Dual talent specialization is made available to players at level 40. I do not recommend purchasing the talent at this time unless you have a main toon with a surplus of to fund this endeavor. However at level 80, dual talent specialization is a no-brainer for most classes. At the cost of 1,000 gold any player should be able to afford this and the benefits are great. As of note, there is no type of faction discount that can be applied for the talent. You can purchase the talent from your class trainer.

What the dual talent specialization provides to you is the ability to switch between any 2 talent specs, glyph sets, and action bars. This talent can greatly increase your demand to your guild and fellow players. Say you have a Druid or Paladin toon, this talent would enable you to have a tank build and a healing build, which are the most in-demand roles for players. If you are a good player and have the ability to switch between these roles, raids will be begging for you to join them on their quest. Now you must have the appropriate gear to make proper use of these talent builds, as your tanking gear would not be acceptable for your healing spec. However as you progress through raids there will be opportunities for you to acquire gear for your second spec, either through raid rolls, or spending emblems.

The dual talent specialization has the added benefit of changing up the game play. The game can get stale and repetitive from doing the same rotation over and over. This talent can greatly alter your rotation or even the way you experience the same raid. Having 2 different roles with one toon could be like having a whole other toon, but without the work of leveling one all the way to 80 again. If your main spec is DPS, random dungeon queue times can be in excess of 15 minutes, however if you have a second tank spec you can get instant queue times. Most players are doing at least one random dungeon per day of playing, so this saved time can add up very quickly.

Another option for wanting dual talent specialization would be if you want to do PvE and also PvP. If you want to be successful in both of these areas you will need to have different talent builds for each area. Sure you can do PvP in your PvE build, but it is not the optimal strategy. Also one thing to consider, if you’re strictly an Arena PvP player, this would allow you to fill different roles on your teams. In 5v5 you could be a DPS role, and in 3v3 you could be a healer role. It’s comparable to the advantages of the PvE player have dual talent specialization. This use might be better suited for pure DPS class such as a mage or hunter. In most cases they will only need one spec for PvE, and as a result can choose their second spec to be PvP.

When I reach level 80 on my toons, I normally have in excess of 1,000 gold just from leveling and not even working on professions. The first thing I will spend my gold on is not epic BoE gear, or epic flying, it is dual talent specialization. The freedom to switch between roles with the click of a button is too valuable not to take advantage of.

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Interested In Writing?
I’m looking for very experienced WoW players with good writing skills and the desire to write about what you love. You’ll be required to come up with interesting topics, engaging content and replies to comments on your posts on a weekly basis. I’ll also need guides and content for other WoW sites written so there’s lots of work available.

This is a paid position and fees will be negotiated privately. Interested? Get in touch.

Are You Already A WoW Blogger?
I’m opening the site to guest bloggers so if you’re interested in writing a guest post for us, please contact me.

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World of Warcraft offers a variety of classes that you can play with. At first, it may be overwhelming for you when you are choosing a class for the first time or starting a second character. What most people do not realize is that they need to choose the character that fits their playing style rather than a character that is considered “the best” from forums and such. If you pick a class you do not enjoy, you will most likely not be able to pick the character you want. To help, I’ve included a gameplay video for each class so you can get an idea of what it’s like to play with each one.

Druids
Druids are one of the most versatile classes in the game. They have the ability to tank, heal, and dps depending on the spec they decide to go with. Their main style of playing requires them to constantly be changing forms unless you are doing something specific. As a tank, they will be in bear form taking control of all the mobs. All the healing will be done mainly in the tree form and dpsing will be mainly from the cat form (feral form; the druid will act somewhat like a rogue in its catform. If you like a class that has the ability to shapeshift and cover multiple roles, this may be the class for you.

Hunters
Hunters have the ability to have a pet which makes them very unique. They rely mainly on their ranged dps skills in PvE and kiting strategies in battleground to win. If you enjoy a class that can range down damage from afar and kite your opponents so they do not reach you, this may be the class for you.

Mages
Mages, with their 3 amazing field of magic, have the ability to bring down destruction of magic on any target. Mages rely heavily on their mana pool and their spells in order for them to survive. They will mainly be nuking and attacking from afar as any close range combat will devastate these clothies. If you love the idea of being able to cast all kinds of crazy spells, this may be the class for you.

Paladins
These are the holy warriors in the game. Just like the druid, the paladin can fulfill the role of any three roles in the game. Paladins are very strong warriors as they have the ability to wear plate armor and use a combination of spells and melee attacks to bring down their foe. They will be in close range combat for dpsing. If you enjoy the idea of a warrior being able to use spells, this may be the class for you.

Priests
Priests are the best healers in the game. In holy form, they have the ability to keep their group alive for a long time. In disciplinary form, they will be able to heal and survive with their unique abilities. Lastly, they have the ability to turn into shadow form and bring down destruction on the enemy. If you enjoy playing as healer or want to control your enemy in shadowform, this class may be for you.

Rogues
Rogues are one of the classes that do not use mana. They rely heavily on their stealth combat, and they have the ability to sneak up on enemies and rip them apart in matter of seconds. If you enjoy a class that has the ability to stealth and deal huge amounts of damage to the opponent, this may be the class for you.

Shamans
Shamans have 2 forms of dps and 1 form of healing. They have a unique buff that allows them to be useful in any raid situation or PvP situation. They rely heavily on their totems for support; if you like a class that uses totems to support your attack, this may be the class for you.

Warlocks
Warlocks have the ability to summon demons and bring down wrath upon their opponents through their destruction spells or affliction spells. With their crazy amounts of damage over time abilities used with the combination of their pet, this class is like a hunter except with spells.

Warriors
Warriors also do not use mana, and they are the best tanking class in the game. They have the ability to use stances (battle stance, defensive stance, etc). If you enjoy a class that is extremely heavy and is the best at tanking or dealing huge amount of damage, this class is for you.

Death Knight
The DKs are a special class. They use special abilities called “runes” in order to use their magic. They can both tank and dps; if you like a unique class that uses a combination of runes to bring down damage on your opponents, this class is for you.

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Picking a profession may be a difficult choice for you when starting a character or power leveling a profession. For most people, they have to watch out what profession they choose because of the amount of gold it takes to level it up. That is why most people choose to pick a gathering profession and a complimentary profession to support it. If you are looking to make gold from your profession in the long run, you are best off choosing a gathering profession. However, the downside of having a gathering profession is that you cannot do anything else than gather.

The benefit of choosing a crafting or service profession is that you can benefit yourself. However, the downside is that you may have a hard time leveling the profession as it will cost you a lot of gold as well as time. The good news is that you can still make as much money as a gathering profession in the long run. You just have to simply figure out how to do it and learn the most profitable strategy.

If you are going to gather and earn money through farming herbs, ores, or leather, you should definitely analyze the market and see which items will yield you the most profit. You can then just load up on food and water (if you need it of course), empty all your bags, and you can begin farming in that area for lots of profitable items. If you really wanted to, you can save all your materials and level another profession with them if you have enough guildbank spaces. If you do not buy additional space, you will have a hard time storing all your materials unless you mail them to yourself. However, it will only last you 30 days.

If you are going to take a service or crafting profession, you should definitely first level your profession based on how much gold is available to you. Tailoring will require a lot of cloth, so you should definitely check to see if the cloth are affordable in the AH. The best thing to do is see which class you are and pick a profession that will benefit you. For example, if you are a priest, you should pick tailoring as one of your profession because you can make items for yourself.

Once you have a profession maxed out, it is time to see which things sell the best. Sticking to the tailoring example, you can make 2 ebonweave per session if you are specialized tailor. This means that every 2 days, you can generate and easy 150g profit just by making it really quick. Ebonweave is preferred over the other cloth (in my realm) because it sells better. If your guild has another cloth that sells better, you should definitely specialize and make that.

If you are a blacksmith, find items that people need such as rods. All the rods are needed my enchanters, so there will always be a demand for rods, especially with the ridiculously low competition. These are some of the examples in how to make gold using the items that are in demand.

There is another way to make money off these professions. Usually, the items that you can craft will be a lot higher than the materials needed to make them. You will simply have to go out and see which materials are cheap to obtain and compare it with the item price. The highest yield will be for epic items at level 80. You want to make sure you see the average selling price of the item before crafting them. If the items are items that do not sell very well, there is not really a point in making them as you will end up losing a lot of money.

If you are leveling a service profession like enchanting, you may want to give out free enchants in the process of leveling. If you yell in trade about a free enchant you are offering, you will most likely get tipped for the service. This way, you can get tips and be able to level your profession at the same time which is extremely convenient for you.

As you can see, there are numerous ways to profit from all of the profession. If you can use your profession correctly, you have the potential to make a ton of money through the professions no matter which profession you choose.

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Most of the World of Warcraft players are currently busy with their raids and PVP at higher levels; only a few will take the time to venture back into the old Azeroth to re experience the intense moments of original warcraft. This is absolutely understandable as the old continent does not have much to offer to the high leveled players. The only reason you would return is to level another character, help another player, or you may just go around and gank towns and cities of the opposite faction. However, there is one reason that you should go back to the old world that you have left behind; to make gold.

There are numerous gold making techniques nowadays; these range from farming eternals in Northrend to using professions to gain gold. Most of the strategies require farming, but a lot of these strategies are populated with other people using it as well. Even the buy-low sell-high strategy is not as effective as it used to be because of the mass amount of people using the strategy. Although these methods are populated, there is still one strategy that is not used my most people.

The strategy that can yield you a decent amount of profit is by farming and getting items from Pre-BC and BC times. These include cloth items, ores and herbs from original World of Warcraft, etc. These items sell well because there are always people looking to power level their profession. When they see that you are the only provider, they have no choice but to purchase from you. They understand that it will be extremely hard to find another buyer, so they have no choice but to purchase whatever they are provided with. In addition, these powerlevelers have a lot of money because most people do not dare to level their professions super fast without gold because they realize that it is going to cost them quite a lot.

The reason behind the ridiculous pricing is that no one is farming or gathering old materials from the original Warcraft continents anymore. There are not that many people leveling there, so the demand will never be met to the fullest. If you have ever tried to power level some of the professions in the past, you will realize that the cost for these materials is ridiculous. Also, if you have played since Pre-BC or even BC, you will realize that these prices have gone up at a ridiculous rate.

There are numerous original Warcraft materials that have soared up in price. Here is a few examples from my realm, but it is imperative that you check the auction house pricing for your realm to see which one sells the best.

Copper ore – These things went for less than one gold per stack in BC and Pre-BC, but they are currently selling at an average of 30g/stack. The great thing is that these are ridiculously easy to farm.

Wool Cloth – these wool cloths went for 50silver originally, but they currently sell for 20g/stack.

All the other cloth items sell very well. This is because they are rarely farmed or sold anymore. The only cloth I would recommend not farming is linen cloth. Lots of low levels have access to them, so these are not farmed as much.

The ores also sell very well, so you may want to think about using them. The silver ores sell for about 10g/each. That means you can get around 200g/stack. Believe it or not, these sell very well because of the demand with no competition.

Some fun ways to farm materials such as cloth is by farming them through instances. Running Zul Farrak multiple times will help you stack up with mageweave cloth as well as Flask of Mojo. Flask of Mojo will sell anywhere from 80g-120g per stack, and the mageweave will sell around 20g/stack. If you have a nice 80 and enjoy farming, you will definitely have fun doing it while making gold. You can also be generous and run a low level through the instance for free, but ask them to collect all the items and give them to you at the end in return. There are numerous ways to get creative and make money using the old Warcraft land.

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Leveling is a crucial part of the World of Warcraft because that is the first thing you must do in order to start using your character for the end game fun. However, this may prove to be a horrific experience as most people do not like leveling their character. There are numerous reasons for this:

1. You may dislike leveling your character because it is extremely boring.
2. You may hate leveling because you do not like to do something repetitive.
3. It takes way too long to reach the level you want.

These are all valid reasons as to why you may dislike leveling. However, leveling is process that you must go through as a World of Warcraft player in order to be able to experience the end game content. If you are an aspiring player that wants to start getting into the end game content, you may wish to maximize your leveling speed.
Tips to maximize leveling speed:

1. You want to have the least downtime possible. This means that you want to be able to level without having to pause in between each fight due to low health or mana. By doing this, you will be able to not lose anytime while leveling. Having to stop for water and food after every fight will become extremely tedious and annoying.
2. Do not just grind. World of Warcraft was not meant for a massive grindfest. The fastest way to level is by doing all the quests that you can. However, this does not mean you should do all the quests because there are only some quests that are worth doing. You want to make sure you only do the quests that do not take a long time to do. These include killing a certain number of mobs, gathering an item from a mob, doing a quick task, or etc. You do not want to do anything that is time consuming; this rule applies especially to quests that require you to move around and search around for a long time. You will not be gaining experience or anything by doing this.
3. If you are a character that does require some food and water, make sure that you are always stacked up on food and water. Nothing hurts more than seeing yourself at a normal sit rate recovery from low mana or health.
4. Use the hearthstone wisely. Since your hearthstone has a 30 minute cooldown, you can use it strategically in order to help your leveling process.
5. Group your quests. You do not want to waste time doing 1 quest and turn it in. You want to grab as many quests as possible, do all the quests that are clustered in one area, and you should move into the next zone after turning them in. In other words, quests will often be gathered into one area so you should do them all at once.
6. Now with the new PVP experience, you may want to try doing PVP as well. This is only advised for levels 60 or above as anything else will give you low experience. Also, you want to make sure you only do AV as that will yield you the most experience. Only do the battleground experience if you are on a decent PVP group where your faction wins a lot or else it may hurt your leveling process.
7. If you have another 5 bucks to spare and is leveling a low level account, you may want to invest 5 bucks into a recruit a friend account to quickly get your toon to level 60.
8. Always research about your class and the fastest way to level using your class.
9. Keep skills trained to the latest.
10. Stay updated on gear. You do not need to have the latest gear, but do not be wearing armor that is 30 levels lower than you. They are not going to help at all.

These are some of the basic tips and rules you should follow if you are interested in getting your character to level 80 as fast as possible.

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The Ghostfish
This quest takes place in the Sholazar Basin which, if you have the right flight paths, is a relatively short flight from Dalaran. You want to fly directly into River’s Heart if you can. Right next to the flight path, on days when this is the Fishing quest, you will find dozens of people fishing into the water. The quest item, the Phantom Ghostfish, can sometimes take awhile to catch but when you do it’s simply a matter of using the item by eating it. It’ll give you an invisibility effect that wears off eventually (you can speed up the process by right-clicking on the buff icon in the corner of your screen). Once the effect is gone, you can fly back to Dalaran and turn in the quest.

Jewel of the Sewers
This is the faster of all of the Fishing dailies to complete since it takes place right inside of Dalaran. The water you’re looking for located near the inn down in the city’s sewer. There’s a small dock next to the inn that is typically crawling with fishermen when this quest is the daily. Once upon a time, the drop rate on the quest item was insanely small but the rate has been bumped up so much that it’s not uncommon to snag the item on your line after less than a dozen casts. As a fun sidenote, this dock is also a popular fishing spot for anyone who is a serious pet collector as it is possible to hook a Giant Sewer Rat out of this same water.

Dangerously Delicious
Since this quest takes place inside the sometimes obnoxious Wintergrasp, where PvP can run rampant depending on your server population, I like to do this daily during non-peak times when possible. Snagging the ten Terrorfish you need to complete this quest can sometimes be a pain thanks to it’s relatively low drop rate. It’s not uncommon to have to sit and cast time after time for several minutes to get everything you need. That’s why I try and go when there aren’t many people in the zone since it’s not uncommon to run into PvP griefers who hang out near the popular fishing spots. If you can, try and stay as close to your faction’s flight path as possible when completing this quest. It’ll significantly lower your chances of being harassed by other players.

Monsterbelly Appetite
This is my least favorite of all of the Fishing dailies for some reason. The easiest way to get this done is to fly to the southern edge of Dragonblight, near Moa’ki Harbor. The trick to this daily is to make sure your character is in the “Frozen Sea” and nowhere else. The easiest way to tell if you’re in the right location is to look at the text above the minimap/radar on your screen. If it says “Frozen Sea” then you are good to start fishing. If you get lost or confused, my preferred spot to complete this quest is a small series of ruins that poke out of the water to the east of Moa’ki Harbor. You’ll occasionally find other people there fishing as well.

Blood Is Thicker
Get ready for a long flight from Dalaran if this is the Fishing daily quest for you. This particular Fishing daily takes place in the Borean Tundra. In order to knock this out as quickly as possible, fly straight to the small lake just south of the Amber Ledge. Once you’re arrive there, find a nearby mammoth or other creature and kill it so you turn red. This is a zone-wide debuff you receive for killing innocent animals. You can get rid of the debuff by jumping into the lake and doing so causes a red pool to appear. Fish in that red pool and you’ll begin to pull up the Bloodtooth Frenzy you need to complete the quest.

The Rewards

The Bag of Fishing Treasures is your main prize for completing the Fishing daily. It has a random assortment of items and occasionally you get cool stuff like the Porcelain Bell. This gray item sells at any vendor in the game for 100 gold. It’s a pretty rare drop from the Bag but when you get it the whole daily becomes more than worth it. The bag can also include useful items like rare gems, new fishing poles and even items that start additional quests. There’s an entire list of possible drops over at Wowhead.

Aside from the quest rewards, the sheer number of miscellaneous fish you’ll catch while doing these dailies can be a nice source of gold depending on your server’s economy. There are plenty of posts on this blog already about the monetary joys of fishing so I’ll leave those for you as further reading.

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Infused Mushroom Meatloaf
This daily can be completed entirely in the Dalaran Sewer. The mushrooms you need can be found scattered all over the sewer but you can typically find them just inside the hallways on the Horde side and around the PvP/Arena area as well. Once you’ve rounded up the mushroom you just need to walk over to the nearest fire to combine the mushrooms with some Chilled Meat and you’re good to go.

Chilled Meat is one of the staples of the Dalaran cooking dailies. I have stacks and stacks of this stuff in reserve. If you’re near an Auction House, always do a quick scan and buy stacks on the cheap for future use. The time you’ll save by buying instead of farming your own is totally worth it.

Cheese for Glowergold
Of all the Cooking dailies, this one is the most frustrating to me. During peak play times, it’s almost always a mad rush on my server to find the Half Full Wine Glasses you need to complete this quest. My first spot to check is right around the NPC that gives you the quest but, of course, that’s usually everyone else’s first spot as well. When that goes bust for me, my next and usually final stop, is the Legerdemain near the center of town. You’ll eventually become very familiar with this location because of the next quest I go into but it’s also a great spot for this particular quest as well. Make sure you check upstairs in the small rooms for glasses as well. If you get lucky, you’ll have the six glasses you need and everyone else will still be running around looking in vain.

Convention at the Legerdemain
More Chilled Meat! I’m telling you that it’s important to stockpile these if you want to get into Cooking dailies. This is the easiest of the daily quests for Cooking. You can make the Northern Stew right next to the quest giver, run over to the wine shop right across from the Legerdemain and then right back across the street to turn in the quest. I always love it when this quest is the daily because I know I’ll be done in a matter of seconds, not minutes.

Mustard Dogs!
This is the only cooking daily that gives you an extra Dalaran Cooking Award as a quest reward. I always make sure I have enough Rhino Meat in my inventory so I can make the Rhino Dogs necessary to finish this quest. Once you have the Dogs made, it’s simply a matter of running to the nearest patch of grass in Dalaran and looking for the Wild Mustard. My personal spot of choice for the Mustard is the area around the Violet Citadel. There are two spawn points on each side of the steps leading up to the Citadel. Hopping from one side of the staircase to the other takes ten seconds and you’ll be ready to turn in this completed quest.

Sewer Stew
Finally, a chance to get out of town. The simplest way to handle this quest is to head to the flight area in Dalaran, hop on your mount and immediately fly directly underneath Dalaran. The ground around the river and the ruins underneath the floating city is spotted with the Crystalsong Carrots you need to complete this quest. When you have the four you need it’s time to fly straight up towards, but not inside, the city of Dalaran. What you’re looking for during your flight is a small pipe sticking out of the side of the city’s rock face. Once you find that pipe, fly straight into it and follow the tunnel. It’ll lead you right to the quest turn-in NPC.

The Rewards

With the ease of acquiring gear and the emphasis switching to Raids for everyone from Raids to hardcore players, most players should be interested in learning Cooking and completing these dailies. The money you’ll save in Raid food for yourself or your guild will be appreciated.

If you aren’t interested in Raid buffs for yourself then these dailies are still a viable source of income. The price of food on my server is definitely down from their highs several patches ago but there is one truth in Warcraft that will never change: you can always take advantage of people’s laziness. Most players would rather spend gold on food than make it themselves and you can use that to your financial benefit by running these Cooking dailies, acquiring Northern Spices and rare recipes and turning those components into items you can sell on the Auction House.

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Keep in mind that I’m almost 100% strictly a 5-man Heroic player in a guild with limited player activity so this tool is perfect for someone like me. It allows me to jump on at almost any time of the day and find something to do. While the queue times for a DPS class seem to be between five and ten minutes in my Battlegroup, on my Healer I’m seeing queue times measured in seconds and not minutes. It’s never been hard to find a group on my server as a Healer but it wasn’t unheard of to have to wait for 30 or more minutes as a DPS class. Now that the new LFG is composing groups out of players from multiple realms that long wait has been eliminated from the game and I couldn’t be happier.

The added twist of a Random Heroic quest is a great replacement for the old and stale Daily Heroic quest available before Patch 3.3. The rewards you get from the Random Heroic, in the form of extra Emblems, is the perfect gearing reward for player’s who have a lot of alts needing upgrades. Now that Heroic bosses drop Emblems of Triumph it’s not inconceivable to have enough Emblems to buy a piece of Tier 9 gear after a few hours of game play. It’s almost too easy.

That brings me to my only criticism of the new LFG system. It’s going to make an absolute mockery of gearing a character. The drive of most WoW players is the search for better swag and while LFG allows you to get that rush faster than ever it will eventually leave you geared out and looking for something to do. That’s great if you have five characters like some people, but for others like me with only one or two, it means you either grind out the same content over and over for little reward or more on to something new. Like raiding… gross.

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Unfortunately, the first version was missing the best part of the actual Armory website and that’s Gear Upgrades. The web site lets you select any item on your character and get a comprehensive list of every piece of gear in the game that would be an upgrade over your existing piece of gear.
Other upgrades with this new version include some simple stuff like changes to the user interface and some new sound effects. The new sound effects, while unimportant to someone who has never used the app before, are a boon to people like me who found the version 1.0 sounds to be absolutely terrible.

Larger improvements include the ability to save and load talent builds you make with the app’s built-in talent calculator. I bet this is brutally awesome when you’re on your lunch break at work and thinking about what things you need to work on that night at home. Or equally awesome when you’re sitting at your desk at work trying to look like you are doing important stuff on your phone. When you couple this feature with the gear upgrade function the Mobile Armory becomes the most important application on the phone of every WoW math nerd out there.

With the recent removal of non-official World of Warcraft applications from the App Store it’s important that Blizzard maintains and continues to improve the Mobile Armory. If they’re going to be iPhone bullies and remove third-party applications it’s key that they bother to show support for the platform and produce products that are even better than those they had forcefully removed. I’ve been harsh in the past on Blizzard’s policies regarding developers (see the debacle over Add Ons for proof) but as long as they keep pumping out improvements to the Mobile Armory and work on other apps, such as the Authenticator, I’ll be happy.

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Don’t forget that as the holiday comes to a close the giant Christmas trees in Ironforge and Orgrimmar have gift boxes underneath them. This part of Winter Veil runs from December 25th to the end of the holiday on January 2nd. The gifts range from companion pets to holiday themed food items. For the last two years, the most rare of the companion pets has been pretty excellent so I am looking forward to what this year has in store. In 2007, the pet was a small clockwork robot and last year it was a remote controlled car.

There are also additional clothing patterns in the game for Winter Veil. You’ll have one mailed to you in game when you first log in during the event. Making these clothes and selling them on the Auction House is an excellent way to make some money during this time. The old standby strategy of cashing in on people’s laziness is especially true during these world events. Players are trying to gather the items they need for various quests and achievements as quickly as possible and they normally don’t care about being smart and getting a good deal. It’s not unheard of to buy common items from a vendor for little to no money and then turning around and selling that same item to a player on the Auction House at an incredible markup.

So if you’re just looking to rack up more achievements or trying for the rare mount from the overall world event achievement get started on Winter Veil. This is probably one of the easier world events to complete just because of the length of it. A level 80 player can probably knock all of the achievements required to finish Winter Veil over the course of several days and still have a week or more to spare.

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I have purposefully avoided everyone else’s comments or thoughts on this new microtransaction movement in the game. I would imagine most players are angry and upset over this money play by Blizzard. Well, I’m of the total opposite opinion on this. These pets don’t give you an advantage and anyone who argues that this lays the groundwork for that to eventually happen is just overreacting and speculating at this point.

Blizzard is not running a non-profit enterprise. This should not come as a huge surprise to anyone since everyone playing the game has been paying them every month for the privilege to do so. For those of you who bough the pets like I did, enjoy them. For those of you who didn’t buy the pets because of some weird hangup, calm down and save yourself the time and energy of ranting on a message board about how unjust your favorite virtual world might become.

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It would appear to me that we’re all so well geared at this point that we can kind of forego the “traditional” method of winning in Alterac Valley. I don’t even know if people are bothering to wear PvP gear inside the Valley anymore. I know I’m certainly not on my Holy Priest because I love 16k+ Greater Heal crits and I just don’t get those in my crappy Hateful Gladiator gear.

I’m not sure there’s really a way to get around this. Alterac Valley, and to a degree Isle of Conquest as well, have enough PvE elements in them to promote this kind of rush-and-kill mentality. I think in the end Isle will avoid the same fate that AV is suffering because of the barricaded keep mechanic it has.

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The Poll

I was wondering how many Honorable Kills you guys have. I’ve seen someone on my server who recently went over the 100,000 mark but I’d have to imagine that’s quite a rarity. Let me know your personal best number of Honorable Kills on any one of your characters using the form below.

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No One Shows Up

For the last few weeks it seems like every time I get into a Wintergrasp battle we have five or six stacks of the Tenacity buff. The Horde’s participation in Wintergrasp has taken a nosedive on my server and I can only assume the reason is the queue system. Before, when people had to be rallied on the Trade channel to join, we seemed to have more players showing up and smaller Tenacity buffs. Now we’re constantly outnumbered.

Tenacity Imbalance

And, even with the huge Tenacity “advantage,” we’re still getting manhandled by Alliance opposition. Tenacity is a great buff when you’re in a one-on-one or maybe two-on-one fight but when you’re outnumbered two or three to one in the zone, and literally surround by dozens of crowd controlling enemies, all the Tenacity buff does it delay the inevitable death of your character by a few more seconds. I think Blizzard should strongly consider adjusting Tenacity so that it decreases/eliminates the effect that movement impairing spells has on the players with the buff.

The Poll

I’m salty and whiny about the Wintergrasp experience as of late but how do you feel? Answer the handy poll below so I can get an idea of just how out of touch I am with the rest of the player base.

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I wanted to write a short post about the individual achievements we struggled with the most so that anyone else thinking about taking a run at this has a basic idea of the challenges ahead of them.

Difficult Achievements

Watch Him Die
We really had a hard time with this one at first, and after several failed attempts at off-tanking the guardians we eventually decided that an all out DPS race was in order. So we zerged the Gatewatcher with all the DPS we could muster and after one bad attempt we pulled it off successfully on the second try.

Less-rabi
For us, the real struggle here was our group makeup. We rarely had the right people on at one time with the right number of interrupts so several attempts were made with PUGs and it never came together. Eventually, for my achievement, we managed to knock it down on our third or fourth sday of attempts. The trick here is to remember that after the boss is below 50% health he transforms every 5 seconds so you really have to be on the lookout to interrupt him. We found it easiest to count in your head to five instead of relying on a mod to tell you when the transform was coming.

Chaos Theory
The secret to this achievement is to make sure you clear out all of the trash leading up to the boss. That includes the stuff in the corner, behind the platform, that leads up to the boss himself. When the fight starts you need to stay at range of the rifts and just DPS the adds down as they come to you. In between you attack the boss until he goes immune at which point the entire group falls back down the ramp as the tank keeps aggro out of range of the rifts attacking the rest of the group. By the end of the fight, there will be dozens of adds coming at you so it’s a DPS race to finish.

Make It Count
I think Occulus is one of the worst Heroics out there. The flight mechanic is annoying and kind of buggy but the actual fights themselves aren’t that difficult. This achievement was really just the result of practice from doing the other Occulus related achievements in the game. The one tip I have, aside from practice makes perfect, is to not bother looting anything the entire time. You might find those seconds you save pretty valuable at the end.

Worth The Effort

In the end, trying for Glory of the Hero was a lot of fun. The mount is cool, for sure, but the real reward was the entertaining groups we put together as we all tried to finish. Doing the same Heroics, over and over, can get stale pretty quick (even if you’re trying to gear an alt like I was) so a bit of a challenge thrown in the mix now and then made things very entertaining. I recommend everyone gives it a shot if they have a decent group of friends to help them out.

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When I made the switch from my Hunter to my Priest I was rolling deep with Hateful PvP gear. I managed to heal a few Heroics with that Hateful gear but things were sketchy at best. Luckily, the awesome guild I joined was more than willing to run Regular ToC on a loop for me over the course of several days.

By the time we were beyond exhausted with it I had a more than decent set of gear to heal Heroics with. Using that new gear I was able to go on multiple chains of Heroic runs and now I’ve put together a pretty decent set of gear and Heroic experiences. In addition to healing gear, I’ve put together a very nice set for Shadow DPS as well.

The beauty of ToC, both Heroic and Regular, is that you can gear up an alt with multiple specs very quickly. Trial of the Champion is a must play for anyone looking to snag loot for alts at this point. If you have some 80s on our account that you’ve let go stagnant try logging on and running some ToC and I bet you’ll find renewed interest in the characters right away.

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The Reasons

This happened for two specific reasons. Number one, I was just tired of playing a pure DPS class. At some point you reach a level of gear and proficiency with your rotation that things just become kind of boring. In the last few weeks, when playing my Hunter, each instance run has kind of felt like the same old thing run after run. I felt like a switch was necessary to maintain my interest in the game.

Number two, I joined a really cool guild that gives me opportunity to heal some Heroics from time-to-time. As the Priest, I can go Holy to heal or Shadow to DPS so there’s a variety there that I just didn’t get with the Hunter.

Gearing Up

My Priest was a strictly PvP character until I decided to put my Hunter on the shelf more often so it’s been a bit of a struggle to gear up to heal Heroics. I’m getting more Shadow drops than Holy ones it seems so I’ve basically been grinding for Emblems and praying for drops in Regular ToC.

Moving Forward

So you might see more Priest related posts here at Alterac Volley. I’ve been really swamped with work as of late (which is why you’ve seen a few guest posts over the last month) but I’m hoping to get back into the swing of things soon. Thanks for everyone’s patience.

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The second giveaway for newsletter subscribers will be the Flag of Ownership. The winner will receive the code for the item but not the card itself so we can avoid the hassle of shipping things through snail mail.

Enter To Win

To be eligible to win the code for the Flag of Ownership you must be a subscribed member of my newsletter by midnight on Friday, August 21st 2009. At that time I’ll be randomly selecting one (1) valid and confirmed email address from my list of newsletter subscribers to send the code for the item. If you haven’t subscribed to the newsletter yet, you can do so now using this form:

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Anyway, since the patch I’ve managed to snag the following gear upgrades on my Hunter through Emblem purchases, lucky drops or cold hard cash:

• Conqueror’s Scourgestalker Tunic
• Conqueror’s Scourgestalker Headpiece
• Belt of the Ardent Marksman
• True-aim Long Rifle
• Etched Band of the Kirin Tor

As you can probably imagine, I’ve seen a pretty significant DPS increase from all of these upgrades. Aside from the gear I’ve also completed a lot of achievements I was missing out on. Oh yeah, and I finally had a good roll on the Reins of the Bronze Drake. It’s been a wild time since the Patch and I apologize for the lack of updates around here but I was too busy playing the game to spend a lot of time writing about it.

Coming up I’m going to do a Daily Quest Guide for the new Argent Tournament quests and maybe give some brief strategy posts on the Isle of Conquest and the Trial of Champions (particularly how ToC operates for Hunters).

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