Black Sheep Raging Here...

I remember when I started playing this game I made a frost mage because it sounded cool to have a mage that can freeze things in place.  I also made a marksman hunter because I thought that would probably be the best spec to play.  I did read up on a lot of things about the game and the classes I was interested in.  What I've learned then, and what I still believe now, is that I am happy to play whatever class or talent spec I like.  Now I say this because there are many people who have tried out many different talent specs in the end-game and figured out what the most optimal raiding spec is for their class.  Now that's great and all, and I do not disagree with the logic there.  what I do disagree with are the general following of people who follow into that thinking and change their spec to match the highest dps spec and then pass down this information to whoever else asks them the same question.

What is the best spec for mages? 

What is the best spec for warlocks?

What is the best spec for warriors?
What is the best spec for rogues?

The above classes have two or three different dps specs, each with their own strengths and weakness.  but what I find the most annoying is that people tend to rank these specs based on raw dps output only.  dps is the standard of which spec is the best, I guess. 

I disagree completely.  I have a frost mage and I love playing her.  I have an affliction warlock and a demonology warlock and I love playing them.  I have a prot warrior that quests and levels.  prot warrior, leveling? yes.  and I have a rogue who is mixed up and cant decide between assassination and combat, because I think both specs are pretty fun (and different). 

As a priest, I am a disc priest.  and some fools mentioned to me that disc is for pvp.  no, disc is great at pvp. but it is not necessearily FOR pvp.  I heal groups wonderfully as disc.  sure, the holy priests are having a blast as well, healing and such, but I find my style of healing easy and powerful enough to not care what the healing meters say about my overall healing.

As a warlock, my affliction spells rock, especially with seed of corruption on trash.  My demonology lock will never see those big numbers on trash. but he'll kick my afflock's ass on boss fights any day.  destro locks theoretically do better, but are boring.  4 spells.  repeat. repeat.  who wants that?  oh the meter humpers.  that’s right!

Back in the days when I was a marks hunter, people would continue to say how great BM was then.  now the times have changed and marksman is awesome.  so is survival.  but some folks I know played survival back then and did well.  it was fun for them and no BM hunter would change their minds.  i liked that.

Now you cannot really do this comparision with paladins or druids or even shamans because, at least for druids and paladins, each spec is different.  now the druids do have two dps specs but they are completely different it doesn’t really fall into the "best dps" argument (ranged caster vs. melee dps).  The shamans have two dps specs as well and just like the druid, one is melee dps and the other is ranged dps.  the comparision is a little different, but since we all know enhancement spec sucks compared to elemental spec, everyone would rather go for elemental dps, correct?  for the most part, yes.  but there are a few melee dps shamans out there rocking the dps meters.

So with all of this said, if I ever go into a raid, I will see the dps like so:

Warriors - Fury

Mages - Arcane

Warlocks - Destro

Rogues - Combat

Death Knights - Unholy

Shamans - Elemental

Hunters - Marksmanship

These are all said to be the best dps spec for raiding.  Sure. 

But here is the proplem I do see with this list.  This list focuses on raw output but does not consider that there may be other benefits other classes/specs bring to the raid.  Not only that, most of these raids, if pugged, usually only go so far.  Without the utility of certain other specs, there may not be any easy way to run through content.  what I do see is that these cookie cutter talent specs do not account for skill, awareness, and overall knowledge of a person's class.  sure you get a mage to spec arcane. but does that mean the person is really good at playing that spec?  what if he's super awesome as fire or frostfire? or even frost?  what if the DK hates the boring unholy rotation? I've played with other blood and unholy dk's before, and with a lower gear level, I beat their dps as frost spec.  So no, there are many different factors in playing these different specs.  just because someone who is deeply in-tuned with their player/spec/style can produce awesome dps, it doesn’t mean that your local tradechat pug will be able to do the same thing. 

Here are my lists of characters.

Warrior - Prot.  because he's fun to play as prot.  I hear arms is just as fun. honestly, I leveled as fury and didn’t like one minute of it.  I changed to prot and love it.

Mage - Frost.  I find the utility and the ability to control my fights better invaluable.  less dps? sure. but im giving up a little dps for some control and I like control. 

Death Knight - Frost dps.  for those who don’t have a clue,since the introduction of DKs, and up until patch 4.0, all dk talent specs can tank and all dk talent specs can dps.  there are minor selections within each tree that is dedicated for tanking and or dps.  you decide.  now this is why I like frost dps:  1. I kick ass.   and 2.  procs.   its so much more fun than spamming several buttons over and over again.

Warlock - Demonology and Affliction.  because its fun.  and I rock the damage meters anyway. and there is some raid utility.

So what exactly am I trying to get at?

I am just ranting.  I am ranting at all the people who say, this is better than that. last night I was in guild chat and somoene was asking about what talents to choose in the demonology tree.  I asked her what spec she was (secretly hoping she picked demonology or affliction) and she replied with destruction.  So I would assume she uses her Imp a lot?  her reply was yes.  so why not improve imp?  good job!  I could have also told her to skip those and just sacrifice her succubus (cos who wouldn’t want a 15% increased damage for 30 whole minutes?).  but I don’t know if that's how she wanted to play. and I didn’t really care.  I got the gist of her style of play just by asking which pet she prefers and then, gave my input.  Same goes for when other people ask me questions in the game about talent choices.  I don’t want to tell them what will produce the best numbers because, honestly, it isnt necessarily the funnest spec to play.  usually, it isnt. sometimes people do like to see big numbers and that's all that matters to them.  for those guys, sure, if you get a thrill out of seeing big numbers, then its your game, who am I do dictate?  but when the focus isnt just on big numbers, then who are you to tell them to focus on damage only?

Not only do I find the problem in the answers given to these seekers, but I find the problem is in the seekers themselves.  more specifically, they don’t know what they're asking for!  How often does this come up… "Hey guys, whats the best spec for warlocks?"

do you see the issue?  what do you mean by "best"? what are you looking for? what style of play do you prefer? best is subjective.  best dps is not.  and if your only concern is the amount of damage you do, then you really need to rethink this game.  this is my strong opinion that best dps does not make for a successful raid.  sure, you might want this if youre pushing server firsts, but if your guild is 15th on the server and you're just about ready to take on Sindragosa, normal, in 10man, at this point in time, then I don’t think your problem, or your raid's problem is the dps spec.  I think there's much more to think about (rotations, compositions, execution, buffs, synergy, etc).  If the raid you're going to has the "best" dps spec and you're still having problems today, with the 30% nerf since ICC came out, then something is indeed, wrong.   Of course, with more dps, you can down the boss faster, meaning there may less chance someone will die from "standing in bad" and thereby wiping the raid (heck, with enough dps, you can do a zerg sartharidon THREE drakes run, yes you can) but how about stopping the bad dps from "standing in the bad" in the first place?  IMO, avoiding bad stuff takes precidence over raw dps any day.  as the saying goes, dead dps does zero dps.

the other saying also applies, or the mantra, actually:  its my $15, I'll play what I want.

BUT… if you do decide to go against the grain and be the black sheep, BE GOOD AT IT.  this will not only make me proud, it will shut the tools up who keep saying "x spec is best".

Death Knight Frost DPS (a quick guide to get started)

This post is specifically made for Kylie (and also Moz, since he's stated that blood dps is boring) who has just made a new troll dk and will be on my new server leveling up with me.


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 thing to note... you're dual wielding. so each attack hits twice (hopefully). this means that for abilities that are actual attacks (plague strike, obliterate, frost strike) your recount will count each attack twice. one for the main hand, and one for the offhand. i do not know if there's a way to separate those. but when you look at totals, that's what you'll see... the offhand/mainhand attacks combined. for spells like icy touch and howling blast, these will be counted once since you're not using your weapons to apply these attacks. you're actually casting these. looking at your recount, to see if you're keeping your IT:PS at a 1 to 1 ratio (ie, you're doing it right), you should see twice as many plague strikes as icy touch. it's like that because recount will count your offhand as a separate attack. dont worry about this too much. if you do 50 icy touch, you should be doing 100 plagues strikes, according to recount. but in reality, its 50 icy touches and 50 plague strikes. to further pound this in: if in a boss fight you think you did 20 obliterates, recount will say you did 40. again, you're using two weapons. each weapon has its own "count" with recount.

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. =[

Post 40

Post 40. Not over the hill yet. Actually, I don’t even have the goodies like Crusader Strike, Avenging Wrath, Crusader Aura, or even Seal of Corruption yet. So this is like midlife crisis. Or actually, mid-20s crisis. this happened right after I graduated college, actually, when working at my first job. I seemed to always wonder if I took the right courses in college, attained the right degree, or even accepted the right job (after about a month of searching, I only received one offer, so maybe the question was, should I have waited another month for a better job?). but well whatever the case, being level 44 now, it feels as though im in that stage where I don’t know what to do.

I seem to have my skills learned, but now, for the next 36 levels, im going to have to hone my skills to become a better ret pala. (I don’t have the goodies yet, but I do have the major seals) I think the area of homogeneousness ended roughly around level 20, where I picked up Seal of Command, Exo, and Consecrate. Although, I do think that, if I were to have gone prot, I would have wanted Seal of Command first, then switch over to fill out my prot tree. Then, at 60, respec to full prot in order to get Hammer of the Righteous, and then slowly begin to fill out the ret tree to get back SoComm and Pursuit of Justice again. I think that would be most optimal, since at levels 20 to 59, I wont have any AoE besides consecrate, and consecrate sucks mana like a "whale" sucks "plankton". So SoComm does wonders with trash, and a switch to SoRright works wonderfully for bosses until I get SoCorruption. Heck, I cant wait to get SoCor+ DS. Divine Storm will destroy trash, as ret. =]

But right now, at 44, since I have pretty much everything really need, im given the opportunity to learn my seals. yep, I figured out why palas get one (yes, just ONE) offensive attack, and that's because blizz wants us to learn how to manage our seals. they don’t want us to simply pick a seal and go with it forever, but rather, they want us to learn how we can utilize our seals in different situations to get the most benefit out of a fight. and not just "know" it like mentally, but "know" it to the point where it becomes second nature. Low on mana? Seal of Wisdom. Low on health? Seal of Light. All full on health/mana and fighting a group? Seal of Command. Full on health/mana and fighting one mob? Righteousness.

It's pretty strange that for 44 levels, I really havent been judging then auto-attacking the whole time, although on the surface, that's what it looks like. but I was really getting trained to use my pally to its fullest potential. every pull, every situation, every layout of mobs/trash/etc becomes a training ground in using my skills to best keep me alive. Also, my "oh crap" spells are being used more often. I find myself having no issues using any of my bubbles. I even jump off high cliffs and the zepplin just to use a bubble. cant wait til hit howling fjord to do some basejumping.

Since I've hit level 40, I was able to talent into Judgement of the Wise and Art of War, which has given me awesome mana replenishment and the option to do two extra things during combat. Judgement of the Wise allow me to regain mana back two ways. one, there is a direct chance I will get 25% of base mana back per judgement. im currently talented 2/3 into it. so I get the proc maybe 2 out of every three judgements, which is plenty for now. Also, I've put 2/2 in Art of War, which gives me the option to use an instant Flash of Light or Exo. This is almost too awesome. I find myself wasting a GCD just healing myself in-battle instead of waiting til the battle's over. Also, if AoW procs late in the battle, I find that im better off using the heal if im low on health, or waiting to use it on Exo for the next pull. I rarely use an AoW-Exo since it still has a long cooldown, and I'd like it to be ready immediately after a battle so I can pull again. but for longer fights, using an AoW-procced Exo is great added dps.

The next tier will be a bit difficult to decide upon. Well, more like, which do I get first? I want both of these talents NAO! Sheath of Light and Crusader Strike. One will increase my spell power handsomely, and the other will give me my second base attack. It will be hard to choose between the two but im leaing towards sheath of light first, since it will increase my total output for all my spells and abilities. Not only that, having Crusader strike now will mean more mana usage, although its very small comparatively. its just as expensive as a judgement. and it will mean a changeup in my rotations. perhaps I should get it early on and get used to it, but then again, at 60 I get DS, so that will change my gameplay a bit also. What does this all mean? I get about 10-13 levels to learn to weave in CS before I get a new spell… that's it? yep. that’s the only difference. I may as well wait.

So upon achieving level 40 and slowly progressing towards my mid 40s, im having a blast playing my paladin. its not all about offensive spell selections, rotations or whatnot, but more about defensive spells, utility spells, and staying alive while doing alright dps. A hand to blizzard for making the paladin class actually fun to learn and play.

As far as gear goes, I still have one piece of plate gear. It's annoying how they planned the drops in SM to be mail gear, only to introduce platemail a level or two after you get the really awesome Scarlet Crusader's set, or the shoulders from Herod. Then from levels 40 to maybe 50, we're in search of plate to replace our mail gear. So here I stand, at 44, about to be 45, with one piece of plate, and that was a random dungeon reward. my god. who thought of this?

Maybe we should be given the option to add "plate" to our mail gear if we, one, have the skill to wear plate, and two, are wearing mail gear from our level 30's and 40s. There's an abundance of plate gear in outlands, so I don’t think adding plate to mail gear after level 58 is necessary. Make it a BS ability. or make it a BS enhancement item they can sell. that would rock.

On second thought, I don’t know if this is even necessary. Since we go through armor so fast, and the only benefit of plate at our levels would be the added armor, as im sure everything else stat-wise will remain the same, we may as well just stick with enchanting or leather armor kits to beef up our gear. I really do not see an added benefit to go through adding plate to mail armor when we can add leather to all armor. all as in all types: cloth, leather, mail, plate. and not all as in all armor slots. I just wanna say that because I know someone might pick at that statement.

and I realized I was spelling Judgement wrong for the past month. apologies.