Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Trollstormur]

for sale: account Kel'thuzad pvp realm america

70 priest "Blasfemur"
70 rogue "Equimanthorn"
60something mage "Illdjarn"

rogue's got epic flier, 375 jc 375 mining some welfare epics
blasfemur 375 tailoring (mooncloth) and enchanting? I'm not 100% on that. full epic healing gear, some shadow gear. t5 type stuff.

pm me

[Alex C]

What about totems? I am still trying to master the art of dropping the right totems at the right time. Any tips on that?

Not really; totem's are too expensive to drop thoughtlessly but too dang nice not to use pretty regularly. It's just something you're going to have to develop a feel for. Personally, I kept them up near constantly even while solo. I ended up taking drink breaks more often than I probably had to, but shamans are a bit flimsy without a shield, so I went the better safe than sorry route and just kept my buffs up. I've never leveled a shaman past 48 though, so I'm definitely no authority on the subject.

[PizzaSHARK]

What about totems? I am still trying to master the art of dropping the right totems at the right time. Any tips on that?

In terms of grinding/questing, you won't use totems too much - they're just too inefficient, even with Totemic Recall and Totemic Focus.  You will want to be using Grounding Totem (practice setting up a tot-shock-tot rotation; if you're tauren, you can use stomp in there as well), searing totem (anytime the fight will last longer than about half the totem's duration), and poison cleansing totem (cheaper than cure poison when you factor in totemic recall.)

I used to drop rank 1 Windfury totem literally every pull in instances, but the 3.0 changes both eliminated downranking (boooooooooooo) and changed the Windfury Totem mechanic, I believe.  In instances, though, set up totems on every significant pull (again, if the fight will last at least half as long as the tot;s duration, drop it; this is generally 60 seconds or longer), and always keep mana spring down if you've got mana users (hint: you are a mana user) unless you need a different water totem.  Drop tremor totem anytime you're fighting something that fears, sleeps, or charms, and drop it again if someone's affected by one of those - it pulses instantly on use.

Enhancement's talent tree got majorly changed with 3.0, so I don't know what buildf works best anymore.  I CAN tell you that you should get Stormstrike immediately at 40 - it's your ONLY instant attack, and it's every bit as important as MS, BT, and Shield Slam are to lvl 40 warriors - and not worry about dual wielding right away.  Try to get The Rockpounder out of Uldaman as soon as possible and enjoy one-shotting Alliance scum well into your late 40s - by which point, convienently, you get access to some good, slow one-handers (and have the talent points to make DW work.)

[masquerade]

as a mage trying to level in outland I have one thing to say: Deathknights can all go get fucked.

i love you. <3
except i'm a druid trying to level in outland.
either way deathknights are annoying the fuck out of me.

[clockworkjames]

On my main server I now have a 18 rogue, 20 mage, 63DK, 72 Warrior... and the warrior just respecced prot... then rite after 2manned Onyxia...

With a blacksmith hammer...

Until I needed to change back to my sword because I could not use any attacks, it is not technically a weapon and did nothing in the way of damage (shield slam wil only get you so far in life).

[jmrz]

Weeeee! You are using Spartan! It seriously is so wonderful. One thing though, you've got a bunch of your pets in your bar on the right, if you hit 'shift-p' it brings up the pets tab, should be all in there.

My mage hit 71 the other day. I've also jumped ship to a different guild who are super friendly and helpful and we have managed to form a 5-man instance group. We've run Utgarde Keep, Nexus and Azjol so far. Planning on Old Kingdom runs next. Azjol hardly seems like an instance at all, really short, only took us about half an hour.

Planning on going back and doing a bunch of BC and original instances as well for the achievements.

I am really starting to enjoy this game and oh my my mage is powerful. Not really sure what spec I'll go with once I hit 80. I'm full frost spec now, maybe arcane for raiding? That's what I've heard.

[0bsessions]

My Druid is a one-man wrecking crew. That said, I hated the fucking Ogre elites in Nagrand. Pretty much every fucking one is immune to stun and not being able to stun them to heal pretty much dooms me.

[jmrz]

Yeah, I can relate to that. The problem I have as a frost mage, is that when my Ice Barrier breaks, it has a chance to pretty much frost nova everything close to me. So if there are enemies around me, that I wasn't attacking, then they charge at me. Keeping some kind of shield up (I have a couple of options), is pretty much key for me staying alive. Also, Evocation (which with the glyph heals me as well), but that has something like an 8minute cooldown. Let's just say being an alchemist really helps.

Having said all that - I took down the 71 elite frost wrym thinger in HF for some quest on my own the other day. Frost against frost and I didn't die. Was awesome.

[PizzaSHARK]

Ugh, how can you stand all that opacity at the bottom of your screen?  It's a very pretty setup, much prettier than mine, but it doesn't seem very functional

[clockworkjames]

I fill the blank grey stuff with the people I am supposed to keep aggro from in raids, because it is a 2man in the pic there is only the healer. Also I like having all my pets there... I use them more than most people and that square would be empty elsewise 

But yeah it is the besy UI I have ever seen for WoW, thankyou jmrz

After installin spartan, across all characters I spent close to 2 days getting everything juuuust rite so now I have 3 text boxes (Combat/party-raid-general/Guild) and have a character in 2 of the best raiding guilds on my realm, they know about my alts so I have a warrior and DK at their disposal and they like it. Kinda slutty though.

[Runa]

I think I'm going to try out Spartan. I like how it looks.

[Alex C]

It's pretty, but I tend to wonder how much use I'd actually get out of it since I'm pretty much married to HUDs and Grid at this point.

[Jace]

Man, reading this makes me want to start playing WoW again because you guys all play.
Jerks.

[jmrz]

The way I figure is that with all my casting buttons/macros/shortcuts to things in the one spot then I don't lose space around the edges of the screen - which gives me room for all my buff bars and such. It also really depends on the size of your monitor. On a 20" iMac (mine) and 24" iMac (boyfriend's), it really doesn't matter - there is still plenty of space to see what is going on.

And no worries - it's the best UI I've come across and my bf is struggling with learning a proper RAID UI because he loves the SpartanUI so much. The only thing I am missing, that I need to get is aggro counters. Lately, if I crit more than two times in a row (which is happening more and more), then I have aggro all over me like a rash. Makes hard work for the tank.

[Yakob]

Omen.

ETA: Here's the priest I've been playing to avoid the Death Knights. Armory Link



I'm using ArkiveUI and I like it a lot.

[clockworkjames]

LHS top row stuff I use lots (Button mash) bottom LHS row less used stuff like charge which I click, far left box shouts, macros, rhs top HS, Mount, pots, food, bandages, bottom RHS professions and equipment, far right box pets and toys. 1680*1050 20"

YEAH!

[PizzaSHARK]

Heh, I'm stuck with a puny 17" CRT from back in the day after my LCD fried itself... two weeks past warranty 

Locked at 1024x768, and it was so fuzzy after being so accustomed to DVI-D, I thought something was wrong with my eyes.

I don't need too many buttons for my warrior; I use three rows of eight buttons for everything, with one of them being the stancebar, so I guess it's really 5x8 total.  My pally uses more bars, 4x10 and another mini-bar for my blessings (1x5), plus the aura bar, but I've honestly been thinking about selling him because they're so damn boring.  Plus going from my beefy cow to the frooty little elf makes me die a little on the inside.  Because all of my buttons are bound to keys within easy reach, I could probably set a good half of the buttons to invisible, but it just feels awkward like that, even if it does look prettier.

I just use PitBull for unitframes, and put Proximo, Omen (for the rare time I can be convinced to come tank some stupid dragon instead of Alliance scum), and the zone map all on top of each other in the lower right, since only one of them is ever active at any one time (Proximo in arena, Omen in instances, zone map everywhere else.)  I use Grid for raids on my pally (who is Holy) and not at all on my warrior, since it's just unnecessary clutter for him and anyone too stupid to pay attention to Omen deserves to die, anyway

[clockworkjames]

Link your armoury page, I want to see who can "tank some stupid dragon" that is worth doing in a raid and also get any sort of PvP done against "Alliance scum" because PvP gear is not raid gear and vice versa... so either you have gold to respec between using 2 full sets of separate purplz or you are full of poopie.

I hope I am wrong in my assumptions as I understand not everyone has found it as hard as I have to find good gear, only now have I kept more than 1 piece of armour for each slot even if I don't see myself going back to arms any time soon.

[PizzaSHARK]

You're assuming I still play.  I haven't played in about four months or so now.  Gaming sites are filtered here at work, but Banetotem@Arthas-US is what you'll want to try and find.  I haven't logged on in those four months, but hopefully he'll still pop up.

Either way, I find PvE to be mindlessly boring after the first two or three kills of any encounter, hence I don't do much tanking these days; the rare times I get dragged into PvE, it's on my pally.

Gold is ridiculously easy to get, and Arms isn't the only PvP spec.

Gear is also fairly easy to get.  Run premades to get honor and just dick around in an arena ten rounds a week and you'll probably have your Savage Gladiator set in a couple months, a little longer for Hateful.  We were raking in about 2.5-4k honor per hour running AV premades, depending on if it was AV weekend.  About 500-850 honor per game, 10-15 minute games unless the Allies were being stupid and turtled instead of rolling over for their free mark.  Some of us would do that or like six or eight hours... I'd usually do two hours then get bored and go play another game or take a walk.

As far as PvE trash went, you could score some pretty sweet loot just by farming badges.  Do the heroic daily every day for your 4-6 badges and a KZ run once a week for an additional 22 and it'd only take a couple months to get some nice stuff.  I'd assume it's much the same at 80.

[masquerade]

My Druid is a one-man wrecking crew. That said, I hated the fucking Ogre elites in Nagrand. Pretty much every fucking one is immune to stun and not being able to stun them to heal pretty much dooms me.

You're feral, aren't you? Sigh.
I stay balance out of stubbornness and a love for doing ranged damage without heavy reliance on a pet (looking at you, 'locks and hunters...). Plus, starfall is so pretty. Further, it's fun scaring the newbies when I run around in Teldrassil.

I've actually converted a lot of low-level druids to balance. Being a boomkin is funfunfun. Except in Nagrand, only my problem is with those stupid elementals. Who resist everything except arcane spells. Which is annoying because those take a lot of mana. -_-

[0bsessions]

If I want to just cast spells on everything, I'll cut out the bullshit and roll Mage or Warlock. I picked Druid for the self sufficiency. Boomkims aren't nearly as self sufficient as Ferals.

[0bsessions]

It's also so much better at being a MOTHER FUCKING BEAR THAT WILL KILL YOU IN YOUR FUCKING FACE!

A Boomkin may look like a dire bear, but ain't no fucking bear.

[Alex C]

Yeah, I mean, there may be a place in the world for boomkins as the game is tweaked, but wherever it is, it ain't at low levels. Feral druid dps isn't as good as that of a rogue's, but they make up for it with cat & travel form speed boosts, a virtual elimination of downtime and more emergency buttons than you can shake a stick at. If nothing else, the itemization is kind of a mess for boomkins.

[masquerade]

Umm the bears are fugly, for one thing, and are big fuzzy tanks, for another. I'm not a boomkin because I want to look like a bear. -_-

I've been balance from day one (or whichever day I hit level ten and started getting talent points), and I've thoroughly enjoyed it so far.

If I did go feral (an idea that I've been toying with because of its acknowledged superiority for leveling), I'd be in Cat Form 24/7. Pretty, graceful, and kickass DPS.

Then again, I don't play WoW to powerlevel. I've been playing for nearly a year and have just hit level 66. I play for the social aspect, and because of how dynamic the world of Azeroth is. It's very interesting and a lot of fun. I spend a lot of time running around and exploring, or helping the lowbies in my guild, or manipulating the Auction House. Leveling gets Godawful boring after a while, which is why so many people quit playing. Grind grind grind, whack at everything, gather bullshit, etc.

Out of curiosity, do you have your Aquatic Form? I know so many druids who don't because the quests are such a hassle.

[Alex C]

It's kinda funny how many people go for the cat form and end up staying for da bear.

I mean, really, I spent 90% of my time in catform when I played a druid. Cat form kicks ass. I love it, really I do, and along with the lure of utility, it's why I tried out a druid in the first place.

But that 10% of the time I spent in bear form consisted of stomping higher level elites, saving groups from wipes and generally performing minor miracles on a regular basis. You grow to love that gigantic fuzzy ass, almost despite yourself.

[masquerade]

I like it for the little dance it does. That's about it.

[clockworkjames]

Boomkins only don't take aggro in raids because all they can do is DoTs, so they are bottom of the DPS list usually just above MT. Most mobs don't stay alive enough to take much dmg from DoTs, my friend is restro and we have so much fun together that feral seems less appealing to me. He is not a boomkin but does the lightning storm thing while I thunder clap.

[masquerade]

Uh, maybe boomkin that suck... I can get my DOT's slapped on and done pretty damn quick (Roots-Moonfire-Insect swarm... I don't really bother with the others because that takes too much time/mana), and set to spamming Wrath, with the occasional Starfire if I happen to get an Eclipse, and the refresh of Moonfire if it's needed. In instances I usually even get rid of Roots because the other party members' damage just destroys them anyway. In that case, I throw on Faerie Fire. And my contribution actually makes the difference in most cases, I thank you.

[clockworkjames]

I never said boomkins suck, just that since 3.0.2 onwards alot of them have been QQing about having lower damage output, and yeah they do have low DPS which only adds up impressively in PVP and on Bosses.

[jmrz]

I play with a 73 Boomkin and he's been higher than me in DPS rankings for nearly every instance we've done. The dude does 5k crits and throws in some healing when we are in tough spots.

It's pretty damn awesome.

[Alex C]

Boomkin? More like OOMkin, amirite?!


Nah, seriously, I don't have any real beef with the laser owls, I just think that as an offspec there's a lot of decent reasons not to play one right away since Blizzard screwed up their itemization and such fairly badly in the past; they're a lot better post 60, but sadly, blizzard's idea of balance druid gear used to mean crappy leathers with spirit tacked on. That seems to be changing, although I think their talent options are so fiddly it'll be a while before they really show their true colors-- hitting the right balance of raw damage and raw mana regen talents will probably prove tricky for most people for quite sometime. They do have some real nasty utility though. Besides, if Blizzard ever gets around to releasing a glyph that lets the raiders remove the knockback component of typhoon, it could become a great all-purpose AoE spell as well as a great pvp and 5 man trick.

[Chesire Cat]

I could be, possibly, maybe, conceivably going to start playing WoW perchance.

But I would like to know, what class plays closest to a Battle-Sage from Ragnarok Online?  You know, constant flash pa-pow damage from spells avec a touch of melee.  I was told the Shaman, but this was by someone who likely has a vested interest in me becoming one for support reasons.

[Yakob]

Yeah, I'd say the closest to that would be an Elemental Shaman, but that's stretching it.

[masquerade]

Yeah gear for boomies is a bit... difficult. It's getting better now that the expansion's opened, but it seems like everything I come across that looks badass is feral. Which only deepens my resentment and spurs my obstinacy to remain balance out of spite. And do damn good damage even with the handicap of other OP classes and specs.

And you're right, our damage has dropped since the expansion. I was critting over 2000 before it hit (and I was around level 62 or so, maybe a tad higher), and that's the crit that I'm managing now. It's frustrating, but you find ways around it. Stack the DoT's, spam high-damage, low mana-cost spells. Learn what works and what doesn't. ::shrug::

The class's limitations can be overcome by the player if they put effort into it. I think that's the point of playing different classes and specs -- learning your limitations and working with them so that they really don't matter.

As to those elementals, I'm going to find a mage or something to run around with to give them a big ol' "fuck you" for me. Mages do arcane damage, right...? I dunno, I've not really leveled anything past level 10 besides my main. ::shrug::

[clockworkjames]

Get someone in plate to kill the elementals.

Oh and as for boomkins in PVP I charge in, try not to get hurt too much before intervening back to the closest healer

They are as bad as locks for kicking my ass.

[michaelicious]

My roommate just reactivated his account for WotLK the other day, and he went home for the weekend and told me I could mess around on his account. So I made a Death Knight and wow... what a boring class. Total yawnfest, man. I finished the starting zone quest-line in like three hours and then got bored.

I'm still pretty excited to get my Priest bumpin' in Northrend and get my Holy Fire on, though.

[clockworkjames]

No starting zone is ever fun, the first 20 levels are why re-rolling is so soul destroyingly boring. Dk's in outlands are the awesome for experimentation.

[clockworkjames]

I just frapsed a 3man onyxia run... will youtube it when I can be bothered.

[est]

I believe I can recall a time when Onyxia was all but impossible for a guild to take down.  What happened?  Level cap increases make it easier?

[michaelicious]

Didn't people 3-man Onyxia at level 60 in Naxx gear?

Edit: Just wanna say I'm not trying to belittle your accomplishment, James, if it seemed that way. I think that would be a lot of fun to do. I just think I remember seeing a video of some dudes doing that with their ridiculously OP Naxx gear back in the day.

[clockworkjames]

Yeah we do it every time the instance resets purely for shits and giggles, it can be 2manned - Pally heals and tanks with a good pure dps or tank and spank like we did but a third makes it alot easier and faster.

Loot is okay and you get over 100g to split between the party + BOE bloos (lv 40-60) and BOP epix (lv58-60) and some other cool stuff, bags, her head (Take it to capital and hang it from the arches or on a spike) and it's just fun tbh.

I know it is easy now, heck we have a 80 healer (He dinged alot this week) and I am wearing alot of 70 epix (they still suck, argent stuff etc.) I am seriously wondering if an 80 pally can solo her. It is not a big thing, just a silly fun thing like that solo run I did of that EPL instance that I forget the name of.

[Yakob]

Stratholme.

[clockworkjames]

And Scholomance methinks. I remember reading a bunch of books.

[Alex C]

I believe I can recall a time when Onyxia was all but impossible for a guild to take down.  What happened?  Level cap increases make it easier?

Onyxia actually was never all that terribly hard (although she's definitely a bit of a gear check when it comes to your tank), there just happens to be a few ways to really screw up the fight if you've got a few bad players who are not paying attention or care too much about their epeen. She doesn't have a true berserk rage or anything, so the fight isn't a dps race; discipline was a helluva lot more important than sheer numbers. The first time we took her down in my original raiding guild, we were short 12 people-- but that last bit actually helped. It was just a practice run nobody expected to win, but losing those people pared us down to just our most competent and well-prepared players, which resulted in far less pressure on the healers and only 2 deaths on the fight (1 of which was immediately combat rezzed back up). Honestly, my first guild would have fared really well in BC had we stayed together 'till the expansion hit; the drop from 40 people to 25 people would have suited our number of "A-list" players perfectly. Hell, when we first took down Razorgore (on our 2nd try!), we were also on a short handed practice run (just a bunch of us bored after a  night of clearing MC trash), but since that fight was more about kiting and surviving a war of attrition, we managed to pull it off rather handily.

[PizzaSHARK]

Ony could be soloed by Rogues at 70, I believe.  Specific gear combinations could get you to greater than 100% physical avoidance, and I'd assume Cloak of Shadows handled Deep Breath.

[masquerade]

I tried Zul'Aman once. It was disorganized and confusing, and I haven't tried raiding since. I'm quite comfortable in my laidback "instance guild." I help my guildies level up with instance runs and bask in the light of their adoration. And I have connections with the best guilds on the server, who have reccomendations as to where to put the kids with the thirst for raiding blood. It works out quite well.

Shandris got a lot more competitive after <Broken> moved to Khargath or whatever. Something ogre-y sounding. Which suits them.

[michaelicious]

Onyxia actually was never all that terribly hard (although she's definitely a bit of a gear check when it comes to your tank), there just happens to be a few ways to really screw up the fight if you've got a few bad players who are not paying attention or care too much about their epeen. She doesn't have a true berserk rage or anything, so the fight isn't a dps race; discipline was a helluva lot more important than sheer numbers. The first time we took her down in my original raiding guild, we were short 12 people-- but that last bit actually helped. It was just a practice run nobody expected to win, but losing those people pared us down to just our most competent and well-prepared players, which resulted in far less pressure on the healers and only 2 deaths on the fight (1 of which was immediately combat rezzed back up). Honestly, my first guild would have fared really well in BC had we stayed together 'till the expansion hit; the drop from 40 people to 25 people would have suited our number of "A-list" players perfectly. Hell, when we first took down Razorgore (on our 2nd try!), we were also on a short handed practice run (just a bunch of us bored after a  night of clearing MC trash), but since that fight was more about kiting and surviving a war of attrition, we managed to pull it off rather handily.

Yeah I remember near the end of original WoW my guild doing 20 man Onyxias since only a couple people needed stuff and we didn't wanna PuG with a buncha nubs. Man 40-man raids were such a silly idea in retrospect but they were so much fun.

Also  Razorgore. Worst fight to be a priest. Man I miss BWL and AQ40. I remember one time we did a 23 mintue Ebonroc haha. Most of our raid got shadowflamed and died cause we were cocky and didn't wear our cloaks and a resto shaman and I kept the tank going for that long just for kicks before we ran out of mana. I think we each had like over a million healing done for that fight alone.

[est]

I guess that just like everything else the difficulty was overstated because most guilds are full of people who suck.  My EQ guild found this out when we'd continually do things that people said required X people with say, 2/3 of X people.  It was a lot of fun.

[clockworkjames]

Alot of people only suck when they try to do new things, my friend was feral for 78 levels and he was a superb droodtank and solo dps monster, his healing is spot on too most of the time, but when he tries to help with some light AoE or he gets aggro for whatever reason thins go tits up fast. I liked DPS warrior-ing as arms because even if I stole aggro I could take it, I had platemail and good dodge without a shield and would be on top of the DPS tree alot but as a tank there is now sooo much to learn since lv 55. Sunder is replaced by devistate, remember shouts and that buff you put on the person 2nd in threat generation to charge taunt when they get hit and steal 10% of their threat, sword and board proccing means SHIELD SLAM NOW! When to block, when to interrupt with stun, when to stun mob with shockwave, when to spell reflect... That's about all I care about now. It takes some getting used to and yes, a fewdays back I was a sucky tank because of all the excellent new shit I did not understand.

That reminds me, I wish people would READ AND UNDERSTAND WHAT ALL THEIR SKILLS ACTUALLY DO.

[Peis]

Also  Razorgore. Worst fight to be a priest. Man I miss BWL and AQ40.

i agree whole heartedly. I played a priest way back in pre-bc days, and razorgore was sooooooooo booooooring. but man, i miss bwl and aq40 and pre-bc naxx