WoW's Holy Paladin Spec

The World of Warcraft's Holy Paladin is one of the three specializations of the Paladin class, the others being Retribution and Protection. As Holy you are pretty much a pure healer, so foget about ever seeing the top of a damage chart again. Reaching the top of the "most healing done" chart might be a whole 'nother story.

Before Cataclysm the Holy Paladin spec used mana, just like any other healer or spell casting class. With the arrival of the Cataclysm expansion all Paladins now have a "Holy Power" mechanic in addition to their mana use. With Holy power the Paladin uses various abilities to build up to three points of Holy Power and then another ability "unleashes" those points to power some ability. With a Holy Paladin, of course, that ability will generally be aimed at healing someone.

Also coming with Cataclysm was a complete overhaul of the talent system. Players can no longer mix and match points from all three talent trees, but have to stick with one tree (one "specialization") until they have spent 31 points in that spec. Players will eventually have a total of 41 points to spend at level 85, which means that more more than 10 points will every be spend outside the Holy tree. With every specialization for every class comes a set of unique abilities. For the Holy Paladin these abilities are:

1. "Holy Shock" can be used to either damage an opponent or heal and ally. It grants a charge of that Holy Power mentioned above.
2. "Walk in the Light" increases the power of your healing spells.
3. "Meditation" allows your to regenereate mana while in combat.
4. "Mastery: Illuminated Healing" allows some of your healing spells to automatically place a damage absorbing shield on your target.

Other flavors of Paladin will not be able to get these particular abilites and you will not be able to use theirs. This means that every specialization of every class will have certain unique abilities and, with the Holy Power game mechanic, Holy Paladins will have a different feel from any other healer. They will have to manage both their mana and their Holy power at any given time.

When building your Holy Paladin you have to decide whether you will be a pure healer or if you will be doing some damage as well. Protection and Retribution Paladins are both melee types which gives them a more limited view of the fight, since they will always be in the middle of it. You will be some distance away, healing, which gives you a different picture of the fight. In PvP, of course, since you ARE the healer, you can often count on the fight being in your face as the opposition tried to bring you down. Naturally your pocket Warrior will have something to say about that.

If you will be a pure healer, for example, you won't be taking talents which only increase damaging attacks. Whether you're in PvP or PvE combat makes a difference, too. For example, you will eventually have the option to take "Crusade" from the Retribution tree. It looks like a straight up damage boost, but note that if you have three points in that talent and you kill one of a Shadowpriest's "Shadowy Apparations," very easy to kill, you get a 300% increase to your next "Holy Light" spell. Of course, in PvE there's plenty of stuff that your team will be killing. So that talent is a bit more than it seems at first glance.

While you will always be primarily a healer, depending on your exact Holy Paladin Build you might also be able to do some damage. Leveling solo will be tedious, but sometimes it's nice to be able to whack something instead of just healing your team. Of course, having an entire team counting on you to keep them healthy also has its virtues.

A well played Holy Paladin can be very hard to kill in PvP and they're also valued as primarly healers in instances and raids. For Holy Paladin builds, advice on gems and stuff, and videos on "How to play a Holy Pally" visit GotWarcraft

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A Brief Subtlety Rogue Guide

The Subtlety Rogue build in WoW 4.06 has had a few tweaks. The Find Weakness talent now strips away 70% of the opponent's armor, which is a lot. Is the guy wearing plate? Well, for 10 seconds he might as well be wearing cloth. Then you Shadowdance to cheap shot to Eviscerate to Ambush to...

Of course, if you're caught out of stealth and Shadowdance and Vanish are on cooldown... That is the big weakness of the Subtlety Rogue spec, that if you can't get into vanish or Shadowdance then life is tough. Then you rez and get back to picking your targets.

With 4.06 you get more Agility and more Hemorrhage & Backstab damage. Sinister Calling, one of your basic Subtlety abilities, gives you 30% more or your total Agility and Leather Specialization (at level 50) adds another 5%. Now, Agility already is, by far, the best stat for  Sub. Rogue. Now what you need to do when looking at two pieces of gear is to remember to add 35% to the Agility numbers on those pieces. SO if a piece of gear is listed as 100 Agility, for you it really has 135 Agility. 35 Agility is roughly equal to 100 of any secondary stat, it's that important.

Also see this Subtlety Rogue Guide for some more info.

The Assassination Rogue in Cataclysm

The Assassination Rogue, from the World of Warcraft, is one of the three Rogue specs available (the others being Combat and Subtlety.) Far more than the other two builds, Assassination Rogues rely on the use of poisons for their damage and a few other effects.

Mutilate is the main attack for this build and Assassination builds are sometimes called "Mutilate builds" for this reason. The weapon of choice is a dagger in both hands and, generally, the poison of choice is Deadly in the off-hand weapon and Instant on the main-hand weapon. The off-hand dagger shouild be as fast as possible (lowest speed rating) to get as many applications of Deadly Poison as possible over a fight. Due to game machanices, slowere weapons hit harder than faster ones, so the main hand weapon should be as slow as possible (highest speed rating number.)

The Envonom ability is a hard hitting "finishing strike" that requires Deadly Poison to be on the target, the more doses the better (you can have 5 on the target at one time.) Other abilities, such as Rupture and Garrote, will restore Energy (which Rogues need to use their abilities) due to a talent called "Venomous Wounds." Another talent, "Deadly Brew," automatically applies "Crippling Poison" along with the application of the Instant Poison on your main-hand dagger.

As far as damage, well, Assassination Rogues do very well in the damage department. From stealth they can attack with Garrote, then Slice and Dice. Mutilate adds a couple of "combo points" and then Envenom refreshes the duration of Slice and Dice to its maximum. More combo points to fuel Rupture and then alternating Envenom and Rupture. This will do nice things for your overall damage rating.

Check out this assassination rogue guide for more details