Gromal of Staghelm
Dave Stage
Rix
Dragan
Benji
This document is copyrighted by me Grant Newby as of 06/07/05. Blizzard,
World of Warcraft and any associated trademarks are registered trademarks
of the Blizzard corporation.
This guide is for personal use only, and any other use is a breach of
copyright. So no putting it on public display in the Louvre.
Anyone wanting to host a copy of this will need to seek my permission (my
e-Mail is grantnewby88@hotmail.com), and must agree to host the whole
thing in its intirety, and unedited.
Except for the spelling mistakes.
Sites which have permission to use this guide: www.Gamefaqs.com
www.onlinegametrader.net/wow/
www.gamesxtreme.net
www.DLH.net
www.Gamershell.com
www.GamersTemple.com
If you see any other sites using this guide, let me know, so I can sue
them. A lot.
Peace out.
Thank you all, and good night.
------------------------------
Extra Special Quiz Section!!!!
------------------------------
Special mention in the guide to those who answer the question right.
Q. What is the name of the expansion pack for Diablo 2?
Okay, so many people got this question right, I've decided to write
another, and this time its not so easy.
Q. I have a friend who plays under the alias CMOTDibbler. What is
this a reference too?
