There's been a lot of talk about warriors not knowing how to tank, so this is my take on how to tank in an instance. All constructive criticism is welcome, all flames will be replied to with a "well write your own guide then" so save both of us some time and don't bother.

I'll be thinking mainly about 5 man instance groups, although a lot is still more than relevant in the raid instances, what you learn at low level will see you through to molten core with ease.
I'm not going to go into tanking talent builds, as my views are that 31/20 is just as good as any other and that prot isn't needed it just helps a little, I'm just going to cover the absolute basics that will give people a good basis for them to start on. However, I do make a few assumptions, mainly that you have tactical mastery, which if you don't, you will need to go and get. You cannot tank without it. Actually, you cannot do anything as a warrior without it. (well, you can, just not efficiently)

Firstly, we have the 3 most important aspects of tanking.

1 - First and foremost, use a shield!

This may seem like a given, but you'd be surprised at how many people try to tank with a 2 hander. The excuses for this range from "I do more damage like this" "I don't have a shield/one hander" or "I generate more threat with a 2 hander". All of these are rubbish. Firstly, you are a tank, not a rogue or mage, you're not there to do damage. If you don't have a shield or a one hander then do not try to be main tank. As for generating more threat, that's the worst excuse as shield bash generates way more than any attack with a 2 hander will, and as the name suggests, it needs a shield.

The main reason why you should always use a shield is the damage reduction. A priest will have a hard time keeping up with the heals if you insist on using a 2 hander. At 60 my shield adds around 12% extra damage reduction.
Secondly, revenge, I'll cover this skill in more detail later, but needless to say shield = block = revenge.

(I know that when you're a pr0 ub3r tank you can use a 2-hander and think you're just as good as anyone else, but really, you're not. Lets leave it at that and no "I cn tnk wid a 2hndr" posts please)

2 - Be defensive!

Defensive stance is a must. Not only does it reduce the damage taken by 10%, it also generates additional threat, and has a few nice abilities that are great for holding agro. I've grouped with many warriors that refuse to tank in defensive stance, to them the 10% less damage they give is more important than the 10% less damage they take. These are bad warriors. Most of your time should be spent in defensive stance. As a general rule, if you can do it in defensive stance, then do it in defensive stance. This goes for everything from sunder armor to demo shout. While it may not be much doing these in defensive stance adds extra threat that makes it harder for you to lose agro.

3 - Protect your priest.

If something is beating down on your priest, get it off them, your sole job when your priest is losing health is to get whatever mob is on them off them and onto you. If the priest goes down, you go down. The ways of doing this vary greatly, and depending on the situation. If your priest is close you can just switch target, taunt and then build agro on that mob until you're sure it's on you. If your priest is far away your main goal is to get to them as soon as possible. My favoured technique is to switch to berserker stance, intercept, then back to defensive and taunt. If there are multiple mobs on your priest you're going to want to follow this with a battle stance, mocking blow, or in worse situations, challenging shout.
As a warrior your priest will be relying on you to keep them free from agro, just as you will be relying on them for healing. If they have agro, you can't be healed.

Once you know the 3 basics you have the foundation of knowledge you need to enter the world of a tank. However, that's just the beginning.

There are 3 stages in tanking that you'll encounter, each of these is as important as the next, and to be a complete tank you will have to master them all.

Getting initial agro

There is nothing more important than getting initial agro on a group of mobs, without agro you gain less rage, which makes it harder to get agro. It's a viscous circle that basically means that a bad start can mean a bad finish.

-Start with a charge if you can - This doesn't just give you rage, it has a stun chance, which = threat. If you can't start with a charge (like if you have to pull mobs towards you) then blood rage is a good skill for getting you some much needed rage to start throwing out the agro building moves.
-Follow up with a demo shout - This doesn't just reduce their attack power, it allows you to get a little agro on each of the mobs so they are less likely to take an immediate interest in your priest.
-Try to fit in a Whirlwind - don't overlook this skill. It may be in berserker stance, but attacking 4 mobs = threat on 4 mobs.

This should take around 5 seconds, and then and only then should the rest of the group attack.

Threat building

Once you have the initial agro on each of the mobs you're going to want to keep increasing your threat so as none of them come off you and attack someone else. Luckily as a warrior you have several key skills that are useful for building threat.

Sunder armor,
Revenge,
Shield bash,
Disarm.

These are the 4 key agro building tools you have available to you, and you should have everyone on your hotbar in easy to use positions.

Sunder is our spammable skill that builds a fair bit of threat, you'll find yourself using this a lot as it has a low rage cost, and builds a nice amount of threat. All the mobs that you are tanking should have sunder on them.

Revenge is a great skill that builds a lot of threat. It can only be used after you dodge, block or parry, but after a couple of revenges Ragnaros himself won’t be able to pull a mob from you. This should always be used on the main target when it's available. It'll make them stick to you like glue.

Shield bash doesn't just interrupt spell casting, it makes them hate you as well! It builds threat on non-casters just as well as casters. This is another skill that you should be using mainly on the main target; it'll keep them on you even when you're building up threat on the other mobs.

Disarm is great for reducing the amount of damage you take, but also for building threat. There's a lot of mortal strike speced mobs out there, and we all know how nasty mortal strike is, disarming them stops them from using it on you, and also makes them hate you for it.

To make sure you keep enough agro on the main target you need to spend most of your time building threat on that. However, you cannot ignore the rest of the mobs.
Between each threat building attack on each of the mobs not being attacked, you should do at least one on the main target. That means no matter how many mobs are on you, you still spend half your time making sure you can keep the main target on you, and the other half building threat on the others to ensure your priest doesn't pull agro with a heal.

You may be wondering how you'll keep track of which mobs you've been building agro on and which you've let slip. For this I recommend the sunderthis add-on. It allows you to show the currently sundered value above a mobs target box. That way if every time you cycle through a mob to build agro on it you sunder you can keep a count on which mobs have had more of your time than others, and keep your threat level pretty even on each of them.

Getting back the agro

At some stage or another, either through a trigger happy mage, gung-ho rogue, or you not having enough threat to cover that big heal from the priest (it's never the priests fault, if the priest gets agro, it's your fault), you will lose agro. It's no big deal, as long as you know how to get it back.
The obvious choice here is taunt. It does exactly what it says on the tooltip and makes them attack you again. If it's just one mob that turned away then all well and good, a quick taunt and back to threat building we go.
However if things have gone more wrong than that you may need to draw on a couple of other skills.

-Mocking blow, in battle stance forces a mob to attack you for 6 seconds, just enough time for you to get off a few sunders, maybe a revenge, and a shield bash.

-Challenging shout makes all mobs attack you for 6 seconds, in which time you'll need to cycle through all of them and fire off those sunders.

-Or, in the worst possible situation, where everything has gone wrong and it looks like nothing will get all the mobs on you, we have the patent pending "oh !&$%, everything’s gone to $!@%" method of getting agro back, the one chance only, no turning back, uber threat building combination of… challenging shout retaliation! That's right folks, if things go wrong we don't go down without a fight, warriors never say die, back against the wall, or a corners even better (we don't want any attacks from behind now) and hit challenging shout… then retaliation, then sit back and watch the numbers fly, and imagine your threat level skyrocketing. If that doesn't save your group from a wipe on a bad pull when your cloth wearers are all taking hits then nothing will. (try not to make a habit of that though… at once every half hour it's not really a spammable tactic)

Main Assists

A lot of people seem to have the idea that the main tank should also be the main assist, the guy everyone assists to find the mob that people should do damage to. This isn't true, in fact this is probably the worst way of doing things.
The main tank and the main assist should always be 2 different people, generally a damage dealer should play the part of main assist.
This is due to the fact that as a tank you will never be targeting the same mob all the time. You will need to constant rotate between each of the mobs on you to keep building threat on each of them. If you sit there attacking the one mob that everyone is attacking as soon as a heal goes on every one of the other mobs will run straight at your priest, and remember what we said about protecting your priest? And if you're acting as main assist as a tank then people could have a different target depending on when they decided to assist you, and there's nothing worse than trying to keep 2 mobs on you that are being spammed with high damage attacks.

The way that I find a lot easier is if one of the other members of the party is the main assist, and everyone has their assist macros set to them even you) This way you wont have your party complaining that you keep switching target and they don't know who to attack.

Pulling

Always pull.
This is one of the most important parts of tanking. Pulling means that the mobs will initially target you, it's easier for you to build agro if they are already attacking you rather than having to pull them off someone else. You will get to learn when and how to pull.
The other main benefit of you pulling is that in the worst case scenario, when a pull goes bad, when you pull the entire room because you didn't see the patrol and you have 10 mobs beating into you, you can die alone. It will save you from a wipe. However, make sure your group knows this is the case, you don't want your priest healing you on a really bad pull and the whole group having to go down. Making a macro to say something like "bad pull DO NOT heal or attack" to warn your group of a really bad pull will save lives.

When and where to pull

Always spend a moment to look for any patrols.
Only when you are sure that there are no patrols should you consider pulling.
Only pull things that have a clear path towards you. This is really a no-brainer, but pulling through other mobs pulls them too.
Always try to pull around a corner. This stops any ranged mobs from staying ranged on you, they will lose line of sight so will have to come into your melee range.
Learn the patterns. There is always a pattern. Learning it makes your job a lot easier, if you know when and where each patrol will be coming, you know when to pull each group, or when to wait and pull the patrol instead.

You and your ranged weapon

Get the fastest weapon you can, damage is irrelevant, stats are nice but not needed.
Get to know your ranged weapon, this may sound strange, but you need to know how long it takes from you hitting the button, to it actually firing. Nothing is worse than hitting fire at that perfect pulling position, then having to wait for your bow to fire by which time that nasty patrol is back down this end of the room right next to the group you were trying to pull. Knowing your firing speed can be the difference between pulling a group of mobs, and pulling a group of mobs plus a patrol.

Group Leadership

It's easier as a whole if you take control of the group. You are the one that should always be first into a fight, so you are the one that should decide when and how that fight happens. Many a time you will encounter people who want to be in command. People who will want to pull, don't let them.
The most important aspect of being a tank is being able to control your group. You need them to follow your lead, otherwise things will go wrong. Once you have ran an instance a couple of times you will be in a lot better position to lead than anyone else, use this to your advantage.
You should be responsible for calling the shots, if you want a sap you should say, if you want a shackle or sheep pull, you should call it. However don't think that just because you are ready the rest of the group is. We have no downtime, we can keep up with the Duracell bunny, and unfortunately your casters can't. It's paramount that you keep an eye on your casters mana bars. If it's empty then you're on your own, and we all know how well a warrior does against multiple elites with no healing. Always make sure that no one is sat down drinking when you go off to pull the next group of mobs.

And that's about it. I'm sure there are some things that I've missed, but that's all I have for now as it's nearly 4am. Feel free to comment about anything or add to this with your own tanking tips.

Note on sunder - Alot of people have been saying it's been stealth nerfed to generate less threat, I haven't noticed this, I generally don't need to spam it more than 5 times on a mob to hold agro anyway, and as such it is still working well for me.

This is a post that tries to explain the basic ideas behind and differences between terms like Macros, Scripts and AddOns to those who are either beginners to using such things or to making such things. All credits go to Legorol from the Hellscream server who posted this on the official Interface Customization bord.

Slash Commands
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To understand how everything else works, first it's useful to know what a Slash Command is. wow allows you to give simple commands to the game in the form of a slash (/) followed by the name of the command. You can give these commands directly by typing them into the chat box. An example would be the "/follow" command. If you target a friendly character and type "/follow" (without the quotes), you start following them. You can get a list of some of the slash commands by typing "/help".

Here is the official sticky the EU forum which gives the complete list of all slash commands:
http://forums-en.wow-europe.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-interface-en&t=7&p=1&tmp=1#post7

There are several types of slash commands, a lot of which you may already be familiar with (such as /1, /p, /g). Some are designed to perform game actions (e.g. /follow, /assist, /cast), others are chat related commands (e.g. /yell, /chatlist) or give you information (/who). You also have emotes (/laugh, /bow).

Finally, there is one very special slash command "/script", which I will explain later.

Macros
————–
The purpose of a Macro is to allow you to create some very simple custom actions or tasks, based on the existing game actions. A macro is just a sequence of slash commands, which are executed immediately and in order when you execute the macro. To create a new macro, either type "/macro" (without the quotes), or click on the speach bubble next to the chat box and select macro. You can then give a macro a name, an icon and type in a few lines of slash commands. The macro is created in the form of an action that you can drag onto your hotbar. You can activate the macro by clicking on the resulting button on the hotbar.

An example macro would be:
/cast Fireball(Rank 1)
/yell "I am frying it!"
This macro merely casts a fireball, and then yells for everyone to hear that you have done so.

Macros have some severe limitations, and are only intended for very very simple tasks.

FAQ:
Q: Can I cast two or more spells in a macro?
A: No. The most important limitation is that you can not cast more than one spell using a macro. This limitation is there so that macros can't automate too much for you. You can have as many other commands within the 256 character limit as you like.

Q: Can I wait between commands in a macro?
A: No. There is no command for waiting or pausing in a macro.

Q: Can I make a macro that casts different spells?
A: Yes. It is perfectly possible to make a macro that casts a different spell each time you run it, perhaps cycling through a list of spells. The limitation is one spell cast per keypress or mouse click (i.e. one spell cast each time the macro is run), but that one spell can be different each time.

Scripts
————–
Usually, not just in wow, the term Script refers to a short to medium length program, written in some kind of simple programming language (called a scripting language). The purpose of a script is usually to control another program.

World of warcraft has a powerful programming language called Lua embedded inside it, which is used for scripting. What this means is that wow is able to understand and execute little programs written in the Lua language. However, in wow, a script is usually not something that you use by itself, i.e. you don't just type in a script and execute it (although this is also possible). Instead, there are several places in wow where you have the option to enter scripts as part of something else.

The kind of places that you can use a script in:
[li] /script [command] : If you type the slash command "/script" in the chat box, you can follow it with one or more valid Lua language statements (i.e. a script), separated by semi-colons (;).
[li] Macros: you can enter scripts as part of macros, by putting one or more "/script" command in your macro.
[li] User Interface modifications and AddOns: You can read more about these below, but the main point is that these are all created using Lua scripts (and also XML technology, but don't worry about that right now).

In all the cases you can use scripts in, the things you can do with the scripts are the same.

So what can a script do? There are many resources on Lua scripts. Some of the links that are useful:
http://www.lua.org for an explanation of the language
http://www.wowwiki.com for reference material
The most important point however is that scripts are able to perform many more game actions than slash commands. This is done via a set of functions (called API or Application Programming Interface) that wow makes available for use in scripts. Here is a link to a quite extensive list of all the API functions available for use in scripts:
http://www.wowwiki.com/World_of_warcraft_API

After all that explanation, here is an example of a script. [/pre] if (IsPartyLeader()) then
CastSpellByName("Fireball(Rank 1");
end[/pre] This script is very simple. When you execute this script, if you are the party leader, then you cast a fireball. To use this script, you could do so for example via the "/script" command. E.g. you could type this: [/pre] /script if (IsPartyLeader()) then CastSpellByName("Fireball(Rank 1"); end[/pre] directly into the chat box. Or you could make that line part of a macro, so that it's reusable.

In summary: a script in wow is a short program written in the Lua language, able to interact with the game and perform game actions. You use a script by including it as part of something else, e.g. by putting it in a macro via the /script command, or by putting it in a UI Mod or AddOn.

User Interface Mods and AddOns:
————————————————
Blizzard has made the decision that the user interface of World of Warcraft is fully customizable, modifiable and extendable. This is completely legal, and is encouraged by Blizzard. A User Interface Modification (UI Mod for short) and AddOn is exactly the same thing, the difference is merely in their names. Usually Mods tend to refer to smaller things that only modify existing funcionality of the user interface, whereas AddOns tend to add extra functionality. From now-on I will collectively refer to anything that customizes the wow UI as an AddOn.

AddOns are created using the Lua scripting language mentioned above, and XML technology. They are pretty powerful and can often do more than merely add fancy buttons and windows on your screen. I will not go into the gory details of how you create these, there are many excellent introductory guides around. Here is a link you will find useful if you are interested in more details:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Interface_Customization

From a user's point of view, what you need to know is that AddOns come in the form of one or more text files, ending in the ".xml" and ".lua" extensions. These files are supposed to go into a folder called Interface in your World of Warcraft folder, or into one of it's sub-folders. Usually AddOns are distributed as zip files by their authors, and you "install" them by simply unzipping them in your World of warcraft folder. (If you don't see an Interface folder, don't worry. It is not there by default. If you want to put anything into it, you are free to create it yourself).

Warning: Be very very careful with AddOns that come as executable ".exe" files. Always triple-check before you use these to make sure that they really do what they say they do, as executable files can do anything whatsoever to your computer. AddOns are supposed to be written in text format in .xml and .lua files, so that anyone can check that there is nothing malicious about them. You have no such check available with executable files. Also, since AddOns only operate within wow, they can't harm your computer, whereas executable files can.

Having said that, lot of authors distribute their AddOns as executable files. These executables most of the time don't do more than just unzip the AddOn's files and place them in your wow folder in the appropriate places. Occasionally the executables are used to automatically download updated versions of the AddOn, or to upload data collected by the AddOn (for example item statistics to be put on a web-site etc.).

Installing: You usually install an AddOn by simply unzipping the file it came in into your World of Warcraft folder. Sometimes you have to copy the AddOn's files into its place manually. Each AddOn lives in its own folder, and you should end up with a folder structure like this for each AddOn:
World of WarfratInterfaceAddOns<addon name>

Uninstalling: You can always uninstall any AddOn by deleting the AddOn's folder. You can reset the wow UI to its default state by deleting the World of warcraftInterface folder.

Cosmos, CTMod, Gypsy, Nurfed and other AddOn packages:
———————————————————–
If you look around the forums a bit, you will see names like Cosmos, CTMod, Gypsy and Nurfed popping up. These are major AddOn packages that contain a large number of UI AddOns. Their authors (often working in teams) are respectable members of the wow community who have worked hard to create useful (and sometimes not-so-useful) AddOns for your gaming pleasure, and have bundled them together into one easy-to-use package.

Feel free to use any and all of these packages. They are legal, Blizzard allows and encourages their use, although you won't get technical support from Blizzard if something is wrong with them. There are many of these around, download and try a few of them and see if you like them. Usually the authors make these packages highly configurable so that you can adjust them to your needs.

Note: a lot of these major AddOn packages conflict with each other, so you won't be able to use them together.

Standalone, pure AddOns, what's so good about them?
—————————————————————
You will often see AddOn authors being proud of their AddOn being "standalone", or "pure addon". In the past, often AddOns modified existing UI functionality by changing something in the existing, core UI files provided by Blizzard. This has lead to conflicts as different AddOns all tried to modify the same file. A "pure addon" is one that does not modify any existing files, and merely adds its own files. This is a very good thing, because you can have any number of such AddOns happily coexisting side-by-side.

Also, a lot of AddOns depend on other AddOns for their operation. For example, most AddOns in the Cosmos package wouldn't work by themselves, and need some of the core AddOns in the Cosmos package to be present to work. A "standalone" AddOn is one that is capable of working by itself, with nothing more than just that one AddOn being present. Again, this is a good thing, because it allows you to pick and choose just those exact AddOns that you want, without having anything you don't want.

Having said that, from the point of view of an AddOn's author, you will find that often a lot of AddOns do very similar sort of things. It is much more easy and quick for an AddOn author to create a new AddOn if they can rely on existing functionality in other AddOns or some common core "libraries". That's why there are AddOns out there that depend on things such as the "Sea" function library, which in itself is just a core AddOn. If you find an AddOn that requires some other core AddOn, don't be afraid of it. Just make sure you also download the core AddOn.

Think of this as how a lot of games nowadays depend on DirectX on the PC. Game authors can write their games much quicker knowing that the user's computer will provide them with the functionality they need in the form of DirectX. If you are happy about running games that require DirectX (such as wow), you should also be happy about running AddOns that require other, common core addons.

Make gold with Secondary Skills

Crafting drops/exp
Farming crafting drops can be done all over the world of Azeroth. Things like Large Fangs are used in smithing/tailoring/enchanting/Alchemy. Spider silks come in 3 forms and sell VERY well on AH at times (Spider Silk, Ironweb Spider Silk, Shadow Silk).

*NICHE* Secondary Skills like Cooking and Fishing can be used to make consumable foods/Pet foods/Transforming foods. Most would snub their nose at this but we have made close to 450 gold in 2 days with cooking and fishing on straight runs though sat/sun, 12 hours each.

As you kill/fish things they drop meats etc. 90% of the items that drop in wow are used in some craft/spell. Some sell for less some more. Gather all items that the monsters are dropping that you know are used in some craft. Then start fishing for Delight Fish. A Delight Fish is fun, and we won't go into the mods of eating it, but they often sell for as much as 2-5 gold on AH for five of them, and we typically gather about two per minute.
By cooking the items that you gather you allow people who don't want to max out a cooking skill maxed the ability to use them. We usually sell meats and soups on AH for 30 silver to 3 gold for 5.

Humanoids for cloth
Humanoids drop all kinds of cloth and its used in 4 of the 5 main trade skills, and 1 secondary skill. (linen, silk, mageweave, runecloth, fellcloth) As you encounter humanoid enemies, you can gather about 2-10 stacks within 20-50 min of farming as you pass though. Selling that on the AH when you get back to Ironforge or Orgimmar. Fellcoth is turned to mooncloth by tailors and we usually sell 2 fellcloth for 2 gold about 5-10 stacks per day.

Quest items
Although this is the most time consuming way to make money it is very easy to do. And once you know the locations of the items you are gathering you will be much faster at it.

We'll start with the big hitters:
Ungoro Crater (lvl 50+) — Shards from the area are used to create buffs and a quest that is located there. Can be sold in the amount of 10 stacks for 1 gold per 10 at the AH in Tanaris. They drop by 2-4 at a time and takes 30 min to get a full bag fast.

Ungoro Soil — Used in 3 quest for the alliance and 2 for the horde, this can sell very fast for a quick buck. We've sold 10 stacks for 50 silver to 2.5 gold depending on demand. At times the demand is so high we cant keep up with it.

Azshara(lvl 50+) — The hostile Gryphons there drop IronFeathers, used in one of the most desired armors on our server. You can sell a 10 stack for 5-10 gold and sell 4-15 stacks a day. Also there is an abundance of sea creatures that drop clams. The meat can be cooked, and if your lucky you will walk out with 15-20 gold or black pears to boot

(Horde)First get fishing and train it in Orgrimmar to about 70. Then head to the Barrens and enter Wailing Caverns (the instance). Head into a enclosed area with some water around (prefereably the croc place) and start fishing. In a while you should start collecting Deviate Fish (Nightcrawlers or shiny baubbles shouls help), these little buggers can sell up to 20g for 10-20 in the AH depending on the server. To make even more money train in cooking and get it to the same skill level as your fishing(probably 80-90) and head to the lower Barrens and get ready to kill some boarmen because they have a chance of dropping a cooking recipe of Savory Deviate Delights, which after they are made sell even more.

This is a great gold making guide called Woot gold. Inside is an explanation of how to make money using the AH. It is very in depth and helpful, especially those who suffer from empty pockets

If you feel like supporting the writers and buying it, you may at Wootgold.com

Download Link!

http://rapidshare.com/files/975785/Woot_Gold.zip

In Stormwind Keep, when the quest (where Onyxia is confronted) is being 'played'; wait for Onyxia to respond to what that knight guy says, press the right mousebutton on her (yea, to speak with her) and she'll stop the enteraction with the quest.

She'll then just stand there for around 10 minutes, without continueing the quest.


I've done this 3 times on the EU Dragonmaw server, and each time, people gets pissed 'cause they think they're failing the quest, or complaining about it being bugged.. I, however, laugh the socks off each time, 'cause people reactions are hilarious.


So, try it out..
.. and piss some people off!

Horde to alliance communication:

101 101…………………………………Zug Zug

UO UO……………………………………..HA HA

27 11 11………………………………..mu ha ha

D F Z………………………………………..L A G

U G U……………………………………….L O L

As As As………………………………Ha Ha Ha

aw……………………………………………….no

d e d…………………………………………….l o l

Making your own phrase using the below chart only works if you put a space between each letter.

Orcish: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
Common: g g o l o a o o l n l n a o l n g n n l l l a n o g

==============================================

(alliance to Horde)



h i………………………………………….y o………..

ss ee oo p…………………………..Me love u…….

D a p Ee bb………………………….You Lose…….

b ppp…………………………………..evil…………

zz fff………………………………….never…………

Fff d Ss pp………………………..Very Mean…….

Ss B ppp……………………………Me Evil…………

D a p aa B ppp……………………Youre Evil……..

D a p aa Ss pp……………………Youre Mean……

Making your own phrase using the below chart only works if you put a space between each letter.
Common: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
Orcish: o e o y y e o y o e o o o o y u e y y y y y y y o e

MONEY FROM INTERMEDIATE MINING (AND BLACKSMITHING)

This is a guide for leveling in mining (and blacksmithing) in order to get to the point where you can make some serious gold in the game. Let me just start off by saying that there are many ways to make gold from the mining and/or blacksmithing profession and you can certainly use this as a starting point for developing other methods. However, this guide will focus on getting you to mining level 125 and blacksmithing level 75. This guide will assume that you keep up with the training from the respective trainer to obtain the abilities discussed below.

MINING BACKGROUND

Mining consist of finding metal veins, collecting ore, and then smelting that ore into bars. A miner gets the ability to smelt and/or mine various metals at various levels. You can smelt the following metals at the following levels:

Mining Level 1: Copper
Mining Level 65: Tin
Mining Level 65: Bronze (1 bronze bar = 1 copper bar + 1 tin bar)
Mining Level 75: Silver
Mining Level 125: Iron
Mining Level 155: gold
Mining Level 165: Steel (1 steel bar = 1 iron bar + 1 coal)
Mining Level 175: Mithril

All of the above metals will produce one bar of the metal for one piece of ore when smelted. You can frequently get 4-5 pieces of ore from a single vein. There are other metals (truesilver and thorium) that can make you a TON of money, but I haven’t reached those levels yet so I will wait until I can develop a strategy for them before updating this guide.

Along with the metal, you also get various stones and gems from the veins, shown below:

- Copper veins: Rough Stones, Malachite, Shadowgem, Tigerseye
- Tin Veins: Coarse Stones, Jade, Lesser Moonstone, Moss Agate, Shadowgem
- Silver Vein: Lesser Moonstone, Moss Agate, Shadowgem
- Iron Veins: Heavy Stones, Aquamarine, Citrine, Jade, Lesser Moonstone
- gold Veins: Jade, Lesser Moonstone
- Mithril Veins: Solid Stone

So, as you can see, you will be collecting a lot of “stuff” from mining. The only thing directly useable by you is the ore as a miner. Everything else is used by blacksmiths and some other professions in some cases. Therefore, I chose to also become a blacksmith. As you will see, there is definitely money making synergy, even if you don’t you’re your blacksmithing products to other players.

MINING STRATEGY

First, as you will see above, you will only be able to mine and smelt copper until level 65. Luckily, you will get mining xp from both mining AND smelting for most, if not all, of this time. Therefore, clear out as much space as you can in your inventory and go to a lower level area. Just hunt around the foot hills for copper veins and collect ore, stones and gems until your inventory is full. I would go to the easiest area you can find so you don’t have to worry about mobs that much. For instance, see here for a map of copper veins in Elwynn Forest, near Stormwind. http://www.thottbot.com/?m=1108

Everything stacks so you will have a lot of material when you are full. In my inventory, I typically have 40 open slots (with my backpack full of other stuff and four 10 slot bags open. Theoretically you can fill each slot of the 40 with ore, stones and gems. If you do this, when you are done, you will probably have something like 3 slots of gems, 17 slots of ore and 20 slots of rough stone. It all depends on the drop rate of stone, but this is probably about right as the stone drops 2-3 sometimes and the ore typically drops one at a time. Your mileage may vary. You should note that, when smelting you will need at least one slot open for the bars to go into – as you use up the ore, it will open up another slot.

Once you are done, go to your local forge and just smelt away to make copper bars. At this point, without blacksmithing, just sell the bars, stone, gems either at auction or at vendor and rinse and repeat. The bars only sell for 10 copper and the stone only sells for 2 copper each.

BETTER STRATEGY: SYNERGY WITH BLACKSMITHING

Here’s where you can begin to see the synergy that blacksmithing can add. First, unless you really need the money from selling the gems, I would suggest banking them – they sell for good money to a vendor, typically, but you will definitely need them for armor and weapons later. Ore and stones are easy to get, gems are not since the drop rate is somewhat low. I would also save a good amount of the rough stone since blacksmiths will be able to make rough grinding stones at level 25, which are necessary for some blacksmithing plans. However, this is up to you. At level 25, making rough grinding stones is an excellent way to level.

And here is a key point: as a blacksmith, you should only make things that don’t use a lot of resources and, at the same time, are the highest difficulty available (orange, yellow, green is the order of difficulty). If you run out of orange, yellow is OK, but you won’t level as quickly. Green is very inefficient. Eventually things will “grey” out and won’t give you xp. Note that you will always get one level for each thing you make that is orange in difficulty, regardless how many resources it requires. Therefore, for leveling it don’t use gems to make something when you could get the same level by just using copper.

Therefore, I suggest you use the copper bars as a blacksmith to make copper chain pants ( see http://www.thottbot.com/?i=272 ). You can make copper chain pants from level 1 and they only require 4 copper bars. So, now for the synergy: copper chain pants sell to vendors for 67 copper – so with a little more effort, you can make 67 copper instead of 40 copper from just selling the four bars (a 68% profit difference). Keep making these pants out of copper bars until you reach level 25. I don’t remember how many pants it takes to get to level 25, but assuming it is about 35 or so, that would be about 140 iron ore, or 7 stacks.

You will get other recipes but all of them require additional resources. The only thing I would consider is making copper boots at level 20. These require 8 copper bars and no other resources. However, you will lose profit by making them – 8 copper bars would sell for 80 copper to a vendor and the boots only sell for 49 copper. However, they will also give you more xp than the pants at level 20. This minimal loss is enough to get you to level 25, which is where you can make rough grinding stones. Rough grinding stones sell to a vendor for 5 copper, while the rough stones only sell for 2 copper (a 150% profit difference). They will also give you good xp for a while, so just make these until they turn yellow in difficulty.

Note that the above examples assume you will sell the items to a vendor. The pants and boots should definitely go to a vendor since it is not worth selling them at auction. However, the rough grinding stones are in demand because they are required as blacksmithing components. Therefore, you may find it desirable to sell them on auction depending on the market at your server. I don’t have the specifics, but they will almost certainly sell for a decent amount above the vendor. It all depends on how much time you want to take setting up the auctions. I simply sold some to a vendor and kept some for myself.

Now things become a little fuzzy because there are so many options. But here is what I would suggest you use to level:

- Blacksmithing Level 35: Copper Chain Belt – 6 copper bars
- Blacksmithing Level 40: Runed Copper Gauntlets – 8 copper bars, 2 rough grinding stones
- Blacksmithing Level 45: Runed Copper Pants – 8 copper bars, 2 fine thread (buy from tailor vendor), 2 rough grinding stones

Some of this might be inefficient in terms of gaining xp because the difficulty of the item drops eventually, but these are the lowest cost items in terms of resources. Feel free to vary on what you use to level, but try to keep your costs down as much as possible.

At mining level 65, you get the ability to mine tin, which also drops coarse stones. Once again save the gems and coarse stones. After this level of mining is reached, use the following to level in blacksmithing:

Blacksmithing Level 65: Coarse Sharpening Stone – 1 coarse stone
Blacksmithing Level 75: Coarse Grinding Stone – 2 coarse stones

END GOAL OF THIS guide: MINING LEVEL 125, BLACKSMITHING LEVEL 75:

At level 75 in blacksmithing, you get the ability to make Coarse Grinding Stones. As far as mining goes, continue to mine whatever will give you xp (tin, silver, gold, etc). At level 125 in mining, you get the ability to mine/smelt iron. This is where you can make some serious money. Eventually copper and tin will grey out, as will smelting entirely. However, you will still get xp from mining silver, gold and, the goal of this guide in mining: Iron., which you will obtain at level 125 in mining.

And here, finally is where the cash really starts rolling in. Iron bars on my server sell for a buyout of 2 gold per stack and there is not much supply for sale out there. Last night there was one auction with a buyout of 1 gold 75 silver, 4 auctions with a buy out of 2 gold and 1 auction with a buyout of 7 gold (what WAS he thinking lol). Thus, there were only 6 auctions for Iron Bars. Given that I had 8 stacks of 20 iron bars that I had accumulated, I could have made a killing. But I only sold one at 1 gold 75 silver (just for kicks) and it sold very quickly. Therefore, if you are interested in easy money, just mine iron, smelt the bars and sell them at auction. No cost to you at all, other than time!

If you were to just find iron veins and throw away everything but the ore (bad idea because other things are very valuable also), you could fill up each slot in your inventory with 20 ore/bars. Assuming you spent enough time to fill up 40 slots in inventory, at 2 gold per stack this could theoretically net you 80 gold. That’s a lot of mining, but it’s easy money if you can put up with the grind.

Coarse grinding stones can also be sold for a good profit. While I haven’t sold any yet, there are NONE at the auction house right now and I hear people in ironforge frequently requesting them. I have asked myself, just see what the response will be, but no one ever had any for sale. Therefore, this is an untapped market. I will put up an auction tonight for coarse grinding stones and let you know how it goes.

The same strategy above can be extrapolated to heavy stone, mithril (which sells for 5 gold a stack) and other materials. But I have found that iron (iron ore) and tin (coarse stones) are the most plentiful veins in the game after copper. Therefore, I think this is sweet spot for money making.

Emotes
/agree
/amaze
/applaud
/bravo
/applause
/bark
/bashful
/beckon
/beg
/bite
/bleed
/blood
/blink
/blow
/kiss
/blush
/boggle
/bored
/bounce
/bow
/brb
/burp
/belch
/bye
/goodbye
/farewell
/cackle
/cat
/calm
/scratch
/catty
/cheer
/chew
/eat
/feast
/chicken
/flap
/strut
/chuckle
/clap
/cold
/comfort
/commend
/confused
/congrats
/congratulate
/cough
/crack
/knuckles
/cringe
/cuddle
/spoon
/curious
/curtesy
/dance
/doh
/bonk
/doom
/threaten
/wrath
/drink
/party
/shindig
/drool
/duck
/excited
/talkex
/eye
/fart
/fear
/cower
/fidget
/impatient
/flex
/strong
/flop
/food
/hungry
/frown
/disappointment
/disappointed
/gasp
/gaze
/giggle
/glad
/happy
/yay
/glare
/gloat
/greetings
/grin
/wicked
/wickedly
/groan
/growl
/guffaw
/hail
/hi /hello
/hug
/insult
/introduce
/jk
/kneel
/laugh
/lol
/lavish
/praise
/laydown
/liedown
/lick
/listen
/lost
/love
/mad
/angry
/massage
/moan
/mock
/moo
/moon
/mourn
/no
/nod
/yes
/panic
/peer
/peon
/grovel
/pick
/nosepick
/pity
/plead
/point
/poke
/ponder
/pounce
/pray
/purr
/puzzled
/question
/talkq
/raise
/volunteer
/rasp
/ready
/rdy
/rear
/shake
/roar
/rofl
/rude
/salute
/scared
/sexy
/shimmy
/shiver
/shoo
/pest
/shout
/shrug
/shy
/sigh
/sit
/slap
/sleep
/smile
/smirk
/snarl
/snicker
/sniff
/snub
/sob
/weep
/cry
/soothe
/sorry
/apologize
/spit
/stand
/stare
/stink
/smell
/suprised
/surrender
/talk
/tap
/taunt
/tease
/thanks /ty
/thirsty
/tickle
/tired
/train
/unused
/veto
/victory
/violin
/wave
/welcome
/whine
/whistle
/work
/yawn

These ones not only animation but your character will also speak.. (Eeeer stupid enough lol)
/assist
/as
/charge
/cheer
/grats
/congratulations
/congrats
/flee
/run
/flirt
/followme
/fol
/follow
/goodbye
/bye
/heal
/healme
/hello
/help
/helpme
/incoming
/inc
/silly
/no
/fire
/openfire
/oom
/outofmana
/rasp
/raspberry
/thank
/thanks
/thankyou
/wait
/waithere
/yes
/welcome
/welc

Heh that took bloody ageis. Half of them probally dont even work :). If you have any more to add, just post and add them
Cheers

This is a guide to leveling as rogue. This guide encompasses subjects like leveling, specs and gear.

The class
The rogue is the master of the quick melee kill. Unlike the warrior, the rogue starts at full effiency (100% energy) and relies on burst DPS to survive. With only leather armour, you need to take down your target fast and be careful of adds.

The class is great as a farmer and one of the best damage dealers in the game in groups. In groups the DPS aspect of the rogue really shines through, as some of the higher damge moves are position dependent (backstab) and with a tank, you can really let rip.

Leveling Methods
Rogues are pretty straight forward to lvl and are the perfect grinders. Stealth, sap and distract make rogues able to sneak to most places and complete quests. Sicne rogues are very good at grinding, you can mix quests and grinding more freely, as opposed to the DPS-challenged classes.

The following is a link to the rogue FAW on the US boards, with loads of useful links.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=11381359&sid=1

Whichever you choose, I highly suggest doing nothing but instances from 58-60 to gear up and get all your key quests done. Not doing so, means missing out on a huge amount of XP.

The traditional ways are:

Grinding:
Not much to say about this. You kill mobs, they give XP, you lvl. If you don't have a comprehensive knowledge of where quests take you and which order is best, grinding is pretty fast for leveling.
It can be pretty boring, but listening to music or being on Vent/TS helps a lot. Get a rhytm going and stay in it. Take breaks when you mana up to not go completely blind

The following is pretty good list of where to grind which mobs. It is however from a Horde perspective and you need to scroll down a bit to get to the guide If you read the whole bit, there are some suggestions for alternatives, which work just as well…if not better.
http://www.mpsgames.com/ms/index.cfm?page=topic&topicID=31653&categoryid=20&forumid=63

And the following lists some nice alliance spots for grinding. Also are some suggestions on questing.
http://www.wow-pro.com/Knowledge_Base/op=show/kid=515.html

Questing:
If you know your way around the world, this is the fastest way to level up. This is also known as gresting to some. Decent horde guides are few and far between (there are some on this site), alliance have it a lot better.

Horde - if you are horde, use Joana's guide. That will take you from 1-60 in 5 days /played. It's written from a hunter perspective, so my suggestion is staggering your progress in the guide by a lvl or two. Other than that, there are some (admittedly with holes in them) guides here in the strat section. An idea is to try and modify the following alliance guide.
http://forums.blizzhackers.com/viewtopic.php?t=309717 is the text guide (thanks Bay_Cassius
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=wow+world+of+warcraft+levels are links to all the videos (thanks sQren)

alliance - if you are alliance, you got it made! The following guide will quickly and easily take you from 30-60. Reason it's 30, is because of the quests pre that are in and around the starter areas, so just level quickly to 30 and you are set.
http://www.wow-pro.com/node/599

Talent Specs
For leveling I recommend spec'ing for swords. Sword damage rely less on positioning and more on frontal, white/normal damage. If you do 58-60 exclusively in instances, consider spec'ing daggers, since it's a big damage upgrade, but it relies on postioning and a good tank. Considering you may need to PUG instances (and tanks may suck), swords are still very much an option.

This is the spec I suggest for leveling:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=f0ecoxxZMhEz0Vzxb

Fill out malice and imp SnD first, then move to combat and fill that out up until swords and blade flurry, then fill out rest of Assasination.

Method of pulling: With swords, you don't really need to be stealthed or positioned, so just pull with ranged and wail on the target. If you are up against multiple hard mobs (high yellow), it pays to sap one and take the others down, then the sapped one. There isn't really any large downtime after a fight, only the need to bandage up every 5 mobs or so (if that).

OneHitWonder is a very useful add-on for grinding, since you can set it up to apply various attacks at the press of one button.
http://www.curse-gaming.com/en/wow/addons-121-1-onehitwonder.html

Gear
Rogues are stuck with leather their whole life, so can't take a beating for too long. Focus on AGI, and lots of it, mixed up with some STAM and STR. Personally, I go all out on AGI and STR to get targets down faster in PVE, but you need more STAM if you PVP. At around lvl 45, you can get the thrash blade from Maraudon, which should last you until 58-60.

The following is a link to a very useful site with loads of gear tables, incl. FR gear.
http://shadowpanther.net/wow.htm

Apart from that, rogue is a very fun class, that is easy to play, but hard to master. When you start raiding, consult this thread on how to maximize your DPS using daggers:
http://www.mpsgames.com/ms/index.cfm?page=topic&forumid=24&topicID=36669&categoryid=20

Enjoy