In the bastion of twilight, clear the entire room before the first boss, run out, reset.
The mobs drop 1-2 g each, cloth, greens, etc.
You can use potion of treasure finding.
In 3 hours, my group looted 9 epics - two staffs, three guns, legs, bracers, and two throwing
(also 2k gold each)
These sell for about 50k+ each (depending on your server) ALL BOE.
Monday, January 3, 2011
[Ranged DPS] Easy Savage Leather Farming
In the Twilight Highlands southwest of the Dragonmaw Port / Highbank is the Obsidion Forest. In the center of the forest on a large dead tree that you can land on there are 10-12 Dragons that do not fight back and are skinnable. They also respawn very quickly. Not only that, but there are helper NPCs that will randomly instanty kill the mobs, making this even faster.
By the time you finish killing all the mobs, they will already be respawning, and will have fully respawned by time you loot/skin all of them.
They also give EXP. Enjoy!
Endless Pick-Pocketing Spot, The New Icecrown
I knew it had to exist, and I finally found it! The new Icecrown of pickpocketing for rogues!
In the Twilight Highlands you receive a quest from the Red Dragonflight called Far From the Nest, in which you must stop Twilight Abductors from stealing their eggs. Killing these mobs leaves 0 loot, however you can pick pocket them for the normal rogue loot.
At the location 23.0, 21.9 is a chokepoint where the abductors are running up a narrow hill to try and steal eggs, some do, and some run into the guards. This in my opinion is the best spot. It seems you can average about 1 mob every 10 seconds or less. Theres actually about 3 or 4 spots along the little hill there you could set up and not be on the paths of the mobs and reach all of them, so work that out a little for yourself to find a spot that someone isn't going to mess you up on.
Spot number 2. In the cave entrance itself. You can camp in it as a rogue to the side slightly and pick pocket them as they run into the portal. This is a little more risky in my opinion as people that have the quest to close the portal will run right next to you. Risky = PvP server. On a RP or PvE server this would be just almost as good as spot one, depending on how many people are running the kill quest.
Spot number 3. 23.9. 16.9 in the roots of the fallen down tree. Not as good as either of the 2 other spots, with what seems like 1 mobs every 12-15 seconds. However on a pvp server this would be the least risky spot to set up at.
The Loot: Average, but it adds up. 15-20 silver on average, and lots of greys that will sell for a gold a stack, rogues draughts, and other foods. Going to set up there right now. The mobs can also detect you.
You'll want glyph of pick pocket as some of the paths aren't on top of one another, so you need to set up between and have that extra 5 yards to make the most of it. The reason for this is because the adds can spot you.
I assume Bliz will hotfix in the next couple days after reading this, so hit it now! Enjoy.
In the Twilight Highlands you receive a quest from the Red Dragonflight called Far From the Nest, in which you must stop Twilight Abductors from stealing their eggs. Killing these mobs leaves 0 loot, however you can pick pocket them for the normal rogue loot.
At the location 23.0, 21.9 is a chokepoint where the abductors are running up a narrow hill to try and steal eggs, some do, and some run into the guards. This in my opinion is the best spot. It seems you can average about 1 mob every 10 seconds or less. Theres actually about 3 or 4 spots along the little hill there you could set up and not be on the paths of the mobs and reach all of them, so work that out a little for yourself to find a spot that someone isn't going to mess you up on.
Spot number 2. In the cave entrance itself. You can camp in it as a rogue to the side slightly and pick pocket them as they run into the portal. This is a little more risky in my opinion as people that have the quest to close the portal will run right next to you. Risky = PvP server. On a RP or PvE server this would be just almost as good as spot one, depending on how many people are running the kill quest.
Spot number 3. 23.9. 16.9 in the roots of the fallen down tree. Not as good as either of the 2 other spots, with what seems like 1 mobs every 12-15 seconds. However on a pvp server this would be the least risky spot to set up at.
The Loot: Average, but it adds up. 15-20 silver on average, and lots of greys that will sell for a gold a stack, rogues draughts, and other foods. Going to set up there right now. The mobs can also detect you.
You'll want glyph of pick pocket as some of the paths aren't on top of one another, so you need to set up between and have that extra 5 yards to make the most of it. The reason for this is because the adds can spot you.
I assume Bliz will hotfix in the next couple days after reading this, so hit it now! Enjoy.
Critter Kill Squad
I happened to be close to a guildy who was solo farming critter kills at the cave in EPL today. He needed a gem cut so I invited him to group and flew over. After cutting the gem, we talked about the achievement and I went AFK for awhile. When I came back, I rechecked the critter kills and found that it had increased considerably for the 10minutes that I was gone. We had gotten double credit for each critter kill. After testing my theory, we invited as many guildies as possible, ending up with 13. We then headed over to strath to summon them all, and then headed back to the instance. We proceeded to clear the tunnel repeatedly, getting 13x credit for every critter kill.
In order for it to work, you have to be in range of the AOE Class doing all the work. Havent tested the proximity, but its not instance server wide (cant just be in group anywhere in Eastern Kingdoms). A priest or mage does the trick perfectly, and should have enough mana (at 85) to clear the entire tunnel without drinking. We found it worked best when only one person AOE'ed and everyone else just ran behind. This same thing should work at any of the good critter kill places, with up to 40 raid Members.
An Example:
250-ish Critters @ 2-3 Min Respawn.
250 Critters x 13 Guild Members in Raid & Close Proximity = 3,250 Critter Kills From One Clear.
250 Critters x 40 Guild Members in Raid & Close Proximity = 10,000 Critter Kills From One Clear.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Atramedes[Blackwing Descent] avoid Sonar Pulse completely
Even thou the encounter is easy by itself, this is a trick to make it even easier.
Sonar Pulse = moving sound circles on the ground
There are 2 ways you can exploit this:
1: Since the "Sonar Pulse" spawns at the tail of the dragon, you can simply tank the dragon with his tail in the wall and avoid the circles completely.
2: You can have the entire raid standing inside the "entrance" to avoid the moving sound as they will never leave the room. Like shown on this picture:
With this "tactic" you have all stand on the red dot, except a healer and a guy who will be using the shields to stop the Searing Flames.
Who ever gets the breath goes right, rest left. When air phase comes, you can move outside the room and stand on the STAIRS, there you wont get the sound from the air. Or you can all run inside the room and avoid it there.
Up to you.
This works on both normal and heroic mode.
Sonar Pulse = moving sound circles on the ground
There are 2 ways you can exploit this:
1: Since the "Sonar Pulse" spawns at the tail of the dragon, you can simply tank the dragon with his tail in the wall and avoid the circles completely.
2: You can have the entire raid standing inside the "entrance" to avoid the moving sound as they will never leave the room. Like shown on this picture:
With this "tactic" you have all stand on the red dot, except a healer and a guy who will be using the shields to stop the Searing Flames.
Who ever gets the breath goes right, rest left. When air phase comes, you can move outside the room and stand on the STAIRS, there you wont get the sound from the air. Or you can all run inside the room and avoid it there.
Up to you.
This works on both normal and heroic mode.
Bugged ore spawns, 4 nodes spawn in one
I've been farming Uldum for the last 2 hours in 1 spot because I found that in 2 locations 4 nodes of ore spawn simultaneously. I don't have fraps, otherwise I'd take a video of it and post it on here while i camp the locations.
27, 37 area
37, 9
Both of these spawns will either spawn 1 node of rich, or 4 regular node simultaneously. I like the 4 nodes because you're getting 2-4 a node, for 8-16 ore.
The spawn rate for the 4 nodes seems to be around 5 minutes, but I'm guessing it's dependent on other people farming different areas.
27, 37 area
37, 9
Both of these spawns will either spawn 1 node of rich, or 4 regular node simultaneously. I like the 4 nodes because you're getting 2-4 a node, for 8-16 ore.
The spawn rate for the 4 nodes seems to be around 5 minutes, but I'm guessing it's dependent on other people farming different areas.
15-20+ In less than 1 hour! [Hillsbrad Foothills]
Level 19-20 ghuls are spawning at that spot, 500 HP.
1-5 ghuls are spawning every 5 seconds, pretty nice to farm
Have fun before it gets hotfixed.
Proc Victory Rush Pretty Much Whenever You Want
So other day when I was playing my Warrior that I haven't touched in months, I discovered Victory Rush acting very strangely.
It seems that a very high percent amount of the time when you click a dead mob (as opposed to one that is dying) it seems to cause Victory Rush to proc, regardless of whether you even ever did any dmg to said dead mob. Now this does not work all the time, but it does work often enough to consider this an exploit.
Short Version:
Start fight with mob.
Spam click his dead buddies until Victory Rush procs.
Use it.
Repeat Step 2
Also a mob that you have already used once to proc VR cannot be used again (or so it seems so far)
It seems that a very high percent amount of the time when you click a dead mob (as opposed to one that is dying) it seems to cause Victory Rush to proc, regardless of whether you even ever did any dmg to said dead mob. Now this does not work all the time, but it does work often enough to consider this an exploit.
Short Version:
Start fight with mob.
Spam click his dead buddies until Victory Rush procs.
Use it.
Repeat Step 2
Also a mob that you have already used once to proc VR cannot be used again (or so it seems so far)
Queue for a low level dungeon as an 85.
Alright. Me and some friends of mine were doing heroics back at 80, and we discovered a nifty trick. I was in Scarlet Monastery killing a few mobs for fun, and a queue popped. We did the heroic like normal, and everybody but us left the group. I teleported out of dungeon, and it placed me back in SM. However, all of the mobs were reset, so I decided to kill one. We invited a guild mate to our group, but they were already in a group, so WoW saw it as if it were a 'decline' to join the group. It then asked us if we would like to find more players for "Scarlet Monastery - Cathedral", and we accepted, thinking it was just a visual bug. However, once it paired us with our group members, we realized that they were, in fact, the appropriate level for SM.
Steps to reproduce this bug:
Queue for a random dungeon/heroic. (WITH A FRIEND WHO IS ON YOUR SERVER)
Finish the dungeon (or trick everyone except you and a friend into leaving).
When you finish, make sure you and your friend both stay in the group.
Teleport out, and make your way to the low level dungeon of your choice: Stockades, Deadmines (Deadmines and SFK MAY not work, due to them having a heroic difficulty. This can be bypassed by queuing for a normal, not a heroic), RFC, etc.
Go into the portal, kill any mob, and zone back out.
Invite someone to your group, but have them decline the invitation. This can be done by inviting someone who is already in a group, or inviting someone after you tell them to decline the incoming invitation
A window should show up asking if you want to find more players for your group, press yes.
Steps to reproduce this bug:
Queue for a random dungeon/heroic. (WITH A FRIEND WHO IS ON YOUR SERVER)
Finish the dungeon (or trick everyone except you and a friend into leaving).
When you finish, make sure you and your friend both stay in the group.
Teleport out, and make your way to the low level dungeon of your choice: Stockades, Deadmines (Deadmines and SFK MAY not work, due to them having a heroic difficulty. This can be bypassed by queuing for a normal, not a heroic), RFC, etc.
Go into the portal, kill any mob, and zone back out.
Invite someone to your group, but have them decline the invitation. This can be done by inviting someone who is already in a group, or inviting someone after you tell them to decline the incoming invitation
A window should show up asking if you want to find more players for your group, press yes.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Dark Simulacrum electrocute on Al'Akir(1-1.5million damage to boss)
Al'Akir casts this spell every time when a tank is outside his melee range, so it can be somewhat reliably copied by predicting when tanks have to move. In phase 2 of the encounter it is entirely reproduceable as every time theres a 4 tornado wall starting from melee range there will be an electrocute. Just cast DS when it's getting closer. It must be up before the cast starts.
The spell itself must be used from outside melee range or it will cancel, but you can move with it and even use abilities. It deals anywhere from 1 to 1.5+ million damage for a complete channel depending on the feedback debuffs on Al'akir, making the DPS requirements considerably easier.
The spell itself must be used from outside melee range or it will cancel, but you can move with it and even use abilities. It deals anywhere from 1 to 1.5+ million damage for a complete channel depending on the feedback debuffs on Al'akir, making the DPS requirements considerably easier.
[Alch/Enc required] Cheap Maelstrom crystals
People with Alchemy/Enchanting rejoice! By disenchanting the alchemist stone you can get cheap Maelstrom Crystals.
Be sure to check before trying, in my realm reagents for the alchemist stone go for about 1000g and the crystals are 3000+g.
This is small tip but I hope it helps
Be sure to check before trying, in my realm reagents for the alchemist stone go for about 1000g and the crystals are 3000+g.
This is small tip but I hope it helps
Opposite Faction AV Mount Acquireable
Okay, with the new Wargames system, you can challenge people to play in battlegrounds, including AV. You can challenge your own faction and they will spawn on the opposite faction side.
This means Alliance will spawn friendly to the Horde NPCs in an AvA game.
Grunnda Wolfheart sells Horn of the Frostwolf Howler, which still has no race or faction requirement, aside from being able to speak to the vendor. Likewise, there is a corresponding Alliance NPC who sells the Alterac Battle Charger. Of course, if you're fighting a wargames AV match on the opposite side, the vendor will be friendly to you.
You need 10 people on each side for it to work. It needs to be two groups of the same faction; the challengers will stay the same faction while the people accepting the challenge will change.
It costs 2000 honor and that's it
Blizzard has overlooked adding race restrictions on these mounts for years and has kept the NPCs who sell these mounts in AV for years. This will probably get hotfixed fast once it catches on.
Volatile Air/Fire farm Locations average 1.5k gold/hour
With the surge of players hitting level 85 and everyone looking to level their professions, there is a huge market for Volatiles. I decided to pick the two most consistent/best priced/farmed for Elements so I chose Fire/Air for this guide. Whats great about farming these items now is they aren't combined as motes as before. AND the mobs I've listed will drop multiples (1-2 each).
(my server prices)
Volatile Air: 44-60g
Volatile Fire: 10-15g
Volatile Air
Volatile Air
The mob you will be killing is "Scion of Al'Akir"
Scion of Al'Akir
Screenshot of Area:
The mobs wander around this area. The mobs are very slow/kitable and do little to no damage, so they are very easy to chain pull/kill. The only downside to this spot is the distance between the mobs. Farming here as a hunter was very easy/fast with Aspect Cheetah/Fox.
**sorry didn't have timestamps enabled**
Screenshot of Droprate/Loot I recieved
Volatile Fire
Volatile Fire
I recommend keybinding your "Interact with Target" key as the Fire elementals are hard to click on. Also about 4 spots up there is a "Target last Target" key which will target whatever you just finished killing and can make looting much easier, although I only used the first key.
The mobs you will be killing:
Bound Fleshburner
Unbound Emberfiend
Magmalord Falthazar
Screenshot of Area:
They all wander around this area. They are higher level than the Air elementals so they hit harder and have more HP but still very easy to kill and chain pull. The mobs in this area have a much closer proximity so no running around.
Screenshot of Droprate/Loot recieved.
Final product:
Screenshot of loot after a little over 1 hour of farming.
After a little over an hour this is what I had.
Volatile Air: 1383.13g
Volatile Fire: 80g
Greens(disenchanted): 170g
Vendor Greys: 24.84g
Total Amount: 1657.84g
(my server prices)
Volatile Air: 44-60g
Volatile Fire: 10-15g
Volatile Air
Volatile Air
The mob you will be killing is "Scion of Al'Akir"
Scion of Al'Akir
Screenshot of Area:
The mobs wander around this area. The mobs are very slow/kitable and do little to no damage, so they are very easy to chain pull/kill. The only downside to this spot is the distance between the mobs. Farming here as a hunter was very easy/fast with Aspect Cheetah/Fox.
**sorry didn't have timestamps enabled**
Screenshot of Droprate/Loot I recieved
Volatile Fire
Volatile Fire
I recommend keybinding your "Interact with Target" key as the Fire elementals are hard to click on. Also about 4 spots up there is a "Target last Target" key which will target whatever you just finished killing and can make looting much easier, although I only used the first key.
The mobs you will be killing:
Bound Fleshburner
Unbound Emberfiend
Magmalord Falthazar
Screenshot of Area:
They all wander around this area. They are higher level than the Air elementals so they hit harder and have more HP but still very easy to kill and chain pull. The mobs in this area have a much closer proximity so no running around.
Screenshot of Droprate/Loot recieved.
Final product:
Screenshot of loot after a little over 1 hour of farming.
After a little over an hour this is what I had.
Volatile Air: 1383.13g
Volatile Fire: 80g
Greens(disenchanted): 170g
Vendor Greys: 24.84g
Total Amount: 1657.84g
One of the best if not best fishing-spot for botters (uldum)
Only thing that can be seen of you is the bobber from time to time that is even then partially somehow covered or very well hidden, your fishing line wont be seen and since you are completely under water you wont be seen either, unless someone moves near you that has that lifebars thingy activated ^^
Here are the pictures showing the location in detail
Well you stand in the spot shown, and face with your char in the direction that is marked by the red arrows.
This spot aint perfect to "speed fish" since you will be getting some "cant fish messages" (like 3 out of 10 trys) but still i had around 900 bites in 45 minutes using MrFishit there.
In this spot you will fish up
Sharptooth
Lavascale Catfish
Blackbelly Mudfish
Volatile Water
you seeme to be underwater standing there but you WONT drown there.
Here are the pictures showing the location in detail
Well you stand in the spot shown, and face with your char in the direction that is marked by the red arrows.
This spot aint perfect to "speed fish" since you will be getting some "cant fish messages" (like 3 out of 10 trys) but still i had around 900 bites in 45 minutes using MrFishit there.
In this spot you will fish up
Sharptooth
Lavascale Catfish
Blackbelly Mudfish
Volatile Water
you seeme to be underwater standing there but you WONT drown there.
Some information
I'm going back to put back life into this blog, mabye once a week I'll post things up, so tune in guys
Monday, August 23, 2010
Explore anywhere (hunter)
I'm aware that a lot of people consider this common knowledge, but even more have no idea it is possible. This thread is aimed at those are unaware. Please keep this in mind.
This is VERY VERY VERY simple. VERY.
Step 1) Log into your hunter
Step 2) Get to level 14
Step 3) Type /m into your chat box
Step 4) Click the "New" button to create a new macro
Step 5) Copy+Paste the following into your macro box: /cast !Eagle Eye
Step 6) Bind the macro to a hotkey (0-9, F1-F12, etc)
Step 7) Cast the macro and select a point far off in the distance
Step 8) Repeat Step 7 as many times as you wish for desired results
What this allows you to do is "chain" Eagle Eye casts and cast one Eagle Eye from "inside" the other, thus allowing you to look far far off into the distance.
I hope many people find this useful!
This is VERY VERY VERY simple. VERY.
Step 1) Log into your hunter
Step 2) Get to level 14
Step 3) Type /m into your chat box
Step 4) Click the "New" button to create a new macro
Step 5) Copy+Paste the following into your macro box: /cast !Eagle Eye
Step 6) Bind the macro to a hotkey (0-9, F1-F12, etc)
Step 7) Cast the macro and select a point far off in the distance
Step 8) Repeat Step 7 as many times as you wish for desired results
What this allows you to do is "chain" Eagle Eye casts and cast one Eagle Eye from "inside" the other, thus allowing you to look far far off into the distance.
I hope many people find this useful!
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Become colossal in Dalaran
YOU MUST HAVE REMOTE BANK ACCESS THROUGH EITHER JEEVES OR THE CRUSADER'S SQUIRE TO DO THIS TRICK.
You need to be on this quest
Secret Strength of the Frenzyheart - Quest
To get this item
Thunderbrew's Hard Ale - Item
1. Once you are on the quest Secret Strength of the Frenzyheart head to Grimbooze Thunderbrew in Nessingwary's Base Camp.
2. Ask him for ale. He will produce one for you.
3. Summon whatever means of remote bank access you have next to Grimbooze.
4. Place Thunderbrew's Hard Ale in the bank and talk to Grimbooze again. You will quickly notice you are able to obtain another Ale from him.
5. Repeat this process as many times as you want. I'd recommend getting at least 100 Ales which should give you about a half hour of fun as a giant.
Once you have all your ales head wherever you want (Dalaran obviously if you're an attention whore like me) and begin drinking the ales. Every 10 seconds your character will grow in size and peaks after around 30 growths.
TIPS: You will grow or refresh the hidden growth timer after 10 seconds of drinking the ale. You have about 10 seconds in-between drinks to mount on a mount or walk around as a giant before having to sit down and drink again to keep your size, as this is not permanent and is on some unspecified hidden timer. After you become smashed by the ale you may have a chance to puke. Pressing Esc before the cast finishes will cancel it and save you the chance of losing your giant size.
You need to be on this quest
Secret Strength of the Frenzyheart - Quest
To get this item
Thunderbrew's Hard Ale - Item
1. Once you are on the quest Secret Strength of the Frenzyheart head to Grimbooze Thunderbrew in Nessingwary's Base Camp.
2. Ask him for ale. He will produce one for you.
3. Summon whatever means of remote bank access you have next to Grimbooze.
4. Place Thunderbrew's Hard Ale in the bank and talk to Grimbooze again. You will quickly notice you are able to obtain another Ale from him.
5. Repeat this process as many times as you want. I'd recommend getting at least 100 Ales which should give you about a half hour of fun as a giant.
Once you have all your ales head wherever you want (Dalaran obviously if you're an attention whore like me) and begin drinking the ales. Every 10 seconds your character will grow in size and peaks after around 30 growths.
TIPS: You will grow or refresh the hidden growth timer after 10 seconds of drinking the ale. You have about 10 seconds in-between drinks to mount on a mount or walk around as a giant before having to sit down and drink again to keep your size, as this is not permanent and is on some unspecified hidden timer. After you become smashed by the ale you may have a chance to puke. Pressing Esc before the cast finishes will cancel it and save you the chance of losing your giant size.
Molten Core farming ~ 6k G/hour
So I noticed a lot of people on my server have been wanting to buy Blood of the Mountain in the AH i've seen the price as high as 700g, 500 the lowest. This could vary from server to server of course, Ive heard of them going for 1k each on some servers and 200 on others. Anyways the best way to farm this is have a character logged out at the attunement guy for MC (assuming you're attuned) (preferably something that can solo stuff easily). Now once you enter, follow the white line on this map:
Right when you go in and you see the Molten Giants do not aggro them you can run to the right and jump right next to the lava on that ledge, if you fail to do this it's fine you wont die from lava, just make sure you're at full hp when you pull the Molten destroyers. The molten Destroyers are located anywhere from Gehannas to Garr. Do not leave this area or you will just be wasting your time. Avoid all mobs that you can, the Core Hounds have large aggro ranges so do not get too close to them. After you kill all of the Destroyers you can go outside and go AFK for the next 30 mins, go on a different toon, or make this guide like I did haha. Now of course this isn't consistent gold because of the drop chance being ~8% but it's definitely worth it for the little amount of work that you have to do, Also if BoE epics drop (Tier gear) make sure to put them up in the AH, they sell for 100g+ depending on server.
Happy farming
Make a fortune off twinks with little investment when cataclysm hits
I've been twinking/playing the AH for quite a long time, and in my experience, there is no better market to corner in the AH than the twinking economy. Why do you ask? First of all, low item levels means low deposits, so if your stuff doesnt sell first time around, its all good. However, the main reason why its so amazing, is because its the only market where you can FREQUENTLY find INSANE bargains because people frankly dont know what they have.
I cant tell you how many times I've bought Wranglers wristbands of power/stam/monkey for 25s (worth 1kg to the right twink) or 9/9 pathfinder hats for a couple gold. Heck, I got my one and only shadowfang for under 100g and sold for over 5k. It happens all the time when you know what to look for.
When cata hits, 2 major things will change in the world of twinking. First of all, twinking will be coming back in full force. Right now, twinks have to migrate to their brackets home BG in order to get exp off games. (19 & 49 ruin, 29 reckoning, 39 nightfall in the US) With the BG merger in cata, twinks will be able to play with other twinks from every bg, so the numbers will shoot through the roof hence driving prices up. The second major change (where the real $$$ come in) is that they're changing a ton of the lower level items and making many currently "noob" items BIS. As long as you know what to buy and hold on to, you'll make an EPIC TON OF GOLD come cata with very little investment.
Without further adieu, this is what you need to get your hands on:
19's:
* Razor's Edge (currently very inexpensive)
* Darkweave Breeches (not best profit margin, but buy if you see cheap)
* Gloves of the Fang
* Feet of the Lynx (everyone is going to want these)
* Bronze Band of Force (crafted, but will likely be bis for a couple classes)
* Mindthrust Bracers
29's:
* Enduring Cap (this will also 100x in value)
* Silver-Lined Belt (currently incredibly inexpensive will be bis)
* Glowing Magical Bracelets
* Resilient Cap (currently worth nothing, will be amazing for a TON of classes)
* Shadow Hood (craftable, but about to become awesome for fc twinks)
* Resilient Robe (currently worthless green, about to get huge boost)
* Magician's Mantle
* Tribal Worg Helm (this will 100x in value)
* Forest Tracker Epaulets (already expensive, so not best profit margin, but buy if cheap)
* Claw of the Shadowmancer (rogues are getting nerfed, but this will be better than torturing poker come cata)
Not too sure about the 39 & 49 changes just yet, but I'll look into it, and I'll be updating this thread any time I see new gold opportunities in the twinking market, or further changes to items pertinent to twinking.
Hope you enjoyed the guide, and happy gold making
I cant tell you how many times I've bought Wranglers wristbands of power/stam/monkey for 25s (worth 1kg to the right twink) or 9/9 pathfinder hats for a couple gold. Heck, I got my one and only shadowfang for under 100g and sold for over 5k. It happens all the time when you know what to look for.
When cata hits, 2 major things will change in the world of twinking. First of all, twinking will be coming back in full force. Right now, twinks have to migrate to their brackets home BG in order to get exp off games. (19 & 49 ruin, 29 reckoning, 39 nightfall in the US) With the BG merger in cata, twinks will be able to play with other twinks from every bg, so the numbers will shoot through the roof hence driving prices up. The second major change (where the real $$$ come in) is that they're changing a ton of the lower level items and making many currently "noob" items BIS. As long as you know what to buy and hold on to, you'll make an EPIC TON OF GOLD come cata with very little investment.
Without further adieu, this is what you need to get your hands on:
19's:
* Razor's Edge (currently very inexpensive)
* Darkweave Breeches (not best profit margin, but buy if you see cheap)
* Gloves of the Fang
* Feet of the Lynx (everyone is going to want these)
* Bronze Band of Force (crafted, but will likely be bis for a couple classes)
* Mindthrust Bracers
29's:
* Enduring Cap (this will also 100x in value)
* Silver-Lined Belt (currently incredibly inexpensive will be bis)
* Glowing Magical Bracelets
* Resilient Cap (currently worth nothing, will be amazing for a TON of classes)
* Shadow Hood (craftable, but about to become awesome for fc twinks)
* Resilient Robe (currently worthless green, about to get huge boost)
* Magician's Mantle
* Tribal Worg Helm (this will 100x in value)
* Forest Tracker Epaulets (already expensive, so not best profit margin, but buy if cheap)
* Claw of the Shadowmancer (rogues are getting nerfed, but this will be better than torturing poker come cata)
Not too sure about the 39 & 49 changes just yet, but I'll look into it, and I'll be updating this thread any time I see new gold opportunities in the twinking market, or further changes to items pertinent to twinking.
Hope you enjoyed the guide, and happy gold making
Landro's Gift = infinite sellable mounts: Spectral Tigers, X-51 Rockets, and Bears
Ages ago I read of how some patches would sometimes reroll container contents, so while I cannot find the original post, this is an extension and explanation of what I have done with that information.
The newest TCG Loot Cards contain a card called Landro's Gift which can be redeemed for Landro's Gift Box in game: Landro's Gift Box
Do not auto loot them as you will destroy the container, you can take out items you want down to one to keep the container intact. Then if you server or faction transfer, they will be rerolled to provide more or different items. A few times the tier one loot in them did not change but they spawned extra mounts. I have tested it over ten times (spent over $300 now I guess) to make sure this is repeatable and constant.
Each box will contain one old tier one loot and the possibility of only one mount and only the ones on this list:
* Reins of the Swift Spectral Tiger
* Reins of the Spectral Tiger
* X-51 Nether-Rocket X-TREME
* X-51 Nether-Rocket
* Big Battle Bear
* Riding Turtle - You can't sell this as it's BoP
Other things of note:
You will not see a mount that you already know!
This will work on any level character, so you could have a level 10 server swapping all the time with an inventory and bank full of boxes and they will still have the chance to receive any mount without the level or riding ability to use it.
Also, all the mounts are unique, so once you pull one from a box you will need to pass it to an alt before you can see another one if it appears in a box. With containers, if multiple contain unique items you will not see the item if it exists in your inventory. So you can check all the boxes without removing anything and see what your stock of mounts is.
This also works for any other container you have. I received the Malygos mount from Cache of the Ley-Guardian, a Bear from the Hyldnir Spoils, and the Drake from the Oracle eggs.
You can continue to do this as long as your wallet and account can handle it to get all the mounts you like for whatever reason you want them.
TL : DR VERSION:
Get Landro's Gift boxes, don't auto loot them to pull out mounts, server or faction change that character, repeat.
The newest TCG Loot Cards contain a card called Landro's Gift which can be redeemed for Landro's Gift Box in game: Landro's Gift Box
Do not auto loot them as you will destroy the container, you can take out items you want down to one to keep the container intact. Then if you server or faction transfer, they will be rerolled to provide more or different items. A few times the tier one loot in them did not change but they spawned extra mounts. I have tested it over ten times (spent over $300 now I guess) to make sure this is repeatable and constant.
Each box will contain one old tier one loot and the possibility of only one mount and only the ones on this list:
* Reins of the Swift Spectral Tiger
* Reins of the Spectral Tiger
* X-51 Nether-Rocket X-TREME
* X-51 Nether-Rocket
* Big Battle Bear
* Riding Turtle - You can't sell this as it's BoP
Other things of note:
You will not see a mount that you already know!
This will work on any level character, so you could have a level 10 server swapping all the time with an inventory and bank full of boxes and they will still have the chance to receive any mount without the level or riding ability to use it.
Also, all the mounts are unique, so once you pull one from a box you will need to pass it to an alt before you can see another one if it appears in a box. With containers, if multiple contain unique items you will not see the item if it exists in your inventory. So you can check all the boxes without removing anything and see what your stock of mounts is.
This also works for any other container you have. I received the Malygos mount from Cache of the Ley-Guardian, a Bear from the Hyldnir Spoils, and the Drake from the Oracle eggs.
You can continue to do this as long as your wallet and account can handle it to get all the mounts you like for whatever reason you want them.
TL : DR VERSION:
Get Landro's Gift boxes, don't auto loot them to pull out mounts, server or faction change that character, repeat.
The Road To Icecrown - A Guide for new raiders
I know that even with the mass amount of high end raiders on the facebook page, and readers of this blog, but there is still many people out there that are recently 80 but not geared for ICC and several players leveling up as well. So I thought I’d write a guide at how to get geared for ICC as quickly as possible.
You may already know a lot of what’s in this guide, but spend a few minutes (while in queue for a heroic, perhaps?) and you might pick a thing or two up.
Corrections, comments, suggestions, and requests for more information warmly welcomed.
GearScore. What is it and how useful is it?
GearScore is an add-on that assigns a value to items. Theoretically, the better item gets the better score. When a player tells you they have 5000GS, they are referring to the total value of all their items.
Many criticize the add-on, including myself, for being overly simplistic. The ‘lower’ item is not always going to be the worst item (namely with trinkets): use it with caution. It is, however, useful as a general guide in comparing items and players, and useful as a basis on whether you are in the range of gear for a particular instance or not.
If you haven’t already realized it, you’re going to have to increase your GS to get into PUG raids. For this reason, a lot of this guide is focused on increasing your GearScore, which feels dirty as we should really be talking about stats, but GearScore is what the kids look for these days.
When forming a raid, no one cares about your stats anymore, they only want to know your GS. That is why I seem to talk a lot about improving your GS in this guide, even though I don’t like the add-on all that much. But remember: GS will get you into a raid, but you need the stats to perform well!
The other thing I want to point out for the newer 80s out there is Item Level. You want to make sure you have this turned on, as it is a great basis of telling what item is in a higher "tier" if you aren't as great at reading specific stats. Go into Interface settings, Display, and check the box that says "Show Item Levels". Now when you mouse over an item in your inventory (or someone else's) it will display the Item level on it as well, Example would be "Item Level 232" which is T9.
Item Level Guide
200- T7
213- T7.5
219- T8
226- T8.5
232- T9
245- T9.5
251- T10
264- T10.5
277- T10.5 Heroic
THERE ARE OTHER ITEM LEVELS IN THE GAME AS WELL, FOR CERTAIN HEROIC MODES AS WELL, BUT THAT CHART SHOULD GIVE YOU THE BASIS ON WHAT EACH ITEM LEVEL IS EQUIVILLENT TO. Also note that an item level 232 for example, is not necessarily part of the T9 SET.. it is just of an equivillent item level
TALENT BUILDS
I simply dont have the time or in-depth knowledge to list a perfect spec for every class and every role out there in the game today. But what I am going to do is link a site for each class below that has a lot of wonderful information on the speccing and glyphing of each corresponding class.
Know Your Rotation
Prior to level 80, you can get away with simply casting whatever spell or ability seems good to you and that is all fine and great for leveling, But for raiding you need to establish a "Rotation" which is a sequence of spells or abilities that you use over and over again in order to maximize DPS output. This is mostly crucial for DPS classes, and tanks use them as well. Healers aren't so much into the rotation as they use whatever spell they need to get the proper amount of healing and mana use for the situation.
The sites about that I have provided you for guides on class specific builds have the rotation listed with the build as well. Make sure you are using the proper rotation for the spec you have chosen, failing to use a rotation will get you kicked from a pug faster than you can say "clicker", because your DPS output will suffer greatly. KNOW YOUR ROTATION, USE IT and enjoy your chart topping dps.
PRO TIP!!
Hit your spell cast (or melee attack) button about 1/2 second before it is off global cooldown...this will increase DPS a bit as it compensates for latency
Bind your Keys
You may have gotten away with clicking your abilities prior to level 80, and many people still do at level 80. However, it requires a much greater deal of effort in most cases to use the mouse to conduct your rotation over and over.
The best way to combat this is to go into your "Key Bindings" settings panel in WoW, within there it will give you the option to chose which keyboard button uses which square on the action bar (and therefore the corresponding spell). This is going to make your life 10000% simpler during a raid. For example on my death knight all I have to do to put out chart-topping DPS is hit 1,2,3,3,4,5,4,3,3,3,3 and repeat. That would be a lot of mouse moving and clicking if I didn't have my keys bound. So it is my advice that you do this as soon as you start raiding to prevent tendinitis lol.
Getting the Achievement
The other frustration new 80s encounter when trying to get into raids is that they don’t have the achievement. Here are some ways around that…
1. Guild. If – and only if – you have exhausted all means of gearing yourself up WITHOUT OTHERS CARRYING YOU, and the only way to progress with gear is to get that damn achievement, ask the guild. They might organize a run, or we might join PUGs with you (a raid is going to be more likely to take a lower geared player if they get a higher geared player to make up for it).
2. Be Brave and Ask. YouTube has many video guides, with which you can learn how to fight a particular raid. If you can tell a raid leader that you know the fights, they might be nice and include you.
3. The Ol’ Switcheroo. This is a bit naughty, but it’s what I did ^^. Fact: 90% of people are idiots. So many raid leaders don’t even check achievements when they ask you to link them. So just link the blank achievement and wait for your invite. I figure, if the raid leader is enough of an idiot not to check achievements, he’s fair game. Note: it will be awkward when you earn the achievement in the raid. This method may, however, get you onto a few ignore lists.
4. Also a bit devious (but people deserve it for requiring GS and achievements rather than skill IMO). Overachiever, or Allene's Fake Achievement are both add-ons that I have used. What you do is you link a blank achievement with a command behind it (For AFA it would be /AFA [The Fall Of Naxxrammas] 2009-01-19, or whatever date you want in there). There is other add-ons out there as well and most of them can be found at curse.com
Gearing Up
Hit Rating – The most valuable stat for ALL dps classes
Completely uninformed players ignore hit when, in fact, hit rating is THE MOST IMPORTANT STAT FOR ALL DPS CLASSES. Don’t even try to argue with me on this point, because you’re wrong.
Hit rating reduces your chance to miss. At level 80, 32.79 hit reduces your chance to miss by 1%. Several classes have abilities and talents which also reduce their chance to miss.
You NEED to reach hit cap, which is when you have sufficient hit rating that your attacks will never miss.
By the time you’re raiding ICC, you’re going to want most or all your hit rating coming from gear as gear is the most efficient source of hit. While you’re gearing up, though, you can use gems and enchants to improve your hit rating.
Of course, once you’ve reached hit cap, additional hit does absolutely nothing for you.
The following is the hit rating required to never miss against a level 83 (i.e. a raid level boss):
Warrior
262.32
(163.95 with 3/3 precision)
Paladin
262.32
(131.16 with 2/2 enlightened judgment)
Hunter
262.32
(163.95 with 3/3 focused aim)
Rogue
262.32
(98.37 with 5/5 precision)
Priest
445.94
(367.25 with 3/3 shadow focus)
(367.25 with misery)
(288.55 with 3/3 shadow focus and misery)
Death Knight
262.32
(163.95 with 3/3 nerves of cold steal when dual wielding)
Death Coil, Icy Touch, Howling Blast
445.91
(Dont try to get capped in this, but for Dual Wield frost Knights you want to have a bit more hit than with a 2 handed weapon)
Shaman
Spells: 445.94
(367.25 with 3/3 elemental precision)
Melee: 262.32
(65.58 with dual wield specialization when dual wielding)
Mage
445.94
(367.25 with 3/3 precision)
(267.25 for arcane only with 3/3 arcane focus)
(288.55 for arcane only with arcane focus and precision)
Warlock
445.94
(367.25 with 3/3 suppression)
Druid
Spell: 445.94
(341.02 with 2/2 balance of power)
(367.25 with improved faerie fire)
(262.32 with 2/2 balance of power and improved faerie fire)
Melee: 262.32
On the subject of Hit rating, a player will still miss against raid bosses (melee, and I think hunters) but a caster will not. It is probably worth mentioning that those hit caps are the "yellow" hit caps, and only ensure that your abilities can't miss. It is probably also worth mentioning that missing and being dodged/parried are different.
Another point on hit, might be to include what you need to reach with/without the Draeni hit buff and/or Misery or the Improved Faerie Fire.
For rogues, they also care about spell hit, as their poisons do not use melee hit values, but spell, so for a Mut rogue they actually want 315 hit (assuming 5/5 precision) so that their poisons (which they spec into) never miss. For a combat rogue, spell hit is slightly less valuable, but is still better than any other stat until you are approacing the ArP hard cap which requires at least full 264, and thus is not relevant for this guide. That said, combat rogues too should be trying for the spell cap, but they (as well as DK's) get full bonuses for their "spells" from the other hit buffs:
Extra buffs or debuffs Specials Poisons White
None 99 315 722
Imp FF or Misery 99 237 722
Imp FF or Misery & Heroic Presence (draenei) 66 210 689
(all assuming 5/5 precision).
The white hit cap is clearly not worth reaching, and all the modeling supports this, but at least for rogues the poison hit cap is super important, and deserves mention."
Tier Sets – Get Tier 9 (or 10!) as a priority before ICC
Tier sets are amazing as they give set bonuses. These set bonuses are very valuable. For example, when ICC came out, a lot of people didn’t even replace their teir9 items with tier10 until they had enough for at least the 2-item bonus.
5 items make up a set, but you only need 4 of them to get the bonuses. My recommendation is to have at least 4 of them equipped always, even if you have another item with better stats, as the bonuses are so sexy.
Get your tier 9 as a priority before entering ICC.
The Pre-Raid Grind – Part One of Gearing Up
The first part of gearing up is farming heroics. It sucks horribly. But once it’s done, it’s done.
Every day you should do the following heroics, as the gear that drops in them is quite good: TOC, FoS, PoS, and HoR. Then just do random heroics for the triumphs.
Triumphs can be converted down to lesser emblems, if necessary, to buy additional items: 1 Triumph = 1 Conquest = 1 Valor = 1 Heroism. With these emblems, you can buy the following equipment to ‘fill in the blanks’ of your pre-raid gear:
Head – Triumph (tier vendor)
Neck - Conquest
Shoulder – Triumphs (tier vendor)
Back - Valor
Chest – Triumph (tier vendor)
Wrist - Valor
Hands – Triumph (tier vendor)
Waist - Conquest
Legs – Triumph (tier vendor)
Feet - Valor
Ring1 - Triumph
Ring2 - Valor
Trinket 1 - Triumph
Trinket2 - Triumph
Main Hand – Sorry, nothing available from emblems. Find the best you can in a heroic (hint: ICC drops the battered hilt which starts a pro quest, but it’s very rare)!
Off Hand - Heroism
Ranged - Triumph
Between the heroics I’ve listed above and the gear that can be bought with emblems, you should be able to hit about 4.5k GearScore. Look at what drops in the heroics I listed, and also what is available to your class for which emblems, decide what the best pre-raid item you can get is… and go get it!
WowWiki has information on what drops in the heroics I listed, and you can go look at what the vendors offer in Dalaran. Spend a few minutes, have a think, make a shopping list.
Phase two: Starter Raids – ToC, Onyxia, and the others
So, you’ve gotten absolutely every last item you can from farming triumphs and running the better heroics. You now have around 4.7k GS and are sufficiently geared to raid TOC and Onyxia, which is where the real upgrades are. Keep doing these, week in and week out, until you reach about 5k GS.
Get into other raids, if you can, as well. Naxx, Ulduar, OS, and EoE will most likely all contain upgrades (even though they may only be minor upgrades). WowWiki is an easy to use source of information about what loot drops where. Unfortunately, people tend to neglect these ‘other’ raids nowadays. If an item increases your GS by 20, that’s still going to make it easier to get into a PUG.
YouTube has many guides on the bosses you will encounter in all raids, and I recommend highly watching these videos before attempting a boss for the first time.
Importantly, you are now sufficiently gear to not have a hard time getting invited to the Weekly Raid Quests, which will grant you additional Frost emblems, putting you on the road to tier 10 items.
Phase three: ICC!
So you’ve reach 5k GS! Grats! There are probably still upgrades in ToC and Onyxia for you, and keep trying to get them, but start trying to join ICC raids now as well to accelerate your gear up.
RAIDING GUILDS
One of the best ways to get a good experience in endgame content is to join a raiding guild. There is many of these out there ranging from more casual players all the way up to committed heroic mode core guilds. It is in your best interest to try and get into a raid guild if you have the time and you plan to make raiding a more serious endeavor. Here are some hints on how to get yourself into a raiding guild and move up to a core spot as quickly as possible.
- Many of these guilds require you to apply on their website in order to join. When applying for a guild on the site it is important to use proper grammar and act somewhat "professional" as this gives them the confirmation that you will act in a mature and collected way in their vent server as well as guild chat.
- A good place to start out in your quest to find a raiding guild is to go to the official World of Warcraft Realm forums.. located HERE. Many guilds advertise here and also should have a link to their guild page on it as well.
-Make sure that when you have an application pending you have your character gemmed and enchanted properly, and that you are logging out every night with your main spec (the one you plan to raid with) activated and your main spec gear on your character. The reason for this is that whatever gear you log out wearing is the gear that the recruiter will see when you looks into the armory link you have provided.
- Most guilds are more than happy to assist the "right" player in obtaining better base gear to fulfill their raiding needs. That being said however it is important to have the correct gems and enchantments on any piece of gear you are wearing on the armory (even if it's a crappy piece). This shows that you know your class role and how to gear it properly, but just haven't had the opportunity to obtain the proper piece of gear yet, and they will be much more likely to help you do this.
-When you join a raiding guild you are almost certainly going to be put into a "trial" or "standby" rank. Guilds do this for a couple of reasons. First reason being that they may not have a spot in their core group for you just yet, second reason being that they want to monitor you for a week or two to make sure you are the man for the job. During this trial period it is absolutely crucial that you show up to any raids that you sign up for, and also make sure that you spend some time running heroics and raids with them whenever you are online and you see a guildie looking for someone to join their group for a pug or whatever. This will give you a good standing with the members and they will be more likely to give you a good word if an officer asks them how you are performing.
-Always show up to any raid with the proper flasks and consumables (buff food, potions, elixirs, etc). This shows that you are willing to go that extra mile and get the maximum output from your character whenever possible.
-Know your role and know the fights. A raid leader is going to be more likely to keep you on the team if you aren't constantly asking questions about the fight that could easily be answered by using your resources. That isn't to say it's not ok to ask questions, but beforehand you should have done a substantial amount of research on your own. Tankspot.com, wow.zuggaming.com, and youtube.com are excellent places to go to learn about each boss fight. Watch a video of each fight more than once, and read about it as well- this will give you the upper edge when raiding and make you look like a pro.
Learning More
This guide is obviously very general and is only intended to take you up to the gates of ICC.
Advanced information can be found in the class forums of ElitistJerks.com. In these forums, you will find guides detailing advanced mechanics of your class. A thorough understanding of your class is necessary to maximize performance. Intuition and experience is valuable, but some math-craft and theory-craft give you an edge over other players.
Further, you can learn a lot about boss encounters in raids to prepare for ICC (and other raids) on YouTube or on the Tankspot forums.
Add-ons
REQUIRED ADDONS
Deadly Boss Mods gives you warnings when bosses use special abilities or when something funky is going on
Omen: lets you know how much threat you are generating, so that the boss doesn’t attack you
GearScore:I am not the biggest fan of this add-on, but the fact is that everyone’s using it, so you should be able to tell someone your GearScore if asked. This add-on will tell you what it is.
AtlasLoot enhanced: A great add-on for knowing what gear drops in what instance, a must have for finding upgrades in my opinion.
ADDITIONAL ADDONS THAT MIGHT HELP
Pally Power: Awesome add-on for paladins to get buffs sorted out
Bartender: This is a helpful add-on for most classes if you have problems with, or don't care for the stock UI. This add-on allows you to move any of your action bars to anyplace you want anywhere on the screen, it also makes them a bit more compact and adds some other very helpful options. It takes a while to set up properly but can be well worth it in the end for many players.
Grid: A great add-on for healers that includes status indicators for health, mana, incoming heals, aggro/threat, buffs and debuffs, range, and ready checks- as well as many different indicators, including: center text, center icon, frame border, frame opacity, and colored squares in each of the four corners.
Carbonite- Provides a number of very helpful things in game. Detailed maps of every zone and instance in the game, information on completing quests, a small map that appears on your screen that you can move around (I usually remove this during raids though) and many other things as well.
Outfitter- Provides simple, 1-click wardrobe changes. This can come in very handy for people that have 2 different specs that they raid with (IE a druid who has a healing set and a tanking set). You can also program it to automatically change your outfit whenever you change specs, or go into a different stance or presence.
Allene's Fake Achievement- I am listing this add-on ONLY for its proper use in my opinion, which is to help you get into pug raids when you have sufficient gear and you know the fights inside and out. Some PUG raid leaders out there are absolutely ridiculous when it comes to requiring an overly high GearScore and an achievement for anyone and any raid. This can also be handy if you have done something on a main character but simply haven't done it yet on your alt. NEVER USE THIS ON GUIDIES- its bad policy
There are many many more add-ons out there, but those are the basics and its best to run those when starting out, but also don't get carried away and run too many add-ons either as they can become confusing as well as cause lag in the long run- and that isn't what you should be focusing on during your first raids!
If you have any more suggestions for additional Add-Ons that should be listed here please let me know. I am not that pro on the add-on department as I only use a couple of them myself (the ones listed primarily)
I really hope you have all enjoyed my guide, I know many of you are much more advances than this and much of this could be considered common sense, but you would be surprised how many players out there don't understand much of this information.
Good Luck And Happy Gaming!
You may already know a lot of what’s in this guide, but spend a few minutes (while in queue for a heroic, perhaps?) and you might pick a thing or two up.
Corrections, comments, suggestions, and requests for more information warmly welcomed.
GearScore. What is it and how useful is it?
GearScore is an add-on that assigns a value to items. Theoretically, the better item gets the better score. When a player tells you they have 5000GS, they are referring to the total value of all their items.
Many criticize the add-on, including myself, for being overly simplistic. The ‘lower’ item is not always going to be the worst item (namely with trinkets): use it with caution. It is, however, useful as a general guide in comparing items and players, and useful as a basis on whether you are in the range of gear for a particular instance or not.
If you haven’t already realized it, you’re going to have to increase your GS to get into PUG raids. For this reason, a lot of this guide is focused on increasing your GearScore, which feels dirty as we should really be talking about stats, but GearScore is what the kids look for these days.
When forming a raid, no one cares about your stats anymore, they only want to know your GS. That is why I seem to talk a lot about improving your GS in this guide, even though I don’t like the add-on all that much. But remember: GS will get you into a raid, but you need the stats to perform well!
The other thing I want to point out for the newer 80s out there is Item Level. You want to make sure you have this turned on, as it is a great basis of telling what item is in a higher "tier" if you aren't as great at reading specific stats. Go into Interface settings, Display, and check the box that says "Show Item Levels". Now when you mouse over an item in your inventory (or someone else's) it will display the Item level on it as well, Example would be "Item Level 232" which is T9.
Item Level Guide
200- T7
213- T7.5
219- T8
226- T8.5
232- T9
245- T9.5
251- T10
264- T10.5
277- T10.5 Heroic
THERE ARE OTHER ITEM LEVELS IN THE GAME AS WELL, FOR CERTAIN HEROIC MODES AS WELL, BUT THAT CHART SHOULD GIVE YOU THE BASIS ON WHAT EACH ITEM LEVEL IS EQUIVILLENT TO. Also note that an item level 232 for example, is not necessarily part of the T9 SET.. it is just of an equivillent item level
TALENT BUILDS
I simply dont have the time or in-depth knowledge to list a perfect spec for every class and every role out there in the game today. But what I am going to do is link a site for each class below that has a lot of wonderful information on the speccing and glyphing of each corresponding class.
Know Your Rotation
Prior to level 80, you can get away with simply casting whatever spell or ability seems good to you and that is all fine and great for leveling, But for raiding you need to establish a "Rotation" which is a sequence of spells or abilities that you use over and over again in order to maximize DPS output. This is mostly crucial for DPS classes, and tanks use them as well. Healers aren't so much into the rotation as they use whatever spell they need to get the proper amount of healing and mana use for the situation.
The sites about that I have provided you for guides on class specific builds have the rotation listed with the build as well. Make sure you are using the proper rotation for the spec you have chosen, failing to use a rotation will get you kicked from a pug faster than you can say "clicker", because your DPS output will suffer greatly. KNOW YOUR ROTATION, USE IT and enjoy your chart topping dps.
PRO TIP!!
Hit your spell cast (or melee attack) button about 1/2 second before it is off global cooldown...this will increase DPS a bit as it compensates for latency
Bind your Keys
You may have gotten away with clicking your abilities prior to level 80, and many people still do at level 80. However, it requires a much greater deal of effort in most cases to use the mouse to conduct your rotation over and over.
The best way to combat this is to go into your "Key Bindings" settings panel in WoW, within there it will give you the option to chose which keyboard button uses which square on the action bar (and therefore the corresponding spell). This is going to make your life 10000% simpler during a raid. For example on my death knight all I have to do to put out chart-topping DPS is hit 1,2,3,3,4,5,4,3,3,3,3 and repeat. That would be a lot of mouse moving and clicking if I didn't have my keys bound. So it is my advice that you do this as soon as you start raiding to prevent tendinitis lol.
Getting the Achievement
The other frustration new 80s encounter when trying to get into raids is that they don’t have the achievement. Here are some ways around that…
1. Guild. If – and only if – you have exhausted all means of gearing yourself up WITHOUT OTHERS CARRYING YOU, and the only way to progress with gear is to get that damn achievement, ask the guild. They might organize a run, or we might join PUGs with you (a raid is going to be more likely to take a lower geared player if they get a higher geared player to make up for it).
2. Be Brave and Ask. YouTube has many video guides, with which you can learn how to fight a particular raid. If you can tell a raid leader that you know the fights, they might be nice and include you.
3. The Ol’ Switcheroo. This is a bit naughty, but it’s what I did ^^. Fact: 90% of people are idiots. So many raid leaders don’t even check achievements when they ask you to link them. So just link the blank achievement and wait for your invite. I figure, if the raid leader is enough of an idiot not to check achievements, he’s fair game. Note: it will be awkward when you earn the achievement in the raid. This method may, however, get you onto a few ignore lists.
4. Also a bit devious (but people deserve it for requiring GS and achievements rather than skill IMO). Overachiever, or Allene's Fake Achievement are both add-ons that I have used. What you do is you link a blank achievement with a command behind it (For AFA it would be /AFA [The Fall Of Naxxrammas] 2009-01-19, or whatever date you want in there). There is other add-ons out there as well and most of them can be found at curse.com
Gearing Up
Hit Rating – The most valuable stat for ALL dps classes
Completely uninformed players ignore hit when, in fact, hit rating is THE MOST IMPORTANT STAT FOR ALL DPS CLASSES. Don’t even try to argue with me on this point, because you’re wrong.
Hit rating reduces your chance to miss. At level 80, 32.79 hit reduces your chance to miss by 1%. Several classes have abilities and talents which also reduce their chance to miss.
You NEED to reach hit cap, which is when you have sufficient hit rating that your attacks will never miss.
By the time you’re raiding ICC, you’re going to want most or all your hit rating coming from gear as gear is the most efficient source of hit. While you’re gearing up, though, you can use gems and enchants to improve your hit rating.
Of course, once you’ve reached hit cap, additional hit does absolutely nothing for you.
The following is the hit rating required to never miss against a level 83 (i.e. a raid level boss):
Warrior
262.32
(163.95 with 3/3 precision)
Paladin
262.32
(131.16 with 2/2 enlightened judgment)
Hunter
262.32
(163.95 with 3/3 focused aim)
Rogue
262.32
(98.37 with 5/5 precision)
Priest
445.94
(367.25 with 3/3 shadow focus)
(367.25 with misery)
(288.55 with 3/3 shadow focus and misery)
Death Knight
262.32
(163.95 with 3/3 nerves of cold steal when dual wielding)
Death Coil, Icy Touch, Howling Blast
445.91
(Dont try to get capped in this, but for Dual Wield frost Knights you want to have a bit more hit than with a 2 handed weapon)
Shaman
Spells: 445.94
(367.25 with 3/3 elemental precision)
Melee: 262.32
(65.58 with dual wield specialization when dual wielding)
Mage
445.94
(367.25 with 3/3 precision)
(267.25 for arcane only with 3/3 arcane focus)
(288.55 for arcane only with arcane focus and precision)
Warlock
445.94
(367.25 with 3/3 suppression)
Druid
Spell: 445.94
(341.02 with 2/2 balance of power)
(367.25 with improved faerie fire)
(262.32 with 2/2 balance of power and improved faerie fire)
Melee: 262.32
On the subject of Hit rating, a player will still miss against raid bosses (melee, and I think hunters) but a caster will not. It is probably worth mentioning that those hit caps are the "yellow" hit caps, and only ensure that your abilities can't miss. It is probably also worth mentioning that missing and being dodged/parried are different.
Another point on hit, might be to include what you need to reach with/without the Draeni hit buff and/or Misery or the Improved Faerie Fire.
For rogues, they also care about spell hit, as their poisons do not use melee hit values, but spell, so for a Mut rogue they actually want 315 hit (assuming 5/5 precision) so that their poisons (which they spec into) never miss. For a combat rogue, spell hit is slightly less valuable, but is still better than any other stat until you are approacing the ArP hard cap which requires at least full 264, and thus is not relevant for this guide. That said, combat rogues too should be trying for the spell cap, but they (as well as DK's) get full bonuses for their "spells" from the other hit buffs:
Extra buffs or debuffs Specials Poisons White
None 99 315 722
Imp FF or Misery 99 237 722
Imp FF or Misery & Heroic Presence (draenei) 66 210 689
(all assuming 5/5 precision).
The white hit cap is clearly not worth reaching, and all the modeling supports this, but at least for rogues the poison hit cap is super important, and deserves mention."
Tier Sets – Get Tier 9 (or 10!) as a priority before ICC
Tier sets are amazing as they give set bonuses. These set bonuses are very valuable. For example, when ICC came out, a lot of people didn’t even replace their teir9 items with tier10 until they had enough for at least the 2-item bonus.
5 items make up a set, but you only need 4 of them to get the bonuses. My recommendation is to have at least 4 of them equipped always, even if you have another item with better stats, as the bonuses are so sexy.
Get your tier 9 as a priority before entering ICC.
The Pre-Raid Grind – Part One of Gearing Up
The first part of gearing up is farming heroics. It sucks horribly. But once it’s done, it’s done.
Every day you should do the following heroics, as the gear that drops in them is quite good: TOC, FoS, PoS, and HoR. Then just do random heroics for the triumphs.
Triumphs can be converted down to lesser emblems, if necessary, to buy additional items: 1 Triumph = 1 Conquest = 1 Valor = 1 Heroism. With these emblems, you can buy the following equipment to ‘fill in the blanks’ of your pre-raid gear:
Head – Triumph (tier vendor)
Neck - Conquest
Shoulder – Triumphs (tier vendor)
Back - Valor
Chest – Triumph (tier vendor)
Wrist - Valor
Hands – Triumph (tier vendor)
Waist - Conquest
Legs – Triumph (tier vendor)
Feet - Valor
Ring1 - Triumph
Ring2 - Valor
Trinket 1 - Triumph
Trinket2 - Triumph
Main Hand – Sorry, nothing available from emblems. Find the best you can in a heroic (hint: ICC drops the battered hilt which starts a pro quest, but it’s very rare)!
Off Hand - Heroism
Ranged - Triumph
Between the heroics I’ve listed above and the gear that can be bought with emblems, you should be able to hit about 4.5k GearScore. Look at what drops in the heroics I listed, and also what is available to your class for which emblems, decide what the best pre-raid item you can get is… and go get it!
WowWiki has information on what drops in the heroics I listed, and you can go look at what the vendors offer in Dalaran. Spend a few minutes, have a think, make a shopping list.
Phase two: Starter Raids – ToC, Onyxia, and the others
So, you’ve gotten absolutely every last item you can from farming triumphs and running the better heroics. You now have around 4.7k GS and are sufficiently geared to raid TOC and Onyxia, which is where the real upgrades are. Keep doing these, week in and week out, until you reach about 5k GS.
Get into other raids, if you can, as well. Naxx, Ulduar, OS, and EoE will most likely all contain upgrades (even though they may only be minor upgrades). WowWiki is an easy to use source of information about what loot drops where. Unfortunately, people tend to neglect these ‘other’ raids nowadays. If an item increases your GS by 20, that’s still going to make it easier to get into a PUG.
YouTube has many guides on the bosses you will encounter in all raids, and I recommend highly watching these videos before attempting a boss for the first time.
Importantly, you are now sufficiently gear to not have a hard time getting invited to the Weekly Raid Quests, which will grant you additional Frost emblems, putting you on the road to tier 10 items.
Phase three: ICC!
So you’ve reach 5k GS! Grats! There are probably still upgrades in ToC and Onyxia for you, and keep trying to get them, but start trying to join ICC raids now as well to accelerate your gear up.
RAIDING GUILDS
One of the best ways to get a good experience in endgame content is to join a raiding guild. There is many of these out there ranging from more casual players all the way up to committed heroic mode core guilds. It is in your best interest to try and get into a raid guild if you have the time and you plan to make raiding a more serious endeavor. Here are some hints on how to get yourself into a raiding guild and move up to a core spot as quickly as possible.
- Many of these guilds require you to apply on their website in order to join. When applying for a guild on the site it is important to use proper grammar and act somewhat "professional" as this gives them the confirmation that you will act in a mature and collected way in their vent server as well as guild chat.
- A good place to start out in your quest to find a raiding guild is to go to the official World of Warcraft Realm forums.. located HERE. Many guilds advertise here and also should have a link to their guild page on it as well.
-Make sure that when you have an application pending you have your character gemmed and enchanted properly, and that you are logging out every night with your main spec (the one you plan to raid with) activated and your main spec gear on your character. The reason for this is that whatever gear you log out wearing is the gear that the recruiter will see when you looks into the armory link you have provided.
- Most guilds are more than happy to assist the "right" player in obtaining better base gear to fulfill their raiding needs. That being said however it is important to have the correct gems and enchantments on any piece of gear you are wearing on the armory (even if it's a crappy piece). This shows that you know your class role and how to gear it properly, but just haven't had the opportunity to obtain the proper piece of gear yet, and they will be much more likely to help you do this.
-When you join a raiding guild you are almost certainly going to be put into a "trial" or "standby" rank. Guilds do this for a couple of reasons. First reason being that they may not have a spot in their core group for you just yet, second reason being that they want to monitor you for a week or two to make sure you are the man for the job. During this trial period it is absolutely crucial that you show up to any raids that you sign up for, and also make sure that you spend some time running heroics and raids with them whenever you are online and you see a guildie looking for someone to join their group for a pug or whatever. This will give you a good standing with the members and they will be more likely to give you a good word if an officer asks them how you are performing.
-Always show up to any raid with the proper flasks and consumables (buff food, potions, elixirs, etc). This shows that you are willing to go that extra mile and get the maximum output from your character whenever possible.
-Know your role and know the fights. A raid leader is going to be more likely to keep you on the team if you aren't constantly asking questions about the fight that could easily be answered by using your resources. That isn't to say it's not ok to ask questions, but beforehand you should have done a substantial amount of research on your own. Tankspot.com, wow.zuggaming.com, and youtube.com are excellent places to go to learn about each boss fight. Watch a video of each fight more than once, and read about it as well- this will give you the upper edge when raiding and make you look like a pro.
Learning More
This guide is obviously very general and is only intended to take you up to the gates of ICC.
Advanced information can be found in the class forums of ElitistJerks.com. In these forums, you will find guides detailing advanced mechanics of your class. A thorough understanding of your class is necessary to maximize performance. Intuition and experience is valuable, but some math-craft and theory-craft give you an edge over other players.
Further, you can learn a lot about boss encounters in raids to prepare for ICC (and other raids) on YouTube or on the Tankspot forums.
Add-ons
REQUIRED ADDONS
Deadly Boss Mods gives you warnings when bosses use special abilities or when something funky is going on
Omen: lets you know how much threat you are generating, so that the boss doesn’t attack you
GearScore:I am not the biggest fan of this add-on, but the fact is that everyone’s using it, so you should be able to tell someone your GearScore if asked. This add-on will tell you what it is.
AtlasLoot enhanced: A great add-on for knowing what gear drops in what instance, a must have for finding upgrades in my opinion.
ADDITIONAL ADDONS THAT MIGHT HELP
Pally Power: Awesome add-on for paladins to get buffs sorted out
Bartender: This is a helpful add-on for most classes if you have problems with, or don't care for the stock UI. This add-on allows you to move any of your action bars to anyplace you want anywhere on the screen, it also makes them a bit more compact and adds some other very helpful options. It takes a while to set up properly but can be well worth it in the end for many players.
Grid: A great add-on for healers that includes status indicators for health, mana, incoming heals, aggro/threat, buffs and debuffs, range, and ready checks- as well as many different indicators, including: center text, center icon, frame border, frame opacity, and colored squares in each of the four corners.
Carbonite- Provides a number of very helpful things in game. Detailed maps of every zone and instance in the game, information on completing quests, a small map that appears on your screen that you can move around (I usually remove this during raids though) and many other things as well.
Outfitter- Provides simple, 1-click wardrobe changes. This can come in very handy for people that have 2 different specs that they raid with (IE a druid who has a healing set and a tanking set). You can also program it to automatically change your outfit whenever you change specs, or go into a different stance or presence.
Allene's Fake Achievement- I am listing this add-on ONLY for its proper use in my opinion, which is to help you get into pug raids when you have sufficient gear and you know the fights inside and out. Some PUG raid leaders out there are absolutely ridiculous when it comes to requiring an overly high GearScore and an achievement for anyone and any raid. This can also be handy if you have done something on a main character but simply haven't done it yet on your alt. NEVER USE THIS ON GUIDIES- its bad policy
There are many many more add-ons out there, but those are the basics and its best to run those when starting out, but also don't get carried away and run too many add-ons either as they can become confusing as well as cause lag in the long run- and that isn't what you should be focusing on during your first raids!
If you have any more suggestions for additional Add-Ons that should be listed here please let me know. I am not that pro on the add-on department as I only use a couple of them myself (the ones listed primarily)
I really hope you have all enjoyed my guide, I know many of you are much more advances than this and much of this could be considered common sense, but you would be surprised how many players out there don't understand much of this information.
Good Luck And Happy Gaming!
30.000 Gold in 40 hours as Rogue
Requirements:
* Level 75-80 Rogue
* MOLL-E (Portable mailbox, not essential but required for maximum gold making.)
* Lust for repetetive work
Rogue Glyphs:
* Glyph of Pick lock
* Glyph of Pick pocket
Good talents to use:
* Master of deception (full)
* Camouflage (full)
The guide:
Basically what you do is pick pocket ever mob in the Lower Blackrock spire for lockboxes. Theese lockboxes are used for ravenholdt rep, and are therefore essential for people who are going for the "insane" title. Obviously dont rush yourself into doing this. You will need to find someone who is going for the title, and is interested in paying you per lockbox. In the video, the player is receiving 13g per lockbox, therefor he would theoretically make 30k in 40 hours. You and i both know this is very server dependant, so keep an eye on your trade chat and the realm forum for people who are buying lockboxes! The video guide will show you exactly how it is done.
Here is the macro used for pickpocketing the mobs:
/console set targetnearestdistance 10
/cleartarget
/targetenemy [target=target, noexists]
/cast pick pocket
And here's a video
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Way to Dalaran Arena (Beneath the sewers)
1. Go to the arena item sellers in Circle of Wills.
2. Jump up on these:
1. Go to the arena item sellers in Circle of Wills.
3. Mount up, and just before the mount is up, jump.
4. Jump several times until your on the roof above.
5. Move to this spot:
6. Repeat the mount process, then slowly jump backwards til' you get here :
7.Now, dismount and take a little leap down to the arena. Use slowfall or such if you have it. Try not to land on this part:
8. Done!
2. Jump up on these:
1. Go to the arena item sellers in Circle of Wills.
3. Mount up, and just before the mount is up, jump.
4. Jump several times until your on the roof above.
5. Move to this spot:
6. Repeat the mount process, then slowly jump backwards til' you get here :
7.Now, dismount and take a little leap down to the arena. Use slowfall or such if you have it. Try not to land on this part:
8. Done!
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Newbie/Common Knowledge Guide
Hello everyone! Tonight I will show you some of the facts of WoW that everyone knows, but is hard to find written somewhere! I've seen people doing things wrong that are so common knowledge to ME that it's rather stupid, so instead of complaining about it, i'm trying to help atleast someone with this guide.
This guide WILL require your help! If you find anything regarded common knowledge or worth knowing for a newbie, go ahead and write it and I'll add it if it's good.
Mob = Hostile creature (AKA enemy)
DPS = Damage Per Second (A person doing damage to mobs)
Tank = The person responsible of NOT letting the DPS and the healer die by getting hit by mobs.
1.
If you are melee DPS, do not stand infront of the boss/mobs and dps when possible. If you are standing infront of the mobs they will be able to for example parry. And why isn't parry good?
2.
When a mob parries your attack, it will strike the person it is hitting one extra time! So if you are going against a raid-boss and standing infront of the boss and he parries, the tank will get hit one extra time. (Not good)
3.
In the starter zones you can doubleclick the questgivers to accept the quests. (Why they stop doing that AFTER the startzones is beyond me.)
4.
Heirloom items that are made out of mail will be converted to leather when used on hunter or shaman below level 40.
5.
Superior and Epic can be achieved easier by buying items for emblems, equipping and selling them back. Also you can switch your trinket and ring slots around and get extra there aswell.
6.
If you sit down and eat, you can stealth afterwards and you will keep eating. You can't stealth first and then start eating however.
7.
If you are being ganked very hard by some irritating pricks in STV, use the "unstuck" feature in help menu before ressing and 0.5 seconds before the cast is done, ress and it will HS you directly.
8.
The sockets in gems are NOT limited to only that color. You can put any kind of color in any gemslot, but you will only get the "socket bonus" If you follow the colors however.
9.
Be polite and ask BEFORE inviting or dueling. Otherwise it is considered rude and people might have a negative way of replying you. (Also don't spam them with guild charters)
10.
Sometimes there is fire in WoW. You need not to be in it. Seriously, just move out of it. Fire hurts.
11.
When you sit down people will ALWAYS crit you with melee-hits. Spells will not however.
Battlegrounds: How to play each of them.
Warsong Gulch
Your objective is to grab the opponents flag inside of their base and score it inside your own base. You can only score if you haven't lost your flag. You can't use any immunity effects or mount up while having the flag, or you will drop it.
Arathi Basin
Your objective is to capture the bases, by clicking on the flag. After you've clicked the flag the base will be contested, and a timer will start ticking. When the timer have gone all the way, you will capture it and you will start gaining points from that base. You will also be able to ressurect there. The more bases you have, the faster the points will tick. Also you can stop the other team from capturing your bases by capping the flag, called Defending.
Alterac Valley
This is a huge battlefield, you will start at each of your own end and make your way down to the other end of the battlefield. There are 4 towers/bunkers for each team and a special captain for each team. You also have 600 resources. The objective is to empty the other teams resources by killing them (One death drains one resource), but by capping a tower or bunker it take away 75 resources from the other team. You cap them the same way as in Arathi Basin. When you capture a tower or a bunker the captain (AKA the boss) will lose a guard and 25% hp. By capturing more towers you can make the fight much easier and win by killing the captain - Drek'tar for alliance and Vanndar Stormpike for the horde.
Eye of the Storm
This is a mix between Arathi basin and Warsong Gulch. There are 4 bases capturable by standing close to them and watching the meter grow in your color (Blue for alliance, red for horde). When it reaches the color the base will be yours. There is also a flag in the middle, which you can pick up (takes 10 seconds) And run with to a base you own, capping it and increasing your score. When a team reaches 1600 points, that team wins.
Strand of the Ancients
This battleground got two scenarios, defending and attacking. If you are attacking you are starting on the beach D-day style. Use the demolishers and bombs laying by the docks to shoot down the gates. When you are inside the gates, there is a flag on the inside you can capture which will make you spawn there and also the workshop will create demolishers for you. Make your way through 4 gates and you will reach the titan relic, all you need to do is click it to win.
Then it's time for defending. You need to kill the demolishers and disarm the bombs by clicking on them. You can also use cannons by the gates if you are too low geared to do any real damage on your own to the demolishers. Also try to defend the flags and you should be alright. The fastest team who captures the titan relic wins.
Isle of Conquest
The newest battleground added. It is inspired by Alterac Valley and feels like an medieval battle... with bombs. Anyway, the objective is to kill the captain holed up inside the opponents base, that coward. By capturing the Quarry and Docks you will increase the damage done by seiges by 5% each. By capturing the hangar you will be able to board a giant airship that will float above the enemies castle where you can shoot with cannons or jump off, spawning a parachute and you can bomb the gates from the inside. Capturing the Docks will give you glaives and catapults, which can launch you over the gates and bomb from the inside. If you capture the workshop in the middle you will get demolishers and a siege machine spawned. Use these to get the gates down.
This guide WILL require your help! If you find anything regarded common knowledge or worth knowing for a newbie, go ahead and write it and I'll add it if it's good.
Mob = Hostile creature (AKA enemy)
DPS = Damage Per Second (A person doing damage to mobs)
Tank = The person responsible of NOT letting the DPS and the healer die by getting hit by mobs.
1.
If you are melee DPS, do not stand infront of the boss/mobs and dps when possible. If you are standing infront of the mobs they will be able to for example parry. And why isn't parry good?
2.
When a mob parries your attack, it will strike the person it is hitting one extra time! So if you are going against a raid-boss and standing infront of the boss and he parries, the tank will get hit one extra time. (Not good)
3.
In the starter zones you can doubleclick the questgivers to accept the quests. (Why they stop doing that AFTER the startzones is beyond me.)
4.
Heirloom items that are made out of mail will be converted to leather when used on hunter or shaman below level 40.
5.
Superior and Epic can be achieved easier by buying items for emblems, equipping and selling them back. Also you can switch your trinket and ring slots around and get extra there aswell.
6.
If you sit down and eat, you can stealth afterwards and you will keep eating. You can't stealth first and then start eating however.
7.
If you are being ganked very hard by some irritating pricks in STV, use the "unstuck" feature in help menu before ressing and 0.5 seconds before the cast is done, ress and it will HS you directly.
8.
The sockets in gems are NOT limited to only that color. You can put any kind of color in any gemslot, but you will only get the "socket bonus" If you follow the colors however.
9.
Be polite and ask BEFORE inviting or dueling. Otherwise it is considered rude and people might have a negative way of replying you. (Also don't spam them with guild charters)
10.
Sometimes there is fire in WoW. You need not to be in it. Seriously, just move out of it. Fire hurts.
11.
When you sit down people will ALWAYS crit you with melee-hits. Spells will not however.
Battlegrounds: How to play each of them.
Warsong Gulch
Your objective is to grab the opponents flag inside of their base and score it inside your own base. You can only score if you haven't lost your flag. You can't use any immunity effects or mount up while having the flag, or you will drop it.
Arathi Basin
Your objective is to capture the bases, by clicking on the flag. After you've clicked the flag the base will be contested, and a timer will start ticking. When the timer have gone all the way, you will capture it and you will start gaining points from that base. You will also be able to ressurect there. The more bases you have, the faster the points will tick. Also you can stop the other team from capturing your bases by capping the flag, called Defending.
Alterac Valley
This is a huge battlefield, you will start at each of your own end and make your way down to the other end of the battlefield. There are 4 towers/bunkers for each team and a special captain for each team. You also have 600 resources. The objective is to empty the other teams resources by killing them (One death drains one resource), but by capping a tower or bunker it take away 75 resources from the other team. You cap them the same way as in Arathi Basin. When you capture a tower or a bunker the captain (AKA the boss) will lose a guard and 25% hp. By capturing more towers you can make the fight much easier and win by killing the captain - Drek'tar for alliance and Vanndar Stormpike for the horde.
Eye of the Storm
This is a mix between Arathi basin and Warsong Gulch. There are 4 bases capturable by standing close to them and watching the meter grow in your color (Blue for alliance, red for horde). When it reaches the color the base will be yours. There is also a flag in the middle, which you can pick up (takes 10 seconds) And run with to a base you own, capping it and increasing your score. When a team reaches 1600 points, that team wins.
Strand of the Ancients
This battleground got two scenarios, defending and attacking. If you are attacking you are starting on the beach D-day style. Use the demolishers and bombs laying by the docks to shoot down the gates. When you are inside the gates, there is a flag on the inside you can capture which will make you spawn there and also the workshop will create demolishers for you. Make your way through 4 gates and you will reach the titan relic, all you need to do is click it to win.
Then it's time for defending. You need to kill the demolishers and disarm the bombs by clicking on them. You can also use cannons by the gates if you are too low geared to do any real damage on your own to the demolishers. Also try to defend the flags and you should be alright. The fastest team who captures the titan relic wins.
Isle of Conquest
The newest battleground added. It is inspired by Alterac Valley and feels like an medieval battle... with bombs. Anyway, the objective is to kill the captain holed up inside the opponents base, that coward. By capturing the Quarry and Docks you will increase the damage done by seiges by 5% each. By capturing the hangar you will be able to board a giant airship that will float above the enemies castle where you can shoot with cannons or jump off, spawning a parachute and you can bomb the gates from the inside. Capturing the Docks will give you glaives and catapults, which can launch you over the gates and bomb from the inside. If you capture the workshop in the middle you will get demolishers and a siege machine spawned. Use these to get the gates down.
Getting to Old Ironforge
The duel trick, where a mage has to sheep you, doesn't work anymore; I think my way is a good, maybe the only(?!), possibility to go to old ironforge!
Do just what I'm doing in the pictures and it will be very easy for you to get there!
I think its doable with every class, only for the classes warrior, dk, hunter, druid it might be a bit more difficult, because they dont have a soulstone or slow fall effects; but a friendly warlock could give you a soulstone anyway, so its doable with every class!
You need a mammoth for this! The flask I'm using in the pictures isn't nessesary but makes it easier!
And now, let the pictures speak!
This is your starting position.
Go up the stairs.
Go to the Boxes and if you're playing warlock, place your circle to avoid death if you're falling through the world.
Mount on your Mammoth and JUMP, just jump around till your character looks through the roof. Then dismount and jump normaly by just pressing normal "space". You're on the top of the house now, place your circle again to "save" your position.
Do a normal forward jump, you have to stand a bit in the air, like in most exploits (I guess u know what I mean) to reach the next roof.
Place your circle again to "save".
Jump down to the balcony.
Jump into the first alcove and let your char look EXACTLY in the same direction then mine char does, to avoid falling through the world or landing in the magma of old ironforge!
Mount on your mammoth and jump forward, only forward; otherwise you might miss the correct position on the other side of the wall! You might have to jump a couple of times untill you "break" through the wall. To Mages & Priests or players who have these special slow fall pots: Make sure you're ready to activate them instantly after you went through the wall! Otherwise you will be dead!
Dead like me^^; Use your soulstone, ankh or whatever...
Enjoy Old Ironforge
I hope you enjoyed my guide to old ironforge; happy exploiting
Do just what I'm doing in the pictures and it will be very easy for you to get there!
I think its doable with every class, only for the classes warrior, dk, hunter, druid it might be a bit more difficult, because they dont have a soulstone or slow fall effects; but a friendly warlock could give you a soulstone anyway, so its doable with every class!
You need a mammoth for this! The flask I'm using in the pictures isn't nessesary but makes it easier!
And now, let the pictures speak!
This is your starting position.
Go up the stairs.
Go to the Boxes and if you're playing warlock, place your circle to avoid death if you're falling through the world.
Mount on your Mammoth and JUMP, just jump around till your character looks through the roof. Then dismount and jump normaly by just pressing normal "space". You're on the top of the house now, place your circle again to "save" your position.
Do a normal forward jump, you have to stand a bit in the air, like in most exploits (I guess u know what I mean) to reach the next roof.
Place your circle again to "save".
Jump down to the balcony.
Jump into the first alcove and let your char look EXACTLY in the same direction then mine char does, to avoid falling through the world or landing in the magma of old ironforge!
Mount on your mammoth and jump forward, only forward; otherwise you might miss the correct position on the other side of the wall! You might have to jump a couple of times untill you "break" through the wall. To Mages & Priests or players who have these special slow fall pots: Make sure you're ready to activate them instantly after you went through the wall! Otherwise you will be dead!
Dead like me^^; Use your soulstone, ankh or whatever...
Enjoy Old Ironforge
I hope you enjoyed my guide to old ironforge; happy exploiting
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Easy gold farming as Druid
While i was leveling my druid today and doing a quest called Rifle the Bodies . The quest basicly tells you to loot dead bodies in a scertain arena. Those bodies drops a blue bag called Mage Hunter Personal Effects.
The bag always drop a gray item that stacks in 10 and sells individually for 10s.
The place itself is located in dragonblight - Map.
You'll be running in circles around the lake collecting bodies.
There will be mobs around the bodies but since we druids dont need to cancel Flight form to loot we can just run past those.
The bodies have a fast respawn timer and making small circles around the lake makes it non-stop farming.
Fill your bags with the bags before looting. You will occasinally loot a item called Moonrest Gardens Plans (the quest item), if you have this item in your bag you wont be able to loot more bodies.
This is easily fixed by just deleting the item and keep on farming.
Testing:
This is the part which i think you are going to hate me for.
I did farm here for about 5 minutes and that netted me around 17g.
17x12=204.
So it's only 200g/hour.
This might seem little to you but i hope that someone could take benefit from it since it can be done on all servers.
The bag always drop a gray item that stacks in 10 and sells individually for 10s.
The place itself is located in dragonblight - Map.
You'll be running in circles around the lake collecting bodies.
There will be mobs around the bodies but since we druids dont need to cancel Flight form to loot we can just run past those.
The bodies have a fast respawn timer and making small circles around the lake makes it non-stop farming.
Fill your bags with the bags before looting. You will occasinally loot a item called Moonrest Gardens Plans (the quest item), if you have this item in your bag you wont be able to loot more bodies.
This is easily fixed by just deleting the item and keep on farming.
Testing:
This is the part which i think you are going to hate me for.
I did farm here for about 5 minutes and that netted me around 17g.
17x12=204.
So it's only 200g/hour.
This might seem little to you but i hope that someone could take benefit from it since it can be done on all servers.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Cataclysm "Friends and Family Beta" has begun
It seems that World of Warcraft's latest expansion, Cataclysm, has entered into the "Friends and Family Beta" phase - which is slightly behind where many Warcraft players were hoping. Blizzard, through a forum post, has just confirmed that their latest project, which will be the third expansion pack to expand upon the Warcraft universe, has entered the Alpha Beta phase.
As you most likely gathered from above, unless you have connections from within Blizzard, you will not gain access to this beta. The official message, posted by Zarhym, a community manager and Blizzard employee, can be seen below:
"Yes, we can confirm that the Family & Friends phase of the testing process for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has begun. The closed beta test phase has not yet started, but we will provide updated information when it does."
Along with this confirmation, it seems that someone has leaked a photo of "Deathwing," the main antagonist in Cataclysm. You can find this picture above, and if I may so say myself, it looks quite spectacular!
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Dalaran Well Exploit
I recently discovered this and thought I should post it here.
Buy a : Blue Crashin' Thrashin' Racer Controller
Use the toy car to jump into the well(the one with the portal) near Dalaran's North bank.
You wont get teleported by the portal, instead you will stay in mid air. Start driving in circles and spam the turbo untill you fall down the well. Next you will be near a big bad crocodile and the whole sewers are yours to explore.
http://img190.imageshack.us/i/wowscrnshot042310014202.jpg/
Buy a : Blue Crashin' Thrashin' Racer Controller
Use the toy car to jump into the well(the one with the portal) near Dalaran's North bank.
You wont get teleported by the portal, instead you will stay in mid air. Start driving in circles and spam the turbo untill you fall down the well. Next you will be near a big bad crocodile and the whole sewers are yours to explore.
http://img190.imageshack.us/i/wowscrnshot042310014202.jpg/
Warlock Leveling Guide (Tips&Tricks)
Warlock Leveling Guide
Last Update: Dec 2009 aka 3.3.0
This guide is still accurate as of 3.3.3 (Mar 2010)
This guide is simplified for people who want as much information as they can get as fast as possible. Good for you, this is how a Warlock works. If you want to discuss something or have a question not answered, post in this thread and we will get to it. I will reveiw this thread every couple days and update the main posts, but we have several extremely able members who can answer your questions.
If the warlock is your first character, this guide is not meant for you. It will help, but there are things in here that require a knowledge of game mechanics. I'm sorry. World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Forum Index will have more answers for you, especially in the Warlock Class section.
A quick reminder. If you have an opinion about this guide, or a response to a question, the phrases "retard" "l2play" or anything to do with someone's intellect are not appropriate responses and will be reported dealt with. We can be adults and give reasons for our disagreements.
Lastly, Jame's Alliance and Horde Leveling Guides (also available as an add-on!) are amazing and best of all free. I highly recommend the guide in conjunction with the new questing interface as they work very well together.
***CHANGE LOG***
3.3 Update - Changed 1-29 spec (more dps), updated all Affliction talents to include Improved Felhunter (now a dps boost), added a suggested 35-55 talent pick order, added some more information to leveling as Destruction.
3.2.2 Update - Renamed a bunch of sections to make more sense, moved "Nightfall" information paragraph from 1-29 to 30-54 section. Updated level 40+ pet use. Added macros and suggested ways to use your Felhunter better.
Skip this section if you don't know what I mean.
From 1-29
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IZ0GchkZVM
Glyphs: Lifetap and Unending Breath
12 Points into Demonology, then move into Destruction
@30, respec to
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IcxbbhMho
Glyphs: Lifetap, Siphon Life and Unending Breath
ending up at @54
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IfxrbhMhoiA0hk
Preferred order of talent choices based on DPS gain:
Shadow Mastery, Eradication, Improved Fel Hunter, Contagion, UA, Pandemic, Malediction
Decision time: Do you want to try something different?
"Yeah, I hear a lot about Demonology." Give this spec a shot:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IcbZ0GchkAdi0sxz
Glyphs: Lifetap, Felguard, Unending Breath, and Drain Soul
Getting to this @71
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#Ifxrbz0hoZ0GchkAdi0sxz
Glyphs: Lifetap, Felguard, Unending Breath, Drain Soul
Then whatever you want.
"NO WAY IM OP!" Don't respec.
Getting to this @70
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IfxrburhoiA0hkt0M
Glyphs: Lifetap, Siphon Life, Unending Breath, and Drain Soul
Then do whatever you want.
This section of the guide is for people who want 1-79 as simply as possible with as little fuss as possible. The spec choices reflect this and will be explained. Yes, you can go ~ANY SPEC~ 1-79 if you'd like, but this is impractical for many reasons. See the level range to find out why. Here we go.
Do this, all the time, or you're a scrub:
Spellstone - we're using dots the whole way. Spellstone makes them better. Firestone is not as potent.
Demon Armor / Fel Armor - If you do not have your armor up, you fail. Its free buffs.
Healthstones - This is your first emergency button. We all make mistakes, this is how you learn from them without dying.
Soulstones - If you are smart and don't fight in the middle of spawn points, this eliminates your downtime.
Soulshard management: "Whine! I have too many!"
Macro:
Code:
/run i="Soul Shard"d=GetItemCount(i)-20 for x=0,4 do for y=1,GetContainerNumSlots(x) do if (d>0) then l=GetContainerItemLink(x,y) if l and GetItemInfo(l)==i then PickupContainerItem(x,y) DeleteCursorItem() d=d-1 end end end end
See this text "GetItemCount(i)-20"? Replace 20 with the number of shards you want to keep. Click this macro once to destroy all but this number.
That gut feeling when you think you're going to die:
Suppress it. Embrace it. Live it. A warlock lives by constantly taking damage and shrugging it off like nothing. If you ever feel comfortable of your survival, you are not pulling enough mobs, or are extremely overgeared for the area. A Warlock is the only class in the game who can pick a fight with 20% HP and come out with full Health, Mana, and a field strewn with corpses. The only specs who comes close to this are lvl 75 Prot Warriors with Enraged Regeneration and level 73 Shadow Priests with Dispersion and Meditation. Even then, you can mop the floor with both of them.
1-29:
I'm not going to lie to you. The first 14 levels of your life as a warlock will be a living hell. You will have mana issues, health issues, and you will die a lot. This turns around at level 14 when you get Drain Life.
Purchases:
Lesser Magic Wand http://www.wowhead.com/?item=11287
Greater Magic Wand http://www.wowhead.com/?item=11288
Bloodscalp Channeling Staff http://www.wowhead.com/?item=1998
Spec:
End up at level 29 with this spec
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IZ0GchkZVM
Glyphs: Lifetap and Unending Breath
How to play:
The spec doesn't work until you get Sacrifice (16) and Drain life (14), so until then you will have to use your wand a lot. As I have said, the worst parts of leveling a warlock are these first levels. Here's how you manage:
-Only do green quests (this applies to all classes - it makes the first 20 levels that much easier)
-Do two starting areas, such as Tirisfal Glades until level 7, then migrate over to Silvermoon/Ghostlands until 11 or 12, then back to Tirisfal/Silverpine.
-Dot (Corruption) Dot (Curse of Agony) Wand till it's dead.
-Your wand is ridiculously overpowered at this level, it won't take long.
~If you are fast at moving and know the quests, you should reach 16 in 12 hours or less, not factoring in Heirloom gear~
Now that you're 16, the keys to this spec are your Wand, Corruption, Curse of Agony, Drain Life, and your Voidwalker. Leveling is all about synergy, so here is how this spec works together to make you a badass:
1) Your damage output heals your pet.
2) Your pet actively prevents damage being done to you by sacrificing part of its health.
3) Demon Armor prevents 25% of physical damage taken.
4) Your pet absorbs 20% of your damage taken.
Summary: You kill shit and heal your pet. Your pet uses this healing to make you take less damage. You kill more shit. It's a glorious cycle of violence.
Your voidwalker should have all abilities turned off and Soul Link active. "But Gherkin, he's a tank!" No. Smack yourself. Your pet is a dumb shit. He will stand in one place and tank the monster while you could be running around killing things. The second he gets aggro is the second you will a) wait for the mob to die, b) let him despawn because you go out of range, or c) pull more mobs because he stood in another mobs path. End result: if he gets aggro, you will have down time, either passively (you died) or actively (you wasted too much mana/hp trying to survive the **** up). Your pet serves two purposes: minor dps and shields. That's it.
Let's say you're doing a quest that requires you to kill boars for meat. You walk into an area with boars and it should go kind of like this: Corruption and Agony on 3 or so mobs. Your pet is running out to smack on the first one because he's set to defensive - remember that with his Taunt disabled, he will not put out enough damage to hold aggro over your dots. The other two boars are running at you, each with both dots. Hit Lifetap and Sacrifice to keep your mana up and prevent the damage. Cast drain life on the last one a few times until your hp is at or near full, then use your wand to finish him and the second mob off.
Boom, three mobs dead in around 24 seconds. Maybe a bit longer. Do this a few times until you get the hang of it, then start increasing the number of mobs you pull at a time. You should be able to handle 6 or 7 green-level mobs without heirloom gear. Key word - green mobs. Yellow mobs hit too hard, causing more damage (hit harder and more frequently due to less misses and more crits, i.e. tank mechanics) than you can safely handle in numbers.
If you happen to fight Casters (Defias Pillagers for example), they are your priority. Instead of Drain Life the last one, drain life the caster. Lastly, if you find that you can't pull this off, work Immolate into your first few mobs for extra damage.
Start thinking about your gear. You should be able to obtain 100 spell power by lvl 32 without much work, and it is highly recommended that you do so. Here's a link for things you can get between 20 and 30: http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4&filter=qu=2:3;minle=30;maxle=42;ub=9;cr=123;crs=1;crv=0#0+3-2+1
EDIT: Some people are having a hard time getting 100 spell power by lvl 32. Scroll down to the advanced topics if you are as well.
RULES OF DOT-DOT-TAB - DO NOT:
-Go below 50% health
-Go below 50% mana
-Let your pet go below 50% health
-Cast Sacrifice before a mob reaches you. Only when you have 2+ beating on you
-Fight inside a spawn point. Sometimes respawns are instant, which can get painful very fast.
-Cast Fear. Ever. It causes the mobs to unpredictably run off in a random direction, usually grabbing more mobs in the process who you did not necessarily want, see, or prepare for. Same with instances.
Why not Affliction?
Affliction's talent tree features minor damage upgrades with zero survivability options. You rely on spell power gear, and there isn't a lot of it this early on. You need to get used to being hit, because despite wearing cloth a warlock gets hit a lot. If you go affliction 1-29, you are learning how to be a shadow priest, not a warlock.
Some people advocate sticking with Affliction the whole way up, because its simpler and doesn't force you to respec. I disagree with this because of how lvl 30 works. You play Affliction and intentionally gimp yourself from 1-25 until you get all of your main arsenel of spells, and these spells become powerful enough to matter. Then you start getting spell power gear and have a few less problems. Suddenly you hit 30 and you're invincible. I don't like playing this way, as the transition is alarming and hard to get used to. If you have heirloom gear and run dungeons frequently, or if you don't mind dinging 30 and wondering if you missed a "GOD MODE ENABLED" message, feel free to stick to affliction the entire way. Scroll to the next post for your spec.
Why not Destruction?
Destruction's talent tree features major damage upgrades with zero survivability options. You will run out of mana all the time, use fear far too often, and only kill one monster at a time (two if you're good). If you go destruction 1-29, you are learning how to play a very bad mage, not a warlock.
30-54:
Respec time. You now know how to dot multiple mobs and survive, now its time to turn on extreme mode.
Purchases:
Demons Deck (new weapon at 40)
Dreamweave or Shadoweave armor
Spec:
Respec to
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IcxbbhMho
And it should look like this at 55
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IfxrbhMhoqAohk
Glyphs: Siphon Life, Lifetap and Unending Breath
Edit: If you feel like it, you can swap the points in Dark Pact and Improved Felhunter to Improved Howl of Terror. This makes it instant, but still falls under the "Try not to use fear" category. A good emergency button, but chances are you won't need it. At 42 you will use the Felhunter instead of the Succubus. Improved Felhunter means he never runs out of mana. Dark Pact means you can eat his mana and watch him fill it up again for you. Less net health cost. You only need one point in Improved Fel Hunter - two points means he shadow bites so frequently that he may pull aggro on you, and this is not the goal. One is sufficient.
How to Play:
You will be doing the exact same thing as you did before, except now you have the Succubus out. Turn off Seduction but leave her other abilities on. Pet mana has been fixed enough that she will not go OOM, and Soothing Kiss will ensure she's not tanking. Remember, pet tank = downtime so if she holds aggro even with Soothing Kiss going off, disable Lash of Pain as well. The major difference here is that now instead of pressing a button to stay alive (Sacrifice) it happens passively (Siphon Life) and you can get more healing out of Drain Life (Fel Concentration, Soul Siphon) and more mana (Imp Life Tap, Imp Drain Soul). There is no change to your strategy.
At 42, switch to your Felhunter. Keep Devour Magic and Shadow Bite on auto. Spell lock is turned off (in case you need a silence!). Shadow Bite is a good damaging ability that hits harder because you dot everything.
A word on Spell lock: If you use this ability on a caster, they will run towards you making you have to run less distance to loot them. Efficiency!
A word on Devour Magic: Devour Magic will automatically remove painful buffs from enemies as well. If you get adventurous, disable this ability and use it on yourself to dispel harmful effects such as DoTs or debuffs. Will not remove Curses, Poisons, Stuns, or Diseases. Macro:
Code:
/cast [target=player, modifier:alt] Devour Magic; Devour Magic
Alt Click for self dispel. Click for target dispel.
The limitation of this spec is a big reliance on Spell Power gear. Spell power is your most important stat because it increases your damage AND healing. Your goal should be 100 spell power by level 32 (extremely easy to achieve if you know where to look). You should already have a good start on it, but heres the link again.
http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4&filter=qu=2:3;minle=30;maxle=42;ub=9;cr=123;crs=1;crv=0#0+3-2+1
Here's your next step:
http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4&filter=qu=2:3;minle=42;maxle=55;ub=9;cr=123;crs=1;crv=0
Note that you can get 100 spell power without going into a dungeon. It is just as easy, but requires you to think about where you will be questing more. You will use the Demons Deck weapon until Outland, so if you want to enchant it you can.
You should be seeking to double your spell power every 15 levels. This means getting to 200 spell power at 45-47, 400 at 60-62 (this is a bit tougher) and 800 at 75-77 (very easy).
Nightfall Procs:
When your Corruption or Drain Life tick, they have a chance to give you a buff called Nightfall. It has a sound effect and displays these awesome black flecks on your character. It means your next Shadow bolt is instant. You will get a lot of these. A LOT. Here's when to use them:
-When you are comfortable with the amount of damage you are healing
-When you are comfortable with your current mana level
-When you want another mob to pull
A word of caution - Nightfall makes shadow bolt an extremely attractive button to press. Resist this urge because like many things it can get you killed. Shadow bolt is the least efficient single-target spell in the game. (This is intentional but I won't explain why as it requires another post by itself). When spec'd correctly with sufficient gear, this is an amazing spell. Unfortunately, this is not the case while leveling. It provides a decent burst of damage but is not your main source. As such there are times to use it and times where you shouldn't. Here's a few "shouldn't" scenarios to get you thinking the correct way.
Scenario 1: You have a lot of mobs on you and are spamming drain life. Your health is slowly dropping. Sacrifice is on cooldown. Pressing shadow bolt means 2 seconds of no heals, which can be unrecoverable if your hp is low enough.
Scenario 2: You have a lot of mobs on you and are spamming drain life. Your health is fine, but your mana is low. If you cast shadow bolt, thats 2 drain life spells you no longer have the mana for. Which means you life tap. Which means 2 seconds of no heals and a chunk of your HP missing.
Play with it. If you find that you have a lot less mana than normal, then the way you just used it is not a good idea. Myself, I use it like my pet - added damage if I need the target to die a bit sooner. So if I Corruption and Agony first, the pet will do the rest of the damage. The second can have Immolate as well to do the rest of the damage. The third I can drain. The fourth I can shadow bolt if I get a proc. The rest I drain as well.
As you level, you will reach a point where you can choose between two or three talents in order to fill out the "template". There is no right answer, pick what you like, but this order will result in more damage:
Shadow Mastery (More damage output, all spells)
Eradication (More spells out)
Improved Fel Hunter (More pet damage)
Contagion (Prerequisite to UA/Pandemic, minor dps upgrade)
UA / Pandemic (Replace Immolate with a better dot, two hardest hitting spells can crit)
Malediction (Minor dps upgrade, major crit upgrade with Pandemic)
Why not Demonology?
You start to get a lot of spell power in the 30's, and your pet doesn't increase as fast as you do. Buffing your pet at this point is like taking your stats and saying "Hi, can you make these worth less to me? I think they're too strong." It's still viable, but you will get more out of an Affliction build.
Why not Destruction?
At this point, Destruction starts losing its mana problems because you hit harder. It's just as viable as Affliction if you like that playstyle, but I just showed you how to dot and run and drain tank. This is the easymode guide, so why should I retrain you? One more thing about Destruction is that it's very crit focused - the more crit you have, the better it works. The problem is that as soon as you gain a level, your crit % goes down. This is how scaling works, and its working AGAINST you as a Destruction lock. More in the hardmode section.
55+:
This is where you can branch your playstyle. Blizzard nerfed the shit out of Outland so mobs that used to be challenging can still be steamrolled. You can continue the Affliction path or swap to a Felguard build. I'll explain how they both work, but the recommendation of people in this thread is Affliction, providing you can maintain your spell power (i.e. enchants and dungeon or heirloom gear). You can do Elite quests in both specs.
Purchases:
Nothing. Quest rewards will kick the ass of anything you can buy, or is worth buying at least.
Demonology Option:
Respec to
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IcZ0GchkAdi0sgz
And it should look like this at level 72
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#Ifxrbz0hZ0GchkAdi0sgz
Glyphs: Felguard, Lifetap, Drain Soul and Unending Breath
How to Play:
You now have the Felguard. He will do exactly half your damage from now on. The main reasons for this build are Elite quests and an excellent stat boost. First, in Outland there are a lot of elite quests, such as the Matriarch, Terrokarantula, Drillmaster, and the Nagrand Mastery quests. In these cases your Felguard will be your tank and you defeat these mobs through attrition - one dot, spamming Health Funnel, taking care of adds yourself. Secondly, the talent Demonic Knowledge lets you hit just as hard as you did in Azeroth despite the health increases mobs get in Outland.
For the Felguard, you can keep everything except Anguish (the aggro button) on auto. He will never need healing on normal mobs and if left to his own devices will usually win 1v1 against mobs. Your strategy is the exact same as it was - Corruption, Agony, (sometimes Immolate), and Drain Life as necessary. Since the quests in Outland are very different from what you were used to, killing gobs and gobs of enemies is not as important. However, it is still important to kill everything in your path, rather than run around the mobs to avoid fighting, as it is a direct experience gain with zero loss. Seriously, your Felguard hits like a truck.
One strategy that may become fun is the use of Decimation. The combo starts like this: Dot the mobs, have the pet attack one, then when a mob hits 40% hp, wind up a shadow bolt. It will impact the mob as they cross the 20% threshold and sometimes kill it. You get Decimation and have the ability to Soul Fire crit for 60% of a mob's life. Soul Fire a new mob, and hit Agony, and Shadow Bolt. This will require a bit of experimentation, but you will find a groove where you are casting Soul Fire on every single mob. Plus, if you play on a PVP server, those nasty Death Knights and Ret Paladins won't know what hit them. If this does not appeal to you, fill out the Affliction tree with these two points as per above. It means you reach Siphon Life at 71 instead of 73.
Don't forget to start using Fel Armor when you get it.
There are a lot of questions about why I choose 55 as the switchover point, here they are with answers:
Q: Why not go Felguard at 50?
A: He has no abilities and scales poorly. Thus he has no HP and dies a lot.
Q: Why don't you pick talents like Molten Core or Demonic Resilience?
A: You don't have incinerate until 64, and it relies on Immolate to prop it up. Molten Core sucks. Demonic Resilience is a no brainer because the options are 10% crit or ~200 spell power.
Q: Why Felguard at all? I was doing just fine.
A: Elites are easy mode, and you might want a change of pace. It's also kind of fun if you can learn how to chain Decimation procs.
Elites are easy for you now. Here's how to down a simple one, such as the Rock Flayer Matriarch.
Send in your Felguard with all abilities up. Wait until he is at 75% life and start channelling Health Funnel. If he seems to be taking a lot of damage, cast Curse of Weakness on the elite. Otherwise, cast Curse of Elements. Continue Health Funnel until the elite is at 75%, then start casting dots, filling the felguard to full anytime he hits 50% hp. After 2 minutes you should win.
The harder ones, such as Overlord or the dual naga's in Zangarmarsh require more finesse from you, but its a fun learning experience. I won't ruin it for you. Always be aware of the ground (your pet standing in stuff means it might die) and the abilities of the target in question. The south Naga has a knockback, so make sure the area is clear, or figure out how to reposition your pet so he gets knocked in the correct direction. The north Naga is a caster, so be careful of the frozen circle spell. Overlord summons Infernals.
Your last talent point before the final stretch will be Siphon Life. The final talent that matters. You now have Siphon Life AND a Felguard. Effectively, you are invincible. There's nothing I can say or do that won't tell you more than you already know. The rest of your points can be spent as you like (I recommend Improved Demonic Tactics, Decimation, and then Demonic Pact - these are the only "quick wins" for dps gain). ENJOY!
Affliction Option:
You will already be:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IfxrbhMhoqAohk
And it should look like this at level 65
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IfxrburhoiA0hkt0M
Glyphs: Siphon Life, Lifetap, Drain Soul and Unending Breath
You know how to play this, so I won't bore you with details.
One thing to note is that the transition to Outland will mean you pull fewer mobs at a time. This is because they gain more HP and hit harder (25% more each, approximately). For example, Yetis in Winterspring hit me for 250-300 or so. Bonechewer Orcs will hit you for 350-400. Your gear won't improve right away, but will improve. Just take it a bit slow until you approach 300+ spell power, then let her rip. If you already have 300+ spell power, then enjoy being a steamroller.
Elites: You will have a harder time with Elites, but don't worry too much. Skip them, move to the next zone, then come back and solo them. Send in your Voidwalker, wait until the void has 50% hp, Health Funnel once and fully DoT the mob (Elements > Agony for elites). Spam Shadow Bolt. Your pet will heal to full and you will get aggro. Keep Corruption and UA on the target, use Haunt on Cooldown once you get it, and spam Drain Life. You will win.
Unstable Affliction. Use this instead of Immolate from now on, and keep your playstyle the same.
Haunt. When you hit Northrend, the mobs jump up in difficulty again, so you will need a bit more healing. Corruption, Agony, Pet. Corruption, Agony, UA. Corruption, Agony, Haunt. Life Tap once or twice so that haunt heals the tap. Repeat forever.
Your final talents are up to you. Death's Embrace is useful 75+ when the mobs have 12000 hp. Improved Shadow Bolt is useful if you enjoy Nightfall procs. Soul Link and Demonic Aegis are more spell power and more survival.
Why not Destruction?
Destruction works well in Outland, but again it's a matter of ease and learning. You already know how to play two specs, why learn a third where you single target mobs really quickly? Seriously though, if you want to play this spec for a while don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Between mana cost reduction early in the tree to Improved Soul Leech the spec is more viable now than it ever has been. The only reason its not more popular is because once you figure out Affliction... well, you've seen it in action.
Start with this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IZZEbhVbcuVsVd
Glyphs: Conflagrate, Life Tap, Unending Breath, Drain Soul
End with this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IcZ0MZEbhVbcuVsVfot
Glyphs: Conflagrate, Life Tap, Unending Breath, Drain Soul
Playstyle: Immolate, Conflag, next target. Immolate, Chaos Bolt (replace with Shadow Bolt if you don't have it yet), next target. Repeat until OOM and dangerously low on HP (30%). Add Curse of Agony after Immolate if you need extra damage. Use Succubus as you did 30-54. Grab food instead of water because food returns more hp than water does mp at this level, and life tap makes this more efficient.
Don't take Empowered Imp - 3 Talent Points for 3% crit or less is not very good. (Imp has 5% unbuffed, which translates into ~3% for you) Also, Imp has to stand to cast - this is the same as a Succubus or Voidwalker tanking, and we know how that part works.
The First Goal: 100 spell power by 32
This ensures that you will have zero problems leveling the rest of the way through to Outland. While this is not a required number, it is a ballpark figure illustrating the important of Spell Power on your gear. Spell Power not only increases the damage you do, but also decreases the damage you take. If you can kill a mob faster, it does less damage to you. If you hit harder, Siphon Life heals harder. If you have very low spell power at level 32, you will take a lot of damage, spend mana re-casting Corruption on targets that should have died already, and Life Tap more to regain this mana. It becomes very inefficient. The more you can get, the better. If you can't get 100 by 32, don't fret, but Spell Power should be the only stat you look at.
Here is a list of gear that you can get, and where to get it, by level 30. Most of it is attainable by 27. Note that there will not be Dungeon or Heirloom gear here because not everyone has uber 80's or assistance.
This is a wowhead profile I created showing easy to find gear from either the AH, Quests, or Tailoring. The profile shows 93 spell power but it is possible to have upwards of 116 using only AH, Quest, or Tailoring gear.
http://www.wowhead.com/?profile=14373828
Here is the link I used to find these items:
http://www.wowhead.com/?items&filter=qu=2:3;maxle=40;ub=9;cr=123;crs=1;crv=0;gm=3;gb=1;wt=123:77;wtv=10 0:-100
You can make more than enough gold by simply mining Copper Ore while riding around to your farm/quest locations.
Most of the time, money should not be too much of an issue, but availability is. If you are having a hard time with finding some of these items, there are several things you can do instead.
Enchant Weapon: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=18259
Oil: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=20746 (Stacks with enchants!)
Lastly, here is one more profile fully decked out with the best you can find, including enchants. 204 Spell Power.
http://www.wowhead.com/?profile=14373869
Glyphs, and why the suggestions are the right ones:
Here is a list of every possible glyph you might use in your quest to 80 and why you shouldn't use them. If you feel it in your gut that I am wrong here, I suggest you give it a go, as it just might work for you.
Corruption - More free shadow bolts means more desire to cast shadow bolt. I said above, I'll say it again. Without all the talents to prop up Shadow Bolt, it's the worst spell in the game. Casting it is stupid without the spec (usually raid spec), a loss of mana (extremely inefficient), and a loss of health (to recover the mana). More time life tapping is less time staying alive via drain life.
Curse of Agony - Mobs won't be alive longer than 24 seconds, so why extend it to 28 seconds?
Haunt - This is a raiding glyph.
Health Funnel - Just kill the things surrounding you while/before your pet tanks the elite, then you don't have to worry about pushback.
Healthstone/Soulstone - If you died, you failed. An extra 30% should not save you - this is a crutch, and you should not rely on crutches.
Immolate - Periodic damage won't tick fully to get maximum benefit from this glyph
Incinerate/Shadow Bolt - Direct damage is not how you level.
Voidwalker - He should not be getting hit.
Why Affliction will ~always~ beat out Destruction and Demonology:
Quite a simple answer, if not immediately obvious - looting. Destruction and Demo have the capability of killing a mob from range, thus forcing you to walk to it. Affliction lets the mobs beat on you, guaranteeing close proximity to loot quest items, gold, etc. Then you mount up, run into the middle of another camp, and repeat.
And since half your quests require you to walk to point A and get items B, Affliction lets you leave a trail of bodies going there for you to loot going back. Destro would force a zig zag pattern that is not efficient to retrace.
Other Topics:
Suppression (Talent)
When you level before Felguard, you have a 5% chance to miss. Less since you should be killing things at least a level below you. This is no big deal because you can simply recast your spell and continue. When your Felguard shows up, he does half your dps. This means you effectively have twice the chance to miss (him missing and you missing). This is why we take this talent now instead of earlier.
Pawn:
Some people use this tool to compare gear and have mentioned its use. You can download it from curse:
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/pawn.aspx
And the values you want to use are here:
Haste Rating=1, Crit Rating=0.7, Spirit=0.5, SpellPower=1.6, Stamina=0.5
And the copy paste code is here:
Code:
(Pawn: v1: "Warlock: Leveling": SpellHasteRating=1, SpellCritRating=0.5, Spirit=0.5, SpellPower=2.0, YellowSocket=10, RedSocket=10, BlueSocket=10, Stamina=0.5 )
This isnt wrote by me;
Credits goes to:
Jame's Leveling Guide
Gherkin @ MMO Champion for this article/guide
Me for the layout etc.
NOTE: THIS IS JUST A LEAK!!
Last Update: Dec 2009 aka 3.3.0
This guide is still accurate as of 3.3.3 (Mar 2010)
This guide is simplified for people who want as much information as they can get as fast as possible. Good for you, this is how a Warlock works. If you want to discuss something or have a question not answered, post in this thread and we will get to it. I will reveiw this thread every couple days and update the main posts, but we have several extremely able members who can answer your questions.
If the warlock is your first character, this guide is not meant for you. It will help, but there are things in here that require a knowledge of game mechanics. I'm sorry. World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Forum Index will have more answers for you, especially in the Warlock Class section.
A quick reminder. If you have an opinion about this guide, or a response to a question, the phrases "retard" "l2play" or anything to do with someone's intellect are not appropriate responses and will be reported dealt with. We can be adults and give reasons for our disagreements.
Lastly, Jame's Alliance and Horde Leveling Guides (also available as an add-on!) are amazing and best of all free. I highly recommend the guide in conjunction with the new questing interface as they work very well together.
***CHANGE LOG***
3.3 Update - Changed 1-29 spec (more dps), updated all Affliction talents to include Improved Felhunter (now a dps boost), added a suggested 35-55 talent pick order, added some more information to leveling as Destruction.
3.2.2 Update - Renamed a bunch of sections to make more sense, moved "Nightfall" information paragraph from 1-29 to 30-54 section. Updated level 40+ pet use. Added macros and suggested ways to use your Felhunter better.
Skip this section if you don't know what I mean.
From 1-29
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IZ0GchkZVM
Glyphs: Lifetap and Unending Breath
12 Points into Demonology, then move into Destruction
@30, respec to
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IcxbbhMho
Glyphs: Lifetap, Siphon Life and Unending Breath
ending up at @54
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IfxrbhMhoiA0hk
Preferred order of talent choices based on DPS gain:
Shadow Mastery, Eradication, Improved Fel Hunter, Contagion, UA, Pandemic, Malediction
Decision time: Do you want to try something different?
"Yeah, I hear a lot about Demonology." Give this spec a shot:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IcbZ0GchkAdi0sxz
Glyphs: Lifetap, Felguard, Unending Breath, and Drain Soul
Getting to this @71
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#Ifxrbz0hoZ0GchkAdi0sxz
Glyphs: Lifetap, Felguard, Unending Breath, Drain Soul
Then whatever you want.
"NO WAY IM OP!" Don't respec.
Getting to this @70
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IfxrburhoiA0hkt0M
Glyphs: Lifetap, Siphon Life, Unending Breath, and Drain Soul
Then do whatever you want.
This section of the guide is for people who want 1-79 as simply as possible with as little fuss as possible. The spec choices reflect this and will be explained. Yes, you can go ~ANY SPEC~ 1-79 if you'd like, but this is impractical for many reasons. See the level range to find out why. Here we go.
Do this, all the time, or you're a scrub:
Spellstone - we're using dots the whole way. Spellstone makes them better. Firestone is not as potent.
Demon Armor / Fel Armor - If you do not have your armor up, you fail. Its free buffs.
Healthstones - This is your first emergency button. We all make mistakes, this is how you learn from them without dying.
Soulstones - If you are smart and don't fight in the middle of spawn points, this eliminates your downtime.
Soulshard management: "Whine! I have too many!"
Macro:
Code:
/run i="Soul Shard"d=GetItemCount(i)-20 for x=0,4 do for y=1,GetContainerNumSlots(x) do if (d>0) then l=GetContainerItemLink(x,y) if l and GetItemInfo(l)==i then PickupContainerItem(x,y) DeleteCursorItem() d=d-1 end end end end
See this text "GetItemCount(i)-20"? Replace 20 with the number of shards you want to keep. Click this macro once to destroy all but this number.
That gut feeling when you think you're going to die:
Suppress it. Embrace it. Live it. A warlock lives by constantly taking damage and shrugging it off like nothing. If you ever feel comfortable of your survival, you are not pulling enough mobs, or are extremely overgeared for the area. A Warlock is the only class in the game who can pick a fight with 20% HP and come out with full Health, Mana, and a field strewn with corpses. The only specs who comes close to this are lvl 75 Prot Warriors with Enraged Regeneration and level 73 Shadow Priests with Dispersion and Meditation. Even then, you can mop the floor with both of them.
1-29:
I'm not going to lie to you. The first 14 levels of your life as a warlock will be a living hell. You will have mana issues, health issues, and you will die a lot. This turns around at level 14 when you get Drain Life.
Purchases:
Lesser Magic Wand http://www.wowhead.com/?item=11287
Greater Magic Wand http://www.wowhead.com/?item=11288
Bloodscalp Channeling Staff http://www.wowhead.com/?item=1998
Spec:
End up at level 29 with this spec
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IZ0GchkZVM
Glyphs: Lifetap and Unending Breath
How to play:
The spec doesn't work until you get Sacrifice (16) and Drain life (14), so until then you will have to use your wand a lot. As I have said, the worst parts of leveling a warlock are these first levels. Here's how you manage:
-Only do green quests (this applies to all classes - it makes the first 20 levels that much easier)
-Do two starting areas, such as Tirisfal Glades until level 7, then migrate over to Silvermoon/Ghostlands until 11 or 12, then back to Tirisfal/Silverpine.
-Dot (Corruption) Dot (Curse of Agony) Wand till it's dead.
-Your wand is ridiculously overpowered at this level, it won't take long.
~If you are fast at moving and know the quests, you should reach 16 in 12 hours or less, not factoring in Heirloom gear~
Now that you're 16, the keys to this spec are your Wand, Corruption, Curse of Agony, Drain Life, and your Voidwalker. Leveling is all about synergy, so here is how this spec works together to make you a badass:
1) Your damage output heals your pet.
2) Your pet actively prevents damage being done to you by sacrificing part of its health.
3) Demon Armor prevents 25% of physical damage taken.
4) Your pet absorbs 20% of your damage taken.
Summary: You kill shit and heal your pet. Your pet uses this healing to make you take less damage. You kill more shit. It's a glorious cycle of violence.
Your voidwalker should have all abilities turned off and Soul Link active. "But Gherkin, he's a tank!" No. Smack yourself. Your pet is a dumb shit. He will stand in one place and tank the monster while you could be running around killing things. The second he gets aggro is the second you will a) wait for the mob to die, b) let him despawn because you go out of range, or c) pull more mobs because he stood in another mobs path. End result: if he gets aggro, you will have down time, either passively (you died) or actively (you wasted too much mana/hp trying to survive the **** up). Your pet serves two purposes: minor dps and shields. That's it.
Let's say you're doing a quest that requires you to kill boars for meat. You walk into an area with boars and it should go kind of like this: Corruption and Agony on 3 or so mobs. Your pet is running out to smack on the first one because he's set to defensive - remember that with his Taunt disabled, he will not put out enough damage to hold aggro over your dots. The other two boars are running at you, each with both dots. Hit Lifetap and Sacrifice to keep your mana up and prevent the damage. Cast drain life on the last one a few times until your hp is at or near full, then use your wand to finish him and the second mob off.
Boom, three mobs dead in around 24 seconds. Maybe a bit longer. Do this a few times until you get the hang of it, then start increasing the number of mobs you pull at a time. You should be able to handle 6 or 7 green-level mobs without heirloom gear. Key word - green mobs. Yellow mobs hit too hard, causing more damage (hit harder and more frequently due to less misses and more crits, i.e. tank mechanics) than you can safely handle in numbers.
If you happen to fight Casters (Defias Pillagers for example), they are your priority. Instead of Drain Life the last one, drain life the caster. Lastly, if you find that you can't pull this off, work Immolate into your first few mobs for extra damage.
Start thinking about your gear. You should be able to obtain 100 spell power by lvl 32 without much work, and it is highly recommended that you do so. Here's a link for things you can get between 20 and 30: http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4&filter=qu=2:3;minle=30;maxle=42;ub=9;cr=123;crs=1;crv=0#0+3-2+1
EDIT: Some people are having a hard time getting 100 spell power by lvl 32. Scroll down to the advanced topics if you are as well.
RULES OF DOT-DOT-TAB - DO NOT:
-Go below 50% health
-Go below 50% mana
-Let your pet go below 50% health
-Cast Sacrifice before a mob reaches you. Only when you have 2+ beating on you
-Fight inside a spawn point. Sometimes respawns are instant, which can get painful very fast.
-Cast Fear. Ever. It causes the mobs to unpredictably run off in a random direction, usually grabbing more mobs in the process who you did not necessarily want, see, or prepare for. Same with instances.
Why not Affliction?
Affliction's talent tree features minor damage upgrades with zero survivability options. You rely on spell power gear, and there isn't a lot of it this early on. You need to get used to being hit, because despite wearing cloth a warlock gets hit a lot. If you go affliction 1-29, you are learning how to be a shadow priest, not a warlock.
Some people advocate sticking with Affliction the whole way up, because its simpler and doesn't force you to respec. I disagree with this because of how lvl 30 works. You play Affliction and intentionally gimp yourself from 1-25 until you get all of your main arsenel of spells, and these spells become powerful enough to matter. Then you start getting spell power gear and have a few less problems. Suddenly you hit 30 and you're invincible. I don't like playing this way, as the transition is alarming and hard to get used to. If you have heirloom gear and run dungeons frequently, or if you don't mind dinging 30 and wondering if you missed a "GOD MODE ENABLED" message, feel free to stick to affliction the entire way. Scroll to the next post for your spec.
Why not Destruction?
Destruction's talent tree features major damage upgrades with zero survivability options. You will run out of mana all the time, use fear far too often, and only kill one monster at a time (two if you're good). If you go destruction 1-29, you are learning how to play a very bad mage, not a warlock.
30-54:
Respec time. You now know how to dot multiple mobs and survive, now its time to turn on extreme mode.
Purchases:
Demons Deck (new weapon at 40)
Dreamweave or Shadoweave armor
Spec:
Respec to
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IcxbbhMho
And it should look like this at 55
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IfxrbhMhoqAohk
Glyphs: Siphon Life, Lifetap and Unending Breath
Edit: If you feel like it, you can swap the points in Dark Pact and Improved Felhunter to Improved Howl of Terror. This makes it instant, but still falls under the "Try not to use fear" category. A good emergency button, but chances are you won't need it. At 42 you will use the Felhunter instead of the Succubus. Improved Felhunter means he never runs out of mana. Dark Pact means you can eat his mana and watch him fill it up again for you. Less net health cost. You only need one point in Improved Fel Hunter - two points means he shadow bites so frequently that he may pull aggro on you, and this is not the goal. One is sufficient.
How to Play:
You will be doing the exact same thing as you did before, except now you have the Succubus out. Turn off Seduction but leave her other abilities on. Pet mana has been fixed enough that she will not go OOM, and Soothing Kiss will ensure she's not tanking. Remember, pet tank = downtime so if she holds aggro even with Soothing Kiss going off, disable Lash of Pain as well. The major difference here is that now instead of pressing a button to stay alive (Sacrifice) it happens passively (Siphon Life) and you can get more healing out of Drain Life (Fel Concentration, Soul Siphon) and more mana (Imp Life Tap, Imp Drain Soul). There is no change to your strategy.
At 42, switch to your Felhunter. Keep Devour Magic and Shadow Bite on auto. Spell lock is turned off (in case you need a silence!). Shadow Bite is a good damaging ability that hits harder because you dot everything.
A word on Spell lock: If you use this ability on a caster, they will run towards you making you have to run less distance to loot them. Efficiency!
A word on Devour Magic: Devour Magic will automatically remove painful buffs from enemies as well. If you get adventurous, disable this ability and use it on yourself to dispel harmful effects such as DoTs or debuffs. Will not remove Curses, Poisons, Stuns, or Diseases. Macro:
Code:
/cast [target=player, modifier:alt] Devour Magic; Devour Magic
Alt Click for self dispel. Click for target dispel.
The limitation of this spec is a big reliance on Spell Power gear. Spell power is your most important stat because it increases your damage AND healing. Your goal should be 100 spell power by level 32 (extremely easy to achieve if you know where to look). You should already have a good start on it, but heres the link again.
http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4&filter=qu=2:3;minle=30;maxle=42;ub=9;cr=123;crs=1;crv=0#0+3-2+1
Here's your next step:
http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4&filter=qu=2:3;minle=42;maxle=55;ub=9;cr=123;crs=1;crv=0
Note that you can get 100 spell power without going into a dungeon. It is just as easy, but requires you to think about where you will be questing more. You will use the Demons Deck weapon until Outland, so if you want to enchant it you can.
You should be seeking to double your spell power every 15 levels. This means getting to 200 spell power at 45-47, 400 at 60-62 (this is a bit tougher) and 800 at 75-77 (very easy).
Nightfall Procs:
When your Corruption or Drain Life tick, they have a chance to give you a buff called Nightfall. It has a sound effect and displays these awesome black flecks on your character. It means your next Shadow bolt is instant. You will get a lot of these. A LOT. Here's when to use them:
-When you are comfortable with the amount of damage you are healing
-When you are comfortable with your current mana level
-When you want another mob to pull
A word of caution - Nightfall makes shadow bolt an extremely attractive button to press. Resist this urge because like many things it can get you killed. Shadow bolt is the least efficient single-target spell in the game. (This is intentional but I won't explain why as it requires another post by itself). When spec'd correctly with sufficient gear, this is an amazing spell. Unfortunately, this is not the case while leveling. It provides a decent burst of damage but is not your main source. As such there are times to use it and times where you shouldn't. Here's a few "shouldn't" scenarios to get you thinking the correct way.
Scenario 1: You have a lot of mobs on you and are spamming drain life. Your health is slowly dropping. Sacrifice is on cooldown. Pressing shadow bolt means 2 seconds of no heals, which can be unrecoverable if your hp is low enough.
Scenario 2: You have a lot of mobs on you and are spamming drain life. Your health is fine, but your mana is low. If you cast shadow bolt, thats 2 drain life spells you no longer have the mana for. Which means you life tap. Which means 2 seconds of no heals and a chunk of your HP missing.
Play with it. If you find that you have a lot less mana than normal, then the way you just used it is not a good idea. Myself, I use it like my pet - added damage if I need the target to die a bit sooner. So if I Corruption and Agony first, the pet will do the rest of the damage. The second can have Immolate as well to do the rest of the damage. The third I can drain. The fourth I can shadow bolt if I get a proc. The rest I drain as well.
As you level, you will reach a point where you can choose between two or three talents in order to fill out the "template". There is no right answer, pick what you like, but this order will result in more damage:
Shadow Mastery (More damage output, all spells)
Eradication (More spells out)
Improved Fel Hunter (More pet damage)
Contagion (Prerequisite to UA/Pandemic, minor dps upgrade)
UA / Pandemic (Replace Immolate with a better dot, two hardest hitting spells can crit)
Malediction (Minor dps upgrade, major crit upgrade with Pandemic)
Why not Demonology?
You start to get a lot of spell power in the 30's, and your pet doesn't increase as fast as you do. Buffing your pet at this point is like taking your stats and saying "Hi, can you make these worth less to me? I think they're too strong." It's still viable, but you will get more out of an Affliction build.
Why not Destruction?
At this point, Destruction starts losing its mana problems because you hit harder. It's just as viable as Affliction if you like that playstyle, but I just showed you how to dot and run and drain tank. This is the easymode guide, so why should I retrain you? One more thing about Destruction is that it's very crit focused - the more crit you have, the better it works. The problem is that as soon as you gain a level, your crit % goes down. This is how scaling works, and its working AGAINST you as a Destruction lock. More in the hardmode section.
55+:
This is where you can branch your playstyle. Blizzard nerfed the shit out of Outland so mobs that used to be challenging can still be steamrolled. You can continue the Affliction path or swap to a Felguard build. I'll explain how they both work, but the recommendation of people in this thread is Affliction, providing you can maintain your spell power (i.e. enchants and dungeon or heirloom gear). You can do Elite quests in both specs.
Purchases:
Nothing. Quest rewards will kick the ass of anything you can buy, or is worth buying at least.
Demonology Option:
Respec to
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IcZ0GchkAdi0sgz
And it should look like this at level 72
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#Ifxrbz0hZ0GchkAdi0sgz
Glyphs: Felguard, Lifetap, Drain Soul and Unending Breath
How to Play:
You now have the Felguard. He will do exactly half your damage from now on. The main reasons for this build are Elite quests and an excellent stat boost. First, in Outland there are a lot of elite quests, such as the Matriarch, Terrokarantula, Drillmaster, and the Nagrand Mastery quests. In these cases your Felguard will be your tank and you defeat these mobs through attrition - one dot, spamming Health Funnel, taking care of adds yourself. Secondly, the talent Demonic Knowledge lets you hit just as hard as you did in Azeroth despite the health increases mobs get in Outland.
For the Felguard, you can keep everything except Anguish (the aggro button) on auto. He will never need healing on normal mobs and if left to his own devices will usually win 1v1 against mobs. Your strategy is the exact same as it was - Corruption, Agony, (sometimes Immolate), and Drain Life as necessary. Since the quests in Outland are very different from what you were used to, killing gobs and gobs of enemies is not as important. However, it is still important to kill everything in your path, rather than run around the mobs to avoid fighting, as it is a direct experience gain with zero loss. Seriously, your Felguard hits like a truck.
One strategy that may become fun is the use of Decimation. The combo starts like this: Dot the mobs, have the pet attack one, then when a mob hits 40% hp, wind up a shadow bolt. It will impact the mob as they cross the 20% threshold and sometimes kill it. You get Decimation and have the ability to Soul Fire crit for 60% of a mob's life. Soul Fire a new mob, and hit Agony, and Shadow Bolt. This will require a bit of experimentation, but you will find a groove where you are casting Soul Fire on every single mob. Plus, if you play on a PVP server, those nasty Death Knights and Ret Paladins won't know what hit them. If this does not appeal to you, fill out the Affliction tree with these two points as per above. It means you reach Siphon Life at 71 instead of 73.
Don't forget to start using Fel Armor when you get it.
There are a lot of questions about why I choose 55 as the switchover point, here they are with answers:
Q: Why not go Felguard at 50?
A: He has no abilities and scales poorly. Thus he has no HP and dies a lot.
Q: Why don't you pick talents like Molten Core or Demonic Resilience?
A: You don't have incinerate until 64, and it relies on Immolate to prop it up. Molten Core sucks. Demonic Resilience is a no brainer because the options are 10% crit or ~200 spell power.
Q: Why Felguard at all? I was doing just fine.
A: Elites are easy mode, and you might want a change of pace. It's also kind of fun if you can learn how to chain Decimation procs.
Elites are easy for you now. Here's how to down a simple one, such as the Rock Flayer Matriarch.
Send in your Felguard with all abilities up. Wait until he is at 75% life and start channelling Health Funnel. If he seems to be taking a lot of damage, cast Curse of Weakness on the elite. Otherwise, cast Curse of Elements. Continue Health Funnel until the elite is at 75%, then start casting dots, filling the felguard to full anytime he hits 50% hp. After 2 minutes you should win.
The harder ones, such as Overlord or the dual naga's in Zangarmarsh require more finesse from you, but its a fun learning experience. I won't ruin it for you. Always be aware of the ground (your pet standing in stuff means it might die) and the abilities of the target in question. The south Naga has a knockback, so make sure the area is clear, or figure out how to reposition your pet so he gets knocked in the correct direction. The north Naga is a caster, so be careful of the frozen circle spell. Overlord summons Infernals.
Your last talent point before the final stretch will be Siphon Life. The final talent that matters. You now have Siphon Life AND a Felguard. Effectively, you are invincible. There's nothing I can say or do that won't tell you more than you already know. The rest of your points can be spent as you like (I recommend Improved Demonic Tactics, Decimation, and then Demonic Pact - these are the only "quick wins" for dps gain). ENJOY!
Affliction Option:
You will already be:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IfxrbhMhoqAohk
And it should look like this at level 65
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IfxrburhoiA0hkt0M
Glyphs: Siphon Life, Lifetap, Drain Soul and Unending Breath
You know how to play this, so I won't bore you with details.
One thing to note is that the transition to Outland will mean you pull fewer mobs at a time. This is because they gain more HP and hit harder (25% more each, approximately). For example, Yetis in Winterspring hit me for 250-300 or so. Bonechewer Orcs will hit you for 350-400. Your gear won't improve right away, but will improve. Just take it a bit slow until you approach 300+ spell power, then let her rip. If you already have 300+ spell power, then enjoy being a steamroller.
Elites: You will have a harder time with Elites, but don't worry too much. Skip them, move to the next zone, then come back and solo them. Send in your Voidwalker, wait until the void has 50% hp, Health Funnel once and fully DoT the mob (Elements > Agony for elites). Spam Shadow Bolt. Your pet will heal to full and you will get aggro. Keep Corruption and UA on the target, use Haunt on Cooldown once you get it, and spam Drain Life. You will win.
Unstable Affliction. Use this instead of Immolate from now on, and keep your playstyle the same.
Haunt. When you hit Northrend, the mobs jump up in difficulty again, so you will need a bit more healing. Corruption, Agony, Pet. Corruption, Agony, UA. Corruption, Agony, Haunt. Life Tap once or twice so that haunt heals the tap. Repeat forever.
Your final talents are up to you. Death's Embrace is useful 75+ when the mobs have 12000 hp. Improved Shadow Bolt is useful if you enjoy Nightfall procs. Soul Link and Demonic Aegis are more spell power and more survival.
Why not Destruction?
Destruction works well in Outland, but again it's a matter of ease and learning. You already know how to play two specs, why learn a third where you single target mobs really quickly? Seriously though, if you want to play this spec for a while don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Between mana cost reduction early in the tree to Improved Soul Leech the spec is more viable now than it ever has been. The only reason its not more popular is because once you figure out Affliction... well, you've seen it in action.
Start with this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IZZEbhVbcuVsVd
Glyphs: Conflagrate, Life Tap, Unending Breath, Drain Soul
End with this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IcZ0MZEbhVbcuVsVfot
Glyphs: Conflagrate, Life Tap, Unending Breath, Drain Soul
Playstyle: Immolate, Conflag, next target. Immolate, Chaos Bolt (replace with Shadow Bolt if you don't have it yet), next target. Repeat until OOM and dangerously low on HP (30%). Add Curse of Agony after Immolate if you need extra damage. Use Succubus as you did 30-54. Grab food instead of water because food returns more hp than water does mp at this level, and life tap makes this more efficient.
Don't take Empowered Imp - 3 Talent Points for 3% crit or less is not very good. (Imp has 5% unbuffed, which translates into ~3% for you) Also, Imp has to stand to cast - this is the same as a Succubus or Voidwalker tanking, and we know how that part works.
The First Goal: 100 spell power by 32
This ensures that you will have zero problems leveling the rest of the way through to Outland. While this is not a required number, it is a ballpark figure illustrating the important of Spell Power on your gear. Spell Power not only increases the damage you do, but also decreases the damage you take. If you can kill a mob faster, it does less damage to you. If you hit harder, Siphon Life heals harder. If you have very low spell power at level 32, you will take a lot of damage, spend mana re-casting Corruption on targets that should have died already, and Life Tap more to regain this mana. It becomes very inefficient. The more you can get, the better. If you can't get 100 by 32, don't fret, but Spell Power should be the only stat you look at.
Here is a list of gear that you can get, and where to get it, by level 30. Most of it is attainable by 27. Note that there will not be Dungeon or Heirloom gear here because not everyone has uber 80's or assistance.
This is a wowhead profile I created showing easy to find gear from either the AH, Quests, or Tailoring. The profile shows 93 spell power but it is possible to have upwards of 116 using only AH, Quest, or Tailoring gear.
http://www.wowhead.com/?profile=14373828
Here is the link I used to find these items:
http://www.wowhead.com/?items&filter=qu=2:3;maxle=40;ub=9;cr=123;crs=1;crv=0;gm=3;gb=1;wt=123:77;wtv=10 0:-100
You can make more than enough gold by simply mining Copper Ore while riding around to your farm/quest locations.
Most of the time, money should not be too much of an issue, but availability is. If you are having a hard time with finding some of these items, there are several things you can do instead.
Enchant Weapon: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=18259
Oil: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=20746 (Stacks with enchants!)
Lastly, here is one more profile fully decked out with the best you can find, including enchants. 204 Spell Power.
http://www.wowhead.com/?profile=14373869
Glyphs, and why the suggestions are the right ones:
Here is a list of every possible glyph you might use in your quest to 80 and why you shouldn't use them. If you feel it in your gut that I am wrong here, I suggest you give it a go, as it just might work for you.
Corruption - More free shadow bolts means more desire to cast shadow bolt. I said above, I'll say it again. Without all the talents to prop up Shadow Bolt, it's the worst spell in the game. Casting it is stupid without the spec (usually raid spec), a loss of mana (extremely inefficient), and a loss of health (to recover the mana). More time life tapping is less time staying alive via drain life.
Curse of Agony - Mobs won't be alive longer than 24 seconds, so why extend it to 28 seconds?
Haunt - This is a raiding glyph.
Health Funnel - Just kill the things surrounding you while/before your pet tanks the elite, then you don't have to worry about pushback.
Healthstone/Soulstone - If you died, you failed. An extra 30% should not save you - this is a crutch, and you should not rely on crutches.
Immolate - Periodic damage won't tick fully to get maximum benefit from this glyph
Incinerate/Shadow Bolt - Direct damage is not how you level.
Voidwalker - He should not be getting hit.
Why Affliction will ~always~ beat out Destruction and Demonology:
Quite a simple answer, if not immediately obvious - looting. Destruction and Demo have the capability of killing a mob from range, thus forcing you to walk to it. Affliction lets the mobs beat on you, guaranteeing close proximity to loot quest items, gold, etc. Then you mount up, run into the middle of another camp, and repeat.
And since half your quests require you to walk to point A and get items B, Affliction lets you leave a trail of bodies going there for you to loot going back. Destro would force a zig zag pattern that is not efficient to retrace.
Other Topics:
Suppression (Talent)
When you level before Felguard, you have a 5% chance to miss. Less since you should be killing things at least a level below you. This is no big deal because you can simply recast your spell and continue. When your Felguard shows up, he does half your dps. This means you effectively have twice the chance to miss (him missing and you missing). This is why we take this talent now instead of earlier.
Pawn:
Some people use this tool to compare gear and have mentioned its use. You can download it from curse:
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/pawn.aspx
And the values you want to use are here:
Haste Rating=1, Crit Rating=0.7, Spirit=0.5, SpellPower=1.6, Stamina=0.5
And the copy paste code is here:
Code:
(Pawn: v1: "Warlock: Leveling": SpellHasteRating=1, SpellCritRating=0.5, Spirit=0.5, SpellPower=2.0, YellowSocket=10, RedSocket=10, BlueSocket=10, Stamina=0.5 )
This isnt wrote by me;
Credits goes to:
Jame's Leveling Guide
Gherkin @ MMO Champion for this article/guide
Me for the layout etc.
NOTE: THIS IS JUST A LEAK!!
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