Boot Danger's WoW Tips and Tricks

Heroic Zul'Aman Patch 4.2

2011-07-18T07:25:00.000-07:00

I took an extended break from World of Warcraft a while ago, and have just recently came back.

Here is the walk through of the new Zul'Aman in patch 4.1, fought in 4.2.

This is my first time fighting the last boss, Daakara in ZA.

All Diablo 3 Information Currently Available

2011-07-05T13:55:00.000-07:00

Diablo 3 was announced on June 28th, 2008 by Blizzard at the Worldwide Invitational event in Paris, France.

To find a section quickly, use CTRL+F and search for it's code provided in the table of contents. Or anything else you might want to find.

Table of Contents:

1. Storyline / Lore (#story)
2. General Overview (#overview)
3. Gameplay Features (#gameplay)
4. User Interface (#interface)
5. Classes (#classes)
6 Drop System (#drops)
7. PKing Information (#pk)
8. Multiplayer (#multi)
9. Quests (#quests)
10. Graphics Explained (#graphics)
11. Screenshots (#screens)
12. Videos (#videos)

--------------------------------------------------------------

Section 1: Storyline and Lore (#story)

The story takes place 20 years after the events of Diablo II.

Warning: Spoilers for previous Diablo games.

About Diablo 3 from Blizzard:

"It has been twenty years since the events of Diablo II. Of those who faced the Lords of Hatred, Terror, and Destruction in the battle over the fate of Sanctuary, there are few still living who can bear to remember the horrors that the Prime Evils wrought upon the world. And of those who did not witness the terrible events firsthand, most believe the stories to be little more than myth. But something evil is stirring once again in Tristram, and it may already have claimed its first victim: Deckard Cain."

"In the previous two games, Diablo and his two brothers, Mephisto and Baal, were the three Prime Evils of a world called Sanctuary. Where we start off in Diablo III, it's twenty years later and the brothers are gone, they've been vanquished. Essentially everyone was kind of geared for Hell to actually invade. At the end of Lord of Destruction, the Worldstone was destroyed, it left a giant crater and everyone was expecting the hordes to come pouring out of it and nothing happened. So, Deckard Cain is one of our main characters from the first two games, he's spent the last two decades trying to find out where the last two Evils are, what they're doing and why the invasion didn't happen. A lot of the rest of the story focuses on Tyrael, the Angel of Justice, and what's happened to him since that event as he was actually the angel who destroyed the world."

Other story notes:

- Old characters like Deckard Cain return.
- The player character can now interact with characters in dialogue scenes.
- There is greater emphasis placed on character-driven story.
- Character classes will have a voice, which Blizzard believes gives them more personality.

Section 2: General Overview (#overview)

- The game largely follows in the Style of the previous Diablo games.
- The development team consists of 50-55 employees.
- The game uses a new 3D engine which also has the Havok physics engine.
- Controls are simple so that you can play with just a mouse, but at the same time gameplay depth is enhanced.
- The Camera is also simple and easy to use, with no hassles. Can be zoomed in, but not too far out.
- The game has been in development for four to five years. It was restarted after Blizzard North shut down in March of 2005.
- Scripted events can occur at random so as you go through the game multiple times you don't see the same thing.
- The length of Diablo 3 will be similar to Diablo 2, which had four acts.
- Blizzars stated that the game is "really far along", and that it is "really fun to play already."
- Diablo 3 will ship for the PC and MAC simultaneosly. There are no current plans for a console version.
- It is not yet known whether Hardcore mode will be included in the game. Hopefully that will answer some of the "Is hardcore in the game?!" topics. Though it will most likely return, seeing as how popular it was in Diablo 2.
- Loot is now generated per player. You only see the loot that you can pick up, which Blizzard hopes will create a spirit of cooperation.

Section 3: Gameplay Features (#gameplay)

- The difficulty levels have been ramped up.
- There is now a heavy focus on cooperative play.
- Scripted events can occur at random so as you go through the game multiple times you don't see the same thing. Random items, random monsters, and random adventures. It allows Blizzard to place random scripted events almost anywhere, and it keeps the game fresh every time you play.
- As stated by Blizzard, because of Diablo's random nature, it is difficult to support mods / map editors.
- The game will mix random and static maps, such as in Diablo 2. What is known now is that the overworld maps outside, will be static, but dungeons, caves, etc. will be randomized.
- NPC helpers and bodyguards are back.
- Mounts will not be included.
- Booby traps return.
- New health globes will not replace potions, but instead be more useful. As you fight enemies they will drop instant health globes which will heal you. Potions are still in the game though, but blizzard wants to emphasize skill over potions. When one player picks up a health globe, all players benefit from its restorative effects. This is in cooperative play
- The trading system will be improved over Diablo 2. Though an "auction house" system has not been confirmed.
- Destructible environments, that can either work for or against the player character.
- The town portal system will be kept, but upgraded even more to speed up the gameplay/

Section 4: User Interface

- Gold will now be automatically picked up.
- Mana and Frenzy bars. No longer will we only see one type of bar for the classes, mage type classes get the Mana bar, and fighter type classes get a Frenzy bar.
- A new hotbar acts like a smaller version of the World of Warcraft hot bar, with additional slots for scrolls.
- Blizzard stated that while they are upgrading it, the interface has been kept very similar to Diablo 2.
- Buffs in Diablo 3 will appear on the bottom left side of the screen.
- Mini Combat Log, when you attack an enemy, the damage you do will appear above the enemies head. Other information will also appear, such as when you block an enemies moves.
- Players can quickswap between skills using the mouse wheel or tab key.
- As stated before, the camera can be zoomed in, but not zoomed far out.
- When selecting a weapon, to make it easier to choose a new weapon for yourself, you will be able to see the weapon you currently have equipped, next to the weapon you are looking at. Whether this is the same with all equipment, it is not confirmed. Though it looks like this will be the case for all equipment.
- Weapon speed will be shown as "Attack per Second". Also there will be a calculated result for "Damage per Second" based on the damage and speed. With lightning damage having it's damage points ranging from 1 - x.
- Inventory: We can see room for 30 items. The new inventory system will be a bit similar to World of Warcraft where you will be able to carry variable sizes of bags. (There will be 4 grayed out slots for bags.) Items will take one inventory slot regardless of their size, and some of the items will be stackable. This will allow you to carry a lot more of the same item. Adding bags also allows you to carry many more items than ever before.

(Note: Some gear icons do not look like they would on the actual player character.)

Gear Slots:

- Head
- Shoulders
- Neck
- Hands
- Chest
- Leggings

- Waist
- Feet
- Finger R
- Finger L
- Weapon 1
- Weapon 2

- Runes will be included, but will have a different system than Diablo 2.
- Gems, and Scrolls of Identify are back.
- The item rarity system of Diablo 2 is making a comeback as well.
- Throwing knives are back.
- Elixrs are also in the game.
- Bags are included. Allowing you to store more items in each one, and carry up to 4 bags.
- The mini-map will be on the top right side of the screen, along with the name of the area that you are currently in right above it.
- NPC Portraits located top left of the UI as in Diablo 2.

Section 5: Classes (#classes)

- Five total character classes.
- Each class will have a female or male variant.

Barbarian:

- The Mount Arreat area, home of the barbarians, was devastated in Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. The barbarian people have subsequently fallen into decline.

Confirmed Barbarian Abilities:

- Whirlwind: a reckless spinning attack that takes out any enemy in the Barbarian's path.
- Leap: precision jump that destroys enemies on landing.
- Cleave: hits multiple enemies in one swing.
- Ground Stomp: a thundering AoE stun.
- Seismic Slam: the Barbarian slams the ground, creating a directed shockwave that can hit multiple enemies in a line.

Witch Doctor:

- The Witch Doctor hails from the Teganze, an area of the Torajan jungles. They are a self-sacrificing people that believe in an alternate reality called the Unformed Land, which the Witch Doctors are able to tap into for their powers.

- The Witch Doctor is similar to Necromancer in function, but not intended as a replacement.

Conirmed Witch Doctor Abilities:

- Locust Swarm: Summons a swarm of insects that literally devour clusters of enemies, leaving nothing but bones.
- Wall of Zombies: Firewall-like spell that summons a line of zombies which stand and swing at nearby enemies.
- Firebomb: Grenade-like AoE (Area of Effect) fire spell.
- Horrify: AoE fear spell, causes most creatures to run away)
- Mongrel: Summons a demon dog from a skeleton. Casting locust swarm on a mongrel adds disease damage to its attacks. Intentionally destroying the mongrel damages nearby enemies.
- Mass Confusion: Temporarily turns a group of enemies against each other.
- Soul Harvest: AoE spell that kills an enemy and converts it into mana.

Section 6: Drop System (#drops)

As stated by the Blizzard developers, the new drop system in Diablo 3 will make monsters drop several items specific to each person in the game. That means no more ninja looting of items at the moment that you see them. This is a huge change from the Diablo 2's quick "loot or lose out" system we are all so used to. This is to hinder leeching for items in Diablo multiplayer, like in Diablo 2.

Blizzard hopes this new drop system will help avoid some of the problems in the past and make for a more enjoyable game.

Section 7: PKing Information (#PK)

This was posted on the World of Warcraft forums, by Bashiok, an official at Blizzard:

We're - in general - not big fans of griefing for any game. It's really only "fun" for one person, and that definition of fun isn't generally something we're going to want to encourage. It's far more positive to encourage and support meaningful and skillful options and systems within a game, than a mechanic for people to instantly turn against one another for no meaningful gameplay reasons.

I definitely remember running with my friends, and someone toggles it, and bam everyone is dead and your one friend is laughing. Ok, ok, good joke I guess, and then you run back and *bam*, you've toggled it to get them back. After a while everyone usually agrees to a truce because it's just a waste of time. But I also remember running with random players and losing extremely nice items because of it, not cool. I'm sure that it was a feature that was right up some people's alleys, I won't deny there are some that would enjoy nothing more than to see others frustrated, but is that truly something that should be encouraged through design - if not directly opposed?

We have a large focus on cooperative play for Diablo III, and the mechanics and design decisions related to multiplayer are likely going to be based on supporting and encouraging it as much as possible, and not breaking it down.

That doesn't mean that PvP won't have its own focus, but those are details and features we aren't yet discussing.

Section 8: Mutliplayer (#multi)

- Blizzard is looking into making the game more fair for everyone. In the past too many people tried and succeeded in ruining the game for others, with leeching, duping, and all the other problems of Diablo 2. They are working very hard on trying to keep the multiplayer from becoming as abused as Diablo 2s.
- The same drop in/drop out cooperative play over Battle.net.
- Diablo 3 can support about 8 players in multiplayer, as stated by the devs, but it plays better with around five. They have not decided on the maximum players yet.
- Battle.net will receive the some upgrades which will also be seen in Starcraft II.
- There will be a single realm/region for North America.
- Blizzard stated a WoW like Armory is being made for Diablo 3. If you are not familiar with that, it is a website that allows you to view your Diablo 3 character and share it outside of the game.
Section 9: Quests (#quests)

- A new "Adventure" system will power randomly generated scripted events. An example provided was an area the player would come across, such as an old abandoned house, that may have a story behind it and enemies to dispatch.
- There will be class-based quests in addition to main storyline quests.
- A new conversation system will see fully-voiced characters interacting with each other.

Section 10: Graphics Explained (#graphics)

We all know by now that some people went as far as to make a petition for Blizzard to change the graphics, even only after 3 days of seeing the very first screenshots of Diablo 3. Why did Blizard choose a different art style for Diablo 3 than the previous games in the series? When asked, lead Diablo 3 producer Keith Lee, stated that in Diablo 2, and 1, they featured darker landscapes and dungeons which fit great with the whole theme of the games. Since the very first screenshots were released, people have blamed them to look a lot like World of Warcraft, and complained that they were too bright and colorful for a Diablo game.

Keith Lee stated the following about this: “One of the things that we considered when we were working on the visuals for ‘Diablo III’ is the fact that color is your friend. We feel that color actually helps to create a lot of highlights in the game so that there is contrast. A great analogy is like in ‘Lord of the Rings’ — not everything is dark. It allows you to see what a creepy dungeon can be like but if everything is dark it doesn’t allow you to have a lot of contrast. Diablo I and Diablo II are darker, and I think that the one of the main reasons why is the fact that in ‘Diablo I,’ you’re basically in a dungeon the whole time. And in contrast to ‘Diablo III,’ you’ll be exploring outdoors, you’ll be in dungeons, you’ll be experiencing so many different areas."

"We want to bring as much variety as we can when you’re playing the game so that you’re excited to check out new environments. We don’t want everything to look the same and that’s really what we’re trying to aim for. What we also tried to do is create very clean textures so that you can really focus on them. It’s a stylized feel and in that sense, it’s very sort of a Blizzard philosophy. It’s just really pushing the envelope in terms of the visuals so that everyone is excited about how everything looks. We think that ‘Diablo III’ is going to be better in so many different ways. We’re just building and improving upon the the first and second ‘Diablo’ games.”

Kieth also stated, "We’re very involved, because everyone’s very passionate about our games. Blizzard employees spend a lot of time actually iterating on [the game], and so in terms of the next phase, what we’ll try to do is a proof on concept on lot of different gameplay aspects. And we really want to get as much feedback as possible so that we can improve on the game and ensure that we meet Blizzard quality for our fans and for ourselves as players.”

Section 11: Screenshots (#screenshots)

All of the high resolution Diablo 3 screenshots can be found here:

http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/media/screenshots.xml

Artwork can be found here:

http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/media/artwork.xml

And finally the wallpapers section is here:

http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/media/index.xml#wallpapers

Section 12: Videos (#videos)

World Wide Invitational Opening Ceremony (where D3 was announced.)

Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT1dH9jVmlU
Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUPIFQ0ahwE
Part 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdJDKVZ3VBA
Part 4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0c9FAVfZUI
Part 5 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZnaChLDGtw
Part 6 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPQ0Fa-hgKs

Diablo 3 Gameplay Footage

For those with a faster conection, high quality HD Diablo 3 videos can be found here:

http://www.gametrailers.com/game/8234.html

For those with a slower connection, youtube videos:

Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYK2u5Fsh5w
Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-tjtMSsYec

Diablo 3 Developer Question Panel:

Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vY_Yaekukc
Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVNUXmzD8cU
Part 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N17luvbl8XM
Part 4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFO9VkKiM68
Part 5 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85xuPxd3NNM

Diablo 3 Design Panel:

Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjlqQK4FY4I
Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkebCxP9FFg
Part 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkB4_TtCMr4
Part 4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54DkRDgXS4s
Part 5 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSC5cuIlfHA

Diablo 3 Lore Panel
Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLzZUz24Gf8
Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OOH7fNY3bs
Part 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evgfyhk1u2k
Part 4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytqBdctgKig
Part 5 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIsurh1DVkY

Denizens of Diablo 3 - Sunday
Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93miUuqPQ3g
Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2QNftOm6zM
Part 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTuyvTKyCVA
Q&A - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1VVwg9YpzE

Lead Designer Panel with Leon Boyarsky

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JikHBR7Iom8

IGN Interview with Vice President of Game Design at Blizzard Entertainment
Executive Game Designer for Diablo 3:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB-nVF2UcdE

Design Panel Diablo 3 Fundamentals
Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlcQotL3wjk
Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PhVil3GdiY
Q&A 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF2PFSwYLN8
Q&A 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJis3LA1SOc
Q&A 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnz2o4z-Itg

(Thanks to Nikolas1233333 for providing the links to some of these videos.)

Some of this information was taken from diablo3blog.blogspot.com

Rage of the FIrelands Patch 4.2 Released on 6/28

2011-06-17T13:32:00.000-07:00

The time has come, the patch we have all been waiting for is over...well, almost. We have a release date for patch 4.2 and the date is june 28th, 2011.

Rage of the firelands is very exciting for me, I always love new content and I look forward to killing Ragnaros once more. If only I could count the hours I put into Molten Core in vanilla, oh the memories!

Here is a short trailer,enjoy and get ready cause here comes the Pwneth!

4.2 PTR Patch Notes - WoW Catalysm

2011-06-14T13:17:00.000-07:00

General
New Quest Chain: Elemental Bonds
•A New quest line is now available to level-85 Horde and Alliance characters, bringing brave adventurers to Thrall's aid. The Call of the World-Shaman, the quest which will point players toward Thrall and The Nordrassil Summit, can be obtained in Stormwind or Orgrimmar.

New Raid: The Firelands
•Located within the Elemental Plane, the Firelands is an all-new 10- and 25-player raid featuring normal and Heroic difficulties! Battle-hardened veterans of the Horde and Alliance now have an opportunity to strike at Ragnaros the Firelord and his loyal servants by venturing into their domain via Sulfuron Spire in Mount Hyjal.

New Legendary Item: Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest
•Steadfast raiders have an opportunity to embark on a series of quests to create an all-new legendary caster staff. In order to begin the process of assembling the staff, players must first kill a Molten Lord in the Firelands. Once a Molten Lord is killed, players can accept the quest A Legendary Engagement from Ziradormi or Coridormi in Orgrimmar or Stormwind.

New User Interface Feature: Dungeon Journal
•A host of dungeon information is now built into the user interface via the all-new Dungeon Journal. This feature can be accessed via a new button in the Navigation tray from anywhere in the world. Boss background story, encounter details, abilities, and loot can be viewed with the Dungeon Journal for all bosses which have been integrated into the new system (this includes bosses for all Cataclysm dungeons and raids). Additional dungeons are planned to be incorporated in future updates.

Dungeons & Raids
•Raid Profiles have been added which allow players to save the raid window user interface layout based on type of content (i.e. 10-player raids, 25-player raids, Battlegrounds, etc.) for future use.
•Players can select PvE, PvP, specialization, and group size. Each Raid Profile type will then automatically setup going forward.
•The pullout panel will be available for 5-player content as well when Show Raid Frames is selected.
•Raid Profiles can list groups horizontally as well as vertically.
•A Raid button has been added to the Navigation tray which will bring players straight to the Raid window in the Social pane.

Valor Points
•The maximum number of Valor Points which can be earned in a week from any and all applicable dungeons and raids is now 980, down from 1250.
•The maximum number of Valor Points awarded for completing Rise of the Zandalari dungeons remains at 980.
•The maximum number of Valor Points awarded for completing Heroic dungeons remains at 490.
•The number of Valor Points awarded for killing a boss in the Firelands is 70 in 10-player mode, and 90 in 25-player mode.
•The number of Valor Points awarded for killing Occu'thar in Baradin Hold is 35 in 10-player mode, and 45 in 25-player mode.
•The number of Valor Points awarded for killing a boss on Heroic difficulty in The Bastion of Twilight, Blackwing Descent, and Throne of the Four winds is 35 in 10-player mode, and 45 in 25-player mode.

Baradin Hold
•Occu'thar has broken free from his cage and presents an all-new boss challenge to players in 10- and 25-player arrangements who control Tol Barad.

PvP
Battlegrounds
•New PvP ground mounts, the Vicious War Wolf (Horde) and Vicious War Steed (Alliance), will be awarded to players for completing achievements to win 75, 150, and 300 Rated Battlegrounds respectively, rather than for being in the top .5% of the ladder at the end of each season as with Arenas. This award system is to better compliment the spirit of Battlegrounds. One account-bound mount will be awarded for each achievement unlocked, allowing players who obtain 150 and 300 Rated Battleground wins to earn this mount a second and third time. The additional mounts earned can then be sent to alt characters, given they’re account-bound. These mounts are awarded as soon as an associated achievement is unlocked and do not correspond with end-of-season rewards.
•The individual Matchmaking Rating column has been removed from the Rated Battleground scoreboard and replaced with a team Matchmaking Rating.

War Games
•Many improvements have been made to the War Games interface. It now has its own panel for ease of use and raid/group leaders are the only ones who can challenge another group to War Games.

Death Knight (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Unholy
•Unholy Might now increases Strength by 10% 20%, up from 5%.

Druid (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Feral
•Druids now gain 1 attack power per point of Strength, down from 2. They continue to gain 2 attack power per point of Agility while in Cat Form or Bear Form. In addition, Cat Form’s scaling rate from gear upgrades was slower than other classes, which was causing them to fall behind in damage with higher item levels. To counter the Strength change and improve scaling, the following changes have been made. All numbers cited are for level-85 druids.
•Mangle (Cat) damage at level 80 and above has been increased to 530% 540% weapon damage, up from 460%, and bonus damage has been lowered to 302.
•Rake initial damage on hit now deals the same damage as each periodic tick (and is treated the same for all combat calculations). Periodic damage now gains 14.7% of attack power per tick, up from 12.6%, and base damage per tick has been lowered from 557 to 56. There is a known issue with Rake’s tooltip being incorrect from this change will be corrected in a future patch.
•Ravage damage at level 80 and above has been increased to 975% 950% weapon damage, up from 850%, and bonus damage has been lowered to 532.
•Savage Roar now grants 80% increased damage to melee auto attacks, up from 50%. The Glyph of Savage Roar remains an unchanged bonus of 5% to that total.
•Shred damage at level 80 and above has been increased to 520% 540% weapon damage, up from 450%, and bonus damage has been lowered to 302.

Balance
•Starfire damage has been increased by approximately 23%.
•Wrath damage has been increased by approximately 23%.

Set Bonuses
•The 4-piece Balance druid tier 11 PvE set bonus, Astral Alignment, now provides a total of 15% critical strike chance with 3 charges, decreasing by 5% per charge, instead of 99% decreasing by 33% per charge. This change was made because the set bonus proved so valuable it was not possible to upgrade out of the set into tier 12. To compensate, changes have been made to Starfire and Wrath (listed at the top of the druid class section).

Paladin (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Holy
•Illuminated Healing (Mastery) has been adjusted slightly so that if a paladin refreshes an existing copy of his or her own Illuminated Healing on a target, the new absorption amount will be added into the old absorption amount and the duration will be reset. The total absorption created can never exceed 1/3 of the casting paladin's health.

Retribution
•Inquiry of Faith now increases Inquisition duration by 66/133/200%, up from 50/100/150%.

Guilds
Guild Finder
•Long comments will now work and not be cut off in the display.

User Interface
•The User Interface panels have been resized so there is no more need for scroll bars.The
•Addons will no longer be able to intelligently swap items by working with the built-in Equipment Manager.
•Character talent specializations can now be viewed on mouseover of the Battlegrounds Scoreboard.
•There is now a Dismiss Pet option on unit frames.
•The durability character display will now show items as yellow when they are below 20% durability, instead of when items have 5 durability or less.
•The Macros window and Spellbook can now both be open at the same time to allow for more intuitive macro creation. In addition, the Macros window has a Save/Cancel button.
•It is now easier to change the language of the game client to any language available in the region.
•A target or focus target can be selected within the mini-map tracking (does not include enemy players).
•Vendors now display currency types they use.

How to Farm Capture Firefly Pet 4.1

2011-06-07T10:48:00.000-07:00

So you've decided to hunt for the mysterious Captured Firefly from Zangramarsh huh? Well let me first start by wishing you goodluck!

There is no easy trick, but there are a few tips that will make your hunt easier and more enjoyable.

First thing to do is to get a rythm, going from east to west at the top of zangramarsh seems to be the easiest way to kill the most Firefly, to gain the Captured Firefly non combat pet .

Here is a script that will count how many you have killed per session, but remeber it only works if you keep the carapaces and legs in your bag.

/script local count = GetItemCount(25434)
local count2 = GetItemCount(25436)
print("Needlers Killed: " .. (count + count2))

***ALSO, if you are a tank, you can get the pet from the " Satchel of Exotic Mysteries" when Q'ing for dungeons as a tank.

Good luck and have fun, may you capture the firefly soon!

Easy Diablo 3 Beta Key

2011-06-02T13:58:00.000-07:00

Good news, Blizzard has recently annouced Diablo 3 Beta to be released soon, well, good news if you like Diablo... I HAVE AN EASY WAY TO GET BETA KEYS!

I have put a flyer up on the side of the site, if you enter your email and enter your address and a few gaming / system spec questions you are good to go to try the beta!

Any issues leave a comment, until then, happy pwning Diablo 3 Beta!

Here is a direct link to the Beta Giveaway!

Tier 12 WoW Armory Sets 4.2

2011-06-02T10:48:00.000-07:00

The Tier 12 WoW Armor sets are now avaialble for preview. If I might add, they look pretty sweet, but if you dont agree, please comment and let me know what you don't like about them!

I personally think the best looking and well designed piece of teir 12 is the paladin shoulders and head piece. Mmmmm sexy. I want.

For the rest of the pictures , please visit the World of Warcraft website at

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2705803

Easy Leveling as a Prot Paladin in 4.1

2011-06-02T10:32:00.000-07:00

Who is this for?
This wall of text is for players who are starting out or working on leveling a paladin. New players or old players should (hopefully) be able to make use of this information as a guideline. Note that this is just a guideline document. Just because I wrote a massive guide doesn't meant that I'm right or that there isn't a different way of doing things. That said, if you find any mistakes, or have a suggestion, please let me know right away and I'll do my best to correct the mistake and/or adjust the 'guide'. This is not a questing/zone/gearing guide, this deals with specs/glyphs/rotations. The end goal of this is to have you ready to read the guides listed at the bottom of the post and fully understand them.

OPENING Q&A
Q. Wow, this guide looks horrible and is aesthetically displeasing to me!
A. That doesn't seem to be a question, but you're probably right. I did write the bulk of this in Notepad while I was *coughcough* supposed to be working...

Q. Who are you???
A. Baneoftruth. You might remember me from posts on the official WoW forums such as "Leveling Prot 101" and "Leveling Prot 101". Next question?

Q. No, really, who are you?
A. Alright...I've been playing WoW since 1.0 (Beta installer is on my portable), didn't really pick up the paladin until early TBC, been "main" tanking ever since. I've also been as active as I can be on these forums to try to spread any bits of knowledge or advice I can share to the rest of the community.

Q. Why should I listen to you?
A. If you find a better guide, by all means, use it. If not, might want to give me a shot here. I will never claim to be an expert or superior to anyone else, and I am more than happy to admit when I am wrong or to defer to a more knowledgeable person. Also, I have candy.

Q. I want to tank. Should I play a paladin or a warrior/dk/druid?
A. Pick the class that you feel that you would enjoy. Each class has their own variations and abilities. If you ask a warrior what to tank as, you'll be told, "play a warrior". Ask a druid, you'll get "play a druid". Same goes for paladins/dk's. Each class is fun (trust me), but if you want my personal preference, I will always choose a paladin. I prefer the paladin cooldowns, raid support, and threat abilities/mechanics versus those of a warrior. As I haven't played my DK/Druid yet in Cata, I can't speak against those yet, but I know for me, my heart will always be with my paladin.

Q. But I want to be the main tank!
A. Honestly, the best attitude you can have is to understand that the idea of "main tank" and "off tank" is a little out-dated. Think of it as being a member of a tanking team and there will be a lot less friction between tanks.

Q. What stats should I go for while leveling up?
A. For base stats: Stamina > Strength > Agility. You do NOT need Spirit or Intellect (Spirit fingers won't save a tank, and Intellect doesn't actually make you any smarter or nimble...)
For other stats: Mastery (level 80+) > Dodge/Parry > Expertise > Hit (this order puts survival over threat)

Q. Do I need crit/haste?
A. Crit/haste won't hurt you, but you shouldn't aim to obtain them.

Q. Do I need Spell Power and/or a Spell Power weapon?
A. No, do not directly seek out Spell Power. There are conversions that happen behind the scenes that provide you with Spell Power based on your Attack Power.

Q. I r pal-uh-din, so I can heal myself while tanking, right?
A. Um, no. The only heal you should be using on yourself or anyone else is Word of Glory. Don't ever use anything with a cast time while you have enemies swinging at you.

Q. What professions should I use?
A. I can only make recommendations here. If this is your first character and you don't have another source of income, two gathering professions (Mining + skinning/herbalism) will help you make some extra cash. Otherwise, in terms of net gains by 85...
>JC'ing offers a stam bonus of 123, but you need to use special gems, so this can get annoying at times
>The stam bonus from Mining = Enchanting = Blacksmithing (if you put stam gems in the BS sockets) = 120 stam at max level
>LW'ing gives you a cheap leg enchant and 195 stam to bracers (155 stam higher than the highest stam bracer enchant)
>Inscription offers a cheap shoulder enchant that is 120 stam higher than the Exalted Therazane enchant
>Alchemy gives you the capability to make an "OK" trinket and boosts the duration of flasks (meh)
>Engineering...lolengineering... you can get some "meh" tinkers and a high ilvl helm that will probably be worthless come the next tier of content
>Herbalism doesn't really offer anything, nor does Tailoring
>Skinning gives crit rating, which doesn't really help as a tank (help a bit for threat, but meh)
End advice... Take Mining/JC'ing, Mining/Blacksmithing, or Blacksmithing/JC'ing

For those who were away:

Q. What happened to weapon skills? / Do I still have to "level up" my weapon proficiencies? A. Weapon skills were essentially removed. You no longer have to spend hours upon hours grinding out points of weapon skill.

Q. What happened to Seal of Light/Wisdom? A. Replaced by Seal of Insight Q. What happened to Blessing of Wisdom? A. It was rolled into Blessing of Might Q. What happened to Blessing of Sanctuary? A. The mana restored by BoS is now granted through talents and supplemented from Judgement Q. What happened to Blessing of Light? A. Holy crap you're old school! BoL was baked into HL/FoL back in TBC. Q. What happened to Divine Intervention? A. Blizzard removed DI with the comment of, "Raid zones are shorter than they were in Vanilla, and teleporters/mounts allow you to get back in position faster, so wipe recovery options aren't really needed." In other words, you'll never see a healer write out in raid chat, "I can't res anyone, it says I'm stunned!" /sadface Q. Should I still be stingy with LoH? A. No, Lay on Hands is down to a 10 minute cooldown, baseline. 7 minute with a glyph. Q. Does Avenger's Shield still slow down pulls with a daze? A. No, Avenger's Shield still silences on hit, but no longer dazes unless you glyph for it. Q. Does our "shield wall" still prevent us from using Avenging Wrath? A. No, Divine Protection no longer causes Forbearance or reduces your damage output. You can stack Avenging Wrath with it. Q. Can I still bubble+hearth? A. 99% no. I'm told that if you're wearing 4pt9 and the gods are smiling on you that you can successfully bubble+hearth. Q. Do I still need to worry about Crushing Blows? A. Yes and no. "Crushing Blows" have not been a concern in a proper raid environment since WotLK came out. It is important to note that you can still suffer a Crushing Blow from a creature that is 4+ levels over you. Come level 85, an unmitigated (unblocked) hit can somewhat be considered the new "Crushing Blow". Your new goal is to stack mastery high enough to get as close to our old friend 102.4% as possible. Q. What happened to Defense Rating? A. It was removed as an antiquated and "annoying" stat. Crit immunity is now acquired via talents for all 4 tanking classes. Q. Do I still need to carry reagents around? A. No. DI was removed, and our Blessings now last an hour without requiring a reagent. Also, Blessings apply group/raid-wide, they're no longer class-restricted. __________ LEVELS 1-10 New Spells: Crusader Strike (CS) - Baseline at level 1 single-target attack. By level 9, this will start generating Holy Power. Use this on cooldown. Judgement (J) - Ranged attack that debuffs your target and causes you to regen mana. Use this on cooldown. Seal of Rigtheousness (SoR) - A 30 minute buff that causes your melee swings to cause additional damage. Always have this active. Devotion Aura (Devo) - A static "aura" that increases your armor. The more armor you have, the less damage you take, so always have this active. Hammer of Justice (HoJ) - A stun. You can use this to interrupt/stun casters. Word of Glory (WoG) - Our "free" heal. WoG is your friend, and you should use it often. Parry - Allows you to parry attacks. A parry is the same as a dodge or a miss with one change...you get a parry-hasted weapon attack right after parrying. Holy Power (HP) - This is our new resource that's used for several abilities. The more charges of HP you have (up to 3), the more powerful the ability that you use to consume the HP will be. Basic theory so far: Use CS, & J on cooldown (Judgement provides you with mana regen), make sure that you have Devotion Aura and SoR active, and use WoG to heal yourself (note that WoG has a 20s cooldown, so try to wait for 3HP to get the biggest bang for your buck). LEVELS 11-17 Use your talents points in this fashion: Divinity (1/3), Divinity (2/3), Divinity (3/3), Eternal Glory (1/2), Eternal Glory (2/2) New spells: Avenger's Shield (AS) - You get this by spec'ing into the Protection tree. This spell is a ranged attack that will 'bounce' to 2 targets after hitting the first. This will NOT break CC. Redemption - You can now ressurect people. Start carrying water if you aren't already. Righteous Fury (RF) - This is your tanking buff, keep this active at all times Hand of Reckoning - This is our single-target taunt... if a mob is targetting someone else, you can use this to force the mob to target you Lay on Hands (LoH) - This is your first big "oh crap" cooldown. Using this one yourself will heal you to full and give you the Forbearance debuff. For now, this debuff doesn't really effect you. Holy Light/Flash of Light - These are healing spells, do not use this while tanking unless you don't have anything actively attacking you. Keep in mind that this spell is not mana efficient for protection; try to stick to WoG for heals. Basic theory so far: Make sure that you have Righteous Fury active to tank. Righteous Fury now persists through death, so you don't need to worry about turning it on should you die. Use Avenger's Shield on cooldown. Try to target casters when using AS, as it will silence them for a couple seconds. Rotation: Single target: AS > CS > Judge > CS > WoG or /flex > CS
*note: It's better to open on single targets with J than with AS if possible, but this will require that you get much closer to the target prior to attacking (J=10 yards, AS=30 yards at the moment). If you feel more comfortable opening with AS from a range, you can.
AoE: AS > CS > Judge > CS > WoG or /flex > CS

___________
LEVELS 18-27
Use your talent points in this fashion:
Judgements of the Just (1/2), Judgements of the Just (2/2), Toughness (1/3), Toughness (2/3), Toughness (3/3)

At level 25, you unlock your glyph capability. 1 Prime, 1 Major, and 1 Minor can now be used. Locate the following Glyphs:
Prime: Glyph of Crusader Strike (*note* You may choose to hold off on getting this glyph and wait until level 29 for the Hammer of the Righteous glyph.)
Major: Lay on Hands
Minor: Blessing of Kings

New Spells:
Exorcism (Exo) - This is a ranged spell (30 yards) that inflicts Holy damage. If the target is undead/Demon, it will always be a critical hit. You can use this spell to initiate pulls or to try to finish off a fleeing mob (as long as nothing is actively swinging at you.)
Hand of Protection (HoP) - Protects a party member (or you) from physical attacks for 10 seconds. Causes Forbearance (conflicts with Lay on Hands). This is your "oh crap, everything is charging the healer!" ability. Immunity from HoP essentially makes a target "disappear" for the duration of the spell. Once the spell wears off, though, that target is vulnerable again.
Blessing of Kings (BoK) - Increases Str/Agi/Stam/Int by 5% and magical resists by X (X changes based on your level). This buff is identical to a Druid's Mark of the Wild. If there is a druid in your group, only one of you need to buff...let the druid do it. You'll get another buff later on that you'll use when you have a druid in your group, so you may as well get into the habit now of letting the druid buff.
Consecration (Cons) - Eats 55% of your mana to deal holy damage to enemies within 8 yards for 10 seconds. Use this only when you are fighting groups of 4+ mobs. This spell WILL break crowd control (Sheep, sap, etc.)
Retribution Aura - Causes damage to targets upon striking you. You *can* use this for AoE threat, but bear in mind that Devotion Aura will reduce your damage intake during AoE tanking (and many mobs attacking you = lots of damage coming in, so more mitigation is good!), and it will also "accidentally" generate threat if a mob hits a group member. Note that Retribution Aura generates threat on whoever is struck, so if your healer gets hit, he gains the threat, not you.

Basic theory so far:
Make sure that you keep Blessing of Kings. You can use Exo to pull (I use this on bosses). An advanced pull method that I use for larger groups is... target mob #5 w/ Exo, hit mobs #2/3/4 with AS, Judge onto mob #1. Drop Consecrate only for large groups.

Rotation:
Single target: AS > CS > Judge > CS > Cons > CS > WoG > CS
*note: Same range rule applies here that applied in the prior level bracket. AS=30 yards, Judge=10 yards, but you have a new option. You can cast Exorcism at 30 yards, then Judge on the way in. This is actually my recommended course of action.
AoE: AS > CS > Judge > CS > Cons > CS > WoG > CS

LEVELS 28-37
Use your talent points in this fashion:
Hammer of the Rigtheous (1/1), Sanctuary (1/3), Sanctuary (2/3), Sanctuary (3/3), Wrath of the Lightbringer (1/2)

Note that you can replace your Crusader Strike Prime glyph with a Hammer of the Righteous Prime glyph for additional AoE threat.

New Spells:
Hammer of the Righteous (HotR) - The AoE replacement for CS. This will hit multiple targets around you (I believe this caps at 10 targets) and will grant you 1 HP.
Holy Wrath (HW) - The "new" primary AoE threat spell. This will hit up to 10 targets, evenly dividing damage between them, for Holy damage. Undead and demons will be stunned for 3 seconds. (You can and will glyph this later to also stun Dragonkin/Elementals.) This spell WILL break Crowd Control.
Divine Protection - The Paladin version of a Warrior's Shield Wall. This will reduce all damage you take (spell/physical) by 20% for 10 seconds. This is on a short 1 minute cooldown, so don't be afraid to use it often, and even use it on trash pulls in instances. For the "older" players, this spell does not reduce your damage output or cause Forbearance anymore.
Seal of Insight - Allows your melee hits to restore health and mana to you. Use this in lieu of Seal of Righteousness only when you're struggling to stay alive. Personally, I switch to this Seal the moment the healer dies.
Cleanse - Removes 1 poison and 1 disease effect. It's always a good idea to remove poisons/diseases from yourself, as your healer may be busy, or simply unaware that you are afflicted.
Righteous Defense (RD) - Our second "taunt" ability. This one works by targetting a player/friendly target (npc), or targetting mobs. If you target a player/friendly target (npc), up to 3 of the mobs attacking that player/friendly target (npc) will be taunted on to you. If you target a mob, the system on the back-end will determine who that mob is targetting and taunt the mob you targetted plus up to two other mobs that were also targetting that player/friendly target (npc).

Basic theory so far:
You now have two new abilities available for your rotation. Use Hammer of the Righteous ONLY when you are fighting more than 1 target. Use Crusader Strike for single target. If you have a threat meter installed (this would be an addon, as I haven't covered addons in this guide I'll just mention that Omen is a good threat meter to use) and see that you have a decent threat lead over the dps and/or your healer is struggling, just switch to Seal of Insight.

Rotation:
Single target: Exo (only on pull) --> AS > CS > Judge > CS > HW > CS > WoG > CS
AoE: AS > HotR > Judge > HotR > HW > HotR > WoG > HotR

___________
LEVELS 38-47
Use your talent points in this fashion:
Shield of the Righteous (1/1), Wrath of the Lightbringer (2/2), Grand Crusader (1/2), Grand Crusader (2/2), Hallowed Ground (1/2)

New Spells:
Shield of the Righteous (ShotR) - The primary Holy Power "finisher" move. This will consume HP to slam the enemy with your shield. Damage increases per charge of HP, and this is only worthwhile at 3 HP.
Concentration Aura - This is an aura to help casters/healers, you should never have to use it.
Divine Plea - For now, this just restores 10% of your mana and reduces the strength of your healing spells by 50% for the duration of the Divine Plea buff (15 seconds)
Seal of Truth (SoT) - This is your new tanking seal, replacing SoR
Hammer of Wrath (HoW) - This is your new finishing move, use this on cooldown as soon as your target is below 20% health

Basic theory so far:
You now have a new use for Holy Power. Shield of the Righteous does a sizeable chunk of damage and threat, but is only truly worthwhile with 3HP. Keep in mind that just because you can use ShotR doesn't mean you always should. If you have a decent threat lead on your target, or if you are taking heavy damage, you should continue to use WoG on yourself instead of ShotR. Substitute HoW in for J/AS/HW/Cons on cooldown as soon as your target is below 20% health. Do not substitute HoW for CS/HotR.

Using the AS triggered by a Grand Crusader proc will now generate 1 HP. If you can, sub in a proc'd AS for a Judge or HW, but don't otherwise break your rotation.

It's also important to note that Avenger's Shield will apply the DoT from SoT to every target it hits. This means that you should probably allow the CC to go out first, wait for the spell effect to show that the mob is CC'd, then throw your shield. If you throw AS the moment he CC is cast, the server does not yet know that the target is CC'd, and your shield will bounce to that target and break what was just CC'd.

Rotation:
Single target: Exo (only on pull) --> AS > CS > Judge > CS > HW > CS > ShotR/WoG > CS
AoE: AS > HotR > Judge > HotR > HW > HotR > ShotR/WoG > HotR

LEVELS 48-57
Use your talent points as such:
Holy Shield (1/1), Vindication (1/1), Guarded by the Light (GbtL) (1/2), GbtL (2/2), Hallowed Ground (2/2)

At level 50, you unlock your glyph capability. 1 Prime, 1 Major, and 1 Minor can now be used. Locate the following Glyphs:
Prime: Glyph of Seal of Truth - Grants you 10 Expertise just for having SoT active
Major: Glyph of Holy Wrath - Your Holy Wrath spell now also stuns Dragonkin and Elementals
Minor: Seal of Truth - Reduces the mana cost of Seal of Truth by 50%

New Spells:
Holy Shield (HS) - A passive ability that increases the amount of damage you block by 10%. This means when you block a melee hit while HS is active, the damage is reduced by 40%.
Divine Shield (DS) - The full immunity bubble. You should only use this while tanking for a split second to remove debuffs (on rare occassions you will use it for longer). Using DS will effectively make whatever you are tanking run loose killing your dps/healer, as mobs ignore immune targets.
Plate Specialization - You can equip Plate as of level 40, so try to have plate equipped into every slot to gain a 5% boost to your primary attribute (in this case, stamina).
Hand of Freedom - Remove/prevents movement impairing effects for 6 seconds. Use this to get out of snares/roots/etc.
Rebuke - This will interrupt spell casting and prevent casting for 4 seconds. This cannot miss, so don't worry about hit rating for spell interrupt purposes.
Blessing of Might (BoM) - Increases Attack Power by 10% and restores mana. This buff should only be used when you have a druid in your group.

Basic theory so far:
Use Rebuke to interrupt casters as much as possible. This will reduce incoming dmg.
With 2/2 GbtL, you should always remember that your WoG overheals (only on yourself) will never be wasted. Overhealing with WoG and 2/2 GbtL will create a protective shield around you for a few seconds.

Rotation:
Single target: Exo (only on pull) --> AS > CS > Judge > CS > HW > CS > WoG > CS
AoE: AS > HotR > Judge > HotR > HW > HotR > WoG > HotR

___________
LEVELS 58-67
Use your talent points as such:
Shield of the Templar (ShotT) (1/3), ShotT (2/3), ShotT (3/3), Sacred Duty (SD) (1/2), SD (2/2)

New Spells:
Crusader Aura - You can now move faster while mounted, hooray! Just don't forget to switch back to Devotion Aura before combat!
Divine Light - Another Holy/healer spell, similar to Holy Light/Flash of Light. Don't use this
Seal of Justice - PvP seal, reduces maximum run speed to 100%
Hand of Salvation - This will reduce the total threat of the effected target by 2% every second for 10 seconds. Use this if you have a dps that's chasing you on threat

Basic theory so far:
Your Divine Plea now generates 3HP (Thanks to 3/3 ShotT), so use DP before a pull so that you can ShotR right away. The initial ShotR will give you a nice threat lead and cause Holy Shield to activate.

Rotation:
Single target: DP > Exo (only on pull) --> AS > ShotR > Judge > CS > HW> CS > Judge> CS > WoG > CS
AoE: DP > AS > ShotR > HotR > Judge > HotR > HW > HotR > WoG > HotR

___________
LEVELS 68-77
Use your talent points as such:
Ardent Defender (1/1), Improved Judgement (1/2), Improved Judgement (2/2), Crusade (1/3), Crusade (2/3)

At level 75, you unlock your glyph capability. 1 Prime, 1 Major, and 1 Minor can now be used. Locate the following Glyphs:
Prime: Glyph of Shield of the Righteous - 10% increase of ShotR damage is a no-brainer
Major: Your choice here...Divine Protection (I'm not a fan of this one, but others are), Hammer of Wrath, Ascetic Crusader (this is what I use)
Minor: Glyph of Blessing of Might or Glyph of Insight

New Spells:
Ardent Defender (AD) - This is another "oh crap" ability to put on your bars. Pop this if you see your life dropping low and you have the thought of, "I think I'm going to die in the next 10 seconds. AD will save you and put you up to 15% health.
Avenging Wrath (AW) - Increases your damage/healing output by 20% for 20 seconds. Use this early in pulls to gain a threat lead.
Resistance Aura - Increases your (and your party's) resistances to magical damage. Use this while fighting large groups of casters.

Basic theory so far:
Pop AW on pulls for more threat. Your Judgement now has a 30 yard range, so the range issue between AS and J is no longer an issue. However, you should still open with an Exo prior to the Judge.

If AD is clearly going to proc (you're going to "die"), try to have 3HP saved up so that you can hit yourself with a 3HP WoG right after the proc.

Rotation:
Single target: DP > Exo (only on pull) --> AS > AW > ShotR > CS > Judge > CS > HW > CS > ShotR/WoG
AoE: DP > AW > AS > ShotR > HotR > Judge > HotR > HW > HotR > AS > ShotR/WoG

LEVELS 78-85
Use your talent points in this fashion:
Crusade (3/3), Pursuit of Justice (1/2), Pursuit of Justice (2/2), Rule of Law (1/3), Rule of Law (2/3), Rule of Law (3/3)

New Spells:
Turn Evil - Fears an undead/demon target for 20 seconds. Has a cast time, and a feared target may accidentally pull a second group of mobs. You'll likely never ever use this spell.
Hand of Sacrifice - Transfers 30% of the damage taken by the target to you for 12 seconds or until the caster has transferred 100% of their maximum health. The damage transferred is reduced by your passive damage reduction from armor and any damage reduction spells you may have active (Divine Shield, Divine Protection)
Mastery - Increases your chance to block melee attacks by 18%. Each point of mastery increases block chance by 2.25%. This is your new best friend.
Inquisition - Another ability that is fueled by Holy Power. Increases Holy damage by 30%. Each HP used for this ability increases the duration by 4 seconds (lasts for 4/8/12 seconds). Use this ONLY for extra AoE threat with HotR/AS/AW/Cons. Do not bother with this for single target.
Holy Radiance - Another Holy spell, but this one has no cast time. Sure, it won't heal you or anyone else for much, but every little bit adds up. Have this one on your bars and use it during AoE's to help your healer a little bit.
Guardian of Ancient Kings - The new uber damage reduction ability. Reduces damage taken by 50% for 12 seconds, 3 minute cooldown.

Basic theory so far:
I advise adjusting your spec sometime at or after level 80.
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#sZhrhcRddRRucbr:kosqbRMmz
If you want, you can pull a point from PoJ to get 3/3 Rule of Law.

If you re-spec as suggested, you'll have a new spell to help your group - Divine Guardian. This is like a shield wall for your entire group/raid, minus yourself. It's not so important in normal 5-man's, but it's awesome in heroics and raids.

Rotation:
Single target: DP > Exo (only on pull) --> AS > AW > ShotR > CS > Judge > CS > HW > CS > ShotR/WoG
AoE: DP > AW > AS > ShotR > HotR > Judge > HotR > HW > HotR > AS > ShotR/WoG

The end - Guide written by Baneoftruth

Resto Shaman PvE Guide 4.1 - 4.2

2011-06-01T06:53:00.000-07:00

Edited by Secretgarden on 5/7/11 12:14 PM (PDT) Section 1: Talents and Glyphs

I'll be listing talents as either Required or Optional. Take the word at base value. Rather than giving a complete talent guide, I'm going to quickly give you all of the required talents with quick explainations and then spend time on the "controversial" ones. Now, before you even put in your first talent point, you get these:

Earth Shield
Detailed below with the spell section.

Purification
Increases healing done and makes HW/GHW faster.

Meditation
Standard 50% mana regen from Spirit talent.

Mastery
More on this fun thing in Stats.

Required Talents:

Restoration Talents: Tier One

Tidal Focus
Flat efficiency increase.

Spark of Life
Flat healing increase, stacks on yourself for a 21.9% boost.

Tier Two

Improved Water Shield
Crits with HW, GHW, and RT give back mana equal to a WS orb. 60% chance with HS, 30% chance with CH.

Totemic Focus
Makes Mana Tide last longer. This is the only reason we bother with it.

Tier Three

Ancestral Healing
When you crit with a spell, the target gets a buff for 15 seconds that cuts physical damage taken by 10%.

Nature's Swiftness
Two minute cooldown that makes one spell instant. Primarily used with GHW or CH when someone screws up and takes damage too fast.

Nature's Blessing
Increases healing on the tank (who has ES) by 15%.

Works with everything except ES itself, ELW, and HR.

Tier Four

Soothing Rains
Increases healing done by HST and HR massively.

Improved Cleanse Spirit
Lets you dispel magic effects - which are everywhere, by the way.

Tier Five

Ancestral Awakening
When you crit with HW, GHW, HS, or the Riptide initial hit, someone is healed for an additional 30% of that heal, which will be the lowest percentage health group/raid member.

Mana Tide Totem
3 minute cooldown, increases spirit regen dramatically for 16.8 seconds talented. This no longer applies to dynamic spirit buffs such as on-use or random proc trinkets.

Spirit Link Totem
Discussed in the spell section.

Tier Six

Tidal Waves
Guaranteed buff off RT and CH casts - makes HW/GHW faster and HS more likely to crit. Two charges per proc. This is our version of Chakra and Beacon of Light, for those of you who play other healing classes - it makes our spells interact with each other and brings several mechanics together.

Blessing of the Eternals
When below 35%, ELW always procs except from Chain Heal and Healing Rain.

Tier Seven = Riptide
Detailed in the spell section.

Elemental Talents Tier One - Acuity
Flat crit increase. Yum. Will likely be phased out in later gear levels.

Enhancement Talents Tier One

Elemental Weapons
Increases passive healing done by ELW and ups the healing increase from UE from 20% to 30%. It's more static spell power and small efficiency than anything.

Improved Shields
Makes WS orbs count for more mana (IWS, anyone?) and makes Earth Shield tick harder.

Tier Two - Ancestral Swiftness

This makes you run faster, replacing the run speed buff on your shoes, and makes Ghost Wolf instant. More mobility means more versatility to boss mechanics and less time spend moving means more time healing

Optional Talents:

Restoration Talents

Ancestral Resolve
10% damage taken reduced while casting. I'd recommend Cleansing Waters for a dungeon spec and this for a raid spec.

Cleansing Waters
Reduces the cost of Cleanse Spirit by 40% and includes a heal when you dispel something. Roughly heals for the same as Riptide's initial heal, but with a 6s ICD.

This talent used to be awesome for entering 5-mans when dispelling sucked all of your mana. Now that the heal is on a huge ICD, however, its usefulness is greatly diminished. Damn PvP nerfs. =\

Telluric Currents
Restores 40% of the damage done by Lightning Bolt as mana when it damages a target.

It is a mana return, and this is a valid place to put points. This is a very good talent on fights when you're standing around doing nothing or when there's a burn phase/weakened phase and your DPS is useful, or if you burn mana on inefficient heals and use this to regen during downtime. If you're not going to use the talent, then don't take it. Simple.

Glyphs

Prime - Earth Shield and Water Shield

ES glyph makes it heal better. WS glyph gives more mana, which is your lifeline for now.

Riptide or ELW?

Riptide glyph makes the spell more efficient and it lets it sit on 3 group members at a time. By increasing the duration, the healing done by a single Riptide, without any crits, rises to the amount of a GHW. The glyph for ELW is suited towards raid healing when you have ELW bouncing on everyone and the last ticks of Riptide are usually overheal.

Major - Chain Heal and HST

Chain Heal is no longer a one-hit wonder: that spell needs to bounce repeatedly for it to be effective and this glyph, provided the heal bounces like it should, is worth the 10% initial cut.

HST glyph makes the resistance totem useless and gives incentive to use it over Mana Stream - HST is far too efficient to not use even without Might to replace the lost Mp5.

SCT, Hex, or Healing Wave Glyph?

Hex has a fairly long cool-down and a chance to randomly break - when you're CC'ing, Hex is a fairly good glyph choice. However, Stoneclaw Totem's shield on you absorbs roughly one GHW worth of damage and even with the cost to replace the previous totem factored is twice as efficient. This will also scale up with gear. Then, Healing Wave glyph will heal you for half of a HW every time you heal someone else with HW - essentially you get 20% more out of the spell, assuming your personal heal isn't overhealing.

SCT or HW is mostly personal choice and style - whether or not to take Hex depends on how much you're CC'ing.

Minor Glyphs are choice mandated - None of these have impact performance or play style.

Talent Specs

Resto specs are dynamically amendable and are not cookie cutter unless that is your choice. You're going to be healing in different roles at different times, and certain talents are better for different roles.

However, after the nerf to Cleansing Waters, there is only one choice – TC or no TC?

The glyph choices are highlighted above and completely depend upon what situation you use them in. Mandatory ones are strongly recommended at the present time.

No TC: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hbZbhMZfGbMsdcosd:dsZ0c

TC: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hZbhMZfGbMsdcRsd:dsZ0c

There is another spec with TC that invests in Elemental Precision at the cost of Enhancement tree synergetic talents, but the spec requires a huge investment in Spirit to make 2/3 EP function and it exists purely as a raid spec for those who will swear up and down by TC, so therefore its merits are best discussed next door.

Edited by Secretgarden on 5/7/11 12:30 PM (PDT) Section 2 - Stat Priority and Gearing

Wearing only mail gear gives you a 5% intellect bonus. Never use anything other than mail.

Intellect - Primary stat. It increases your mana pool and spell power, and it gives mp5 through replenishment. Prioritize this with gemming, profession perks, and enchants. Primary stats are static on gear so you can't really "gear int" per-se, except with trinkets.

Spirit - Spirit is a base mana restore mechanic that returns mana regardless of action taken by the player (Passive). Spirit is free mana that you can and will gear for – generally, you need as much as you can get on gear.

Critical Strike - Critical Strikes increase the efficiency of your heals by causing them heal for more for free and cause certain effects, such as Ancestral Awakening (30% heal) and IWS (mana return). Compared to Haste and Mastery, this is a significantly less effective HPS stat, but much more efficient and therefore is best used for HPM.

Mastery - As the target takes more damage, our Mastery (Deep Healing) causes the target to take more healing* from us. This stat is not situational in any way: you only heal people who took damage, and this increases your healing on people who have taken damage. As of 4.1, this now affects every heal effect that's in our spell book or talent tree.

Haste - Haste makes spells cast faster and makes HoT effects heal faster. 916 Haste will get you an extra tick with all of your HoT effects (or 780 for Goblins) and is the number to aim for at minimum. Haste is pure throughput and it makes your life generally easier to have faster heals. Waste of stats for dungeons when you need moar spirit and crit but for raids this competes with Mastery depending on the situation.

Dungeon Stat Priority - Int >> Spirit > Crit

Raid Healing Stat Priority - Int >> Spirit > Mastery > Haste

Tank Healing Stat Priority – Int >> Spirit > Mastery > Crit
Note: Because of increased chance to gain mana from IWS, switch out some Spirit for Crit.

For a detailed stat explanation, go to Jynus's guide (in the link list).

Gearing

For gearing up to get to the ilvl 329 heroic minimum, you should grab whatever PvE gear you can get your hands on that has crit/spirit and then start destroying heroics. I have a BiS list down below that you can shop for in heroics, but once your stats are "okay" to raid, I say go ahead and start picking up purples if you can handle the content.

You can, and should, polish off your gear while you raid.

Fresh 85 - Pre-Heroic:

Stack int and spirit with any crit you can get. You have no room in your ilvl budget for anything else.

Generally, ilvl trumps itemization unless it's something silly like mastery/haste. You want Crit/Spirit secondary stats above anything else, but going from something like ilvl 316 crit/spirit to ilvl 333 crit/haste is perfectly acceptable. Bigger ilvl = more int.

Heroic Time:

Your goal is to gear for raiding. You want to start shaving off crit for ilvl 346 pieces with haste or mastery, because those are your stats for raiding.

You want a haste number of no less than 916 (or 780 for Goblins) so that all of your HoT spells (and Healing Rain) get a bonus tick. Then start mobbing on mastery or haste, depending on your choice.

Raiding Gear:

Your stat balance doesn't change. Just get more of what you already have.

To summarize:

Gearing to get into heroics: Stack int/crit/spirit.

Gearing to get into raids: Stack int/spirit, get 916 (780 Goblin) haste, 2k spirit or more, and pick a stack stat.

Gearing when in raids: Stack int, get more of everything. Pick a stat to stack to prioritize and reforge everything else. http://i56.tinypic.com/6prtr7.jpg (Courtesy of Paf <3)

Section 3 - Pre-Raid BiS List

Legend:
[V] - JP Vendor
[H] - Heroic Dungeon
[C] - Crafted
[R] - Rep

I will list items with both Mastery and Haste - if you only want Haste, stick to Haste/Spirit pieces and reforge anything else to Haste, but if you want Mastery, you have to mix and match a bit to stay around the 916 haste mark. Therefore, reforging and gemming will be an individual call and I cannot say exactly what to do - you have to figure it out yourself.

In addition, because it's impossible to make a set with purely spirit/stat x with some haste tossed in, you're going to have to take some of another stat sooner or later, which is actually good considering how well our secondary stats interact and the bonuses we receive from properly balancing them.

All gear choices are designed with the intent to maximize your amount of spirit and your secondary stat of choice. At this point, due to the minor ilvl budget increase between 346 and 359, a 346 piece with mastery/haste and spirit will out-do an epic piece with crit and no spirit. This would include every non-raid epic currently in the game. They're nice for band-aid pieces but if you want to min-max, go back to heroics and pick up optimized blue pieces.

Helm:
[C] Energized Bio-Optic Killshades - Requires Engineering (525)
[H] Cowl of the Unseen World - The Stonecore, High Priestess Azil

Neck::
[R] Lightning Flash Pendant - Wildhammer Clan Exalted
[H] Quicksilver Amulet - Blackrock Caverns, Karsh Steelbender

Shoulder:
[H] Burden of Lost Humanity - Shadowfang Keep, Lord Walden
[V] Seafoam Mantle - 1650 JP
Note that the Burden slightly edges out the Mantle by 20 points.
[H] Fallen Snow Shoulderguards - Vortex Pinnacle, Grand Vizier Ertan

Back:
[H] Solar Wind Cloak - Halls of Origination, Rajh

Chest:
[H] Chromis Chestpiece - Throne of the Tides, Commander Ulthok
[C] Twilight Scale Chestguard - Leatherworking
[H] Breastplate of the Stilled Heart - Shadowfang Keep, Commander Springvale

Wrist:
[H] Shackles of the Betrayed - Deadmines, Vanessa VanCleef

Hands:
[H] Old Friend's Gloves - Deadmines, Helix Gearbreaker
[V] Gleaning Gloves 1650 JP

Waist:
[C] Stormleather Sash - Leatherworking
[H] Belt of the Still Stream - 1650 JP
[R] Sash of Prophecy - Ramkahen Revered

Legs:
[R] Wilderness Legguards - Guardians of Hyjal Revered
[H] Chaotic Wrappings - Halls of Origination, Setesh

Boots:
[H] Dark Iron Chain Boots - Grim Batol, Forgemaster Throngus
[R] Earthmender's Boots - Earthen Ring Exalted

Rings:
[H] Kibble - Blackrock Caverns, Beauty
[H] Veneficial Band - Lost City of the Tol'vir, Lockmaw
Or
[R] Diamant's Ring of Temperance - Therazane Revered
[H] Rose Quartz Band - The Stonecore, Slabhide

Trinkets: In order of desirability.
[C] Darkmoon Card: Tsunami - Tsunami Deck, Inscriptor-Made
[C] Vibrant Alchemist Stone - Alchemy
[C] Tyrande's Favorite Doll - Archaeology
[H] Tear of Blood - The Stonecore, High Priestess Azil
[H] Witching Hourglass - Blackrock Caverns, Ascendant Lord Obsidius

Weapon:
[H] Torturer's Mercy - Blackrock Caverns, Rom'ogg Bonecrusher
[H] Scepter of Power - Halls of Origination, Setesh

Off-Hand:
[C] Elementium Stormshield - Blacksmith

Relic:
[H] Captured Lightning - Vortex Pinnacle, Asaad

Section 4 - Gems, Enchants, Trinkets

Gems

You have options with gems now - it isn't just brainlessly zerging your primary stat. Your gem choices depend on your stat priorities. Good socket bonuses ought to be gemmed for now. What constitutes as a good bonus? Just about anything with an Intellect or Spirit bonus of at least 10 or a bonus for your stack stat of at least 20. This means more hybrid gems. You need two yellows to activate your Meta.

Meta: Ember Shadowspirit Diamond

Red - Intellect: Brilliant Inferno Ruby

Yellow - Crit: Potent Ember Topaz
Yellow - Mastery: Artful Ember Topaz
Yellow - Haste: Reckless Ember Topaz

Purple - Int/Spirit: Purified Demonseye

Enchants

Head - Int/Crit: Arcanum of Hyjal

Shoulder - Int/Haste: Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone

Cloak - Intellect: Enchant Cloak - Intellect
Upgraded: Enchant Cloak - Greater Intellect

Chest - Stats: Enchant Chest - Mighty Stats
Upgraded: Enchant Chest - Peerless Stats

Bracers - Spirit: Enchant Bracer - Exceptional Spirit

Bracers - Haste: Enchant Bracer - Speed
Upgraded: Enchant Bracer - Greater Speed

Bracers - Intellect Enchant Bracer - Mighty Intellect

Gloves - Haste: Enchant Gloves - Haste

Gloves - Mastery: Enchant Gloves - Mastery
Upgraded: Enchant Gloves - Greater Mastery

Belt - Socket: Ebonsteel Belt Buckle

Legs - Int/Spirit: Ghostly Spellthread
Upgraded: : Powerful Ghostly Spellthread

Boots - Mastery: Enchant Boots - Mastery

Boots - Haste: Enchant Boots - Haste

OH - Intellect: Enchant Off-Hand - Superior Intellect

Weapon - Heartsong: Enchant Weapon - Heartsong
Upgraded - Power Torrent: Enchant Weapon - Power Torrent

I present multiple stat options for your enchants on purpose - it's up to you, based on your current raiding situation, to decide how to balance your stats based on what secondary stat after spirit you want the most. The only option above I would currently list as mandatory would be Spirit on bracers and to have at least something on everything.

Haste:

If you're short of a breakpoint, you can swap in Haste to bridge the gap if you're stacking Crit or Mastery and want to stay as close to the 916 point as possible. Generally the procedure will be:

20 Haste - 1 Gem
40 Haste - 2 Gems
50 Haste - 1 Enchant
60 Haste - 3 Gems
65 Haste - 1 Upg. Enchant
70 Haste - 1 Gem, 1 Enchant
80 Haste - 4 Gems
85 Haste - 1 Gem, 1 Upg. Enchant
90 Haste - 2 Gems, 1 Enchant
100 Haste - 5 Gems or 2 Enchants

For the sake of maintaining the highest enchant stat gain - if you want Mastery, switch your Bracer enchant. If you want Crit, switch your Boot enchant.

Trinkets

I was overwhelmed at first by all the trinkets out there. The key is recognizing which ones are actually good - unless it's an interesting effect like Shard of Woe, generally trinkets with passive intellect and a spirit proc or stacking buff will be the most useful. Early on, however, your main priority will just be getting a setup that works, so generally min/maxing goes out the window.

Pre-Heroic: In order of desirability

Tear of Blood - The Stonecore, High Priestess Azil
Blood of Isiset - Halls of Origination, Isiset
Rainsong - Vortex Pinnacle Zone Drop(BoE)
Talisman of Sinister Order - Quest Reward, Firing Squad (Uldum)

As long as you have either Tear of Blood or Blood of Isiset and one other trinket, you'll be fine. The last two listed are the only decent non-spirit trinkets I can find, and even then they're thoroughly "meh".

Heroic:

Figurine - Dream Owl - JC Only
Tear of Blood - The Stonecore, High Priestess Azil

Spirit trinkets aren't as powerful as they were before the MTT change, but they still yield sizable mana regeneration for their uptime.

Witching Hourglass - Blackrock Caverns, Ascendant Lord Obsidius
Gale of Shadows - Grim Batol, Erudax

The hourglass is pretty much the only viable throughput trinket out there at the moment. The Gale isn't terrific as a pure throughput trinket, primarily serving as a band-aid if you're significantly behind the 916 haste breakthrough and need something to catch up.

Raid Level: Courtesy of Remiri - Blade's Edge

The raid trinkets work odd. If you have the cash to sink into it, you can get both of your BiS trinkets before you even hit 85.

Darkmoon Card: Tsunami - Tsunami Deck, Darkmoon Cards (Inscriptor-made)
Special note: spirit buff currently works with MTT.

Vibrant Alchemist Stone - Alchemy

If you don't want to switch your professions around for the Stone, then you can sink some time into Archaeology and pick up:

Tyrande's Favorite Doll - Archaeology, Night Elven Find

After that comes your two trinkets that you actually invest raid time into but rank at the bottom:

Fall of Mortality - Bastion of Twilight, Cho'gall
Core of Ripeness - 1650 Valor Badges.

I left off the JAR (Jar of Ancient Remedies) very pointedly. For an explanation, go here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1577519250?page=13#256

Section 5 - Professions and Consumables

I ripped much of this from Reesi's thread because I liked the formatting, most of the information was right there, and most importantly I have no shame. At least I gave my source!

Note: The "pick a stat" items only choose primary stats. In that regard, Spirit is not considered and so those items will always give Intellect. Which you want, because Int > Spirit anyway.

Professions

Alchemy
Mixology - Increases the effectiveness of Flasks and Elixirs. You need to know the recipe.

Flask of Enhancement - This is used as a way for Alchemists to always keep their profession bonuses when not raid flasked.
Flask of the Draconic Mind - 80 Bonus Intellect
Ghost Elixir - 40 Bonus Spirit
Flask of Battle - 80 Bonus Intellect

Blacksmithing
Socket Bracer and Socket Gloves - 80 Bonus Intellect

Enchanting
x2 [Enchant Ring - Intellect] -80 Bonus Intellect

Engineering
Lightweight Bio-Optic Killshades - Equal to tier 11, depending on stats.

Cogwheels:
Fractured Cogwheel
Quick Cogwheel
Smooth Cogwheel
Sparkling Cogwheel

So long as Spirit is always used as a Cogwheel, you can pair it with any of your choosing. Go by your gearing choices.

Tinkers:
Synapse Springs - These find your highest attribute (Intellect) and increase it by 480. Used on CD, it's roughly equal to the other 80 stat bonuses.

Herbalism
Lifeblood - On-use Haste rating with a small heal. It's at least something for choosing a gathering stat.

Inscription
Felfire Inscription - 80 Bonus Intellect

Jewelcrafting
Chimera's Eyes once again provide the strongest bonuses for stats.

3x Brilliant Chimera's Eye - 81 Bonus Intellect

Leatherworking
Draconic Embossment - Intellect - 80 Bonus Intellect.

Mining
Toughness - 120 Bonus Stamina

Skinning
Master of Anatomy - 80 Bonus Critical Strike Rating

Tailoring
Tailoring is ... iffy. The intellect proc is technically superior to other profession enchants, but the problem is that its a random proc with a 45s ICD, so it may proc when its useful or useless.

Lightweave Embroidery - 580 Intellect for 15s, 45s ICD.

Consumables

Food Buffs

Seafood Magnifique Feast - Standard raid food, assuming your guild fisherpeople aren't lazy.
Fortune Cookie - If feasts are unavailable, this is the number one choice.
COOKIE MONSTER WAS HERE!
Severed Sagefish Head - If your scribes are lazy too, then use this one.

Flasks and Elixirs

Flask of the Draconic Mind - The best flask option for any healer. Default choice.
Flask of Flowing Water - If you're utterly desperate for more Spirit, use this one.
Flask of Battle - Gives Intellect - there's no way to rig it for Spirit.

Potions

There's only two options for potions.

Potion of Concentration - If you can manage the full 10 seconds, you get more mana than the Mythical.
Mythical Mana Potion - The alternative.

Section 7 - Principles of Healing

Healing Wave - Slow, super efficient, heals for little.

Greater Healing Wave - Slow, efficient, heals for a lot.

Healing Surge - Fast, inefficient, heals for slightly less than GHW.

Chain Heal - Slow, efficient with multiple bounces, heals total for around the same as a GHW.

Riptide - Instant, super efficient heal. Initial heal is around the same as a healing wave with a HoT component - when glyphed, heals for more than a GHW. Procs Tidal Waves on use and when followed up with a Chain Heal will give a 30% boost.

Healing Rain - After a short cast, puts down a circle where targets standing within the circle are continually healed over 10 seconds. Super efficient on 5+ people for the full duration.

Healing Stream Totem - Water Totem. When placed down, provides a small, ongoing HoT to party members within range and resistances to group/raid members.

Earth Shield - Places a shield on the target that heals the target whenever it takes damage. Causes the target to take 15% increased healing from you while active. 9 charges.

Water Shield - Places a shield on yourself that provides a steady source of mana regeneration while giving mana back whenever you take damage or when Improved WS is procced.

Unleash Elements (Earthliving) - Heals the target instantly for a small amount and leaves you with a short buff upping your next heal by 30%. Does not affect HR.

Spiritwalker's Grace - Lets you cast while moving for 15 seconds. Use it in emergencies.

Spirit Link Totem - Reduces damage taken by those within its radius by 10% and every second readjusts the health percentages of players in its range to be equal. Note that it drops at your feet.

Strategies:

Never panic when healing. Stay calm.

Keep Earth Shield on the tank.
Keep Water Shield on yourself.
Always have your totems placed.

If you use a temporary totem put your long-term totem back afterwards.

Triage - meaning if someone is about to die, don't waste time topping up the random person who took a tick of damage from Fire and heal the player about to die. Burn mana on HS if you have to. However, once everyone is over the threshold that they need to be to survive, use your efficient heals.

Party members are responsible for their own health pools. The occasional screw-up is going to happen for everyone, but if you end up carrying people, you need to correct that.

Don't let people tell you it's your fault if it's not. Avoidable damage is not your problem.

Basic techniques:

If you have the opportunity to dispel something nasty off someone and someone won't die in that GCD, do so.

Don't stress healing someone up to full - HST or any number of procs might heal them to full.

Try your best to not waste mana by refreshing Riptide on a target that has it - Riptide someone else and use TW.

Use UE on cool-down with GHW or CH if you won't waste any of the heal.

Keep an idea of how much Mana Tide will regenerate for you over its duration and aim to use it in two situations: when you've lost that much mana and aren't doing much, or will spend that much mana over its duration and never cap your mana during it.

Use HW whenever you can get away with it. It's basically free healing.

GHW is a massive heal - you can heal a lot at once with it, but the mana cost is higher at the same time. Preferably, use it with TW to speed it up.

HS is a fast heal for emergencies. Only use it when the .3 or so seconds that you save instead of using GHW is the difference between life or death for someone, or it's wasted.

If you need to move but the group/tank is taking a lot of damage, use SWG and keep healing.

Spirit Link Totem:

Use SLT to reduce damage taken overall and equalize health so you can use AoE heals to top everyone off. It also serves to split burst damage between all players in its radius after the spell hits that player, which means people can still die under SLT if they can't survive the initial hit.

Tank Healing:

Never over-ride ES, but refresh it immediately when it falls off unless the tank is going to die without a heal. Then refresh it afterward.

Always maintain a Riptide buff on the tank.
Keep Ancestral Healing buffed on the tank.

Try to stick with HW, only using GHW when the tank is taking damage too quickly to stay alive with HW. Either way, use Riptide on cooldown for the haste buffs to both spells.

Group Healing:

It is always more efficient to dispel a dot instead of healing through it.

HR and CH only work when people group together. Nail it in the group's head that they group together when you're AoE healing or they die.

Section 8 - FAQ, LFAQ, and Misc. Info

F.A.Q: Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why does my CC break randomly?
A: "Heartbeat Resists" check your hit rating every three seconds or so for breaks. As we're healers, we have no hit rating, so every three seconds we have a ~6% chance that our CC randomly breaks. Don't CC if you can avoid it.

Q: Why do Elitist Jerks and this forum disagree with the stat priorities?
A: It's a very long story that because of a character limit on posts, I can't fit in its entirety here. The dirty laundry is over in Jynus's thread somewhere, I believe. Either way, Jynus has finally gotten in there so hopefully they will soon hear the good word of Mastery.

Q: I can't keep up with all the damage! /le sob
A: /tissue
Alright, you need to ask yourself these questions:
Is the tank adequately geared for this instance?
Is the tank doing something wrong, like not using cooldowns properly?
Are the DPS standing in things they're not supposed to or not interrupting?
Is the group using CC when feasible?
Does the group know what to do for the fight?
Are you adequately geared for this instance?
Are you geared correctly?

If the answer to any of those questions is "no" then fix it. If you still have problems, post them.

Q: I manage to keep up with the damage ... until I run OOM.
A: See above.
Now, does WS have less than a 99% uptime?
Are you not stacking Spirit until you bleed it?
Are you using HS/GHW/HR when you could use HW/RT/CH?
Are you using HS, period, when someone wouldn't die otherwise?

If the answer to any of those questions is "yes" then stop it. If you still have problems, post them.

L.F.A.Q: Less Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What addons, if any, should I use?
A: That's determined by what your computer can take. There are many smaller addons with very useful features that I'd reccomend anyone have, and some larger ones that are very useful but aren't totally essential to use and you can get by without.

You can find a list of what I use in Section 9. You can either look at my UI for reference and pick what you like or fish around on your own and find your own goodies.

If you need to cut addon memory, I would stick to Grid, Clique (to dispel), and ShieldsUp. Probably would toss in Skada just because of how wide-range its use is.

Q: What are "mouseovers" and "click to cast" and why does everyone use them?
A: A mouseover is a spell macro that allows you to move your mouse over a raid frame and press the key that the mouseover is bound to and cast the spell. Click to cast means using Clique to click a button on your mouse and cast a spell, sometimes in combination with modifier keys (Shift, Ctrl, Alt).

Mouseovers and C2C will for most people dramatically increase your reaction time and for the few that it won't, it very much improves your quality of life and still has a minor improvement to your performance. I for a long time opposed change to mouseovers, but I made the change recently and I'm enjoying it.

Q: How are people managing to break their freeze on Ozruk?
A: When he casts his spell reflect, cast Flame Shock. When he uses Paralyze, your DoT breaks it. Dispel group. Profit.

Links:

Elitist Jerks Shaman - http://elitistjerks.com/f79
Jynus Raid Guide - http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2369739879
Shaman Macro Archive - http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2369739861

Misc. Macro Listings:

Using this macro, when you press HR repeatedly, it doesn't remove the targeting reticle:
#showtooltip healing rain
/cast !healing rain

Mouseover macro. Substitute GHW for whichever spell you're currently adding.
#showtooltip Greater Healing Wave
/cast [target=mouseover,help,nodead][help][target=player] Greater Healing Wave

Taken from SecretGarden Steamweedle

Enhancement Shaman Gearing for Raids - 4.1 4.2

2011-06-01T06:50:00.000-07:00

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Gearing by Item Slot
3. Reputation, and what they mean to Enhancement
4. Heroics, and what they mean to Enhancement
5. Valor and Justice Points
6. Craftable Items
7. Rise of the Zandalari
8. Other notes

1. Introduction

As of this post, the Cataclysm Beta just came to a close, and I decided to build a Cataclysm gear "wish list." While doing so, I searched through all of the known Cataclysm drops for items I might be interested in acquiring, and made a list. Since I had already done half the work, I figured why not help a few others save some time by writing a guide with the information I compiled.

If you have any questions or if you see any corrections that need to be made, feel free to post and let me know. Everything below I learned either by running heroic dungeons on the Cataclysm Beta or by searching through the item database at Wowhead.com and mmo-champion.com. Due to much of the information being directly from personal experience in Beta, it is subject to change for the live version. I will keep these posts as up to date as I am able.

What you will find here: Gearing options that don't involve raiding, item lists of various types, listing by item slot, by location, as well as including craftable, BoE, and vendor items. I will include some recommendations with the item-by-slot list.

What you will not find here: Item specific Gemming, Enchanting and Reforging strategies. Due to the fact that what you should do with any given item changes depending on what your overall gear set looks like, it's impossible for me to tell you whether you should reforge that Haste rating to Mastery, Expertise or Hit rating.

When gearing for entry level raiding as Enhancement, you'll need to keep a few things in mind. We need hit rating. Lots and lots of hit rating. So much hit rating, that you'll likely need to reforge all of your early gear for hit, and after doing so, you'll still very likely be short of your caps. You need 1742 Hit rating, to be exact (1639 for Draenei.) Hit and expertise combined, we need more total rating to cap our active abilities than anyone else. We also need 541 Expertise rating (451 as a Dwarf with Maces or an Orc with Axes/Fists), making it a total of 2283 rating to hit a boss with our strikes and spells without fail... assuming you're behind the boss. And you should be.

Roughly, our stat weights rank in this order: Agility > Hit rating to spell cap = Expertise Rating to dodge cap > Mastery > Critical strike rating >= Haste rating. Crit and Haste are coming in at the bottom by a wide margin. Of course, after reaching the spell hit and expertise caps, those become the least desirable stats to have more of.

With the coming changes, Agility will always remain substantially better than Mastery. Crit and Haste ratings are literally less than half as valuable as Mastery. Because of this, pieces of gear with both Hit and Mastery are extremely attractive, and will be very difficult to replace, even by items of a much higher level. Basically, if a piece of gear doesn't have Hit, Expertise or Mastery on it, it's not likely to even be worth looking at, and I have exluded many such pieces from this list for that reason.

As far as reforging goes, your first priority is getting to the Hit cap. Once you're there, reforge for the Expertise cap. After that, you want to acquire as much Mastery as you possibly can - if you have a Haste/Crit piece, reforge whichever stat is higher into Mastery (or, usually, Haste into Mastery if they are equal).

Hopefully I can be of some help for where you should be on the lookout for gear early on at 85, as well as pointing out craftable and BoE items you can pick up with minimal time spent. All blue items I refer to will be the heroic version, if a heroic version exists, unless otherwise stated. All gear listed here can be obtained without you personally stepping foot inside a raid instance.

2. Gearing by Item Slot

Here, I'll list as many options for each item slot as I can without going into the Haste/Crit variety more than I need to, and provide some suggestions on what you should do. Keep in mind, like all things in World of Warcraft, this is subject to change.

Helm

Deadly Bio-Optic Killshades - Craftable (Engineering - BoP)
Headdress of Sharpened Vision - Drop (Daakara - ZA)
Renouncer's Cowl - Drop (Corla, Herald of Twilight - BRC)
Windhome Helm - Wildhammer/Dragonmaw
Worgen Hunter's Helm - Drop (Lord Godfrey - SFK)

If you are an engineer, you can give yourself a very big head start in the Hit and Expertise rating department. Deadly Bio-Optic Killshades allow you to place two different Cogwheel gems in the unique Engineer-only sockets. Cogwheels give a +208 rating bonus to two secondary stats of your choosing, but Cogwheels are unique, so you can't choose two Rigid Cogwheels or two Precise Cogwheels. You can have one of each, though.

If the Engineering goggles aren't an option for you, you'll want to try to acquire the Renouncer's Cowl from Corla, Herald of Twilight in Blacrock Caverns until a time comes when you're able to do Zul'Aman or the tier 11 helm token is available to you. If you're desperate, go ahead and pick up the Wildhammer/Dragonmaw helm, but it's not very good for us, and you have better reputations to be going after first.

Neck

Don Rodrigo's Fabulous Necklace - World Drop
Amulet of the Watcher - Drop (Bloodlord Mandokir - ZG)
Mouth of the Earth - Drop (Earthrager Ptah - HoO)
Pendant of the Lightless Grotto - Drop (Ozruk - SC)

Mouth of the Earth, from Earthrager Ptah in Halls of Origination is the most well itemized neck slot item for us in Cataclysm content. Don Rodrigo's is a world drop epic, but probably isn't much better than Mouth of the Earth, so it's up to you. Both will eventually be outdone by Necklace of Strife due to sheer item levels, but Mouth of the Earth is very comparable to the normal version, at least. Definitely pick this one up if you are able.

Shoulder

Pauldrons of Nalorakk - Drop (Nalorakk - ZA)
Bloodpetal Mantle - Drop (Ammunae - HoO)
Wrap of the Valley Glades - Justice Points

For your shoulder slot, the most well itemized piece you can acquire are the Spaulders of the Raging Elements, but until you're in a position where acquiring the token is likely, you'll want to pick up either Bloodpetal Mantle from Halls of Origination, or Wrap of the Valley Glades from Justice Points, and upgrade to Pauldrons of Nalorakk once ZA/ZG are open to you.

Back

Dory's Finery - World Drop
Recovered Cloak of Frostheim - Drop (Nalorakk timed chest - ZA)
Viewless Wings - Valor Points
Kaleki Cloak - Drop (General Husam - LC)
Cape of the Brotherhood - Drop ("Captain" Cookie - DM)
Cloak of Thredd - Drop (Helix Gearbreaker - DM)
Softwind Cape - Earthen Ring reputation

Kaleki Cloak, from General Husam in the Lost City of the Tol'vir is easily the best option for early on. If you're unable to wrest it from him, Cape of the Brotherhood and Cloak of Thredd (both conveniently from heroic Deadmines) and Softwind Cape from The Earthen Ring are acceptable alternatives. Viewless Wings should be one of your last Valor point purchases. Dory's Finery is a world drop epic that will likely last you until heroic raids if you get your hands on it, but Kaleki is very comparable. The Zul'Aman cloak is another acceptable alternative, but it's not really good enough to be worth going out of your way for if you have the Kaleki Cloak.

Chest

Dragonkiller Tunic - Craftable (Leatherworking - BoE)
Cuirass of the Raging Elements - Valor Points
Breastplate of Primal Fury - Drop (Halazzi - ZA)
Vest of the True Companion - Justice Points

Here is where you have a few options. The chest slot is one of only two armor slots you can fill using a craftable, bind on equip epic. Dragonkiller Tunic and Vest of the True Companion are very comparable depending on your current gear - Vest of the True Companion works out to better in almost all gear sets. Dragonkiller Tunic is only better if you're swimming in hit rating and can't reforge or regem any of it to mastery.. but that's pretty unlikely. Depending on how much gold you want to spend or time you want to spend farming, it's really up to you. Both the Halazzi drop and tier 11 pieces are superior to both, so pick up one of those when you are able.

Wrist

Wristguards of the Predator - Drop (Akil'zon - ZA)
Elementium Scale Bracers - Drop (Ozruk - SC)

There aren't many bracer options for us. The only noteworthy blue are the Ozruk drop in Stonecore, but unless you're really lacking hit rating, pick up Wristguards of the Predator as soon as you can.

Gloves

Grips of the Raging Elements - Valor Points
Handguards of the Tormented - Drop (Cache of Madness - ZA)
Gloves of the Passing Night - Justice Points
Traitor's Grips - Drop (Baron Ashbury - SFK)
Wrasse Handwraps - Drop (Lady Naz'jar - TotT)

There are quite a few options for your glove slot. None of them are particularly amazing, but the best option outside raiding and Valor Points is the easiest to get - Gloves of the Passing Night which are purchaseable with Justice Points. Due to the cheaper cost of glove slot items, you'll probably want to make Grips of the Raging Elements your first or second purchase with Valor points.

Belt

Corded Viper Belt - Craftable (Leatherworking - BoE)
Waistband of Hexes - Drop (Hex Lord Malacrass - ZA)
Belt of the Dim Forest - Justice Points
Hail-Strung Belt - Drop (Altairus - VP)

Your belt is the second slot you can fill with a Bind on Equip, craftable item. Corded Viper Belt is significantly better than the Coil of Ten-Thousand Screams that you acquire in normal difficulty raids (in fact, it's better than the heroic version), so I'd strongly recommend buying or having one crafted. If you're cheap, or don't have a lot of gold or farming time to spare, the Belt of the Dim Forest is easy to acquire via Justice Points and Waistband of Hexes will serve you well as well.

Legs

Legguards of the Raging Elements - Valor Points
Balkar's Waders - Drop (High Prophet Barim - LC)
Arrowsinger Legguards - World drop

Arrowsinger Legguards are a world drop BoE that are extremely good for us. Pick them up if you are able, you will not replace them until heroic raiding.

Balkar's Waders, from High Prophet Barim in the Lost City of the Tol'vir are the most useful blue leggings you'll find in Cataclysm. If you're desperate, though, there's a pair of Haste/Crit leggings from the Justice Point vendor or a drop from Zanzil in ZG, but I don't recommend sticking with either of those. Due to the other four pieces of Raging Elements being very nice, you might want to opt out of getting the legs... or at least save them for last. Once you're raiding, Leggings of Lethal Force are better, and for the most part, none of the other Raging Elements pieces are able to be replaced by non set gear. If you won't be raiding, or are having bad luck with drops, the set piece isn't a bad option.

Feet

Treads of Malorne - Guardians of Hyjal
Boots of Crumbling Ruin - Drop (Anraphet - HoO)
Haunting Footfalls - Drop (Commander Springvale - SFK)

Here's one of the easiest to fill slots with a very high quality piece of gear. Treads of Malorne from the Guardians of Hyjal faction are extremely well itemized for us, and will make a strong case for best-in-slot until tier 12 arrives. Heroic Boots of Vertigo are probably a little better, but not a lot better. Get the Treads as soon as possible, they will serve you well. Until then, there are some options from Halls of Origination and Shadowfang Keep to hold you over. There is a pair of boots available from Valor Points, but Treads of Malorne are so much better and easier to acquire that they aren't worth getting your hands on.

Finger

Signet of the Elder Council - Earthen Ring
Gilnean Ring of Ruination - World drop
Hornet-Sting Band - Valor Points
Quickfinger Ring - Drop (ZA Trash)
Arlokk's Signet - Drop (High Priestess Kilnara - ZG)
Terrath's Signet of Balance - Therazane
Band of Blades - Craftable (Jewelcrafting - BoE)
Ring of Blinding Stars - Drop (Isiset - HoO)
Ring of Dun Algaz - Drop (Forgemaster Throngus - GB)
Elementium Destroyer's Ring - Craftable (Jewelcrafting - BoE)

Tons of options for rings! Terrath's Signet of Balance will be competitive with most item level 359 epics. Signet of the Elder Council from the Earthen Ring will serve you well as well. There is a world drop and valor point ring, as well as a Zul'Aman BoE trash drop that should be very cheap, though the valor point one you probably want to save for last. There are two craftable rings you can make use of, as well as a handful of drops from various dungeons (no pun intended).

Trinket

Fluid Death - 1650 Valor Points
Darkmoon Card: Hurricane - Craftable (Inscription - BoE)
Unsolvable Riddle - Baradin's Wardens/Hellscream's Reach
Skardyn's Grace - Drop (General Umbris - GB)
Tia's Grace - Drop (Siamat - LC)
Grace of the Herald - Drop (Corla, Herald of Twilight - BRC)
Key to the Endless Chamber - Drop (Corborus - SC)
Left Eye of Rajh - Drop (Rahj - HoO)
Schnottz's Medallion of Command - Uldum quest reward
Figurine - Demon Panther - Dropped quest (JC only)

Trinkets have always been the hardest slot to fill. This may or may not be the case anymore, Blizzard stated they felt that through Wrath certain specs had a difficult time finding suitable trinkets. They've always been the hardest items to get, but that seems to no longer be a problem.

Fluid Death is an excellent use for Valor points, but you might want to wait until you have at least your tier 10 two-piece bonus. Darkmoon Card: Hurricane is an excellent option if you have loads of resources to spend on acquiring it. Unsolvable Riddle can be acquired from Baradin's Wardens at exalted. There are drops in Grim Batol, Lost City, Blackrock Caverns, Stonecore and Halls of Origination that will all suffice. A quest reward, Schnotzz's Medallion of Command would also likely hold you over until raids. Tia's Grace specifically is an excellent option and compares to heroic raid level trinkets (though your best options are Fluid Death and Darkmoon Card: Hurricane.)

Weapons

Maimgor's Bite - Drop (Blackwing Descent)
Claws of Torment - Drop (Blackwing Descent)
Claws of Agony - Drop (Blackwing Descent)
Arlokk's Claws - Drop (Renataki - ZG)
Thekal's Claws - Drop (Hazza'rah - ZG)
Mace of the Sacrificed - Drop (Daakara - ZA)
Fist of Pained Senses - Drop (Corborus - SC)
Elementium Gutslicer - Craftable (Blacksmithing - BoE)
Lightning Whelk Axe - Drop (Lady Naz'jar - TotT)
Ravening Slicer - Baradin's Wardens/Hellscream's Reach
Windslicer - Justice Points
Hammer of Sparks - Drop (Siamat - LC)
Cookie's Tenderizer - Drop (Captain Cookie - DM)
Vicious Gladiator's Left Ripper - 950 Conquest Points
Vicious Gladiator's Right Ripper - 2450 Conquest Points

There are plenty of options here. It's hard to run heroics for very long without finding a suitable pair of weapons.

It's worth noting that Cookie's Tenderizer, despite being a strength weapon, is an excellent choice. It's the slowest one-hander in Cataclysm, meaning your Lava Lash will hit very hard with it in the off-hand, and it's very solid in the main hand as well.

The Vicious Gladiator's fist weapon off-hand is very cheap and easy to get - You can win 2 rated battlegrounds or 4 2v2 matches and have enough Conquest Points for it. The main hand fist weapon, mace or axe are a bit more expensive (the one you pick up is purely cosmetic), but would only take 2-3 weeks to acquire and may be worth doing. They will be better for you than blues, but not as good as most of the epic drops.

Maimgor's Bite, and the set Torment and Agony are all Bind on Equip. Since slow agility off-hands are rarely used by anyone other than Enhancement Shamans, if you're on a server with a lot of active raid groups, you might be able to get Maimgor's Bite for a reasonable price if you're lucky. There are also 3 weapon options in the Zandalari heroics, which are as valuable as their 353 item level would suggest.

Relic

Relic of Golganneth - 700 Valor Points
Sandshift Relic - Drop (Ascendant Lord Obsidius - BRC)
Relic of Arathor - Drop (Lord Godfrey - SFK)
Silver Inlaid Leaf - Craftable (Inscription - BoE)

There are very few options for the relic slot. Sandshift Relic from Ascendant Lord Obsidius in Blackrock Caverns is your best-in-slot relic. Relic of Golganneth is close enough that it may be worth picking up when you get to a point that you're swimming in Valor Points, but prioritize that last, relics tend to give the least benefit.

That should be everything as far as pre raid gearing goes. You're not going to get all of it. You'll likely get epics from raids for a slot or two before you get the appropriate blue for that slot. Some pieces may simply never drop. The best advice I can give is try to focus on what you need most now rather than what the best possible setup is. Immediate improvement leads to faster progression. You never know what will drop or when, saving for a very specific setup isn't going to be worth it most of the time.

3. Reputations, and what they mean to Enhancement

Listed in order of importance (in my opinion)

Therazane

Greater Inscription of Shattered Crystal - Exalted
Terrath's Signet of Balance - Revered

Ramkahen

Arcanum of the Ramkahen - Revered

Guardians of Hyjal

Treads of Malorne - Exalted

The Earthen Ring

Signet of the Elder Council - Exalted
Softwind Cape - Revered

Baradin's Wardens/Hellscream's Reach

Ravening Slicer - Revered
Unsolvable Riddle - Exalted

Wildhammer Clan/Dragonmaw Clan

Windhome Helm / Snarling Helm - Revered

4. Heroics, and what they mean to Enhancement

Blackrock Caverns:

Renouncer's Cowl
Grace of the Herald
Sandshift Relic

Halls of Origination:

Mouth of the Earth
Bloodpetal Mantle
Boots of Crumbling Ruin
Ring of Blinding Stars
Left Eye of Rajh

Throne of the Tides:

Wrasse Handwraps
Lightning Whelk Axe

Stonecore:

Pendant of the Lightless Grotto
Elementium Scale Bracers
Key to the Endless Chamber
Fist of Pained Senses

Lost City of the Tol'vir:

Kaleki Cloak
Balkar's Waders
Mirage Ring
Tia's Grace
Hammer of Sparks

Shadowfang Keep:

Traitor's Grips
Haunting Footfalls
Relic of Arathor
Worgen Hunter's Helm

Deadmines:

Cape of the Brotherhood
Cloak of Thredd
Cookie's Tenderizer

Grim Batol:

Ring of Dun Algaz
Skardyn's Grace

Vortex Pinnacle:

Hail-Strung Belt

5. Valor and Justice Points

Justice Points, and what you can acquire

These, as I'm sure you know, are acquired by defeating bosses in Heroic 5 player dungeons, as well as doing a normal random dungeon. There is a vendor to redeem your points in Stormwind and Orgrimmar, depending on your faction.

Wrap of the Valley Glades - 1650
Vest of the True Companion - 2200
Gloves of the Passing Night - 1650
Belt of the Dim Forest - 1650
Windslicer - 950

Valor Points, and their rewards

Valor points are the currency earned in the most recent tier of raids in Cataclysm, and can be redeemed for the best gear. A set amount can be acquired once per day by completing a random heroic dungeon, and will be earned by raiding Blackwing Descent, Bastion of Twilight, Baradin Hold, and Throne of the Four Winds. As new content patches are released, your Valor Points and their rewards will eventually be converted into Justice Points, and the latest content will have new rewards for Valor Points, which will then only be earned in the new raids or random heroics once per day. There is a limit on how many Valor Points you can acquire per week.

Viewless Wings - 1250
Cuirass of the Raging Elements - 2200
Grips of the Raging Elements - 1650
Legguards of the Raging Elements - 2200
Fluid Death -1650
Relic of Golganneth - 700

6. Craftable items

Deadly Bio-Optic Killshades - Engineering - BoP
Dragonkiller Tunic - Leatherworking - BoE
Corded Viper Belt - Leatherworking - BoE
Darkmoon Card: Hurricane - Inscription - BoE

Band of Blades - Jewelcrafting - BoE
Elementium Destroyer's Ring - Jewelcrafting - BoE
Figurine - Demon Panther - Jewelcrafting - BoP
Elementium Gutslicer - Blacksmithing - BoE
Silver Inlaid Leaf - Inscription - BoE

7. Rise of the Zandalari

These two new heroic-only dungeons require an average item level of 346 to enter via the Dungeon Finder. All of the drops contained within are item level 353 epics, and there are a lot of items that are hard to replace. Please keep in mind that any piece of gear from these instances with both haste and crit is not worth using over a 346 blue that has one better secondary stat. (Balkar's Waders are superior to Zombie Walker Legguards for example.)

Zul'Gurub

Required bosses: High Priest Venoxis, High Priestess Kilnara, Bloodlord Mandokir, Zanzil, Jin'do the Godbreaker
Optional bosses - Edge of Madness - one party member must have 525 Archaeology to summon: Gri'lek, Wushoolay, Hazza'rah, Renataki. There are also numerous other named mobs with many non-gear drops. "Cache of Madness" means it can drop from any Edge of Madness boss despite what the tooltip tells you.

Arlokk's Claws - Renataki
Thekal's Claws - Hazza'rah
Handguards of the Tormented - Cache of Madness
Amulet of the Watcher - Bloodlord Mandokir
Arlokk's Signet - High Priestess Kilnara

Zul'Aman

Zul'Aman, unlike Zul'Gurub, is nearly identical in layout to the original. That's not a bad thing, to me at least, the original Zul'Aman was one of the most fun raid zones ever released, and it's hard to improve on something that was so exceptional. Like the original, there are extra rewards for killing the first 4 bosses quickly. The first (Akil'zon) always gives a bag of gold coins. The second and third (Nalorakk, Jan'alai) always have pieces of gear, and the fourth (Halazzi) always has the new recolored Amani Bear. While the bosses aren't as difficult as the original, the trash definitely can be. Getting the bear isn't impossible by any stretch, but it won't be easy either until you significantly out gear it.

Wristguards of the Predator - Akil'zon
Pauldrons of Nalorakk - Nalorakk
Breastplate of Primal Fury - Halazzi
Recovered Cloak of Frostheim - Nalorakk timed chest
Waistband of Hexes - Hex Lord Malacrass
Headdress of Sharpened Vision - Daakara
Mace of the Sacrificed - Daakara
Quickfinger Ring - Trash

Taken from Ashunera

Best Shaman Leveling Guide - Cataclysm 4.1 - 4.2

2011-06-01T06:29:00.001-07:00

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1. Leveling style
------------------------------
The most frequently asked question of those looking to level a shaman has to be: "What spec is the best for leveling?" The answer is simple: the one you enjoy most. As WoW has aged, Blizzard has made the leveling process considerably smoother and easier than it used to be. Better itemization at lower levels, higher quest and mob experience, smarter zone design, and clearer breadcrumb trails between questing hubs have greatly improved the overall leveling experience. With the revamping of our talent trees in 4.01 and the redesign of starting zones in Cataclysm, leveling should be in better shape than it has ever been before.

There was a time when Enhancement was arguably the best leveling spec, but those days have likely passed. Elemental and Enhancement both start out with excellent passive talents now, meaning both should be viable choices for quick leveling. Restoration is, as a healing spec, going to lag behind in terms of raw killing power; however, as most people who level in a healing spec do so for group leveling or fast queues in the Looking for Dungeon tool, this should balance out the weaker damage of the spec.

All three are now viable and decently quick leveling specs, so don't feel the need to choose one solely because you've heard it's "faster"; Leveling is fast regardless of spec, but the best leveling experience is the one you enjoy and that teaches you about the class. Choose your spec based on what you like or what you want to try out, what heirlooms you have available, etc. Having fun and being smart about leveling are going to make leveling a better experience than picking a spec recommended solely for its supposed advantages in terms of speed.

Since there are always a few "Help me" threads on the shaman forums, this guide is aimed at answering those questions in a general manner. This guide covers leveling from 1-85 as each spec. There's a lot of information to cover, even on a basic level, so feel free to make suggestions or ask if there's something you don't see. At the same time, do try to be thorough when searching the guide; asking questions covered in stickies generally gets you flamed as often as answered on these forums.

I'm also no master of shaman leveling, and the game has changed a lot since I leveled my own shaman. What I provide here is a basic outline of what are considered the "best practices" commonly. My choices are not beyond critique, by any means; as I wrote this guide, I sat and tried to make decisions that made the most sense for the given level. I ended up changing my mind many, many times, an indication of how difficult it can be to estimate effectiveness for talents while leveling. Take everything here with a grain of salt, because it's inevitable that your mileage will vary. It's a general leveling guide, not dictates from a deity handed down from on high.

I strongly suggest that, if you don't have a current PvE/PvP plan when you roll a shaman, think about it as you get close to 80; then, start reading up about the spec/playstyle beforehand so when you hit 80 you can start working towards it.

So anyways! Onwards with the guide! --the author

Note: this guide is written primarily for traditional solo and mixed dungeon play. Those who choose to level mostly or exclusively via LFD or spend a lot of time in PvP may want to tweak talents or playstyle for this differing approach.

Edited by Marashka on 4/11/11 6:55 PM (PDT) ------------------------------
a. ELEMENTAL
------------------------------
Elemental is the shaman caster DPS spec. While this used to be among the weakest specs in the game for leveling, changes have made it among the strongest, especially in terms of burst damage and AoE. As hybrids, shamans have a wide range of tools at their disposal, making them a great “jack of all trades” class and strong in situational adaptation.

Passive bonuses:

Thunderstorm
Elemental Fury
Shamanism
Mastery: Elemental Overload
Weapon imbue choice: Flametongue
Shield to use: Lightning Shield, Water shield

[NB: see 7 below (post# 11) for AoE leveling strategies. Changes in 3.3 have added this powerful possibility for leveling, arguably faster than enhancement and among the fastest leveling specs in the game.]

Main stats (in no particular order)

Intellect: Increases our spell power, mana, and spell crit chance. This is your main stat, so grab as much of it as you can.

Stamina: Increases our health (10 per point).

Crit rating: Increases the chance to get a critical hit with attacks (spells and melee).

Hit rating: Increases the chance to hit with an attack (spells and melee).
Haste rating- Decreases the cast time of spells, and melee swing time.

Spirit: grants mana regeneration. Also grants spell hit via Elemental Precision.

Talent Spec
Specs are going to be shown on a basis of 10 levels, with a *usually* short explanation of how to pick up the talents. You don’t have to go by this by the book, and you can reverse getting talents in the order I indicate; it’s completely up to you. Note that, in most cases, I opt for damage over mana; if you find yourself struggling with mana, pick up more mana management talents when you can.

10-19- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hhhStart off by maxing out Concussion, then Acuity.

20-29- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hhu0hoFill out Elemental Precision, then put a point into Call of Flame; after that, put a point into Elemental Focus. Reverberation is a possible choice as well, but generally you’ll be casting lightning bolts with the occasional shock, limiting the value of this talent. The point in EF is good because it will provide mana conservation, which is likely the biggest concern you have at this point. Rolling Thunder is a strong alternative if you are fine on mana and use Lightning Shield. The linked build goes with EF, as it is probably the safest baseline. Regardless, you’ll pick up whichever one you don’t take with the next level, so it’s not a big deal.

30-39- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hhu0GRoFill out Rolling Thunder and Elemental Reach. The last point here is dropped into Elemental Oath, a nice boost made even nicer by the acquisition of Lava Burst at 34, guaranteeing you a crit for Clearcasting.

40-49- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hhu0GRfzTop off EO, then fill in Lava Flows. The last point here is really a toss up; I go with Elemental Mastery, but Fulmination is probably just as good. Totemic Wrath, because it requires a fire totem that you may not be dropping that often, is probably the weakest. You’ll get them all with the next few points, so it won’t make much difference.

50-59- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hhGzGRfkzzPick up Fulmination and Totemic Wrath. Now, go back and finish CoF and drop a point into Reverberation. This will open up the next tier, where you now take Lava Surge.

60-69- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hhGzGRfkzGoFinish Lava Surge, fill up Feedback, and then grab Earthquake. EQ isn’t exactly a stellar leveling talent, but it’s probably a good idea to get it and learn how it works, especially if you plan on sticking with ele.

70-79- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hhGzGRfkzGobhGrab Elemental Weapons and Imp Shields from Enhancement.

80-85- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hGGMGRfkzGobhMGet Ancestral Swiftness (trust me, you'll love it) and top off Reverb. Now, you've got a choice: mana or health conservation? If you choose health, put points into Ancestral Resolve in the Resto tree; if mana, take Convection. The linked build goes with Convection for better mana efficiency.

At this point, you’ll probably want to respec to an endgame build, PvP spec, or to whichever other tree you might want to play instead. The stickied FAQs on these forums and the various articles at Elitist Jerks can help you choose builds for whatever your plans are.

Edited by Marashka on 4/11/11 6:41 PM (PDT) Rotation
The initial rotation is pretty simple: lightning bolt. You can toss a shock in if you want (Flame Shock early so it ticks, Earth Shock if you have to move or to kill a mob causing spell pushback, Frost Shock for kiting), but chances are it’s best to lean on LB for most of your damage. Once you hit level 34, however, life gets better, as you get Lava Burst. Now you’ll want to make sure Flame Shock is up and that you use LvB whenever possible—LvB on a target with FlS is a guaranteed crit, which has great effects when combined with the various on crit effects like EF and EO. Once you get Fulmination, Earth Shock is also a source of good burst damage. Elemental has been pretty boring in the past; now, with all these new toys, it’s interesting and fun. Check out some of the endgame guides for more information on rotations.

Glyphs

Prime:

Flame Shock, Flametongue Weapon, Lava Burst, Lightning Bolt, Shocking, Water Shield.
Lava Burst is probably your best choice, but since you don’t get that spell until 34, Lightning Bolt is a good first choice, either to be replaced by LvB when you get it or added when your next slot opens. Flametongue Weapon is really the only other option during leveling, since most mobs will die fast enough that the extra ticks of FlS are wasted and you likely won’t be using Waster Shield enough to justify glyphing it.

Major:

Lightning Shield, Ghost Wolf, Thunder, Stoneclaw Totem, Totemic Recall, Elemental Mastery, Chain Lightning.
Thunder is probably the first major to snag; while LS looks good, it won’t really shine until you get Fulmination, with the earliest level for that being 49. Besides Thunder and LS, the rest are mostly defensive or utility: Ele Mastery and Stoneclaw are both handy for taking less damage, great if you AoE a lot or solo elites; Totemic Recall is a mana regen talent; GW is nice but probably not very valuable for a spec without instant GW standard (not to mention mounts are available so early now); CL is a decent AoE glyph. As with all major glyphs, these aren’t make or break for your DPS; they are “quality of life” glyphs and entirely up to you.

Minor:

Astral Recall, Renewed Life, Arctic Wolf, Water Walking, Water Breathing, Thunderstorm.
Other than Astral Recall (available at 30), these glyphs are simply convenience or aesthetic enhancers. Water walking is probably the most generally useful, although Renewed Life might be a good choice if you instance a lot. Thunderstorm may or may not be something you want, since it ups mana but removes TS’s knockback effect; consider well the value of the knockback to your playstyle before choosing this one.

Heirlooms
I will list what I believe will be beneficial for the elemental specced shaman while leveling. You don’t need everything here, but I suggest getting both the chest/shoulders if you can. Really speeds up the leveling.

Mystical Pauldrons of Elements: This is a must. Gives int, stamina, and some crit. It also gives you +10% experience so it’s great for leveling.

Mystical Vest of Elements: Another must due to giving more exp. It also gives stamina and intellect, plus some crit rating. Unlikely you’ll find anything better.

Dignified Headmaster's Charge: A lot of people like to go 1h/shield with a shaman, but as of now there is no shield from heirlooms, and you’re not going find a weapon with stats like this throughout your entire leveling career, even on the other heirloom items.

Discerning Eye of the Beast: I’ve heard that this trinket is amazing to use while leveling. It apparently stacks it’s effect, and procs off killing small things like totems. You could definitely use 2 of them till outlands, and beyond if you wanted. It will really help you out when grinding and saving mana. Plus the extra spell power at lower levels is nice.

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b. ENHANCEMENT
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Enhancement is the shaman melee spec. While enhancement shamans use a number of spells regularly—shocks, lightning bolt, and heals when necessary—these are cast from melee rather than range. Enhancement focuses on a blend of physical and magical damage, making it a strong DPS spec for a variety of situations. As with all shamans, enhancement has a decent bag of tricks, giving it good flexibility and an array of toys for different kinds of encounters.

Passive bonuses:

Lava Lash
Mental Quickness
Dual Wield
Primal Wisdom
Mastery: Enhanced Elements
Weapon imbue: flametongue, windfury/flametongue when available
Shield to use: Lightning Shield

Stats (in no particular order)

Agility: You get 2 Attack Power from it, it increases melee critical strike chance, and even gives us spell power. Our best stat for leveling.

Hit rating: Increases the chance to hit with an attack (spells and melee). A great stat when available.

Expertise rating: Removes mob chances to parry and dodge melee attacks. Important because we have several DPS abilities tied to melee hits. A good stat when available.

Crit rating: Increases the chance to get a critical hit with attacks (spells and melee).

Stamina: Increases health (10 per point). It’s another stat that we should have on our gear so we can survive.

Haste rating: Decreases spell cast time, and melee swing time. A pretty bad stat for enhancement, at least at later levels.

A note on strength: Shamans currently receive 1 AP from strength. At higher levels, strength is almost nonexistent on mail gear because both hunters and shamans use Agi as their primary stat; however, while leveling you may run across mail items with strength, especially random enchantment greens. If you end up with better overall stats with a piece that has strength, don't be afraid to grab it until something better comes along. Items "of the Tiger" (Agi and Str) are especially nice if you can take the stamina loss.

Weapon note: Remember with enhancement and dual wielding: Slow weapons. SLOW SLOW SLOW!

Talent Spec
Specs are going to be shown on a basis of 10 levels, with a *usually* short explanation of how to pick up the talents. You don’t have to go by this by the book, and you can reverse getting talents in the order I said to if you want, it’s completely up to you. If I tell you to grab a talent then assume I mean max it out, I will tell you otherwise when not to.

10-19- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hZf0oPick up Focused Strikes, then Elemental Weapons. Start into Flurry.

20-29- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hZf0G0oFinish Flurry; then you have a choice to make. The linked spec goes Ancestral Swiftness, as it provides a run speed and instant Ghost Wolf--both are great while leveling, even with mounts available so early. This also gives you a short path to Stormstrike. The alternative is to put points into Elemental Devastation, a decent DPS talent. However, with low spell crit rates and generally quick mob deaths, this isn't the most efficient use of points for leveling.

30-39- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hZfMG0sPick up Static Shock, then go back and begin filling out Elemental Devastation.

40-49- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hZfcG0s0hzFinish Ele Dev. Fill out Searing Flames--this is probably the fire totem you'll use most. Imp Fire Nova is a viable option if you AoE a lot, so you might take it if you do instances often (without CC, of course!). You'll need to drop a point into SF to hit the next tier if you take Imp FN.

Edited by Marashka on 4/11/11 6:58 PM (PDT) At 47, you'll have another choice to make: Shamanistic Rage or Unleashed Rage (it's an angry tier). The linked build goes with UR, as it adds DPS immediately, and is useful for both solo and group play. SR gives you a defensive CD and free abilities while it's up. I personally think UR is the better choice.

50-59- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hZffG0s0hRzFinish UR, then snag SR. Now, go all the way back to tier 1 (do not pass go, do not collect $200) and drop 2 points into Imp Shields. You can also fill out Imp FN if you AoE often and didn't take it earlier, but Imp Shields will provide better single target DPS and probably overall be more useful. If you DID take Imp FN earlier, finish out Searing Flames instead of 2/3 Imp Shields.

Drop the next point into Imp Lava Lash, as this will start to be a major DPS source when combined with Searing Totem. Mobs will die before SF stacks too high, but dropping ST will probably get you at least one buff of SF on a mob, so you'll have 10% stronger LL hits. Not too shabby.

60-69- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hZffG0s0hRGoTop off Imp LL, then fill out Maelstrom Weapon. MSW will be a major source of DPS, but since it won't provide instant casts until 3/3, I opted to go with LL first, since it will generally be easier to use (provided you drop Searing Totem). Regardless, you'll end up with both filled out. Plus, you'll get Feral Spirits! The wolves are great, give you some handy utilities and self healing, and give you the ability to solo a lot of group quests and elites (especially when you add in SR's damage reduction).

That's it for the Enhance tree. Wasn't that fun? Just in time for Northrend...

70-79- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hhbZffG0s0hRGoDrop 3 into Acuity, then the last 2 points into Concussion. You can really put these in any order you want, but Acuity is the better talent overall (hence only 2/3 for Concussion).

80-85- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hhGMZffG0s0hRGoTop off Concussion, Call of Flame, and Reverberation. You can take these talents in any order, since they are all relatively minor DPS increases.

The build you have now is a decent single target DPS build for PvE. If you find a lot of AoE situations, where you'd rather have more AoE power, you can respec to http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hhGMZfcG0sMhRGo. There are other variations (such as dropping AS for Imp Shields or Totemic Reach) that provide a little more utility or DPS, but they're all relatively close in potential. I'll add other builds as they emerge, including the "cookie cutter" specs when the game ages enough to establish them.

Rotation
The changes in 4.01 have made enhancement leveling a lot more interesting that it used to be. Your main rotation will be Primal Strike/Storm Strike, Lava Lash, and Earth Shock; most mobs will be dead pretty quickly with all this. You can also use Lightning Bolt or a shock (typically Earth or Flame) to pull if you want range, and Frost Shock to snare and kite or buy time. After 81, you get Unleash Elements, allowing you to toss some extra DPS at range and provide buffs for your attack speed and FS; be sure to toss Unleash Flame prior to FS to boost its DPS and Unleash Wind while running into melee.

A lot of people get confused about Primal Strike and Storm Strike--Primal Strike is replaced by Storm Strike, so once you get SS you won't cast PS anymore. Enhancement used to have no (literally zero) melee specials prior to level 40, when SS became available; Blizz added PS to give them something to do until SS, along with LL. Once you get Storm Strike, you will no longer use Primal Strike.

Note that getting the full benefit of Flame Shock means getting all of its 18 seconds of ticks to run their course. If the target isn't going to live long enough for that to happen, you're probably better off getting the direct damage of Earth Shock. Most non-elites will not live long enough for FS to tick down, so you'll generally be using ES during normal questing. In instances, you'll probably see enough time for FS on bosses, maybe occasionally on some trash. The short version: if the target will live for 18 seconds, use Flame Shock; if it won't, use Earth Shock.

You’ll generally want to use Flametongue on your weapons until lvl 30, when you go to WF/FT. While conventional knowledge has been to go WF/WF in the past, the changes granting us LL at lvl 10 make FT a more attractive offhand enchant, especially considering Glyph of Lava Lash is the first available prime for enhancement. At endgame, you’ll definitely want to use WF/FT. These changes also emphasize the necessity of having a slow offhand to maximize LL damage.

Once you get MSW, add Lightning Bolt (or Chain Lightning, if there are multiple mobs) when you get a 5 stack for instant casts. Use Feral Spirits and Shamanistic Rage if you’re in trouble or soloing a tough mob.

Glyphs

Prime:
Lava Lash, Stormstrike, Windfury, Feral Spirits.
Lava Lash is available at lvl 25, and considering how hard Lava Lash hits with a slow weapon (you’ve got a slow offhand, right?), it’s not a bad choice for your initial prime glyph. LL does not scale that well at low levels, however, so chances are you'll find Stormstrike (available at 29) to be a better option due to its effects on Earth Shock. Windfury becomes available at 32; LL is probably the better choice for the next time a prime slow opens up, since you'll start to have talent support for it. Depending on how often you use Feral Spirits, that glyph may or may not be better than Windfury. If you use FS on cooldown, solo a lot of tough mobs, like elites, or do a lot of instancing, FS is probably a good choice once you can get it. If you don’t, WF is probably a more useful, more consistent payoff for your glyph investment.

Major:

Lightning Shield, Ghost Wolf, Shamanistic Rage, Stoneclaw Totem.
While there are plenty of major glyphs that add utility and could feasibly be good choices, these four are probably the best for leveling. LS and GW are available at 25, SR at 49, and SCT at 58. LS and GW are great glyphs for convenience, with LS perhaps edging out GW simply because mounts will cover a lot of the travel that would make FW more useful. SR removes magic effects when glyphed, a handy thing to be able to do while leveling. SCT gives you a shield when you drop Stoneclaw, a potentially lifesaving utility if you solo big groups or elites. These glyphs aren’t going to directly impact your DPS; they are “quality of life” glyphs and entirely up to you.

Minor:

Astral Recall, Renewed Life, Arctic Wolf, Water Walking, Water Breathing.
Other than Astral Recall (available at 30), these glyphs are simply convenience or aesthetic enhancers. Water walking is probably the most generally useful, although Renewed Life might be a good choice if you instance a lot.

Heirlooms
The following heirloom items are great for enhancement shamans. You don’t have to get them, of course, but the chest and shoulders are especially helpful because of the bonus experience.

Champion Herod's Shoulder

Champion's Deathdealer Breastplate

Venerable Mass of McGowan: these are excellent for enhance—slow (2.8!), one-handed so they can be dual wielded, and providing good stats. Get one. Hell, get two. With DW now coming baseline at level 10, there’s no reason not to snag these if you can.

Swift Hand of Justice: the least desirable heirloom overall, but a decent thing to have if you have the badges to burn. Trinkets are often a weakness while leveling, so having anything is better than nothing.

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c. RESTORATION
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Restoration is the shaman healing tree. Resto shamans are one of the best all-around healers—they can tank heal and raid heal effectively, whereas other classes tend to be better suited to one or the other. Like other shaman specs, resto has a deep bag of tricks and buffs that make them flexible and a great addition to a group. While it’s a pretty bad tree for soloing due to weaker DPS than ele or enh, resto is a great tree for leveling through dungeons or with a friend.

Passive bonuses:

Earth Shield
Meditation
Purification
Mastery: Deep Healing
Weapon imbue: Earthliving and Flametongue
Shield to use: Water Shield

Stats(in no particular order)

Intellect: Increases spell power, mana, and spell crit chance. This is resto’s main stat.

Stamina: Increases our health (10 per point).

Crit rating: Increases the chance to get a critical hit with abilities (spells and melee). Also provides mana regeneration via talents. A strong stat for resto.

Haste rating: Decreases the cast time of spells, and melee swing time.

Spirit: Provides mana regeneration.

Edited by Marashka on 4/13/11 1:09 PM (PDT) Talent Spec
Specs are going to be shown on a basis of 10 levels, with a *usually* short explanation of how to pick up the talents. You don’t have to go by this by the book, and you can reverse getting talents in the order I said to if you want, it’s completely up to you. Since the majority of resto talents impact healing or other healing-related tasks, it won’t make a huge difference in solo or group effectiveness, since optimal conditions are rare while leveling.

10-19- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hZZdh
Drop points into Ancestral Resolve and Spark of Life. Since resto will typically be casting offensive spells, immediately taking less damage probably trumps waiting a few levels for it. Increasing the healing you do AND take is also nice, especially when you’ll be healing yourself often and you don’t have a sizable health pool. Start into Tidal Focus. If you are leveling in a group or through dungeons, you'll probably want to fill TF instead of AR, since you won't be getting hit as often.

20-29- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hZZfub
Finish TF, then take Totemic Focus, since you’ll typically be dropping totems more often as resto than the other two specs. Now, you have a choice. If you mainly solo or PvP, Focused Insight is probably a good choice, since you’ll be casting shocks and healing with enough frequency that the mana savings will be useful. If you mostly run groups, Imp Water Shield is probably a better investment. Since most people who choose to level resto do so in a group or by running dungeons, the linked build goes with IWS.

30-39- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hZZfGb0s
Finish IWS, grab Nature’s Swiftness, and top out Nature’s Blessing.

40-49- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hZZfGbMszoo
Go ahead and grab Imp Cleanse Spirit for one point—it’;s useful enough to take. Fill out Ancestral Healing. At this point, you need one more point to get to the next tier. Honestly, it doesn’t really matter where you put it, as all the available talents are situational or of limited use. I’m going to toss it into Cleansing Waters. Put the next point into Mana Tide Totem.

50-59- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hZZfGbMszsR
This is a weird tier. Telluric Currents is probably the best choice to take first unless you do nothing but heal, period; if you ever cast lightning bolts, TC is probably worth it as your initial points. Ancestral Awakening is doubly damned in leveling by requiring a crit to trigger and only healing for a percentage of heals that may frequently be pretty weak. You’ll end up with both of them regardless, so it’s really your choice where to go first.

60-69- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hZZfGbMszsRuo
Fill out Tidal Waves, drop a point into Blessing of the Eternals, then snag Riptide.

70-79- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hZbhZfGbMszsRuo
The last series of choices are a bit up for grabs. Imp Shields in Enhancement is a decent investment, as is Elemental Weapons. On the other hand, Acuity’s bonus to crit is pretty attractive, considering how many talents resto has that rely on crit. I’ve gone with Imp Shields and EW, but you can mix and match depending on gear and preferences for these last few points.

80-85- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hZbhMbZfGbMszsRGo
The real gem is the always fun Ancestral Swiftness; other than that, it's more of the same tossup of points. The linked build goes for Totemic Reach (better range on totems) and the last point of Blessing of the Eternals; tossing 3 points into Acuity is another option.

The good news is, you’ve survived to 85 as a resto shaman. The bad news: you’ll probably want to respec. Check out the shaman resto guides stickied here, at EJ, or at Totemspot for good build ideas.

For PvP…this is mainly a PvE guide. You’re on your own!

Rotation
For DPS, the rotation you will have while leveling is pretty similar to elemental, except that you do a lot less damage; the tradeoff for this is greater survivability. This is probably the only spec that you will want to put totems down for on a consistent basis, especially mana spring and a fire totem. If you’re soloing or otherwise doing DPS for the majority of the time, use FT on your weapon to up your damage. Depending on your mana, Lightning Shield or Earth Shield are alternatives to Water Shield for better DPS or survivability, respectively.

As a healer, you don’t generally have a set rotation except in some specific encounters. There are combinations of spells that are sometimes good due to synergy from talents (Riptide for Tidal Waves, which buffs your next HW, GHW, or HS, for instance), but in general you use the spell that fits the situation. We have a large toolbox of spells at our disposal; learn the strengths of each as you level and you’ll be a much better healer for it.

Edited by Marashka on 4/13/11 1:09 PM (PDT) Talent Spec
Specs are going to be shown on a basis of 10 levels, with a *usually* short explanation of how to pick up the talents. You don’t have to go by this by the book, and you can reverse getting talents in the order I said to if you want, it’s completely up to you. Since the majority of resto talents impact healing or other healing-related tasks, it won’t make a huge difference in solo or group effectiveness, since optimal conditions are rare while leveling.

10-19- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hZZdh
Drop points into Ancestral Resolve and Spark of Life. Since resto will typically be casting offensive spells, immediately taking less damage probably trumps waiting a few levels for it. Increasing the healing you do AND take is also nice, especially when you’ll be healing yourself often and you don’t have a sizable health pool. Start into Tidal Focus. If you are leveling in a group or through dungeons, you'll probably want to fill TF instead of AR, since you won't be getting hit as often.

20-29- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hZZfub
Finish TF, then take Totemic Focus, since you’ll typically be dropping totems more often as resto than the other two specs. Now, you have a choice. If you mainly solo or PvP, Focused Insight is probably a good choice, since you’ll be casting shocks and healing with enough frequency that the mana savings will be useful. If you mostly run groups, Imp Water Shield is probably a better investment. Since most people who choose to level resto do so in a group or by running dungeons, the linked build goes with IWS.

30-39- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hZZfGb0s
Finish IWS, grab Nature’s Swiftness, and top out Nature’s Blessing.

40-49- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hZZfGbMszoo
Go ahead and grab Imp Cleanse Spirit for one point—it’;s useful enough to take. Fill out Ancestral Healing. At this point, you need one more point to get to the next tier. Honestly, it doesn’t really matter where you put it, as all the available talents are situational or of limited use. I’m going to toss it into Cleansing Waters. Put the next point into Mana Tide Totem.

50-59- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hZZfGbMszsR
This is a weird tier. Telluric Currents is probably the best choice to take first unless you do nothing but heal, period; if you ever cast lightning bolts, TC is probably worth it as your initial points. Ancestral Awakening is doubly damned in leveling by requiring a crit to trigger and only healing for a percentage of heals that may frequently be pretty weak. You’ll end up with both of them regardless, so it’s really your choice where to go first.

60-69- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hZZfGbMszsRuo
Fill out Tidal Waves, drop a point into Blessing of the Eternals, then snag Riptide.

70-79- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hZbhZfGbMszsRuo
The last series of choices are a bit up for grabs. Imp Shields in Enhancement is a decent investment, as is Elemental Weapons. On the other hand, Acuity’s bonus to crit is pretty attractive, considering how many talents resto has that rely on crit. I’ve gone with Imp Shields and EW, but you can mix and match depending on gear and preferences for these last few points.

80-85- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hZbhMbZfGbMszsRGo
The real gem is the always fun Ancestral Swiftness; other than that, it's more of the same tossup of points. The linked build goes for Totemic Reach (better range on totems) and the last point of Blessing of the Eternals; tossing 3 points into Acuity is another option.

The good news is, you’ve survived to 85 as a resto shaman. The bad news: you’ll probably want to respec. Check out the shaman resto guides stickied here, at EJ, or at Totemspot for good build ideas.

For PvP…this is mainly a PvE guide. You’re on your own!

Rotation
For DPS, the rotation you will have while leveling is pretty similar to elemental, except that you do a lot less damage; the tradeoff for this is greater survivability. This is probably the only spec that you will want to put totems down for on a consistent basis, especially mana spring and a fire totem. If you’re soloing or otherwise doing DPS for the majority of the time, use FT on your weapon to up your damage. Depending on your mana, Lightning Shield or Earth Shield are alternatives to Water Shield for better DPS or survivability, respectively.

As a healer, you don’t generally have a set rotation except in some specific encounters. There are combinations of spells that are sometimes good due to synergy from talents (Riptide for Tidal Waves, which buffs your next HW, GHW, or HS, for instance), but in general you use the spell that fits the situation. We have a large toolbox of spells at our disposal; learn the strengths of each as you level and you’ll be a much better healer for it.

Edited by Marashka on 4/11/11 7:08 PM (PDT) ------------------------------
2. Mixed specs while leveling
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As stated above, there was a time when certain specs were better for leveling than others; now, with the redesign of talent trees in 4.01 and the advent of dual specs and the random dungeon finder, all three specs are viable choices for going from 1-85. In terms of efficiency, dual spec ele/resto is probably tough to beat: since the specs can share gear, questing and leveling as ele and instancing as resto gives you the best of all worlds without requiring a lot of extra gear. If you aren’t able to afford dual spec but still plan on instancing and want fast queues, ele is probably your best bet because you can queue as a healer; having caster gear will help improve your healing ability, where as trying to heal as enhancement will demand another set of gear to be effective.

If you’re not worrying about queue times or instancing, either of the two DPS specs will be fine. In the past, it was sometimes a good idea to switch between the two for various level ranges, as there were dead spots in gearing that made it better to be enh or ele for a given set of levels. The complete redesign of the leveling areas of 1-60 in Cataclysm, along with the better itemization of the two previous expansions and the availability of heirlooms, means that these gearing problems are likely a thing of the past.

In general, elemental is probably going to be the best all around spec for leveling. The advantages of being at range are handy while leveling and in instances; caster also generally scale better at lower levels than melee and are typically less gear dependent. Having caster gear also means you’ll have the mana and spellpower to heal decently enough if you wish. Even with these advantages the difference won’t be extreme by any means, so you should still play whatever spec seems the most fun. Also don’t be afraid to mix it up and try the other specs…just don’t forget that gear is important, so keep that in mind when rating a spec’s performance.

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3. Totems and their usage while leveling
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Dropping totems while leveling is going often to be a waste of mana, especially if you’re dropping all four for killing only a mob or two. If you’re taking on large groups, an elite, or are in an instance, it may or may not be worth it; as you level, you’ll figure just when it’s worth it and when it isn’t. Resto will probably be the only spec to consistently drop multiple totems, but again, your experience will help you get a feel for their worth.

In instances, dropping totems will often depend on the buffs available from the other members of the group. Instances often move fast and have limited down time, so the mana investment to drop a full totem loadout on trash is a bit dicey; it’s definitely worth it on bosses, however.

Here’s the typical totem set used by each spec; keep in mind that different situations will call for different totems, so learning to use ALL your totems when they’re called for is a good idea. Don’t forget to use Stoneclaw for its taunt and shield (if glyphed), Earthbind for kiting, Tremor for fears and sleep, and Grounding to help mitigate caster damage.

Enhancement: Strength of Earth, Windfury, Healing stream, Searing. Magma +Fire Nova for AoE or large packs. Enhancement will have very few to no mana issues, so dropping totems is less of a problem for enh than for other specs.

Elemental: Stoneskin, Wrath of Air, Mana spring, Searing. Magma +Fire Nova for AoE or large packs. Mana may or may not be an issue, so monitor the returns of dropping all or a couple of totems. Drop none if you have severe mana issues and are traveling from mob to mob more than hitting packs.

Resto: Stoneskin, Wrath of Air, Mana spring, Searing. Magma +Fire Nova for AoE or large packs. As with Elemental, monitor costs and see if totems are worth the mana. Chances are that resto’s weaker killing power means totems will be a little more worth it, especially Searing and Mana spring.

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4. Races
------------------------------
**NOTE: this section is being revised for more accuracy**

In general, as with specs it's best to play what you enjoy; the benefits for any race are minimal at best.

In terms of pure min/max:
Alliance: PvE- Draenei; PvP- Dwarf.
Horde: PvE-Orc (enh), Troll (ele/resto); PvP- All are good, although Tauren's Warstomp is generally a favorite.

A note on goblins: they have interesting racials, many of which are convenient more than beneficial to actual game play. The jury will be out for a while on the real value of goblin racials in PvE and PvP, although they have the potential to be excellent for both.

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5. Professions
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There is a lot of controversy as to what professions you should take while leveling. Personally I believe you should take moneymaking professions when leveling, and then get the ones you want at a higher level. If done right you can make a ton of money while leveling. For instance, Liax said in the previous version of this guide that he had a level 44 paladin who has taken skinning and herbing and had over 200 gold without help of a main, or playing the auction house, all without really trying to play the AH. That was a few years ago, and other players are reporting good returns on selling mats, so gathering is the way to go if you want money.

Probably the two best professions to take for money purposes while leveling are mining and herbing. 4.01 added the ability to track multiple items at the same time, so some of the inconvenience of trying to level two gathering professions has been removed. The downside is that mining is harder to level than herbalism. I suggest, for convenience, taking skinning and mining/herbing. Skins sell decently, and a lot of the herbs sell for a really high price. Mining will also net you a pretty penny when leveling, but it can be fairly annoying to try to level compared to other professions.

If you don’t want to do the work of leveling moneymaking professions or don’t need to, going to other professions to benefit you at 80 is a good idea. The generally accepted min/max is blacksmithing and jewelcrafting, as it gives you great flexibility with extra sockets and better gems. Enchanting and alchemy are both beneficial to raiding as well. It’s up to you if you want to try to level both of those professions (better have a lot of cash), or if you want to pick up its secondary profession to make it easier. If you have access to a ton of cash, holding off and leveling professions after you hit the level cap is also an option, as working on profs can be expensive and slow leveling considerably depending on your time commitment to it.

In the end, Blizz has done a decent job or balancing professions, so there will be few times when the choice is really going to matter much. Some are just more difficult or more expensive to level (Enchanting, Blacksmithing, Engineering); it's a good idea to check out which ones provide you good endgame benefits for what you want to do, since some are stronger in one area than others.
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6. Gemming
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While leveling, gemming is pretty straightforward. It’s not really beneficial to gem for hit caps or such, so your primary stat is going to be the best option.

Elemental- Intellect is now the spellpower stat, so go for this. If you’re trying for a socket bonus needing a yellow, go for Int/haste or possibly Int/mastery when it becomes available. You might also consider hit or int/hit gems for desirable blue sockets or if you spend a decent amount of time casting at mobs 2 to 3+ levels higher than you.

Enhancement- Agility; agi/haste for bonuses needing a yellow. Hit and agi/hit can be useful as well, although hit's value can vary a decent amount while leveling.

Restoration- Intellect. If you’re trying for a socket bonus needing a yellow, go for Int/haste.

7. AoE Leveling: Better Leveling through Fire

For those looking to try something different, the changes to Fire Nova in 3.3 open up the possibility of elemental AoE leveling. 4.0 has bumped the availability of this up a bit to higher levels and likely cut into its effectiveness, but it's still something the curious may want to give a shot.

The main ingredients are: Magma Totem (now available at level 36; previously 26); Fire Nova (available at 28; because Fire Nova cannot be used with Searing Totem, prior to level 36 you would have to use Flametongue Totem); Chain Lightning; Stoneclaw (or Earthbind, for any necessary kiting).

Optional items: Glyph of Fire Nova (adds 5 yards to the range); Glyph of Chain Lightning; Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem. CL glyph will probably be the strongest overall, but this can vary based on how big the pulls are, how often you get hit, etc.

This method is mana intensive, so attention should be paid to Water Shield and Mana Spring uptimes. Additionally, the availability of the BoA caster trinket Discerning Eye of the Beast, which restores mana on killing mobs and can be stacked, drastically reduces down time, even possibly eliminating it.

As forum poster Homitu says (this was for 3.3),

I recently leveled a 2nd shaman as elemental and I adamantly feel that it is currently one of the fastest leveling specs in the game (only behind affliction locks). Elemental was definitely slow pre-BoA gear, pre-Fire Nova change, and pre-Glyphs, but now it's a mana efficient AoE powerhouse.
I find many shamans here still recommend the once superior enhance spec for leveling, since enhance was undoubtedly faster when they last leveled a shaman. However, times have changed, and ele is extremely potent at the moment.

As far as talent builds go, I would recommend this to begin with:

This is for level 27, right before you can effectively start AoEing with FN. I've chosen to fill out Convection because mana will likely be a concern; if you find it is not once you start AoEing at level 28, consider moving the points to Ele Precision to up damage by a couple of percent. Take whatever talents look good after that: Ele Reach adds more range to FN and CL, EP adds some damage, etc. There are no longer elemental talents that directly affect FN after this point, so take the normal talents going forward, based on mana or damage, whatever seems to be more useful.

An example pull following this method would go: Aggro as many mobs as you can handle (5-6 for starters)-> Drop Stoneclaw + Magma/Flametongue totem-> Fire Nova-> Flame Shock-> Fire Nova-> Refresh Water shield-> Fire Nova = all mobs dead. CL can also be added depending on mana, especially if you choose to glyph it. Note that careful use of these ideas can also provide excellent DPS in dungeons while leveling, but take care with aggro and mana use. Don't forget that Thunderstorm also does AoE damage, and toward the end of the road you'll have the option for Earthquake; when/where/if you want to use these will be up to you and how you feel they fit into your AoEing strategy.

Whether or not AoE leveling is the new "best" way to level is debatable with the inclusion of BoAs, the LFD system, and improved experience gains from questing. It'll be up to the individual whether he or she thinks it is worth it; I present it here as an alternative to more traditional single-target based leveling.

A Note on AoE past level 80: while AoEing mobs is a viable tactic up to the end of WotLK content, mobs in Cataclysm generally have more health and hit much harder than those form previous content. As such, you'll most likely want to give up on AoE or very carefully test its viability in Cata leveling. While it may ultimately be doable, whether or not the returns will be worth the effort will be your call. Also note that Blizzard poster Nethaera has stated that reduced experience gains have been implemented, making it undesirable to attempt to AoE grind older content once you hit an applicable level cap; this change may also discourage AoE leveling in Cataclysm. Posted here: .

**Special thanks to Homitu for this information in 3.3; I have updated as much as possible while keeping general information that still applies.

------------------------------
8. Useful information for leveling
------------------------------
This section will always be a work in progress, as I add whatever I happen to run into as good advice, useful general info, etc.

1. Shaman trainers:

Stuck out in the world and wondering where the closest trainer is? Check the above link, sorted by faction.

2. Frost shock kiting: I suggest you get decent at kiting and practice it. It will help you in PvP and when you need to run away from mobs. Kiting as a shaman (as any spec) can be done with 3 spells. Frost shock and earthbind are the kiting moves, and if you have improved ghost wolf you’re able to run away better, but it’s not required.

In PvP (such as being jumped while leveling) your best bet is to frost shock kite, as earthbind is likely going to be destroyed quickly (feel free to plant it, just don’t rely on it). Frost shock kiting works equally as well with mobs, but earthbind can be reliable too since mobs rarely attack the totem.

Frost shock kiting is easy to do. Start off by casting frost shock on the target, then immediately jump and turn yourself 180 degrees (or whichever degree you need to do). It is important to jump and turn instead of just running the 180 degrees. This way you won’t lose running time. This is all it is. While running away, jump and turn to the enemy, frost shock and return to the direction you were running. It can be done in all one jump, this way you don’t lose running time at all, and the target is continuously slowed.

Practice this on mobs that are lower level (green) than you, starting at close (but not melee range) and frost shock, and run then repeat the steps above. It shouldn’t take more than a a couple tries to master and you are better off doing this in case of too many mobs aggroing, or some other player trying to jump you . Earthbind is your panic button if they get close with frost shock on CD.

------------------------------
9. Enchants
------------------------------
Enchants are purely optional based on cash available/effort you want to go through. I always suggest enchanting as it will quicken leveling and may save you from dying from time to time, but it's not a huge necessity. Other than heirloom items you'll be replacing gear fairly quickly.

I'm not going to bother going through each piece of gear to enchant since the enchanting options, while leveling, are much slimmer, and some items can't be enchanted until higher levels.

Resto

Spell power, int, crit, and stat enchants are your friend. The changes to Int mean it's likely going to come out ahead in most cases, but it's a good idea to compare. There are very few crit, and stat enchant choices, but it's possible to get them.

For weapon, Int looks like the better choice, and it's usually cheaper.

Enhance

Agility, stats, attack power. Specifically I know agi can go on bracers gloves, and boots. I would always take agi over any other type of enchant.

For weapons dual crusader is amazing. Agility is also acceptable though. Crusader does stack when dual wielding.

Elemental

Elemental is the same as resto basically. Get spell power, crit, or int enchants. Stats on the chest.

Weapon is the same, go for Int.

------------------------------
10. Helpful online resources
------------------------------
Although some are aimed at endgame theorycraft, they usually provide good information for players of all levels and skills.

TotemSpot (http://totemspot.com/): a community site by some of the best theorycrafters and shaman players.

Elitist Jerks, Shaman Section (http://elitistjerks.com/f79/): the premier theorycraft site's shaman class mechanics section. Individual sections for each spec (ele: , enh: , resto: ).

A new enhance post is up and running for 85 at EJ, courtesy of Cochice:

Wowhead (http://www.wowhead.com): a WoW database, providing info on virtually every aspect of the game. Curious about dungeons in your level range? Gear in the next zone? Where you can find profession recipes? It's all here.

Shaman section at WoWInsider (http://wow.joystiq.com/category/shaman/): a blogging site featuring our very own Elam (Josh Myers). Weekly columns from knowledgeable shamans on a variety of subjects.

The PwNaGe Archaeology Guide 4.1.0 Cataclysm

2011-05-30T15:14:00.000-07:00

Cataclysm brings us the new and exciting (maybe not so much exciting) secondary profession of Archaeology. As someone who spent the time levelling it to 450 on Beta, I will be the first of many people to tell you that it is the longest profession grind WoW has ever put players through, with very little instant gratification. However, for some, it reaps amazing benefits.

(Before you do anything! Download Archy, the Archaeology Assistant addon. It makes your life skilling up this profession ten times easier. http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/archy.aspx)

If you're a lore nerd/buff/maniac/what have you like me, you'll definitely be interested in collecting all of the neat little trinkets and toys this new profession includes. Each of the major races of Azeroth has something to offer. The profession also offers a few amazing 359 epics, which come in handy with pre-raiding availability. I've included the list of these items here, at the bottom of the post.

But first, I'll cover the main topic; essentially, how to grind Archaeology. First, to make sure you don't go insane, get something else to do while you grind. Movie, TV show, other game, other productive activity, whatever. ~70% of the time you're levelling up Archaeology, you're actually travelling. This leaves a TON of time where you'd just be starting at your flying mount's ass, autoflying across continents.

Now that you're over the fact that you only spend ~30% of your time actually LEVELLING Archaeology, lets get to work. You'll need to go grab your tools from the Archaeology trainer first, one of them is in Garrosh's house. Once you have learned the tradeskill, bind the spell "Survey" (located in your profession tab of your spellbook) to something easily-accessible; if you'll be doing this for awhile, I'd just bind it to 1. This spell is how you actually find stuff. Also located in your profession tab, is the actual profession spell Archaeology. I'd place this on your bars in another easy-to-find location, as opening this gives you a lot of data. It shows your current artifact project and fragment count for each race, and also shows completed artifacts complete with cool lore info for each one.

In a nutshell, Archaeology is fairly simple. If you open your world map up, you'll see 4 digsites on the continent you are on. Starting off, you can only create artifacts from 4/10 of the races: Night Elves, Trolls, Dwarves, and Fossils. However, you can still dig up the fragments of all of the races. If you zoom into a zone map with a digsite, you'll see a highlighted area, basically the same as WoWs ingame questhelper. This area is where your digsite is. Once you're inside the area, use your "Survey" spell. Some surveying equipment will pop up, point towards the general direction of a fragmen find, and light up according to how close you are; green means you're within 40 yards, yellow means you're close, and red means you're far away. Keep surveying until you discover the find and you'll be rewarded with fragments of that race These act as a currency of sorts, applying to the current artifact project you are on. If you go over the artifact's amount of fragments, completing it will apply the spillover fragments to the next artifact, so you never actually waste fragments. Rarely, you'll also loot a Keystone for that race from the find, which is a BoE item that can be used when you are solving an artifact, and counts as 12 fragments towards that race's current artifact project. To use them, you either click the hexagon "gem-socket" in the archaeology book for that artifact, or drag and drop the Keystone into the socket. Each time you clear a digsite (three finds per digsite) another one is randomly opened on your continent. You get 3-6 fragments per find (9-18 per dig site).

Now for the more tricky/annoying stuff. Each of the races have a TON of common grey artifacts that really serve no other purpose than to give you a little lore info and be vendored. There are also "tiers" of artifacts, level ranges of Archaeology in which you are able to discover more artifacts. Many of the best artifacts can only be discovered at 300+. Every time you complete a project and start a new one, you're automatically given a random artifact from the race, the common ones obviously being more common than the rares or epics. Before any duplicate common artifacts are found, you must complete all of the artifacts currently available to you, which is probably the one GOOD thing about levelling this profession. Rares and epics are just that, rare. You have a small chance after completing any artifact to "proc" a rare or epic.

Before you begin levelling Archaeology, you want to ask yourself which races you eventually want to get rare or epic artifacts from. If you're a healer grinding solely for the epics, you'll obviously choose Night Elves. Caster DPS will want Dwarves, 2H DPS will want Trolls. If at all possible, you will want to save fragments from these races while levelling to 450. Quoted from Reitas, "If you end up with 450 archaeology and 500 troll fragments, you'll have a much better shot at getting 525 archaology and a zin'rokh than if you were 450 archaeology 5 hours sooner but a bunch of troll trash created and no fragments." This may make levelling slower, but if your end goal is an epic, this strategy will save you a ton of farming time overall.

As a note, don't start actually completing artifact projects until you reach level 100, or when actually digging up fragments stops giving you skillups. Common artifact completions give 5 skillups, no matter the race, artifact, or what level you're at. Rares SHOULD be giving 15 skillups as of December 21st hotfixes. This is the ONLY way to level Archaeology past 100. Once you get to 300 however, you can move onto the Outlands races. At 375, Northrend. The speed of leveling really doesn't matter on any continent; it really just matters what races you want to get the majority of your fragments from. If you're under (character) level 85, you gain experience for completing artifacts according to your level, not your level of archaeology or quality of artifact your complete. Once you hit 450, you're essentially done with the large grind for this profession, as all artifacts are now available to you. Now comes the "will I proc my epic artifact" lottery. If you've saved up a truckload of fragments from the race you wanted an epic from, here's where you start creating. And creating. And creating more...

...Unless you're grinding Tol'Vir. Which, I'm assuming, you will be eventually. Tol'Vir is the most annoying of the 10 races to grind, as their sites only pop up in Uldum, and only after 450 skill. This means that any time you finish a Tol'Vir dig, a random Kalimdor dig is chosen, and a vast majority of the time, it won't be another Tol'Vir dig. You essentially have to farm all of Kalimdor to farm Tol'Vir, and this is extremely tedious. But, you've already done most of the legwork with the profession. If you ever see Tol'Vir keystones on the AH, I would recommend buying them, as you can use 2 for each of their 45-fragment commons, which would greatly speed up the process of discovering the artifact you want.

List of epic (iLevel 359) artifacts (all cost 150 fragments to complete, may use up to 3 keystones, and can only be discovered after 450, with one noted exception):

[Ring of the Boy Emperor] (http://www.wowhead.com/item=64904) Tol'Vir

[Scimitar of the Sirocco] (http://www.wowhead.com/item=64885) Tol'Vir

[Staff of Ammunae] (http://www.wowhead.com/item=64880) Tol'Vir

[Staff of Sorcerer-Thane Thaurissan] (http://www.wowhead.com/item=64489) Dwarves

[Zin'rokh, Destroyer of Worlds] (http://www.wowhead.com/item=64377) Trolls

[Tyrande's Favorite Doll] (http://www.wowhead.com/item=64645) Night Elves

Thanks for reading, and happy digging.

[EDIT 1, 12/09/10]:

A few are reporting that the iLevel 359 epics are completely random when attempting to discover the specific artifact. Until official confirmation, we can assume this is true.

[EDIT 2, 12/10/10]:

Cleaned up the OP a little, edited relevant information.

[EDIT 3, 12/14/10]:

Overhauled a few sections which really needed it, added more relevant information.

Big list of edits found at post #229, by Reitas.

[EDIT 4, 12/21/10]:

Rares should now give 15 skillups.

[EDIT 5, 01/07/11]:

Yay sticky! Also, added a link for Archy, because its simply amazing.

Added link to Jinze's archaeology guide on MMO-Champ.

Sources and useful links:

http://www.wowpedia.org/Archaeology

http://www.wowpedia.org/Archaeology_rewards

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=26726035891&sid=2000&pageNo=1#0

Jinze's archaeology guide (very indepth and detailed!)
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/820841-Archaeology-And-all-it-s-dusty-little-secrets!

Taken from Draenna

How To Chose The Right Professions - Catacylsm 4.1.0

2011-05-30T15:08:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my guide on how to choose the right profession for your character or multiple character(s) in World of Warcraft!

For many years I have been playing this game and I have seen multiple people ask the question "Which profession or professions should I take up to make gold easiest in the game?"

The answer to your question is pretty basic. Do you feel like a gathering profession where you can quickly sell items through the Auction House on your realm? Or do you prefer to craft items where you can make a lot of gold selling items to other players such as gear, weapons, or crafted gems, potions, elixir's, or other great stuff?

Now lets see which character you may have in the game and which class you are playing as.

For instance, if you are playing on a rogue, you'll want the professions skinning and leatherworking. The reason I recommend this is because rogues wear leather in-game, and the skins you skin off dead beasts can be used as you level up to make leather armor.

Additionally, with the leather that you don't use from creatures in-game, you can sell on the Auction House for easy gold.

Now if you were playing a mage or other cloth wearing character like a priest for instance, you may want to take up the skills enchanting and tailoring. I recommend these as you can make gear for yourself and then put enchants onto the items. This can prove to be very useful along the road as gold can be coming your way in greater numbers as you level up to the higher levels.

Now lets say you said "Oh, I want to mix up professions. One where I can create items and one that I can use to gather items." This itself is not a bad idea either. I myself have my professions mixed on my mage with me having tailoring and engineering.

I haven't seen many engineer's in-game that are mages, but the reason, I picked engineering to go with my tailoring was to create the mounts for myself to go towards my 100 mount achieve from the last expansion before Cataclysm came out.

Some may say this is a bad idea where others may agree with you doing this. Personally, I think doing this is quite awesome! Namely because I get some gold out of this weekly and I also get to create some pretty awesome items for other players on my realm!

Now, there is one thing you should always remember when you grab your professions, weather they are the secondary ones (Archaeology, Cooking, First Aid, Fishing), or the ones you picked on your character. Make sure to level up the professions in every zone you play in. Always do this because if you wait till you get to the very highest level in-game before leveling them up, it can be costly for you in the end.

If you have professions which are gathering ones, You'll want to remember that information I provided just now because you'll be gathering in many, many, zones as you level up, in-game! If you wait till the last level, you'll find yourself backtracking to older zones you played in to level those kind of professions up.

Same with professions you have for creating items, you'll want to remember this, because lots of the items you need for creating items do indeed drop of mobs in-game as you are leveling up.

Do also note that when you do level your professions to ensure you upgrade them at the trainer for your professions. You may do this in cities in the game. You can also learn new skills to create other goodies too while at the profession trainers.

Besides, If you were to just leave your professions maxed out, This woudn't be too good of an idea. Namely because you need them upgraded to create better items. Also, you want to have them at the highest level possible when you are at the highest level in the game.

This is also a great idea to have them maxed out at the highest level as you can learn epic recipes to create epic items. Epic items sell for a lot of gold and are used by many classes in the game!

It is all up to you, in the end which profession you wish to have! Weather you want to have gathering ones with another profession to create gear or other goods, or have two gathering ones or vice-versa, All professions in this game are good to have!

Here now is a list of all of the professions in-game, and if they are a gathering profession or a profession where you craft items!

Some professions can only be learned at specific levels. Those only being Archaeology (Level 20), and Riding that allows you to ride mounts (Level 20).

Crafting Professions:

Alchemy
Blacksmithing
Enchanting
Engineering
Inscription
Jewelcrafting
Leatherworking
Tailoring

Gathering Professions:

Herbalism
Mining
Skinning

Secondary Professions:

Archaeology
Cooking
First Aid
Fishing
Riding

Read on below to see class and profession combinations I feel are the best for each class. I put them based off of how they fit the character's needs as you level them up!

Here now is an excellent combination of professions you may want to choose from based on your class. I picked the most useful combination that would benefit your class you play mainly in-game! Hopefully this list I compiled is useful for everyone! =)

Important Note: I put more than 2 recommendations on some classes as some classes may want more than 2 recommended professions as they level up. This can vary from gear changing from leather to mail among other reasons.;)

I put a link under each profession recommended as the page linked provides information on the profession recommended. =)

Death Knights Professions Recommended:

Recommendation #1: Blacksmithing
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/profession/blacksmithing

Recommendation #2: Mining
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/profession/mining

Druids Professions Recommended:

Recommendation #1: Alchemy:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/profession/alchemy

Recommendation #2: Herbalism
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/profession/herbalism

Hunters Professions Recommended:

Recommendation #1: Blacksmithing
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/profession/blacksmithing

Recommendation #2: Leatherworking
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/profession/leatherworking

Recommendation #3: Skinning
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/profession/skinning

Mages Professions Recommended:

Recommendation #1: Enchanting
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/profession/enchanting

Recommendation #2: Tailoring
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/profession/tailoring

Paladin Professions Recommdended:

Recommendation #1: Blacksmithing
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/profession/blacksmithing

Recommendation #2: Enchanting
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/profession/enchanting

Priests Professions Recommended:

Recommendation #1: Enchanting
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/profession/enchanting

Recommendation #2: Tailoring
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/profession/tailoring

Shaman Professions Recommended:

Recommendation #1: Enchanting
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/profession/enchanting

Recommendation #2: Herbalism
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/profession/herbalism

Recommendation #3: Tailoring
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/profession/tailoring

Warriors Professions Recommended:

Recommendation #1: Blacksmithing
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/profession/blacksmithing

Recommendation #2: Mining
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/profession/mining

Warlocks Professions Recommended:

Recommendation #1: Enchanting
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/profession/enchanting

Recommendation #2: Herbalism
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/profession/herbalism

Recommendation #3: Tailoring
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/profession/tailoring

Here is an excellent list of webpages, I found on the web that contain further information regarding professions. They contain profession recipes, skills you can learn as you level up, and what you can possibly create!

http://www.wowhead.com
http://www.wowwiki.com
http://www.wowpedia.org

Those three sites I listed above, contain great useful information, plus many other World of Warcraft players utilize those sites above for information along with this community site!

Below is a list of where you can safely get add-on's that can help you with your professions!

http://www.curse.com

http://www.wowinterface.com

If you require assistance with your add-on's be sure to check out the UI and Macro Forum listed below and the Installing and Troubleshooting" thread on that forum.

FAQ: Installing & Troubleshooting AddOns:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1536706542

UI and Macro Forum:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/1011693

Guide taken from Teloraelin on Garrosh

Awesome Rogue's Leveling Guide 4.1.0

2011-05-29T23:24:00.000-07:00

This FAQ is for new rogues. It is full of oversimplifications and generalizations.

What is the best spec for leveling a rogue?

- You can level fairly well as any spec now. Though Assassination probably pulls ahead because of early access to Deadly Momentum and the lack of a positional attack.

What is the best Combat spec?

- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#fbhZfGfcMf0RMo:okMzRVmcV

- This talent focuses on buffing your combo point builders and increasing survivability.

- This is up to level 80. Some talent changes will most likely be needed from 80-85 because of higher health pools.

What is the best Assassination spec?

- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#ffhfzsGzoGobZ0h:qVkRikmcV

- The point in Deadly Brew for pvp and kiting those particularly difficult enemies while recuperate ticks.

- From 80-85, I expect this spec to pull way ahead of the others.

What is the best Subtlety spec?

- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#fbZbZfhcfdu0RGo:zMmiRkmcV

- Nearly everything is subject to debate on this spec since it is so full of filler talents.

- You kill most things after the initial ambush.

- This is up to level 80. A spec change will be needed from 80-85 most likely because of higher health pools.

What stats should I be looking for?

- Agi > Expertise (to cap) > Hit (to cap) > Haste > Mastery (when you get it) > Crit >> Strength

- You will need to check the tooltip on hit and expertise to know what rating is need to not miss.

- This is different than stat priority for group play because you will be attacking from the front, making expertise more valuable. Maybe as valuable than agility from a dps perspective.

What weapons do I use?

- Combat - Slow Sword, Mace, Axe, or Fist in the mainhand and fast weapons in the offhand.

- Assassination - Slow dagger mainhand, fast dagger offhand.

- Subtlety - Slow Dagger manhand, anything offhand.

What poisons do I use?

- Combat - Wound/Wound

- Assassination - Instant/Deadly (Instant/Instant isn't a bad idea before you get Envenom.)

- Subtlety - Wound/Wound

- This is just for leveling. Things change at higher levels.

Does the Worgen racial work with sprint?

- Yes. But the ability is only a 40% speed buff now.

- http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b202/BlazeInferno/WoWScrnShot_112110_024825.jpg

- Credit AmorenKaire for the investigation.

Does the goblin jump work with rogues?

- Yes, and it is useable in stealth. (Expect this to get nerfed too.)

What is a good poison macro?

#showtooltip
/cast [mod:shift] Deadly Poison; [mod:ctrl] Wound Poison; [mod:alt] Crippling Poison; Instant Poison
/use [button:1] 16; [button :2] 17; [button:3] 18
/click StaticPopup1Button1

Use ctrl, shift, alt to apply different poisons to different slots based on which mouse button is clicked. Left mouse for mainhand, right offhand, and middle for ranged slot. The last line clicks the confirmation dialog for when you already have poisons applied. So be careful, since it will confirm other dialogs too, like dungeon finder and battlegrounds.

What is a good Tricks of the Trade macro?

#showtooltip
/cast [mod:shift, @targettarget] [@focus, exists] [] Tricks of the Trade

Casts tricks at your focus target, if you press shift it cast at your target's target. Great for tank switches in raids. If you run with regular tanks, or trade tricks with the same rogues all the time you can put in their names in the macro with @name. Works normally with no focus target.

You can also use the addon TrickorTreat, or you can setup Clique to trick whatever target you want by hovering over their unit window (I use grid).

Why do I do crappy damage in dungeons?

- Rogues do low damage on dungeons because they lack and Area of Effect (aoe) damage ability. At 80, you will get Fan of Knives, which throws your thrown weapon (and poison) in a 360 degree arc at 8 yards. It is awesome and something to look forward too.

- Combat also has Blade Flurry, with attacks the next nearest target also. Use with Adrenaline Rush for full effect.

- Don't worry to much about low level dungeons though, they are quick enough for most groups anyway. You should find that you single target damage is unbeatable though.

Note on Glyphs

- There are a lot of good choices for glyphs. I noted some good ones for each spec on the talent trees, but only a few glyph choices are ever cut and dried especially for leveling and for the major glyphs. With the exception of Eviscerate, all of the finished glyphs are very nice as you can often get your buffs/debuffs up on a target with few combo points for the duration of the fight. Slice and Dice helps keep the buff up between pulls.

What heirlooms should I buy?
Besides the agility leather. You can buy the sword or mace. A dagger would be optimal for leveling as assassination or subtlety. However, daggers will only be really useful for leveling a rogue. Considering the increased cost of heirlooms, from an economy standpoint, it would be a good idea to level as combat with a sword and/or mace to maximize reusability. I would buy one sword or mace and use drops for the offhand slot.

Assassination Guide

As you level, I recommend you buy the talents in order:

Deadly Momentum 2/2
Lethality 3/3
Quickening 2/2
Puncturing Wounds 3/3
Vile Poisons 3/3
Cold Blood 1/1
Deadly Brew 1/2
Seal Fate 2/2
Deadened Nerves 3/3
Master Poisoner 1/1
Overkill 1/1
Coupe de Grace 3/3
Cut to the Chase 3/3
Venomous Wounds 2/2
Vendetta 1/1
Improved Recuperate 2/2
Relentless Strikes 3/3

When you get envenom at level 54, that becomes your main finisher. Rupture and Garrote are used for energy regen, the damage is a bonus. If you are fighting two opponents and one if about to die, it might be a good idea to finish with rupture and let its damage and poisons kill it and start on the next opponent. That way you'll have the energy regen from rupture still ticking to power your mutilates on the next target. When an opponent dies with rupture still going, it will refund all the energy proportional to the energy use and the energy from venomous wounds. If you time it right, you can build your combo points and get the energy return to finish on your next target. Its a great mini-game to play.

Macros:

#showtooltip
/startattack
/cast Mutilate

Useful to start attacking even when you don't have enough energy to do so.

Notes:

You will mainly be finishing with Envenom when it becomes available or, when things are dying too quickly to stack Deadly Poison, use Eviscerate instead. In which case, it "might" be optimal to try Wound instead for the higher proc rate. In fact, judging by how quickly things are dying now at low levels, it will probably work better. Then again, most things are dying in 3 or 4 buttons presses anyway.

Combat Guide

Improved Recuperate 2/2
Improved Sinister Strike 3/3
Precision 3/3
Aggression 3/3
Lightning Reflexes 3/3
Reinforced Leather 2/2
Combat Potency 3/3
Improved Sprint 1/2
Adrenaline Rush 1/1
Savage Combat 2/2
Improved Sprint 2/2
Improve Slice and Dice 2/2
Improved Gouge 2/2
Killing Spree 1/1
Deadly Momentum 2/2
Lethality 3/3

Macros

#showtooltip
/startattack
/cast Sinister Strike

Useful to start attacking even when you don't have enough energy to do so.

Subtlety Guide

Relentless Strikes 3/3
Night Stalker 2/2
Improved Ambush 3/3
Opportunity 3/3
Hemorrhage 1/1
Find Weakness 2/2
Initiative 2/2
Premeditation 1/1
Honor Among Thieves 3/3
Energetic Recovery 3/3
Sanguinary Vein 2/2
Slaughter from the Shadows 3/3
Serrated Blades 2/2
Shadow Dance 1/1
Deadly Momentum 2/2
Improved Recuperate 2/2
Lethality 1/3

Notes:

Also note that the hemo glyph isn't that useful until you get serrated blades, as it is usualy more benficial to gouge, get some energy, and backstab a mob instead of spamming hemo-wet-noodle. Just something to think about.

Macros:

#showtooltip
/startattack
/cast Hemorrhage

Useful to start attacking even when you don't have enough energy to do so.

#showtooltip Ambush
/cast Premeditation
/cast Ambush

Uses Premeditation (extra 2 combo points) every time you ambush and premeditation is available. (It will still work even if premed is on cooldown.)

General Stategies

These spec aren't designed the same as end game specs, or even 80-85 specs, as I've noted here and there. At cap, and soloing for 80-85, mobs live much longer and you often finish multiple times during a fight including buffs. At lower levels, finishing is a rarity. A typical fight usually involves spamming a combo point builder until it dies. Use the leftover points to buff up SnD or Recuperate and move on.

Don't underestimate Slice and Dice it is a very strong buff, every spec does large amounts of physical damage. Your weakest finisher is a competition between expose armor and rupture because of the energy investment those finishers require versus the duration of the fight.

It is not as hard to level now as it once was, but try and practice your CC abilities. It possible to take on 3-4 opponents at once with most having been CC'd. I also encourage every rogue to try PvP. It really teaches you how to play your class more than any PvE encounter ever could.

Taken from http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1083749119

Rogue Subtlety Guide 4.1.0

2011-05-29T23:21:00.000-07:00

Subtlety is considered the least viable pve spec due to its complex rotation which makes switching targets painful. In addition, if mechanics of an encounter make backstabbing impossible, the dps loss is significant. However, in an ideal fight (all time spent behind the boss and lots of crits) sub will likely be the best spec. Basically the max dps is amazing, but dps from fight-to-fight is inconsistent.

Non-obvious Terms:
SS = Shadowstep
BS = Backstab
ShD = Shadow Dance
SnD = Slice and Dice
EA = Expose Armor
HaT = Honor Among Thieves
MoS = Master of Subtlety
FW = Find Weakness
* = Found at post #3

Contents:
1. Talents/glyphs
2. Rotation
3. Stats
4. Reforging/Gems/Enchants (oh my!) (Also BiS sets)*
5. Credits/updates*
6. Patch changes*

Talents:

The best build for pure dps is:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#fMhcZ0bZcGcsdu0RGo
There are no filler points, though the weakest talent is Initiative, followed by Elusiveness.

Glyphs:

Prime:
Glyph of Slice and Dice – Required
Glyph of Backstab – Required
Glyph of Eviscerate – Good, slightly better than ShD (* full ShD comparison below)
Glyph of Shadow Dance – Use if your using EA, have the 4 pc t11 bonus, or having rotation issues
Glyph of Hemorrhage – Useful for heroics to apply bleed

Major:
Glyph of Tricks of the Trade – Raid DPS increase
Glyph of Feint – Use if they make you AoE

Minor:
Your call

Rotation:

This is the hardest part of playing subtlety, and will make or break you depending on the fight or your skill. These abilities assume you are attacking a boss or otherwise high-HP mob.
Addons that track buff/debuff durations are extremely helpful*

If you have combo-points before the battle, use them on SnD.

Use Premeditation, SS-> Ambush (Assuming a bleed is up or will be shortly, otherwise garrote)

Build combo-points with Backstab, always let HaT proc the 5th to ensure you don’t waste any combo-points while waiting for energy/GCD. Keep up Hemo, and use that if not behind the enemy.

Finisher Priority:

SnD (Massive dps boost, can be refreshed before 5 CP) -> Rupture (Bleed, try to use this during the 10% bonus from MoS, the buff will continue as you refresh it) -> Recup (Refresh with under 3 secs left. Required for rotation but less dps than SnD and keeping a MoS'd rupture is better in the long run. If MoS isn't on rupture and a bleed is up, this takes priority over rupture.*) -> Eviscerate (5 CP only) -> EA (If there is not already an armor debuff, and if it will not hurt the rotation. If you include this, use the glyph and apply it during periods of excess CP.)

Vanish on-cooldown to refresh FW and MoS. Pool energy and use up CP before using for max benefit. (Personal note: This can be used for fast CP, so saving this or prep for this purpose may be best) Always wait for FW to be down before using this, as overlapping a FW buff is a major dps loss, unless it has almost no time left before the refresh. Waiting for SS is also optimal if you don't need it for the mobility. To maximize FW effectiveness you want to fit the most eviscerates as possible into the stage without hurting your rotation, so refresh accordingly.

ShD follows the same rules as vanish. Basically replace backstab with ambush, and only use SS after FW is up.

Use SS for general mobility, just don't be stupid with it. You can dodge tail-swipes, so use evasion to allow SS in your ShD phase.

Burn Phase/Preparation: Generally use this in a burn phase, during Lust/Heroism/fakeversions, follow all the rules laid out in the vanish part unless otherwise mentioned.
Use Vanish->SS->Ambush, then prep (to refresh SS CD, and vanish for later). After about 8 secs, use ShD. Try to time it so your first ambush is with FW up, and use SS with it. Once the ShD FW is about to expire, use vanish->ambush.

Stats

Here are the Elitist Jerks EP values, meaning how many points of Attack Power = 1 ___

Stat EP

Agi 3.6
Yellow Hit 1.4
Haste 1.35
Expertise 1.15
Crit 1.1
Spell Hit 1.05
Mastery 0.9
White Hit 0.8

These are close approximations with BiS gear, and change depending on current stat layout. These are also assuming a perfect fight, so the stats that will give you the best dps will likely be more rotation-oriented.

Specifically, while agi is amazing and still on top, I would place Expertise slightly above crit, since a dodged BS/evis can be detrimental to the rotation (though haste is still quite important). Expertise also gains significant value if you need to face the boss (using hemo), which makes the spec slightly more linear from fight-to-fight.

Due to the character cap in posts, *s redirect here.

Reforging/Gems/Enchants (oh my!)

Reforging:

In general, try to use creative reforging to meet your caps (especially expertise) as closely as possible. After that, reforge to haste, or crit if there are no other options.

Gems/Enchants:
Agility all the way. If there is a 20 agility bonus that can be attained by using a haste/agi gem, do that. For the meta, use Agile Shadowspirit Diamond. For enchants, use EP values, I find it unnecessary to use a run-speed enchant, as SS makes running somewhat rare.

For poisons, I use instant/deadly/deadly, but for fights where DP will fall off often, use Wound in MH.

BiS Gear

Mine (I did it on the shadowcraft spreadsheet but with going for expertise. A thrown wep would be used for AoE encounters.): Link just went to my current gear, BiS link/set in progress

Glyph of ShD vs. Evis (Kyrrion, my friends, my target dummy)
The glyphs are quite close, but both my tests and EJ's voodoo say Eviscerate has a slight edge (~1k dps in the gear I tested it on). However, use ShD if your job is to put up Expose Armor, or if you have the 4 pc t11 bonus. It is also worth mentioning that ShD scales worse with crit, so at lower gear levels they are likely closer. The gear I tested in was about lvl 350. ShD also has the benefit of offering more burst, so if the burn phase of an encounter is extra important (or there are periods of boss-weakness which ShD can be lined up with), ShD would likely be better. If you are prone to having rupture fall off and need direct reapplications, the value of glyph of eviscerate will drop significantly every time you reapply rupture.

Relevant PTR changes/speculation (NOTE: None of this is set in stone, and until numbers are done by others after the patch is released, you should take all of this with a grain of salt)

BiS Gear (with gems, enchants, and some sketchy reforging*)
http://goo.gl/f1JrT

*If you find a better way to reforge, please speak up. It was kind of rushed. And I was going for Expertise Cap on purpose.

Landslide x2 vs Landslide + Hurricane
Here's basically what I found. Landslide + Hurricane is better due to the fact that Hurricane can proc off spells (Recuperate). Landslide should go on the main hand because the spell proc'd Hurricane is independant and the other Hurricane can't compete alone.

Say you get about 8 procs over 5 min from your offhand (about 20% haste with a 50% Slice and Dice and both enchants proc at 1 PPM). Since a spell proc of Hurricane refreshes the melee stack if it exists at the moment, let's assume procs happen on average time. (300/8= every 37.5 seconds for melee procs + every 45 seconds due to an ICD for the spell proc).
# of seconds past for each proc
Melee: 37.5, 75, 112.5, 150, 187.5, 225, 262.5, 300
Spell: 45, 90, 135, 180, 225, 270

So the 1st and 7th melle Hurricane proc is refreshed by the spell, taking away 2 full spell procs. That is an additional 15 seconds on the melee proc though.

So now with the 8 procs and the additional 15 seconds of melee, we've got a 37% uptime (so an average of 166.5 haste for the 5 minutes) of melee Hurricane. Add in the 4 spells which have a 16% uptime (so about average 72 haste) and we've got about 238.5 haste from the offhand enchant. Now if Landslide were on the offhand instead, we'd have a 32% uptime on that (average of 320 attack power).

238.5 * 1.35 = 321.975 is the Hurricane's value in attack power (according to the stat weights) vs 320.

I'd say it really doesn't matter which you choose. Landslide could be more consistent dps overall since it's less RNG, but Hurricane definately has potential to do better (and is pretty cheap too).

Best Way to Open
This is only at the very beginning of any fight.

Open like normal (Shadowstep > Premeditation > Ambush) and go with the standard rotation until Shadowstep comes off CD. When it does come off CD, Vanish into Premed + Ambush but do NOT use Shadowstep with the Ambush! Use it after the Ambush hits and use Preparation after you hit Shadowstep. You now have the 10 second buff to your next Ambush, Shadowstep off cooldown, and Find Weakness on your target. Right before Find Weakness falls off, hit Shadowdance and procede as normal (saving the Shadowstep for the 2nd Ambush). This way an extra Shadowstepped Ambush under Find Weakness.

To simplify:
Vanish > Premed + Ambush > Shadowstep > Preparation > Shadowdance right before Find Weakness expires.

Taken from Haileaus@Azul_nerub

Assassination Rogues Guide 4.1.0

2011-05-29T23:18:00.000-07:00

Actually it was in a locked compartment of his bunk inside his room at SI:7 headquarters, but I think we can agree it’s obvious he wanted me to save him the trouble of having it delivered. I’ll skip the parts about his mother and his ranting about getting even with VanCleef; and honestly, “READ THIS AND DIE” scralled on the cover was really just absolute overkill on so many levels.

This guide is intended for level 85 heroic- and raiding-geared assassination rogues. Much of the information will be useful for others as well, but the details may be slightly off. Practically all of this is straight from Elitist Jerks (of course), and I’ve supplied source links for important stuff. I’m clueless about combat, subtlety, and player-vs-player information, so please don’t ask.

Also, if this thread comes across as slightly overwhelming, I suggest you go here first:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2046965585

Table of Contents:

I. Recent and Upcoming Assassination Changes.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1658707015?page=1#2
II. Equivalence Points.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1658707015?page=1#3
III. Talent Builds and Glyphs.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1658707015?page=1#4
IV. Caps.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1658707015?page=1#5
V. Rotation.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1658707015?page=1#6
VI. Weapons and Poisons.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1658707015?page=1#7
VII. Gems.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1658707015?page=1#8
VIII. Enchants.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1658707015?page=1#9
IX. Reforging.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1658707015?page=1#10
X. Professions.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1658707015?page=1#12
XI. Consumables.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1658707015?page=1#13
XII. Tier and Trinkets.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1658707015?page=1#14
XIII. Gear Lists (part I).
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1658707015?page=1#15
XIV. Gear Lists (Part II).
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1658707015?page=1#16

Shaman FAQ for Cataclysm - 4.1.0 WoW

2011-05-25T08:24:00.001-07:00

All information primarily pertains to PvE unless otherwise noted.

Which Weapon Imbues Should I Use?
- Enhancement: Slow mainhand with Windfury and a slow offhand with Flametongue. Fast offhands are not viable as Stormstrike and Lava Lash are instant non-normalized attacks.
- Elemental uses Flametongue and Restoration uses Earthliving.
- Rockbiter is highly situational and encounter-specific. Frostbrand is PvP-only.

Which Glyphs Should I Use?
Enhancement
Prime - Glyph of Lava Lash, Glyph of Stormstrike, and Glyph of Feral Spirit.
Major - Glyph of Healing Stream Totem and Glyph of Ghost Wolf are very useful. If AEing, use Glyph of Chain Lightning and Glyph of Fire Nova.

Elemental
Prime - Glyph of Lightning Bolt, Glyph of Lava Burst, and Glyph of Flame Shock.
Major - Glyph of Lightning Shield and Glyph of Thunder. The remaining one is at your discretion. Glyph of Chain Lightning is nice for quick AE and Glyph of Healing Stream Totem is always great to have.

Restoration
Prime - Glyph of Earth Shield, Glyph of Riptide, and Glyph of Water Shield. If you don't have mana issues, replace Glyph of Water Shield with Glyph of Earthliving Weapon.
Major - Glyph of Chain Heal for raiding, free if not. Glyph of Healing Stream Totem is a fine choice.

Gearing Enhancement
The proper way to determine stat weights is to run the simulator with your stats plugged in.

http://enhsim.codeplex.com/

1) First get 17% spell hit (1742 hit rating, 1639 for Draenei) and 26 expertise (540 expertise rating, as we get 8 expertise from Unleashed Rage).
2) Agility > Mastery > Crit > Haste > Hit (until hard DW melee cap at 21%) > Intellect
3) Gem Agility.

Note that hit has soft caps at 2% (for special melee attacks, including 6% melee hit from talents) and 17% (for spells) and a hard melee cap at 21% (covers everything, assuming 6% melee hit from Dual Wield).

Reforging Enhancement
1) Reforge to 17% spell hit and 26 expertise.
2) Reforge all your Hit (over 17% spell hit), Crit, and Haste to Mastery. In that order.
3) Reforge any remaining excess Hit and Haste to Crit.

Gearing Elemental
1) Spell hit to 17% (1742 hit rating, 1639 for Draenei). Remember that 1 point of Spirit = 1 spell hit rating. Spirit is better than hit rating as it also provides mana regeneration.
2) Intellect > Spellpower > Haste > Mastery >> Crit
3) Gem Intellect.

Reforging Elemental
1) Reforge to Spirit until you reach 17% spell hit.
2) Reforge all Hit/Spirit (over 17% spell hit), Crit and Mastery to Haste. In that order.
3) Reforge any remaining excess Hit/Spirit and Crit to Mastery.

Gearing Resto
If you often run out of mana, prioritize Spirit over everything but Intellect.

1) Int > Haste (below soft cap) > Mastery > Spirit > Crit > Haste (past cap)
2) Gem Intellect.

Reforging Resto
1) Reforge everything into haste until the soft cap.
2) If the item already has haste or you're at the soft cap, reforge to mastery.
3) If the item already has mastery, reforge to spirit.

The Resto Haste Soft Cap
Restoration has a soft cap at 916 Haste Rating for non-goblins and 788 for goblins. This is the point where all HoT spells get one additional tick. Past this point, haste value drops. The second tick comes at roughly 4000 haste rating, which is not currently possible.

How to AE
Elemental
Earthquake > Flame Shock > Fire Nova > Chain Lightning. You will have one empty GCD in this priority which could technically be filled with magma totem or thunderstorm if you're already in range and very low latency. Flame shock should be "multidotted" to multiple targets.

Enhance
MW5 Chain Lightning > Flame Shock > Fire Nova > Magma Totem. "Multidot" Flame Shock and continue your single-target priority between AE cooldowns. Remember that Unleash Flame works with Fire Nova.

Enhancement Simplified Priority
Enhancement uses a priority list since many spells have staggered cooldowns and Maelstrom Weapon stacks are random. Use the following abilities in order of priority to maximize sustained damage. Note that this priority is simplified to the point where humans can reliably execute it. You should also use your cooldowns (trinkets, wolves, fire elemental, etc) as often as possible.

1) Lightning Bolt - With a 5 stack of Maelstrom Weapon. Use Chain Lightning only if >1 target.
2) Lava Lash - Don't worry about searing stacks on your target, use this on cooldown.
3) Unleash Elements
4) Refresh Searing Totem, if necessary.
5) Flame Shock - Only use if the FS DoT is down.
6) Stormstrike
7) Earth Shock

Unleash Elements
This ability has different effects based upon your equipped weapon imbues. Dualwielding shamans get both. Note that Unleash Flame does not buff Lava Lash damage.

- Unleash Wind (Windfury): http://wowhead.com/spell=73681
- Unleash Flame (Flametongue): http://wowhead.com/spell=73683
- Unleash Life (Earthliving): http://wowhead.com/spell=73685
- Unleash Frost (Frostbrand): http://wowhead.com/spell=73682
- Unleash Earth (Rockbiter): http://wowhead.com/spell=73684

Windfury Weapon
- Scales with weapon DPS, attack power, haste, crit, and hit.
- Mitigated by armor and block, avoided by dodge, parry, and miss.
- Has a 5% special attack type melee miss chance.
- The best imbue for enhancement shamans on the main hand.
- The three extra attacks can proc Flurry and weapon on hit effects. They do not consume Flurry charges and don't glance.
- When used offhand, the three extra attacks are affected by the standard offhand 50% damage reduction. The WF proc's attack power bonus is not.

Windfury Totem
- The Windfury Totem now grants 10% melee and ranged attack speed. It stacks with the shaman-only weapon imbue.

The Windfury Cooldown
After WF procs it cannot proc again on either hand for 3 seconds. No 1H weapon in the entire game can proc WF twice in a row. This means that WF will proc less than the 20% promised on its tooltip.

- When only one weapon has WF, each hit outside of the cooldown has a 20% chance to proc. This leads to a 11-18% overall proc rate, depending on gear, weapon speed, spec, and luck. Slower is better.
- When both weapons have WF, each hit outside of the cooldown has a 36% chance to proc. This leads to a 11-14% procrate with weapons faster than 2.0s unhasted and a 14-18% procrate with weapons slower than 2.0s unhasted. Slower is better.

Flametongue Weapon and Totem
- The best mainhand imbue for elemental shamans and the best offhand for enhancement shamans.
- FT should never be used mainhand by enhance shamans.
- The glyph of Flametongue Weapon stacks when dualwielding, giving 4% spell crit.
- The FT totem gives a 6% total spell power buff. This stacks with the static buff on FT weapon but does not stack with 10% spell power buffs provided by elemental shamans and demonology warlocks.

Earthliving Weapon
- Earthliving (EL) is the weapon imbue for restoration shamans.
- The EL effect has a chance to proc on each "jump" of a chain heal.
- The Heal over Time (HoT) effect ticks every second and refreshes itself when it procs frequently. It does not stack.
- When dualwielded, the healing spell power effect and procrate are both doubled, but the HoT still does not stack.

Frostbrand Weapon
- Scales with spell power, attack power (with Mental Quickness), crit, hit, melee haste.
- Mitigated by spell resist, frost resist, avoided by dodge, parry, and miss.
- Has a normal spell miss chance of 17% against level+3 bosses.
- Crits at 100% damage with the elemental talent Elemental Fury.
- Benefits from 10% of your spell power per proc.
- Procs at 9 procs per minute.
- With Mental Quickness, FB scales with attack power, but it scales considerably worse then FT. FB should not be used for its damage. It is situationally useful in PvP only.
- Does not proc Elemental Focus on crits.
- Does not slow bosses. Frostbrand is a PvP-only ability.

Maelstrom Weapon
- Maelstrom Weapon (MW) is a spec-defining talent. A 5-stack Lightning Bolt should always be a high priority for both sustained and burst DPS.
- MW ranks give 3/6/9 base procs per minute (PPM).
- Note that this is before dualwielding, windfury, instant attacks, and haste like flurry or WF totem. MW procs a lot more than 9 per minute. Due to instant attacks, slow weapons are better than fast.
- Unlike many PPM enchants, MW scales with haste. Haste provides additional MW procs.
- Spells cast with partial MW stacks do not reset the swing timer. They suspend it.
- Do not drop ranks of Maelstrom Weapon. Get all 3.

Unleashed Rage
- Unleashed rage is a mandatory talent even if your raid has a hunter, paladin, or DK to provide the AP buff.

The Elemental Focus Talent
- Elemental focus procs on every offensive spell crit, giving a buff reducing the cost of the next two spells by 40%.
- This buff also works on heals. It does not stack to greater than two. Instead it refreshes itself.
- Each Chain Lightning hit has one chance to proc elemental focus.
- Elemental Mastery gives one free spell and you gain the elemental focus buff.

Searing Totem
- Searing totem is mandatory for single-target damage. It should always be kept up due to its interaction with Searing Flames, Lava Lash, and Improved Lava Lash.

Deep Healing (Resto Mastery)
Deep Healing is a simple function that improves linearly as your target's health drops. It works with every shaman heal.

Point for point, mastery rating is better than haste rating if your target has under 53% health. Haste rating is thus superior to mastery in most situations.

Looking at crit rating, casting Chain Heal and Healing Rain, mastery rating wins if your target has under 83% health. On single-target heals, it beats crit rating if your target has under 68% health.

Deep Healing Multiplier (DHM) = This is the value on your mastery tooltip. It starts at 20% and each point of Mastery (179.28 Mastery Rating @ 85) adds 3%.

Total Healing = DHM * (Target's Missing Health as a Percentage / 100)

Lets say you have 500 Mastery Rating and your Healing Wave heals for 4000. Your first target is at 75% health.

20 + ((500 / 45.9) * 3) * (25 / 100) = 13.17% additional healing
4000 * 1.1317 = 4527 total

Your second target is about to die at 15% health.

20 + ((500 / 45.9) * 3) * (85 / 100) = 44.78% additional healing
4000 * 1.4478 = 5791 total

Glyph of Lightning Shield
- The tooltip is confusing. It should read "Your Lightning Shield can no longer drop below 3 charges."

Primal Strike
Primal Strike shares a cooldown with Stormstrike. Once you get Stormstrike at level 31, take Primal Strike off your bars.

Lava Lash
- LL is a standard non-normalized offhand attack that happens to do fire damage. It is affected by the 50% offhand damage penalty just like a normal offhand attack. It crits at 100%.
- It does not benefit from spell power, etc, and will proc everything a normal offhand attack will proc like flametongue, windfury, mongoose, flurry, etc.
- LL completely bypasses armor and is resisted like a fire spell, but uses melee hit. It also benefits from buffs to spell damage, like curse of the elements.
- LL is very high priority due to its flat damage buff and its interaction with Searing Totem's DoT.

Dude, Where's my Cleansing Totem?!
- It's gone!
- Sentry Totem is gone too, but you probably didn't miss it much.

Which Totems aren't raid-wide?
- Healing Stream and Grounding totems remain group-only.

Bloodlust/Heroism/Time Warp/Ancient Hysteria
- These spells drop the global cooldown to 1s. They stack with Windfury Totem and Improved Icy Touch.

How Haste Works
Haste is not a straight speed reduction. 30% haste from Flurry does not make your 2.0s weapon attack at 1.4s; it actually attacks at 1.54s. The same formulas work for melee and spell haste. They are:

Haste multiplier = 1 / ((100 + haste%) / 100)
Hasted weapon speed = unhasted weapon speed * haste multiplier
Flurry haste multiplier = 1 / 1.3 = 0.769

So for flurry, simply divide your unhasted speed by 1.3.

Earth Shield
- [BUG] Earth Shield is only affected by the Purification specialization when cast upon yourself. So you lose out on 10% effectiveness.
- [BUG] Mana cost not reduced by tidal focus.
- The spellpower coefficient is determined when you cast the spell, so you can blow your trinkets and cooldowns for a better earth shield proactively.

Spell Power Coefficients - Healing
Chain Heal - 99.1% (35.2 + 27.1% + 20.8% + 16.0% on each "jump")
Cleansing Waters - 28.2% (at 2 talent points)
Earth Shield - 109.4% (12.2% per charge)
Earthliving Weapon - 5.8% (per HoT tick)
Greater Healing Wave - 96.7%
Healing Rain - 8.3% (per tick)
Healing Stream Totem - 8.3% (per 2 second tick)
Healing Surge - 60.4%
Healing Wave - 30.2%
Riptide - 23.4% (direct) + 7.5% (per HoT tick)
Unleash Life (Earthliving) - 20.1%

Spell Power Coefficients - Damage
Chain Lightning - 150.4% total (57.1%, 40%, 20%, 19.6%, and 13.7% per jump respectively)
Earth Shock - 38.6%
Fire Nova - 14.3%
Flame Shock - 21.4% (DD) and 10.0% (per DoT tick)
Flametongue Weapon - Scales with weapon speed from 5% to 15%.
Frost Shock - 38.6%
Frostbrand Weapon - 10% per proc
Lava Burst - 62.8%
Lightning Bolt - 71.4%
Lightning Shield - 27.7% (per ball)
Magma Totem - 6.7% (per 2s pulse)
Searing Totem - 16.7% (per 1.65s shot)
Unleash Flame (Flametongue) - 42.9%
Unleash Frost (Frostbrand) - 38.6%

Stat Caps
Raiding Melee Hit (Specials) = 8% - 6% from Dual Wield = 2% = 240 Hit Rating (120 Draenei)
Raiding Melee Hit (Autoattack) = 27% - 6% from Dual Wield = 21% = 2522 Hit Rating (2402 Draenei)
Raiding Spell Hit = 17% = 1742 Hit Rating (1639 Draenei)
Raiding Expertise = 6.5% = 26 Expertise - 8 from Unleashed Rage = 18 Expertise = 540 Expertise Rating
Heroic Melee Hit (Specials) = 6% - 6% from Dual Wield = 0% = 0 Hit Rating
Heroic Melee Hit (Autoattack) = 25% - 6% from Dual Wield = 19% = 2282 Hit Rating (2162 Draenei)
Heroic Spell Hit = 6% = 615 Hit Rating (512 Draenei)
Heroic Expertise = 6% = 24 Expertise - 8 from Unleashed Rage = 16 Expertise = 481 Expertise Rating
Resto Haste Soft Cap = 916 Haste Rating (788 Goblin)

Skills, Stats, and Ratings at 85
Note that avoidance stats and resilience have diminishing returns, so the benefit per rating point drops as you stack them.

1 Strength = 1 Attack Power
1 Agility = 2 Attack Power
1 Expertise = 30.03 Expertise Rating = 0.25% less dodges/parries from your target
1 Mastery = 179.28 Mastery rating
1% Melee Hit = 120.11 Hit rating
1% Spell Hit = 102.45 Hit rating
1% Crit = 179.3 Critical strike rating = 324.9 Agility (melee) = 648.9 Intellect (spell)
1% Haste = 128.06 haste rating
1% Dodge = 176.7 Dodge rating = 304.0 agility
1% Parry = 176.7 Parry rating
1% Chance to block = 88.4 Block chance rating
1% Resilience = 276.12 Resilience rating = 1% less damage from players

Hope it answers questions pertaining to Shaman's FAQs.

Taken from SLANT

Shaman Resto Pro Guide 4.1.0 - Cataclysm

2011-05-25T08:05:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the premium Resto Shaman guide in the World....of Warcraft. Sit back and enjoy, because if resto is your game, you'll walk away playing your class to the max.

This guide is aimed at the already raiding Resto Shaman. If you're fresh to the class and looking for where to start, then this will not be the guide for you. Secretgarden has a wonderful guide for the starter Resto Shaman, so go there for all your beginner needs to get your feet wet. http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1577519250

If you're already raiding and looking at what it takes to push your class to the max, then you're in the right place. This will give you the info you need for whats best in raids to maximize your performance.

Also this guide will be written from a 4.1 perspective. The mastery changes are looking to go through in their current state, and the importance of that will effect our stat choices a fair bit. However things like Spirit link won't be written about until it's live due to needing to test it.

Table of Contents
Section 1 – Talent Builds
Section 2 – Glyphs
Section 3 – Stats
3.1 - Int
3.2 - Spirit
3.3 - Crit
3.4 - Haste
3.5 - Mastery
Section 4 – Roles and Optimal Stat Choices
Section 5 – Gemming
Section 6 – Enchants
Section 7 – MTT and your Mana
Section 8 – Spirit Link Totem
Section 9 – Healing Ideology
Section 10 – Healing Methodology

**** Section 1) Talent Builds ****
I've now accepted that TC is viable if you want it as your healing style. With gear scaling, you get very decent mana return. On the low end in hard modes 200mp5 can be expected, on the high end 2k mp5 can easily be reached. I've seen enough ranked parses from WOL to know that it can work and you can still do great healing with it. So here are your 3 best builds.

Cookie Cutter Max hps build
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hhZbhMZfGbMsdcoGo
This is your do-it-all spec. It works with any role, and any stat priority. Assuming mana isn't a concern, it will be your best hps spec.

Non EP based TC resto build
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hbZbhMZsGbMsdcRGo
Sacrifices a bit of hps from losing 1% crit in order to allow you the ability to regen mana using TC. The idea being during low damage downtime you weave LB's in between your heals giving you more mana overall to cast bigger heals when you need them. The catch is, this style of play is most viable if you are a haste/crit stat build shaman to maximize your TC return and minimize LB castime. In addition in a tank healing role or 10man role, downtime is harder to come by so you'll have less a chance to really use TC.

EP based TC resto build
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hhb0bZbZfGbMsbcRGo
Same as above, but sacrifices even more throughput and mobility in order to give a greater amount of mana return. The idea being with the greater mana return, you then are able to spam your higher throughput spells more freely to compensate. So you're able to serve your raid in that role if required. Two core points with this build is that you'll need 2640 spirit to hitcap and you'll need a +runspeed boot enchant to compensate for loss of AS.

So which build should you play? Well first of all you have to ask yourself if you want to use TC for not. Some Shaman swear by it, some swear at it. It's a personal decision. In the end it comes down to your personal spell usage and healing style. There are ZERO encounters in this game that require you to have TC, so think of it only as a 'buffer' for your mana. Gear, gem and play properly, and you don't need it. But having TC allows you to recover mana in downtime to blow mana more freely during hectic times.

The best way I can relate is dig back to wrath raiding. Personally my mp5 was in the area of 90 or less throughout the entirety of the x-pack. Even in Ulduar when everyone was stacking int to overcome their mana problems, I blasted my way through content stacking haste because I was able to. And set dozens of ranked hps parses along the way. So ask yourself if you can relate to this or not. If your find you have mana problems due to whatever reason in your heal style, then TC will be worth a look for you. If you find that you're able to heal in a way that you don't need active mana regen mechanics and just blast out hps all day long non stop, then go for the max hps build.

Edited by Jynus on 4/12/11 10:39 AM (PDT) **** Section 2) Glyphs ****
Prime
Glyph of Riptide
Glyph of Earthliving Weapon
Glyph of Earth Shield

Major
Glyph of Healing Stream Totem
Glyph of Chain Heal
Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem

These choices are your cookie cutter glyphs. The only other glyph that you might want to take instead would be Glyph of Water Shield. You would use it in place of Riptide or ELW if you're finding you're having mana problems. If you're more a tank healer, use it in place of ELW. If you're more a raid healer, use it in place of Riptide.

**** Section 3) Stats ****
You will see a big change in the way of thinking here. It was a bit of a epiphany for me too. First of all, the way a lot of us (me included) have been looking at stats has been flawed. Mostly in how we look at crit. It's time we reevaluated. Crit is NOT a throughput stat. It's in fact a regen stat. It's function if you will is to replace spirit the more we gear. It's NOT to be used in place of haste or mastery if your goal is increasing your hps. Once this paradigm shift sinks in, your gearing strat becomes a lot clearer.

3.1 - Int
Int is your prime stat. You gem for it, you gear for it. You take the gear upgrade that has more Int, and reforge the stats if need be to suit yourself. When it comes to Int, gearscore, sadly, matters... The more Int the better. Int is the new haste. That is about all that needs to be said on the subject.

3.2 - Spirit
Spirit is your prime regen stat. Stack it hard and high to support your big heal spamming. How much is enough you ask? Well honestly there is no exact answer other than it's enough when you don't run oom. But I will give a value of 2640 fully raid buffed as a target. For a couple of reasons. Firstly Mana Tide Totem is a raidwide CD that benefits all healers including yourself. Having a solid base amount that gives consistent mana for everyone is a huge benefit. Second because it gives you the freedom to hitcap yourself if needed for any encounter. Now this isn't a hard set in stone cap value, if you find you need a lot more than this to do your job, stack it higher. If you and your raid team find that mana isn't a concern and you have no reason to ever spec EP, then feel free to go lower.

3.3 - Crit
Your secondary regen stat. At this point in the game, I can't call crit a throughput stat. It's way too weak compared to haste and mastery. There is nothing that crit brings to the table throughput wise that mastery and haste can't do better. So the old way of stacking crit past the haste breakpoint as a gearing strat is dead except for entry level gearing.

Instead it's time to start looking at crit as a regen stat. Think of it as a replacement for spirit. It's a fancy form of spirit that sacrifices some mana return in order to increase throughput. How this works for you is individual. We may get to a point where spirit will be as dead as mp5 in wrath and just have crit rating to carry our mana with WS procs. Or spirit will just be too good and crit will just be reforged out of for everything as haste/mastery scale. Tough to say. But use crit only in the sense of it's a way to return mana without impacting your throughput a lot. Tank healing as an example. haste/crit type build with some base spirit will overall do better than a pure haste/spirit build. There are many way to make crit work, so do what you find works best for you.

One small mention of the damage reduction ability we have with AH. It's a moot point in this discussion as it's useless as a raid heal ability as vast majority of damage is magic and AH is physical only. And your natural levels of crit in addition to riptide constantly rolling will keep it up on tanks good enough that stacking crit isn't needed.

3.4 - Haste
Your pure throughput stat. Increases your healing done by reducing your cast speed. There are a couple of ways to use haste, to either just plainly stack it as high as you can go, or only stack it to a breakpoint and then stack something else. Which you choose will be largely dependent upon your healing style. I'll go into further detail with this later on in Section 4 as to what may benefit you most.

To explain breakpoints further, once you are past a breakpoint, a point of haste has little impact of increasing your hps on hot type spells. For example, if you have 700 haste or 2500 haste, your HR will heal for the same amount. Meaning other throughput increasing stats become better. In the area of 2-5x better per stat point. This is why haste is no longer our prime goto stat anymore for all situations. If you look at your healing breakdown in a parse, the % of spells that haste affects can vary widely based on a lot of factors of your raid setup.

Heals that haste will FULLY effect
Healing Wave, Greater Healing Wave, Healing Surge, Chain Heal

Heals that haste will MOSTLY effect
Riptide, Unleashed Elements

Heals that haste will NOT effect (unless breakpoint value is reached)
Healing Rain, Earth Shield, Earth Living Weapon

Haste Breakpoints for HOTS
All values are including Wrath of Air totem as it's assumed you'll be using it. The numbers are listed as
xxx = haste rating value needed for extra tick
[xxx] = haste rating needed assuming Goblin racial
(xxx) = haste rating needed assuming lock haste buff

Haste Rating Needed for GCD softcap: 5491 (4958)

Haste Rating Values Needed for Extra Hot Ticks:
Healing Rain AND Riptide(no glyph)
1 extra tick: 610, [475], (220)
2 extra tick: 3050, [2892], (2589)
3 extra tick: 5418, [5307], (4958)

Riptide (glyphed)
1 extra tick: 261, [130], (0)
2 extra tick: 2005, [1857], (1573)
3 extra tick: 3748, [3582], (3266)
4 extra tick: 5418, [5238], (4958)

Earth Living Weapon
1 extra tick: 916 , [780], (516)
2 extra tick: 3966, [3798], (3478)
3 extra tick: 7016, [6817], (6438)

3.5 - Mastery
Your other core throughput stat. Works by increasing the power of your heals the lower your targets hp value is. First of all, Mastery is not a bad stat, just bad shaman think it is. Here's the breakpoints where mastery is better than other stats. (note, the spell selection factors in 4.1 buff)

When target is < 100% hp: Mastery is better than haste for HR, ELW, ES
When target is < 84% hp: Mastery is better than crit for HR, CH, UE, ELW, ES, Riptide HOT
When target is < 67% hp: Mastery is better than crit for HW, GHW, HS and Riptide Direct Heal
When target is < 48% hp: Mastery is your strongest stat period

Considering in raids, a lot of healing is done on targets at the 67% level or lower, (a lot of the time, near death healing is common) and virtually all is done at lower than 84%, mastery is truly a good stat to have. In addition to this, it increases HPM, while haste does not.

Mastery also scales extremely well. Which makes sense when you consider it's a % of a % increase to throughput. Because of this, Mastery scales with increasing returns vs haste and crit. (assuming you're healing people who are lower than the hp breakpoint) This means comparing low stat values of mastery to haste and crit, it will have similar throughput value. But scale this to say 2000 points of mastery, and healing the same hp level target will have a much greater throughput increase. Here's is a simple graph explaining this concept: http://i1099.photobucket.com/albums/g392/rbollinger/MasteryScaling.jpg

When you look at that, it becomes obvious that mastery is better than crit. The only factor becomes how it compares to haste. For this there is no one answer. You have to look at your raid as a whole and look at your healing style and spell selection as a whole. I'll expand on this further in Section 4.

**** Section 5) Gemming ****
This is pretty easy to follow. Int is our core stat, but it's not so important that it's like wrath where we don't care about socket bonus'. The bonus' for cata are actually pretty decent so I recommend to follow gem colors.

Red Socket: Brilliant Inferno Ruby

Yellow Socket: Artful Ember Topaz or Reckless Ember Topaz

Blue Socket: Purified Demonseye

Meta Socket: Ember Shadowspirit Diamond

**** Section 6) Enchants ****
Does not include profession enchants. But obviously use your profession enchants in place of any of these if applicable.

Helm: Arcanum of Hyjal

Shoulders: Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone

Cloak: Enchant Cloak - Greater Intellect

Chest: Enchant Chest - Peerless Stats

Bracers: Enchant Bracer - Mighty Intellect

Gloves: Enchant Gloves - Greater Mastery or Enchant Gloves - Haste

Belt: Ebonsteel Belt Buckle

Legs: Powerful Ghostly Spellthread

Boots: Enchant Boots - Mastery or Enchant Boots - Haste
*(If not specced AS, use Scroll of Enchant Boots - Tuskarr's Vitality)

Shield/OH: Enchant Off-Hand - Superior Intellect

Weapon: Enchant Weapon - Power Torrent
Enchant Weapon - Heartsong for replaceable weapons is perfectly fine too.

Edited by Jynus on 4/12/11 11:56 AM (PDT) **** Section 7) MTT and your mana ****
Mana Tide Totem works by taking your spirit, and giving that value to the rest of the raiders in your raid x 4 for the duration of the totem. Meaning the more spirit you have, the more mana regen you and everyone else in your raid gets. While the temptation might be to stack your spirit to the moon in order to act as a “mana battery” so your other healers can flow in mana for more healing, overall it makes little sense. Nerfing your healing output just requires others in your raid to compensate for you, so the extra mana becomes a wash. And the heart of this guide is for maximizing your healing. If you want a guide for stacking spirit and doing gimp healing, look someplace else...

Now there are currently only a handful of trinkets that still work with manatide post 4.06 worth equipping.
Darkmoon Card: Tsunami
Mandala of Stirring Patterns
Jar of Ancient Remedies

DMC: Tsunami is your BIS trinket, so get it. It will last you a long time. In regards for your complimenting trinket, your other best choice would be Vibrant Alchemist Stone. However, that's an Alchemy only trinket. For us non Alchemy types, you are then left with choosing between the remaining 2 spirit trinkets, or going for a throughput trinket. This depends on your situation. The spirit trinkets will give more mana return from MTT overall. So if mana is a concern, then this would be the way to go.

If mana is not that much of a concern, then my recommendation would be to find another Int trinket and use that instead. Int is just too good to pass up for spirit if you don't need the regen.. In which case you have 3 choices in this order.
Tyrande's Favorite Doll
Fall of Mortality
Core of Ripeness

As for how to properly use MTT, first of all pop it early in fights when you drop to about 60-70% mana so you can get 1-2 more uses out of it. make a macro that /y to your other healers to stand near it when you pop it, handy for fights where you're spread out a lot to alert them to move nearby... For items like core, ideally it's macroed into something so it's used on CD to maximize your mana return. (most addons have this functionality built in) For MTT's CD, have a buff tracker that will alert you when it's off CD so you can pop it immediately again. (more on this in Section 10)

Another tip is Potion of Concentration. This by far should be your on use potion if you require one in raids. There is usually periods of downtime in a raid setting where losing 10 seconds isn't critical. And it stacks with Vibrant Alchemist Stone.

**** Section 8) Spirit Link Totem ****
This will be covered once live hits.

TLDR – When grouped and raidwide spike inc, drop this totem. Profit!

Edited by Jynus on 4/12/11 11:21 AM (PDT) **** Section 9) Healing Ideology ****
To be perfectly honest, I'll need your help here guys. Give me some tips from your raid experience as since I retired, I'm starting to feel the rust. So feel free to add to this, or if someone wants to take the initiative to write this entire section, feel free.

This is the only fuzzy part as I'm still somewhat crafting it out myself. From someone who has been a twitch healer for so long mostly just using Chain heal, the idea of a 'rotation' is still somewhat foreign to me. However I will say this, there is a lot more of a case to be made for maximizing your HPM CD's. In wrath, I was able to heal using a pure hps build, this isn't the case for cata.

Rather than a strict rotation, and a concrete way of 'this is the way you need to do things', here are some general Guidelines.

* We should be placed in the same group as the tanks. With Healing Stream Totem being affected by mastery (in 4.1) and MTT being raid wide, there is no reason for us to be in the 'Healer Group' anymore. A perma mastery boosted HOT on the tanks is valuable.

*Riptide and UE on CD as much as u can. (assuming someone needs healing, otherwise just sit there and regen) Not because it increases your HPS to use them, it doesn't. But the GCD's spent on them, and their proc effects, greatly increase your HPM. And in the long run, thats what you need to do.

* HR is your most efficient spell. Even moreso than HW. But only if it's used properly. If you have a situation where 5+ people will be hit at 60% hp or less, use HR on them. Drill it into the heads of every raider that they NEED to stand in our healing circles when the need healing, the aura heals are the best way to heal for like every raid healer. Alternately if you can teach them to run out when they are full hp, even better.

*Chain is situational, Ideally you cast it on a raid member with a riptide on them. But it's no longer our goto heal. But it's still always a good ideal to sprinkle them in if you can. It's more efficient than GHW and HS, and procs tidal waves. Try not to use it right after a riptide to make the most of your Tidal Waves procs

*HR + CH is your goto AOE heal dump. In any raid situation there will be periods where this will be your goto. Be ready to unload when the time is right.

*HW will still be used a fair bit, but it is usually way down the chart on my healing done. But in periods where you know damage will be light, and most raid bosses have this, stick to using HW even if raiders are somewhat low.. You'll regen mana and be ready for the next spike phase with your bigger spells that need the mana pool.

*UW is best followed with either CH or GHW, and then Riptide right after. The reason being is if Riptide is cast instantly as your CH or GHW lands, both heals can get the UW +% bonus.

Thats about all I can think of for now. I may add to this as time goes on. And do editing here and there... But if you have any comments or additions feel free to post them.

**** Section 10) Healing Methodology ****
This will include addon tips, and some helpful macro type things that I picked up here and there to max the way you place the class using your actual hands.

Tier 12 Armor Models Preview - 4.1.0 Cataclysm

2011-05-24T06:56:00.000-07:00

New armor sets for teir 12 cataclysm

Discipline Healing Guide - 4.1.0 Cataclysm

2011-05-24T06:46:00.000-07:00

Introduction

To start, I believe that in the current state that discipline priests in primarily i346 gear or higher who correctly prioritize their healing can, with some knowledge of predictable damage, heal equally or better than all other classes providing they use the proper spec and healing rotations. This varies by encounter, as discipline really shines in constant, raid wide AoE situations where Divine Aegis from PoH can be fully utilized, whereas Holy Paladins have cooldowns on AoE healing but are capable of much larger bursts. One caveat is that at lower gear levels, it is difficult to maintain healing for long periods of time due to our major regeneration talents scaling directly with our mana pool.

The below information is by no means exclusively of my own derivation, but rather has been taken from discussions with priests on my own server, on several forums (most importantly the forums at EJ), and testing done within the body of this thread (Special thanks to Khendra). The purpose of this thread is to provide a concise summary of helpful healing tips to those who are struggling to heal through heroic content and early raids. I'm not sure how Sticky Maintenance is dealt with, so please continue to "like" this thread if you find the information useful.

Ideal Spec:
http://wowtal.com/#k=veyUg6Jh.a8t.priest.-TYi8g
There are two extra points which I put into darkness, but some prefer to place in soul warding to reduce cooldown on PW:S. Those concerned about longevity could potentially place those points into Veiled Shadows.

How to Heal Efficiently:
There are three basic healing styles for discipline which depend on the type of incoming damage, and are as follows. If you cannot heal the encounter with these strategies, you cannot heal that encounter at your current gear level OR you have DPS taking unnecessary damage. These rotations are produced by examining the efficiency of each heal in your repertoire, and considering the types of raid damage.

Efficiency (highest -> lowest; no overheal):
Divine Hymn > Prayer of Mending > Prayer of Healing > Penance > Smite (i346+) > Greater heal = Heal = Binding Heal = Smite (i333) > Binding Heal > PW:S >

Smite scales very well with gear, and at raid quality gear outstrips Greater Heal and Heal.

heals which have very poor mana efficiency given the spec and glyphs listed include flash heal, renew, and holy nova. These can be used situationally, but there are often better choices.

1. Low, predictable damage:
Main heal: Smite (Atonement) + Penance + PW:S for Rapture ONLY. + PoM if sufficient AoE to benefit. At high gear levels, Smite will outstrip Heal in efficiency when combined with effective Evangelism management (see bottom of post)

2. High, single target damage (3 or fewer targets in raids):
Main heal: Greater heal (making use of Train of Thought for reduced Inner Focus) + Penance + PW:S for Rapture ONLY, + PoM

3. AoE Raid damage:
Main heal: Prayer of Healing (Inner Focus) + PW:S for Rapture ONLY + PoM. This is a good time to use Power Infusion.

Inner Fire vs. Inner Will
Because the above healing strategies utilize very few instant heals (PW:S every 12 seconds, PoM in AoE situations, and the very occasional renew) Inner Fire provides superior efficiency compared to inner will and should be used in almost all situations. Inner will can be situationally useful for the movement speed, and in fights with a large amount of movement, however.

Miscellaneous (but very important) Healing Points:
1. Use Power Infusion on yourself exclusively, typically to boost throughput during AoE phases and increase your efficiency when you know you will cast a series of high mana cost heals (PoH/Gheal).
2. Renew is a low-efficiency heal, however can be sparingly used to top up raid members when you must focus most of your attention on tanks.
3. Make use of Pain suppression. It is very useful to give yourself breathing room to top a tank back up OR can be used to "catch up" by allowing AoE healing of the raid when the tank is still taking substantial damage. PoH will keep a pain supressioned tank alive, where one would normally die.
4. with Train of Thought, at i346 greater heal has the same efficiency as heal. For this reason, there is no reason to ever use heal, as you can be doing similar healing with Smite while adding damage.
5. Fade is a wonderful skill which will set your agro to 0 for the duration of the spell. Whenever you have adds on you, Fade and stand in Concecrate/DnD/Tclap range. This will allow you to keep damage on the tank and not yourself, making use of the tanks higher avoidance values to minimize healing.
6. Power Word Barrier is an excellent ability that can be used to mitigate large amounts of raid/group damage and can also be used as a tank healing cooldown if placed around the tank.

Important Regeneration Mechanics:
1. Rapture (3/3): Returns 6% of your maximum mana when a shield is completely absorbed or dispelled. This cannot occur more than once every 12 seconds. This is discipline's most important regeneration mechanic and should be used on cooldown. However, becuase of PW:S's low efficiency, it is not prudent to cast PW:S when rapture is on internal cooldown. A mod to track this cooldown can be found at curse: http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/ingelasrapture.aspx
2. Archangel: Returns 5% of your maximum mana and increases healing by 15%. Use this to increase the efficiency of smite healing AND proc archangel before predictable AoE damage for substantially increased healing.
3. Hymn of Hope and Shadowfiend: Both should be utilized on cooldown, and must be utilized to maximize healing longevity. Hymn is substantially more difficult to use given that you must channel and therefore not heal, so save it for periods of low damage. If shadowfiend is used directly before hymning, more mana can be obtained due to your increased mana pool. Throwing Pain supression on the tank before Hymning can ensure that you have time for a full hymn without having to prematurely cancel to heal the tank. In addition, Hymn benefits from haste, and should be used following PW:S for borrowed time.

Important note for heroic healing: Mastery typically is less useful in heroics given that divine aegis procs on non-tanks will fall off unused. In this situation, Mastery > Crit > Haste

Mana Tide and Core of Ripeness
This is such an important synergy that it is worthy of it's own section. The combination of Mana Tide (increases spirit by 350%) and Core of Ripeness (+1920 on use spirit) allow for the regeneration of approximately 45-50% of your mana pool (spirit dependent) every 3 minutes. This is a game changing mechanic which eliminates mana dependence for priests above i346 gear level in raid environments. If you raid with a Restoration Shaman, this is a mandatory first item pick-up, and will remain best-in-slot until a time at which mana is a non-issue. If you do not raid with a Restoration Shaman, I would suggest finding one.

Important Macros
Inner Focus should be macrod into both Greater Heal and Prayer of Healing in order to fully maximize the effect of Train of Thought. This following macros will use Inner Will on cooldown. A current bug will prevent you from deriving benefit from Inner Focus when it comes off cooldown mid-cast, therefore spamming Gheal and PoH can reduce the effectiveness of IF. An alternative is to manually track IF using Power Auras. What is more efficient will depend on your playstyle and attention.

#gettooltip Greater heal
/cast Inner Focus
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()
/cast Greater Heal

#gettooltip Prayer of Healing
/cast Inner Focus
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()
/cast Prayer of Healing

Archangel Usage Strategies:
Use of Archangel is a difficult decision because you must trade 5 stacks of evangelism for the Archangel buff. As a rule of thumb, if you are smiting, you should keep your evangelism stack and put off using Archangel until you are going to swap to a different healing strategy that cannot benefit from the mana efficiency.

Evangelism: 5 stack of evangelism provides: 20% increased damage to Smite (and penance, but we don't use this for DPS), and a 30% mana cost reduction to both spells.

Archangel: 5% of maximum mana, and 15% increased healing.

Effective Utilization of Archangel:
1. You are about to switch from a low single target damage phase (smite/atonement) to a burst AoE healing phase (PoH/PoM) and no longer require the reduced mana cost of smite. Pop Archangel (and power word barrier, and Power Infusion) and begin Prayer of Healing spamming with 15% increased healing.
2. DPS burn phase with DPS modifiers (more for raiding content, but think Rahj's recharge in HoO) Pop Archangel for the DPS increase, and immediately reapply Evangelism with smites.
3. The tank is about to take a lot of damage. Pop Archangel and Power Infusion and start laying down your Gheal/Penance Rotation.

Stat Weights for gear decisions
Discipline Priests benefit most from Intellect, given that our regeneration mechanics scale off of total mana. Spirit is the next most important stat, followed distantly by all of the secondary stats. This means find trinkets with intellect on them, and make sure all items have spirit as a secondary stat.

The following stat weights are rough approximations given full Tier 11 359 gear without factoring in borrowed time, utilizing a single-target healing rotation. In addition, please keep in mind that stacking one secondary stat will raise the value of alternative stats due to synergy with the other secondaries

Burst:

Intellect 0.94
Spirit 0
SP 0.77
Critical 0.47
Haste 0.41
Mastery 0.24

Sustained:

Intellect 4.20
Spirit 3.36
Spell Power 0.80
Critical 0.48
Haste 0
Mastery 0.25

These weights suggest that reforging to critical strike is the correct choice for maximizing throughput and sustained healing. Haste is a very close second, followed distantly by Mastery. Keep in mind that the value of haste increases (in a complicated and non-linear fashion) with Multi-target healing as your mastery increases, as crit is not required to proc DA, however overall Crit is superior. Problematically, this makes switching between discipline and holy specs difficult as Holy has opposite stat weights.

Optional Healing Strategy: Mouseover Macros

Healing is a task which at times requires very quick reaction times in order to ensure that you keep you tank (or a bad dps) alive when they take damage unexpectedly. Traditionally, three actions must take place before you can heal a player taking unexpected damage. First, you must click on that player's unit frame. Second, you must press the keyboard or mouse button which you have heal bound to, and third, you must depress that button, as blizzard polls the release of the button as having ordered an action. Together, these actions take between 100 and 500ms. In order to reduce the amount of time spent targeting and ordering actions, and therefore increase your throughput, mouseover macros eliminate the need to click a specific action bar before you cast a heal. Instead, you must have your cursor hovering over the unit frame (or the player itself) who you wish to heal. The one caution is that this necessarily prevents you from 'clicking' your action bars. Rather, you must have all heals bound to keybinds.

The following macro will attempt to cast the spell attached to it on your mouseover target, and if that does not exist, will cast the spell on yourself:

#showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover,exists] "Spell"; "Spell"

With no quotations around the spell's name, for example:

#showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover,exists] Greater Heal; Greater Heal

Guide taken from Mnemo from Magtheridon

Mage PvE Guide - All Specs - 4.1.0

2011-05-20T13:06:00.000-07:00

With the release of cataclysm, players new and experienced are hitting 85 and getting ready for their raiding career. This guide will hopefully be a comprehensive guide for everything a mage needs to know when it comes to raiding in Cataclsym. If you have any raiding questions, please post a reply and I will (attempt to) answer your question, hopefully helped by the rest of the mage community.

Table of Contents

General Information
■Rating Conversions - 1
■Addons - 1
■The Hit Cap - 2
■Enchants - 2
■Gems - 2
■Race - 2
■Professions - 3
■Threat Management - 3
■Glossary - 4
■What spec should I be? - 4
■Final thoughts - 4
The Raiding Specs
■Arcane - 5
■Fire- 7
■Frost- 9
■Frostfire - 12

Stat and Rating conversions

648.91 Intellect yields 1% crit.
102.446 Hit Rating yields 1% hit.
179.28 Crit Rating yields 1% crit.
128.06 Haste Rating yields 1% haste.
179.28 Mastery Rating yields 1 mastery.
Any other numbers wanted, such as all spell coefficients, can be found on the Elitist Jerks Mage Forum: http://elitistjerks.com/f75/

Addons

To optimize your rotation (or to even have one), knowledge of your procs and debuffs is crucial to successful play. There are now two Blizzard implemented UI options to help with this; in the interface options under the Combat tab check the checkbox labeled "Show Spell Alert" which lets you watch your procs very easily by activating large (awesome looking) icons in the middle of your screen for the duration of the proc; and in the Display tab activate the checkbox "Emphasize My Spell Effects" so that your debuffs show up first and larger than others peoples debuffs on any target.

While the Blizzard implemented UI elements solve the base issues, to truly optimize your character you need as much knowledge about how your character as possible, and that means addons.
Mage Fever - http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/mfever.aspx
This mod is preconfigured and very easy to use. Just put the warnings where you want them and go for it.
Mage Nuggets - http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/mage-nuggets.aspx.
This is an all in one mage addon. I've tried others and found this to be the easiest to use, has the most useful monitors and is preconfigured very well.
NeedToKnow - http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/need-to-know.aspx
TellMeWhen - http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/tellmewhen.aspx
These addons work together very well and with a little time you can have a very personalized way to check any and all debuffs/buffs/cooldown/etc. I personally use this addon because it's easy to use, is used on ALL on my characters and gets me the customizability I want without a lot of extra stuff.
Power Auras - http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/powerauras-classic.aspx
This is the most customizable mod I've found for checking conditions. It has so much customizability that it can be a little overwhelming. If you are someone who likes very nice looking UIs and is willing to take the time to configure everything, then this is probably the mod for you.

Once you have your rotation up and running, you next need to learn how to survive, I recommend Deadly Boss Mods ( http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/deadly-boss-mods.aspx ). This addon is a must have for any raiding mage as it has a module for each isntance with timers and warnings for every boss that can be crucial to performing correctly to not be kicked out of your guild, seriously. In the same "help you survive" attitude, you need a threat meter of some kind; the blizzard implemented one can work if you get used to it, but most people prefer Omen Threat Meter 10x to the default implementation.

Edited by Larcix on 4/30/11 4:19 PM (PDT) The hit cap

For all mage specs, Intellect is the most valuable stat you can have. However, when choosing gear, ratings are the main factor, and hit is by far every mages best DPS rating. Hit can not be stacked indefinitely however and is capped at an exact value, 102.446*17=1741.58 hit rating. If you are a Draenei, your racial improves your hit chance by 1%, so your hit cap is 102.446*17=1639.14 hit rating.

Reaching the hit cap should be the first thing on all new mages minds (yet never sacrifice Intellect for Hit). It is possible to have two sets of gear; one gear set has the above numbers which assume that you are attacking a "skull" level mob, aka level 88, aka raid boss; the second gear set is for trash pulls or heroics/questing where the highest mob you will see is level 87 that only requires 6% hit to be hit capped, which is only 102.446*6=614.68 hit rating. Not needing that last 1100 hit rating lets you gain a significant amount of crit/haste/mastery and improve your DPS substantially.

Enchants

While many things change between specs, enchants are not one of them. Each slot that can be enchanted has fairly obvious enchants.

Helm - Arcanum of Hyjal (60 Int, 35 Crit) - Rep (Guardians of Hyjal revered)
Shoulder - Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone (50 Int, 25 Haste) - Rep (Therazane exalted)
Back - Enchant Cloak - Greater Intellect (50 Int)
Chest - Enchant Chest - Peerless Stats (20 Stats)
Bracer - (Item not found) (50 Int; best and most expensive) Enchant Weapon - Landslide (50 Hit; for if you are cheap and need the hit)
Gloves - Enchant Gloves - Haste (50 Haste) or Enchant Gloves - Greater Mastery (65 Mastery)
Pants - Powerful Enchanted Spellthread (80 Stam, 95 Int)
Boots - Enchant Boots - Lavawalker (Minor Run Speed, 35 Mastery) - Under hit cap use Enchant Boots - Precision (50 Hit)
Ring - Intellect (40 Int)
Mainhand - Enchant Weapon - Power Torrent
Offhand - Enchant Off-Hand - Superior Intellect (40 Int)

Bracers have alternate enchants that are 65 crit or 65 haste. If you are at the hit cap, one of these two alternate enchants should be used in place of Precision before any other adjustment to hit is made elsewhere.

Gems

Gems are another example of something about the mage class that is quite straight forward to all specs. Which are the best gems to use depends a lot on the spec, and sometimes even more on the gear level. The following is a general guide on mage geming in PvE. Note that you can use the rare quality gem or the epic quality depending on your need.

META
Burning Shadowspirit Diamond (Int/cirt damage, rare and expensive; new to 4.0.6 world drop)
Chaotic Shadowspirit Diamond (The old BiS, only next to Burning; easier and cheaper to get.)

RED
Brilliant Inferno Ruby(40 Int)

YELLOW
Reckless Ember Topaz/Potent Ember Topaz/Artful Ember Topaz (20 Haste/Crit/Mastery, 20 Int)

BLUE
Veiled Demonseye (20 Int, 20 Hit). (If you are short on hit, expect to be)
Timeless Demonseye (20 Int, 20 Stam)

Notes on geming:
Exactly what gem to use is highly dependent on gear/spec and the general rules of thumb can break down, checking your gear with a simulation program can help you min/max your gems and enchants. While you can use a (half) stam gem for a blue slot if you are hit capped, I would say that you might as well just leave it int/hit and attempt to lose hit else where.

Race

I have some napkin math'ed numbers (with DPS factors given by simcraft, 359) about which race yields superior DPS for the hordeand alliance. I'm looking for some more accurate numbers if anybody has them. I don't trust the Belf number, I got the mana scale factor very oddly. An unlisted race means it's racials have zero affect.

The math is at the top of this page (3):
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1648728060?page=3

Fire:
Horde: Orc = 260.0, Troll = 247.3, Goblin = 178.8, Blood Elf = 425.6
Alliance: Worgen = 324.2, Draenei = 323.1, Gnome = 141.9

Frost:
Horde: Orc = 279.6, Troll = 194.6, Goblin = 147.2, Blood Elf = 493.2
Alliance: Worgen = 292.5, Draenei = 257.6, Gnome = 164.4

Edited by Larcix on 2/6/11 6:35 AM (PST) Professions

Each of the main professions gives your character 80 Intellect:

■Alchemy: +80 Int (Mixology with Flask of the Draconic Mind)
■Blacksmith: +80 Int (two extra gem sockets with Brilliant Inferno Ruby)
■Enchanting: +80 Int (two Intellect ring enchants)
■Engineering: +96 Int (the average Int received from Synapse Springs)
■Herbalism: +480 Haste and roughly a 3K heal to self on a 2 min CD (Lifeblood)
■Inscription: +80 Int (Felfire Inscription vs. Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone)
■Jewelcrafting: +81 Int (3 Brilliant Chimera's Eye vs. Brilliant Inferno Ruby)
■Leatherworking: +130 Int; -50 Crit (Replacing Greater Crit with Embossment-Int)
■Mining: +120 Stam (Toughness)
■Skinning: +80 Crit (Master of Anatomy)
■Tailoring: +143 Int (average Int increase from Replacing Greater Int with Lightweave

A good profession set up is Tailoring and Enchanting. You get a nice straight bonus from enchanting and one of the best bonuses from tailoring plus you can craft a few raid quality epics for not too bad mats and get the best mage mount in the game, the flying carpet.

Threat Management

Like all DPS classes you should always be watchful of your threat vs any mob that you are attacking. For this purpose I highly recommend (read: must have) a threat meter, normally Omen ( http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/omen-threat-meter.aspx ). The in game threat meter works just as well, but has limited features and can be, from the few times I tried it, hard to see or use. You should normally be at ranged when fighting creatures so if you are watching Omen, you will pull agro at 130%, as it shows you. If you hop into melee for whatever reason you will suddenly only need to be at 110% threat to pull agro and if you were sitting between 110% and 130% he will happily turn, one shot you, and continue on his marry little way.

Threat Capping. Your tanks threat is an ever increasing number, but some tanks are better at generating threat then others. Blizzard has tuned the threat levels a little tighter in this expansion then you may have grown used to, so pay a little extra attention to the threat meter as you go through instances, all out all the time will not fly. If there are any adds in a fight you are single targeting, you can swap to that add for a while and then back to the boss to continue to dps but still lose relative threat on the boss. If there is no other mob to attack you can use Invisibility or Mirror Image.

Invisibly. Once this spell is used you lose 10% threat per second until after 3 seconds you instantly loose all threat on all mobs, where you should then use a spell or macro to drop out of the Invis effect. The line to cancel the Invisibility affect through a macro is "/cancelaura invisibility".

Mirror Image. With the demise of Tier 10 4 piece bonus, Mirro Image is back to being for threat dropping only. When MI is used, you lose 90,000,000 million threat (literally) on all mobs you have threat with. At the end of 30 seconds you gain back that 90 million threat you lost. I use this mainly for when I actually do pull agro I can pop it and the boss runs back to the tank, or sometimes one shotting some of the MI's before getting taunted. Or if you are threat capped you can pop MI, go balls out for 25 seconds and then pop Invis to lose any and all threat, nice combo. There are a couple ways to judge MI's duration. I use the following macro that only works if you have Deadly Boss Mods installed, linked in the Addons section.

Glossary

Mages, like all classes, use aconyms more than we don't, so here is a list of all mage, none-spec-related abilities and their acronyms.

■AoE - Area of Affect - An ability which does damage to all mobs within an area
■BL - Bloodlust/Time Warp
■CD - Cooldown
■FB - Fireball or Frostbolt - Depends on situation
■FFO - Frostfire Orb - Frost specs only
■FO - Flame Orb
■GCD - Global Cooldown
■ICD - Internal Cooldown
■Guardenteed I missed some, will update as more come to me

Which spec should I be?

At the moment, I see no definitive answer to that question. Each of the specs are fairly close to one another and individual skill and gear will make a much larger difference on DPS than your spec, if played properly.

Try each of the specs and see what your playstyle is. One may appeal to you more because you like DoTs, or you like procs or you like playing the mana game. You should just make a pvp and a pve spec for each element and get fluent with it before you move on to the next, and by doing this you will have a much fuller understanding of what the mage class has to offer and will be able to choose exactly what spec you want to play with certainty. Doing this also allows you to fall back into those specs playstyles fast if you ever need to be a certain spec for some reason.

Final Thoughts

Most of this information I learned from browsing these same forums. When possible I added my own experience, having played each of the specs a bit myself, and my own theories/thoughts that are mostly backed on my experience and that of others. If you disagree with something or want more information on a topic, whether it's in this guide or not, as long as it revolves around raiding, I will try and answer your questions and update my guide accordingly. This guide is not set in stone, and nothing that I've said is necessarily the gospel truth, much is open for debate and I'll try and show both sides of an issue if possible, letting you decide for yourself. I am just hoping that this information helps raiders new and old be the best they can be. I am always open to constructive criticisms. Enjoy :)

The rest of this guide goes into more detail about the four main raiding specs for a mage; Fire, Frost, Arcane and Frostfire.

Arcane spec. (31/3/3 +4)

Another great guide specifically for arcane can be found at: http://www.icy-veins.com/arcane-mage-pve-guide

The default/cookie cutter spec for Arcane: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#ohIMMRuorkRocZc:sV00Mzzmo

Variables of the spec: Improved Blink is amazing, Incanter's Absorption can be a good DPS boost on some fights, but there really isn't much of anything too important with those last 4 talent points; get what you want.

Random note: Arcane get's an extra buff to throw around, Focus Magic, which should be placed on whoever you believe will crit the most, either another mage, shadow priest or moonkin; in a pinch or when healing is of utmost important, placing FM on a healer is not a bad idea. If you have another Arcane mage in the raid you can swap FM's with each other.

Glossary. A list of arcane specific class abilities and their shorthand form:

■Abarr - Arcane Barrage
■Abl - Arcane Blast
■AE - Arcane Explosion
■AM - Arcane Missiles
■AP - Arcane Power
■FM - Focus Magic
■MN cycle - mana nuetral cycel, where your net mana usage is zero
■PoM - Presence of Mind

Arcane is a very interesting spec and played quite differently than Frost or Fire. You need to watch your mana and how the fight progresses and use your mana in the best way possible, making constant judgment calls in order to optimize your performance, not just following a simple priority list. I might go as far as saying that Arcane is the hardest of the mage specs to play to perfection, probably impossible without a computer implanted in your head.

Mana. Arcane is dominated by mana, but has no issues with mana. Arcane, at any time, can drop into a rotation that is mana positive or it can go Abl spam and lose your whole mana bar in 10 to 20 seconds, there really is no such thing as OOM in a situation like this.

Cooldowns. Even as arcane you still want to be casting Flame Orb every cooldown. Arcane still has three spec specific cooldowns. Arcane Power should be cast with Mana Gem during your burn cycle to make the most of the spell power/damage bonuses. For when the best time to use your burn phase, refer to the rotation section. Presence of Mind allows one cast time spell to be instant cast every minute and a half. This is most useful for keeping your Abl stacks stacked while moving, but if your mana gem runs out in a long fight, the mana gem should be recast with PoM (as the mana gem conjure is a longer cast than Arcane Blast, always).

Threat. Arcane is about the least interesting of the specs with regards to threat. In single target, none of your damage is front loaded like frost, so not much to worry about there, and in AoE, you are either going to deal no damage via Arcane's terrible AoE, or are going to be using a near threatless ability, Arcane Explosion.

Mobility. Many people see instant cast nuke and think mobility, but Arcane rarely, if ever, casts Abarr. Proper use of Blink and your instant cast abilities (PoM+Abl, Abarr, Fireblast, and rarely, ice lance) should allow you to be casting 100% of the time with proper planning and placement of self within the boss's room.

AoE. Arcane's AoE is pretty lackluster at the moment. The iconic Arcane AoE spell, Arcane Explosion, received a significant buff but is still quite limiting. With a talent, the GCD for AE is lowered significantly and the threat is brought to near zero, but you still need to be right in the heart of the pull to be able to use the skill, greatly increasing your chance to be killed. Because of this position requirement, many arcane mages might resort to the old fall backs, Flamestrike and Blizzard; however, Blizzard is terrible for arcane now and really shouldn't be used; Flamestrike is, if the dot is allowed to tick fully, about equal to AE in DPS; if you are looking for top DPS as arcane in an AoE situation though, AE is the way to go.

Gearing

Intellect has an even more significant affect on Arcane's DPS than any other spec, as arcane receives a boost in damage done not only from the spell power, but form the mana gained as well. When intellect is unavailable, hit rating is still king as with all mage specs, and should be stacked until the hit cap of 1742 hit rating. When more hit rating can not be found or you are hit capped, Mastery will be stat of choice. With the significant cast time reductions made in 4.1, haste has been devalued to below crit , generally; however, this is more of a rule of thumb, and definitely not set in stone. A quick sim can be run of your character to give you a much better understanding of your current gear's stat values, letting you make much more accurate assessments.

The Rotation

Arcane has a fairly straightforward, but all together different rotation from Frost or Fire, and focuses more on your mana pool more than on procs or debuffs.

The mechanic which is gives Arcane such an interesting "rotation" has to do with Arcane Blast, the new mastery and Mage Armor. When Abl is cast a debuff is placed on the player which can stack four times, the debuff increases Abl's damage substantially but increases it's mana cost even more (a lot more); the mastery increases your damage done relative to your current mana percent; Mage Armor simply helps you regen a lot of mana continuously. With their powers combined...

The possible rotation's and there ups and downs are as follows:
Abl spam: your "burn" cycle; just spam Abl at full stacks, consuming ungodly amounts of mana very fast but yielding your highest possible DPS.

Abl x(2 or 3) -> AM: your mana nuetral (MN) cycle, or 'normal' rotation; alternating between two or three stacks (in any amount necessary) to stay at a constant amount of mana, namely above 90%, where your mastery has the greatest effect.

Evocation has a cooldown of two minutes, and as such you basically get a free 60% mana every two minutes. About 10 to 20 (or more) seconds before evocation comes off CD you want to enter into your burn phase/cycle (using all available cooldowns) so as to reach 30-35% mana right as Evo comes off CD, where you can then Evo back to full mastery bonus and begin the mana neutral (MN) cycle once more.

From here on is my own thoughts and I hope for verification/discussion to come to an at least slightly definitive answer. At the beginning of the fight, you will start in a MN rotation because the tank doesn't have the threat for you to lay into the mob, but you will presumably want to go into Abl spam as soon as possible as it's your highest DPS rotation, where you then Evocate back up and use a MN rotation until the CD comes up once more. In other words you want to Abl spam as soon as possible and get the Evo CD running as quickly as you can (without wasting it). Having your evo and CD's up for Bloodlust is a huge DPS boost and should always be a top priority; however, burning phasing twice in a fight is better than one burn phase during Bloodlust (again, verification of this would be awesome).

Glyphs

The glyphs are quite straight forward: Glyph of Arcane Blast, Glyph of Mage Armor and Glyph of Arcane Missiles. Arcane Barrage is only used for movement purposes, and should never be glyphed.

Glyph of Arcane Power, Glyph of Evocation and Glyph of Blink are the major glyphs of choice, and as always, the minor glyphs are Glyph of Conjuring, Glyph of Armors and Glyph of Slow Fall.

Fire spec. (3/31/3 +4)

A very detailed and highly accurate inspection of the Fire spec is being undertaken at Elitistjerks, linked: http://elitistjerks.com/f75/t110326-cataclysm_fire_mage_compendium/
Frostedblaze's fire guide, sitckied with this guide, is linked here as well: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1577520163
My consolidated guide to fire is as follows:

The default/cookie cutter spec for Fire is: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#o0hZrshrkbRRscoc:zcozMszmo

Variables of the spec: max out Burning Soul or Improved Fireblast, or even removed Imp Fireblast entirely, you only need 3 points total in either to continue; Blazing Speed, useless, you should never really get melee'd enough for this to be useful; Molten Shields, mildly useful, will keep your Mage Wards impact to your DPS to a minimum; Pyromaniac, amazing on paper, but I think that other talents will prove more useful; 1/3 Arcane Concentration, will help with mana issues a little bit, smart playing can improve this talents usefulness.

Glossary. A list of fire specific class abilities and their shorthand form:

■BW - Blastwave
■FB - Fireball
■FS - Flamestrike
■LB - Living Bomb

Fire is all about burning things and blowing things up. You have a castable on three targets exploding dot, every crit leaves a dot, your big instant cast ball of fire leaves its own dot, and you get Combustion to rol all your dots into one super dot. Besides all the burning, with impact you can spread all your dots (including combustion) to all nearby mobs. Fire is also a master of explosions and AoE with talented Fire Orb, Blastwave, Dragons Breath and isntant cast Flamestrike.

Mana. Fire feels pretty good with mana at the moment after the fireball mana cost reduction. Yet, even with the mana usage buff, you can still get into mana troubles for various reasons; whenever that happens, a fire mage can actually gain mana with a pretty low (~10%) DPS loss by swapping to scorch spam instead of fireball. You want to have enough mana for sub 35% so that you can spam fireball during the entire Molten Fury range.

Cooldowns. Fire has one cooldown (ignoring Flame Orb, as you just pop that every time it's up...), Combustion. It's not a bad cooldown at all, regardless of what some less skillful mages might believe. I have my LB, pyro dot and ignite all watched by NeedToKnow (Although most mages seem to love CombustionHelper) and pretty much the first time pyro procs I try and line up a couple good crits (to get a good ignite) and then Combustion, and it can easily deal 50k damage. You only want to use Combustion when you have all three dots up. If you use FFB Glyph, that would be one more dot you can include. Combustion can be spread via impact, and spreading a 6k ticking (every second) combustion onto 5 mobs in an AoE situation will yield ungodly DPS, especially considering you still have LB and Flamestrike/BW going.

Threat. Nothing particularly interesting regarding threat and the fire spec besides that fire's AoE can be ridiculous and during those huge AoE moments you will definitely need to pay attention to threat. As always, make sure you watch Omen carefully at the beginning of a fight, especially if you get a crit or two.

Mobility. Living Bomb and Hot Streak are both instant casts, but even when those are down, a properly specced fire mage has free scorches that can be cast while moving. I absolutely love this and am always loving my scorch spam.

AoE. When AoEing you will always want to have three Living Bombs up. At first you can do this by tab targeting three mobs, but after that you will probably have impact, so LB one and impact it to the others. Impact+Combustion can give easily the best AoE dps numbers of any class in the game. The key is to build up the three main dots on a single mob, combustion and then impact all four dot to every single other mob, inc 30k+ DPS. Besides keeping LB up, you need to keep the ground dot rolling by Blastwave'ing every 15 seconds and using Flame Strike in between (the ground dot lasts 8 seconds). When all of those are good, single target something or blizzard large packs.

Gearing

Intellect will always be your main stat, surpassing even hit rating. Until the hit cap of 1742 hit rating, hit rating will be your number one rating. While hit has a hard cap, (after which you gain no benefit) haste has a soft cap of 12.5% where 3 of your 4 possible dots gain an extra tick of damage. After taking into consideration buffs and talents, you only need 516 haste for am extra tick, easily reachable, but it takes 3476 haste rating for a 2nd tick, completely impossible at the moment. This "haste soft cap" should be easily reached while wearing fresh 80 greens. After this haste soft cap, crit becomes your most significant rating, followed by mastery, and bringing up the rear (and being the thing you should always reforge etc) is post haste cap haste rating.

The Rotation

For this spec your rotation is less of a set order and more about watching procs and timers. Excluding the very beginning of the fight, you will simply spam fireball over and over, keeping Living Bomb up on all targets you want it up on, using Hot Streak procs as available and keeping Flame Orb on cooldown. Use the above addons to keep track of the scorch/LB duration and for when HS procs.

If LB is about to expire and Hot Streak procs, you want to choose which to cast first based on if you think your Hot Streak will be overridden during the Global Cooldown (GCD) used to cast LB. This can only happen if your previous ability crit and the last fireball or scorch you cast before casting LB crits as well, so if I see crits happening I will use the HS first otherwise if I feel I'm safe from losing a proc, I will cast LB first (to increase uptime).

If you start running low on mana, use scorch in-place of fireball and you will stop losing mana entirely, maybe even gain some. At the beginning of a boss or when you are switching to an add/different mob cast LB and then scorch (and then Flame Orb if off CD) to get into position and then follow the normal rotation. For trash, use the single target rotation, keeping LB up on at least three targets, or follow the AoE rotation if enough mobs are present.

Glyphs

There are five prime glyphs with merit; (Item not found), Glyph of Frostfire, Glyph of Living Bomb, Glyph of Pyroblast and Glyph of Molten Armor. At the moment we all lack crit and the three crit glyphs (Fireball, Molten Armor and Pyroblast) win out the DPS test. FFB is about equal to FB when either is properly glyphed, fireball is a little ahead though.

There are only two truly useful major and minor glyphs, Glyph of Blink, Glyph of Evocation, Glyph of Conjuring and Glyph of Slow Fall, the remaining two slots can be filled with whatever you want most, I chose Glyph of Blast Waveand Glyph of Armors.

Frost spec. (2/8/31)

Another worthy guide only for frost can be found at: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2522074557

The default/cookie cutter spec for Frost is: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#o0bZfcZffzzsGszro:MaoqMzzmo

Variables of the spec: Reactive Barrier can easily be dropped in lieu of other talents that you want, such as maybe maxing out Ice Shards or Piercing Chill; only 1/3 Enduring Water is necessary for a raiding build, but 2/3 is recommended; you could also move a point from Ignite to Netherwind Presence, although I believe the math dictates otherwise.

Glossary. A list of frost specific class abilities and their shorthand form:

■DF - Deep Freeze
■FoF - Fingers of Frost
■Freeze - The WE Pet nova
■FB - Frostbolt
■IB - Ice Block
■IV - Icy Veins
■FFB - Frostfire Bolt
■WE - Water Elemental

Frost is a very straight forward, it's all about watching what is happening with your character. When a lot of things come up at the same time it can be fairly hectic trying to get it all used, get the cooldowns running, not waste any procs, but it's also some of the most fun I've had on my mage this expansion.

Mana. Frost has mana problems right now, at least in heroics, and I assume the longer raid boss fights will only make it worse. Frost does fine on short fights, with use of gem and Evo, but even on a recent heroic boss I popped Time Warp and was OOM when the boss was at 50%, Evo'd, and was OOM by 15%. To avoid wanding, Mage Armor needs to be used. The longer the fight the more important use of Mage Armor becomes for a sustainable rotation.

Cooldowns. Frost has a few CD's; Frostfire Orb just needs to be used on CD, Deep Freeze requires a little more finesse and Icy Veins and Cold Snap have optimum times to use.

Deep Freeze can only be used on a target that is frozen, so if you want to use it on a boss you can only use it while you have Fingers of Frost active. The Water Elemental pet nova (Freeze) helps with this a lot, and I normally save Freeze for right as DF is coming off CD so it can be used immediately. If that won't be possible (because Freeze is on CD or what have you ) then I try and have one FoF charge saved for the CD; when about 10 seconds are left I will stop using FoF if I only have 1 charge, and will use it only when I have two charges so that no matter what I will have one charge for the instant DF comes off CD. While trying to save a proc, it's more possible that you will accidentally miss a proc (FoF procs twice at 1 charge, yet you only gain 1 proc, for two total) so extra attention needs to be paid.

Icy Veins is a very powerful cooldown, but it has a 'long' cooldown, so you want to maximize its use when you are able to use it, this means, for the most part, that you want to have IV up when Bloodlust is active. Most guilds should use BL nearer then end of a fight, so you can usually use IV once at the start of the pull and it will be up later on for BL. If you know you are going to be BL'ing in less than 2.4 minutes from the start of the pull, I would save my IV for BL.

Cold Snap is a little trickier, but at the same time easier. On a normal fight, you pretty much only want to use this ability during Bloodlust, the order of use is important; in a perfect scenario, Frostfire Orb and Deep Freeze will both be used by you right before Bloodlust goes off, when BL is hit, you want to use Icy Veins and THEN Cold Snap to remove the CD's on FFO, DF and IV. The first DF (right before the BL) will probably have used Freeze to do, so you will be able to use that second Freeze FoF charge for the newly Cold Snapped DF. FFO should be cast again, and IV should be cast again when it ends the first time, for a total of 100% IV uptime during BL, as well as two FFB orbs flying and three DF's. If the fight is long enough to use CS twice the fight will probably be long enough to use Bloodlust twice, and you should simply follow this same procedure during both BL phases. This is all given in paragraph form and may be confusing, if this paragraph needs to be rewritten please tell me and I'll change it up; I was also thinking of naming this section not Cold Snap, but Bloodlust, or maybe "How do I optimize Bloodlust?" thoughts?

Threat. Nothing particularly interesting regarding threat and the frost spec besides that a Deep Freeze (DF) crit on a fresh mob can easily pull agro. A little juggling game at the start of every pull or new mob is how soon you can lay down DF to get the CD rolling without critting for 60k and stealing agro, omen helps substantially.

Mobility. To optimize your damage you must not only always be casting something, even while moving, you must also be casting the right thing. If you can move while only casting FoF'ed IL, Brain Freeze or DF then you will have zero loss in DPS. Moving during your Freeze+DF+IL combo as well as all of the individual IL and Brain Freeze procs give you a lot of GCDs to slowly step by step (GCD by GCD) move to where you need to be for the next phase or boss ability.

AoE. The only AoE that Frost really has available to it is Blizzard, and while nice and all, does not compare to Fire's absolute AoE overload. Looking for more to say on this.

Gearing

Intellect will always be your main stat, surpassing even hit rating. Until the hit cap of 1742 hit rating, hit rating will be your number one rating. Crit and Haste are quite close to each other, and an equilibrium between the two can be found once rawr is fully functional. This means that through use of (mainly) reforging and (to a lesser extent) geming, a point can be reached where adding any crit rating lowers crit's DPS to below that of haste, and adding any haste will reduce haste to below crit's DPS. This means that if you want to add any more of either, you should be adding both, and if you get a nice upgrade giving you one but not the other, it would be in your best interest to change one of your other somethings to account for the jump. Crit's value drops pretty substantially at 23% self buffed crit due to crit capping (having 100% crit chance) during shatter moments; after 23% crit chance, haste or mastery will be a higher DPS gain. Mastery is generally the bottom stat for Frost, and is the stat that you will reforge away, etc.

The Rotation

Frost's "rotation" got a huge quality of life improvement in Cataclysm, and the optimum rotation is not a rotation, but rather a priority list.

The order, from most important to least is as follows: Deep Freeze, Frostfire Orb, Brain Freeze (with FoF), Ice Lance (with FoF), Frostbolt. You will want to cast Freeze right before DF to be able to DF as soon as possible, to optimize it's CD.This priority list will not change throughout the fight, but proper use of CD's and the randomness of the FoF and BF procs, as well as the assurance of a huge DF every 30 seconds makes this spec, personally, the most fun to play.

A slightly advanced form of play (because the room for error is cut significantly, and much closer attention is required) that will optimize BF procs and your FoF procs, is to bank one charge of FoF for the instant BF procs or right as DF comes off CD. This will not increase the amount you cast DF, because you were presumable using Freeze every time anyways, but instead will allow you to cast Freeze every 25 seconds (on CD) instead of every 30 seconds (DF's cooldown), increasing your overall # of procs from Freeze in a given fight. This also allows you to use BF instantly, removing the chance for a wasted proc while fishing for a FoF charge.

The only problem with banking a FoF charge is if you aren't paying attention closely enough, you can easily lose a charge. You will see that your first FB procced a second FoF charge mid cast on the your second FB; if you are quick, you'll be able to use the extra charge right after that second FB, and you'll have one remaining. If you aren't as fast or you're under a lot of haste, you will still be able to use your FoF before the 3rd FB lands, so that even if it procs a FoF charge, you will then be at 2.

Whether saving a proc is worth it to you is up for you to decide.

Glyphs

There are five prime glyphs with merit; Frostbolt, Frostfire Bolt, Deep Freeze, Molten Armor and Ice Lance. One would think that FB and DF are obvious choices and that 5% more damage on your hard hitting IL would be great, I would also say that Molten Armor is amazing too, unfortunately that is all wrong. IL is actually terrible, and its DF and FFB that are the actually reliable choices. If a fight is going to be long, the best use of the last prime glyph slot is on Frostbolt, but if the fight is short enough to allow use of Molten Armor for most of the duration of the fight, the Molten Armor glyph actually overtakes Frostbolt in DPS given.

For the majors, only Ice Barrier is really useful; I grabbed blink and Evocation as well. Conjuring, Slow Fall and Armors are once again my glyphs of choice for the minors.

Edited by Larcix on 2/11/11 6:04 PM (PST) Frostfire Bolt spec.

Frostfire Bolt is odd in the fact that it can replace either Frostbolt or Fireball in their respective trees and be about equal. It's glyph increases it's damage substantially. When using FFB in place of Frostbolt or Fireball while using a normal Frost or Fire spec, respectively, the damage difference should be negligible (~1% loss for fire, unsure about frost). Most people agree that you can choose to use FFB simply because it "looks cooler."

For fire spec: rotation, spec, mobility, threat, mana, cooldowns, nothing changes when going from FB to FFB besides that Glyph of Frostfire Bolt must be used in place of Glyph of Fireball.

For frost spec: because FFB is now your main nuke and FFB can't proc BF, you won't be getting insta cast FFBs anymore; FFB costs 39% less than FB, so your mana will be easier to deal with; you also loose out of replenishment and the extra cleave damage FB gets from spreading it's chill with PC.

If this section gets recognition from the mage community, I can expand this to include more details but I don't have that information nor do I think it's needed right now, post any feedback you have however, and it will all be considered.

Rawr Guide

Before I integrate my Rawr guide here, I want to here from the rest of the mage community on it's current usefulness. From fiddling with it I noticed quite a few problems and I don't trust it's answers right now as much as I did in wrath.

Resto Druid Healing Guide PvE 4.1.0 Cataclysm

2011-05-20T13:03:00.000-07:00

How to heal as an 85 restoration druid in Cataclysm.

Introduction to druid healing, written at a beginner/intermediate level. The talent section has undergone significant revisions, due to the changes in talent tree design for 4.1. In most cases, variability in terms what content you are healing will make a difference in what strategies, talents, & gear work best for you. There isn't a "one size fits all" approach, and so you will frequently find (especially for more advanced players) that the guide is not able to cover every possible permutation of healing style, raid size, ilevel, etc.

The major changes for 4.1 come in terms of changes to our talents:

Living seed was unlinked from Efflorsescence, allowing you to move those 3 points wherever you want.
Tranquility’s cooldown was reduced through Malfurion’s Gift.
Efflorescence’s healing effect got changed so that now it’s a smart heal that scales with haste. It will target the lowest 3 players and heal them for a decent sized chunk of health. This is a much better design and should heal for more overall than the old version.

Table of contents:

1. healing part 1: Description of Healing spells
2. Healing part 2: Mastery, tree form, and other spells
3. Healing part 3: Tank and raid healing advice
4. Resto: Talents
5. Resto: Glyphs
6. Resto: Stats and Gearing
7. Consumables, Gems, and Enchants
______________________________________________________

Other Helpful resources:

Hamlet of EJ has an updated guide for level 85 resto druids:
http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t110354-resto_cataclysm_release/

Keeva’s VERY comprehensive Healing Guide outgrew her blog, and is now it’s own website here:
http://restodruid.info/
______________________________________________

More advice for 5-man dungeon healing:
http://www.restokin.com/2010/12/healing-dungeons-at-level-85/

Revital's level 85 instance healing advice on the forums:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1519283074

Another post on healing heroics at level 85:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1406255074

Edited by Lissanna on 4/26/11 7:05 AM (PDT) Part 1: Description of Healing tools at 85 – Getting to know your spells.(Updated 4/26/2011)

Single-target Direct Heals:

There is now a "trinity" of 3 direct heals for all classes. Our "fast" heal is regrowth. Our "efficient" heal is Nourish. Our "Big" heal is Healing touch.

*Healing Touch (2.5 sec cast time after Naturalist, mana expensive). Heals for a large amount, but has a high mana cost, and a semi-long cast time. You can use this to refresh Lifebloom on your target (with talents). Use this when you need a big heal on a tank or raid/party member, since health pools are big and damage comes slowly. This spell will feel slow, but may be the only way to keep people from dieing when they drop low. This is a good spell to use when you have an Omen of Clarity proc, since this gives you a mana-free big heal.

* Nourish (2.5 sec cast time after naturalist, mana efficient). Cast time is the same as Healing Touch. However, it costs less mana and heals for less than HT, which is our “efficient” heal at level 85 when we have mana problems. Empowered Touch allows nourish to refresh lifebloom on that target. Try to only cast this on people with at least one Heal over Time effect (ie. a rejuv, LB, regrowth, or wild growth HOT), due to the fact that nourish has 20+ increased healing done (plus the mastery bonus). This is kind of a “filler” heal, that you would use on people higher on health who aren’t likely to die soon, and it’s what you do to conserve mana so that you won’t run OOM before the end of the fight.

* Regrowth (1.5 sec cast time). Heals for a medium amount and is now our “flash” heal instead of nourish. The HOT duration was reduced to 6 seconds to allow the direct heal to hit harder. Use when you can afford the mana and need a fast heal (but don’t spam or you will run OOM when you first hit 85). Save it as an emergency “oh crap” spell when you need a fast direct heal, or when you are in tree form and get OOC procs for mana-free instant regrowths.

Single-target HOTs:

* Lifebloom (instant) is your tank HOT. You can only have LB on ONE person at a time (unless you are in tree form). If you move it to a new target, it doesn't force the bloom, it just ends on the first target. You can either use nourish/HT/Regrowth to refresh LB, or just re-cast LB to refresh if it's about to run out. You should keep a 3-stack of LB rolling on the tank because keeping up LB will help you not run OOM as fast, and LB will make up a big chunk of your healing in parties/raids. While in tree form, sprinkle this around raid members to try and get more OOC procs.

* Rejuvenation (instant) will still be a primary healing spell for you as a raid heal. You should still see a lot of rejuv use in raids, since they didn’t actually give us an alternative to relying on rejuv/Wild Growth for the bulk of your raid healing. So, you just have to be smart about how you use rejuv (ie. put it on people who have a wild growth already on them, or put it on people taking damage already, etc). Rejuv also has a chance to give you the mana return from revitalize, and gets the instant heal from gift of the earth mother. Rejuv works best on lightly wounded targets who are already taking damage, since putting it on people at 100% health (unless it’s a tank) is usually a waste of mana.

Multi-target AOE heals:

* Swiftmend (instant, 15 sec cooldown) with Efflorescence procs thru talents is a good raid heal after 4.1. Swiftmend still requires a rejuv or regrowth, but it heals the same amount regardless of which HOT you consume. Swiftmend puts a medium-size direct heal on the target, and then efflorescence will sprout an 8 yard circle around that target (when talented). People standing in that circle gets healed for up to 7 seconds. Moving out of the circle stops healing. They re-designed efflorescence for 4.1, and made it even better than it was before.

* Wild Growth (instant, 8 sec cooldown) is still a “smart” heal that hits multiple targets to heal over time, and a great AOE healing tool. Be careful that this doesn’t sponge up too much mana, but use this often as an AOE heal when you are assigned to raid healing.

* Tranquility (channeled over 7 sec, 3 min cooldown talented) – Heals 5 low-health party & raid members (ie. no longer limited to people in your group). It has a big direct heal that hits about every 2 seconds (lowered by haste), and also applies a HOT that stacks up to 3 times that lasts for the duration. So, those 5 people are unlikely to die while you are channeling. Use this as your emergency AOE heal, and plan in advance which phases to use it. Cooldown lowered in 4.1 (by Malfurion's Gift talented) so you can use it more often.

Edited by Lissanna on 4/26/11 7:07 AM (PDT) Part 2: Mastery, tree form, and other spells (updated 4/26/2011 for 85)

Mastery is a bonus you get for choosing restoration as your talent spec focus (at level 80). Mastery is also a stat on high-level (85) gear.

Symbiosis is our current mastery which is: "Symbiosis (Revamped) – Increases the potency of your healing spells by 11.6% on targets already affected by one of your heal over time spells. Each point of Mastery increases heal potency by an additional 1.45%."

Some mastery use examples:
• If you cast a single rejuv on someone (no HOTs), you don’t benefit from the mastery.
• If you cast rejuv on someone who already has a wild growth or regrowth HOT on them, that rejuv heal benefits from the mastery.
• If you cast nourish, HT, or regrowth on the tank with a lifebloom on them, you get the bonus from the mastery.
• Basically, if you have any of your HOTs on a target, your heals on that target (whether HOT or direct heal) get a bonus.
• Swiftmend/efflorescence will always benefit from the mastery due to requiring a HOT for swiftmend to be cast.
• This will turn into a really nice tank healing bonus, and how much it helps you in AOE/raid healing will be determined by how you heal.

Tree form:
Tree form (instant) is now a 3 minute cooldown, with a 25 second duration (up to 31 seconds with talents). Pop this at times when you need to heal for more (as it gives you a 6% increase to healing to all your spells). When you go into tree form, a couple of your spells get benefits for the duration of that 30 second effect.

The tree bonuses most relevant to healing at 85 are:

• Regrowth becomes instant cast, which means you can cast it on the move. The 4.0.6 buffs to regrowth healing done (thru talents) increases the usefulness of this bonus. Use this as an emergency tank heal when you are in tree form (especially when OOC procs).
• Lifebloom can be put on more than one target (the most interesting of all of them). This allows you to brieftly use it to stack with other HOTs on raid members for increased healing output. Or, you can stack it up on a 2nd tank when times are tough.
• Wild Growth will hit up to 2 more targets (most useful in a 25-man setting)
• It also gives a bonus to wrath & roots for PvP/soloing.

Other abilities for resto druids:
Remove corruption: allows you to remove 1 magic (if talented), curse, and poison effect. All of our dispels are in this one button.

Mark of the Wild: Now raid-wide and gift of the wild was removed. Does not cost a reagent. Same buff as Paladin's Kings.

Innervate: Now causes the target to regen 20% of the caster's mana (ie. if you cast it on a priest, they regen mana up to 20% of your mana pool). This change prevents it from being very potent for feral druids.

Thorns: Lasts for 20 seconds and has a 45 second cooldown.

Nature's Swiftness: You can still macro this to Healing Touch for another instant burst tool. This talent is optional, but it got somewhat buffed in 4.1 so more druids may pick it up.

Rebirth: In-combat resurrection. Cooldown is 10 minutes, but the raid group can only res 1 person per fight in 10-mans, or up to 3 reses per fight in 25-mans. Warlock & DK's in-combat res abilities count towards this total. You should use the rebirth glyph so that the person will res at full health (making your res not ever get wasted when you use it).

3. Tank and raid healing advice (updated 4/26/2011)

Basic Healing Information for level 85:
• At level 85, there are multiple healing roles possible: 5-mans, 10-man tank, 10-man raid, 25-man tank, and 25-man raid. The encounters also come in the forms of normals and hard modes. The below advice is really general “beginner” info, and you will have to work to adapt it to what best fits your raid/party’s needs.

• Our direct heals are still important, but my #1 spell used in any of the above roles is still rejuv. That said, rejuv never accounts for 100% of my healing, since your other spells (all of them!) are still important in their own way.

• One big mistake I see trees doing is continuing to use Regrowth in places where they should be using Healing Touch or Nourish. Healing Touch and Nourish are generally better tools for us, and Regrowth should be used less frequently (Chimaeron is probably the only fight where you would rely mostly on regrowth). You also don’t need to maintain a regrowth HOT on your tank anymore, since the regrowth HOT is so very small.

• You will use swiftmend for Efflorescence procs as an AOE heal (now a mandatory talent after the 4.1 buff). In addition, lifebloom should be on one target at all times (even when assigned to raid healing).

Tank healing at 85:
• Put a 3 stack of lifebloom on the tank you are assigned to, and don't let it fall off. Nourish, Healing Touch, and regrowth will refresh LB's duration if you have empowered touch. With more than 1 druid, assign each druid to put LB on a different tank if you have multiple tanks in an encounter.

• Put rejuv on all the tanks & refresh as needed (you may want to put rejuv on 3 people for the Nourish haste bonus from Nature's Bounty). Use a mix of direct heals as you find best suits the encounter and your group's needs: HT when big damage, Nourish when little damage, Regrowth as an emergency spot-heal. You can still swiftmend the tank, because if he's standing still, he'll still benefit from the large burst heal and your (improved in 4.1) efflorescence proc (and if melee are close, efflorescence will hit them, too). You can also use swiftmend & Wild Growth to help out your raid with AOE healing even as a tank healer.

• Healing Touch is one spell you neglected at 80 that you need to consciously use more at 85. It is your highest "heals per second", and is slightly more mana efficient than regrowth, so you need to add this into your healing on tanks. When tanks are below 50% health, but not in immediate danger of getting 1-shot, this spell has a higher chance than regrowth of actually making a dent and getting them out of the danger zone.

• Use Nourish when you need a mana efficient heal (to conserve your mana resources and reduce over-healing) during times where your tank isn't taking that much damage. Try to use Nourish on tanks that already have a HOT on them. Regrowth is an emergency heal that shouldn't be spammed.

HOT tanks, then heal raid:
• Roll 3x lifebloom on a single tank.
• Put rejuv on all the tanks.
• Use your AOE heals on the raid: wild growth and swiftmend (for efflorescence procs).
• Use rejuvenation on light to medium-wounded targets (not at full health)

• Use direct heals to supplement HOTs as needed (especially on targets with a HOT on them, or below 50% HP). You will likely end up needing to use Nourish some to conserve mana resources to not run OOM. If you have 3 rejuvs up, your nourish gets a haste bonus from Nature's Bounty in 4.0.6. You may also need to use Regrowth & HT for bigger direct heals to prevent deaths. You’ll have to play around with your spells a little bit to find what will work the best for you.
• Tranquility is also nice to use now because it effects people outside your group, and at a 3 minute cooldown, you should get ~2 uses per boss fight (cooldown reduced in 4.1).

Just raid heal: See section on HOT tanks, then raid heal.
• See section on HOT tanks, then raid heal. Even as a raid healer, I still think that maintaining LB on your tank will be worthwhile. Raid healing has devolved back into a more WG/Rejuv-heavy style.

• However, the best way to use your tools is to try and maximize their healing done by: Putting rejuvs on people already effected by wild growth (and vice-versa), and by using rejuv as a triage-tool (ie. never on people at full health). In 10-mans, you will probably use more single-target direct heals on people with a HOT to try and bring them up.

• Efflorescence got changed such that it chooses 3 people and gives them a more substantially sized heal. This means that it will be more useful in any size raid, since it will be a "smart" heal, and you get a benefit even when 1 or 2 people are standing in it. Combined with tranquility's lower cooldown, we have a much better AOE raid toolset.

Edited by Lissanna on 4/26/11 7:17 AM (PDT) Part 4. Talents version 4.1 (updated 4/26/2011)

Trying to write about talent specs in 4.1 is actually pretty difficult, because you have some choice in where you want to put ~4 talent points, and none of those options are very strong talents.

For a standard 8/2/31 build, your base could look like this Template talent spec: http://ptr.wowhead.com/talent#0hbhZMZMfzId0ruouo:VcoVmbz

Then, you have the option to move points out of living seed (and possibly nature's swiftness) to take any combination of talent points you want:

• Living Seed (some people may still keep points here, but I don’t plan on keeping it)
• Blessing of the Grove (people who raid heal a lot with rejuv will benefit more from this talent than living seed, but it’s still going to have a minor impact on healing at best)
• Nature’s Swiftness (This is still unappealing to me. Swiftmend, with efflorescence procs, will do more for me than NS).
• Perserverence (Decreasing the damage you take increases the probability that you will live, and while it doesn’t inflate meter numbers, dead healers can’t heal)
• Fury of the Storm Rage (not recommended for PvE raiding specs)
• Nature's Bounty (increases the crit rate of regrowth, and makes nourish faster when you have 3 rejuvs up).

Genesis Vs Moonglow:
Some people are also moving to try and pick up Genesis from resto, due to being geared enough that they don't need to invest as many points in resto talents. In this case, they would shift points out of moonglow/Furor and into genesis.

A HOT-focused build (with genesis) for more AOE/raid healing could look like this:
http://ptr.wowhead.com/talent#0hfbZZrfzhdzruouo:VcoVmbz

A more mana-focused build, designed to do some tank healing:
http://ptr.wowhead.com/talent#0hbhZMZMfzudMruouo:VcoVmbz

More info on talents in 4.1:
http://www.restokin.com/2011/03/replacing-living-seed-talents-in-4-1/

Living seed replacement calculator (to help you decide which talents would be better for you):
http://theincbear.com/living-seed-replacement/

5. Resto Glyphs 4.0.1
Resto Prime Glyphs (Use swiftmend, rejuv, lifebloom):
* Swiftmend -when you use swiftmend, it won’t consume the HOT.
* Rejuvenation – increases rejuv’s healing done
* Lifebloom – increases LB’s HOT crit chance
* regrowth – This got buffed in 4.0.6, but it's still not better than the other 3 glyphs. It does have limited situational uses, but the other 3 make a much better multi-purpose set.

For resto major glyphs,
You really get to choose what will be the most helpful for you. I would recommend that you choose Wild Growth, Rebirth, & 1 other:
* Wild Growth – WG will hit 1 more person. Very helpful for 25-man raiding.
* Rebirth – Your target will res at full health & mana. This becomes really useful compared to other options so your target doesn’t die as soon as they pop up.
* Healing touch – the effect was changed (will no longer turn HT into a flash heal). Not that useful for level 80, but may increase in usefulness at 85.
* Innervate – Will be more useful at 85 when we have mana problems

Minor glyphs (get MOTW, & unburdened rebirth, and then pick whatever you want for the third):
* Glyph of the treant (minor) – changes the appearance of your tree form back into the dead broccoli old form, instead of the larger and newer “ancient of war” form. I’d actually glyph tree form for PvP to make the model smaller & less obvious.
* Mark of the wild (minor) – reduces cost now that MotW is raid-wide without a reagent
* Unburdened rebirth (Minor) – Rebirth doesn't cost a reagent (it sucks when you run out of seeds).
* Aquatic form (minor) -Increases swim speed by 50%
* Dash – (minor) reduces dash cooldown

Edited by Lissanna on 2/8/11 7:19 AM (PST) 6. Stats & Gear (updated 2/8/2011)

Resto stats:

Here is a link to my level 85 Pre-raid gear list: http://www.restokin.com/caster-druid-85-pre-raid-gear/

Basic Resto stat priority: Int > Spirit > Haste > Mastery > Crit

The value of mastery relative to haste changes depending on a number of factors I won't cover here. Please refer to: http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t110354-resto_cataclysm_release/

You can use the Tree Calcs tool for evaluating the value of stats for YOU on your gear.

Stat descriptions:
• Stamina – Base stat (primary stats can’t be reforged) – increases your health. This will be on all your gear, but it’s not super important.

• Int – Base stat (primary stats can’t be reforged) – Now gives spell power, increases the size of your mana pool, and gives crit chance. This is your primary stat on gear, and you will want to choose gems with int on them now. In addition, you get mana regen from int through your talents.

• Spirit – (secondary stat can be reforged) – Increases your mana regen. When you choose the resto talent tree, you gain more passive regen from spirit while "in combat". Int actually provides about as much regen in-combat as spirit for resto druids (however, when you can have both int & spirit, that's even better).

• Haste- (can be reforged) – Makes your cast time spells (ie. regrowth, HT, nourish) cast faster. Also makes the time between the ticks of your HOTs faster (You will gain additional HOT ticks with enough haste), and lowers the global cooldown (up to the 1 second). SEE: http://theincbear.com/resto-haste-breakpoints/

• Crit- (can be reforged) – Your direct heals and HOTs can all score critical strikes now. This is probably our weakest stat at the moment, but you get more benefit from crit now than you did in WotLK.

• Mastery – (Can be reforged) – See section 2 for detailed information on what mastery does. Basically, mastery makes your heals hit for more when you cast a spell on someone that already has a HOT. The value of mastery will be determined by how much you heal someone with a HOT on them versus how much you heal people that don’t have a HOT on them already. However, this stat did get buffed in 4.0.6.

• Spell power (can’t be reforged) – At 85, this stat is mostly only available on weapons, and maybe a few outdated enchants.

Reforging –
You can turn up to 40% of a secondary stat into 40% another secondary stat. You can only reforge a stat into something that is not already on the item. If spirit is not on the item and you need more regen, then reforge the least desirable stat into spirit. In general, you want to reforge crit into a different stat, since crit is our worst stat, so I frequently reforge crit into spirit.

Relics & Idols:
They are not class-specific at 85, and you will want any type of caster relic with good stats and higher item levels. You will want the highest item level idol with intellect (with spirit and/or haste) on it. Relics have a gem slot, but they don't give socket bonuses (so gem it with red intellect).

Edited by Lissanna on 2/8/11 7:18 AM (PST) 7. gems, enchants, consumables for level 85 (Updated 2/8/2011)

The blog version is better for this section, since it has clicky-links: http://www.restokin.com/resto-druid-healing-guide/7-gems-enchants-and-consumables/

Gems :

* For red gem slots, Brilliant inferno Ruby gives you increased intellect
* For yellow gem slots, Reckless ember topaz is int/haste (or Artful ember topaz for int/mastery if you are gearing for mastery).
* For blue gem slots, Purified Demonseye gives int/spirit.
* Meta-gem (for head pieces): Ember shadowspirit diamond (54 int and 2% mana). Requires at least 2 yellow gems.

Consumables :

Flasks:

• Flask of the draconic mind (intellect): http://www.wowhead.com/spell=80720

Int ends up having more bang for its buck compared to spirit for resto druids. So, I only use & recommend the intellect flask at this point for everyone.

Potions:

* Mythical Mana potion
* Potion of Concentration
* Mighty rejuvenation potion

While the potion of concentration puts you to sleep for 10 sec, sometimes that will be worth it (ie. magmaw when the head is pinned). You can communicate for party members, and time it when the healing needs and fight mechanics allow you to be "asleep" for 10 sec. If you can't use that one in a fight, the mythical mana potion will restore about half the mana of a potion of concentration, but with no side-effects. If you need to restore both health & mana, then a good choice is the mighty rejuv potion.

Gear Enchants: (IMPORTANT: when 2 enchants are listed, the first is better – and the second one available mostly as a backup if you can’t get access to the first)

* Legs: Powerful Ghostly Spellthread (95 int, 55 spi) or the lower-tier version Ghostly spellthread (55 int, 45 spi)
* Shoulders: Greater inscription of charged lodestone (Therazane rep)
* Head: Arcanum of Hyjal (Hyjal rep)
* Cloak: Greater intellect
* Gloves: Haste
* Chest: Peerless Stats (all stats x 20), +15 stats, or Exceptional Spirit (40 spirit)
* Bracer: Exceptional Spirit: or greater speed (haste):
* Boots: Lava Walker, Earthen vitality, or Haste
* Weapon: Power Torrent (random proc for 500 int for 12 sec) or Heartsong (random proc for 200 spirit)

Death Knight Unholy PVE Guide 4.1.0 Cataclysm

2011-05-20T13:00:00.000-07:00

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I . I N T R O D U C T I O N
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Unholy saw little change in 4.1. We received a reversal to the nerf previously applied to the Rage of Rivendare and, as class-wide addition, Raise Ally has become a full battle resurrection.

The two Frost specs received the bulk of attention and DPS performance increases in this patch. Sims indicate Frost will regularly outperform Unholy in all but the most mobile of scenarios. Unholy's prominence will wane in contrast to Frost's abundant improvements but it remains a capable DPS spec for those who prefer its playstyle and consistency.

DW Unholy was possible a long time ago, but now it is more deprecated than a VHS tape. Actually, I think chucking a VHS tape would do more damage than that spec. A complete underachiever, so it’s not worth mentioning any further.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I I . T A L E N T S
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"Just Act Natural" 5/0/32 + 4 http://www.wowhead.com/talent#jbhZZshcdfzuMRu:Vks0sb0zc
S p e c
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This build grabs all the key damage abilities to make you, your trusted 2H, and Timmy the Ghoul a force of (un)nature. You will have 1 point to spend in a pre-requisite talent early on and 3 points to spend at the build’s completion as you wish. Your final choices can have some marginal bearing on your DPS.

Your first choice comes at the cusp of tier 3 in Unholy to fulfill the base point requirement:

■Unholy Command
Unholy Command can be useful if you frequently use Death Grip to reel-in stubborn casters to your tank or want a pre-requisite talent that does not impose a snare.
■Desecration
Desecration is easy to apply (Plague Strike, Scourge Strike and Necrotic Strike) and a very effective AOE snare. Several encounters benefit from slowing effects and, generally, having a snare in melee can be a boon to keep mobs from rushing casters. The only downside occurs in situations where the tank wants the mobs be mobile, i.e. when they need it to be relocated on the fly or when you lose control of your character. In that situation, there is sadly no 'off button'. With the release of Patch 4.1, Desecration no longer triggers on a snare-immune target. This update makes Desecration a more raid-friendly option where only add snare is desired.
■Resilient Infection
If there were bosses that dispelled themselves, this might actually be worthwhile in PvE. Pass.

From here, continue assigning the suggested points in the Unholy tree. 1/3 Magic Suppression makes for acceptable Runic Power conversion (as suggested by the 32 point investment in the tree). As one delves further into the raid scene I would, however, give a solid recommendation of 2/3 for the purposes of survivability and the occasional DPS boost from added RP generation. If you want to max the effect, you can certainly return to this talent in a moment.

After the necessities in Unholy are taken care of, assign the 5 points as suggested in Blood talents.
Now we come to the final 3 points. These last talent points can be spent at your discretion amongst the following abilities:

Blood Options

■Improved Blood Tap
Extra runes equal more DPS. The caveat associated with IBT is whether it will be available when you both need the runes and have the GCD to make use of them. Talents reduce its cooldown by 15s/point.
■Scent of Blood
Or maybe Taste of Blood? This talent requires you to get hit about the face and soft spots for there to be any effect. Boss AoE’s rarely qualify for Scent of Blood so this talent is lackluster if not masochistic.
■Blade Barrier
If you really, really want to enhance the frugality of your healer, you can pick this talent up for some added damage reduction.
■Scarlet Fever
This provides an amazing debuff but it’s one that should already be supplied by your tanks. It would be a shame if you had to do their job for them, in my opinion. Also note that Scarlet Fever does not apply a disease that would synergize with Scourge Strike.
■Hand of Doom
This talent reduces the cooldown of Strangulate to 1 min. This is probably more provisional for PvP but given that we can’t CC (asides from beating a mob to dead pulp), providing more reliable caster control can be a nice group asset where mobs are susceptible to silence

Edited by Heartless on 4/13/11 7:35 AM (PDT) Frost Options

■Runic Power Mastery
Since Runic Corruption procs no longer override each other (they stack 3 second extensions to the buff) we can Death Coil without fear of wasting rune regeneration. RPM will allow you to collect more total RP and successively Death Coil to reach Dark Transformation faster. 1/3 Runic Power Mastery is definitely recommended and all that’s required. More investment in this talent provides diminished benefits. I’m pretty sure there are TV shows about people who hoard to dangerous levels. Your gains and expenditures of RP (besides sudden AMS pops) will have you below 100 for a majority of the time anyway.

Unholy Options

■Desecration
If you didn’t choose it as your 1st utility, you could assign some points here now. See above to read the details on this talent. It is beneficial in many pre-raid encounters but has potential minuses you will also want to consider.
■Resilient Infection
If you didn’t choose it as your 1st utility, you could assign some points here now but again this is very lackluster considering its lack of PvE application.
■Death’s Advance
Not just for PVP, this talent would be nice for any fights that are snare heavy.
■Magic Suppression
2/3 of Magic Suppression is an excellent choice based on the frequency of this spell’s use. You could also go back and finish 3/3 for even more survivability and healer friendliness. It provides situational enhancements to your RP generation which translates into some DPS.
■Optional: Anti-Magic Zone
If you decided to finish 3/3 of the previous talent, you could take your magic protection a step further. AMZ has a 2 minute cooldown which can be of benefit for stationary phase events.

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I I I . P R I O R I T Y / P L A Y
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Playing 2H Unholy means maintaining a challenging & fun priority system while artfully commanding Timmy to do your bidding. Fixed rotations are long gone and we’re better for it.

P r e s e n c e
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Unholy (unless otherwise noted)

R u n e f o r g e
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Rune of the Fallen Crusader

P r i o r i t y S y s t e m
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Single Target Priority Diseases > Dark Transformation > Death and Decay/Scourge Strike (UnholyUnholy or Death Runes are up)> Festering Strike (BloodBlood and FrostFrost are up)> Death Coil (Sudden Doom, high RP)> Death and Decay/Scourge Strike> Festering Strike > Horn of Winter
Diseases
Apply your diseases quickly via Outbreak if it’s up, otherwise Icy Touch and Plague Strike. The ticking damage isn’t a lot but the boost it provides to your damage is paramount. Ebon Plague, for example is applied when you cast Icy Touch, Plague Strike, or Outbreak and weakens your target to magical damage by an additional 8% (tier 6 Unholy talent). That's a huge vulnerability. Also Scourge Strike, for each of your diseases on your target, deals an additional 18% of the physical damage done as shadow damage.

Dark Transformation
Your Death Coils apply a stacking Shadow Infusion buff onto your Ghoul. This improves the Ghoul progressively and allows for the casting Dark Transformation upon reaching 5x Shadow Infusion. A huge factor in your overall DPS is maximizing Dark Transformation's uptime (see the Mods section in this guide for suggestions about monitoring DT and Shadow Infusion). It is key that you super-size Timmy as often and as quickly as you can. If you’re caught without available runes down on a 5x Shadow Infusion, remember that Blood Tap is a Death Rune activator that may enable you to DT faster (read more on BT's mechanic below). One can also reserve Runic Power during Dark Transformation for quick reapplication of Shadow Infusion stacks the moment Timmy returns to normal. As a general rule, you will want to throttle your non-Sudden Doom Death Coil usage so that you approach the cap just as DT fades.

Death and Decay/Scourge Strike
Death and Decay is a solid tick that requires minor effort to cast and it’s a DPS gain even in single target situations. Whenever possible, plan ahead to avoid losing potential damage due to mob movement. If it means deferring Death and Decay until the target is situated, so be it.

Scourge Strike is a very hard hitter and is similarly high in priority. It will also replace Death and Decay when it is on cooldown.

Festering Strike
Festering Strike serves the important purpose of adding 6 seconds to your diseases. Done wisely, and fight allowing, your diseases will stayed renewed. It’s like watering a plant of doom. If your diseases do fall off for whatever reason you will simply repeat the ‘Diseases’ priority explained above. Also, with Reaping from our Unholy specialization, the runes consumed by Festering Strike will become death runes when they reactivate.

Death Coil
Not unlike runes, we don’t want to waste Sudden Doom procs. With Runic Corruption’s mechanic revamped, we no longer have to worry about overriding our rune regeneration. Death Coil may now be done freely to make use of Sudden Doom procs, to build Shadow Infusion stacks quickly (for DT), and to avoid the RP cap.

Death and Decay/Scourge Strike and Festering Strike
This is your ‘rinse and repeat’ in order when you have runes (and cooldown) available.

Horn of Winter
When all else fails, you can toot your horn for RP and to maintain its uptime for you and your cohorts. It’s a step above twiddling your thumbs, so don't feel bad, you're staying busy at least.

AoE Target Priority Diseases + Pestilence > Dark Transformation > Death and Decay/Scourge Strike (UnholyUnholy or Death Runes are up)> Blood Boil/Icy Touch (BloodBlood and FrostFrost are up)> Death Coil (Sudden Doom, high RP)
By AoE fight, I do not just mean multiple targets. For your standard dungeon pull, you would still use the ‘Single Target’ as above. This AOE priority is written for the cultist packs in Bastion, the non-elite cultists before High Priestess Azil, Geist patrols, and other mass pulls. In these cases, you will want to switch momentarily to Frost Presence.

Diseases
If any of the mobs will survive for more than a few seconds, it is worthwhile to Pestilence. One caveat on this: do not Pestilence if it will pull an adjoining group or if there is a CC nearby. This is particularly noteworthy if you are glyphed for extended range on Pestilence. Mages get really frustrated when their sheep spasms with cooties and comes to cough in their face.

Dark Transformation
Is still of equally high importance. Same as with single target priority.

Death and Decay/Scourge Strike
Same as with single target priority.

Blood Boil/Icy Touch
Blood Boil, for Unholy DK’s, always results in a leftover Frost rune which can only be used offensively for Icy Touch.

Death Coil
Same as with single target priority.

G H O U L ( T I M M Y )
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Timmy is still some of your best damage so it’s wise to learn how to use him properly.

For extra credit, bind his Attack/Follow/Stay & Huddle commands to keys you can access quickly. For the most part, Timmy is a resilient pet. He has an unspoken 90% AoE damage reduction and can be healed by your Death Coil (discounted healing with Glyph of Death’s Embrace). That’s wonderful, but better than cruising on those abilities is to have smooth control and awareness of him.

Another AI shortcoming is in regards to Timmy’s Claw ability. Sometimes he sits on his energy and other times he'll get all tuckered out. If he's still underusing his energy, you may want to macro his Claw with a Scourge Strike (see Macros for more info).

S U R V I V A L
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To quote Ghostcrawler, "Dungeons are hard."

Raise Ally
In 4.0.6 and prior patches, risen allies were lovingly cobbled together from elmer's glue, macaroni, and glitter. With 4.1, we have expanded our control over death to resurrect our allies completely. Raise Ally is now instant cast, costs 50 Runic Power, and has a 10-minute cooldown. The requisite Runic Power means you must be in the midst of combat activity and temporarily forgo your personal DPS for the benefit of returning others to the field. It shares the same global battle resurrection cap with other players, so like our Druid and Warlock rezzers, communication with the raid before and during an encounter is required. Only one manner of resurrection is allowed in a 10-man and three within a 25-man fight so there is stressed value in using it wisely. Resurrections have raid saving potential so don't waste it by selecting the wrong person or watching someone accept prematurely.

Anti-Magic Shell
Using Anti-Magic Shell wisely is one of the key aspects that separates the ‘good’ Death Knights from the ‘great’ ones. AMS provides a two-fold benefit and understanding it well will optimize your play.

Firstly, AMS is a powerful defensive ability that absorbs 75% (83%/91%/100% Magic Suppression) of the damage dealt by harmful spells up to 50% of your total health and prevents the application of harmful magical effects. In heavy damage situations, this is a lifesaver and aids on healing resources. For reoccurring damage, plan AMS to correlate with the boss timers. I.e., for Valiona where the damage is frequent, you can use AMS slightly before Blackout so that you have its protection and begin its cooldown timer.

Secondly, and often underutilized, is AMS’s DPS boon. Damage absorption (again via Magic Suppression) will cause you to become ‘energized’ and generate a substantial amount of Runic Power. When you can anticipate AMS a few seconds ahead of time, make sure to have very low RP so that you do not cap while energizing.

The only caveat associated with AMS is not to use it when you a required to get a magical debuff. One example of this is Elementium Monstrosity where you have to get the grounded or levitated debuff to survive. These are rare situations but worth keeping in mind.

Death Knight Tanking FAQ - Updated for 4.1 Cataclysm

2011-05-20T12:57:00.000-07:00

What you will find in this thread are answers to questions that are not already answered by reading tooltips - the "How do I play" questions.

Posts in this FAQ:
1) How do I spec and glyph for tanking?
2) How do I gem, enchant and reforge?
3) What is my rotation?
4) Do I use Diseases?
5) CAN I DUEL[sic] WIELD?
6) Understanding Death Strike / Mastery

1) How do I spec and glyph for tanking?

For only 5 mans:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#jcGrbsMruszZbhc
Goal is to maximize aoe threat potential. Now that more people have good gear, there are more situations you can get away with minimal CC, and DPS aoe is going to be higher anyway.

Raid progression:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#jcGr0sMruszG0ob

This spec has the highest survivability potential. When Lichborne is available, you can pool Runic Power and use it to heal yourself with Death Coil, which synergizes well when you pick the VB Glyph. With large stacks of Vengeance, Death Coil heals for massive amounts and you can machine gun up to 3 in a row. It does require some preparation and loss of Rune Strikes, however, after the initial pull Vengeance largely makes threat a non-issue as it is currently tuned. For more in depth analysis, it is best to refer to this post:
http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t105485-old_cataclysm_dk_endgame_tanking_4_x/p14/#post1806084

Talents you will want to avoid:

3/3 Scent of Blood - Has stacking issues, as the max stack is 3. Stacks are often lost when procs happen close together. This does, however, still increase RP generation marginally.

Abomination's Might - DPS classes can and will bring this and they do it better. The 2% Strength bonus that is not redundant is not worth the points you will spend on it.

Blood-Caked Blade - Has a value of less than 0.5% overall damage increase per talent point. Terrible.

Crimson Scourge - Blood Boil's damage is extremely low, so the boost this talent gives is negligible at best. The proc can screw Blade Barrier uptime if you are fishing for F/U procs by holding a full Blood Rune - using BB to consume it at the last second is best, as it will use the Rune even if it misses. A free BB, however, mucks this up.

Glyphs
Note: If a Glyph is not listed, it is not worth considering.

Prime Glyphs

Rune Strike / Heart Strike / Death Strike - Single target threat bonuses.
Death and Decay - AoE threat bonus.
Death Coil - Arguably mandatory. The only Prime Glyph which can assist with survivability, via a Lichborne spec.

Major Glyphs

Rune Tap - Very valuable for assisting healers with saving mana.
Vampiric Blood - Synergizes well with Lichborne specs. The 15% health bonus you lose is not likely to be noticeable outside of progression hard modes.
Anti-Magic Shell - Meh, but better than nothing.
Dancing Rune Weapon - Worth mentioning only to point out that it is bad. The only time this threat bonus would be useful is at the start of a pull, the time you are least likely to have 60 RP.

Minor Glyphs

Blood Tap - The only one that isn't awful.
Death Gate - YEAAAAAAAAAH

2) How do I gem, enchant and Reforge?

While Reforging has added an extra level of complexity, this decision is actually even easier now because of it. Use the following guidelines for all of your enchanting, gemming and Reforging needs:

- If it is possible to choose more Mastery, do that.
- If it is possible to choose more Stamina but not more Mastery, do that.
- If you are not at the Expertise cap (6.0/6.5%), Reforge Dodge or Parry as above until you are. Do not gem or enchant for it.
- You want a modicum of Hit (2-3% is fine for Heroics, more for Raids), but don't go out of your way for it. Reforge some Parry or Dodge if it's extremely low.

If you have any remaining pieces of gear that have not yet been Reforged:
- Reforge Dodge or Parry as above into Mastery

If you are above the Hit or Expertise cap:
- Reforge excess Hit or Expertise into Mastery

For your Meta, you want the Austere Shadowspirit Diamond.

Mastery is superior to Avoidance for damage prevention. While on a 1:1 rating basis they are roughly equivalent, Avoidance's value remains the same when Magic damage is added to a scenario, while Mastery's goes up. This is because Death Strike heals will include magic damage, even though Blood Shield will not mitigate it. The Blood Shields will therefore be larger.

Refer to this post for some additional data and discussion:
http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t110102-blood_dk_endgame_tanking_4_x/p5/#post1830811

Being Hit and Expertise capped has been shown via simulation to have only a small effect on overall damage taken, and thus doing so is not exceedingly important. I recommend Expertise soft cap only as a quality of life measure. When simulations were run, what was found was that a missed/dodged/parried Death Strike was just as likely to shift the 5 second window to include more damage as it was to include less.

Small amounts of data on this are here:
http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t110102-blood_dk_endgame_tanking_4_x/p5/#post1831494

3) What is my rotation?

There is no rotation. We now have a priority/logic system.

Single Target
1) Outbreak on cooldown
2) Death Strike
3) Rune Strike
4) Rune Tap on cooldown (if 90% health or less)
5) Horn of Winter
6) Heart Strike/Blood Boil

Functionally, DS has the highest priority, as it is our survivability mechanic. Outbreak is only higher because you never want it to be sitting off cooldown, since Diseases apply the Standard Tank Debuffs (STDs) and this does it for free. However, you generally want to avoid back to back Death Strikes, to avoid clipping when a melee hit between them is reduced by the existing Blood Shield.

HS is rarely used, despite that it is the signature ability of Blood. It brings virtually no advantage to the table in a world where Vengeance makes threat autopilot in the majority of situations. BB is far superior for consuming Blood Runes, which is explained in more detail below.

DRW is kind of a goofy cooldown. It is generally best to synchronize it with Outbreak or Bone Shield when you can, as the latter's average uptime will go up with increased avoidance, and DRW will dupe your diseases with the former.

Multi Target
1) Death and Decay
2) If Outbreak is up, use it. If not, it is generally safe to avoid Diseases in 5 mans, and in Raids another tank will provide the STDs.
3) Pestilence if you used Outbreak, otherwise ignore.
4) Death Strike
5) Rune Strike
6) Blood Boil / Heart Strike

If 4 or more targets, always choose Blood Boil over Heart Strike. Otherwise, it doesn't matter. If you are running the 5 man spec above, Death and Decay will take care of most of the threat you need anyway.

Gaming Runic Empowerment and Blade Barrier

At all times, you will want to hold on to one fully recharged Blood Rune so that RE will only pick a Frost or Unholy rune when it procs, giving you more DS.

In order to prevent Blade Barrier dropoff while doing this, consume the fully charged Blood Rune 1-2 seconds before the recharing one fills completely. BB is superior to HS for this purpose, as it will consume the Rune even if no targets are hit.

Using Blood Tap Effectively

To avoid losing a DS when casting Bone Shield, BT should be used to create a Death Rune for this purpose. This will occupy half of your BTs during a fight, as Bone Shield has a 1m cooldown and BT has 30s. The remainder should be used to cover Disease uptime as appropriate. Consult the "Should I use Diseases" question for more information on this.

4) Do I use Diseases?

At first glance this probably seems like a stupid question. Diseases are a core mechanic! you might say, Of course I want to keep them up at all times. But the answer is actually not that cut and dry.

For what purpose does a Blood tank keep up Diseases? What benefit do they potentially provide? Let's have a look.
1) They do damage
2) They cause Heart Strike to do more damage
3) Frost Fever slows attack speed, Blood Plague reduces damage by 10%

Now, why might a Blood tank not want to keep up Diseases? There's really only one reason. When you're not applying them via Outbreak, it costs one Frost and one Unholy Rune - The cost of a Death Strike that you just lost. So the question is this - Does the extra Death Strike you get every minute outweigh those 3 reasons above? Absolutely.

1/2) They do damage and buff Heart Strike's damage
Barely. Diseases, especially as Blood, are pretty terrible at dealing damage. They're just not that potent. As for Heart Strike, if you are playing optimally, you are almost never using it. Blood Boil is better for consuming Blood Runes to keep Blade Barrier up (since it will still consume the Rune even if it misses - Heart Strike will not) and threat is a non-issue thanks to Vengeance anyway.

3) Frost Fever slows attack speed, Blood Plague reduces damage by 10%
Sure. So do other tank debuffs that cost less to apply. No other tank trades their "block" to apply the Standard Tank Debuffs (STDs), so it is always better for a non-Death Knight to do so. In addition, if any DPS Death Knight is in the raid, this covers Frost Fever, and there is no reason for you to ever cast it. Both Frost and Unholy keep 100% Disease uptime as part of their normal rotation, without sacrificing anything.

But the more important issue is that, when applying Diseases without Outbreak, we lose one Death Strike. Losing one DS every minute may not seem like a big deal, but it actually is. It directly affects our survivability (obviously), and we already take more damage than other tanks by design with the intention that we can heal some back (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2140511400?page=2#21).

Current theorycrafting shows that having 50% uptime of Scarlet Fever or losing one Death Strike per minute result in damage taken that is within 1% of each other. What this means is that whichever you choose to do has almost no noticeable effect on your overall damage taken. What's important, however, is how the damage reduction happens.

Given the above, consider that in a one minute period, 30 seconds of Scarlet Fever and one Death Strike reduce your incoming damage by roughly the same amount. What's important about this is that a Death Strike covers (generally) about 8 seconds worth of incoming damage. What this means is that even though they reduce the same amount of damage, because of the time span difference, dropping the Death Strike results in a higher burst of incoming DPS, which places more stress on your healers.

All of this does not count the healing lost from that Death Strike, as well. In summary, to play optimally to reduce your incoming damage, you want to abide by the following rules:

1) Outbreak on cooldown
2) If there is no one to apply the attack speed debuff to your target, use Blood Tap->Icy Touch to keep up Frost Fever in periods not covered by Outbreak and only apply Blood Plague with Outbreak
3) If someone (another tank or DPS DK) is applying the attack speed debuff to your target, use Blood Tap->Plague Strike to keep up Blood Plague during periods not covered by Outbreak

5) CAN I DUEL[sic] WIELD?

Sure. Death Knights have the ability to use two one-handed weapons. Dual wielding as a tank, however, comes with the following stipulations:

- There is no situation in which dual wield will be equal to or better than using a two handed weapon.
- There is no support within our talent tree structure for dual wielding as Blood.
- There is little to no support within the WoW commuinty for dual wielding as a tank, at best. More often, you will be insulted and vote kicked.

Dual wielding, therefore, is a deliberate underpowering of your character for the sake of style. Do it if you want to hold your group back, because this is the only thing you will accomplish.

6) Understanding Death Strike / Mastery
What follows is an excellent post by Euliat that warrants attention, originally posted here:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2416208246?page=1

Throughout reading posts on these forums, it has become evident that there are still a large number of players who don’t understand at all how Death Strike (and by extension, Blood Shield) actually works. While I don’t fully know every little answer myself, I hope this thread will clear up any misconceptions as well as serving to explain to current and future Blood tanks how Death Strike affects their rotation and survivability, as, after all, it is an integral part of their mastery. Ultimately, the survivability of the player boils down to their ability to use DS well.

Since I do not PvP often, the content of this post is limited to a PvE perspective, primarily in the context of Blood tanking at 85 and some of the recommendations may not be appropriate in heroic raids. I’ve yet to get far in that content, so I don’t know how accurate it remains there.

Here is a list of titles so you can quickly access the information you would like to read:

1. Misconceptions
2. Death Strike
3. Blood Shield
4. Heal/Shield Calculations

a. Minimum heal
b. Over minimum heal
5. How DS/mastery affect Blood’s rotation
a. RE Gaming

1. Misconceptions

Starting off, I’ll address a few of the misconceptions (shown as quoted text) I have heard about Death Strike and Blood Shield so far:

Misconception #1: Death Strike is based on the damage you do.
Not true. It’s based on the damage you TAKE.

Misconception #2: Blood Shield’s size is subject to Mortal Strike or any effects of that nature, since that reduces/increases (VB*) the healing from DS.
Also not true. The shield is calculated independently from the heal size that you actually receive. +% heal effects and -% heal effects have zero impact whatsoever on the shield size (except Improved Death Strike).

Misconception #3: Overhealing with Death Strike reduces Blood Shield’s size.
Not true. Overhealing has zero impact on shield size. Whether you get 100% overheal or 0% overheal, you will not see a different shield size.

Misconception #4: Blood Shield absorbs magical damage.
Nope. Sorry, all. Just physical. Blood Shield's value is increased by magical damage, but it doesn't actually absorb magical damage. Frost mages can QQ about something else.

Misconception #5: Using Death Strike more often than someone else leads to better mitigation.
Maybe? It really depends. If you’re getting more Death Strikes off, but not timing a single one of them, you may not necessarily be better off. You’ll also be suffering from your previous Blood Shield reducing damage in your damage window if you’re doing them really quickly, too.

Misconception #6: You need diseases up on the target to get healing from Death Strike.
That was the case during most of Wrath. This is Cataclysm, so you don't need diseases up to get healing.

Misconception #7: Mastery stops at 100% (16 mastery).
It doesn’t. You can have more than 100% of something. 150% more candy is always nice.

Misconception #8: Blood shield stacks to 33% of your max HP, or, Blood Shield stacks infinitely.
Neither. It caps at 100% of your maximum HP. If you use an ability to increase your max HP temporarily, the Blood Shield cap temporarily increases as well. If your addon tells you your shield size is greater than your maximum HP, your addon is wrong.

Misconception #9: More stamina means larger Death Strike heals.
This one is partially true, but only if your heal is at the minimum value. If it isn’t, see #1.

*Unglyphed VB can increase the Blood Shield size only at the minimum value because it increases your max HP. Over this, or glyphed, it has no effect on shield size.

Edited by Lichloathe on 5/16/11 9:00 PM (PDT) Death Strike

Firstly, here is the base tooltip for Death Strike:

Death Strike
1 Unholy, 1 Frost
A deadly attack that deals 150% weapon damage plus 495, healing you for 20% of the damage you have sustained during the preceding 5 sec (minimum of at least 7% of your maximum health).

For Blood tanks, this attack will be your primary strike, as it hits quite hard, heals you, and triggers your mastery. Even though this attack will give you 2 death runes, you should use those runes on another Death Strike instead of 2 Heart Strikes. You’re a tank—your first priority is living, not doing damage. Using 2 Heart Strikes instead costs a significant amount of mitigation, so if you are going to do it, there better be a good reason. Referring back to the tooltip, there is an extremely key part that will be important if you want to maximize your survivability:

healing you for 20% of the damage you have sustained during the preceding 5 sec

What this means is that timing is key. Don’t just blindly hit DS as soon as your F/U/D runes come up. You need to learn to wait to time it with incoming damage, or high spikes in damage (dragon breaths, massive AoEs, etc.). The Cataclysm rune system allows you to wait for a little bit without a penalty. You can only regenerate 1 of each rune at a time, so as long as you don’t wait until your next set of runes finishes cooling, it’s okay.

Another factor with timing is your current HP. If you’re at full HP, then your Death Strike isn’t going to do any effective healing at all. Although that means nothing for mastery, it is affecting your overall mitigation. So, on top of timing with damage, you need to keep an eye out on your HP to minimize overhealing as best as you can (but don’t stress on it, because some overheal is intended). In heroic 5 mans, you will probably have a high amount of overhealing because you aren’t taking a ton of damage. In normal raids, it probably won’t be all that high. In heroic raids, it will usually be high again because your healers can’t let you sit at low HP. Regardless of the overheal, once again, your shield size is not determined by overheal, so it will scale properly to accommodate.

I highly recommend downloading the addon “Blood Shield Tracker” to help you monitor an estimated heal size. While it is not 100% accurate due to latency, it will help you figure out when is the best time to use Death Strike.

To expand on the timing portion, a typical slowed boss swing timer is 1.8 seconds. That means in your 5 second window, you could potentially get up to 3 attacks (0.0s, 1.8s, 3.6s) going toward your Death Strike’s heal. It also means that there is a 1.4 second “gap” that you can use to your advantage by getting 3 swings into the damage window instead of 2, which means a larger heal. Try your best to time your Death Strike with damage sources, such as the boss’s swing timer (which you just have to “guess”). However, you need to be somewhat aware of avoidance’s effect on your heal size. Although avoiding an attack usually always leads to less damage taken overall, it’s going to affect your shield size because it has effectively eliminated a swing out of the window. This might lead to “spikiness.” You don’t need to be overly concerned about this, but just be aware that, for most content, it might be better to hold off a DS for a little bit if you’ve just avoided 2 attacks in a row. Blood Shield Tracker can help you out with this by reflecting your estimated heal size. If you already have a decently sized Blood Shield up, but you are avoiding a good deal, it’s probably better to get a lower Death Strike just to maintain the current shield so it doesn’t get lost.

Blood Shield

Similarly, here is the tooltip:

Blood Shield
Each time you heal yourself via Death Strike, you gain 50% of the amount healed as a damage absorption shield. Each point of Mastery increases the shield by an additional 6.25%.

Although the wording is vague, Blood Shield does not, in fact, absorb magical damage. However, Blood Shield’s size can be increased by magical damage, because the healing done by Death Strike doesn’t distinguish between physical and magical damage. Since Death Strike’s heal is the base of this shield, the power of your mastery lies completely in your use of Death Strike. This is why understanding and timing Death Strike is so important, because it’s intended to be your version of a block. Consequently, there’s not really much else to say about mastery like there is about Death Strike, except for two more parts.

One benefit to mastery is that it doesn’t suffer diminishing returns*, so every point of mastery is going to increase your shield size by 6.25%, even past 100%, which makes mastery a very appealing stat. Stacking shields can also be used to your benefit, but on typical raid bosses, it makes a small difference, but it is a gain nonetheless. Aiming to stack your shields by using Death Strike back to back is usually a loss, because your second Death Strike will probably overheal a good deal, which will negate the larger shield size. Not to mention, you’ll probably take a swing before you Death Strike again, which will get fully absorbed, which means it doesn’t count toward your next Death Strike’s heal. Unless you’re going to take a ton of damage in a short interval, it’s usually better to stagger Death Strikes by about 5 seconds. This will help smooth out your damage intake, while also avoiding your previous shields clipping into your next Death Strike’s damage window, by reducing the damage in the window, leading to better overall mitigation.

*Technically avoidance and previous shields can both diminish the effect of mastery by reducing subsequent shields. So in that sense, mastery does suffer diminishing returns.

4. Heal/Shield Calculations
As can be seen from the tooltip, Death Strike’s healing breaks down into one of two categories, minimum or not, which can cause some confusion for players. The method of calculation is the same, but the result differs. Since this is referring primarily to Blood tanks, these calculations include Improved Death Strike, because if you don’t have it as a tank, go respec. Improved Death Strike doesn’t increase the size of the minimum heal, but it reduces the amount of healing needed to cross the minimum heal from 35% of your max HP to 24.1% of your max HP, so, it technically does work, despite what you may believe.

Here is how your base heal size is calculated:

1. First, the server calculates the damage you have taken in the previous 5 seconds.
2. Next, the server takes 29% of this value. (20%*145%=29%).
3. This calculated value is compared to 7% of your HP.

a. If 7% of your HP is greater than the calculated value, the server will set your heal to be 7% of your maximum HP.
b. If 7% of your HP is less than the calculated value, the server will set your heal to be the calculated value.
4. Heal value is set and used for Blood Shield. Blood shield is applied.
5. Any healing addition/reduction is applied to the heal value.
6. You are healed for that amount.

Edited by Lichloathe on 5/16/11 9:01 PM (PDT) For numerical examples, let’s take a Death Knight who has 160k HP buffed with 130% mastery (20.8 mastery--decimals do count even if stats pane % doesn't change).

The following are simplifications of the calculations, which become more complicated when you add in previous shields / RNG and start to include the next DS mitigation set. This is purely for illustration, though.

a. Minimum heal

Suppose a mob swings at you for 10k. Referring previously, you’re going to get probably 3-ish swings into your damage window. Given typical levels of avoidance, though, you’re probably going to avoid 1 of them. Let’s see what happens with avoiding 1 and taking the other 2 and going through the steps.

1. 10,000+0+10,000 = 20,000
2. 0.29 * 30,000 = 5,800
3. 0.07 * 160,000 = 11,200

a. 11,200 > 5,800
4. Heal value is 11,200. Blood Shield is applied and its size is 11,200 * 1.30 = 14,560.
5. No buffs/debuffs, so no modifiers to the heal.
6. You are healed for 11,200.

There is only one way to increase the base heal size: stamina.

There are two ways to increase this shield size: stamina and mastery. Going the stamina route, you are subjecting half of your bonus (the healing portion) to overheal for a slight gain if you don’t overheal more than ~15%. Going the mastery route, you don’t see this penalty.

b. Over minimum heal

Suppose a mob swings at you for 30k instead. Once again, 3 swings, 1 avoided.

1. 0+30,000+30,000 = 60,000
2. 0.29 * 60,000 = 17,400
3. 0.07 * 160,000 = 11,200

a. 11,200 < 17,400
4. Heal value is 17,400. Blood Shield is applied and its size is 17,400 * 1.30 = 22,620.
5. No buffs/debuffs, so no modifiers to the heal.
6. You are healed for 17,400.

There’s nothing you can do to increase this heal size before modifiers (except take more damage).

The only way to increase this shield size is mastery.

How DS/mastery affect Blood’s rotation

Well, first off, you don’t have one to begin with. You have a priority system, which looks something like this, assuming threat is already established:

1) Outbreak on cooldown
2) Death Strike (potentially Icy Touch+Plague Strike, see explanation)
3) Rune Strike (if FF and/or UU runes are both cooling)
4) Rune Tap on cooldown if less than 90% HP
5) Heart Strike when your other blood rune has 1.5s (or 3s to be safer) left on the cooldown
6) Horn of Winter?

Now let’s see where that priority system came from. Outbreak on cooldown should be obvious: diseases for tank debuffs at no expense to you. Next is Death Strike, for healing and mastery, both of which will help you survive better, as well as dealing a fair deal of damage and threat. In parentheses, diseases are mentioned. No doubt the debuffs they provide are great, but in order to put them up without Blood Tap, you have to give up a Death Strike for ~6 seconds, which may be a bad idea at times. This is why they aren’t top priority, because you may need that heal/shield more than you need the debuffs for a few seconds. Them falling off probably won’t kill you, but you not using a Death Strike might. Also, other classes can provide the equivalent debuffs for you. However, if you have nobody to do so, then you might need to yourself. If you know you’re about to get slammed and your diseases fell off, don’t put them up until the damage ramps down. At the absolute bare minimum, you should be using Outbreak on cooldown. Rune Tap should also be fairly clear, too.

a. RE gaming

Next is typically the confusing part, and it’s referred to as “RE gaming.”

Although it says Rune Strike is next, what’s in parentheses is rather important because of the way Runic Empowerment works. Runic Empowerment gives you a 45% chance to refresh a FULLY depleted rune when you use Rune Strike. For this reason, you don’t want to use it unless both frost and/or unholy runes are on cooldown, because then if it procs, it is guaranteed to restore either an unholy or a frost rune, either of which leads to more Death Strikes. If you only have 1 rune cooling down, then Runic Empowerment won’t proc anything. If you have both blood runes cooling, then there’s a chance it could proc one of those instead of a frost or unholy rune (which means less Death Strikes), which is why you want to minimize this window as much as you can, but still keep Blade Barrier up for the 6% damage reduction. Blade Barrier will get refreshed as soon as both blood runes are on cooldown—it doesn’t matter for how long—or if you use an ability while both blood runes are on cooldown. This is why you want to Heart Strike at the last possible second to refresh Blade Barrier and minimize that window. If you find miss/dodge/parry to be a nuisance, you can Heart Strike earlier to be safer. As an alternative, you can use Blood Boil (or just use it in a pinch), but it is a substantial DPS loss. If you want to learn with Blood Boil, and then switch to Heart Strike when you're comfortable, go for it. Finally, there is Horn of Winter, because at that point, you don’t really have much else to use.

For a picture diagram of runes and Runic Empowerment for people that want one:

BB / FF / UU, where x denotes a cooling rune:
xx / Fx / Ux – RE will proc a blood rune.
Bx / xx / Ux – RE will proc a frost rune.
Bx / xx / xx – RE will proc either a frost or an unholy rune.
xx / Fx / xx – RE will proc either a blood or an unholy rune.
Bx / Fx / Ux – RE will proc nothing. BOTH runes of the SAME type must be cooling to proc.

By controlling your runes, you can “force” Runic Empowerment to give you what you want. This is the whole point of RE gaming.

To further complicate this, you have Blood Tap on a talented 30 second cooldown. If you only have to put up 1 disease, you can use Blood Tap for that if you want. Otherwise, you can use Blood Tap to your advantage for both Blade Barrier uptime and more Death Strikes. You can also use this Blood Tap for Bone Shield every other time.

How can you measure your performance with this in raids? If your guild uses World of Logs, check out how many Death Strikes per minute you are using, as that will be a good gauge. Without any RE gaming at all, you should be at 6-7 Death Strikes per minute. Anything less and you’ve got some problems to work out. With RE gaming, depending on if you were placing up diseases or not, you should be doing 8-10. Remember, though, timing your Death Strikes is still important. Also, your Blade Barrier uptime should be at least 80%+ (Buffs Cast tab).

In summary, literally everything you do in your rotation is designed to maximize your Death Strike throughput.

I hope this helps clear any confusion, and thanks for taking the time to read

Woah, WoW BRO

2010-12-21T21:18:00.001-08:00

Sometimes, krissys gay,

Boot Danger's WoW Tips and Tricks: Shokz Starcraft 2 Guide Review - Personal Experience

2010-10-27T23:43:00.000-07:00

Boot Danger's WoW Tips and Tricks: Shokz Starcraft 2 Guide Review - Personal Experience

Undercity Post-Cataclysm Pictures

2010-10-27T23:33:00.000-07:00

Before Cataclsym - Undercity

After Cataclysm - Undercity

Female Worgen Dance Cataclysm

2010-10-27T23:32:00.000-07:00

The Female Worgen dance is finally available and is based on Poker Face from Lady Gaga, haha funny stuff! Good video, nice dance! Hurry up cataclysm !

Worgen Video for Cataclysm - Cinematic

2010-10-27T23:31:00.001-07:00

Worgen or goblins? YOU DECIDE - WORLD OF WARCRAFT CATACLYSM!

Cataclysm - Cho'gall Beta Test Video

2010-10-27T23:30:00.000-07:00

Should be a good cataclysm raid!

Cho'gall Beta Testing - Vi deo

Cataclysm Login Screen Video

2010-10-27T23:28:00.000-07:00

Hope everyone is getting stoked for the xpac, here is the new login screen for cataclysm.

Paladin Tier 11 Models Cataclysm

2010-10-20T08:49:00.001-07:00

Female top, Male Bottom.

Rogue Tier 11 Cataclysm

2010-10-20T08:48:00.001-07:00

Male Models are at the top, female at the bottom.

and SIQQQQQ

Death Knight Tier 11 Cataclysm Models

2010-10-20T08:41:00.000-07:00

Cataclysm Cinematic Intro Video New

2010-10-20T08:33:00.000-07:00

Here is the new video for Cataclysm, the excitement is building quick!

Cataclysm Gold Guide - Make a fortune from twinks once Cata hits

2010-10-14T10:56:00.000-07:00

I've been twinking/playing the AH for quite a long time, and in my experience, there is no better market to corner in the AH than the twinking economy. Why do you ask? First of all, low item levels means low deposits, so if your stuff doesnt sell first time around, its all good. However, the main reason why its so amazing, is because its the only market where you can FREQUENTLY find INSANE bargains because people frankly dont know what they have.

I cant tell you how many times I've bought Wranglers wristbands of power/stam/monkey for 25s (worth 1kg to the right twink) or 9/9 pathfinder hats for a couple gold. Heck, I got my one and only shadowfang for under 100g and sold for over 5k. It happens all the time when you know what to look for.

When cata hits, 2 major things will change in the world of twinking. First of all, twinking will be coming back in full force. Right now, twinks have to migrate to their brackets home BG in order to get exp off games. (19 & 49 ruin, 29 reckoning, 39 nightfall in the US) With the BG merger in cata, twinks will be able to play with other twinks from every bg, so the numbers will shoot through the roof hence driving prices up. The second major change (where the real $$$ come in) is that they're changing a ton of the lower level items and making many currently "noob" items BIS. As long as you know what to buy and hold on to, you'll make an EPIC TON OF GOLD come cata with very little investment.

Without further ado, this is what you need to get your hands on:

19's:
Razor's Edge (currently very inexpensive)
Darkweave Breeches (not best profit margin, but buy if you see cheap)
Gloves of the Fang
Feet of the Lynx (everyone is going to want these)
Bronze Band of Force (crafted, but will likely be bis for a couple classes)
Mindthrust Bracers

29's:
Enduring Cap (this will also 100x in value)
Silver-Lined Belt (currently incredibly inexpensive will be bis)
Glowing Magical Bracelets
Resilient Cap (currently worth nothing, will be amazing for a TON of classes)
Shadow Hood (craftable, but about to become awesome for fc twinks)
Resilient Robe (currently worthless green, about to get huge boost)
Magician's Mantle
Tribal Worg Helm (this will 100x in value)
Forest Tracker Epaulets (already expensive, so not best profit margin, but buy if cheap)
Claw of the Shadowmancer (rogues are about to get shadowstep, so expect a lot of dagger rogues. This will be better than torturing poker come cata, since the poker is getting the nerf shaft)

Not too sure about the 39 & 49 changes just yet, but I'll look into it, and I'll be updating this thread any time I see new gold opportunities in the twinking market, or further changes to items pertinent to twinking.

Hope you enjoyed the guide, and happy gold making

Disclaimer: Much like most cataclysm threads this is subject to change, since everything isnt out yet to view. Regardless, of whether or not all these items will be best in slot for twinks, many of them will, and all of these will definitely be getting better.

Taken from Kazin420 @ mmowned.

Mount Speed Changes in 4.0.1 Cataclysm Changes

2010-10-14T10:54:00.000-07:00

New blue post about Mount speed changes in it's current state.

To clarify my original post, when I said no changes were being made to mounts in 4.0.1, I was referring to the idea of mounts being removed or droprates changed. No mounts have been removed as of yet, nor have any droprates been altered.

With that said, 310% speed is now solely obtained by purchasing the skill. All mounts now go the speed of your highest skill level. So if you happen to obtain Invincible now and have nothing higher than Expert riding, you will travel 150% speed. If you have Artisan riding the mount will be 280%. In order for the mount to travel 310% speed for anyone who obtains it after 4.0.1, you will need to purchase the new Master riding skill. Anyone who had a 310% mount prior to patch 4.0.1 automatically learned Master riding.

[...] There are no 310% mounts anymore. 310% speed is now obtained via Master riding, a new flying skill. All flying mounts are now only distinguished by aesthetics.

Shokz Starcraft 2 Guide Review - Personal Experience

2010-10-13T08:19:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know this is a World of Warcraft blog and all, but just wanted to take a minute to talk about some starcraft 2. Recently I have become, I guess you could say addicted to blizzards new game, Starcraft 2. The level of competition is awesome and the community is probably one of the best of any online game currently out.

Anyways, recently I came across Shokz StarCraft 2 Guide and was reading his website and decided it could only help my game. Well it did, I went from bronze to platinium in a week playing about 10 games a day. The build orders and tips that help harrassment early on are worth every penny. In the future I would like to go pro and I feel like it is now possible since I have basically everything I need to know about starcraft 2 from Shokz guide. I do still need alot of practice but the fundamentals are there and it's thing I never even heard about on teamliquid. (biggest starcraft 2 website).

So, everyone check out Shokz guide if you are into starcraft 2 and want to improve your game, super helpful and worth it.

**ALSO, if you decide to buy the guide there is a 60 day money back policy so if you find it wasn't worth your money just ask for a refund!**

Heres the link if you dont see the big banner !