World of Warcraft Cheats

By Cheats on October 22nd, 2009
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Quest Cheats – This might be the most widely used type of exploit in the game. Players basically just find a bug in a quest and exploit it over and over again. Examples may be how you can turn in a reward and get it multiple times, how you can killing a special mob unlimited times, or maybe finishing a quest and the xp reward is much larger than it should be. Some Quest World of Warcraft Cheats can also be World of Warcraft Dupes.

Pathing Cheats let players reach levels that they should not normally be able to very quickly. You first need to find a glitch in the game. It may be a cliff you can stand on where a mob can hit you every 10th hit, or a spot where a mob will respawn right away. This will allow you to kill that specific mob over and over again giving you benefits you normally can not have. With World of Warcraft Pathing Cheats you can gain massive amounts of World of Warcraft Gold.

Duping Cheats are the the thing most players will seek in any game. World of Warcraft dupes are the rarest things in the game and it seems that all players will try to obtain them. Keep in mind that dupes are fixed very quickly once they are found. If a dupe is released the first place to get it is TaultUnleashed.

Player killing cheats – These are the ones that allow you to kill others faster. Examples would be a player being able to hid in the wall in a battleground allowing them to easily kill their opponents without detection. OR a special glitch in game that gives you the ability to grab the flagged and bug yourself in the cliffs so you can easily run back to base. This one of the more famous World of Warcraft Exploits.

Make you race look whatever you want (only you may see this)

1 – First open up model.mpq in the data folder you have for world of Warcraft folder.
2 – Find the nightelfemale.m2 and move it to your computers desktop.
3 – Find texture.mpq in the data folder of your wow folder.
4 – Find the files Nightelf*.* and NightElfFemal*.* and extract them all. Be sure not to exact the male files because this is an example of how to do it regarding a female player and not a mall. So if you do that it will mess things up completely.
5 – Go to start then run and run batch Rename.EXE.
6 – Find the words Nightelf and Orc in all files you have extracted out.
7 – Create a new folder
8 – Move the files you have extracted into this folder. They should be Character\Orc\Female or something else along those lines
9 – Log into your World of Warcraft Account now
10 – You should be able to see your characters models have changed for you.
11 – Try doing this with a pet and you can obtain the same results in the game.
12 – Keep in mind this isn’t a major cheat as its only client side but its still fun to do if you want things to look differently. This is also a great thing to do if you want to make the game more humorous and you have nude models.
13 – Keep in mind you cant get in trouble for this cheat because its all being done client side and nothing is actually being sent to blizzard for them to detect you doing anything bad. Worst case scenario is warden will see a difference in your game files and shut the game down, but its not very likely to happen to you.
14 – Be sure to tell others and enjoy this amusing little cheat in the games graphic folders. Have Fun!!

Here is a example of a World of Warcraft Cheat WOW Cheat posted on our site from the past.

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qUI 2.04 Optimized for 1920×1200

By Cheats on January 28th, 2010
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This is a new update to version 2.0. This UI is heavily influenced by Tukz, Cael, Kitty, and many others.

qUI is an all-around UI designed to maximize the use of your screen whilst maintaining a certain sense of style. It includes everything you need for questing or raiding and everything in between. You will find that it is very useful for whatever class you choose. I have 14 level 70+ characters, so the UI was built with each in mind.

While I built this UI from the ground up using addons available on WOWInterface, I don’t take credit for any of the content. I only take credit for putting it all together to serve the needs of myself and my friends.

UPDATE!
This compilation was built and tested for 1920×1200 resolution. It should scale well for most 16×10 resolutions within reason.

Installation…

1. First and foremost please Back up your current WTF and Interface files BEFORE installing this UI.

2. Extract the 3 folders to your main World or Warcraft folder.

3. Inside the WTF folder you just extracted, rename the 3 folders ACCOUNTNAME, SERVERNAME, and CHARACTERNAME with your information.

4. Start the game and click on the addons button at the character selection screen. Make sure the “Load out of date addons” box is checked.

5. Start the game, once in the game you will notice the interface is a mess, don’t worry we will get this fixed.

6. Login, once in game your interface will be a mess. Don’t worry we are going to fix that. In the chat box type /reflux switch qUI The command is case sensitive so be sure to capitalize U and I in the command. Refer to (Figure 4)

7. This should fix 98% of the UI. You will have to move the chat window into place, and the pMinimap will probably need to moved as well. You can move it through the addon options menu.

8. Type /carb options or right click the Carbonite minimap button and select options. The select “Reset” on the left side of the window. Then select “Import settings from another character” and select Quëë and hit ok/yes when prompted.
(Figure 6) Main Carbonite Options window
(Figure 7) Carbonite Reset-Import Character Settings Dropdown http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/681/figure7.jpg
(Figure 8) Screenshot after Import reload http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/5930/figure8.jpg

9. I used Stuffing for my bag in version 2.0 you will have to edit the colors and select the correct border(I use border 5 in the screenshots), check the “Custom Skin” button then type /rl in chat to reload the UI in order to make the bag look the one in the screenshot. Stuffing does not have a profile option so this has to be done on each character. You only have to set the options for a character the first time you load the UI on that toon.

(Figure 10) Stuffing configuration

10. All DONE!!! ENJOY!!!!!

Addons
Atlas Loot – Loot Database
Bartender 4 – Action Bars
Bazooka – Lib Data Broker Bar
Blizz SCT Font – Changes Default Blizzard Scrolling Combat text
Broker Money – Records money from all toons
Broker Repair – Repair % Broker
Broker uClock – Time & Alarm Broker
Button Facade – Skinner for various buttons
Carbonite – Map and Quest tracking
Clique – Click to cast/healing
Gnomish Vendor Shrinker – Condenses the default vendor display
KgPanels – Custom Background Panel
Molinari – Mill, Prospect, Disenchant addon
OmniCC – Countdown timers for buttons
PallyPower – Buff help for Paladins
PicoXP – XP Broker
Postal – Mail
Prat Chat Customization
Producer – Simplified Profession Table
Quartz – Castbar/Cooldown
Reflux – Used to easily transfer UI to you
Satrina Buff Frames – Custom Buff/Debuff frames
Sexy Cooldown – Visual Cooldown confirmation
Shadowed Unit Frames – Unit Frames
Sharedmedia – Custom textures and fonts
Skada – DPS/Threat meter
Statblock Folks – Guild and Friend broker
Statblock FPS – FPS broker
Statblock Latency – Latency broker
Statblock Memory – Addon+Blizzard memory usage
Statblock Money – Gold broker
Stuffing – All in one bag with sort, stack, and search feature
Tidy Plates – Custom name plates
Threat Plates – a TANKING MUST HAVE!
TipTac – Tooltip
Vendor Value – Button to autoselect most vendor valuable quest reward
WeightsWatcher – Tooltip based gear comparison
Xloot – Custom loot frames

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Tidy Plates

By Cheats on January 28th, 2010
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Built-In Theme Features:

* Low CPU impact
* Tank, DPS, PvP Modes
* Spell Cast Text
* PvP Class Icons
* Health Text

Built-In Theme Modes:
Modes for the default theme can be activated by entering the Interface Options panel, and selecting the “Grey Theme” sub-category under Tidy Plates.

* All Modes: Critters and Neutral units are faded, unless they are attacking you.
* Tank Mode: Clutter reduction!
o Nameplates of aggro’d units shrink and fade
o Aggro escapee’s nameplates grow, increasing visibility.
o Plates for Non-elite units are even further reduced.
o Marked targets or visible cast bars cause a plate to un-fade.
* DPS Mode: Aggro’d unit nameplates grow, increasing visibility.
* PvP Mode: No fading. Class Icons of enemy players are shown in their nameplate.

Customization:
Appearance and mechanics can be altered by downloading a Theme Package. Please see the Optional Files section for available themes.

In addition, if you can use a text editor, you can tailor your own Theme. See the Sample Template for more information. Feel free to write me a note; I’d be happy to help you get started writing your own theme. :-)

Development
If you’d like to see where Tidy Plates is heading, check out the Roadmap. The latest developments can be found at the Beta page. Bug reports and feature requests should be submitted through my Author portal. Private messages are also a good way of getting in touch with me.

(Very) Frequently Asked Questions
I don’t want untargeted nameplates to fade! Can I do that?
Short Answer: Not Yet.. it’s a work-in-progress
Long Answer: All child frames and artwork under Blizzard’s nameplate frames will have their opacity modified. To avoid this, it’s necessary to completely separate the artwork and the Blizzard frame, which brings unintended “features” to the table. I will begin introducing this feature in the 5.10 Beta.

Can I show mana bars/combo points/threat/etc?
There’s some limitations as to which units can be observed, but it’s possible. I intend to implement these features via Widgets that theme authors can quickly insert into their code.

Would you make a configuration menu, where I can have full control over the appearance of my nameplate?
Short Answer: No(ish)
Long Answer: I feel that designing and maintaining an extensive GUI would involve more time than I can devote, and would also affect the ‘lightness’ of the core software. ThreatPlates and CleanPlates already feature extensive menu options, and are built on top of the Tidy Plates core. I certainly will expand the menu options of the default plates, as time goes by, but I doubt it will approach anything that Aloft features. That said, I’ve changed my mind, before.

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RantTooltip

By Cheats on January 28th, 2010
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Tags and layouts are now fully explained in the documentation included with RantTooltip.

Another Update: I’ve decided to go another direction with RantTooltip. Recently, I was inspired by oUF to recode RantTooltip in such a way that it includes a layout system. You’ll find it very similar to oUF. A sample layout is included, based on p3lim’s oUF layout. It was designed to match p3lim’s layout due to my personal use of it. I take no credit for the design.

For everyone who prefers the original RantTooltip look, I’ve uploaded a layout called RantTooltip Classic.

This new version of RantTooltip includes a tagging system. Variables are denoted by a dollar sign ($) (i.e. “$name” for a unit’s name). {} brackets encompass conditionals. Text inside the conditional brackets will only display if every conditional inside them has a return value. For example: “{Target: $target}” – The target line will only display if there is a target. Or: “$name{: $target}” – Again, the colon and target name will only display if the unit actually has a target.

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Protection paladin Tips for Festergut and Rotface

By Cheats on January 21st, 2010
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Festergut and Rotface suck. They are hard bosses and require each and every raider to give 110%. Each player needs to maximize the performance of their role and minimize anything that hurts the overall team effort (especially avoidable damage!).

Here are some dopey little tricks you can use to bring your A game to each fight:

1. Use a slow dps weapon for Festergut

Considering how tight the enrage timer can get, dps from every member of your group matters, and as Paladins we have the luxury and privilege of contributing more than our fair share of tank dps to the pile.

While Festergut may hit hard, he only does during a small window of the fight. Assuming you have the defense to spare, don’t be afraid to use a slow dps weapon (the slower the better) to maximize your damage. The slower your weapon is, the more damage each 5-stack proc from Seal of Vengeance/Corruption will do.

2. When not tanking Festergut, stand behind him

You should be soft-capped for expertise anyway, so to maximize your damage done on this fight, stand behind the boss to avoid causing parries for yourself and the person currently tanking.

3. Make the best use of your Gastric Bloat buff

Let’s combine points one and two. When you hit 9 stacks of Gastric Bloat and get the boss pulled off you, jump behind the boss, cancel Righteous Fury, self-cast Hand of Salvation, pop wings, and go to town.

Doing that in the ten man last night, after my tank switch I ended up pushing little more than 8000 dps. You can see it after that second huge dip in my dps, I slid behind the boss and immediately exploded in damage.

4. Make sure to Judge when kiting the Big Ooze

Judging is an important part of keeping threat on the Big Ooze while kiting. If you’re just shield tossing every 30 seconds you’re going to find the healer aggro riding hard on your heels. So, you definitely need to judge when possible.

The easiest way to manage Judging without getting murdered by being too close to the Ooze is to run ahead of it (as you would normally) until you’re just out of range and the Judgement icon is red on your bar. The millisecond it gets color back, click it/hit the hotkey, unleash your Judge, and then keep moving.

You can also use the range on Judgement to safely gauge your distance from the Big Ooze.

5. Use Seal of Righteousness for Big Ooze kiting

Seal of Righteousness will give you the most threat bang for your buck. Since you won’t be able to get close enough to build a 5 stack, Seal of Vengeance/Corruption is useless. Moreover, Seal of Command is only really good for aoe situations.

Thus, the burden falls on the neglected Seal of Righteousness. Each time you judge with SoR you’ll do more threat than you would judging any other seal.

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WoW PvP: Introductory guide to fighting druids

By Cheats on January 21st, 2010
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1Druids, by and large, have a very high survivability as a class. Pair this with their supreme mobility and you’ve got one hell of a fight on your hands.

Shapeshifting
The one distinguishing characteristic of a druid is the ability to shapeshift. This is their greatest strength and ironically one of their notable weaknesses. When the class was designed, the folks at Blizzard envisioned a protean opponent that constantly changed forms during an encounter. While the design didn’t completely end up that way, with druids mostly keeping to one form suited for a particular task (e.g., bears when tanking), players get to see druids change shape more often during PvP. It’s essential. Some of the best druids switch forms appropriately and often, although this can sometimes take a toll on their mana.

Druids are a hybrid class and thus enjoy the benefit of having three distinct roles and fighting styles which can confuse enemies at the beginning of a fight. Their shapeshifting, noted as their strength, is also their weakness here as it usually reveals their hand earlier than other hybrid classes because their forms are usually distinctive to their spec. A moonkin, for example, is obviously a ranged caster and likely to be an unsavory opponent in Eye of the Storm (stay away from the edge just to make sure).

By the same token, a druid is weakest in their normal (whatever passes for normal for a shapeshifting class, anyway), humanoid state. There is almost never a better time to beat down a druid as when they are in their Night Elf or Tauren — and soon Worgen and Troll — forms trying to cast a life-saving spell. Their various forms confer numerous protective benefits, and improvements to the moonkin and Tree of Life forms in the past have made for irritatingly surprisingly resilient opponents. Fortunately for would-be druid killers, forms have some restrictions, too.

Moonkin, for example, are unable to cast any healing spells. This means that a Balance druid getting low on life should be expected to change form at some point in order to cast Rejuvenation or worse, Rejuvenation and Swiftmend. Other times, some druids will retreat into their Dire Bear Form while allowing a HoT to take effect — an unusually mana-intensive, but sometimes necessary, recourse. Expecting these changes between forms is key to fighting druids: as a general rule, druids are strongest in their primary forms (e.g., Cat Form for DPS feral, Tree of Life for Restoration) and weakest when they are out of them. Catching them in humanoid form with a silence or stun is PvP gold.

Movement
The defining aspect of druid PvP is mobility. More than almost any other class, druids move around in combat not just because they must but because they can. One of the most powerful features of a druid’s shapeshifting ability is the way it removes polymorph and movement-impairing effects, effectively making the druid the most elusive class in the game. With Travel Form, druids are able to free themselves from tight situations and easily create some distance between themselves and their opponents. In the rare instances where there’s water involved, such as in world PvP scenarios (e.g., Wintergrasp), druids are unparalleled in their mobility with Aquatic Form and sometimes when glyphed for it, are — pardon the term — a class all their own. Needless to say, it is extremely imprudent to engage a druid in water.

In world PvP, in fact, druids even have the enviable option of instantaneous flight. Night Elf druids, in particular, can use the retooled Shadowmeld to drop out of combat and instantly shapeshift into flight form to escape the fray. Because Shadowmeld doesn’t activate the global cooldown, it can be written into the same macro as a shapeshift. Obviously, because of their various transport forms, outdoor scenarios favor druids immensely and open areas are terrible places to engage a druid.

Although feral druids thrive in close quarters, having the option to flee is always best even for them… and no class is more capable of fleeing than a druid. It’s virtually impossible to pin them down because of their ability to shake off movement-impairing effects, and then there’s Dash, an ability that sees frequent use in Battlegrounds such as Warsong Gulch as druids make their way out of the enemy base.

All druids regardless of spec are capable of disappearing with the Prowl ability. Sometimes throughout a fight, druids will create some distance and exit combat, enter stealth, and reappear when it’s most beneficial to strike. This isn’t limited to the rogue-like feral druids, either. It takes tremendous effort to pin down and catch a druid off-guard, and is often only pulled off with coordination and precision as demonstrated in Arenas. The ability to flee, disappear, and reposition is essential to druid PvP which makes them terrible candidates for a first target in a group.

It’s always important to remember their natural ability to shrug off polymorph and movement-impairing effects, so it’s just a waste of resources to target them with these things. It won’t even slow them down. We’ve only barely touched the surface as we now have an idea of what druids are like. We haven’t even gotten to the part of all the hurt they can bring to a fight.

General abilities
All druids regardless of spec have access to the most powerful crowd control spell in the game, Cyclone. Unlike other forms of crowd control, it can be cast on any target regardless of type. It’s so powerful that not even a paladin’s vaunted bubble or a priest’s Mass Dispel can break it. The only way to remove it is through the PvP trinket, making it one of the select spells worth using the item for. Cyclone also has no cooldown, making it spammable on a target. This means that a druid can effectively take an opponent out of play for a long time, even with diminishing returns. Sometimes, druids chain cyclone different targets to sidestep this limitation. When an opponent is Cycloned, druids can cast heals on themselves, assault another target, or flee.

Druids are also able to keep opponents in place with Entangling Roots, made even more powerful in Wrath by removing the original “only usable while outdoors” restriction. It is also spammable but likewise subject to diminishing returns. This spell is used to establish distance and is sometimes triggered by Nature’s Grasp, often activated by druids who need to escape from a melee opponent. In combination with their fast-moving forms, druids can establish a lot of space between themselves and an immobilized enemy. They can even use Hibernate against Hunter pets or opposing druids.

When fighting a druid, be prepared to be ensnared and crowd controlled. After using Cyclone, many druids will cast a long cast spell such as several heals or a massive Starfire, timing it such that the spell hits just as Cyclone breaks. This means players should be wary and be on the defensive after such spells. While druids have a plethora of offensive abilities, their means of using them varies according to form. Moonkin will kite and keep as much distance as possible (moonkin form doesn’t confer too much protection) while firing laser beams and feral druids will keep enemies in place with a bevy of snares and stuns while tearing them to shreds. Restoration druids, of course, work primarily as support, keeping their more offensive-minded friends up… which probably makes them the most dangerous druids of all.

Speaking of restoration, as much as druids have different approaches, it should be noted that all druids are capable of healing themselves, albeit sometimes needing to change forms to do so. This makes them extremely difficult to take down, with even the rogue-like cats healing themselves reasonably well. One important distinction with this is that for obvious reasons, druids not specced into Restoration will have weaker and more expensive heals. Another thing is to remember is that druid healing consists of powerful heal-over-time components. This makes abilities such as Purge or Dispel Magic invaluable when fighting them. Keep those HoTs off! Most druids will have a HoT or two ticking on themselves to mitigate damage. Classes able to remove or neutralize these have a powerful weapon against druids.

Balance druids
Although a DPS tree, balance or moonkin druids suffer some disadvantages when engaged in melee and the Moonkin Form is mostly used for its offensive punch. This is why many Balance druids will open stealthily, casting a long, high-crit Starfire from a distance. It isn’t uncommon for Night Elves to start Shadowmelded while casting a high powered nuke. Starfire and Moonfire are a moonkin druid’s bread and butter along with Wrath, spammed from a distance and causing tremendous damage when left uninterrupted.

A balance druid is all about dealing damage. A whole lot of it. They will throw spells like Insect Swarm and Moonfire to apply damage-over-time effects and to boost their subsequent attacks, so classes able to remove debuffs should always make sure these stay off. The best way to deal with balance druids is to close the distance while they are in moonkin form. They will use Entangling Roots and Cyclone liberally, being the spec that is most reliant on them to establish proper distance and positioning. Catching them as moonkins means they will be unable to heal themselves and will be forced to change to humanoid form when low on life. This usually means they’re in the worst shape, so take advantage.

Balance druids also have access to Force of Nature, which summons three treants to fight for them. These can dish out a lot of damage and push back spellcasting, which can be difficult for spellcasters. Smart Druids will also debuff opponents with Faerie Fire, allowing the treants to hit for a little more. While these minions probably won’t kill a player by themselves, it buys the balance druid precious casting time, allowing them to fire off a big nuke to finish off opponents softened up by a mob of furious trees. AoE fears work well here, such as Howl of Terror or Psychic Scream. The idea is to get rid of the treants quickly and prevent the moonkin from doing more serious damage.

Feral druids
A melee druid is a fearsome opponent. Think of them as taking the best parts of warriors and rogues with the unparalleled ability to move around. In PvP, it will be more common to find cat druids than bears, whose abilities are generally geared towards PvE tanking. It isn’t uncommon, however, to see druids shift into bear form in order to use Bash to stun an opponent or interrupt a spell. Out of three specs, feral druids benefit the most from stealthed openers, usually engaging their opponents with a Ravage or Pounce.

Cat druids can unload a whole lot of damage in a short amount of time, all while their opponents are stunned. They are effectively rogues — with several abilities that mirror the class — and can prove to be a handful for many casters. Most of their abilities and debuffs are also physical, making them almost impossible to remove. As mentioned, druids can heal themselves, giving them a slight edge against actual rogues in this regard. Well-timed Maims and Bashes not only interrupt spellcasting but are also used as a precursor to self-heals, so watch out for them. Be prepared to break stuns at strategic moments and not just at the first opportunity.

One key here is that cat form confers very little by way of protection. Cat druids can dish out a lot of damage but also take it in equal measure. Veteran druids will more often face melee opponents in bear form for the mitigation, switching to cat form only during stuns or when attacking from behind and the opponent is busy elsewhere. On the other hand, feral druids will often stay in cat form against casters because physical mitigation is useless, anyway. The idea is to deal as much damage to them when they lapse into cat form and prevent them from casting self-heals, which they’ll preempt with a stun, Cyclone, or even Barkskin.

A good tip to remember is that while druids can break most movement-impairing effects, it costs a lot of mana. Because feral druids have low mana pools, they will avoid doing this too often. If you can spam crowd control or snares to force them to use up their mana shapeshifting. It’s better than allowing them to spend their mana on heals, which is what they are saving it for. Feral Druids depend on Innervate to replenish their small mana pool, so don’t allow it if your class can manage to remove buffs.

Restoration druids
Perhaps the most difficult kind of druid to engage in PvP is the restoration druid. This isn’t because they are powerful enough to kill you — they likely aren’t — but because restoration druids are almost never alone. This changes the dynamic of a PvP encounter in that restoration is a support spec and is intended to give the most advantage to friends who do have the power to kill you. It becomes difficult, then, to give specific pointers as to how to deal with a healer druid because most of the time your attention will be divided between the druid and her partner.

It is extremely difficult to outdamage the heals of a restoration druid. They can and will stack HoTs and pull off well-timed Swiftmends that pump up their targets (possibly themselves) to full health. The basic idea against druid healing is to keep removing them, forcing the druid to resort to direct heals such as Healing Touch, which isn’t the most mana-efficient or fastest-casting spell in her arsenal. It’s extremely bad to allow a druid to pull off a Nourish on a target with full HoTs. Removing HoTs as soon as they are applied also eats up into a restoration druid’s considerable mana pool, and this is key to the fight because a druid with a lot of mana can pretty much keep anyone up indefinitely.

In the battlegrounds, it’s extremely important to call attention to the healer, particularly a restoration druid who can apply Rejuvenation liberally on her allies. It will take much coordination, too, since druids as mentioned have a plethora of abilities at their disposal to facilitate escape. For the most part, a restoration druid can pretty much survive simply by keeping HoTs on herself and throwing the occasional Innervate to recoup mana. It takes an inordinate amount of DPS to take down a druid concentrating on survival.

By the same token, an unfettered druid can keep her partners alive. Thus, crowd controls and interrupts should be applied judiciously to the druid. For example, if you are able to remove all HoTs, take the druid out of play with a well-timed crowd control spell (probably a taste of their own medicine such as a Cyclone) and focus fire on the DPS. Conversely, even the best or most well-geared healers will have trouble staying alive through intense focus fire. Again, it’s difficult to predict these things because the dynamic changes greatly against a restoration druid.

Druids wary of buff removal can also use Wild Growth, which dispenses a greater part of its healing in the beginning and tapering off in the end. Clever druids won’t shift into Tree of Life form until engagement begins in order not to attract attention upon themselves. It is extremely difficult to stop druids from casting heals because they just have so many instant cast spells at their disposal. The trick here then is mostly damage control — or more specifically, heal control. Don’t allow HoTs to get out of hand. Restoration druids won’t hesitate to toss a Rejuvenation on a target with full health as the HoT provides a measure of mitigation.

In the best case scenario, a druid can be interrupted while casting a long-cast heal such as Healing Touch or even Cyclone. What you’re going for here is a school lockout, which prevents the druid from accessing any Nature spells. In some cases, this should provide a good enough opening to deal significant and hopefully irrecoverable damage to the druid or her companion(s). It’s unlikely, but whenever you’re up against a healer, you hope for the best.

The most dangerous thing about restoration druids is that they aren’t limited to heals. Remember that they can still shift into bear form and stun or interrupt opposing spellcasters or healers. They can shift into travel form and create distance. They have access to Entangling Roots, too, and the best druids are experts at using Cyclone to take opponents out of play. Because their focus is on survival — whether their own or their allies’ — restoration druids are more likely to use their various abilities to keep enemies at bay. Your best chance at an interrupt, in fact, is when they pause to use these crowd control abilities and snares.

Ultimately, fighting a restoration druid is all about keeping them under control. They will very rarely be caught in their humanoid form because their arsenal of heals is accessible to them in tree form, anyway. It is important to watch out for their buffs, as most of it is key to their success. Unless there’s a massive disparity in your damage output and your target Restoration druid’s healing capability, you’re better off moving on to another target as it’s highly unlikely you’ll be taking them down. My best advice? If you see one, just do a /dance emote. Who knows, she might oblige. Ever seen a tree do the twist?

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Hunter Guide: Hunting heroics and PUGs

By Cheats on January 21st, 2010
0

We all know how painful PUGs can be. The DPSer doing less damage than you could do naked; the retadins and mages that open up immediately and pull aggro on everything; the tanks that still degroup the instant you land in Oculus or can’t hold aggro on anything and ignore the mob eating the healer’s face off; and of course the foolish healers that don’t prioritize healing your pet above all else.

We talk a lot about optimizing our hunters for raids, and we’re going to continue to do so. However a lot of hunters don’t have raid access and are taking advantage of the new Dungeon Finder to run heroics until their feet are bloody and their gun barrels melt. So today we’re going to take some time to talk about the facets of doing good heroic DPS, and about being a good heroic group member in general.

So join me after the cut as we take a look at how your shot rotations change in heroics, examine mana conservation, and generally discuss how to be a good group member.

Understanding Your Job

Let’s start by being very clear, and a bit preachy, about your job in a heroic: you need to help your tank maintain aggro, keep your pet under control, protect your healer, and do good, quality DPS without pulling aggro yourself.

We all like to do lots of damage and top the damage meters. We’re a pure DPS class after all. We are death dealers and blowing things apart is what we do. But the goal of the heroic is to finish as quickly as possible without wiping. With decent gear the best ways to do the absolute highest damage involve pulling aggro constantly, pissing off the tanks, putting strain on the healer, risking wipes, and generally being the worst kind of PUG member. Don’t be that person. It’s not a raid and it’s not difficult, but it’s still a team effort.

Note that in all cases, if you pull aggro it is your fault. It is never the tank’s fault, no matter how incompetent they are. It is our job as DPSers to monitor our threat and adjust accordingly.

Furthermore keep in mind that while many of us are grinding the heroics to get our two Emblems of Frost each day, there are people in blues and greens who are there for the gear and the Emblems of Triumph. Don’t be angry with people who are poorly geared or just learning the fights. These heroics were designed for them after all, and they’re doing exactly what they should be doing to get geared up.

The Heroic Shot Rotation

All of the hunter shot rotations you read about are designed specifically for raid boss fights — and moreso the kind of fight where you sit in place for a long time and just shoot and shoot and shoot. Life is very different in heroics, especially these days where most of the group outgears the instances by massive amounts. Fifteen seconds is suddenly a long life expectancy for a mob, and it’s not uncommon for them to drop much faster. I’ve had mobs drop dead just at the sight of my group approaching.

This means that the heroic hunter needs to be aware of what he or she is facing and adjust shot priorities on the fly accordingly. There isn’t a single shot rotation that’s going to be right — the best priority system will change depending on not just the dungeon, but how well your group is doing. Here’s some basic shot priority tips:

* Misdirection: you should MD to your tank on every pull that you can. With the change to the way MD cooldown works, that will usually mean every other pull. Use Volley with your MD to get threat from all the mobs to your tank. On pulls where MD is not available, go a bit slower with your DPS.
* Hunter’s Mark: put it up on your first target of a trash pack while you’re running in, and certainly on bosses. Generally though it’s not going to be worth it to put Hunter’s Mark on any other trash. You won’t get the extra AP for long enough to make up for the loss of a global cooldown.
* Serpent Sting: I prefer to lead off with Serpent Sting on the first mob of a trash pack that I’m not AOEing mostly to give the tank a bit more time to establish aggro. But in general it’s not worth it to Serpent Sting mobs, even with the tier 9 set bonus. They die within a few ticks, and you could have done more damage using that GCD for any other shot. That said on the beefy mobs it can be worthwhile, or if your PUGs DPS is very low.
* Volley: this is going to be your most used and most damaging shot in heroics. Use volley any time there are three or more mobs. One of the nice advantages of Volley is that since it does less damage per target, you’re actually less likely to pull aggro from a good tank than if you single target shoot.
* Explosive Trap: you’re better off using Volley. This is not a part of your standard rotation and is used only in special circumstances.
* Multi-Shot: don’t forget to use Multi-Shot whenever there is more than one target up, unless you’re already volleying. In most cases you’ll want to Multi-Shot two targets and Volley three or more targets. Multi-Shotting three targets can also be just fine.
* Pet: honestly, I’m going to go ahead and risk the wrath of most of the world and suggest you just keep your pet on defensive for heroic runs. With the fast-paced environment it’s easiest to just let your pet take care of itself. As long as you’re shooting the right thing this shouldn’t cause you any problems. Also be sure the new Cower is on your cast bar. If you see your pet taking lots of damage Cower can usually keep it alive without having to waste a GCD on Mend Pet.

A good way to boost your damage meter numbers a bit is to keep track of the mobs’ health when volleying. Once the last couple mobs are about to go down, fire off a Kill Shot rather than finishing the Volley. It will inflate your meter numbers a bit, but realize that it’s not actually helping the group anymore than a couple auto shots would — it’s just making you look better.

Also, keep an eye on your healer. Both bad tanks and bad DPS can cause mobs to be on the loose (it is not always the tank’s fault). Regardless, if you see a mob loose fire a Freezing Arrow at your healer’s feet. I like to do this even if the loose mob isn’t on the healer yet, just to be safe. Your healer will love you for it, even though she probably doesn’t deserve it given how little she heals your pet.

Mana Management

With the pace of heroic runs these days, running out of mana can be a problem, and it’s easy to end up spending far too much time in Aspect of the Viper. Keep an eye out for mobs with a mana bar and preemptively use Viper Sting on them. Don’t wait until you’re low on mana, but do this throughout the instance and it’s possible you’ll never have to dip into Aspect of the Viper. Also be aware that some mobs with mana bars are immune to your Viper Sting. Mechanicals are particularly annoying this way.

Hunter Spec Breakdown

Every hunter spec can perform admirably in heroics, regardless of gear level. Here are a couple of notes specific to each spec:

* Marksman: MM is very strong in heroics with the increased damage from Volley and Multi-Shot. If you are an armor penetration hunter build, keep in mind that your ArP is going to be less useful in heroics than in raids. In general you cannot expect to have ArP debuffs on your targets. Arcane Shot should be back in your rotation for heroic runs.
* Survival: Black Arrow targets should be chosen carefully. You want this on targets that are going to stay alive for a while to maximize the chance of getting Lock & Load. In fact, you probably want to apply Black Arrow to a target that you aren’t DSPing when it comes to mob packs. Heroics also offer SV hunters a great opportunity to use their traps to force Lock & Load procs. Just remember that Explosive Shot, especially combined with Lock & Load, is a lot of burst damage. Make sure your tank has a strong threat lead on a target before you unload. If you pull aggro from your Lock & Load, it’s your fault, not the tank’s.
* Beast Mastery: don’t forget to use your Bestial Wrath at every opportunity unless the mobs are about to be dead. Don’t just save this for bosses. Also, with the great amount of AOE involed in heroics, you may well be better off bringing a Bear as your pet for the multi-target advantages of Swipe and Thunderstomp. Just spec your pet all in damage increasing talents rather than the typical defensive tenacity talents. Be aware that Thunderstomp causes a good amount of threat, but honestly if that’s enough to pull mobs off the tank, you have tank issues and probably want them on your pet instead of you. That said, a Wolf is probably still your best pet choice.

Of Meters and Metrics

Heroics are a horrible metric for your DPS. Your DPS will vary depending on what heroic you get, what classes you’re with, and how well they perform. Generally the better the DPS of the group, the lower your individual DPS will be. Expect your DPS to vary wildly, even between runs of the same instance.

However, we are a pure DPS class and we’re expected to hold up our end of the team. It is certainly possible to be doing too little DPS. In an attempt to set a baseline for the minimum DPS a hunter should ever do in a heroic I did two highly amusing tests*. First I ran UP heroic completely naked except for my gun and ammo. Then I went out and bought a set of green gear, level 76-80. I used no enchants, no gems, no scope, and no talents or glyphs. I ran UP heroic again. I think it’s safe to say no hunter should be doing DPS as low as I was in either of those runs.

* Naked Frostheim UP Heroic: 1,100 DPS overall. I spend about half my time in viper and was really, really squishy.
* Green No Talent Frostheim UP Heroic: 1,000 DPS overall. Didn’t go into viper nearly as much (hardly at all) and still did worse than naked. Talents are indeed more important than your gear.

As a ballpark, your overall heroic DPS should not be below 2,000 DPS, even if you’re in all blues. Once you get good gear, say ilvl 232 or so, you should expect to generally do over 5,000 DPS without alienating your group by pulling aggro constantly. And if there’s one thing that naked science has taught us, it’s to pay attention to your talents. They are more important than your gear!

*No PUGs were harmed while conducting these tests. Very understanding guildmates who are used to my antics kindly helped out.

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Druid healing strats for Icecrown Citadel

By Cheats on January 20th, 2010
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Lady Deathwhisper

General strategy: Wowwiki has a pretty decent one, as does TankSpot. Numerous comments both there and elsewhere have noted the fight’s resemblance to M’uru, which promises to be a jolly old time on heroic.

Apart from that:

Step one: Bind all keys to Remove Curse.
Step two: Roll face from left to right across the keyboard at a speed not exceeding 5 mm per second.
Step three: Mark your calendar for the 6th week in a row that she has failed to drop Ring of Maddening Whispers.
Step four: Wait while a squabble over some football team breaks out during loot distribution, with the raid leader ransoming gear until someone is forced to apologize for an insult made regarding the parentage of the quarterback.
Step five: Get on the elevator and ride up.
Step six: Get back on the elevator and ride down and resurrect whatever DPS fell off.

This accounts for most of the truly important features of the Deathwhisper encounter, but as always, there are some compelling minutiae:

Placement: You should stand in the middle of the room, or at least somewhere within decurse range of everyone in the raid (tanks are the most likely to duck in and out of range while grabbing adds).

Curses: Kidding aside, decursing really will be the most important job you do here. Deathwhisper’s caster adds have a nasty little ability called Curse of Torpor that will apply a 15-second cooldown to any attack or ability you use while cursed. In other words, if you cast Regrowth with Curse of Torpor on you, Regrowth now has a 15-second cooldown. This is bad for tanks and DPS, but it’s especially bad for your healers. On 10-man, this will be applied to one player at a time and you can handle it on your own; on 25-man, you can generally expect to see two or three people cursed simultaneously, and you will need another decurser to get to them all quickly. If you are one of the people affected, decurse yourself before you do anyone else, as you will — ironically — lock yourself out of the ability to decurse for 15 seconds otherwise.

Giant burning green circles of almost certain doom: Don’t stand in them.

Dominate Mind: You won’t have to worry about this on 10-man, but getting mind-controlled players out of the fight is a key feature on 25-man. As with Kel’thuzad-25, the mind-controlled player will grow in size and gain both a damage and healing buff (but unlike KT, there will only be one mind-controlled player at a time). They can also be crowd-controlled (good) or killed (bad) by their fellow raiders. With the +haste you’re likely to be packing, an ultra-fast Cyclone on a mind-controlled target will account for half the duration of the mind-control and allow your DPS time to get CC on them as soon as it ends. On heroic, Deathwhisper will apparently mind-control 3 players at a time, so get your raid trained into handling this as fast as possible.

Is this a good fight for trees?: Eh. Raid damage in phase 1 is unpredictable, and you’re going to be spending an awful lot of global cooldowns decursing rather than healing. In phase 2, Deathwhisper has an AoE Frostbolt attack and untargetable, undamageable adds (Vengeful Shades) that randomly aggro and then follow a person at a time. Blanketing the raid with Rejuvenation will help somewhat for the former, but to be frank, the overwhelming majority of it will just serve to inflate your +overheal, with more direct healers sniping in the interim. The most pressing need for fast healing in phase 2 is going to come from anyone targeted by a mind-controlled player, or caught unawares by a Vengeful Shade right before an AoE Frostbolt.

If your guild’s planning on doing the hard-mode version later, start harassing your raid now about avoiding damage from the Shades. It’s widely believed that their damage is going to one-shot most players on heroic.

Faction Gunship

General strategy: The gunship battle is pretty forgiving (and a complete blast) even if you’re new, but Wowwiki has a good page on it here.

I love this fight so very, very much, and after completing it for the first time wanted to wipe the raid and do it again. Unfortunately, Blizzard does not allow you this option after encounters are actually over, probably because exasperated raid leaders everywhere would use it as a disciplinary tool.

Placement: Wherever the hell you want. The most fun is typically to be found at the apex of a rocket jump between the two ships. Proper deployment of the jet pack will also involve macroing “WHEEEEEEE!” to its use.

Boss abilities: There’s no real boss as such on this encounter. There are, however, a number of entertaining explosions you will need to either create or avoid. If you’re on the team that stays on your own gunship, you’re likely to be healing the add tank and/or any raid members who aren’t prompt about moving out of rockets (plus mopping up a bit of unavoidable damage from ranged enemies). Due to one of the Skybreaker Sergenat/Kor’kron Sergeant’s Bladestorm attack, raids generally put their ranged DPS on the adds here and send their melee to the enemy ship. If you’re one of the lucky souls who gets to jump with them, you’ll be healing the Saurfang/Bronzebeard tank and should be careful not to jump until this player does.

Is this a good fight for trees?: Hell, it’s a good fight for everybody, but to be perfectly frank, the healing requirements are not high. You can two- or three-heal it even on 25-man, but trees are pretty good in that as you can toss HoTs around without being concerned about incoming rockets.

Also — Rocket Bear Bare.

All done? Set aside 5 seconds to rue the day you gave the Corpse Tongue Coin to the guild’s backup feral player because he needed it more than you did and it hasn’t dropped again since and did I mention he decided to take a break from the game like two days later and the stupid trinket hasn’t dropped again since.

Seriously, what the hell.

Deathbringer Saurfang

Allie: This guy’s a lot smaller than I expected.
Hunter officer: Don’t worry, Allie, he gets bigger.
Half the raid (in unison): That’s what she said!

General strategy: TankSpot has a very good guide here.

Placement: Specific placement doesn’t matter too much as long as: a). you are at least 12 yards away from everyone else, because one of Saurfang’s attacks (Blood Nova) can chain to nearby players, and: b). you can reach everyone in the raid (or almost everyone, assuming the people you can’t reach have healer coverage). In other words, spread out, but make sure the heal team is scattered for even coverage of the raid.

Boiling Blood: A debuff cast on 1 (in 10-man) or 3 (in 25-man) players that does damage and gives Blood Power to Saurfang every 3 seconds. This isn’t particularly tough to heal.

Blood Beasts: How your raid handles these (and Mark, below) will make or break the encounter, but it’s your DPS who has to worry about them (usually by way of Frost Traps, Earthbind Totem, and knockbacks). However, you should be prepared in the event that one aggros you. This is a distinct possibility as you’re likely to be running HoTs on Boiling Blood targets and the tanks. If all else fails and one’s crawling your way, Entangling Roots will prevent Saurfang from gaining Blood Power off your unlucky hide. Because DPS will be focusing the little beasts down (and thus damaging them way beyond what Roots will hold), chain-cast Roots until it’s dead.

Mark of the Fallen Champion: Saurfang will cast this upon a player after reaching 100 blood power, and the damage is intense; essentially, he’s chaining a portion of his melee damage to a player who’s not a tank. Plan on running full HoTs on the person in question, and even then, you’re going to need some help at present levels of gear unless you can devote all of your attention to that one person.
However, it’s very common for raids to deliberately allow the first Marked player to die, and DPS through the 5% heal that will subsequently occur to Saurfang. It’s usually worth it, because Saurfang will cease gaining Blood Power from a Marked player who’s died, and — assuming a competent raid — only gains Blood Power slowly from other sources. If you’re going after I’ve Gone and Made a Mess, this is the way to do it. Sensible management of the Blood Beasts and good DPS will typically result in a kill before (or shortly after) the third Mark.

Whatever else you do, do not battle-rez anyone who dies to a Mark. They will only resurrect with the Mark still on them, almost invariably die to the next tick of damage (unless you’ve spent a major glyph slot on Glyph of Rebirth), and then heal Saurfang for another 5%. Assuming that your heal team is half-awake, no one in the raid is in any real danger of dying to anything else on this encounter, and you will not need either the DPS or healing output of the first Marked player. Subsequent Marked players will need massive heals, however, and the increasing difficulty of keeping up multiple Marked players becomes a sort of soft enrage on top of Saurfang’s hard enrage at 8 minutes.

Is this a good fight for trees?: It’s not so much a bad fight for trees as it’s an amazing fight for Discipline priests. A good Disc priest can singlehandedly cripple Saurfang’s ability to generate Blood Power through smart shielding. Otherwise, there’s really not a lot of damage to worry about here. The encounter is really about your DPS’ ability to handle the Blood Beasts while maintaining high raid DPS overall.

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WoW Shaman Guide: Elemental 101

By Cheats on January 20th, 2010
0

If you’re here and reading this, you’ve probably decided that elemental will be one of your shaman’s two possible specs and you want to get a good grasp of how it all works before you dive in. The maiden voyage of Totem Talk’s Elemental edition is intended to tell you everything you need to know to get started as one of the game’s simplest specs, from mechanics to gearing to rotation.

What it isn’t intended to be the is be-all-end-all of Elemental theorycrafting. We’ll delve into more complex stuff later on.

Let’s get started!
1. What is Elemental?

Elemental is the ranged DPS tree available to the shaman class. You deal damage from afar with Nature and Fire spells.

2. Elemental benefits

* A simple rotation and easy mechanics.
* Damage increases dramatically once you acquire Lava Burst, making you competent DPS immediately at 80.
* Lots of buffs to nearly every class/spec you could party with.
* Little mystery in gear upgrades.

3. Elemental drawbacks

* A boring rotation. Very little to watch for or keep track of.
* Your damage doesn’t scale as well with increasingly powerful gear compared to other classes/specs after the initial boost from Lava Burst. You’ll notice.
* Few “unique” buffs and many buffs that are trivialized by ones provided by other classes.
* Highly specialized gear means it’s harder to find from bosses — and Blizzard doesn’t provide much emblem gear suitable for Elemental, either.
* Elemental has few worthwhile instant-cast spells or DoTs, making them ineffective in any fight that involves moving around.

4. Stats to look for

Besides the ever-present intelligence and stamina, which will be on all the gear you want anyway, you’ll be looking for four main stats:

* Spell power. Obviously, you want a lot of it. More spell power equals more damage.
* Haste. Haste does two important things: increases your spellcasting speed, allowing you to fit more spells into your rotation in between cooldowns; and decreases your global cooldown down to a minimum of one second, allowing you to cast more spells in shorter periods of time.
* Crit rating. Besides the obvious factor of making more of your spells critical strikes, crit rating also helps keep important Elemental talents, such as Clearcasting and Elemental Oath, active.
* Hit rating. Elemental shaman should focus on hitting the spell hit cap as soon as possible. You want a total of 14 percent or 368 rating if you’re anything but a draenei, who need 13% or 342 rating. Remember: After you hit 14%, hit is 100% useless.

In terms of priority, it’s: Hit (until capped), spell power, haste, then crit.
5. Stats to avoid

Just as important as what to look for is what not to look for.

* Spirit. This is not a “shaman stat.” None of the shaman specs, Elemental included, have talents that give us extra benefits from spirit and, quite frankly, our built-in mana regen is plenty.
* MP/5. While it’s a good stat for Restoration, Elemental doesn’t need it. Avoid it.

There are exceptions to these rules, mind you — many of the first available post-80 badge rings have some useful stats (SP, haste/crit) but also have spirit on them. If they’re the best you can get or afford, it’s okay to have gear with a little bit of spirit or mp5 as a stopgap until you can get something better.

6. Typical PvE talent setup

The Restoration tree has no viable benefits for Elemental in the early tiers, so you’ll be sub-speccing Enhancement.

Here’s an Elemental sample tree. You have two points remaining, which can be used for either Improved Ghost Wolf (if you PvP), Improved Fire Nova (for extra AoE damage), or a few points in Convection (if you’re having mana problems).

7. Talent overview:

Elemental talents in italics are considered expendable. You’re free to move those points around as you wish. Talents that are struck out are ones you should avoid. For Enhancement, we’ll only be discussing ones that are viable talents for this spec.

Elemental:

* Convection: A small decrease in mana cost of spells. We only partially fill this one up, or not at all, as the points are better used elsewhere.
* Concussion: A must-have set of damage increases to your bread-and-butter spells.
* Call of Flame: A solid damage increase to Lava Burst and our newly-useful Fire Nova.
* Elemental Warding: Not a necessary talent for DPS, but it’s one of the few non-PvE/PvP-specific talents in a tree not known for bloat, and that 6% is handy in a pinch.
* Elemental Devastation: This is a purely Enhancement talent. As Elemental, you’ll never be using your weapons to melee. Don’t put points into it.
* Reverberation: As Elemental, Flame Shock is the only Shock spell you’ll be casting regularly; its direct damage is negligible and you lose DPS from the DoT when you recast it and clip it before it’s over. To that end, this talent is unnecessary.
* Elemental Focus: Vital! Clearcasting, the proc from this talent, is incredibly important in reducing our mana consumption. Each time you get a crit with a spell, the buff will refresh; with high enough crit rating, you can have almost 100% Clearcasting uptime, making all of your spells much, much cheaper.
* Elemental Fury: Another no-brainer, this talent doubles the damage bonus of our critical strikes.
* Improved Fire Nova: Given Fire Nova’s newfound usefulness and the lack of other, more compelling talents to throw two points into, this talent is a fine choice.
* Eye of the Storm: I originally had this listed as a don’t-grab, but many readers disagreed with me. If you find your casts getting pushed back often enough to merit a change, this is a fine choice for a few talent points.
* Elemental Reach: A range of benefits to your basic spells. Grab it!
* Call of Thunder: For one talent point, you get an additional 5% crit on your main damage spell. Definitely worth it.
* Unrelenting Storm: Sort of in the same boat as Elemental Warding — not a necessity, but there’s little else to put your points into, and additional mana regen on top of Clearcasting and Water Shield can’t hurt.
* Elemental Precision: Necessary both for the increase to our spell hit and threat reduction.
* Lightning Mastery: Reduces our base Lightning Bolt cast time to a maximum of 2 seconds, which is further reduced by haste. Necessary for a proper rotation.
* Elemental Mastery: Elemental’s only on-click cooldown, EM is best used early and often. If you have a lot of haste, you might consider not popping it during Heroism due to decreased benefit from the spell’s new haste buff, but as you run heroics or early raids, you may find the DPS boost pretty reasonable when used in conjunction with your other cooldowns.
* Storm, Earth, and Fire: Besides helping with AoE (Chain Lightning cooldown reduction) and emergency add rooting (roots on initial Earthbind Totem cast), SE&F also dramatically boosts your Flame Shock DoT damage, making this a vital talent.
* Booming Echoes: As Elemental, your use of Frost Shock will be extremely limited, but the direct-damage boost to Flame Shock is at least worthwhile enough to merit popping points into this talent.
* Elemental Oath: Vital! This talent is the equivalent to Moonkin Aura, providing you and your party members an additional 5% spell critical chance, but beyond that, it also grants you 10% more spell damage while Clearcasting is active. Like Elemental Focus, the buffs from this talent are nearly always active, depending on your crit rating.
* Lightning Overload: If you’ve leveled as Elemental (why?), you know how neat this talent is when you get it. At the level cap, though, it’s really just another DPS boost, albeit one you’d be crazy not to get. The second bolt that procs is threat-free, which is a nice touch.
* Astral Shift: A pure PvP talent. Not worth getting in a PvE build.
* Totem of Wrath: Get it. Performing the same functions as both Heart of the Crusader and Demonic Pact, this totem will be your bread-and-butter Fire totem unless you happen to party/raid with a very geared Demonology warlock.
* Lava Flows: Though the first portion of the talent is undoubtedly PvP oriented, the additional Lava Burst crit damage makes this a must-grab.
* Shamanism: An obvious necessity.
* Thunderstorm: A great source of emergency mana regen and a surprisingly useful skill if adds get loose. You can always glyph it to receive some bonus mana recovery and remove the knockback completely. If you’re a big baby.

Enhancement:

* Enhancing Totems: If you don’t regularly party or raid with death knights, this can be a useful talent to help your melee friends with a boosted Strength of Earth Totem. Definitely not a necessity, though.
* Ancestral Knowledge: Can’t argue with 5% more intellect. Grab it.
* Thundering Strikes: Doesn’t just boost melee crit — it’s all attacks, including spells. A necessity.
* Improved Ghost Wolf: If you do world PVP, this is a nice pickup for those shamans constantly on the move. If you have extra points lying around, that is. Remember that it doesn’t work indoors.
* Elemental Weapons: An additional 30% spell damage on Flametongue Weapon, the only weapon enchant you should rightfully be using as Elemental.
* Shamanistic Focus: Given that you’ll only really be casting the Flame edition of your Shock spells, this talent normaly wouldn’t be worth it — but at only one point, it’s a welcome addition to your talent repertoire.

8. Leveling as Elemental

In a word? Don’t. It’s incredibly tiresome and only picks up at two points: The first is when you first get Lightning Overload, and the second is when you get Lava Burst. Even with Lightning Overload, though, you’ll essentially be pressing your Lightning Bolt button over and over and over for 74 levels until you get Lava Burst. It’s not pretty, it’s not fun, and it’s certainly not engaging. Level as Enhancement.

If, for some reason, you feel that you absolutely must level as Elemental, then you’re at yet another disadvantage, because the shaman-specific Mystical Pauldrons of Elements and their companion chest are loaded with mp5 instead of more useful stats. Want to go to cloth? Too bad! Everything else has spirit on it. Given the mana issues that players of this spec encounter early on, though, you could do worse than some mp5. You could just certainly do better.

As far as weapons are concerned, while you’d normally go for mace and shield at max level, you’re better off using a Dignified Headmaster’s Charge to level with. Feeling concerned that your spec is one of the only ones that doesn’t really have leveling gear to support it? Just wait until you get to 80, my friend. Just wait.

Where talents are concerned, just fill in your Elemental tree first and then move down Enhancement. Nothing in Enhancement is necessarily a mandatory leveling talent.

9. Your basic Elemental rotation

Elemental, as mentioned several times above, has a very simple rotation.

1. Cast Flame Shock to apply the Flame Shock DoT.
2. Cast Lava Burst, which is a guaranteed crit on a target afflicted by Flame Shock.
3. Cast Lightning Bolt until Lava Burst’s cooldown is up.
4. Cast Lava Burst again.
5. Cast Lightning Bolt until the Flame Shock DoT expires.
6. Go to 1.

This flowchart, courtesy of Propaganda Hour at Something Awful’s WoW subforum, represents the rotation visually.

As you acquire more haste, you’ll be able to squeeze in more Lightning Bolts in between Lava Bursts. There’s little variation in this rotation until you acquire certain set bonuses which affect the way that Flame Shock and Lava Burst work.

Chain Lightning technically does more damage than Lightning Bolt, but has a considerably higher mana cost. If you can get to the point where you can Chain Lightning regularly without offsetting the mana cost with Thunderstorms, you can replace Lightning Bolt with it, but for most beginners, you’ll have a long way to go before that’s possible.

For AoE: you’ll be switching to Chain Lightning over the stock version and aiming for whatever has the most health. Drop your Magma totem in a convenient location and hit Fire Nova on every cooldown for maximum AoE damage. Unfortunately, shaman AoE is still clunky, and we’re essentially the only ranged class that’s required to get into the thick of it to maximize our AoE damage.

10. Gems

Basic Elemental gemming follows some pretty simple rules.

* Gem only for SP and haste. Reckless Ametrines and their blue-quality brethren are a fine choice for any slot, but you can choose to stack either one or the other if you’re trying to hit a certain landmark (enough haste for another Bolt between Bursts, for example).
* Never gem for crit. We’ll go into this at more detail at a later date, but the general idea is that you tend to have enough crit on your gear and with your talents that it’s less effective to gem it than SP or haste.
* Never gem for int, spirit or mp5. Int and mp5 are for Resto, not you, and spirit is objectively awful.
* Use the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond as your meta and Glowing Dreadstones to meet the two blue sockets you’ll inevitably find in your tier gear to get your meta bonus.
* For jewelcrafters: Use Runed Dragon’s Eyes in three available red sockets in place of whatever you’d normally use.
* Don’t worry too much about matching sockets unless the bonus is particularly good (read: it’ll offset the loss of stats from the gem you would normally use in that slot) or it’s to get a meta bonus.

11. Glyphs

There are a number of major Elemental glyphs, though some edge others out slightly in the late game. For now we’ll talk about the top four.

* Glyph of Lightning Bolt: A static 4% increase to your most-used spell. Should be on everyone’s glyph page.
* Glyph of Flame Shock: Remember, you should have close to 100% Flame Shock uptime, so this glyph adds a good chunk of DPS (usually around 4%).
* Glyph of Totem of Wrath: Whenever you put Totem of Wrath down, you get an extra 30% (84) of its spell power for five minutes. Just you, though.
* Glyph of Lava: This glyph is outclassed by the one above until very late in the Wrath game. You’ll need above 3900 active spell power for this one to be better.

As for minor glyphs, there aren’t any that really directly affect your DPS. They’re all quality-of-life improvements. I take Astral Recall, Water Shield, and Renewed Life.

12. Enchants for the endgame

* Mace/Dagger: Mighty Spellpower
* Staff: Greater Spellpower
* Shield: Greater Intellect
* Helm: Arcanum of Burning Mysteries
* Cloak: Greater Speed (or Lightweave Embroidery for tailors)
* Shoulders: Greater Inscription of the Storm (or Master’s Inscription of the Storm for scribes)
* Chest: Powerful Stats
* Bracers: Superior Spellpower (or Fur Lining – Spell Power for leatherworkers)
* Gloves: Exceptional Spellpower (or Precision if under hit cap, or Hyperspeed Accelerators for engineers)
* Belt: Eternal Belt Buckle (of course)
* Pants: Sapphire Spellthread
* Boots: Tuskarr’s Vitality (or Nitro Boosters for engineers)
* Rings: Greater Spellpower for enchanters

That should be enough to get you started.

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Warlock Guide: affliction DPS checklist

By Cheats on January 20th, 2010
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Here is my generalized list of how to maximize your DPS in order of importance. Start with number 1 and work your way down. Don’t skip ahead.

1. Get to 80. There’s no sense trying to maximize your DPS before 80. You don’t have all the tools, you don’t have all the gear. When you’re questing you need to kill quest mobs. Quest mobs don’t have enrage timers.. so as long as you don’t die you’ll be fine. Frankly you need more stamina and survivability than DPS. So just stop worrying about it an enjoy the leveling experience.
2. Glyph for success. Make sure you’ve chosen the proper glyphs. At this time the best affliction major glyphs to maximize your DPS are Life Tap, Haunt, and Quick Decay. The minor glyphs are -so- minor they in fact have no effect so choose whatever blows your hair back.
3. Spec like you mean it. I believe at this time the “best” affliction spec is 56/00/15 with a little bit of wiggle room.
– if you have the gear to make up the hit you can justify taking up to 3 points out of Suppression and putting them elsewhere.
– The two points in Improved Drain Soul and the one point in Improved Life Tap do not directly add to your DPS. Indirectly the 10/20% reduced affliction threat can add to you DPS if you are threat capped by your tank. The 10/20% returned mana can add to your dps because over the long run they will save you GCDs by not having to life tap as much. You could argue that those points could be moved elsewhere.
Other than those points I don’t see any other points that can be moved in this spec.
4. Choose your pet wisely. If it’s not on cooldown you should summon your Doomguard. If doomguard is on cooldown then summon Felhunter. Then, for the last 60 seconds of the fight (or if your pet dies) call down an Infernal to replace your current pet. Recommended reading: My pet’s better than your pet
5. Buff to the best benefit. For max DPS you should always have your Fel Armor up and a Spellstone applied to your weapon. For flasks choose the Flask of the Frost Wyrm. For food go for +hit food if you’re under hit cap, otherwise choose +spellpower food. Celebrate the fact that we’re one of the few class for whom fish feast actually -are- the best food to choose.If you won’t pull threat, then pre-pot on the fight. This will allow you to get the effect of two potions during combat. I normally pre-pot with a Potion of Speed.
If there’s a shaman in the raid pop Potion of Wild Magic during the Heroism/Bloodlust.
If there isn’t a shaman in the raid pop Potion of Speed at the point where you would normally do Heroism/Bloodlust.

The makeup of your raid, and the buffs each class bring to the raid will greatly influence your dps. Keep this in mind when comparing your dps in different raids.
6. Make sure you’re always hitting the mobs. In a raid you need to make up 17% hit(464 hit rating). In heroics you need to make up 6% hit(168 hit rating).Generally you will get best return by speccing into Suppression and the making up the last 14% from hit rating (368 hit rating) on gear. You can possibly justify only getting 10% hit if you can count on raid buffs (3% from misery from Spriest OR 3% Imp Fairy Fire from druid) and the presence of a Draenei (1%).. personally I hate the idea that I could be 4% below hit cap in the raid if the persons who provide the buffs died (or don’t show up) so I normally gear for the full 14%.
7. Hit the mobs harder/faster. When you’re gearing, make sure you’re maximizing the right stat. For affliction warlocks at the moment your stats, in order of importance, are:
Spellpower/Haste > Spirit/Crit >> int > everything else

Once you get to the hit cap hit rating is no longer valuable (I still pick up +hit items and keep them in my bank for swapping gear around), but until you get to the hit cap, hit is -the- most valuable stat. After that Spellpower is valued slightly higher than haste which is valued higher than spirt/crit. Last is int which only shows up on the list because it grants a smidge of crit.
8. Choose the right curse for the job. Choose Curse of the Elements if you’re in a group that does not have a Boomkin to provide “Earth and Moon” or an Unholy Deathknights to provide “Ebon Plague” (yes, CotEl in this case will improve your personal DPS). Choose Curse of Agony if the mob will live for greater than 20 seconds and the 13% granted by CotEl is covered by another class. Choose no curse if another class is covering the 13% buff from CotEl and the mobs die in < 20 seconds.
9. All mobs (and mob packs) are not created equal.
If there are 3+ trash mobs in a pull.. and your tanks generate good AOE threat:
Seed of Corruption multiple mobs. (seed, tab, seed, tab, seed, tab, etc) Rain of Fire does less DPS but is more consistent and may be preferable if you outgear your tank or if the group of mobs are going to die too quickly to get 3+ seeds cast.

Single/Double Trash rotation: (trash dies too quickly to get a full dot rotation on them).
Haunt, Corruption, Shadow Bolt until dead. (Drain Soul if you need soul shards). Sometimes it may even be better to just spam Shadow Bolt (or Searing Pain) especially on -very- quick dying trash.

Boss/high-HP trash, use a full rotation.

Double Boss/high-HP trash, use a rotation on both. Haunt/Corruption/UA/Curse/Shadow Embrace on one and Corruption/UA/Curse/Shadow Embrace on the other. This is difficult and should be practiced.
10. Cast your spells in the right order and refresh in a timely manner.
Startup:
If on CotEl duty cast CotEl first. Follow up with Shadow Bolt and Haunt to stack your Shadow Embrace buff (This will change when Shadow’s Embrace changes to 3 stacks. At that point the startup may be Shadow Boltx2, Haunt.). Then Corruption, (CoA, if no CotEl), Unstable Affliction, then Shadow Bolt until Haunt is off cooldown.

Refresh priority:
1. (CotEl) (if it drops)
2. Haunt(whenever it’s off CD to refresh Haunt buff and Corruption)/Lifetap (to keep lifetap buff up or for mana)
3. Corruption (if it drops)
4. Unstable Affliction
5. (CoA) (if you’re not on CotEl duty)
6. If nothing else, Shadowbolt

During the last 25% of the mob:
1. Haunt (should also keep up your Shadow’s Embrace effect)
2. Corruption (if it dropped)
3. Drain Soul. Note that the channeling of Drain Soul should be interrupted after a tick to refresh #1 or #2.
11. Do not clip your dots. That is, do not cause a new dot to land on the mob before the last tick of the dot that’s already ON the mob goes off.Corruption: if you’re doing it right it will never fall off because of Everlasting Affliction. If it accidentally -does- fall off then just recast it as soon as you can.Unstable Affliction has a 1.5 second cast time(effected by haste)(in Red, with an X across it). This means that you should start casting UA when there’s <1.5 seconds left in the dot. You don’t want to start early as you’ll overwrite the last tick and lose dps. You’ll get the most dps if you can get the cast off as early as possible without overwriting the dot.

Haunt is kind of special. It’s barely a dot as it does minimal damage. Really it’s there because of the boost it gives to your other shadow dots. You have ~4 seconds in which to refresh it (after it comes off cooldown but before it drops). Anytime within those 4 seconds is fine. For highest DPS you should hold off until it’s 1.5 seconds away from dropping. That way in a full boss fights you have it up the most but spend the least time refreshing it.

If you’re using Curse of Agony, it’s instant and its last tick is really powerful so you do not want to overwrite it. So do not cast CoA until it has fallen off the mob but cast it as soon after it falls off as possible.
12. ABC. Always Be Casting. Anytime you’re not casting you’re losing dps. While moving you can cast corruption, curse, life tap or Death Coil. Do it!Also make intelligent use of you Demonic Teleport to minimize the amount of time you are wasting in moving around.
13. Practice practice practice.

So, once you’ve done ALL of the above, if you’re STILL having DPS issues then I would blame either poor execution or latency. Examine a parse of a boss fight and check on your dot uptime. More dot uptime equals more DPS.

Cutting down on Latency is something I’ll address in another article.. it’s not quite done yet

Keep in mind also.. in some cases it’s better to -not- win the dps meter. For example in a large mob pack pull with a healer in the pack you will maximize your dps by seed spamming the whole lot but this will allow the healer to stay up for a long time and to keep healing. In some cases it would be better for the overall raid for you to single target the healer FIRST and then change to seed spamming. Sometimes the needs of the many overcome the DPS maximizing of the few.

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