How to work together as a group in WoW dungeon run.

My husband and I have been playing World of Warcraft (WoW) since the game released years ago. Although we have been playing WoW for a long time and we know the game really well, we are never one of those hard core raiders. We simply enjoy playing the game with each other and with our online friends. Due to lag issue on our regular server, we have started playing WoW on a different server recently. It can be a challenge to make new friends on a different server since we don't know anyone there. Dungeon run is even bigger of a challenge for us, because it occurs to us that there are a lot of inexperience players out there. People that we have met so far either don't know how to play their class, or they don't know how to work together as a group. We are not talking about low level players, these are the 60's and 70's plus level characters. This is never a problem on our regular server, because the friends and people we game with all know their classes inside out. If each players know their classes and perform their roles in a dungeon run, it will be a breeze.

In any regular WoW dungeon, it will only allow maximum of five players in at the time. So the group needs to have a tank, a healer, and three damage out put classes. The strategy is simple, tank holds the mobs on him, healer heals, while the other three concentrate on bringing down the mobs one at a time. Don't go random target mobs. All damage out put classes must target the same mob, bring one mob down first then move on to the next one. With the marking system it is easy to mark each target with a different symbol, and state the kill order and crowd control symbol to the party. Crowd control, which is commonly refer to as CC in the game, it is to incapacitate one or two mobs from a group of mobs to make the fight easier.

Example, say you have a warrior for a tank, a priest for healing, a mage, a rogue and a warlock. There are four humanoids in a group that you need to fight. The leader of the party marks ‘skull' symbol for the first kill, ‘X' for second kill, ‘star' for sap, and ‘moon' for polymorph as CC. This is how you do it.
1. The rogue will stealth in to sap the ‘star'.
2. Mage will polymorph the ‘moon'.
3. Tank will tank the incoming ‘skull' and ‘X' on him.
4. Healer must heal the tank to keep him alive.
5. The other three will then concentrate on fighting ‘skull' first until it is dead, and move on to ‘X'.
6. The next two target will be ‘star' first since rogue can not re-sap during combat, while the mage can re-polymorph ‘moon' and kill ‘moon' last.
If the tank is really good at holding the aggro, the healer will only need to concentrate healing on the tank because no one else will be hurt other then the tank. This is how you do it and each fight will be a breeze this way. And this is what you need to know about each class role in a dungeon run.

Tanking class
There are four tanking classes. A protection warrior, a feral druid, a frost death knight, and a protection paladin. Tanks are designs to take massive amount of damage and they are great at generating aggro. Tank's job is easy, just make sure that you have the aggro from mobs, hold them on you and wait for others to bring them down. Just make sure that when you pull, you pull the mobs away from CC area. Because tank class has area damaging effect ability that can break the CC if they are too close together.
For instant, warrior has Thunder Clap that does damage to near by enemies. Druid has Swipe that can hit multiple targets. Death knight has spread disease ability, and paladin has Consecration that does holy damage within certain radius. So when you pull, make sure that you are out of CC range so that you won't break the CC.
If for some reason someone else has the aggro from one of the mobs, you must take the aggro back from that player. Warrior has Challenging Shout, druid has Growl, death knight has Dark Command, and paladin has Hand of reckoning and Righteous Defense that design to get the aggro back to you instantly.
The most important part is to make sure there is nothing on your healer. If the healer dies, so will you and the rest of the party. Party wipe! And also to make sure your healer has full mana before you into combat. You will be amaze how some tanks just rush right in without making sure everyone else is ready for the fight.

Healing Class
One would think that healing is easy, apparently not for some people. There are four healing classes. Discipline or holy priest, restoration shaman, holy paladin and restoration druid. It is best to find one of these player for your party healing, because if they are not healing spec, chances are they won't have the proper gears for the healing. Plus non healing spec class usually runs out of mana fast. As a healer, your primary job is to make sure the tank stays alive. With a good tank, you won't even need to worry about the rest of party's health because only the tank is taking damage. Never wait till someone fall below 50% health before you start healing, especially not on a tank. Because should they take a critical hit, chances are they will be dead before you get the healing spell out. And always top off your mana in between combats.

Discipline or holy priest.
You should always have Renew spell running on the tank, because it is instant cast and it heals over time. Flash Heal is ideal to keep topping off players health because it is faster casting time then your Greater Heal and it costs less mana. Use your Power Word: Shield on player to buy you a bit of time to get your full healing spell out, if you don't think you have enough time to cast it. You have Prayer of Healing to group heal if multiple players are taking damage. When you have Prayer of Mending, use it a lot because the spell bounces between players while healing them.

Restoration Shaman.
Make sure you have Earth Shield on the tank at all times, because it heals the tank as he is taking damage and the shield has 10 charges. Your Healing Stream totem always helps out in terms of providing health to players constantly. Chain Heal can heals up to three players, it is ideal to use when multiple players are taking damage. Then you also have Lesser Healing Wave which is faster casting time then your Healing Wave.

Holy Paladin.
You should always make sure you have Beacon of Light running on your tank. Because when you heal another player, the tank will receive equal amount of healing from you. Essentially you are healing two people with one spell. This way you will always keep the tank up and running. Then you have Holy Shock for your group heal, and Flash of Light is faster casting time then Holy Light.

Restoration Druid.
Lifebloom and Rejuvenation are your best friends in healing. Because they are instant cast with over time healing. Then all you have to do is to cast Regrowth to top them off. Your full healing spell is Healing Touch, and like all full healing spell, it takes longer time to cast and cost more mana. So use your healing spells wisely and you won't run out of mana as quickly. Your general group healing spell is Tranquility, but I don't recommend of using it often. Because it is mana intensive and a channeling spell. If something hits you while you're in middle of casting Tranquility, it will break the spell. Wild Growth is also a group healing spell, but only a 60 level plus restoration spec druid can get it since it's the top talent for that tree.

Crowd Control Class
There are five classes capable of crowd control. Rogue, hunter, mage, warlock, and retribution paladin. As one of these classes, your job is to incapacitate the target that is assign to you. Hunter, mage and retribution paladin are the more diverse CC classes because they can CC just about anything.

Rogue.
As a rogue, all you have to is to Stealth in to Sap the target before the group start the fight. Because Sap can only be perform outside of combat, and it can not be re-sap. Once Sap breaks, tank will need to intervene and hold the target on him. Down side of rogue is that they can only Sap humanoid creatures.

Hunter.
This is how you use your Freezing Trap to trap a target. Set the trap off the side away from the rest of the group. When the tank pulls, you start shooting at your target so that it comes to you to the trap. You need to stop attacking the target when it is coming to you, otherwise you will risk breaking it once it is trapped. If it breaks early and you can not reset the trap yet, put your pet on the target to stall it until you can reset your trap. You always have Feign Death to get the aggro off you.

Mage.
Mage is great at CC, because they can keep Polymorph the same target numerous times over. Your job is simple, make sure you re-polymorph your target in between combat until the party is ready for it. Down side is, mage can not poly elementals nor demons.

Warlock.
This is where warlock comes in handy. Warlock can Banish demon or elemental for CC, and re- bansih when the timer runs out. If in some cases there are multiple demons, a warlock can even Enslave a demon while Banishing the other one for CC.

Retribution Paladin.
Retribution paladin has Repentance spell that can daze a target up to one minute, and it works on just about everything except for beast. Down side is, only 40 level plus ret paladin can get that talent point depending on how player spec the talent points.


As the leader of your party, you must know each class, know their strengths and weaknesses. Know what they can do to benefit the group to make the dungeon run goes smoothly. If you have multiple CC classes in there, the kill order for CC should always be the sapped target first, then trapped target next, and leave the polymorphed or banished target last. Use your common sense, take advantage of classes available to you. If everyone know their class well and perform their roles as a group, any WoW dungeon run will be so easy.

How to Solo a WoW Priest Class.

There are a lot advantages being a priest. You can either do spell damage to your enemies or heal yourself and your friendly allies. Being a healer is usually popular in a dungeon run, especially if you are a good healer. Questing is still the fastest way to level a character. But being able to heal doesn't mean level fast if you don't know how to fight the mobs when you're soloing. Here are my tricks to solo my priests.

As a spell caster. First of all, the most basic rule is to make sure that you have drinks in your bags. Amazing how many people often forget to bring enough drinks with them when they are questing. Without drinks, you can't recharge your mana quickly. Instead quickly drink and get on your next combat, you'll have to wait for your mana to recharge naturally. That will slow the questing down for you.

Secondly, you want a good dps (damage per second) wand. The higher the dps is on a wand the better. This way you can still do a lot of damage when you run out of mana. And over all, you want gears that have intellect, spirit, stamina, and spell power bonus if possible. Intellect is your mana, spirit is your mana regeneration rate, stamina is your amount of health, and spells will do more damage then it should've been with spell power bonus. And always to remember to heal yourself when you have to.

Discipline Priest
Discipline priests are known for mana regeneration. As a discipline priest, you want a good dps wand, spell power bonus gears with intellect, spirit stats and mana regeneration. Spirit because that is your mana regeneration. And this is your basic combat tactic.

Always put your shield on before going into combat, that way you can use it again in mid- combat once the cool down for recasting the shield is up. Mind blast spell, follow by shadow of word pain spell then holy fire, smite and smite. That usually will takes care of single mob.

Or if you want to conserve mana like I usually do. I use shield, mind blast, shadow of word pain, then I use my wand until the mob dies. Recast mind blast and shadow of word pain onlyif you have to. This way you'll conserve a lot of mana to lasts you through numerous fights until you have to sit down to drink again. With spirit build and talent point such as Meditation and Enlightenment, you'll boost your mana regeneration during combat even more.

Holy Priest
As a holy priest. You want similar gear build as discipline priest. Due to Spiritual Guidance talent point, the higher your spirit is, the more damage and healing spell power you'll have, plus it is also your mana regeneration.

The combat tactic pretty much the same as discipline priest. Shield, mind blast, shadow of word pain, holy fire, smite and smite. Or more mana conserve approach. Shield, mind blast or holy fire, shadow of word pain, and use your wand.

The good thing about holy priests is that they are more popular to be invited into dungeon runs. Then all you have to do is heal your party members and not worry about help killing mobs. However, I do find a common misconception that holy priests are better then discipline priest. That is not true at all. Sure holy priest may heal a bit more then the other specs, but that doesn't mean discipline priest isn't capable of healing or do spell damage. If given the same gears, discipline priest usually lasts longer in combat due to their mana regeneration build. I know because my discipline priest mana pool usually out last a holy priest in raid. Last longer means you'll heal more in the end.

Shadow Priest
Shadow priests are build to do mass amount of spell damage and thus easiest to solo. But until they are high enough level to get Vampiric Touch and Dispersion, they will need to drink more frequently then the other two specs, because spells are more mana intensive. Therefore, Spirit Tap is a must have for shadow priest As a shadow priest, you want your gears to be intellect, stamina, spell power bonus, and critical based. Critical because then there's a chance you'll do two to three times as much damage, depending on how high your critical score is at.

At low level before you even have Mind Flay, your spells tactic is will be the same as the other two spec. Once you have Mind Flay, it will be shield, mind blast, shadow of word pain and mind flay.
Since shadow priest can't use holy spell to heal in Shadow Form, it is crucial to get Vampiric Embrace into your combat for healing. And Vampiric Touch for mana regeneration. So your best combat spells in shadow form are now shield, mind blast, vampiric embrace, vampiric touch, shadow of word pain, and keep mind flaying until the target is dead.


I've been playing World of Warcraft since the game released years ago. I love playing priest class and have several priests myself. These combat tactics work best for me and I hope you will find it useful as well to help you solo your priest class no matter which spec you go with.

What you need to know about WoW hunter class

This blog is for those new WoW players who are not sure or don't know a lot about their hunter class, or the gears they should be looking for. This is an over view of WoW hunter class that looks at what type of gears you should have for your hunter, what each stat do for a hunter class, basic combat tactic for a hunter, an over view on the the 3 talents spec, and hunter's pets.

Hunters are specialize in range combat, and they have a pet to help them out also. Take advantage of having a pet, it can really make it easy for you to solo on WoW game. With a good knowledge of the class, you can easily solo up to 4 mobs or more at the time. Before I go into about hunter's abilities and pets, here's what you need to know about hunter's gears.

Type of gears you want for hunter class

Hunter can wear cloth and leather starting from level 1. At level 40, they can train at the hunter's trainer to wear mail. Even tho they can wear cloth, leather is better for you due to higher armor bonus until you can wear mail at level 40, which mail has more armor then leather. Now the stats you should be looking for whether it is leather or mail are: agility, stamina as primary, intellect and strenght as secondary. Spell power gears are only for the casting class, spell power does Nothing for a hunter, so don't even bother looking at any spell power gears! That is one mistake I see a lot on many new players, it's not knowing what type of gears they need for their class!! What you want is "attack power" instead.

Agility and stamina are crucial for the hunter class. You also want these stats on the weapons you're using as well. It will be a bonus to have these stats on your range weapon, but I usually stick with what ever that will give me more damage since your main damage comes from your range weapon. Gears that come with attack power are always a bonus. Because the attack power on those gears apply both to your range and melee attack power, which will increase your damage done.

Agility.
Agility gives you range attack power, which will increase your range damage. it also gives you percentage in your critical chance and armor bonus. And they all transfer a percentage of your damage and armor to your pet as well. So the more agility you have, the more range damage you'll do, and higher your critical and armor will be. And your pet will receive bonus from it too.

Stamina.
Stamina is your hit point, or your total health. It also transfer a percentage to your pet's stamina as well. Again, the more stamina you have, the more stamina your pet will have as well.

Intellect.
Intellect is your mana pool of course. It is handy to have more intellect, but not a 'must have'. Because hunter has different aspects that give you different bonuses. If you running low or out of mana, all you have to do is turn on your Aspect of Viper and you'll recharge your mana up in no time. It is true that Aspect of Viper let you do less damage, but the goal here is to regain your mana fast, so that you may turn your desire aspect back on again.

Strenght.
Strenght only applies to your melee combat. Remember that. It doesn't give you any damage bonus in your range attack. So unless you do a lot of hand to hand combat (which defeat the purpose of having a hunter) you don't really need strenght. Strenght is best apply if you do a lot of PvP (player vs player). Since you'll be fighting another player, strenght will help you do more damage in hand to hand combat. In that case, you want to look for stamina, agility and strenght in gears. Or stamina, agility and attack power gears will help too.

Hunter's Mark and Aspects.
One thing you should always be using is your Hunter's Mark on your target. It gives you bonus to your range attack power. Until you can get Aspect of Dragonhawk at high 70s, you best use Aspect of Hawk for your range combat. Aspect of Monkey best apply to melee combat. And Aspect of Viper is your mana regeneration of course.

Use your aspects wisely. Have Aspect of Hawk on normally, if you somehow pull aggro from your pet and the target is attacking you, turn your Aspect of Monkey on to fight if you can't use your Feign Death, or Freezing Trap timer isn't up yet, or pet can't get aggro off you. If you running low or out of mana, turn your Aspect of Viper on to regain your mana. You have to make it a habit of using your aspects depending on the situation.

Hunter's Traps.
Different hunter's traps are useful in different ways. Immolation or Explosive trap is great to give you that additional damage, but it'll usually produce aggro on you if you don't have a good tanking pet. Have feign death handy when that happens.

Snake trap is great too for doing damage, but you don't get that until mid 60s. Down side of snake trap is that snakes will wonder off within a radius of the trap. If mobs are closely pack together, chances are you might aggro some unwanted mobs on you. So be prepare for extra combat.

Freezing trap is great for crowd control any extra mobs. My usual combat tactic for handling multiple mobs is have your pet stall 1-3 mobs on it. Any extra mob that come your way, drop a freezing trap to trap it while you take down the mobs that are on your pet. Make sure you keep your pet alive and multi-targets combat will be a breeze.

Frost trap will slow down target's movement. It is great for PvP tactics to slow down other player's movement.

Fiegn Death and Ment Pet
Fiegn death is hunter's best friend to get aggro off you, so don't forget to use it when you have aggro on you. Why taking the damage yourself when you have a pet to do it for you. Just remember to heal your pet tho, don't let pet die on you.

Inscriptor (one of WoW profession) can make good glyphs for hunter's pet. A major glyph call "Glyph of Mending" that increases the amount of healing done on your pet. It is great to have additional amount heals on your pet, the more reason how hunter can handle multiple targets in combat. There is also a minor "Glyph of Mend Pet" which allows your healing pet ability to grant some happiness to your pet. Meaning, no more feeding your pet when it's unhappy.

Hunter's Pets
All hunters must do their 'tame your pet' class quest at level 10 to allow you to tame almost any beast that you want. Most beasts are tamable altho there are some can not be tame. That is why you have Beast Lore to let you place that on an animal and it'll tell you the stats of that animal, what it eats, and if it is tamable or not. After you tame your pet, there's an icon beside your pet to indicate it's happiness. You need to feed your pet with what ever it can eat when that indicator turns yellow. You will loose your pet if you let it reach red status after awhile. So make sure it always stays in green color.

There are basically 2 types of pets based on 3 talent trees. A tanking pet falls under Tenacity, and damage based pet falls under either Cunning or Ferocity. Tanking pets such as boar, bear, gorilla and turtle are great at holding the aggro for you while you shoot your target down. It is best to use a tanking pet when you're soloing. And make sure you take the tanking ability on your pet's talent tree when it's high enough level for it.

Cats, bats, wolves for examples are good damage based pets. You can use them to solo as well, but they won't be as effective to hold aggro as tanking pets do since they don't have those tanking ability on their talent tree. They are however great in group for producing that extra damage.

But what ever pet you go with, just make sure that you have 'growl' and 'cower' on your pet's bar where you can see them. You want to turn 'cower' off while you are soloing, and have 'growl' turn on in order for your pet to hold the aggro.

When you're in a group for dungeon run, it's the opposite, have 'growl' turn off while having 'cower' on. It is so that your pet doesn't take the aggro from the person that's tanking. If for some reason you have the aggro while you're in a dungeon run, you can either use feign death, or set freezing trap, or turn your pet's 'growl' back on and 'cower' off for pet to take the aggro off you. Just remember to turn 'growl' off again when it's not needed. And it is best to have a higher damage out put pet for any dungeon run. Bottom line.. you need to be flexible to use your pet's ability correctly depending on the situation.

Over view on hunter's talent tree.
Beast Spec- it is great for soloing with beast spec. You get a lot of talent bonuses to boost your pet so that it can hold the aggro from you. Spirit Bond is great to have, it allows you to regenerate your hit point in or out of combat for as long as you have your pet out.

Marksman- instead of having a good portion of damage comes from your pet, marksman focuses on dealing damage from hunter him/her self. It is a good spec for dungeon or raid run because you will be doing a lot of damage. However this spec is not ideal for soloing, you will be pulling aggro off your pet very fast. So have that feign death handy is a good idea if you can't kill mob fast enough.

Survival- it is best for pvp in battle grounds or arena. it is basically design for survival. In this case you won't be able to rely on your pet, your pet is only there to do extra damage because other players will be all over you.

Of course you don't have to specialize only in one talent tree. I have seen a lot hybrid hunter as well. Example, survival and marksman mix can be really good in pvp. With 1000g you can have a dual spec as well, meaning 2 separate talent trees. So that you can have beast spec for soloing and marksman spec for dungeon as example. So it's best to know your gaming style whether you like to solo, do a of lot dungeon runs, or pvp. I hope this help to give you an over view of the WoW hunter class and help you get started on the right foot.