I noticed lately that there are a lot of new tanks using the lfd tool. Actually, since the last weekend, and barring any guild groups that i may have joined, every LFD pug group comes with a new, or barely new tank. Some are new tanks due to switching specs, and learning the ropes on a character that normall DPS or heals. others are leveling up thier 80 and are slowly learning the fights from the point of view of a tank. this is great.
What i can deduce from this trend is that more and more dps will finally get to see what its like for a tank in a heroic setting. Although some dps may only see tanks as, simply, another dps with less damage but more armor. okay, less damage in most cases. but definitely with more armor. dps do see tanks as more like them and less like healers. in a way, this is true. and it brings a lot of people to switch specs or finally level that level 80 warrior they havent touched in six months.
but what does this all mean to the rest of us? this is not an influx of new tanks. no, if it was an influx to the already flowing and always dynamic tanking population of our battlegroup, then i am sure the dps queue times will drop from 30 minutes to 20, or even 15... maybe 10! but it hasnt. "always dynamic" is key, since i believe the population flow of tanks using the whole LFD tool adheres to the FIFO method of inventory management. or whatever accounting-related methodologies relates.
FIFO is simply an acronym for first-in-first-out. to help me illustrate, let's backtrack several months. shortly after the expansion hit, there was a big shakeup in the community as to who does what role. really, as some wrath tanks found out that they just arent the tanks they're cut out to be in wrath (and subsequently rolled dps) or the healers who had infinite mana in wrath simply couldnt handle the increased difficulty of healing Throne of the Tides... normal, people began switching around specs and characters in order to find the right fit for them. Some, however, moved from wrath to cata without much of a problem, including tanks and healers. DPS adjusted from spamming AoE spells to actually using a priority system. The planets may have alligned sometime during the past few months, but i was unaware. People were actually doing what they're supposed to--what they're designed to do. And those were the ones first in.
The tank would walk into a dungeon as a tank, with a tank's mentality and skillset. The same goes for the healers, who have since learned to cope with limited mana, expensive heals and sometimes stupid dps. The dps, likewise, learned that some folks really had to be crowd controlled, standing in bursting purple crap is bad and damage reduction cooldowns are just as important as damage increasing cooldowns. Interrupts skyrocketed to an all-time high. They played through the instances, got gear, got better, understood fights, learned what their limits are, when they can stand in bad and when they need to really run away. They learned fight mechanics and figured out what they had to do in their own role to make the encounter a successful encounter.
Then they moved on to heroics. Random dungeons that used to take 15 minutes in wrath now take about an hour in cata... or more. in any event, these guys eventually get better gear, earn rep gear and fill out the remaining slots with justice point gear. they move on to raiding or slow down on the heroic grind. they dont need anything else from JPs. they might need chaos orbs or something to improve their offspec gear, but the end result remains--they slowly stop running heroic pugs. they are the first outs.
The first ins and the first outs are one and the same. The process is cycled through so that the tanks, who started off with some 300-333 tanking gear became fully geared with 345's, some 359 rep and raid gear. And eventually, running the same heroics over again will not give them any significant gain. There is nothing left to upgrade through heroics or justice points. and so they leave the LFD population. they may end up coming back on an alt just to dps, or to heal. or maybe even to tank. but they do come back one way or another.
Let's assume for a moment that the rate of flow, or flow of tanks coming in (and ultimately going out) to use the LFD system is faster than the flow of DPS going through the system. i believe this to actually be the case due to the population imbalance of tanks to dps. lets use tanks to dps as our only comparison. you can also use healers in this, but the result will still be the same. tanks, who usually get instant queues will ultimately gain all the gear they need faster than healers or dps, even if they get absolutely zero drops from heroic pugs, they'll still get JPs which will turn into gear eventually. a tank can usually just gear himself up through the LFD in less than a week of play. no waiting. so they gear up and leave the population, a dare say, 200% faster than a dps who has to wait 30 minutes in the queue (and i wont even talk about the wait if the group turns out bad, its a double penalty for the dps).
So after a week, the tank leaves the LFD population. but the DPS is still there. see the problem? He'll be fully geared in about two weeks if he diligently waits. Maybe longer if he walks away to pee, only to come back and find out that he has missed his queue. then, he has to start all over. but lets not count all the little variables prolonging the dps' plight. lets just say he takes 2x longer to gear up. then, he'll be out of the LFD population cycle. okay. that's not so bad. but lets not forget the initial problem as to why he has these long waits in the first place. the entire wow population using the LFD is not exactly 1 tank for every 3 dps. its 1 tank for every 30 dps. or more. 30 is my guess.
Tangent: One solution to this is to change the group composition. Instead of three damage dealers, we can have four or five. this will make the groups a 6 or 7 man duneon experience. now 6 has a nice ring to it because it's an even number, but 7 is a little more obscure. we like multiples, and the fact that 7 is a prime number makes it that much more of an odd choice. in any case, this can solve the "flow" as well as the population imbalance in regards to dungeon groups.
Back to the topic at hand. what is the topic, btw? who knows. i was trying to talk about the significance of how the new tanks now are really just that, new. and i was trying to show how this came about, with FIFO and flow rates and population ratios and things like that. okay. got it.
Anyway, i am on my fourth DPS to level up to 85 (and consequently, to gear up until i cant go any further with heroics) and running her through normal dungeons. its a mage, level 81, tearing up the place with her sheep and blast wave and all that great stuff. but just for the orbs, i run heroics on my dps. the 30 minute waits remain. when we finally do get the group, half of the time the tank will say they're new, or learning, or never done this as tank or in a heroic. etc.
What i see is this. That after about six months since the expansion, the dps pool has finally cycled and they have now finally begain to gear their alts (some of which are tanks). Now this dps pool will include all the people who are comfortable as dps, leveling their various dps characters, and having finally run out of dps characters, are willing to finally level that tank they never had a chance to touch (because dps is sooo much fun, or that tanking is soooo much work, or whatevers).
I know... all that typing just to illustrate a flawed analysis and faulty hypothesis. but hey, its thursday, my boss is out of the office and i have nothing to do. have a great day everyone!
Showing posts with label dps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dps. Show all posts
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Learning the Combat portion of a Rogue
With the last post out of the way, i can finally get into the little nitty gritty on playing my rogue. This is not a guide, nor is it a primer of any sort on helping anyone learn the rogue class. this is just my experience so please, if you think im doing this wrong, please say something. =D
My initial experiences with rogues are that they are sneaky, elusive, and most of all, annoying. Ever level through Ashenvale, running from questgiver to objectives, only to be interrupted by a rogue who's bored? Ever read local defense and see that Cross Roads is under attack? its usually a rogue. Ever run around tarren mill, turning in quests and finding out that a rogue is having a great time sapping people? Ever enter a cave full of ogres and fighting through the ogres just to get to that one Khorium deposit but having it ninja'd by a rogue as you fight the mob guarding the node? Not too many good experiences with rogues i tell you.
But as i leveled my rogue, i find that they offer a pretty niche type of gameplay. The energy and combo point system makes playing a rogue a lot more complex while questing and significantly while in dungeons. The combo point system allows me to save up combo points for stronger finishers. The mob's health, their numbers, even their spell selections will determine which finishers i will have to use. Not only that, but the energy system is the only system in the game where timing is absolutely necessary. Spamming attacks isnt the rogue way. And rightly so, it shouldnt be since the whole character of being a rogue involves planning, timing and finesse. Button smashing might not be the best form of play. That is, unless you're playing shinobi.
Everyone knows the basics of a rogue. or at least i believe everyone does.
Energy: Rogues use energy to attack. Energy is used up when performing attacks. Energy replenishes at a certain rate. Missed attacks can refund a % of energy back.
Combo points: Rogues have two basic categories of attacks. One to produce combo points and the other to spend combo points. Both use up energy. Missed attacks can refund a % of energy back. Ideally, rogues will want to maximize their combo points (being 5) before using a finisher. Each finisher has its own effect (some do instant damage, others do damge over time, others make the target more vulnerable to melee damage, and still others cause your own attacks to speed up.
The basic combo point maker for Combat: Sinister Strike (SS) and Revealing Strike (RvS).
Sinister strike is your bread and butter attack. I use this attack more than any other attack. Revealing strikes are tossed in between, at least once per 5 point stack prior to an Eviscerate or Rupture. Revealing strikes will not do anything for Slice and Dice so using it before slice and dice is not essential. Although, if you use it as your 5th combo point move before slice and dice, revealing strikes will still be up since it has a 15 second duration. It basically buffs your finisher by 30%, so use once before you Evis or Rupt. Using it twice will do nothing but add another combo point (which SS can do) and reset the cooldown for Revealing Strike buff to 15 seconds. The 30% incraesed bonus to finishing moves does not change.
The basic finishers for Combat: Slice and Dice (SnD), Rupture and Eviscerate.
Slice and dice cases you to attack faster. use this first and always try to keep it active. some rogues start off with a 1-point SnD, which gives them a good 30 seconds or so. 5 points will give you 40 seconds of SnD. go with 1 point SnD. it ends up pretty easy to maintain.
Rupture causes a bleed on the target for a certain amount of time. the time is fixed, but the damage is different based on the number of combo points. with revealing strikes buff, it also ticks for more. Use this on bosses, or on long lasting mobs. there is no other benefit for this spell besides that you can keep doing damage while you're running around avoiding fires.
Eviscerate is often preferred over Rupture. The point is that many fights will have phases that take the boss out of the fight (basically immune) while we take care of adds, fires, dance, whatevers. in these instances, just Evis instead of Rupt. Getting all the damage at once may be more beneficial than going for a DoT that may not be allowed to last its whole duration.
The special finishers for Combat: Expose Armor, Recuperate, Kidney shot.
Expose armor is one of these spells that many other classes can do better. Plus, its only useful for physical damaging dps that having one magic dps in the mix will make this ability pretty much useless. you'll get more benefit if you just evis. Other classes can do it better because they dont have to waste too much of their resources to place this debuff on. Overall, this ability is very situational and almost never used.
Recuperate helps a lot when in high damage fights. Although you'll miss out on a finisher, it does make it easier for your healers to heal you. Finally, Kidney shot is one of those spells which i love to use on casters, especially the healing type casters. Open with cheapshot. When they come to and cast a heal, i kick. Then they cast another heal, i can blind. then i can kidney shot and basically finish them off. its not a stun "lock", as it was before, but it does keep the mob incapacitated long enough so that dps can kill him off.
Cooldowns for Combat: The two major offensive cooldowns for combat are Killing Spree (KS) and Adrenaline Rush (AR).
These two abilities are my two favorite reasons to go combat. It took me several levels of practicing and playing around to really figure out how these buffs work. but when i finally got them to work well, they became the "candy" to this whole fighting system.
Killing Spree causes me to jump from one mob to another (if one mob, then it just jumps five times to the same mob) doing pretty good damage. It seems to last about 3 seconds, but in those 3 seconds, it is amazing. added bonus to this is that the auto-attacks are still going. True, you might only get 3 auto-attacks off, even with slice and dice on, it doesnt change the outcome--dps boost. Of course, being that auto-attacks still goes off while KS is up, it makes it doubly fun to time it just right (ie. during slice and dice, while my energy is zero. Also, KS also works with Blade Flurry, so if there are two or more mobs in the fight, KS will also hit adjacent mobs, as well as the sped up auto attacks. So like i said, its candy.
As for adrenaline rush, this spell speeds up my energy regen, thus allowing for more SS, RvS, Evis, etc. during its duration. Much like Killing Spree, time it after SnD and when your energy is low (you dont want to be energy capped). You can use these two cooldowns back-to-back. It might not be as effective together, as KS will not produce combo points and the time you're jumping around through the shadows, you may end up being energy capped.
Utilities for Combat: Other utilities are Tricks of the Trade, Shiv, Feint, blind, Evasion, Cloak of Shadows and Vanish.
I suppose Recuperate can be utility but do keep in mind that it does require combo points.
Tricks of the Trade, or Tricks, or TotT is used prior or during a pull to redirect threat to someone else, usually the tank. Not only does it redirect threat, it also gives the target an increase in dps. this can be utilized several ways, but the most important way is to Tricks the tank. Upon tricksing the tank, the rogue will basically pull for the tank, or pull a stray mob to the tank. This is almost identical to the Hunter's Misdirect, where they use misdirect to pull for the tank. The second area where this is useful is during fights where you want to buff the main dps. Sure putting tricks on the tank will buff his 5k dps. but tricksing the hunter who's doing 10k dps will ultimately produce twice the damage from Tricks than the tank. Finally, two rogues can simply Tricks each other to give each other a damage buff. since the tricks is on each other, the threat transfer is almost transparent.
Shiv removes enrage. Shiv also adds poisons instantly and cannot be dodged. Although this ability does add combo points, i did not include this as a combo point ability. We use this ability more for the two reasons stated above--the combo point is an added bonus. One more thing to add about instantly applying poisons, this ability costs less the faster your offhand dagger is. so in a pinch, if you're seeing 5 stacks of your poisons about to expire, this ability may be preferred over waiting and gambling on your next offhand attack (or Main Gauche) to hit.
Feint is awesome. Say it with me, Feint is awesome! It reduces a lot of the AoE damage, 50% to be exact, that can cause a lot of fail and healer stress. This ability not only reduces your threat it increases your healer's love towards you. Please use it often to avoid those nasty AoEs, especially on boss fights where tanks dont know how to move mobs out of dark fissures, etc.
Blind is basically a stun for 10 seconds. Also interrupts casting. Kick is on CD? blind. Mobs is running for the healer and your Tricks is on CD? blind. Similar to a hunter's scattershot. We have a lot of similarities, dontchaknow?
Evasion, cloak of shadows, vanish.... they all have their uses. Evasion is useful when you grab aggro, or have to grab aggro for a while. Cloak of shadows will remove harmful debuffs (slows, poisons, dots) and Vanish will allow you to stealth immediately, even in combat. When you do have some kind of debuff on you, like say, a disease or faerie fire, use cloak of shadows first, then vanish. the disease ticks will break your stealth if you dont remove it first (you can tell i want to end this post already since this section is so short!!).
Blade Flurry: An ability that allows you to hit two targets instead of one but in return your energy regeneration slows. the ability can be glyphed so that energy regen doesnt take as big a hit, which is often a must if you're doing dungeons. for raids where much of the damage is to a single boss at a time, blade flurry may be useless. in any event, it is up to the player to decide whether blade flurry should be used, assuming more dps is always better, even on trash, or left out altogether. if you use blade flurry often, do consider glyphing. Blade flurry also works with Killing Spree. The reason this ability is set aside and mentioned on its own is because this is spell does not fall into any of the above categories. It's just an ability any rogue can turn on or off and any time really. in dungeons, i have this on after my first slice and dice. then i turn it off when there is only one mob remaining, or when there are two mobs who are not standing right next to each other. in these situations, the cleave effect will be wasted. (Cleave effect = hitting two or more players at once with a single hit or cleave or swipe). Overall, this is a very handy ability. Remember to tricks often, as the cleave can cause unwanted aggro.
Other tricks, tips, or corrections? please comment so i can improve. I've only played combat for the past 10 levels, but during those 10 levels i've actually figured several things already mentioned above. To summarize, i cant spam attacks. there is a basic category of spells but what makes rogues particulary fun to play are the utility spells, timing of cooldowns and weaving of differnt combinations and abilities. This is the major reason why i enjoy the rogue. my favorite classes are usually melee classes with the occasional healer (of course, druid healing preferred), so finding another fun melee class to play is motivational indeed. the only other melee class i think i still havent played is the enhancement shaman. one day i hope to write about it as well!
Note: not all spells and abilities are mentioned. either i havent found a reason to use them or they do not apply. If there are other abilities that i should also consider, or if the abilities i've mentioned can be expanded on, please comment. thanks!
My initial experiences with rogues are that they are sneaky, elusive, and most of all, annoying. Ever level through Ashenvale, running from questgiver to objectives, only to be interrupted by a rogue who's bored? Ever read local defense and see that Cross Roads is under attack? its usually a rogue. Ever run around tarren mill, turning in quests and finding out that a rogue is having a great time sapping people? Ever enter a cave full of ogres and fighting through the ogres just to get to that one Khorium deposit but having it ninja'd by a rogue as you fight the mob guarding the node? Not too many good experiences with rogues i tell you.
But as i leveled my rogue, i find that they offer a pretty niche type of gameplay. The energy and combo point system makes playing a rogue a lot more complex while questing and significantly while in dungeons. The combo point system allows me to save up combo points for stronger finishers. The mob's health, their numbers, even their spell selections will determine which finishers i will have to use. Not only that, but the energy system is the only system in the game where timing is absolutely necessary. Spamming attacks isnt the rogue way. And rightly so, it shouldnt be since the whole character of being a rogue involves planning, timing and finesse. Button smashing might not be the best form of play. That is, unless you're playing shinobi.
Everyone knows the basics of a rogue. or at least i believe everyone does.
Energy: Rogues use energy to attack. Energy is used up when performing attacks. Energy replenishes at a certain rate. Missed attacks can refund a % of energy back.
Combo points: Rogues have two basic categories of attacks. One to produce combo points and the other to spend combo points. Both use up energy. Missed attacks can refund a % of energy back. Ideally, rogues will want to maximize their combo points (being 5) before using a finisher. Each finisher has its own effect (some do instant damage, others do damge over time, others make the target more vulnerable to melee damage, and still others cause your own attacks to speed up.
The basic combo point maker for Combat: Sinister Strike (SS) and Revealing Strike (RvS).
Sinister strike is your bread and butter attack. I use this attack more than any other attack. Revealing strikes are tossed in between, at least once per 5 point stack prior to an Eviscerate or Rupture. Revealing strikes will not do anything for Slice and Dice so using it before slice and dice is not essential. Although, if you use it as your 5th combo point move before slice and dice, revealing strikes will still be up since it has a 15 second duration. It basically buffs your finisher by 30%, so use once before you Evis or Rupt. Using it twice will do nothing but add another combo point (which SS can do) and reset the cooldown for Revealing Strike buff to 15 seconds. The 30% incraesed bonus to finishing moves does not change.
The basic finishers for Combat: Slice and Dice (SnD), Rupture and Eviscerate.
Slice and dice cases you to attack faster. use this first and always try to keep it active. some rogues start off with a 1-point SnD, which gives them a good 30 seconds or so. 5 points will give you 40 seconds of SnD. go with 1 point SnD. it ends up pretty easy to maintain.
Rupture causes a bleed on the target for a certain amount of time. the time is fixed, but the damage is different based on the number of combo points. with revealing strikes buff, it also ticks for more. Use this on bosses, or on long lasting mobs. there is no other benefit for this spell besides that you can keep doing damage while you're running around avoiding fires.
Eviscerate is often preferred over Rupture. The point is that many fights will have phases that take the boss out of the fight (basically immune) while we take care of adds, fires, dance, whatevers. in these instances, just Evis instead of Rupt. Getting all the damage at once may be more beneficial than going for a DoT that may not be allowed to last its whole duration.
The special finishers for Combat: Expose Armor, Recuperate, Kidney shot.
Expose armor is one of these spells that many other classes can do better. Plus, its only useful for physical damaging dps that having one magic dps in the mix will make this ability pretty much useless. you'll get more benefit if you just evis. Other classes can do it better because they dont have to waste too much of their resources to place this debuff on. Overall, this ability is very situational and almost never used.
Recuperate helps a lot when in high damage fights. Although you'll miss out on a finisher, it does make it easier for your healers to heal you. Finally, Kidney shot is one of those spells which i love to use on casters, especially the healing type casters. Open with cheapshot. When they come to and cast a heal, i kick. Then they cast another heal, i can blind. then i can kidney shot and basically finish them off. its not a stun "lock", as it was before, but it does keep the mob incapacitated long enough so that dps can kill him off.
Cooldowns for Combat: The two major offensive cooldowns for combat are Killing Spree (KS) and Adrenaline Rush (AR).
These two abilities are my two favorite reasons to go combat. It took me several levels of practicing and playing around to really figure out how these buffs work. but when i finally got them to work well, they became the "candy" to this whole fighting system.
Killing Spree causes me to jump from one mob to another (if one mob, then it just jumps five times to the same mob) doing pretty good damage. It seems to last about 3 seconds, but in those 3 seconds, it is amazing. added bonus to this is that the auto-attacks are still going. True, you might only get 3 auto-attacks off, even with slice and dice on, it doesnt change the outcome--dps boost. Of course, being that auto-attacks still goes off while KS is up, it makes it doubly fun to time it just right (ie. during slice and dice, while my energy is zero. Also, KS also works with Blade Flurry, so if there are two or more mobs in the fight, KS will also hit adjacent mobs, as well as the sped up auto attacks. So like i said, its candy.
As for adrenaline rush, this spell speeds up my energy regen, thus allowing for more SS, RvS, Evis, etc. during its duration. Much like Killing Spree, time it after SnD and when your energy is low (you dont want to be energy capped). You can use these two cooldowns back-to-back. It might not be as effective together, as KS will not produce combo points and the time you're jumping around through the shadows, you may end up being energy capped.
Utilities for Combat: Other utilities are Tricks of the Trade, Shiv, Feint, blind, Evasion, Cloak of Shadows and Vanish.
I suppose Recuperate can be utility but do keep in mind that it does require combo points.
Tricks of the Trade, or Tricks, or TotT is used prior or during a pull to redirect threat to someone else, usually the tank. Not only does it redirect threat, it also gives the target an increase in dps. this can be utilized several ways, but the most important way is to Tricks the tank. Upon tricksing the tank, the rogue will basically pull for the tank, or pull a stray mob to the tank. This is almost identical to the Hunter's Misdirect, where they use misdirect to pull for the tank. The second area where this is useful is during fights where you want to buff the main dps. Sure putting tricks on the tank will buff his 5k dps. but tricksing the hunter who's doing 10k dps will ultimately produce twice the damage from Tricks than the tank. Finally, two rogues can simply Tricks each other to give each other a damage buff. since the tricks is on each other, the threat transfer is almost transparent.
Shiv removes enrage. Shiv also adds poisons instantly and cannot be dodged. Although this ability does add combo points, i did not include this as a combo point ability. We use this ability more for the two reasons stated above--the combo point is an added bonus. One more thing to add about instantly applying poisons, this ability costs less the faster your offhand dagger is. so in a pinch, if you're seeing 5 stacks of your poisons about to expire, this ability may be preferred over waiting and gambling on your next offhand attack (or Main Gauche) to hit.
Feint is awesome. Say it with me, Feint is awesome! It reduces a lot of the AoE damage, 50% to be exact, that can cause a lot of fail and healer stress. This ability not only reduces your threat it increases your healer's love towards you. Please use it often to avoid those nasty AoEs, especially on boss fights where tanks dont know how to move mobs out of dark fissures, etc.
Blind is basically a stun for 10 seconds. Also interrupts casting. Kick is on CD? blind. Mobs is running for the healer and your Tricks is on CD? blind. Similar to a hunter's scattershot. We have a lot of similarities, dontchaknow?
Evasion, cloak of shadows, vanish.... they all have their uses. Evasion is useful when you grab aggro, or have to grab aggro for a while. Cloak of shadows will remove harmful debuffs (slows, poisons, dots) and Vanish will allow you to stealth immediately, even in combat. When you do have some kind of debuff on you, like say, a disease or faerie fire, use cloak of shadows first, then vanish. the disease ticks will break your stealth if you dont remove it first (you can tell i want to end this post already since this section is so short!!).
Blade Flurry: An ability that allows you to hit two targets instead of one but in return your energy regeneration slows. the ability can be glyphed so that energy regen doesnt take as big a hit, which is often a must if you're doing dungeons. for raids where much of the damage is to a single boss at a time, blade flurry may be useless. in any event, it is up to the player to decide whether blade flurry should be used, assuming more dps is always better, even on trash, or left out altogether. if you use blade flurry often, do consider glyphing. Blade flurry also works with Killing Spree. The reason this ability is set aside and mentioned on its own is because this is spell does not fall into any of the above categories. It's just an ability any rogue can turn on or off and any time really. in dungeons, i have this on after my first slice and dice. then i turn it off when there is only one mob remaining, or when there are two mobs who are not standing right next to each other. in these situations, the cleave effect will be wasted. (Cleave effect = hitting two or more players at once with a single hit or cleave or swipe). Overall, this is a very handy ability. Remember to tricks often, as the cleave can cause unwanted aggro.
Other tricks, tips, or corrections? please comment so i can improve. I've only played combat for the past 10 levels, but during those 10 levels i've actually figured several things already mentioned above. To summarize, i cant spam attacks. there is a basic category of spells but what makes rogues particulary fun to play are the utility spells, timing of cooldowns and weaving of differnt combinations and abilities. This is the major reason why i enjoy the rogue. my favorite classes are usually melee classes with the occasional healer (of course, druid healing preferred), so finding another fun melee class to play is motivational indeed. the only other melee class i think i still havent played is the enhancement shaman. one day i hope to write about it as well!
Note: not all spells and abilities are mentioned. either i havent found a reason to use them or they do not apply. If there are other abilities that i should also consider, or if the abilities i've mentioned can be expanded on, please comment. thanks!
The Rogue Experiment
I have a rogue. His name is Bruno (post character re-customization). He's been leveling on and off for the past several years. Although i've never really taken any sustained interest in playing a rogue, i find that since i've leveled up through Northrend and now in Cata stages, i've begun to actually like my rogue more and more.
Perhaps the problem, in the beginning, is that i had a druid who leveled as Feral and about 80% of the rogue's major attacks and fight mechanics are copied directly on to the feral druid "cat" form style of play. From openers to finishing moves, to even combo point makers, they all seem so very similar. For example, Hemmorage = mangle, backstab = ravage, sinister strike = claw, maim = kidney shot, etc. After levels and levels of playing a rogue, it felt almost the same as leveling a feral druid. And i've told myself many times that i would probably never want to level a feral druid again.
Maybe the problem wasnt just the similarities these two classes/specs have, but also the differences make playing a rogue seem a little limiting to me. For one, as a druid i can simply switch into bear form and tank should a pull go bad. As a rogue, my only option is really to blind one, then switch back. When the blind wears off, its time to evasion aura. If things go really bad, i can vanish and start over. Now after the fight, my druid will heal, stealth and move on to the next mob almost seamlessly. With the rogue, i'll sit there eating or waiting for my health to replenish. Simple differences like that does make a difference when deciding what's more "fun" to play. Back then, i was unhappy with the way rogues cannot heal themselves apart from bandages and how they always have to remember to coat their daggers with poisons. Also the complexity of weapon choices with different specs also turned me off a little regarding this class. With a feral druid, pretty much any weapon is good, with the added bonus that you will never have to learn that weapon skill. of course, weapon skill is now built into your level and makes it easier to switch between swords, maces and daggers for rogues.
Now i dont want to make this post about Feral Druid Cats vs. Rogues of all Specs, but a background needs to be included somewhere. When Wrath of the Lich King hit, i went from feral dps to feral bear tank and never looked back at feral dps. in fact, i tried dpsing once or twice again and never enjoyed it. So there you have it. For the longest time, i have always felt that i am playing the rogue class with some limitations and would be better off playing feral dps. then, since i've already played feral dps, i never really cared to level up a melee dps class that relied on energy again. Well now im sitting here writing about energy-bassed rogue dps.
Actual Rogue-related Stuff
In any case, it has been an experience trying to get used to the rogue class. I leveled several months ago from 60-70 and found that Subtlety was quite simple and boring. I had to attack from behind constantly and realized that 50% of my damage comes from the first 5 seconds of play. The remaining damage just trickles resulting in a DPS in the first 5 seconds of 5k, then after a 15-20 second fight, it goes down to less than 1k. Sad huh? that's what i thought. I was a little dismayed but i figued i could work this to my own advantage. In outland dungeon fights where im stacked with delicate bloodstones, fights last 10 seconds max. and even boss fights dont last too long either. I was satisfied with 1k dps at level 65 anyway since most dps classes barely get to break the 1k
Enter northrend and things changed a little. Mobs have more health so fights last a little longer. Thats good and bad. Although it does favor the rogue in terms of dps in longer fights, it doesnt favor a subtlety rogue, who's usually great at opening damage but fails at sustained damage in the long run. So after several dungeons between 69 and 72, i was resigned to doing lowest dps in all dungeon fights. This did lead to days of non-play on my rogue and eventually, loss of play completely.
Then one day, my gf decides to level up a death knight and i leveled with her when she hit 70. The experience was relatively the same so i decided to switch specs and grab different weapons. Although i knew that Sub wasnt ideal for dungeon play, i really liked the idea of shadowstep. Keeping hemmorage up to buff rupture was simply familiar to me when i was playing a feral druid. Playing combat simplified things a little. one, i had no "buff" to maintain besides slice and dice, and two, i never really had to stealth. =D
As a combat rogue, my main concern was to activate slice and dice, rupture if the fight will be long, otherwise, eviscerate. my combo maker is sinister strike, which can be used from any direction (further simplification). Now there are a few items that are tossed into this spec that acually makes it different from Sub. I have two cooldowns to play with and one toggle-able ability that allows me to cleave. And those are the difference. But those differences make leveling a rogue so awesome this time around.
Bruno is now level 82 and working on leveling through vashjir. He basically sat in LFD queue for the first level and a half since hitting level 80.
Perhaps the problem, in the beginning, is that i had a druid who leveled as Feral and about 80% of the rogue's major attacks and fight mechanics are copied directly on to the feral druid "cat" form style of play. From openers to finishing moves, to even combo point makers, they all seem so very similar. For example, Hemmorage = mangle, backstab = ravage, sinister strike = claw, maim = kidney shot, etc. After levels and levels of playing a rogue, it felt almost the same as leveling a feral druid. And i've told myself many times that i would probably never want to level a feral druid again.
Maybe the problem wasnt just the similarities these two classes/specs have, but also the differences make playing a rogue seem a little limiting to me. For one, as a druid i can simply switch into bear form and tank should a pull go bad. As a rogue, my only option is really to blind one, then switch back. When the blind wears off, its time to evasion aura. If things go really bad, i can vanish and start over. Now after the fight, my druid will heal, stealth and move on to the next mob almost seamlessly. With the rogue, i'll sit there eating or waiting for my health to replenish. Simple differences like that does make a difference when deciding what's more "fun" to play. Back then, i was unhappy with the way rogues cannot heal themselves apart from bandages and how they always have to remember to coat their daggers with poisons. Also the complexity of weapon choices with different specs also turned me off a little regarding this class. With a feral druid, pretty much any weapon is good, with the added bonus that you will never have to learn that weapon skill. of course, weapon skill is now built into your level and makes it easier to switch between swords, maces and daggers for rogues.
Now i dont want to make this post about Feral Druid Cats vs. Rogues of all Specs, but a background needs to be included somewhere. When Wrath of the Lich King hit, i went from feral dps to feral bear tank and never looked back at feral dps. in fact, i tried dpsing once or twice again and never enjoyed it. So there you have it. For the longest time, i have always felt that i am playing the rogue class with some limitations and would be better off playing feral dps. then, since i've already played feral dps, i never really cared to level up a melee dps class that relied on energy again. Well now im sitting here writing about energy-bassed rogue dps.
Actual Rogue-related Stuff
In any case, it has been an experience trying to get used to the rogue class. I leveled several months ago from 60-70 and found that Subtlety was quite simple and boring. I had to attack from behind constantly and realized that 50% of my damage comes from the first 5 seconds of play. The remaining damage just trickles resulting in a DPS in the first 5 seconds of 5k, then after a 15-20 second fight, it goes down to less than 1k. Sad huh? that's what i thought. I was a little dismayed but i figued i could work this to my own advantage. In outland dungeon fights where im stacked with delicate bloodstones, fights last 10 seconds max. and even boss fights dont last too long either. I was satisfied with 1k dps at level 65 anyway since most dps classes barely get to break the 1k
Enter northrend and things changed a little. Mobs have more health so fights last a little longer. Thats good and bad. Although it does favor the rogue in terms of dps in longer fights, it doesnt favor a subtlety rogue, who's usually great at opening damage but fails at sustained damage in the long run. So after several dungeons between 69 and 72, i was resigned to doing lowest dps in all dungeon fights. This did lead to days of non-play on my rogue and eventually, loss of play completely.
Then one day, my gf decides to level up a death knight and i leveled with her when she hit 70. The experience was relatively the same so i decided to switch specs and grab different weapons. Although i knew that Sub wasnt ideal for dungeon play, i really liked the idea of shadowstep. Keeping hemmorage up to buff rupture was simply familiar to me when i was playing a feral druid. Playing combat simplified things a little. one, i had no "buff" to maintain besides slice and dice, and two, i never really had to stealth. =D
As a combat rogue, my main concern was to activate slice and dice, rupture if the fight will be long, otherwise, eviscerate. my combo maker is sinister strike, which can be used from any direction (further simplification). Now there are a few items that are tossed into this spec that acually makes it different from Sub. I have two cooldowns to play with and one toggle-able ability that allows me to cleave. And those are the difference. But those differences make leveling a rogue so awesome this time around.
Bruno is now level 82 and working on leveling through vashjir. He basically sat in LFD queue for the first level and a half since hitting level 80.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
The More Things Change...
As the old saying goes, the more things change, they more they stay the same (or it stays the same, or whatevers). The point is clear. its all the same. everything is recycled. rant time? yes.
The problem is, yet again, dungeons. Oh i loved the first few weeks of Cata. The dungeons were hard. Every dungeon was difficult. Every dungeon had wipes. At the end of the night, i had to redo some macros, or prioritize differently than before.
I started cata with my warrior, Ithacus. he's an orc. they're pretty no-nonsense type of warriors bent on killing things, usually by overpowering them as opposed to out-maneuvering them. i'll leave the finesse for dainty night elves and blood elves. but the human counterpart in the world of azeroth are the orcs. and they are fierce. they rush into a fight with zero regard for their own well-being with the one purpose to obliterate their foes. Ithacus was one of them. he would charge+shout, rend, drop a thunderclap, then cleave+sweeping strikes and bladestorm til he died. this happened on every wrath heroic between 4.01 and cata launch. imagine the fun i was having with ARMS warrioring. =P yes. arms... i said it. Fury my ass. anyway, moving along...
(to accomplish the above, i had two macros. one for charge/shout, which had me tap the button twice. once to charge, and again to shout while i was in the middle of a charge. easy. second is the sweeping strikes macro'ed to cleave. since i only use cleave for multiple mobs, adding a sweeping strikes to it always makes it worthwhile. especially in wrath dungeons. you need sweeping strikes on as much as possible, because that's how the game was played. i rend once per fight, so that's not macroed anywhere. i thunderclap often, so that's its own separate button)
Then Things Changed
Enter Cata. Life was gleeful. every dungeon was rough, especially when i was asked to tank for half of them. i was essentially learning two players at once. but overall, i was learning to wait a little to dps. I was using pummel or body slam or whatever it is. i forget. having two specs make it difficult to remember. but i know i was using my interrupts more. i found that in the battle between slam and heroic strike, heroic strike wins. i finally started using colossus smash and not just when the "thing" procs. you can tell i have no idea what the name of the proc is, but i know what it looks like and press colossus smash accordingly. i even back up and hit intercept now, whenever something needs to be stopped, like a heal from this Adepts in Vortex Pin.
Overall, pulls were thought out a bit more. There's more consideration to each class' CC abilities. I have learned quite a few things about CC, like who can CC what, and who should CC first, etc. I also know that no boomkin has ever used hibernate on a dragon. none. the more obvious CCs are usually a hunter's trap and a mage's polymorph. no one figured maybe you can bind an elemental, or banish it. or hey, let the boomkin entangle roots and hiberante. two in one. yay! several paladins couldnt find Repentance, but they found them eventually. rogues often use distract before they sap and deathknights.... well they're pretty much useless for now.
Apart from the crowd controls, there's the other obvious good things that changed about the fights themselves. Mobs lived longer, did more damage, had better abilities and caused a little more trauma. thats great!!! no seriously, my wrath-era-yawns turned into, "oh hey!! something new!" i had to watch my surroundings more, had to interrupt more whirlwinds and AoE casts and all that good stuff. The healer would be OOM after almost every fight. YAY!!!! that's so awesomesauce. people were at half health, or less, after every fight too. awesomesauce with added tobasco! and at the end of pretty much every fight, it felt like i actually earned that kill. awesomesauce that's better than Hooter's 911 chicken wings!!
But They Stayed the Same
After leveling my warrior to 85 and getting a few dungeons in, i started leveling my deathknight with my girlfriend's priest. we leveled through hyjal, deepholm, the ramhaken part of uldum and finally twilight highlands. While leveling, we did queue for all the dungeons along the way. What my girlfriend felt was that she had better mana efficiency, which is good. she didnt lose much of the difficulty in healing each fight, but she did find it less stressing when her mana bar was twice as full as usual. she has two priests, both 85 now. leveling the first one 80-85 was omg hard. leveling the second one 80-85 was a lot eaiser. i guess blizzard made a few tweaks. but i am sidetracked.... lets get back to the subject.
I noticed something when i was dps (Arms Warrior and Frost DK), that somehow not a lot of people knew how to dps. really? yes. now i dont mean CC, or interrupts, or even moving out of Bad, which is required. but many of them were doing less dps than me. there were hunters and boomkins doing 3k dps. just 3k, at level 83. they may have had to CC, which was obvious if the tank asks for them, but they did not know how to interrupt spellcasts, dont know how to deal with adds, dont know how to avoid bad stuffs. many folks are learning, true. but how many times does it take for a summoned elemental to shoot a beam at you before you realize maybe you should kill it before it reaches you? slow it down. run away. kill it or else a gigantic pillar of fire will spawn from your feet and kill you? how many times???? OMG!! ARRRRGHGHHHHH.
But my god the dps is crap. on my warrior, i was really miserable at level 81 doing 4k dps inside Throne of Tides. Then it jumped somehow at level 82 to a whopping 6k. and if things are done correctly, i can hit 8k+ on some fights. but that's it. averaging around 6k and we're not even talking heroic geared. on my deathknight, who has a lot more AoE tools, she's able to do 8k normally, in her sleep. and 10k+ if i decide to actually do more (like turn on AMS and IBF while bad AoE is happening, etc). and what is everyone else doing? half. yes, half. no not half 10k, half 8k. some are doing more, yes, but some just cant cut it. and what bugs me even more, is that these are heroics. you know the heroics where you have to have an average ilevel of at least 329. this is where the learning should have already happened. i had to drop a heroic deadmines run because a hunter was doing about 3-4k dps. the last boss is harsh if you cannot get him down before the healer was OOM. and the lock and i were doing 8k dps each. we go the boss to about 30% each time we wiped. and we wiped because the healer was OOM. another 4k dps would have helped. it may have even prolonged the healer's mana supply because there would be less damage taken overall. but we couldnt do it since there just wasnt enough dps output. this is just one of many examples. i only had one, ONE experience where everyone was about 10k dps. we were in vortex pinnicle and all the dps were spot on. my girlfriend had zero problems with healing and things moved like clockwork. i actually had competition in the interrupt meter.
Lately, i've been running dungeons without the dps meter on display. it's on, but not displaying damage. its switched to interrupts. and even there, im at the top, usually. shamans dont windshear, paladins dont rebuke, warriors dont pummel, deathknights dont mind freeze, rogues dont kick, mages dont counterspell, warlocks dont fear (get the glyph), and s.priests dont silence, or fear (again, get the glyph). i'd like a little competition with the interrupts and i only get it sometimes with the tanks. everyone else do not. also, if anyone can suggest a spell for moonkins (besides bearform+bash and typhoon) please comment. =] but overall, my experience in dungeons are somewhat a mixed bag of fun with minimal challege. there's not a lot of people to compete with really. whenever there's a rogue who actually kicks, i find it very challenging to keep up with the interrupt counts. but more often than not, this is not the case.
Just this past weekend, i decided to level my druid again. this time, she's going to be boomkin (respec'd and ready, with the pvp healing spec removed) instead of healing. she deleted much of her pvp gear and upgraded from her mixed t8 and t9 gear to cata "greens". then went on over to Hyjal, Vashjir, Uldum and Twilight highlands to farm herbs. im sure she got about one whole level's worth of experience from just picking herbs. while picking herbs, she's queued in the dungeon finder. now when i first started this, i knew zero about being a moonkin. actually, redhawk, graylo and sunfyrre were awesome resources at helping me understand boomkin dps. thanks guys!! =] and i quickly understood the basics of boomkin dps. dont ask me what eclipse is for, i just know that i start spamming another spell when it does happen. =P
most of the weekend was used to adjust to the style of dps. honestly, its kinda different from any other dps styles i've ever played. as a caster, sure, Shooting Stars procs are like anything else, but the whole sun/moon eclipse mechanic was completely new to me. by the end of the holiday weekend, three levels and about 10 random dungeons, i was able to go from 3k dps to 6k dps. im sitting pretty at level 83, almost 84, doing "the most" dps in most groups i run with. most, until the last two.
Again, keep in mind that not a lot of people interrupt and there are still some folks who still stand in bad. i battle rez people for the sheer sake of not wanting to be yelled at (although i would love to have the group wipe sometimes) later on. also, sometimes its the tank that needs to be b-rez'd during a boss fight, so that's quite important to rez them in that case. but anyway, i've encountered, finally, a repeat of wrath. here's what happened.
Tank: So someone mark CC please.
Healer: you dont need any CC.
Tank: oh right!
We were in normal stonecore. The tank was level 85. the healer was level 85. aparently they were running their ret paladin friend who was level 83 doing 3k dps, max. yes. that's all he was doing. i was the only one there doing more dps than the tank. although he was level 85, he was pulling just about 6k dps. in this instance, there was zero crowd control. everything was AoE'd down. most of the dps were doing less than the tank, no one was focus-firing and no one was interrupting. sounds like wrath of the lich king all over again, doesnt it?
i know some 85s are newly ding'ed 85s with some gearing up to do, but there are others who are really beyond normal vortex pin or stonecore. and even when running your friends through instances, at least have your friend make some effort to try to do well. at least practice good play by incoporating cc's and interrupts and even pull carefully. maybe? all youre doing is making a bad, lazy, inexperienced level 85 who will end up being useless in heroics. and i've gone through one instance where we failed miserably because two of the dps were doing 3-4k, and the tank was doing 3k. and i was doing 9....
in any case, my arms are tired from all this carrying.
The problem is, yet again, dungeons. Oh i loved the first few weeks of Cata. The dungeons were hard. Every dungeon was difficult. Every dungeon had wipes. At the end of the night, i had to redo some macros, or prioritize differently than before.
I started cata with my warrior, Ithacus. he's an orc. they're pretty no-nonsense type of warriors bent on killing things, usually by overpowering them as opposed to out-maneuvering them. i'll leave the finesse for dainty night elves and blood elves. but the human counterpart in the world of azeroth are the orcs. and they are fierce. they rush into a fight with zero regard for their own well-being with the one purpose to obliterate their foes. Ithacus was one of them. he would charge+shout, rend, drop a thunderclap, then cleave+sweeping strikes and bladestorm til he died. this happened on every wrath heroic between 4.01 and cata launch. imagine the fun i was having with ARMS warrioring. =P yes. arms... i said it. Fury my ass. anyway, moving along...
(to accomplish the above, i had two macros. one for charge/shout, which had me tap the button twice. once to charge, and again to shout while i was in the middle of a charge. easy. second is the sweeping strikes macro'ed to cleave. since i only use cleave for multiple mobs, adding a sweeping strikes to it always makes it worthwhile. especially in wrath dungeons. you need sweeping strikes on as much as possible, because that's how the game was played. i rend once per fight, so that's not macroed anywhere. i thunderclap often, so that's its own separate button)
Then Things Changed
Enter Cata. Life was gleeful. every dungeon was rough, especially when i was asked to tank for half of them. i was essentially learning two players at once. but overall, i was learning to wait a little to dps. I was using pummel or body slam or whatever it is. i forget. having two specs make it difficult to remember. but i know i was using my interrupts more. i found that in the battle between slam and heroic strike, heroic strike wins. i finally started using colossus smash and not just when the "thing" procs. you can tell i have no idea what the name of the proc is, but i know what it looks like and press colossus smash accordingly. i even back up and hit intercept now, whenever something needs to be stopped, like a heal from this Adepts in Vortex Pin.
Overall, pulls were thought out a bit more. There's more consideration to each class' CC abilities. I have learned quite a few things about CC, like who can CC what, and who should CC first, etc. I also know that no boomkin has ever used hibernate on a dragon. none. the more obvious CCs are usually a hunter's trap and a mage's polymorph. no one figured maybe you can bind an elemental, or banish it. or hey, let the boomkin entangle roots and hiberante. two in one. yay! several paladins couldnt find Repentance, but they found them eventually. rogues often use distract before they sap and deathknights.... well they're pretty much useless for now.
Apart from the crowd controls, there's the other obvious good things that changed about the fights themselves. Mobs lived longer, did more damage, had better abilities and caused a little more trauma. thats great!!! no seriously, my wrath-era-yawns turned into, "oh hey!! something new!" i had to watch my surroundings more, had to interrupt more whirlwinds and AoE casts and all that good stuff. The healer would be OOM after almost every fight. YAY!!!! that's so awesomesauce. people were at half health, or less, after every fight too. awesomesauce with added tobasco! and at the end of pretty much every fight, it felt like i actually earned that kill. awesomesauce that's better than Hooter's 911 chicken wings!!
But They Stayed the Same
After leveling my warrior to 85 and getting a few dungeons in, i started leveling my deathknight with my girlfriend's priest. we leveled through hyjal, deepholm, the ramhaken part of uldum and finally twilight highlands. While leveling, we did queue for all the dungeons along the way. What my girlfriend felt was that she had better mana efficiency, which is good. she didnt lose much of the difficulty in healing each fight, but she did find it less stressing when her mana bar was twice as full as usual. she has two priests, both 85 now. leveling the first one 80-85 was omg hard. leveling the second one 80-85 was a lot eaiser. i guess blizzard made a few tweaks. but i am sidetracked.... lets get back to the subject.
I noticed something when i was dps (Arms Warrior and Frost DK), that somehow not a lot of people knew how to dps. really? yes. now i dont mean CC, or interrupts, or even moving out of Bad, which is required. but many of them were doing less dps than me. there were hunters and boomkins doing 3k dps. just 3k, at level 83. they may have had to CC, which was obvious if the tank asks for them, but they did not know how to interrupt spellcasts, dont know how to deal with adds, dont know how to avoid bad stuffs. many folks are learning, true. but how many times does it take for a summoned elemental to shoot a beam at you before you realize maybe you should kill it before it reaches you? slow it down. run away. kill it or else a gigantic pillar of fire will spawn from your feet and kill you? how many times???? OMG!! ARRRRGHGHHHHH.
But my god the dps is crap. on my warrior, i was really miserable at level 81 doing 4k dps inside Throne of Tides. Then it jumped somehow at level 82 to a whopping 6k. and if things are done correctly, i can hit 8k+ on some fights. but that's it. averaging around 6k and we're not even talking heroic geared. on my deathknight, who has a lot more AoE tools, she's able to do 8k normally, in her sleep. and 10k+ if i decide to actually do more (like turn on AMS and IBF while bad AoE is happening, etc). and what is everyone else doing? half. yes, half. no not half 10k, half 8k. some are doing more, yes, but some just cant cut it. and what bugs me even more, is that these are heroics. you know the heroics where you have to have an average ilevel of at least 329. this is where the learning should have already happened. i had to drop a heroic deadmines run because a hunter was doing about 3-4k dps. the last boss is harsh if you cannot get him down before the healer was OOM. and the lock and i were doing 8k dps each. we go the boss to about 30% each time we wiped. and we wiped because the healer was OOM. another 4k dps would have helped. it may have even prolonged the healer's mana supply because there would be less damage taken overall. but we couldnt do it since there just wasnt enough dps output. this is just one of many examples. i only had one, ONE experience where everyone was about 10k dps. we were in vortex pinnicle and all the dps were spot on. my girlfriend had zero problems with healing and things moved like clockwork. i actually had competition in the interrupt meter.
Lately, i've been running dungeons without the dps meter on display. it's on, but not displaying damage. its switched to interrupts. and even there, im at the top, usually. shamans dont windshear, paladins dont rebuke, warriors dont pummel, deathknights dont mind freeze, rogues dont kick, mages dont counterspell, warlocks dont fear (get the glyph), and s.priests dont silence, or fear (again, get the glyph). i'd like a little competition with the interrupts and i only get it sometimes with the tanks. everyone else do not. also, if anyone can suggest a spell for moonkins (besides bearform+bash and typhoon) please comment. =] but overall, my experience in dungeons are somewhat a mixed bag of fun with minimal challege. there's not a lot of people to compete with really. whenever there's a rogue who actually kicks, i find it very challenging to keep up with the interrupt counts. but more often than not, this is not the case.
Just this past weekend, i decided to level my druid again. this time, she's going to be boomkin (respec'd and ready, with the pvp healing spec removed) instead of healing. she deleted much of her pvp gear and upgraded from her mixed t8 and t9 gear to cata "greens". then went on over to Hyjal, Vashjir, Uldum and Twilight highlands to farm herbs. im sure she got about one whole level's worth of experience from just picking herbs. while picking herbs, she's queued in the dungeon finder. now when i first started this, i knew zero about being a moonkin. actually, redhawk, graylo and sunfyrre were awesome resources at helping me understand boomkin dps. thanks guys!! =] and i quickly understood the basics of boomkin dps. dont ask me what eclipse is for, i just know that i start spamming another spell when it does happen. =P
most of the weekend was used to adjust to the style of dps. honestly, its kinda different from any other dps styles i've ever played. as a caster, sure, Shooting Stars procs are like anything else, but the whole sun/moon eclipse mechanic was completely new to me. by the end of the holiday weekend, three levels and about 10 random dungeons, i was able to go from 3k dps to 6k dps. im sitting pretty at level 83, almost 84, doing "the most" dps in most groups i run with. most, until the last two.
Again, keep in mind that not a lot of people interrupt and there are still some folks who still stand in bad. i battle rez people for the sheer sake of not wanting to be yelled at (although i would love to have the group wipe sometimes) later on. also, sometimes its the tank that needs to be b-rez'd during a boss fight, so that's quite important to rez them in that case. but anyway, i've encountered, finally, a repeat of wrath. here's what happened.
Tank: So someone mark CC please.
Healer: you dont need any CC.
Tank: oh right!
We were in normal stonecore. The tank was level 85. the healer was level 85. aparently they were running their ret paladin friend who was level 83 doing 3k dps, max. yes. that's all he was doing. i was the only one there doing more dps than the tank. although he was level 85, he was pulling just about 6k dps. in this instance, there was zero crowd control. everything was AoE'd down. most of the dps were doing less than the tank, no one was focus-firing and no one was interrupting. sounds like wrath of the lich king all over again, doesnt it?
i know some 85s are newly ding'ed 85s with some gearing up to do, but there are others who are really beyond normal vortex pin or stonecore. and even when running your friends through instances, at least have your friend make some effort to try to do well. at least practice good play by incoporating cc's and interrupts and even pull carefully. maybe? all youre doing is making a bad, lazy, inexperienced level 85 who will end up being useless in heroics. and i've gone through one instance where we failed miserably because two of the dps were doing 3-4k, and the tank was doing 3k. and i was doing 9....
in any case, my arms are tired from all this carrying.
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.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Rotations
There's this one blog that i love reading. The guy who writes it is pretty entertaining. but he speaks truth even in an entertaining form. he's a little over-the-top when it comes to explaining things. but hey, it gets the point across.
so from Jong and Forbearace comes this:
remember to switch it up. that's the main thing. people dont take the time to put different spells in to spice up their rotations. and sometimes, that results in an increased dps you never knew you could have done. some will argue that you have to do it in the instances for it to be "real" since that's where it counts. but i find that doing it at the target dummies make it much much easier to transfer all that newfound skill into the "real" world.
and its always good to go back to the target dummies every 10 levels while leveling since you're always learning new spell and abilities as you're leveling. And every time you upgrade gear sets at 80 (or even one or two upgrades, since they offer bonuses or stats that may alter your rotations for maximum dps).
just a reminder to visit the dummies. i love dummies anyway.
so from Jong and Forbearace comes this:
What are you doing "thinking" about your rotation anyways? It should be like breathing. Do you sit there consciously observing the intricacies of inhale/exhale mechanics? It should just float off your finger tips while you tend to the real task: orchestrating the efforts of clueless scrubs running around flopping they arms.So with rotations, live it. breathe it. make it roll off your fingers without even thinking. go to the target dummies and spend 10 minutes a day there. watch your dps meter and adjust if you want to, just to see if you can gain more dps. you'll do two things here. you'll hone your rotations to maximize damage on your own (and not from a website) and you'll train your fingers to press the right buttons at the right time all the time. when it comes time to top dps in instances, you'll have that muscle memory working for you.
remember to switch it up. that's the main thing. people dont take the time to put different spells in to spice up their rotations. and sometimes, that results in an increased dps you never knew you could have done. some will argue that you have to do it in the instances for it to be "real" since that's where it counts. but i find that doing it at the target dummies make it much much easier to transfer all that newfound skill into the "real" world.
and its always good to go back to the target dummies every 10 levels while leveling since you're always learning new spell and abilities as you're leveling. And every time you upgrade gear sets at 80 (or even one or two upgrades, since they offer bonuses or stats that may alter your rotations for maximum dps).
just a reminder to visit the dummies. i love dummies anyway.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Death Knight DPS Spec vs. Tanking Spec
Here's why i am writing this post:
GF: Hey which DK spec is for tanking?
Me: All of them.
GF: ??? What about DPS?
Me: All of them.
GF: What?
Me: It depends on the talents within each spec.
So here's a picture i stole somewhere on the internet. it shows the basic Unholy DK DPS build that many people have agreed as good. Well, i took it a bit futher and put yellow boxes around the talents an Unholy DK would pick if he were to tank as Unholy. Then i crossed out some of the talents that's blatantly for dps (as in, no respectable tank would ever pick these talents. although there's some talents in the blood tree that needs to be "wasted" to get to improved runetap).
GF: Hey which DK spec is for tanking?
Me: All of them.
GF: ??? What about DPS?
Me: All of them.
GF: What?
Me: It depends on the talents within each spec.
So here's a picture i stole somewhere on the internet. it shows the basic Unholy DK DPS build that many people have agreed as good. Well, i took it a bit futher and put yellow boxes around the talents an Unholy DK would pick if he were to tank as Unholy. Then i crossed out some of the talents that's blatantly for dps (as in, no respectable tank would ever pick these talents. although there's some talents in the blood tree that needs to be "wasted" to get to improved runetap).
Click Pic to Enlarge
Note that this is the level 80, single target (ie. bosses) talent spec. leveling spec would be a little different but very much the same. also the only different between this spec and an AoE spec is the switching of two talents. otherwise, everything's the same. note that for tanking, you'll need talents from every tree. note also that some of your fun dps talents are crossed out. this is because no tank needs a ghoul, and no tank needs a gargoyle. those are strictly for dps. since this is an unholy spec, you're also giving up some nice dps talents from the blood tree as well. you still want 2hand swords, but you're going to give up some in bladed armor to jump to blood tap and improved blood tap.
I can do this for the Blood tree and the frost tree as well, but since my GF is Unholy, i fugred this is the best way to explain so she'll have some idea what im talking about. unholy dps is really good with the AoE dps. I also find that Frost dps is great as well. Blood dps is solid, but rather boring. tanking, however, is a totally different game and requires a familiarity with your buttons and surroundings that requires a good proficiency in one of the three specs. what i mean to say is, get good with one spec before you plan on tanking in that spec.
So to debunk some common misconceptions (pre-cata, ofc)...
1. All specs can tank.
2. The difference between dps and tank are the talent choices within their relative tree.
3. Frost is not THE tanking spec.
4. Unholy DPS is the highest dps spec, for you. this means that if you spec into all three specs, assuming skill level is the same, you'll do more dps as unholy. This does not mean that i wont come by in my frost dps spec (and since my skill > your skill) and decimate your dps. again, assuming the same skill level, unholy will do more dps.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Learning to Heal
I have been leveling my shaman with my girlfriend's paladin (well kinda. half the time we're playing on our own because we're not really home together at the same time except for 11pm to 2am. and 2am is when I sleep to get up for work at 8am the next day. yea kinda nuts.) and it has been a blast so far. as many of you know, I have leveled up a paladin as a tank a year or two ago and it was pretty fun to actually be able to kill several things at once, albiet slowly. with a ret paladin, I usually try to keep it to two mobs at once, but killing speed is roughly the same. I find mana management with the ret paladin a lot easier than with the prot paladin. earlier this year I started a ret paladin on a new server and leveled him all the way to 80. I really wasn’t planning to do much with him but to save up his triumph badges for some pvp gear and try out pvp a little. but this was before my gf decided to start playing.
Lately, the new server is basically where im spending a lot of my time when on WoW. over the past two and a half weeks, I've leveled up a disc priest to 30 and a resto shaman to almost 40 as of writing. The Warlock/Priest combo is on hold until my gf gets sick of the Pala/Shaman combo. although I highly doubt she'll stop playing the paladin, as she's already level 40. in a couple level's she's going to have a whole bunch of new spells and abilities that will actually make the paladin a little more involved. the only proc she really has to manage is Art of War. everything else are just new attacks or new seals, in which she's already familiar with.
Im learning to heal with my priest all over again. Its really difficult to heal in the beginning as most of my spells are not talented, my gear was crap and the tanks are all newbs. but as time progressed, I got a little better as well as the groups. things began forming and falling into place. no longer do I see fail groups. I see more competent groups as I continue to level on beyond the basics of RFC, WC, VC, RFK and Stocks. Actually, I've begun to see much more improvements to the groups when running RFK and Stocks and now, as im doing SM more often, I find that everyone, especially the tanks, know exactly what they're doing. well almost. there's still tanks with LOS issues, or tanks who don’t pick up the casters and whatnot, but they're still learning. at least, im not healing squishybear or onetargetwarrior. everyone's utilizing their AoE abilities and it rocks. Even the casters, who usually aggro on me when I heal, now are LOS'ed back to the tank, if not, I reply with a Wind Shear and they come running into the tank's Thunderclap or Consecration.
At around level 25, things began to take form as a disc priest. my shields are buffed, my healing is better, my mana and regen is a little better and my heals are a little more efficient. namely, I have flash heal sheild and heal ready to go. I don’t have my favorite moves yet (pain suppression, penance, divine aegis) but they'll come in time. Somehow im learning to heal with a disc all over again. it wasn’t so fun the first time around, but that's mainly because there wasn’t a random dungeon finder tool. but now, I queue up and I go. quests? what are those?
The same thing happened with my shaman at around level 25. He became much easier to play due to the addition of some abilities and spells. prior, I was using healing wave. that's the only healing spell I had. my totem selection sucked too. it was one earth totem, and one fire totem. I didn’t even get my water totem until about level 25. glyphed water shield is great as it returns mana to me passively and when I get hit. having four charges makes it even better. what I try to do is grab aggro from one mob first just to get my water shield charges to go off. In any case, mana regen is a lot better. additionally, with two healing spells and some very nifty totems, healing has become a lot more versatile. the addition of a damage buffer and a HoT from my Earthliving imbue makes healing even more involved. it is no longer cut and dry with just one heal and no real supporting spells/abilities.
But learning to heal with the shaman has got me thinking about the uniqueness of all the healing classes. Namely, how to use my totems as a supporting role for the group. Paladins have their blessings and hands. which is great. these are direct spells and such. priests have fortitude and a few other buffs. druids have paws (Mark of the Wild). But shamans have totems. and these totems do different things based on what I decide to put down. faster attacks? more spell damage? slowing mobs down? doing damage? adding armor? all of these things can be done with totems. and I get four differen types to play around with at the same time. fun times when you have another shaman in the group. I usually put down healing specific totems and overall support for the group. but my fire totem is always the magma totem because I find that a 6% damage increase to spellcasters simply isnt as great as having a 30% increase to all dps. what? yes. I do 30% of the dps in most groups with that totem. whatever gets us through the instance faster is fine by me.
now the fire totem, in this case, the magma totem is my fire totem of choice, always gets planted at my front left. and so I try to position myself close enough to the group to drop that totem as close to the group of mobs as possible. in a pull, I usually accomplish this even before I have to heal the tank. sometimes I can pull off a fire nova before I even have to heal. a fire nova is basically "activating" your fire totem to blow up things around it. this causes massive damage all around. and if the tank has 4 or 6 mobs on him at one time, I usually do awesome damage. sometimes I do pull aggro but that doesn’t last too long. the tank would pull them back a quick second later. what this does, however, is cause my watershield to pop, giving me a bunch of mana back. I do want this to happen. and sometimes I purposely pull aggro with my fire nova (although I sometimes get more mobs than I want) in order to get some mana back.
I find that with this method, I have very little mana problems. I often drink but I do know that when I do DPS with the totem, I am expending a lot of mana. I am not complaining, since healing alone would take up a small amount of my mana supply but remain pretty boring. im sure as I level on, things will get a little more exciting. I will have to heal more and use more spells. im anxiously waiting earthshield, chain heal and riptide. with those added to my arsenal, I hope to never have to use Healing wave again.
Q for all the shaman healers: How often do you use Healing Wave anyway? I would assume that Lesser Healing Wave +glyph is the way to go for quick healing, chain heals for multiple targets and riptide +LHW for big heals. this is my theory since I am unable to test any of this out at the moment. I am level 38 currently so I don’t have any of those spells to work with. I want to know this because I want to know if I should respec my talent points later on, meaning, once I get riptide, do I want to remove my talents from all the Healing Wave talents? the one that reduces cast time by 0.5 seconds? the one that increases healing done from HW by 8% per talent point? I find myself using Healing wave less and less. Much like how I don’t use greater heal at all on my priest. I use shield, flash and penance. on my druid, I use healing touch (the Healing wave equiv) only with swiftmend. Just pondering right now. not sure what to do, but im more of a ABC caster (always be casting), so I prefer to continually cast Lesser healing wave than to cast Healing wave, wait 5 seconds, cast HW again, wait 5 seconds, cast HW again.
Thanks in advance!
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Shadow Priests
Why are priests, the dps kind, so low on the dps charts as I level through content? currently, I am at my mid 40s with my shaman and I've not seen a shadow priest beat my totem in dps.
This actually kinda start when I started SM:GY and for 15 levels, I've been noticing the same thing. my magma totem gets dropped, it pulses. and, if I have enough mana and don’t need to heal much, will blow it up. once, I was top dps. but that was just once. other times, I've usually been very conservative in using my nova. I would place my magma totem down and let it pulse. at the end when everyone's about to die I would hit nova just to finish everyone off before they start running too far. this happens a lot in SM. everyone runs away in fear. its so annoying. but this helps.
What I don’t understand is why the shadow priests (and its every single shadow priest I tell you) do so much less damage than everyone elses (not just me, although I do enjoy being second to last, I don’t mind being last on the charts)? in fact, once I posted the meters and asked everyone to please do more dps than the healer, and the s.priest decides to tell me to stop dps-ing. in which I replied, I wasn’t, it was my totem. yes, the only dps totem I have. one totem… can beat your sorry ass in dps. and when the instance was all over, everyone beat me on dps and total damage. except for the s.priest.
Now I want to know a few things about these shadow priests that maybe I never considered. I played one a long time ago and got bored of it quickly. although there are "dots" to apply and some dark beam with a ripple effect thingey you guys do, I figured that's really all that's needed for dps in level 40 content anyway, correct? I don’t even see mindflay (which was their signature move years ago) but now I see Deviouring Plague, SW:P, then Mind Sear. Shouldn’t that rock the dps charts? perhaps these guys arent into the whole AoE frenzy. but that's not the point. the point is to do the most damage given the situation, correct? so if you see four mobs together, you bust out your Mind Sear. If you see one, you'd be stupid to pull out mind sear. correct?
Just like me on my paladin, one boss, Seal of Corruption. four adds? Seal of Command. easy to understand. one mob or boss, cast lightning bolt. four mobs, cast chain lightning, drop magma totem and nova. chain lightning on cd. for mages, one boss/mob, cast fire/frost bolt or arcane missles. more than two, arcane assplode, blizzard, fire ground thingey.
see? its very easy to differentiate between single target, and multiple targets. you just have to… erm…. COUNT. and then adjust your rotations accordingly.
Am I totally missing something? is it because the s priest was going to use up all his time alternating SW:P that by the time he was ready to mindsear, everyone's dead? maybe. mobs do die pretty fast. but so adjust! I do this often with my warlock. there are many times I know that my dots will not last its full duration. and what do I end up doing? I improvise. I only use one dot, then switch to some AoE if I can (seed of corruption/rain of fire) and woot! dere it is.
So I do not know. someone please enlighten me to shadow priest dps. is there no other AoE alternative than to use DP, then SWP on everything, then Mind Sear? I know this does take a while to actually accomplish, but am I correct to say that Mind Sear would still do a decent amount of damage even if everyone isnt "swp'ed" up? Am I treating shadow priests unfairly?
screenshots or it didnt happen?
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Azjol Nerub failings... again.
It would appear that AN, normal AN, as in the instance where you will see level 72-74 peeps go at it to try to kill various undead bugs, has the moust amount of fail.
I did posts earlier about AN failure here and here, but never really figured it would happen again. and again. This time, i do not have screen shots, but here's the lowdown.
1. dps dk doesnt turn off frost presence until three pulls in. i told him/her to do it at the first pull.
2. people need to kill the webbing to free the webbed people. especially if the webbed person is the healer.
3. do not stand in poison cloud. it is not a "haste cloud". three dps died because they were standing in the "haste" cloud on the second boss. i got so fed up that i stopped healing them right when the boss died. and they STILL stayed in the clouds. of course, they all died. all three dps.
4. dps dk... please do not stand in front of Anub Arak. He's got things thing called "pound" and will take off half your health. next time you do it, i will NOT heal you.
5. dps dk... please do more than 500 dps. everyone else is doing more than you. even the tank. yes the tank.
So there. failure. but mostly from the dk. oh how i dread having dks in my groups now.
The mage did say i did awesome heals. thanks mage. i hope you enjoy those shoes you beat me for. i would say "nice dps" but i lost the roll and you probably knew your dps was tops anyway.
I did posts earlier about AN failure here and here, but never really figured it would happen again. and again. This time, i do not have screen shots, but here's the lowdown.
1. dps dk doesnt turn off frost presence until three pulls in. i told him/her to do it at the first pull.
2. people need to kill the webbing to free the webbed people. especially if the webbed person is the healer.
3. do not stand in poison cloud. it is not a "haste cloud". three dps died because they were standing in the "haste" cloud on the second boss. i got so fed up that i stopped healing them right when the boss died. and they STILL stayed in the clouds. of course, they all died. all three dps.
4. dps dk... please do not stand in front of Anub Arak. He's got things thing called "pound" and will take off half your health. next time you do it, i will NOT heal you.
5. dps dk... please do more than 500 dps. everyone else is doing more than you. even the tank. yes the tank.
So there. failure. but mostly from the dk. oh how i dread having dks in my groups now.
The mage did say i did awesome heals. thanks mage. i hope you enjoy those shoes you beat me for. i would say "nice dps" but i lost the roll and you probably knew your dps was tops anyway.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Dual Realm Ability
I have been playing with my 80 alts more often. They are mainly on Ravenholdt (RH) but i do have two 80s now on Ysondre (YS) which i do enjoy playing.
Ysondre, US, Horde
On YS, i mainly enjoy playing my paladin because i have yet to have any decent gear, yet im able to do decently on dps. although i often do have problems with dps, as my hit isnt all that great, i am slowly building up my gear to more easily dps in raids. but currently, i have a mix of outland instance blues, some ilevel200 items from heroics, and a pair of pants, ilevel219, from forge of souls. I also got those same pants for my DK, who's also in YS with decent ilevel200 gear. he's kicking butt with about 2.5k dps. all in naxx-ready gear. i might see a boost to 3k dps as i get more gear from normal toc, fos, pos, and hor. i think my main goal will be to run those instances for now as i know the heroic versions are quite a challenge. i dont even feel like i do well in heroics yet, even though my gear and output matches the output of a person who's normally geared for heroics anyway. i really wish i can downgrade my triumph emblems to get some heroism gear, just for purity's sake, but i know that's illogical. mainly because, although i have no problems with dps right now, i know that if i want to do any kind of raiding in icc, i'll have to suck it up and buy some of those emblem gear that i an putting off. big numbers dont mean much to me if i cant make big numbers with my low level gear. and i mean low compared to the current wow population now (who's all decked out in triumph gear, minimum).
my philosophy is this, that is is better to be stagnant in gear, and still improve on my dps through rotations, watching procs, positioning my character, learning when and where i can use certain abilities, etc. once i am able to max out my output and effectiveness, then, and only then will i be willing to upgrade my gear. i think it is much better to improve the player before i improve the gear. think of it this way. if im doing subpar dps, getting gear will only artificially improve my dps. i dont actually get better, although my numbers may state otherwise. and i think this is the problem here. people think that when they get better gear, they will be able to perform better. but they're performing just the same. the numbers might be different, but the type of play remains unchanged. although this IS an improvement now matter how you look at it, it is not maximum potential.
i know people can argue that once you hit a cap on gear, you can also practice on the dummies and things to pull of better damage. but i find some issues with this. one, the only real place you can do this is at the target dummies.
(1) and target dummies can only help you perfect your rotations, but it will not help you improvise during a fight. but it doesnt help you with encounters. it does help you "know" your rotations and spells so that when things go bad in raids, your muscle memory will allow you to never skip a beat.
(2) if you run heroics a lot in 6k GS gear, you might pull off 5k dps overall. in this case, you wont really have time to actually develop a full blown rotation either. so heroics arent a great place to learn your skill anyway, being so high above its level.
(3) tank and spank bosses, depending on who it is (koralon, patchwerk, saurafang) all are good, but you also want to max effectiveness in other encounters as well. additionally, koralon has fires you must step out of, which is awesome. and saurafang has adds you need to deal with. all of these are a great learning tool but leave little room for error. and since people are risk adverse to begin with, i dont find people trying new things, new rotations, new potions, new trinkets, etc on these encounters as much as on target dummies.
With 1 and 3, there's very good opportunity to improve in your skills. but 2 does not offer much opportunity to actually know your character that well. cakewalks usually make people more clumsy about their class anyway. which is why i choose not to upgrade my character's gear because i know heroics (specifically taking twice as long to kill trash and bosses than having t9 gear) will help me develop my play much more than a once a week session with suarafang and banging away at non-responsive target dummies. dont get me wrong tho, they do help. but i find that being "appropriately" geared for heroics make the heroic runs that much more rewarding. an sure, when i do find myself maxing out on my character's dps, i then will look to gear as the only other alternative to improving dps. thats right. exhaust all other options before upgrading gear. i honestly dont intend to buy t9 gear or t10 gear until i've gone through and gotten everything from heroics.
So that's my deal on YS server. a dk and a paladin, both dps, trying to dish out as much dps as orcishly and elvishly possible before resorting to the most obvious form of advancement--gear.
Ravenholdt, US, Horde
Life with my new guild isnt too exciting. i think everyone's blaming this pre-expansion slump and summer vacation thing on low attendence. actually, i've seen lots of people in our guild. the only problem is that there's not a lot of people available for raids when raids are announced. last week two of the three 10mans needed to be cancelled because of low attendance. actually, the weekend raid, which i signed up for, included me and one other member. that was cancelled. i didnt know much about the weekday raids, but i think the "Main" group ended up stopping at Sindragosa. the "alt" group never made it off the ground and was cancelled.
But other than that, my guild seems pretty cool. there are a few players willing to do heroics with me, which is cool, but i really dont have much of a need for triumph emblems on any of my toons (except maybe for Diinky, who wouldnt mind more tier pieces, although the 4pc bonus is still iffy). thats in regards to t9 gear. but rejuv critting does add a little excitement. I did spend a lot more time on RH over the weekend, and it was just to be able to pug a few things with other guildies. hopefully i will get to know them more. hopefully. its one of those things i have to ease into, you know? friendships are built slowly and through adversity. its been only a week and there hasnt been any form of adversity thus far. i'll have to see if i really want to stay, although i do enjoy the people so far (although only 1 out of 10 people actually talk). i'll have to see what goes on on vent, as i do believe much of the conversation and chatter happens in private or in vent. so we'll have to see.
One of my friends decided to join a raiding guild as opposed to a "social" guild that raids. well actually i'll call my guild a casual guild that raids. we're not too social.
SO anyway, she joins and hates it. but i tell her to keep on keeping on as its only been one day. although she does feel a bit lonely, its expected as the new guildie. although it is a raiding guild, there are some pretty friendly people in the guild. so although she might think they're unfriendly or cold to her at first, its really because they've already developed in their friendships and spend a lot of their time communicating in private chat or in vent. plus, she joined on a monday, which is an offday for many people. i thinks he really does need to give it a chance to really evaluate if she really wants to stay. there's no point in joining and quitting in a day. and even if she's in another guild, it doesnt stop her from having alts in a different guild. she can log on to her raider during raids and log on to her alt/leveler/main when she's not raiding. but i know, sometimes we're attached to our characters. i dont know what she'll do. i hope she has fun. but sometimes in order to get what she wants, she needs to suck it up a little. i wish her the best. sometimes the rewards are worth the sacrifices. blah blah blah.
i think i'll want to level my priest and warrior now. i have two friends leveling mages. one has reached northrend and will probably hit 80 in a week. the other is a bit slower leveling and i think that's who i want to level with this time. she's hit 58 and is ready to do ramps and bf several times. so i'll go with her on one of my characters. probably my rogue, who's 62, until she reaches 64. once she reaches 64, we can level up with my warrior, as he is 65 and ready to tank.
i made the tank over a year ago when i made a deal with a friend of mine to level the characters together. this friend, instead, decided to level up to 80 without me. kind of annoyed me when she specifically said she'll level the character with me. anyway, when she started doing all the quests in zangarmarsh thereby leaving me to solo many of those quests on my own, i easily grew tired of it and played other characters. she was a healer/dps hybrid troll shaman and was able to easily get into instances as a healer. by the time she was about three levels above me, i just gave up and decided not to play the warrior anymore. after some other unrelated events, we stopped talking to each other. so there he sits. my warrior at 65 with no leveling buddy... until NOW!! yay. thanks buddy!! you rock!! just dont outlevel me like my old friend did. it will be a sad day when i have to stop playing the warrior again.
and so that's my ramblings for today. Yes, this is my lunch break and i think im entitled to ramble on as much as i want. lol. jk. anyway, i hope to NOT have to go to a third realm, but i may if my gf ever plays and chooses alliance. but she's got some project going on now and will probably be at it for another month before she tires of it. only time will tell.
Ysondre, US, Horde
On YS, i mainly enjoy playing my paladin because i have yet to have any decent gear, yet im able to do decently on dps. although i often do have problems with dps, as my hit isnt all that great, i am slowly building up my gear to more easily dps in raids. but currently, i have a mix of outland instance blues, some ilevel200 items from heroics, and a pair of pants, ilevel219, from forge of souls. I also got those same pants for my DK, who's also in YS with decent ilevel200 gear. he's kicking butt with about 2.5k dps. all in naxx-ready gear. i might see a boost to 3k dps as i get more gear from normal toc, fos, pos, and hor. i think my main goal will be to run those instances for now as i know the heroic versions are quite a challenge. i dont even feel like i do well in heroics yet, even though my gear and output matches the output of a person who's normally geared for heroics anyway. i really wish i can downgrade my triumph emblems to get some heroism gear, just for purity's sake, but i know that's illogical. mainly because, although i have no problems with dps right now, i know that if i want to do any kind of raiding in icc, i'll have to suck it up and buy some of those emblem gear that i an putting off. big numbers dont mean much to me if i cant make big numbers with my low level gear. and i mean low compared to the current wow population now (who's all decked out in triumph gear, minimum).
my philosophy is this, that is is better to be stagnant in gear, and still improve on my dps through rotations, watching procs, positioning my character, learning when and where i can use certain abilities, etc. once i am able to max out my output and effectiveness, then, and only then will i be willing to upgrade my gear. i think it is much better to improve the player before i improve the gear. think of it this way. if im doing subpar dps, getting gear will only artificially improve my dps. i dont actually get better, although my numbers may state otherwise. and i think this is the problem here. people think that when they get better gear, they will be able to perform better. but they're performing just the same. the numbers might be different, but the type of play remains unchanged. although this IS an improvement now matter how you look at it, it is not maximum potential.
i know people can argue that once you hit a cap on gear, you can also practice on the dummies and things to pull of better damage. but i find some issues with this. one, the only real place you can do this is at the target dummies.
(1) and target dummies can only help you perfect your rotations, but it will not help you improvise during a fight. but it doesnt help you with encounters. it does help you "know" your rotations and spells so that when things go bad in raids, your muscle memory will allow you to never skip a beat.
(2) if you run heroics a lot in 6k GS gear, you might pull off 5k dps overall. in this case, you wont really have time to actually develop a full blown rotation either. so heroics arent a great place to learn your skill anyway, being so high above its level.
(3) tank and spank bosses, depending on who it is (koralon, patchwerk, saurafang) all are good, but you also want to max effectiveness in other encounters as well. additionally, koralon has fires you must step out of, which is awesome. and saurafang has adds you need to deal with. all of these are a great learning tool but leave little room for error. and since people are risk adverse to begin with, i dont find people trying new things, new rotations, new potions, new trinkets, etc on these encounters as much as on target dummies.
With 1 and 3, there's very good opportunity to improve in your skills. but 2 does not offer much opportunity to actually know your character that well. cakewalks usually make people more clumsy about their class anyway. which is why i choose not to upgrade my character's gear because i know heroics (specifically taking twice as long to kill trash and bosses than having t9 gear) will help me develop my play much more than a once a week session with suarafang and banging away at non-responsive target dummies. dont get me wrong tho, they do help. but i find that being "appropriately" geared for heroics make the heroic runs that much more rewarding. an sure, when i do find myself maxing out on my character's dps, i then will look to gear as the only other alternative to improving dps. thats right. exhaust all other options before upgrading gear. i honestly dont intend to buy t9 gear or t10 gear until i've gone through and gotten everything from heroics.
So that's my deal on YS server. a dk and a paladin, both dps, trying to dish out as much dps as orcishly and elvishly possible before resorting to the most obvious form of advancement--gear.
Ravenholdt, US, Horde
Life with my new guild isnt too exciting. i think everyone's blaming this pre-expansion slump and summer vacation thing on low attendence. actually, i've seen lots of people in our guild. the only problem is that there's not a lot of people available for raids when raids are announced. last week two of the three 10mans needed to be cancelled because of low attendance. actually, the weekend raid, which i signed up for, included me and one other member. that was cancelled. i didnt know much about the weekday raids, but i think the "Main" group ended up stopping at Sindragosa. the "alt" group never made it off the ground and was cancelled.
But other than that, my guild seems pretty cool. there are a few players willing to do heroics with me, which is cool, but i really dont have much of a need for triumph emblems on any of my toons (except maybe for Diinky, who wouldnt mind more tier pieces, although the 4pc bonus is still iffy). thats in regards to t9 gear. but rejuv critting does add a little excitement. I did spend a lot more time on RH over the weekend, and it was just to be able to pug a few things with other guildies. hopefully i will get to know them more. hopefully. its one of those things i have to ease into, you know? friendships are built slowly and through adversity. its been only a week and there hasnt been any form of adversity thus far. i'll have to see if i really want to stay, although i do enjoy the people so far (although only 1 out of 10 people actually talk). i'll have to see what goes on on vent, as i do believe much of the conversation and chatter happens in private or in vent. so we'll have to see.
One of my friends decided to join a raiding guild as opposed to a "social" guild that raids. well actually i'll call my guild a casual guild that raids. we're not too social.
SO anyway, she joins and hates it. but i tell her to keep on keeping on as its only been one day. although she does feel a bit lonely, its expected as the new guildie. although it is a raiding guild, there are some pretty friendly people in the guild. so although she might think they're unfriendly or cold to her at first, its really because they've already developed in their friendships and spend a lot of their time communicating in private chat or in vent. plus, she joined on a monday, which is an offday for many people. i thinks he really does need to give it a chance to really evaluate if she really wants to stay. there's no point in joining and quitting in a day. and even if she's in another guild, it doesnt stop her from having alts in a different guild. she can log on to her raider during raids and log on to her alt/leveler/main when she's not raiding. but i know, sometimes we're attached to our characters. i dont know what she'll do. i hope she has fun. but sometimes in order to get what she wants, she needs to suck it up a little. i wish her the best. sometimes the rewards are worth the sacrifices. blah blah blah.
i think i'll want to level my priest and warrior now. i have two friends leveling mages. one has reached northrend and will probably hit 80 in a week. the other is a bit slower leveling and i think that's who i want to level with this time. she's hit 58 and is ready to do ramps and bf several times. so i'll go with her on one of my characters. probably my rogue, who's 62, until she reaches 64. once she reaches 64, we can level up with my warrior, as he is 65 and ready to tank.
i made the tank over a year ago when i made a deal with a friend of mine to level the characters together. this friend, instead, decided to level up to 80 without me. kind of annoyed me when she specifically said she'll level the character with me. anyway, when she started doing all the quests in zangarmarsh thereby leaving me to solo many of those quests on my own, i easily grew tired of it and played other characters. she was a healer/dps hybrid troll shaman and was able to easily get into instances as a healer. by the time she was about three levels above me, i just gave up and decided not to play the warrior anymore. after some other unrelated events, we stopped talking to each other. so there he sits. my warrior at 65 with no leveling buddy... until NOW!! yay. thanks buddy!! you rock!! just dont outlevel me like my old friend did. it will be a sad day when i have to stop playing the warrior again.
and so that's my ramblings for today. Yes, this is my lunch break and i think im entitled to ramble on as much as i want. lol. jk. anyway, i hope to NOT have to go to a third realm, but i may if my gf ever plays and chooses alliance. but she's got some project going on now and will probably be at it for another month before she tires of it. only time will tell.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Paladin DPS (getting started)
How Devynity DPSes right now at level 74.
Lets start with the basics.
I have outland level 70 gear mainly with some northrend gear. my health isnt stellar, but almost hitting 10k health. After getting one-shotted by bosses in Ahn Kahet, i think having a little more health would help. shedding some of this outland gear (although it has served me well) will help to not only increase Devynity's dps, but also his survivability.
Most of my gemable gear are gemmed with strength. this gives me maximum output in terms of base damage. But this gear is also gear i've picked up from outland and are pretty much outdated.
Most of my gear are enchanted with +crit, +hit, and maybe some armor if there is nothing else.
So there isnt much else to say about my gear. it isnt the best. heck, i dont even have the basic quests in northrend to get the quest rewards for nexus, ahn kahet, azjol nerub, or drak tharon keep. although those instances do have decent drops for a paladin, it's not enough to fill out my gear. the rest will need to be quested to get, or crafted. i do not want to really switch out my gear tho. although i know i might be doing a lot more dps if i were to be using the spiked cobalt set instead of outland dungeon gear. we'll see. i might just do a makeover tonight. just for the hell of it. hello AH!!
in terms of dps, devynity is doing about 1k to 1.4k dps depending on instances. in AN, he's doing 1.4k dps. in Anh Kahet, he's doing 1k dps. the level difference could be the case, but i find that i should be doing Drak tharon keep and violet hold anyway at my level.
So anyway, gem str, enchant str, crit, hit. thats it for gear.
So when i actually go out into battle, what exactly will i be doing?
1. I always start off with Judgement. Judgement of Wisdom, in the case of 5mans.... since really, no one really needs healing from my Judgement of Light, my only concern here is that i have enough mana. I have the two judgements on toggle, so if another pally continues to judge wisdom, i will switch over to light. Even though my judgement will return mana, and my first attack (if i am full on on mana) will waste my mana return for that judgement. it is ok though. in 8 seconds i will be judging again and will get more than enough mana back to continue to ass kicking. however, if mana is key, you can always start off with a divine storm and crusader strike, then judge to get your mana back.
Assumption: you have talented for Judgement of the Wise.
2. I follow up my judgements with my other attacks. i usually hit crusader strike and divine storm next. if there's a lot of mobs or if it's a boss that will last a while, i would consecrate as well. i would continue to get a crusader strike off while waiting for my judgement to refresh. when i see the big hammer animation, i know that divine storm (and possibly consecrate) will be ready for use in 2 seconds. and the whole time i am spamming crusader strike. it seems that crusader strike is the oddball when it comes to damage rotations. its on a shorter cooldown than the other abilities. making it the button i spam.
3. Procs: when Art of war procs, i hit exorcism. thats it. sometimes i may use flash of light on people, but for the most part, i will use exorcism when art of war procs. this is instant, so it doesnt break my rotation much.
The other proc is the hammer of wrath proc. when a mob hits 15% health, we can use that spell. it never misses, so thats one great thing about it. it deals a big chunk of damage and can be talented to crit more. those are the only two real procs i look out for. which is enough for me, if you ask me.
4. Special cases. if there's a caster that's far away enough for me to CC, i will CC. i will, honestly.
if we are fighting undeads, expect me to use holy wrath in my rotation as well.
Paladin-centric Battle Buffs:
Auras:
Use retribution aura unless the tank is a bit squishy. then use devotion.
If i am in a fight with lots of fire, i'd use fire resist aura. same for shadow and whatnot. it all depends on the fight. but for most trash pulls, i'll use retribution aura.
Blessings:
I use blessing of kings always. why? because its annoying when warrior's battle shout override my blessing of might. that's basically it. besides, kings rock. do not rely on blessing of wisdom to help you with your mana regen. you should have plenty of regen elsewhere.
Seals:
I've talented in seal of command. i use seal of command. do not use seal of wisdom or any other non-dps seal. there's just way too many ways to regain mana at this level its ridiculous. using seal of wisdom usually means you're bad at managing mana with what the game has given you. same goes for blessing of wisdom. dont do it. dont use seal of light, justice, etc. use corruption on bosses and command on trash pulls. always. why? more dps i guarantee. and lets not forget to mention epeen means everything. so top those meters. everyone has a meter. they lie if they say they dont.
Judgements:
Use any. most will use Judgement of Wisdom because it returns mana. You should already have the replenishment effect on you from all judgements. Why i think Wisdom>Light is because the healers should have zero problems keeping the 5man group up. face it, at level 74, no one cares about replenishment either. so what really does matter here is what you think will benefit you the most. you will get healed by healers if they dont suck. but you will not be given free mana by anyone else unless a druid feels generous about his innervate. use judgement of wisdom and let the healers do the healing. besides, divine storm does some healing. if you run with a bear, you get healed every 8 seconds due to crits. why i also think wisdom>light is because they do the exact same damage to the mobs. its the secondary effects that we're after.
Thats basically the gist of paladin dps. i hope this helps others. ask questions if you want, i'll answer them. there's a lot more that goes into paladin play, but this is the basics. questions? comment me.
Lets start with the basics.
I have outland level 70 gear mainly with some northrend gear. my health isnt stellar, but almost hitting 10k health. After getting one-shotted by bosses in Ahn Kahet, i think having a little more health would help. shedding some of this outland gear (although it has served me well) will help to not only increase Devynity's dps, but also his survivability.
Most of my gemable gear are gemmed with strength. this gives me maximum output in terms of base damage. But this gear is also gear i've picked up from outland and are pretty much outdated.
Most of my gear are enchanted with +crit, +hit, and maybe some armor if there is nothing else.
So there isnt much else to say about my gear. it isnt the best. heck, i dont even have the basic quests in northrend to get the quest rewards for nexus, ahn kahet, azjol nerub, or drak tharon keep. although those instances do have decent drops for a paladin, it's not enough to fill out my gear. the rest will need to be quested to get, or crafted. i do not want to really switch out my gear tho. although i know i might be doing a lot more dps if i were to be using the spiked cobalt set instead of outland dungeon gear. we'll see. i might just do a makeover tonight. just for the hell of it. hello AH!!
in terms of dps, devynity is doing about 1k to 1.4k dps depending on instances. in AN, he's doing 1.4k dps. in Anh Kahet, he's doing 1k dps. the level difference could be the case, but i find that i should be doing Drak tharon keep and violet hold anyway at my level.
So anyway, gem str, enchant str, crit, hit. thats it for gear.
So when i actually go out into battle, what exactly will i be doing?
1. I always start off with Judgement. Judgement of Wisdom, in the case of 5mans.... since really, no one really needs healing from my Judgement of Light, my only concern here is that i have enough mana. I have the two judgements on toggle, so if another pally continues to judge wisdom, i will switch over to light. Even though my judgement will return mana, and my first attack (if i am full on on mana) will waste my mana return for that judgement. it is ok though. in 8 seconds i will be judging again and will get more than enough mana back to continue to ass kicking. however, if mana is key, you can always start off with a divine storm and crusader strike, then judge to get your mana back.
Assumption: you have talented for Judgement of the Wise.
2. I follow up my judgements with my other attacks. i usually hit crusader strike and divine storm next. if there's a lot of mobs or if it's a boss that will last a while, i would consecrate as well. i would continue to get a crusader strike off while waiting for my judgement to refresh. when i see the big hammer animation, i know that divine storm (and possibly consecrate) will be ready for use in 2 seconds. and the whole time i am spamming crusader strike. it seems that crusader strike is the oddball when it comes to damage rotations. its on a shorter cooldown than the other abilities. making it the button i spam.
3. Procs: when Art of war procs, i hit exorcism. thats it. sometimes i may use flash of light on people, but for the most part, i will use exorcism when art of war procs. this is instant, so it doesnt break my rotation much.
The other proc is the hammer of wrath proc. when a mob hits 15% health, we can use that spell. it never misses, so thats one great thing about it. it deals a big chunk of damage and can be talented to crit more. those are the only two real procs i look out for. which is enough for me, if you ask me.
4. Special cases. if there's a caster that's far away enough for me to CC, i will CC. i will, honestly.
if we are fighting undeads, expect me to use holy wrath in my rotation as well.
Paladin-centric Battle Buffs:
Auras:
Use retribution aura unless the tank is a bit squishy. then use devotion.
If i am in a fight with lots of fire, i'd use fire resist aura. same for shadow and whatnot. it all depends on the fight. but for most trash pulls, i'll use retribution aura.
Blessings:
I use blessing of kings always. why? because its annoying when warrior's battle shout override my blessing of might. that's basically it. besides, kings rock. do not rely on blessing of wisdom to help you with your mana regen. you should have plenty of regen elsewhere.
Seals:
I've talented in seal of command. i use seal of command. do not use seal of wisdom or any other non-dps seal. there's just way too many ways to regain mana at this level its ridiculous. using seal of wisdom usually means you're bad at managing mana with what the game has given you. same goes for blessing of wisdom. dont do it. dont use seal of light, justice, etc. use corruption on bosses and command on trash pulls. always. why? more dps i guarantee. and lets not forget to mention epeen means everything. so top those meters. everyone has a meter. they lie if they say they dont.
Judgements:
Use any. most will use Judgement of Wisdom because it returns mana. You should already have the replenishment effect on you from all judgements. Why i think Wisdom>Light is because the healers should have zero problems keeping the 5man group up. face it, at level 74, no one cares about replenishment either. so what really does matter here is what you think will benefit you the most. you will get healed by healers if they dont suck. but you will not be given free mana by anyone else unless a druid feels generous about his innervate. use judgement of wisdom and let the healers do the healing. besides, divine storm does some healing. if you run with a bear, you get healed every 8 seconds due to crits. why i also think wisdom>light is because they do the exact same damage to the mobs. its the secondary effects that we're after.
Thats basically the gist of paladin dps. i hope this helps others. ask questions if you want, i'll answer them. there's a lot more that goes into paladin play, but this is the basics. questions? comment me.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Death Knight Frost DPS (a quick guide to get started)
There are a few basic ideas that are very similar with their DKs. I know moz was blood and kylie was unholy and blood, so DK play isnt that new. but frost brings two things that you wont be able to get from the other two specs: dual wield and procs. All dk's start off with the basic (IT+PS) to start their diseases going. what they do from there depends on spec. even tanks often start off with IT+PS, or use IT+PS right after they drop their Death and Decay. This is the back bone of every DK. and like all backbones, it supports your other spells and attacks. you dont use your backbone when hitting someone, you use your arms, so the backbone only supports your arm. if you have a broken backbone, your arms do not swing for as high of damage as with a healthy backbone. sound like preaching, but IT+PS is not your damaging abilities. they are the backbone-- the backbone for all specs, for that matter.
One very important thing to watch out for is Death Runes. like unholy spec, frost spec'ed dk's produce deathrunes by using blood strike, blood boil, or pestilence. any of those spells will use up a blood rune and will cause the blood rune to refresh as a death rune (so you can use it for a better attack, like obliterate). managing deathrunes is another fun factor in playing a dk. first you have your basic runes, then you have your runic power, then you have this "deathrune" thing going. what more do you want to watch? well with frost spec dk's, you get to watch "killing machine" and "rime".
what the hell is that? Well killing machine is a talent in the frost tree that procs while you're attacking. when killing machine does proc, your next icy touch, frost strike or howling blast becomes a guaranteed critical hit. yep. sexy.
and rime? when this procs, you get a free howling blast (costs no runes, and cooldown resets so you can use it right away). and look at the killing machine description above, it says that if that procs, you get as one of three spells, howling blast, to proc. so rime+killing machine = USE HOWLING BLAST NAO!!!
There ya go. thats all there is to frost dps. yep. easy peasy lemon squeezy.
The Nitty:
Ok. to go a little futher into the art of frost dps. i've explained almost nothing above. except that you get two juicy spells to play react to. lets go and see what the differences are.
1. Frost uses Blood Strike to convert blood runes to death runes (Blood uses deathstrikes to convernt frost/unholy runes to death runes; Unholy uses blood strikes to convert blood runes to death runes).
2. Frost uses Frost strike as their primary rune dump spell (Blood and Unholy use Death Coil). as frost, use Frost strike always. Heck, take death coil off your bar and use it only during ranged encounters.
3. Use Howling Blast often when in AoE situations. Death and Decay is less of a factor in dps, so dont use it as often as you would if you were another spec. now if there were 4 mobs in a group... you may want to use it. but you have better aoe abilities with howling blast anyway, especially with the two procs going off at once. i am not saying do not use DnD. just saying that you have another option that's not so expensive.
4. Use two 1handers. two maces, swords or axes. do not use a 2-hander, even if it looks good. even if the stats are a lot better. the reason for this is that you have three or four different talents that buff up your dual wielding damage and also, you have the benefit of two runeforge enchants processing.
4a. In terms of weapons, use slow 1handers if you can. fast 1handers are fine if the dps increase on the weapon is significant (say, you're upgrading from a 90 dps mace to a 130 dps mace). try to avoid fast tanking weapons, as you're not only gimping your dps with the speed of the weapon, but also with the secondary stats the weapon may have (like +defense rating, +dodge, +shield block).
4b. In terms of stats, weapons with Agi are meant for hunters and rogues, but can be used by the DK as well. Agi will add to your physical crit rating but you will benefit less from that than if you picked a weapon with +Str. Most 1handed weapons, however, have +agi so go with that if there are no other alternatives. you can always get more weapons. Devyn has two Black Icicles from H. Halls of Reflection, which have +Agi. so although we prefer str, agi is fine.
5. Use Obliterate (Blood dks use Hearth Strike. Unholy dks use Scourge Strike) as your major attack. no folks, do not think that two icy touches and two plague strikes will equal two obliterates. They do not. Dont waste your time using icy touch or plague strike unless you're going to refresh your diseases. use it ONLY to refresh diseases. Use Obliterate. (blood strike to make death runes and then use the deathrunes to do more obliterates).
Note: if you're low on health, you can use deathstrike to regain health instead of using obliterate. you trade a little dps since deathstrike will do a lot less damage than obliterate. if you have runic power, summon your ghoul and kill it for about 50% health back to you. personally, i'll summon my ghoul and sacrifice it. its "cheaper" to me, ie. i'd rather use runic power than runes to regain health.
The Gritty:
Now that we understand a little bit of the differences between the three DK specs and what frost should be focusing on, lets move on to how a battle should be played out. There are always two types of battles. The multi-mob battles and the single-boss battles. Lets start with the single-boss variety.
---Single target stuffs in BLUE.
---Multi target stuffs in RED.
Single? Why hello nurse!! (single-mob)Every instance has boss encounters and most of them are basic tank-and-spank. some require a little running, but all will focus on you, the dk, dps-ing down a boss (not the orbs ala Toravon).
What to look for when encountering a boss:
1. Know your rotation. Know where your buttons are. Know where in your HUD your runes cooldowns/runic power displays are so you know what you will be needing to do next. Efficiency is key as a frost dk. so always be on the lookout.
2. Stay behind the boss. Always.
3. Stay out of flames, fires, ooze, void zones and other bad things. (Strafe left and right to avoid it, easy). 4. Watch for Killing Machine procs and Rime Procs. using Mik's or any other scrolling battle text addon really helps with this. Also, there's Quartz procs and Power Auras Classic. They do more than show procs. they will show procs as long as its active and give you a big fat icon covering everything until you use it up. So instead of looking at your fist for a white glow (killing machine) or at your character for small shiney rays of light (rime), you can have a more noticable message when your procs do proc. seriously, the in-game indicators that you have rime/killing machine processed is hard to see. and during any instance, i see my fists turn red, blue, yellow, orange, green, etc. so figuring out if the glow means "killing machine" is kinda tough. use addons for this.
Quadruple Grande Americano for Tri at the bar! (multi-mobs)
What i love about frost dps is that i get choices. choices to use DnD or Howling Blast, or if i should use howling blast without rime procs, or if i should spread diseases now, or refresh diseases on my main target, depending on remaining health, ofc.
When encountering multiple mobs, like say, four mobs. the priority shifts a little. of course, we'll always start out with the same, icy touch and plague strike. the rest is a big mess.
Again, always stand behind the mobs. and stand clear of bad things.
Since there isnt an obvious target, you'll have to target the same mob the tank is targeting. that's the best choice since you probably will not pull aggro if you attack the tank's mob. let the other three mobs get a pestilence, and maybe a blood boil or howling blast. if you get a killing machine proc, you can use howling blast, as this will cause more damage than an obliterate or frost strike. that's basically the only difference in rotation between a single target and multiple targets.
ROTATION:
(rotation is subject to priority. read this first, then read priorities. they'll make sense one day)
A-single. Always start out with Icy Touch and Plague Strike. (there are people who say do PS first, you get 10 more dps. gimme a break) But always start with those two. doesnt matter which comes first.
A-multi. Start with IT/PS. Then pestilence + Blood boil. then follow the rest.
B. Then use Obliterate.
C-single. Then use Blood Strike to use up your blood runes (to change them to death runes).C-multi. you should have already used your blood runes. skip C.
D. Use Frost Strike for your runic dump. never use deathcoil--it doesnt hit for that much anyway.
E-single. When "Killing Machine" procs, use frost strike as soon as you can. yes, delay your other attacks and just use frost strike to "use up" the proc. you want to use up the proc because you want it to proc again as soon as possible so you can do another juicy crit frost strike. saving it up makes no sense. just use it. you'll get it again later anyway.
E-multi. When "Killing Machine" procs, use Howling Blast if you have enough runes. sometimes its better to wait for the runes to cooldown and use howling blast than it is to use the KM proc on frost strike or icy touch. just wait it out. its only a few seconds anyway. when the mobs start to die off tho, like when you're down to two mobs, use the KM proc on a frost strike instead.
F. When "Rime" procs, use Howling Blast. This is a free attack. so use it even if howling blast is an AoE attack. It still does damage to one boss, and its free. do not use it if it will cost your runes (aka, no rime proc). use your runes for Obliterate. never use your runes for Howling Blast. always use your "Rime" for howling blast. get that? hope its not confusing.
G. Refresh Diseases. when your frost fever and plague strike nears its end, or ended, use icy touch and plague strike once again.
Rotation Priority:
1. STAY ALIVE (even if this means running away for a few seconds).
2. Always keep your Diseases up. unless your mob is almost dead.3. Rime (if you see it, use howling blast).
4. Killing Machine (if you see it, use Frost Strike/if you see it, use Howling Blast)
5. Obliterate
6. Blood Strike (to covert runes)
7. Frost Strike (without Killing Machine Procs)
Stat priorty:
Again from earlier on about the weapons, prioritize Strength above all else. gem for strength as much as you can. if you need to activate a meta gem, use a prismatic gem (it counts for all gem colors).
Primary Stat priority:
1. Strength
2. Agility
(stamina will come with just about everything. dont worry about it much. int will come with some gear, dont trash it, just evaluate if the STR or AGI will give you better results. same with armor, etc... in outland, i had some mail drops where i can gem that tripled by STR for that slot (gloves, helm, pants) and i used that instead. gear becomes more defined for classes in northrend, but in outland, its fine to use mail gear or paladin plate gear so long as the STR is higher, or that you can socket some bold bloodstones, bold scarlet rubies or whatevers)
Secondary Stat priority:
1. Hit to 8% at 80. if you're leveling, dont worry too much about this.
2. Attack power. its great to have. although str is preferred, attack power should never be scoffed at.
3a. Crit from crit rating. it is very important to understand that crit rating increases the critical strike percentage of your physical attacks and spells. Agility only increases the critical strike percentage of your physical attacks.
3b. Expertise to 26. I think its 26. but make sure you get that up at level 80. while leveling tho, dont worry about it; gem strength only.3c. Haste rating. although your attacks are dependent on your runes and not your global cooldown, having haste will help late in the game, when you're maxed out with Hit, Expertise, and ripping at the seams with crit.
One last last thing... about howling blast. It will apply damage to specific mobs individually. there is not "cap" i dont think, and the more mobs you have within range, the more damage you will do.
lets say you have three mobs and each howling blast you do will deal 2k damage to each mob. that means your howling blast will do 6k damage to three mobs. if its one mob, you only do 2k damage. lets say. what if you crit? you'll do 150% more damage. so that's 9k damage total, or 3k to each mob. now lets say you're killing those man crystals running around halls of stone. there's 10 of them, and you get a killing machine proc. 3k x 10 mobs = 30,000 damage.
major dps boost there huh? probably. although i've only seen my crit howling blast do 30k damage at most (see ss above), im sure it can do more if you have enough mobs together in one place.last last last note: runeforge the main hand with fallen crusader. if you dont have it yet, use cinderglacier. for the offhand, use razorice.
excited yet??? go respec already!! lol go leave me questions if you have any. hopefully i've explained enough to get you guys started. hope i was clear. sorry, no pictures. =[
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