Warlocks in World of Warcraft have it easy. They have pets to keep them safe, they have fears to keep the aggro off of them, and they have a wide array of spells for any occasion. With all the choices available, it is often hard to decide which talent tree you want to specialise into.

Starting from level 10, affliction takes the lead.

Leveling a Warlock in the affliction tree will teach you valuable survival tactics, as the tree is not reliant on your pet to keep you safe. Oftentimes, the pet is used for either a mana source or for added damage. The primary pets you will use are your imp and succubus. The Fel Hunter can be used in PvP or when facing multiple casters.

Staple talents for an affliction warlock are:

Improved Corruption – Makes Corruption an instant cast, which allows you to cast on the run.
Soul Siphon – Drain Life is your lifeblood, anything that improves it is a must have.
Fel Concentration – Reduce pushback while casting Drain Life.
Nightfall – Instant cast Shadowbolts occasionally.
Siphon Life – A DoT that works as a health tick for you.
Contagion – Damage increase, but needed for…
Unstable Affliction – An extra DoT that goes boom if dispelled.
Haunt – An extra DoT that will heal you.

There are a few other nice spells to have, like Dark Pact. You will also want to get anything that improves your spell damage, but not at the expense of one of the above talents.

Supporting tree talent choices are up to you. I prefer to use Demonology to get Soul Link and Fel Domination. Some players prefer going into Destruction for talents that buff your Shadowbolts. For leveling a warlock, Demonology gives you the talents needed to help you survive the hard times.

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Shaman, a hybrid class, can be played in many ways. You will find yourself playing like a melee DPS, caster DPS, and a healer quite often.

But, which spec and play style is the best for the leveling shaman? Enhancement wins, hands down.

Let me start with a disclaimer. Leveling a Shaman as enhancement prior to dual wield (level 40) is actually a fairly slow path, and in the 1-39 level range Elemental is the best. Not to say you can’t level as enhancement, just know that the pace will be a little bit slower than what you could be doing as Elemental.

Enhancement shaman, once they acquire dual wield, easily will have little to no downtime due to a combination of factors. The enhancement tree is heavily focused on melee DPS abilities which will allow you to quickly drop any foe. As a healing class, you will be healing between fights (and during fights if things get rough) which eliminates the need to carry food. Add in the nukes from the elemental tree and you are poised to outlast most straight fights.

Talent choices are fairly straight forward. There are very few choices between talents you need and those you might want to have.

Obvious essentials are Ancestral Knowledge, Thundering Strikes, Flurry, and Dual Wield as these all form the cornerstone of your abilities. Stormstrike and Shamanistic Focus are two abilities that you should definitely consider as they give you a few more options by regaining mana, or reducing costs on your shocks.

Shamanistic Rage should be picked up as soon as possible as it gives you a much needed source of mana regeneration, as well as a small damage shield.

Maelstrom Weapon is another must have skill, as it makes your heals and lightning bolts instant cast as you do melee damage. This alone makes the you a potent killing machine.

Finally, you will probably want to pick up Feral Spirit to give you an extra damage source every couple of minutes.

Playing an enhancement shaman is pretty simple. Run up and attack your target, add in as many instant casts as mana allows (shocks and stormstrikes). Alone this will allow you to kill efficiently. Add in Shamanistic Rage and Maelstrom Weapon and you eliminate downtime almost completely.

Enhancement shaman is a fun class to level once you get the hang of it. Most World of Warcraft Guides will agree that they are also fairly easy.

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Leveling an arcane mage is a simple process. Most of the talents you want are in the Arcane tree and any branching out will happen at later levels to flesh out the spec. Some players will choose to go with a spec that is a little more survivable, while others will simply level in a raiding spec to get used to the rotations. The best part about playing an arcane mage is you have plenty of options.

Staple talents for the Arcane Mage are:

Arcane Stability 5/5 – Arcane Missiles can not be interrupted
Arcane Concentration 5/5 – Clearcasting for free spells
Presence of Mind 1/1 – Next spell is instant cast
Arcane Potency 2/2 – Increased Crit rate while clearcasting
Arcane Instability 3/3 – Spell Damage and Crit rate increase
Arcane Flows 2/2 – Lowers the cooldown on some major spells
Missile Barrage 5/5 – Speeds up your Arcane Missile Casting

These are baseline talents that every arcane mage will typically have. With these to work around you can decide on many other options.

Some players like to go into the Fire tree for Pyroblast. With this you will lead with the Pyroblast, as it has a long casting time (and does major damage). After Pyroblast, you can cast a Frostbolt to slow your target, or simply start casting arcane missiles. If things get rough you can activate Presence of Mind and cast an instant cast Pyroblast on your target to bring it down quickly.

The one talent in the fire tree that most arcane mages will want to have is Incineration, for the Arcane Blast damage increase. Do not get this talent early, as you will not get that spell until you are higher level.

Frost talents you should consider are Precision (hit rate increase) and Icy Veins (spell haste buff).

There are many options open if you decide to level a mage

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The top question of every new player in World of Warcraft is “which spec is the best to level?” When leveling a mage, the decision is a little easier as fire is the least viable to level. Arcane and Frost both have points for, and against, them. I will give you my perspective on which one is the better spec.

Arcane

Arcane is the best spec for leveling if you will be doing a lot of single pulls. The spec is very mana friendly, and is highly viable as soon as level 15 when you can max out Arcane Stability. Arcane Stability simply allows you to cast your Arcane Missiles spell without being interrupted or having the cast knocked back, so you are guaranteed to shoot off 5 sets of missiles if your target lives long enough to survive.

Many Arcane specs will go into Fire early on for Pyroblast to give them a hard hitting spell. This also serves the benefit of giving the build a little more survivability later on when you get the talent Presence of Mind (PoM), which makes your next spell an instant cast. You can activate PoM and cast an instant cast Pyroblast to dish out quite a bit of instant damage to a target if things get rough.

This spec will lead with a Frostbolt (or Pyroblast if you spec into Fire), and then follow with another frostbolt or fireball. From there you have some options depending on your target. I liked to Frost Nova my target, jump backwards, and start casting Arcane Missiles until the target is dead. If the target is about dead you can simply start casting Arcane Missiles after the second nuke. As long as you attack one mob at a time, your mana should last at least a few fights.

Frost

Frost spec is all about AoE grinding. No doubt anyone who has leveled a character in WoW has come across a mage AoE leveling at some point or another. It is an amazing sight to see, but also frustrating knowing that you will need to probably find another area to grind.

This spec will play a lot like a fire spec early on, except you will use frostbolt to keep the distance between you and your target. It gains a lot of survivability later on to help you stay alive. Best of all, the juicy AoE talents are kept in this tree. Single target killing is slow as this spec, much like a fire spec is.

The real strength of a Frost build is in its AoE grinding ability. A combination of talents like Improved Blizzard and Permafrost keep your targets slowed combined with Frost Nova if your victims get too close.

If you can AoE grind well, frost is the faster spec. The downside is that you really need to look into bringing a priest with you to level for the shield and heals to keep things up. Deaths while leveling will greatly slow your experience per hour rate, and must be avoided at all costs. Avoiding death while AoE grinding is a delicate dance that not everyone can master (I will admit that I did not), so keep that in your mind.

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