Hunter

Hunter Lore

The Hunter has always existed to maintain the balance with the creatures of the wild. Adventurers far and wide venture into the wilderness to find an animal companion to protect and aid them on their journeys. These expert marksmen are unmatched in their skill with firearms and archery. Many of the races of the world venerate the rites of the hunt. For the Tauren, the Great Hunt is central to their culture and skilled hunters are honored above all others. The Orcs have always shared a natural relationship with the rugged land and the creatures of the wild. The Trolls share a similar relationship with the wilds as the Taurens do. The Night Elves have forever shared a unique bond with nature and its creatures. The Dwarves of Khaz Modan have never been strangers of nature, living in the rugged, ice capped mountains of the Iron Kings. They also have the reputation of being superb marksmen, and are the leading designers of gnomish invention of firearms, much to the jealousy of the Goblins.

Famous hunters include all High Elven Rangers like Alleria Windrunner and her two sisters Vereesa and Sylvanas, but also the Night Elves such as Shandris Feathermoon. Rexxar the Mok'Nathal Beastmaster is also a legendary hunter. Some mythical examples are the unnamed Tauren who cornered Malorne the White Stag. Although not considered a hunter, Orgrim Doomhammermight have played the role of a Hunter in his years as a hermit.

Gameplay

The Hunter class is based on the beast master and ranger classes seen in traditional role playing games. Their primary source of damage comes from ranged weapons such as guns, bows, and crossbows. Races that can play as hunters are the Draenei, Night Elves and Dwarves of the Alliance and the Troll, Orc, Tauren, and Blood Elves of the Horde.

The hunter may learn to tame beasts as pets to assist them in battle. Hunters are only able to tame mobs that are labeled beasts, and the abilities that the pet can learn depend on its sub-type.

The hunter has several Tracking abilities. Tracking abilities allows the hunter to see, on the minimap, whatever creature is being tracked as circles with a red center. Available types for tracking include: Beasts, Humanoids, Elementals, Undead, Demons, Giants, Dragonkin and Stealth.

The hunter also has special enhancements called Aspects. These allow the player to passively improve their skills or talents by taking on bestial traits from animals such as cheetah (increases movement speed), monkey (increases dodge chance), hawk (increases ranged attack power), and viper(increased mana regeneration). Another useful aspect is "Aspect of the Beast", which makes the hunter untrackable, and is particularly useful in PvP areas. There are also aspects that benefit the entire party "Aspect of the Pack" (improves run speed of all nearby party members) and Aspect of the Wild (increases nature resistance for all party members). Hunters can also lay traps to freeze an enemy, slow several down, do additional damage to a single target or multiple targets via an area of effect when triggered.

Hunters can also "Mark" a target, which increases the ranged attack power of those who attack the "Marked" target.

The Hunter talent trees are: Beast Mastery (improves pets), Marksmanship (damage and other ranged abilities) and Survival (melee abilities and defensive skills).

Hunters can use all weapons other than maces and wands. They can dual wield weapons once they reach level 20. Hunters can wear cloth and leather armor, learning to use mail armor after reaching level 40. Hunters cannot equip shields.

The combination of feign death, ice traps, tracking, wyvern sting, and long range attacks make hunters the potential best pullers in the game. Feign death allows bad pulls to be aborted, and with its thirty second cool-down, it functions far better than the Rogue's Vanish. It also allows a hunter to instantly dump aggro onto a Warrior, provided the Warrior stands a short distance from the rest of the group.

Mage

Mages are a magic-using class who focus on elemental (fire and frost) and arcane spells. Although they can deal large amounts of damage in a short period of time, survival is difficult due to their low hit points. Races that can play as mages include Humans, Gnomes and Dranei for the Alliance, and Undead, Blood Elves and Trolls for the Horde.

Mages also have the ability to teleport themselves to any of their faction's major cities ( Alliance: Stormwind, Ironforge, Darnassus and, as of the Burning Crusade, The Exodar. Horde: Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff, Undercity and, as of The Burning Crusade, Silvermoon.) and can summon portals to teleport their entire party to a major faction city as well. They can also conjure items such as food and water, and also mana gems which can be used by the Mage to replenish mana while in combat.

The Mage is also very versatile when in groups. Mages are often favored in groups for their high amount of DPS (damage per second) and the ability to conjure food and water make them highly effective in "end game" raiding. Mages are the most effective class at area of effect spells, which allow them to attack multiple targets at once.

Mages also have the ability to transform an unfriendly target into a harmless sheep. Pig, cow and turtle transformations are attainable by acquiring special spellbooks. The target remains in this animal form and is not in control of his or her actions until the spell wears off, is removed/cleansed, or if the target takes any damage.

The Mage talent trees are: Fire (Burst damage), Frost (Survivability and Mana Efficiency) and Arcane (General DPS, and Support).

Mages can only wear cloth armor.

Paladin

Paladin Lore

Paladins are the virtuous defenders of the weak and tireless enemies of the undead. The original Paladin order, "The Silver Hand" was formed in the Second War and lasted until the time of the Plague. As Paladins were immune to the Plague (and indeed all diseases), many members of the order survived the initial push of the Scourge. Unfortunately, the corrupted Arthas killed many paladins upon his return leaving only a scattered few. Following the invasion of the Scourge, many of the order's paladins joined a zealous group of followers of the Light known as the Scarlet Crusade . After leaving the Crusade, some paladins decided to join the Argent Dawn .

Others fled south, to the Kingdom of Stormwind. The Paladin Order, still referring to themselves as the Order of the Silver Hand, now thrives under their new leadership at the Cathedral of Light in Stormwind City . Over time, the followers of the Holy Light spread their philosophy to the Dwarves of Ironforge who soon adopted the tenets of the order as well.

The Blood Elves learned the powers of the Light by performing experiments on a Naaru (a powerful being of Light) they had captured in Tempest Keep. Lady Liadrin, a former priestess, had recently renounced her vows, for she felt the Light had abandoned her people. She volunteered to be the first to bend the stolen powers to her will. With her decision a new order was born: the Blood Knights. These renegade paladins are able to harness the sacred powers of the Alliance's noblest heroes.

Gameplay

The Paladin is a hybrid melee fighter. Paladins use an assortment of spells, auras, blessings and seals to aid themselves and/or others. Paladins also have powerful offensive spells against undead and demons, as well as several defensive abilities including a shield that makes the Paladin immune to damage for a given amount of time, also known as a bubble.

The Paladin was previously only available to the Human and the Dwarf races of the Alliance. However, the newly released expansion, The Burning Crusade , have brought some significant changes to the paladin class composition. Paladins are now available to both the Draenei and Blood Elf races. Horde players are now able to create paladin for the first time with the introduction of the Blood Elves. The paladin will also be introduced to many new spells to master after the release of the Burning Crusade.

While paladins have offensive abilities against Undead characters, these abilities do not affect the "undead" Horde race (rather they are "The Forsaken" and are thus considered humanoid in the context of gameplay mechanics).

The paladin is able to heal others, magically augment themselves and their allies, and sustain large amounts of damage from enemies. Like the Warlock, paladins have a quest in order to obtain a free mount at level 40.

The paladin talent trees are: Holy (which focuses on spell casting, especially healing), Protection (survivability and tanking) and Retribution (which focuses on melee oriented combat).

The weapons that a paladin can learn how to use are: Swords (one-hand and two-hand), Maces (one-hand and two-hand), Axes (one-hand and two-hand), and Polearms.

Paladins do not have ranged-weapon abilities and cannot use guns, bows, or crossbows. However, the paladin can use talent points to learn magical range attack powers. In the Holy tree, Holy Shock can be learned with 31 talent points. (Used on a friendly target, Holy Shock can also be used to cast a small instant heal). Recent patches to the game also introduced the protection talent Avenger's Shield, which functions like a Holy version of the Shaman's Chain Lightning spell with an added dazing effect.

Paladins can wear cloth, leather and mail armor. They can also use plate armor after reaching level 40.

Paladins also have an additional slot on their Paper-Doll menu. The "Relic" slot holds special items called "Librams". This additional item provides a passive bonus to already existing abilities that the Paladin has. For instance, the "Libram of Fervor" increases the attack power bonus of Seal of the Crusader by 48, and the Holy Damage bonus of Judgment of the Crusader by 33.

Priest

The Priest class is known for its many healing abilities. Races that can play as Priests include Night Elves, Dwarves, Humans and Draenei for the Alliance and Undead, Trolls and Blood Elves for the Horde.

In addition to their role as healers, priests get offensive spells. Most of their offensive spells cause shadow damage, some will cause holy damage, and some racial spells will instead cause Arcane damage. Priests that focus on the Shadow talent tree can cause large amounts of shadow damage and are particularly effective in PVP. Recent Talent changes in preparation for The Burning Crusade expansion pack have made them a viable PvE class as well, allowing for increased mana efficiency and the ability to convert a percentage of their damage into mana for the party.

Priests have several spells which affect the mind or otherwise control their opponents. They can shackle undead, preventing a single undead foe from taking any action for a period of time or until damaged. Priests can cause several foes around them to run away in fear. They can even control the actions of a single humanoid opponent for a period of time. In addition, priests can temporarily make themselves appear less threatening to opponents and make foes less prone to attack.

All priests have the ability to buff allies by increasing their health. Discipline specialized priests can also increase the spirit of allies.

Priests, unlike other classes, get two special spells based on their race:

• Night Elves - Starshards and Elune's Grace.
• Dwarves - Desperate Prayer and Fear Ward.
• Humans - Desperate Prayer and Feedback.
• Draenei - Symbol of Hope and Fear Ward.
• Undead - Touch of Weakness and Devouring Plague.
• Trolls - Hex of Weakness and Shadowguard.
• Blood Elves - Touch of Weakness and Consume Magic.

The Priest talent trees are: Holy (improved healing and holy damage spells), Shadow (improved shadow spells), and Discipline (improved support abilities such as buff and mana efficiency).

Priests can only wear Cloth armor. They may use maces, staves, daggers and wands as weapons.

Rogue

Rogue Lore

Rogues are the "assassins" of World of Warcraft. Rogues are available to all races except for the Tauren and the Draenei.

Rogues rely on Energy for their abilities instead of Rage or Mana. Rogues (and Druids, who also use Energy in cat form) can only hold 100 energy before Talents/Items, but Energy regenerates very quickly (about 20 energy every 2 seconds.) Most abilities either give or spend "combo points." Abilities that "spend" combo points ("finishing moves") become stronger as more points are spent. When the rogue performs a combo move on a target, that target gains a combo point, up to a maximum of 5 on one target. If the rogue begins to add combo points on another target, the first target's points are lost. Rogues can also go into a stealth mode, which makes them effectively invisible to enemy Players and enemy NPCs unless detected. Stealth becomes more or less effective depending on the Rogue's level and the level of the potential detector. Stealth can only be used out of combat, with the exception of the ability "Vanish," which forces the Rogue into stealth in exchange for a relatively inexpensive reagent. Several attacks ("opening moves" or "openers") require the Rogue to be in stealth.

They can wield daggers, one-handed maces, one-handed swords, and fist weapons. They can also employ ranged weapons such as crossbows, bows, guns, and thrown weapons. Rogues also learn to dual-wield, allowing one-handed weapons to be equipped in each hand. Rogues can create and apply poisons to their weapons. Depending on the applied poison, it allows the rogue to deal additional damage (either instantly or over time), slow their enemy's movement, increase their spell casting time, reduce the effects of healing, or make the enemy NPC less likely to attack the rogue.

Rogues also have the ability to unlock locked doors, chests, and boxes using "thieves tools" and the "lockpicking" skill.

The Rogue talent trees are: Assassination (poisons, critical strikes, and finishing moves), Combat (melee combat abilities, normal attack damage increases) and Subtlety (stealth and opening abilities).

Rogues can wear cloth and leather armor. Their primary attributes are Agility, stamina, and strength. Agility increases dodge, critical strike percentage and attack power, stamina increases health, and strength increases attack power.

Gameplay

Rogue gameplay is based around dealing as much damage as possible to a target that is incapacitated. A number of abilities causing damage while incapacitating enemies allow the rogue to accumulate combo points, resulting in finishing moves that further weaken or damage the target. The use of poisons complements these abilities.

Overall, the style of fighting can be divided into two broad categories. There are Swashbuckler like rogues, using swords and dealing constant damage, and there are rogues that deal damage in a way closer to Assassination.

Swashbuckling rogues mostly come from two talent distribution built around either Hemorrage (an ability from the Subtlety tree) or around the use of the Combat talent tree. Combat rogues will try to keep their target stunned while dealing damage from any side. While these rogues are compared to swashbucklers, they can use swords, daggers, fist weapons and maces. It is rare to see rogues use fist weapons with this style of combat due to fist weapons being uncommon. It is also uncommon for rogues to use daggers in this style of combat, as they would instead use an assassin like style of combat.

An assassin style rogue will use high burst damage moves, such as ambush and backstab, while trying to keep their target immobilized. Their position in relation to their target during the fight is crucial, as backstab and mutilate are only usable from behind. Assassin style rogues almost invariably use daggers, as they are the only weapons to support Ambush, Backstab and Mutilate (an attack from the Assassination tree).

Two rogues built around the same general idea can be very different depending on which weapons, which poisons and which talents they have. In fact, many rogues attempt to find the one build that will give them the edge over others. This gives birth to various "hybrid" rogues, using abilities from the various trees to try and use the advantages of each build.

Shaman

The Shaman is a Healer, Warrior and Mage hybrid class, and as such, the Shaman is one of the most versatile classes in the game. They are designed to enhance all parts of a party while not being particularly focused on any one aspect of the game. Along with basic damage and healing spells, they have totem spells which can affect the area around the totem, usually positively, and "Shock" spells, instant cast damage spells with a secondary effect. Finally, they can augment their weapons with the elements, giving them an extra effect, including the infamous "Windfury," which gives weapons a 20% chance to have an extra attack doing as much damage as two strikes from the weapon with a greatly increased attack power.

The Shaman talent trees are: Elemental (offensive spells), Enhancement (melee abilities and buffs) and Restoration (healing spells). Elemental is generally geared towards ranged damage in raids or groups. Enhancement Shamans focus more of their energy in melee dps. Restoration Shamans are also ranged, though their primary role is essentially a healer with mail armor at level 40. Most Shamans are a hybrid of two.

Shamans can learn a spell called "Ghost Wolf" at level 20. This spell transforms the Shaman into a beast, increasing his/her movement speed by 40%. When the shaman assumes this form, he/she cannot cast spells, although, the shaman can still gather herbs, talk to NPCs, engage in melee combat and loot corpses. This spell, like mounts, is only usable in outside areas.

Shaman can use One-hand Maces, One-hand Axes, Staffs, and Shields. They can train to use Daggers by finding a Weapons Master in one of the major cities. They can also learn to use Two-hand Maces and Two-hand Axes by investing 11 points in the Enhancement talent tree and they can learn to dual wield weapons by investing 31 points in the Enhancement talent tree.

The Shaman class is available to three of the Horde races: Tauren, Orcs and Trolls. In The Burning Crusade, the Alliance are able to play as Shaman as the new race: Draenei.

Shaman can wear cloth and leather armor. After reaching level 40 they can also wear mail armor.

Shaman also have an additional slot on their Paper-Doll menu where the Ranged Weapon slot would be. This "Relic" slot allows the Shaman to equip special items called Totems. These Totems, similar to Idols and Libram, increase the power of an already existing power that the Shaman has. For instance, the "Idol of Lightning" reduces the mana cost of the Shamans Lightning Bolt spell by 15 mana.

Warlock

Warlocks are spellcasters who have delved deep into demonic magic. Their strengths lie in the resourcefulness of their summoned minions and their ability to inflict pain and destruction with spells. Races that can become warlocks are Humans and Gnomes for the Alliance. Undead and Orc for the Horde. Blood Elves who joined the Horde during the Burning Crusade will also be able to be Warlocks.

One unique ability of warlocks is their power to summon demons to their aid. A warlock can summon four types of demons binding them indefinitely until death or dismissal. These four types of demons are the Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus and Felhunter. A warlock who puts 41 or more points into demonology may also learn to summon a Felguard as a loyal servant. All warlocks can also call an Infernal to rain down as a meteor or perform the sacrificial Ritual of Doom to spawn a Doomguard; however, these two demons are able to break free of their master's control, making them unlikely allies. A warlock player may command only one demon at a time.

Warlocks also can summon demonic steeds to speed up their travel. They also possess the ability to create the Eye of Kilrogg. Appearing as a dislodged eyeball, the Eye of Kilrogg grants its vision to the warlock who summoned it. Warlocks also have the ability to track and enslave demons in the wild. In addition to enslaving demons, Warlocks also have the spell called Banish which allows them to remove a demon or elemental creature from the temporal world for a short period of time.

Warlocks are able to drain the souls of their enemies to create Soul Shards, which are required reagents for many of their abilities. The summoning of Voidwalker, Succubus, Felhunter and Felguard all require a Soul Shard. Using a Soul Shard, a warlock and two other players can perform the Ritual of Summoning to summon other players to their location. Soul Shards are also used in casting two of warlock's more powerful Destruction spells, Shadowburn and Soul Fire.

Warlocks can create several conjured items called "Stones" from Soul Shards. One such stone, the Soulstone, when used on a target player grants the target player a one-time ability to resurrect after death. The Healthstone when consumed instantly heals the user for a set amount of hit points. The Firestone when equipped increases the damage caused by the warlock's fire spells and enchants the warlock's melee weapon with fire damage. The Spellstone when equipped increases the critical chance of the Warlock's spells, and when activated removes all harmful magical effects from the warlock. As all conjured items, these stones are removed from the player's inventory if the player logs off for more than 15 minutes.

The Warlock talent trees are: Affliction (curses, debuffs and damage over time), Demonology (summoned demons and survivability) and Destruction (burst damage). The only armor Warlocks can wear is cloth armor.

Warrior

A Warrior is a class in World of Warcraft that excels in melee combat and playing the role of a damage dealer or tank. Rather than relying on Mana to power their abilities, Warriors use Rage which, like a Rogue's Energy, has a maximum limit (100). Rage builds up as the warrior deals or receives damage. Rage decays out of combat rapidly, though Arms warriors sometimes take the Anger Management talent, which regenerates 1 rage every 3 seconds while in combat.

Warriors can shift between three different combat stances to better accommodate their current situation.

• Battle Stance is the normal stance. It reduces threat generation slightly. It has no negative effects on the warrior.

• Defensive stance increases threat generation by 30%, while decreasing damage taken and dealt by 10% each. This stance is generally used for tanking.

• Berserker stance increases critical hit chance by 3%, damage taken by 10%, and reduces threat generation slightly.

Most Warrior attacks and abilities require them to be in a specific stance. Switching stances reduces rage to 0. At level 20, the Warrior learns the passive ability, Stance Mastery, which allows a maximum amount of 10 rage to stay with them when they change stances. The Protection talent, Tactical Mastery, allows the warrior to retain an additional 15 rage when changing stances, bringing the total to 25.

Warriors are able to use all weapons except wands. They can also dual wield after level 20.

The Warrior talent trees are: Fury (higher dps, rage generation, increased buffs/debuffs & dual-wielding), Arms (burst damage & 2-handed weapon use) and Protection (defensive skills, tanking & threat generation). Arms is typically considered the most effective PvP tree for a warrior, while Fury has the highest sustained DPS. Protection is far greater for tanking purposes, but is less effective for soloing purposes or PvP. All races in the World of Warcraft have the option to play Warriors with the exception of the Blood Elves in the Burning Crusade expansion.

Warriors can wear cloth, leather and mail armor. After reaching level 40 they can also wear plate armor.