Updated WotLK Glyphs

A few new glyphs added in the most recent beta build. Very disappointing to see the glyph of preparation has been changed (previously it reduced the cooldown of prep by 2 minutes). A 3 minute preparation would have been pretty insane though (new talent reduces it by 2.5/5 minutes).

Make to check out wotlk glyphs compiled for additional class inscription glyphs.

Warrior

• Glyph of Resonating Power - Reduces the rage cost of your Thunder Clap ability by 5.0.

Death Knight

• Glyph of Rune Strike - Increases the critical strike chance of your Rune Strike by 10% but increases cost by 5.0 runic power. Down from 50.

Priest

• Glyph of Fading - Reduces the mana cost of your Fade spell by 30%. Down from 50%.
• Glyph of Spirit of Redemption - All heals cast while Spirit of Redemption is active have a 20% chance to increase the remaining duration of Spirit of Redemption by 5 sec. Down from 20 sec.

Rogue

• Glyph of Preparation - Your Preparation ability also instantly resets the cooldown of Blade Flurry, Dismantle, and Kick.
• Glyph of Garrote - Reduces the duration of your Garrote ability by 3.0 sec and increases the total damage it deals by 20%. Down from 45%.

Hunter

• Glyph of Aimed Shot - Reduces the mana cost of your Aimed Shot ability by 20%.

Druid

• Glyph of Aquatic Form - Increases your swim speed by 50% while in Aquatic Form. Up from 20%.
• Glyph of Thorns - Removed.
• Glyph of Regrowth - Increases the healing of your Regrowth spell by 20% if your Regrowth effect is still active on the target. Down from 50%.

Paladin

• Glyph of Exorcism - Your Exorcism also interrupts spellcasting for 2 sec.
• Glyph of Flash of Light - Your Flash of Light heals for 50% less initially, but also heals for 140.0% of its inital effect over 15 sec.
• Glyph of the Warhorse - Removed
• Glyph of the Wise - Reduces the mana cost of your Seal of Wisdom spell by 50%.

Priest Racials being removed!

In an unexpected turn of events, a recent blue post informed us that the current priest racial abilities will not be making the boat ride to Northrend with the rest of us. Say goodbye to Hex of Weakness, Chastise, and other great abilities.

In an upcoming build all Priest racials have been retired, except the following:

- Desperate Prayer - This is now the 11-point talent in Holy, Holy Nova is now a base ability. Cooldown also reduced to 30 seconds.
- Devouring Plague - Now a base ability. Cooldown reduced to 30 seconds, mana cost greatly reduced.
- Symbol of Hope - Now a base ability. Now restores 5% base mana every 2 seconds for 8 seconds to your party. Renamed “Hymn of Hope.”

While this change does reduce the “uniqueness” of different Priests, we feel game balance as a whole will benefit.

Note: These new “racials” are not racials, they are trainable to all Priests.

New Chain Heal and Warlock Beam Graphics

All you shamans and warlocks out there are really going to like this. Blizzard has finally done away with the bland beams of the burning crusade and added new graphic animations for both chain heal and soul drain. Not exactly the most game breaking change in the most recent WotLK patch notes update, but I’ve got to admit…they do look pretty cool.

Wrath of the Lich King Paladin Talents

Well, we’re finally hearing some of the updated wrath of the lich king paladin talents. Below are a listing of all currently updated talents on the beta client.

Holy

Blessed Hands (20 Points Required in Holy, 2 Ranks) - Reduces the mana cost and increases the resistance to Dispel effects of all Hand spells by 15/30%

Infusion of Light (35 Points Required in Holy, 2 Ranks) - Your Holy Shock critical hits reduce the cast time of your next Holy Light spell by 1.25/2.5 secs.

Sacred Cleansing (40 Points Required in Holy, 3 Ranks) - Your Cleanse spell has a 10/20/30% chance to increase the target’s resistance to Disease, Magic and Poison by 30% for 10 sec.

Enlightened Judgements (40 Points Required in Holy, 2 Ranks) - Increases the range of your Judgement spells by 10/20 yards.

Judgements of the Pure (45 Points Required in Holy, 5 Ranks) - Your Judgement spells increase your casting and melee haste by 2/4/6/8/10% for 30 secs.

Beacon of Light (50 Points Required in Holy) - The target becomes a Beacon of Light, healing all party or raid members within 10 yards for 2000 over 15 sec.

* Rank 5: Level 80, 2330 mana, 1.5 sec Cast

Protection

Hammer of the Righteous (50 Points Required in Protection) - Hammer the current target and up to 2 additional nearby targets, causing $s1% of weapon damage as Holy damage. This ability causes high threat.

Retribution

Heart of the Crusader (5 Points Required in Retribution, 5 Ranks) - In addition to the normal effect, your Judgement spells will also increase the critical strike chance of all attacks made against that target by 1/2/3/4/5%.

Sanctified Retribution (20 Point Required in Retribution, 1 Rank) - Damage caused by targets affected by Retribution Aura is increased by 2%.

Sheath of Light (20 Points Required in Retribution, 3 Ranks) - Increases your spell power by an amount equal to 10/20/30% of your attack power and your critical healing spells heal the target for 20/40/60% of the healed amount over 12 seconds.

Sanctified Wrath (35 Points Required in Retribution, 2 Ranks) - Increases the critical strike chance of Hammer of Wrath by 25/50%, reduces the cooldown of Avenging Wrath by 30/60 secs and while affected by Avenging Wrath 25/50% of all damage caused bypasses damage reduction effects.

Swift Retribution (40 Points Required in Retribution, 3 Ranks) - Your Retribution Aura also increases casting, ranged and melee attack speeds by 1/2/3%.

The Art of War (40 Points Required in Retribution, 3 Ranks) - Your damaging Crusader Strikes have a 5/10/15% chance to cause your next Judgement spell to cause double damage.

Righteous Vengeance (45 Points Required in Retribution, 5 Ranks) - Increases critical damage bonus of all attacks by 3/6/9/12/15%

Divine Storm (50 Points Required in Retribution) - An instant weapon attack that causes Holy damage to up to ${$i-1} enemies within $a1 yards. The Divine Storm heals up to 3 party or raid members totalling $s2% of the damage caused.

Warlock Macro Guide

If you play a warlock then you know how difficult it can be to manage all of the abilities required of the class. Between nuking spells, DoTs, curses, debuffs, and multiple pets…well, it’s enough to drive anyone keybinding crazy. However, a few well placed macros can dramatically ease your pain.

Also, if you’re looking for focus macros make sure you check out my warlock focus macros guide.

Trinket + Shadow Bolt
/use Hex Shrunken Head
/cast Shadowbolt

Make sure you change “Hex Shrunken Head” to your current +damage trinket

DoT Rotation Macro
/castsequence reset=10 Immolate, Corruption, Curse of Agony, Siphon Life

Warlock Buff Macros
/target <self>
/castsequence Fel Armor, Soul Link, Detect Invisibility, Unending Breath

/castsequence Detect Invisibility, Unending Breath

First macro is just for your self buffs, and the second is for buffing your party / raid members.

Amplified Curse + Curse Macro
/cast Amplify Curse
/stopcasting
/cast Curse of Agony

You could also create one for CoE, simply change the last cast line, or try this trinketed version below.

Trinket + Amplified Curse + Curse Macro
/use Hex Shrunken Head
/cast Amplify Curse
/stopcasting
/cast Curse of Agony

Devour Magic Macros
/cast [target=mouseover,exists] Devour Magic; Devour Magic

The above macro will devour magic on your mouse over target if you have one, otherwise it will devour magic on you. You might also choose to use this more specific macro.

/cast [modifier:shift, pet:Felhunter] Devour Magic; [pet:Felhunter, target=player] Devour Magic

This macro will devour magic on you when clicked or your target when shift clicked.

Spamable Drain Macros
/cast [nochanneling: Drain Life] Drain Life

/cast [nochanneling: Drain Mana] Drain Mana

Simple, yet effective macro. Allows you to spam your drain abilities without accidentally spamming them on and off.

Life / Mana Drain Macros
/cast [modifier:shift] Drain Mana; Drain Life

Pretty simple, casts drain mana with shift and drain life without shift. Nice way to consolidate action bar keys. Below I’ve listed several iterations you may find helpful.

/cast [modifier:shift] Drain Life(Rank 1); Drain Life

/cast [modifier:shift] Drain Mana(Rank 1); Drain Mana

This next one is a bit more complicated, but you may find it useful.

/cast [modifier:shift] Drain Mana; [mod:alt] Drain Soul; Drain Soul

Of course, as with any of these macros you can change the modifier key to what ever you prefer. You can choose between shift, alt, or control.

Instant Pet Summon
/cast Fel Domination
/stopcasting
/cast Summon [name of pet you want to summon](Summon)

An absolute must macro for all your PvP locks out there. Just insert your pet’s name in there and you’re good to go.

Totem Killing Macro
/petattack [target=Healing Stream Totem]
/petattack [target=Windfury Totem]
/petattack [target=Mana]
/petattack [target=Tremor Totem]
/petattack [target=Grounding Totem]

Discipline Priest Arena Strategy

This post was a question I received via email, I thought I’d just cross post it here so anyone with similar concerns might be able to get something out of this as well.

Priest Arena Questions…
Hey zuggy, I’m a disc priest who runs currently with a shadow step rogue. I have trouble keeping up with all my dispels and strats as the matches progress. I don’t have any addons currently except Proximo. Could you give me some advice on what addons to use?

Thanks so much

Things i would like:

Low health warnings for my rogue partner.. sometimes i miss it when his health gets low.. an alert of some kind would be nice.

CD tracking. I would like to know when my fear is ready I would like to maybe know when my inner fire is not up on my toon alerting me i need to re-apply. Please tell me if you think this is a good idea.

Also mass dispel for pally bubble or mage iceblock? How should i configure the spell sometimes it seems it takes too long to get it fired off. Also along the same lines… Heroism! I need to get this dispelled quickly .. how do you typically handle this?

My team seems to shoot up to 1600 or 1650 then go on losing streaks. We’ve beat teams with rating around 1700 and lost to teams with ratings much lower than ours I just can’t seem to always figure out what to do.

ON the map with he coffin in the middle i struggle with positioning of my priest. I generally move around the coffin trying to LOS but i definitely struggle on this map. Sometimes I don’t know if i should mana burn or heal myself.. so i have so many questions. I’ve read your dis priest rogue guide and it was very helpful but I need more help!

Priest Arena Strategy Answers…
As far as addons are concerned, I’m more of a minimalist. So I wouldn’t concern yourself too much with trying to pound your screen with additional buttons and flashing warnings.

In my opinion keeping a clean UI allows you to much better manage targeting and awareness, as you can see everything much easier.

As far as low health warnings go, I’d just suggest looking at getting a unit frame mod. My preference is AG unit frames, but there are lots of others out there. Check out this article I recently did on best unit frame mods if you’d like to check out more.

For cooldown tracking I keep it simple. I use SCT and OmniCC. Configure your SCT to bring up cooldown warnings, and in addition omniCC will overlay textual cooldown counters on all of your abilities.

Dispel Macros
As far as managing your dispels goes, I’d just create a few macros to better deal with it. Here’s a few that I use.

/target (name of your rogue)
/cast Dispel Magic

/assist (name of your rogue)
/cast Dispel Magic

/cast [target=focus] Dispel Magic

You may not want to use them all, but at least having an assist dispel is absolutely crucial in my opinion. Check out Dispel Macros discussion for additional help.

Arena Positioning
As far as positioning is concerned, all I can say is keep moving and keep using your globals. Too often I see players just panic when they are under fire. You need to maintain focus and stick to your game plan.

Conclusions
Keep the hots up, heal before you “have” to heal. Don’t let yourself red line before trying to los and heal. If you’re comfortable playing the offensive mana burn game this is a great way to put the opposing team into a defensive position.

Here are some additional resources you might find helpful:
Priest / Rogue 2v2 Arena Strategy

Addons..
Quartz Casting Bar

Hope this helped answer some of your questions, as always feel free to shoot me any additional questions if you have further concerns.

Shadow Priest / Rogue vs. Warrior / Priest 2v2 Arena Strategy

This team actually isn’t too bad. Keep in mind that a warrior can still lock down a shadow priest well, but you guys can really be a handful for his partner.

Rogue Arena Strategy
Once you’ve determined your opponents go for a sap on the warrior. If the opposing priest is a Night elf you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding them. Open up on the priest and on your first 5 points use a Kidney shot. Another 5 points and you’ll probably want to Expose Armor as they have probably popped pain suppression(you may also pop Ar/BF at this time if you’re Ar/Prep.) Continue to lay out dps and Kidney shots, but also be wary of interrupting heals. If your KS is resisted don’t be afraid to continue to Expose Armor or even SnD(regardless of ShS’s yellow damage orientation).

Also if the warrior decides to lock you down simply use an Evasion + Ghostly Strike combo and run circles around the priest(literally just run). Once the priest is down shiv spam crippling poison on the warrior so you can give your partner some breathing room. Mainly shiv spam so that you can give your partner a higher chance to survive, chances are he’s low on mana and popped his shadowfiend already. Also as Shadowstep going toe to toe with a warrior isn’t a very appealing idea.

As opposed to sapping the warrior, sap the priest then open up on the warrior. Continue to lay out DPS and spam shiv to keep him off your partner. Once your partner forces the other priest to pop trinket hit him with a blind, bomb the warrior, vanish and sap and it’s good game from there.

Priest Arena Strategy
Your job is to also hop on the priest, but you will be put under pressure by the warrior. Basically hit the opposing priest with some dots, dispel spam, fear bombs(on the warrior too), and mass dispel the pain suppression if you can find some room to breathe. Most of the time the warrior will be trying to lock you down. Simply fear the warrior as you would any melee class, and you can all the trinket pop for a blind(but keep in mind it probably won’t last the full ten seconds due to the disorient immunity.) With dispel spam, mass dispel on pain suppression and your DoTs combined with your rogue’s damage the opposing priest’s health will be hurting. When you find the priest near death simply do a Focused casting Mind Blast + Shadow Word: Death combo to send him packing. During the shiv spam period(listed above) just kite and DoT as much as your mana allows you to.

That would be the usual way that me and my partner do it, but the alternative(and probably simpler sounding strategy) you could apply is the following(please keep in mind this strategy is going to be harder or maybe plain impossible to pull off with undead opponents):

Alright you too are going to want to lay out some moderate damage, but your main goal is to use fear and force the opposing priest to trinket. Once this happens it’s up to your rogue partner to pull off a blind/sap and you continue to both bomb on the warrior.

Need more strategies? Check out the full shadow priest / rogue 2v2 arena guide!

Strategy courtesy of S-Scythe

Druid / Warrior vs. Priest / Rogue 2v2 Arena Strategy

This can be a difficult fight against well played rogue/priest combos. The druid should be particularly careful of using his trinket at the wrong time, because blind+ vanish sap will be the end of your warrior. I would have to suggest to kill the priest first. Mana burn will lose these matches for you. Now, 9 times out of 10 the rogue will be attempting to lock you down but use your CDs initially to bring the priest down, put as much pressure as you can so he can’t mana burn, locking the priest down also helps with mace spec. As for the druid perspective, LoS mana burns but don’t forget to stay in the LoS of your warrior. A rogue can out DPS a warrior very fast.

Using Deathwish early to force them to play defensively is also a good idea. If you communicate early about how much damage you are taking, your Druid can get in and out of range of the Rogue’s blind to drop roots/cyclone/HoTs. Remember to cyclone the rogue if he is locking down the warrior so that he can’t stay on the priest at all. As with most fights, communication and good CC will allow you to win this. If in the case that the druid gets Blind + vanish sapped, then you need do all you can to survive, this means that you equip a shield and sword then mitigate his damage as much as possible. This can be a cookie-cutter fight if you remember to save trinkets for the blind and keep the Druid away from the Priest.

Looking for more strategies? Check out the complete druid / warrior 2v2 arena guide!

Strategy courtesy of Neurotik

Druid / Warrior vs. Druid / Warlock 2v2 Arena Strategy

To start this fight, you are going to charge the pet and kill it. For the duration of this fight, you will be on the warlock. As the warrior you shouldn’t allow the warlock to cast ANY fears, have Natur enemy cast bar to keep track of their CDs. Ideally, you should pop deathwish early on the warlock so the druid pops out early and starts to use mana. If the warlock is low on HP (less than 45%) then stick to him, if he isn’t less than 45% intercept to the druid to put some extra pressure on him to get him on the run.

Have your druid cyclone their druid, try to keep him CCed to prevent any heals on the warlock. Be careful of the fear here, you don’t want to be CCed at this point. Your druid should also bash the opposing team’s druid for added CC. If you are having trouble staying on the warlock due to curses etc. Then have your druid decurse you, this fight is long and good communication will win you a lot of fights. The druid should try to keep the opposing druid CCed by using feral charge, regrowth (if you can), bash, cyclone, cyclone.

This gives you a full 17 seconds of CC on the druid. You should wait to use this CC routine until after the druid trinkets and when the lock is lower than 45%. Remember to avoid drain mana by getting into bear form, you can lose a lot of mana if you aren’t aware that you are being burned then you will not with many fights. Your druid should also try to keep the other druid in combat to avoid drinking. This is a very long fight, but it isn’t necessarily difficult.

Looking for more strategies? Check out the complete druid / warrior 2v2 arena guide!

Strategy courtesy of Neurotik

Druid / Warrior vs. Druid / Hunter 2v2 Arena Strategy

This combo is very difficult. You are already at a huge disadvantage because you have lost the mana fight, the hunter will be using viper sting to mana burn your druid. Now for the strat, I would suggest that the warrior immediately charge and start DPSing the hunter. Don’t initially blow your CDs here, instead save them and when the druid pops out of stealth. Eventually he will waste his mana healing through your damage. The mace spec and improved hamstring truly shine here, they enable you to disrupt the hunter casts and ultimately do more damage.

While you are busy sticking to the hunter, the your druid should Keep in his melee range and force the healer to try and out do your DPS. Druid should be in bear form to avoid Drains, eat traps and CC. Bash/Root if you can on the Hunter to keep him in your Warriors striking range. Don’t forget to kill the pet!! Sweeping strikes can sometimes help you achieve this without having to change targets. Try to toss a low rank Faerie Fire, Moonfire, Insect Swarm on the druid to keep him in combat to avoid drinks. Once again, this is a very difficult fight so don’t get down if you find yourselves having trouble with it. Its easily one of the hardest combos you will encounter.

Looking for more strategies? Check out the complete druid / warrior 2v2 arena guide!

Strategy courtesy of Neurotik

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