I am bored.
I really am. Of all the changes made to every class (some catastrophic, others not so much) i find that the shaman falls into the category of not so much.
What i did before the patch:
On me - water shield and earthliving weapon.
On tank - earth shield.
I am missing a few totmes. but that's ok. my elementals are there. my bloodlust is there. i'm missing the tidal something waves spell that gives my spells crit in emergencies. but that's fine. now its a little more built into a talent so that if my guy's low on health, i do some auto-crits anyway. that takes the thinking out of that. They played around with my healing waves a bit. now i dont even use lesser healing wave. or that instant spell they gave me that ate up my mana (kinda like what every healer gets now, right?). No, now all i use is riptide and healing wave. greater healing wave is new to me and is added for those ohsht moments where i forget that we're in a dungeon.
i am glad they took away a few buttons and gave me a few more that i'll never use. but whatever. now i am back to healing almost exactly as i did in the previous patch. the names of some spells might have changed, but the whole shaman healing mechanic remained relatively unchanged.
Before Patch:
Earth shield the Tank (or whoever).
Riptide for insta-heals (trigger tidal waves).
Cast tidal wave hasted Healing Wave x2
Riptide for insta-heals
Cast tidal wave hasted Healing Wave x2
repeat repeat repeat.
Sometimes i add in a chain heal if i feel like changing things up a bit.
Earth shield the Tank (or whoever).
Chain heal on lowest dps with most strategic position (trigger tidal waves).
Cast tidal wave hasted Healing Wave x2
repeat x2139482303.
After the Patch:
Please see above.
So what did change?
What i noticed first and foremost was that i never run out of mana. actually, i am healing on my shaman at level 70 last week (currently 74) and i almost never go below 90% mana even at the most demanding of times. my mana regen is almost off the charts. its completely crazy.
Second thing i notice is there's a lot less DKs tanking now. THANK ELUNE!!!! and when i do get a DK, they're actually tanks and not DPS wannabee making our lives harder bs crap shit bitch yadayada people who cant be assed to wait in queue.
Oh wait, this post is about my shaman. sorry.
Honestly, besides the addition of Greater Healing Wave and the removal of that one CD i almost never used and cant be assed to look it up, NOTHING has changed in regards to Shaman Healing.
Oh and my talents got wiped and several new talents were added, things were removed, etc etc etc. if you want more resto shaman healing detialed stuff, find a resto shaman blog. as far as i can tell, the talent trees were blah and the new healing mechanics are even blaher. See why im bored now?
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Post Patch 4.0 Musings - Intro
It has been about two weeks since we all received our can of whoopass haha learn2play patch and i feel a little overwhelmed still with all the new changes to every single friggin class there is. so i guess this calls for a little series i would call Post Patch 4.0 Musings. And it will be regarding pretty much every class i play.
So i am thinking of first, since this is supposed to be a healing-centric blog, i would write a little about healing. That's coming shortly. also, since this supposed to be a blog about druid tree form whatever it is called now, i may as well do the dreaded deed and log on to my druid healer to relearn druid healing.
my schedule is pretty rough these past couple of weeks. I work at a different office now, so my commute is completely different. same company, same position, just different office. i have a few more responsibilities and find that my downtime is very little apart from the long lunches with the coworkers or with clients.
i might have to stop playing for this weekend tho. aparently it seems that all the quality players are stuck in the OC attending this thing called Blizzcon while im here at home stuck with stupid, idiotic and jerky players. really, the quaility actually went down several notches AND the wait times have increased slightly for randoms.
yes this is a rant hidden within the guise of an "update". anyway, lets hope my future posts arent full of rants, but actually full of useful info about Shamans, Druids, Paladins, Death Knights, Warriors, Mages, Warlocks, Priests and even rogues. yes, rogues get a little love here and there too. just dont expect me to write about huntards. ugh. /wrists.
okay enjoy your day and thanks for dropping by!
So i am thinking of first, since this is supposed to be a healing-centric blog, i would write a little about healing. That's coming shortly. also, since this supposed to be a blog about druid tree form whatever it is called now, i may as well do the dreaded deed and log on to my druid healer to relearn druid healing.
my schedule is pretty rough these past couple of weeks. I work at a different office now, so my commute is completely different. same company, same position, just different office. i have a few more responsibilities and find that my downtime is very little apart from the long lunches with the coworkers or with clients.
i might have to stop playing for this weekend tho. aparently it seems that all the quality players are stuck in the OC attending this thing called Blizzcon while im here at home stuck with stupid, idiotic and jerky players. really, the quaility actually went down several notches AND the wait times have increased slightly for randoms.
yes this is a rant hidden within the guise of an "update". anyway, lets hope my future posts arent full of rants, but actually full of useful info about Shamans, Druids, Paladins, Death Knights, Warriors, Mages, Warlocks, Priests and even rogues. yes, rogues get a little love here and there too. just dont expect me to write about huntards. ugh. /wrists.
okay enjoy your day and thanks for dropping by!
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Thursday, October 7, 2010
The Rock
Last night i was tanking a bit and found myself looking for level 70 gear to tank with, as if i didnt already have the entire cobalt tanking set already. why not have a choice? maybe i do like a few more options to itemize my stats (yea i realize that BC plate gear is itemized for the pala and warrior tank and is not that much useful for the death knight that was introduced in Wrath). things like shield block and block rating ignored, there are some nice pieces for tanking. i am especially looking for anything to compliment my cobalt set which includes a cape, rings, trinkets and a neck piece. i dont understand why DK's do not get their actual tanking runeforge until level 72. it was a bit of torture tanking Utgarde keep and Nexus between level 70 and level 71. Even with the runeforge (Stoneskin gargoyle or Nerubian Carapace) tanking wasnt fun as i would get hit for a lot of damage often.
Anyway, so i queued for various dungeons, including Shattered Halls, The Botanica, The Black Morass, The Arcatraz and Shadow Labyrinth. I think i skipped over Steamvaults because it didnt have anything exciting for me.
In ay case, of those five instances, i was given The Arcatraz. things started off pretty easy at first. I'd deathgrip the first group on the left, then the group on the right. then i took the middle group along with the mutation. Easy enough. Then we got the big mutation thing and we took care of that easily. I dont understand how previous runs resulted in wipes at this point. but in previous runs, i was not the tank, or the healer. I was merely dpsing. this was several months ago on my paladin. in any case, we cleared pretty much everything without incident until the last room, where the healer decided to go afk. then we wiped and healer left. an insignificant dps left as well. This left us with top dps shadow priest and second top dps mage. The priest decided to switch to healing so we moved on to take out the trash mobs. In the last room, there are several difficult mob encounters, but they can be pulled separately. firstly, there's two groups of two satyrs immediately inside the room, with a patrolling infernal. you can aggro the inferal without aggroing the two groups of satyrs. and that's exactly what i did. the inferno is probably the funnest fight due to it casting meteor strike. simple watch the ground around you to monitor if you're being targeted for meteor strike. if you see red fire ripples around you, move. thats it. it gets tough when tanking because i really dont know who is being targetted.
The drill is simple. tank until he casts meteor. move to position 2. he casts meteor again, move back to position 1. the problem occurs when there's four people and two of them have pets. or in our case, one mage caster with a pet. sometimes they get targetted. what we did was set the mage's pet to stand at a certain spot. if he tanks the hit, then great! if the mage gets targetted, he moves to the priest. if the priest gets targetted, he moves to the mage. if the tank gets targetted, he moves somewhere. after dying several times to this (since there are two infernals in that room) we finally downed them. having just the tank and the healer made it easy (albiet long) to complete since meteor can only hit one of two people. plus, with PWS up, we both can withstand a meteor hit. however, it will usually leave us with about 10% health so a quick heal is needed after the meteor strike. i continued to use vampiric blood whenever i can (1 minute cd) and IBF in between (really not sure if meteor strike is physical or magic damage or both).
In any case, with that fun part out of the way.... we went in and one-shot the boss. many would remember this fight as being a fight with three semi-bosses and then one boss that sometimes mind controls and will make copies of himself (twice) during the fight. each copy needs to be killed. overall, it took several minutes with one mage dpsing. but we did, in the end, kill Skyriss. simple encounter.
So no real post with content today. im just telling a story of victory over nerfed content!
Anyway, so i queued for various dungeons, including Shattered Halls, The Botanica, The Black Morass, The Arcatraz and Shadow Labyrinth. I think i skipped over Steamvaults because it didnt have anything exciting for me.
In ay case, of those five instances, i was given The Arcatraz. things started off pretty easy at first. I'd deathgrip the first group on the left, then the group on the right. then i took the middle group along with the mutation. Easy enough. Then we got the big mutation thing and we took care of that easily. I dont understand how previous runs resulted in wipes at this point. but in previous runs, i was not the tank, or the healer. I was merely dpsing. this was several months ago on my paladin. in any case, we cleared pretty much everything without incident until the last room, where the healer decided to go afk. then we wiped and healer left. an insignificant dps left as well. This left us with top dps shadow priest and second top dps mage. The priest decided to switch to healing so we moved on to take out the trash mobs. In the last room, there are several difficult mob encounters, but they can be pulled separately. firstly, there's two groups of two satyrs immediately inside the room, with a patrolling infernal. you can aggro the inferal without aggroing the two groups of satyrs. and that's exactly what i did. the inferno is probably the funnest fight due to it casting meteor strike. simple watch the ground around you to monitor if you're being targeted for meteor strike. if you see red fire ripples around you, move. thats it. it gets tough when tanking because i really dont know who is being targetted.
The drill is simple. tank until he casts meteor. move to position 2. he casts meteor again, move back to position 1. the problem occurs when there's four people and two of them have pets. or in our case, one mage caster with a pet. sometimes they get targetted. what we did was set the mage's pet to stand at a certain spot. if he tanks the hit, then great! if the mage gets targetted, he moves to the priest. if the priest gets targetted, he moves to the mage. if the tank gets targetted, he moves somewhere. after dying several times to this (since there are two infernals in that room) we finally downed them. having just the tank and the healer made it easy (albiet long) to complete since meteor can only hit one of two people. plus, with PWS up, we both can withstand a meteor hit. however, it will usually leave us with about 10% health so a quick heal is needed after the meteor strike. i continued to use vampiric blood whenever i can (1 minute cd) and IBF in between (really not sure if meteor strike is physical or magic damage or both).
In any case, with that fun part out of the way.... we went in and one-shot the boss. many would remember this fight as being a fight with three semi-bosses and then one boss that sometimes mind controls and will make copies of himself (twice) during the fight. each copy needs to be killed. overall, it took several minutes with one mage dpsing. but we did, in the end, kill Skyriss. simple encounter.
So no real post with content today. im just telling a story of victory over nerfed content!
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
I'd Tap That
I play a warlock from time to time. Actually, i play three warlocks from time to time. I used to have it so that each of the three would have different specs. Akeelah on Ravenholdt is affliction and goes apeshit with the affliction spells. Rivendale, another Ravenholdt resident, is spec'd for demonology and tops meters 75% of the time running through outlands. he should be 65 or 66 right now and enjoys the aoe goodness of metamorphesis+rain of fire. he doesnt enjoy the soulfire procs as things die so fast by the time he is done casting the spell, the boss is already dead. El Segundo, (the second, as in, my second character) is actually Elsegundo from Shadowmoon and rocked Destro, until one day i logged on him and found out that his talents were reset. I promptly made him demonology that day since i cant friggin remember how to spec as destro.
In any case, when im instancing, playing around on my locks, i find myself doing a lot of tapping. Life Tap is one of those spells unique to warlocks, where we take some HP and turn it into MP. sounds reasonable. sounds awesome actually. mana regen? who needs that when you can have lifetap! its an awesome idea actually. i get all the benefit of having a full mana bar, able to dps and get things done without having to slow down for a drink or to wand things down. When im questing outside of instances, i also use lifetap. this is mainly because i know for sure i will be getting life back through corruption and sometimes drain life. why only sometimes? because corruption's life draining ability is good enough for me. after every fight, i can, if i choose to, bandage or eat. its pretty simple. and foods/bandages often give me health quickly as compared to drinking for mana recovery.
but you say, mobs are attacking me, why would i lifetap? because i have fear. i have howl of terror. and in dire straights, i have deathcoil (which is 200% cooler than the death knight's death coil, btw). what do all these spells offer me? one, fleeing mobs grab more mobs so i can drain more life, gain more exp, and run around to collect loot. second, they offer me a little bit of breathing room to regain mana, lifetap and apply my dots. i often go around and pick up at least four mobs for this to be anywhere effective. demonologist, i suggest you activate soul link. affliction locks have a bunch of talents that make draining life super easy. destro locks? sorry, you guys are drinking. play like a mage, drink like a mage. thats your punishment.
So when should you lifetap?
Lifetap between spells. yes. please. i hate healing warlocks who dont lifetap between spells. i dont mind the lifetap, really i dont. the less you have to drink, the faster we get through our instance. but the problem lies in this, i've finished drinking and ready for the next pull. then the lock decides to lifetap. like wtf? it also happens at the end of the fight, when im low on mana and im drinking. they lifetap and wait. they dont sit to eat. nothing. im drinking so you drink. please. its only polite.
For affliction locks, there's a lull when it comes to casting. when? when you're waiting for haunt to fall off, or when you're waiting to refresh unstable affliction. sure i might fill in that wait with a shadowbolt since you do want to keep your improved shadowbolt debuff up, but lifetap dammit. dont wait. just do it. i tap right before i get my haunt back. really? yea. it works awesome.
For demonology locks, you're working a different set of spells. try to get it in there somewhere. you dont get a nice health return like from Haunt. but you do get some health back. demo locks are a little more reliant on the healer to heal us tho, so remember when a good time to tap would be. during the fight. this is when the healer is able to toss you a renew, or a rejuvenate, or a riptide before they go back to healing the tank. it flows for them.
what i find in instances is that warlocks dont lifetap as often as i'd like them to. not only that, when they do lifetap, they do it at the most inconvenient times.
1. tap during combat, in between spells and upon anticipation of a big heal from Haunt. if you do this right, you wont have any mana or health problems. any gaps in health will be covered by the healer.
2. tapping after a battle will annoy your healer (ie. me) because i would have already evaluated everyone's health and, after topping everyone off, would have started to drink. if you lifetap now, chances are i wont heal you until the next pull. why? because i dont know if i have "extra" healing to spare. actually, whats more the case is that i dont have time. i have to first shield/hot/buff the tank first, then i can go to the lock and heal you. and by then, you're in need to life tap again because you're now low on mana. that's just how it goes. its kinda like a domino effect here.
3. same as #2, dont lifetap right before a pull. it annoys me as now im thinking, crap, this guy might die. and you might just die. please dont do that. tap when its safe. tap when you know you're getting health back from your spells first and foremost.
4. dont take it personally when you dont get heals. eat a health stone. cast corruption on everyone. drain life. if it stifles your dps, know that this is because you're bad at managing mana/tapping. its your fault and only your fault.
5. run with the mentality that you dont need the healer to heal you all the time. again, you have health stealing spells at yoru disposal. use them. when you're sitting there at 100% health, those spells are wasted. why? because they're not healing you. you cant have more than 100% health. so tap once, get it refilled, tap again. easy isnt it?
im just rambling now. life tap is your friend. it helps you dps longer. please use it. but use it wisely. weave it into your rotaions. dont drop to 0% mana and tap all at once. that's annoying. especially if im healing you. it shows you dont know how to manage your mana. its a game within a game. if you dont find it fun then maybe you should have been a mage, or a hunter. anyway, that's really all i have to say.
oh and to the druid who said that his mana pool is not my mana pool, a big middle finger to you. then dont heal me. i can heal myself. no im not writing this blog entry just because of one experience with a bad healer who doesnt know that healing me = less healing overall. but im writing this because some people still dont know how to life tap, or dont know when to life tap. last straw was when i was in an instance with two locks, both of which likes to tap at the end of a fight. grrrrrr.
anyhow, heal the lock. lock does more damage (instead of just standing there with zero mana or wanding). things die faster. when things die faster, i dont have to heal the tank as much. i dont have to heal the melee's collateral damage as much. i can start to regen out-of-combat mana earlier. i will drink less. i will finish the instance faster. i, as a healer, would love to heal locks who lifetap. i dont know why others dont. its stupid.
In any case, when im instancing, playing around on my locks, i find myself doing a lot of tapping. Life Tap is one of those spells unique to warlocks, where we take some HP and turn it into MP. sounds reasonable. sounds awesome actually. mana regen? who needs that when you can have lifetap! its an awesome idea actually. i get all the benefit of having a full mana bar, able to dps and get things done without having to slow down for a drink or to wand things down. When im questing outside of instances, i also use lifetap. this is mainly because i know for sure i will be getting life back through corruption and sometimes drain life. why only sometimes? because corruption's life draining ability is good enough for me. after every fight, i can, if i choose to, bandage or eat. its pretty simple. and foods/bandages often give me health quickly as compared to drinking for mana recovery.
but you say, mobs are attacking me, why would i lifetap? because i have fear. i have howl of terror. and in dire straights, i have deathcoil (which is 200% cooler than the death knight's death coil, btw). what do all these spells offer me? one, fleeing mobs grab more mobs so i can drain more life, gain more exp, and run around to collect loot. second, they offer me a little bit of breathing room to regain mana, lifetap and apply my dots. i often go around and pick up at least four mobs for this to be anywhere effective. demonologist, i suggest you activate soul link. affliction locks have a bunch of talents that make draining life super easy. destro locks? sorry, you guys are drinking. play like a mage, drink like a mage. thats your punishment.
So when should you lifetap?
Lifetap between spells. yes. please. i hate healing warlocks who dont lifetap between spells. i dont mind the lifetap, really i dont. the less you have to drink, the faster we get through our instance. but the problem lies in this, i've finished drinking and ready for the next pull. then the lock decides to lifetap. like wtf? it also happens at the end of the fight, when im low on mana and im drinking. they lifetap and wait. they dont sit to eat. nothing. im drinking so you drink. please. its only polite.
For affliction locks, there's a lull when it comes to casting. when? when you're waiting for haunt to fall off, or when you're waiting to refresh unstable affliction. sure i might fill in that wait with a shadowbolt since you do want to keep your improved shadowbolt debuff up, but lifetap dammit. dont wait. just do it. i tap right before i get my haunt back. really? yea. it works awesome.
For demonology locks, you're working a different set of spells. try to get it in there somewhere. you dont get a nice health return like from Haunt. but you do get some health back. demo locks are a little more reliant on the healer to heal us tho, so remember when a good time to tap would be. during the fight. this is when the healer is able to toss you a renew, or a rejuvenate, or a riptide before they go back to healing the tank. it flows for them.
what i find in instances is that warlocks dont lifetap as often as i'd like them to. not only that, when they do lifetap, they do it at the most inconvenient times.
1. tap during combat, in between spells and upon anticipation of a big heal from Haunt. if you do this right, you wont have any mana or health problems. any gaps in health will be covered by the healer.
2. tapping after a battle will annoy your healer (ie. me) because i would have already evaluated everyone's health and, after topping everyone off, would have started to drink. if you lifetap now, chances are i wont heal you until the next pull. why? because i dont know if i have "extra" healing to spare. actually, whats more the case is that i dont have time. i have to first shield/hot/buff the tank first, then i can go to the lock and heal you. and by then, you're in need to life tap again because you're now low on mana. that's just how it goes. its kinda like a domino effect here.
3. same as #2, dont lifetap right before a pull. it annoys me as now im thinking, crap, this guy might die. and you might just die. please dont do that. tap when its safe. tap when you know you're getting health back from your spells first and foremost.
4. dont take it personally when you dont get heals. eat a health stone. cast corruption on everyone. drain life. if it stifles your dps, know that this is because you're bad at managing mana/tapping. its your fault and only your fault.
5. run with the mentality that you dont need the healer to heal you all the time. again, you have health stealing spells at yoru disposal. use them. when you're sitting there at 100% health, those spells are wasted. why? because they're not healing you. you cant have more than 100% health. so tap once, get it refilled, tap again. easy isnt it?
im just rambling now. life tap is your friend. it helps you dps longer. please use it. but use it wisely. weave it into your rotaions. dont drop to 0% mana and tap all at once. that's annoying. especially if im healing you. it shows you dont know how to manage your mana. its a game within a game. if you dont find it fun then maybe you should have been a mage, or a hunter. anyway, that's really all i have to say.
oh and to the druid who said that his mana pool is not my mana pool, a big middle finger to you. then dont heal me. i can heal myself. no im not writing this blog entry just because of one experience with a bad healer who doesnt know that healing me = less healing overall. but im writing this because some people still dont know how to life tap, or dont know when to life tap. last straw was when i was in an instance with two locks, both of which likes to tap at the end of a fight. grrrrrr.
anyhow, heal the lock. lock does more damage (instead of just standing there with zero mana or wanding). things die faster. when things die faster, i dont have to heal the tank as much. i dont have to heal the melee's collateral damage as much. i can start to regen out-of-combat mana earlier. i will drink less. i will finish the instance faster. i, as a healer, would love to heal locks who lifetap. i dont know why others dont. its stupid.
Friday, October 1, 2010
How to be a Great DK
As DPS.
Because if you dont look like a bear, or have a shield, you shouldnt be a tank. jk.
But really though, here are some things to always look out for when doing dps in five mans or whatevers.
1. Use Anti-Magic Shell. Often.
It absorbs magic damage around you and give you runic power in return (for more death coils, mind freezes, and gargoyles). what's not to like about this ability?
It eases the strain on healers healing multiple people through magic AoE damage. they'll really like you for it. trust me i would. unless they're bored. yes, then they'd want everyone to take some damage so they can heal and act somewhat useful.
What else does it do? it keeps you from having to run for your life in certain situations. Boss is casting an AoE blast (Loken, anyone?) what do you do? run away? no. you cast anti-magic shell and anti-magic his ass. note, do this for the second blast, since the first one doesnt hit that hard. anyway, overall, this improves your dps. you want that dont you? go you.
2. Use Icebound Fortitude. Same reason above.
When things get hairy and the tank cant keep up with the 8th add to the pull, you IBF and tank it for him for a second.
When an "engineer" decides to toss you a land mine or bomb, or when mana wyrms blow up when they die, IBF.
When a boss decides to whirlwind and you want to stand in it for an extra few seconds. IBF.
3. Learn to Death Grip.
No i do not mean learn to press death grip when you see a mob. anyone can do that. what i mean is learn when you should use it.
Use it to grip a caster the tank doesnt have aggro on. stand close to the tank and deathgrip a caster. if you place yourself right, the caster should be standing right in front of the tank. of course, you'll grab aggro for a sec, but any smart tank can see you just did him a favor and will taunt it off you or hit it off you. or mind freeze the caster and he will eventually fall to the tank's AoE attacks eventually anyway. end result? you look awesome. healer doesnt get aggro. everyone thinks you're "pro".
death grip a mob who's running to the healer (whose purpose is to bash said healer's face in, ofc). sometimes this saves your healer and will give your tank some valuable time to grab the mobs back. always remember that you're using this spell to "guide" the mobs back to the tank.
One thing to remember about death grip is that it interupts casting. meaning, that healer who's about to heal the whole part is almost done casting Greater Super Prayer of Healing. what do you do? you're too far away to do a mind freeze (more on this later), and you're out of runes. Deathgrip will kill the cast.
4. Mind Freeze Casters, especially healers
You can often tell when a mob is casting. they have casting animations. you can also tell, from experience, who the healers are in a group. always save your runic power, at least 20, for situations like this where there are healers, or casters who casts mana burn, or casters who will do some AoE damage... oh and of course those casters who like to polymorph random party members. Some even work on the boss. It doesnt hurt to try. These interrupts can be a life saver. sometimes, its just there to speed things up. the less a mob healer heals their party, the less time you need to spend killing. the less a mob casts mana burn, the less time you have to wait for the healer to drink. see how that works? When that first boss in Ramps yell, Heal Me!! Quickly!! you turn to his lackeys and hit Mind Freeze. no more heals.
The above advice also works with Strangulate. It does the same thing but has two big differences. one, it can be cast at range. and two, it lasts for 5 seconds. oh and it costs 1 red rune instead of 20 runic power.
5. Use your Cooldowns.
Wait, dont you mean IBF and AMS? you already mentioned that in 1 and 2.
No, i mean the other ones. Blood dps have Hysteria. Use it on yourself, or the top dps to make his dps even more uber. Frost Dps should all have unbreakable armor. its has a strength boost similar to a trinket. use it. use it in conjunction with your trinkets. use it in conjunction with Blood Lust. Use it, use it, use it! Unholy Dk's use your bone shield to gain more attack power, use your pet's frenzy if you have it. These are all spells used to increase dps. use them!!
6. Use your Resets.
Most DK's only have two. Rune Tap resets a blood rune one cooldown and makes it a death rune... to be used for ANYTHING. if your spells dont work, its because all of your runes are on cooldown. this spell will give you one rune back to be used for anything. use it.
Empowered rune weapon. this is even better. it resets all your friggin runes. come on now. whats not to like?
7. Use your Final Talent Tree Abilities.
Blood Dks have dancing rune weapon. Unholys have a gargoyle. Frost has... well nothing really. but they're so awesome they dont need a stupid pet weapon killing things.
Anyway use those. the talent points are spent, so use the abilities already.
There. Hopefully this list will help the OK DPS DK, doing uber dps and all, topping the charts dk , hopefully it will help him to actually learn to play his class. hoepfully.
Because if you dont look like a bear, or have a shield, you shouldnt be a tank. jk.
But really though, here are some things to always look out for when doing dps in five mans or whatevers.
1. Use Anti-Magic Shell. Often.
It absorbs magic damage around you and give you runic power in return (for more death coils, mind freezes, and gargoyles). what's not to like about this ability?
It eases the strain on healers healing multiple people through magic AoE damage. they'll really like you for it. trust me i would. unless they're bored. yes, then they'd want everyone to take some damage so they can heal and act somewhat useful.
What else does it do? it keeps you from having to run for your life in certain situations. Boss is casting an AoE blast (Loken, anyone?) what do you do? run away? no. you cast anti-magic shell and anti-magic his ass. note, do this for the second blast, since the first one doesnt hit that hard. anyway, overall, this improves your dps. you want that dont you? go you.
2. Use Icebound Fortitude. Same reason above.
When things get hairy and the tank cant keep up with the 8th add to the pull, you IBF and tank it for him for a second.
When an "engineer" decides to toss you a land mine or bomb, or when mana wyrms blow up when they die, IBF.
When a boss decides to whirlwind and you want to stand in it for an extra few seconds. IBF.
3. Learn to Death Grip.
No i do not mean learn to press death grip when you see a mob. anyone can do that. what i mean is learn when you should use it.
Use it to grip a caster the tank doesnt have aggro on. stand close to the tank and deathgrip a caster. if you place yourself right, the caster should be standing right in front of the tank. of course, you'll grab aggro for a sec, but any smart tank can see you just did him a favor and will taunt it off you or hit it off you. or mind freeze the caster and he will eventually fall to the tank's AoE attacks eventually anyway. end result? you look awesome. healer doesnt get aggro. everyone thinks you're "pro".
death grip a mob who's running to the healer (whose purpose is to bash said healer's face in, ofc). sometimes this saves your healer and will give your tank some valuable time to grab the mobs back. always remember that you're using this spell to "guide" the mobs back to the tank.
One thing to remember about death grip is that it interupts casting. meaning, that healer who's about to heal the whole part is almost done casting Greater Super Prayer of Healing. what do you do? you're too far away to do a mind freeze (more on this later), and you're out of runes. Deathgrip will kill the cast.
4. Mind Freeze Casters, especially healers
You can often tell when a mob is casting. they have casting animations. you can also tell, from experience, who the healers are in a group. always save your runic power, at least 20, for situations like this where there are healers, or casters who casts mana burn, or casters who will do some AoE damage... oh and of course those casters who like to polymorph random party members. Some even work on the boss. It doesnt hurt to try. These interrupts can be a life saver. sometimes, its just there to speed things up. the less a mob healer heals their party, the less time you need to spend killing. the less a mob casts mana burn, the less time you have to wait for the healer to drink. see how that works? When that first boss in Ramps yell, Heal Me!! Quickly!! you turn to his lackeys and hit Mind Freeze. no more heals.
The above advice also works with Strangulate. It does the same thing but has two big differences. one, it can be cast at range. and two, it lasts for 5 seconds. oh and it costs 1 red rune instead of 20 runic power.
5. Use your Cooldowns.
Wait, dont you mean IBF and AMS? you already mentioned that in 1 and 2.
No, i mean the other ones. Blood dps have Hysteria. Use it on yourself, or the top dps to make his dps even more uber. Frost Dps should all have unbreakable armor. its has a strength boost similar to a trinket. use it. use it in conjunction with your trinkets. use it in conjunction with Blood Lust. Use it, use it, use it! Unholy Dk's use your bone shield to gain more attack power, use your pet's frenzy if you have it. These are all spells used to increase dps. use them!!
6. Use your Resets.
Most DK's only have two. Rune Tap resets a blood rune one cooldown and makes it a death rune... to be used for ANYTHING. if your spells dont work, its because all of your runes are on cooldown. this spell will give you one rune back to be used for anything. use it.
Empowered rune weapon. this is even better. it resets all your friggin runes. come on now. whats not to like?
7. Use your Final Talent Tree Abilities.
Blood Dks have dancing rune weapon. Unholys have a gargoyle. Frost has... well nothing really. but they're so awesome they dont need a stupid pet weapon killing things.
Anyway use those. the talent points are spent, so use the abilities already.
There. Hopefully this list will help the OK DPS DK, doing uber dps and all, topping the charts dk , hopefully it will help him to actually learn to play his class. hoepfully.
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