Category: q&a

Kurn's Q&A #8

Kurn / / dungeons, general, healers, paladins, priests, q&a, raiding, ramblings

All righty, let’s take a look at some of the search terms that brought people here that I know I haven’t adequately answered, shall we?

1) argent dawn howto 999

I’m going to guess you want to become 999/1000 exalted with the Argent Dawn? The best way to do this is to run Scholomance, Strat Live and Strat UD over and over again. And equip your Argent Dawn Commission or your Seal of the Dawn or your Rune of the Dawn. Scourgestone turn-ins are huge. Also take advantage of the quests at Light’s Hope Chapel. Here’s a great list of ways to gain rep with the Argent Dawn over at WoWWiki.

2) divinity seal of light

I would imagine, although I haven’t verified this, that yes, the 5% extra healing from Seal of Light stacks with the 5% extra healing due to Divinity. I’m pretty sure it works, but I haven’t re-glyphed/respecced to figure out if that’s working.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, I was wrong!

I normally run with Seal of Wisdom on along with Glyph of Seal of Wisdom, so I don’t usually have the opportunity to see what my extra healing is like with Glyph of Seal of Light — except on Dreamwalker. But, uh, that fight is hilarious when it comes to comparing numbers. My Lay on Hands crit for 131k at one point, so that’s not the best time to make comparisons.

3) does 10 man onyxia give frost badges

Nope. The only instances to drop frost badges (technically Emblems of Frost) are ICC25 (2 badges per boss, 1 badge for the miniboss), ICC10 (same as ICC25) and VOA 10/25 where ONLY Toravon drops 2 Frost Badges each. Onyxia, in both raid sizes, will only drop two Emblems of Triumph.

4) does shadowmeld clear debuff on sindragosa

Okay, let’s talk about what debuffs you mean. If it’s Chilled to the Bone or Instability, the very act of not doing anything for a little while will clear the debuff. If you’re talking Mystic Buffet, then no — the only thing that will clear that debuff is getting out of Sindragosa’s line of sight. I would imagine, though my paladin is a human so I can’t test it out, that if you’re not out of line of sight of her, you’ll still take a stack when she casts it.

5) how do i dps in dungeons assist warrior

These days, lots of tanks just go into a dungeon, pull the whole group and use their AOE abilities to hold aggro. Hell, I do this. I rarely switch targets when tanking on both my paladin and my druid and this, my friends, makes me a fail tank. I SHOULD be switching targets and trying to get more aggro on each target individually. But I don’t because, nine times out of ten, it’s just not needed.

Because so many tanks do this, it’s generally safe to target your tank and assist them (the F key, by default) and focus on THAT target for DPS. Please always do watch your threat meter, though. Pulling aggro is your fault, even if your tank sucks. Moderating your damage output is entirely within your control, even if that means you just plain stop attacking or you wait five seconds for your tank to secure aggro.

6) holy paladin requirements for icecrown citadel

Ooh, good question! I guess it depends on if you’re doing 10 or 25-man, but here’s what I would recommend.

– 4pc T9 (ilvl 232, minimum)

– 232 weapon/shield at minimum

– 245 or better helm/belt/bracers/boots (Onyxia, crafting, BOEs)

– 226/232/245 + rings/neck

In terms of stats, for a Holy Light paladin, I would strongly recommend somewhere around 2350-2500 spellpower, 28k mana unbuffed and at least 650 haste.

Key trinket pickups before you go: Talisman of Resurgence from Triumph badges, either Pandora’s Plea from Mimiron in Ulduar or Darkmoon Card: Greatness (90 int) or the Tears of the Vanquished from regular 5-man TOC.

7) how to make grid beacon of light 60 yard range

I’m presuming here that you want to have Grid show someone within Beacon of Light range, right? I’ve been trying to play with range fading on my Grid (pro tip: doing so RIGHT BEFORE your guild pulls Sindragosa is NOT the right time to do so!). I’ll post here when I’ve played with it adequately. Ideally, I’d like to have those in 40yd range of me to appear with full opacity, those at 60yd range to be about 75% opacity and those any further to be about 50% opacity. Or something along those lines.

8) is there a macro addon which accounts for global cooldown

If you mean, is there a way I can do something so that I can have two abilities on the GCD in the same macro and just hit that macro once…. no. There is the “/in” function but it doesn’t work for something on the GCD. I’ve always used it for announces.

9) wow icc disc vs holy

There are several fights that will use both disc priests and holy priests very well throughout ICC. It really depends on the rest of your group makeup. If you have a holy paladin or two, you’ll want to be holy. If you have no holy pallies, you’ll want to be disc and focus on single-target healing and raid-wide mitigation. The instance has several fights that play to the strengths of both types of priests. :)

10) wow paladin how to behave in dungeons

Lesson the first: BUFF PEOPLE. A general guide to who wants what buff:

– might: rogues, DPS death knights, ret paladins, feral (kitty) druids

– kings: everyone else

Why? Because might, even unimproved might, is 550 AP. In order for kings to give that much attack power, DKs and ret pallies need to have over 2250 strength in order for the 10% bonus on that to be 225 extra agi/strength, which is 550 AP for them. Rogues and kitty druids only get 1AP per agi, so they’d need 5500 agility in order for kings to be better than even unimproved might.

What about hunters and enhancement shammies? Both gain additional attack power from intellect, through Careful Aim and Mental Quickness. Plus, the extra agility will give them both more crit as well. Survival hunters also gain an extra 10% of their stamina as attack power. On my hunter, unbuffed, I have:

2183 agility

605 intellect

1352 stamina

So kings will afford me 413 more attack power. But also another 2.6% crit just from the extra agility. And because, as survival, my crits proc Replenishment and various other abilities, crits are good. :)

DPS warriors can put up Battle Shout (equivalent to might) so kings them and they can buff with Battle Shout. You should also kings prot warriors, obviously.

What else? As a paladin, be aware of who can cleanse what. If you’re in, say, Old Kingdom, as any role, and your healer is a tree, guess what? You need to cleanse diseases and magic effects. If you’re somewhere with a priest? You get to cleanse poisons. A shammy? You need to cleanse magic. If you’re not doing that stuff, you fail as a paladin. When I tank as a pally, I cleanse. When I heal as a pally, I cleanse. You need to get Decursive or something to help you be aware of what to cleanse and when.

Also, auras. If you’re on Garfrost? Use Frost Aura. If you’re fighting Koralon? Fire Aura.

And judge! Judgement of Light takes priority over Judgement of Wisdom, because everyone in your party has health, but not everyone will have mana.

Man, that last one could have been a whole post on its own, eh? Heh. :)

Kurn's Q&A #7

Kurn / / healing, icecrown citadel, lfg, q&a, raiding, ramblings

Okay, another week’s worth of search terms to comb through! Some interesting variety this week, although Valithria Dreamwalker, Toravon the Ice Watcher and Rotface and Mutated Infection/Cleansing still top most of the results.

1) “emerald vigor” power word: shield

I do believe that yes, you should cast PW:S (if you’re disc and are the designated priest to cast it on the dragon) while you have stacks of Emerald Vigor on you.

Emerald Vigor, as you can see, increases healing done by 10%. Then, to keep up Renewed Hope and Borrowed Time, you should cast a shield. While the shield won’t be absorbed by damage on the dragon (pretty sure she doesn’t take damage) While the damage Dreamwalker takes throughout the encounter is minimal compared to what you’ll have to heal (173k in a 25m parse that I saw), your crit is increased by virtue of the Weakened Soul debuff on her. So for no other reason than that, you should cast PW:S. If you have a second as you’re running around to find another portal, cast PW:S on your tanks and some of the DPS if there’s no other disc priest doing so. I would imagine that the absorption would be huge with a bunch of stacks of Emerald Vigor, but since EV doesn’t HAVE a combat log entry, I’m not sure. If you’re a holy priest, avoid using PW:S if there’s a disc priest around, particularly if the disc priest is going into portals.

2) can you use di and divine protection

I actually tried something like this about four years ago. I tried bubbling and then casting Divine Intervention on another paladin. I died, despite Divine Shield. So no, DI will kill you, no matter what.

… although, I am now curious to see if a pally with Guardian Spirit on them would live through a DI. I am doubtful.

3) combine meta gems

Nope, can’t do it. Meta sockets are only found in your helm. So unless you grow another head (and helm spot on your character sheet), you cannot combine two (or more) meta gems. Sorry!

4) configure grid toravon frostbite

Easy as pie.

Right click on your Grid icon. Status. Auras. Add New Debuff. Type in Frostbite and hit Enter. Colour doesn’t matter, priority of 90 is okay. Make sure Frostbite has a tick next to Enable.

Then right click on your Grid icon again. Frame. Center Icon. Debuff: Frostbite should have a tick next to it. Then you’ll see Frostbite in the center of your Grid square on any targets who have it, and you’ll see a number if there’s 2 or more stacks, as well.

More on configuring Grid can be found over this way, which was a little site I set up for my healers in the guild I was in on Bronzebeard.

5) does hand of protection remove mark of the champion

Nothing, not even death, will remove Mark of the Champion. Hand of Protection will, however, stop all incoming Mark of the Champion damage on the target for 10 seconds. But then it’ll start up again. It’s handy if you need to hit Divine Plea and don’t have an offset available.

6) does leader of the pack stack with abominable might

Yes. Leader of the Pack adds 5% chance to crit for melee and ranged. Abominable Might gives 10% attack power. Thus, they stack. The things that don’t stack are the buffs that give the same type of buff.

So LotP does not stack with Rampage, because both give the same 5% crit.

Similarly, Abominable Might, Unleashed Rage and Trueshot Aura do not stack with each other, because all three are giving 10% attack power.

A great way to see what does/doesn’t stack is at MMO-Champion’s Raid Composition Tool. I’m not altogether sure if that’s up to date, but when all the buffs were being changed to stack/not stack/etc, that was a really valuable tool for me.

7) emerald vigor combat log

Drives me crazy, too, that there’s no combat log entry. Go post on the official forums about it!

8) how come i cant hold aggro on a job as a druid tank?

Having done some tanking this week at 80 on the druid, I often felt like I do on my paladin when I tank and forget to turn on Righteous Fury. Everyone was pulling off of me, including my snot-nosed brother. ;)

I realized that the reason why is because my Swipe‘s threat is increased by attack power. And my attack power was, quite simply, crap, since I had just dinged 80. There’s no way my little swipe could out-threat a warrior’s whirlwind if he’s in ICC 25 gear. Or even TOC gear, haha. So I was patient and got a bunch of badges, upgraded some gear and now I can hold aggro better. But it’s still not perfect, because I’m still undergeared.

Something that helps, too, is Glyph of Maul, so on smaller groups, I’ll try to weave in some Mauls in between the swipes.

9) what coloured gems go into a yellow socket

First of all, 10 points of awesomeness to you, anonymous visitor, for spelling coloured with a U. :) I hail you, my fellow member of the Commonwealth.

Secondly, gems work just like the colour wheel does.

Blue gems + Red gems = Purple gems, meaning Purple can fit in both red and blue sockets and work towards activating the socket bonus, AND counts as both a red AND a blue for meta gem requirements.

Blue gems + Yellow gems = Green gems, meaning Green can fit in both yellow and blue sockets and work towards activating the socket bonus, AND counts as both a yellow AND a blue for meta gem requirements.

Yellow gems + Red gems = Orange gems, meaning Orange can fit in both red and yellow sockets and work towards activating the socket bonus, AND counts as both a red AND a yellow for meta gem requirements.

So, what will fit into a yellow socket and work towards the socket bonus? Yellow gems, orange gems and green gems. :)

10) valithria dreamwalker with grid

Sorry, she doesn’t show up on Grid. :( Here’s what I tend to do.

Special bonus #11: wyvern sting halls of reflection

Okay, a) I love you for wanting to crowd control. b) I love you more for wanting to crowd control in Halls of Reflection.

Sadly, I do believe that undead mobs are immune to Wyvern Sting. :( That said, undead can be frozen with Freezing Arrow or Freezing Trap. Go forth, my fellow hunter, and CC! :)

Kurn's Q&A #6

Kurn / / q&a, raiding, ramblings

Woo, I’m a veritable posting machine today, aren’t I? Here we go, with another Q&A post based on search results that led people to my site. I take ten of them that I KNOW my site doesn’t adequately answer (or that I find really serious enough to answer) and post the search terms and my responses here.

I am absolutely not going to delve into Toravon stuff, because I’ve already answered a lot of that.

1) death knight tank stack all strength gems

Uh. No. Please don’t do this. Please stack stamina (traditionally) or things like parry and dodge if your avoidance is particularly low, or defense, if you’re not at 540 yet. Strength gems, particularly the +20 epic strength gems, are DPS only. Got it? Good.

2) grid dreamwalker

I know, right?! Seriously, make a focus macro and put it on a really easy to mash keybind and hit it whenever you zone out of the portals. I spent Dreamwalker healing my focus frame, meaning I could still target other mobs and judge them as well as spam cast Holy Light at the dragon.

3) lvl 74 druid tank gear 3.3

I’m probably not the best person to ask for this, but honestly, I felt that the BOA leather stuff worked really nicely for me as I tanked through the lower 70s. That’s the Stained Shadowcraft Spaulders and Stained Shadowcraft Tunic. Good stam, good agility (which are really your primary stats for health, dodge and armor). For everything else, I went for anything that had dodge on it, followed by stamina and agility. No joke, I tanked with Writhing Longstaff (with 35 agi on it) forever. ETA: Read the comment below by “gnome of zurich”, who really has a great breakdown of what bears should go for!

4) rhok delar bow without black dragon sinew pre tbc

Not sure what you’re trying to say here, but regardless, you cannot make Rhok’delar without the Mature Black Dragon Sinew. You can’t. That’s the string of your bow. But never fear, if you’re on the quest after getting the Ancient Petrified Leaf you can farm Burning Steppes black dragons for the sinew.

5) slime spray tremor totem

No reason to drop Tremor Totem at all on Rotface. There’s no fear or charm attached to his Slime Spray.

6) valithria dreamwalker gaining buff

I’ll presume you mean you gaining Emerald Vigor. I basically suck at getting and keeping the buff, but here’s what you should theoretically do. Zone in to the portal as soon as you can. Hit jump to fly directly up. You should have some green orb thingies right above you. Hang out in them for a bit, they’ll eventually burst as you move across them. Keep moving into the orbs and watch your timer for the end of the portals. Do your very best to hit an orb with like, 2-3 seconds left. That should afford you enough time to keep the debuff (it’s a debuff, not a buff, go figure) stacking between portal phases.

Pain in my ass. :P

7) valithria dreamwalker vigilance

Okay, I don’t have proof for this, but I would imagine this would be silly. First, she’s not generating any threat. Secondly, she’s not taking any damage. The suppressors channel to make her take less healing, but I’m pretty sure she’s not being damaged at all.

Buffs that DO work and are useful include, but are not limited to: Guardian Spirit, Sacred Shield, Power Word: Shield (for disc priest buffing purposes)

Good thinking outside the box, though. I’d recommend dropping Vigilance on any healer who stays outside of the portals.

8) glyph of holy wrath citadel

I don’t think that Glyph of Holy Wrath is ever better than any other major glyph you can use, as a paladin. Certainly not for a holy paladin. But ultimately, there are WAY too many boss fights that don’t have any undead adds to justify that glyph for a DPS rotation or as part of a tanking rotation, IMHO.

9) name of gem purple +ap/mp5 cut

You’re looking for an Infused Dreadstone or Twilight Opal. Having said that, if you’re a hunter or an enhancement shaman with mana issues… there may be bigger issues than you looking for mp5 on your gear.

10) sindragosa los in corner

I haven’t done Sindragosa yet, but this sounds suspiciously like a sort of an exploit. Exploiting is bad. Don’t do it.

I got lots of Rotface search terms too, but I’ve already addressed most of those. I should really get going on that ICC raid guide, one of these days.

Kurn's Q&A #5

Kurn / / q&a, raiding, ramblings

I have done virtually nothing in WoW since last Thursday. A couple random dungeons on Madrana, a couple on my druid, but I haven’t even raided. Let me tell you — being too sick to even veg out and play WoW? Not fun.

Anyways, I thought I’d do my weekly combing through my web stats and pull out 10 search terms that sent people here, as I usually do.

For simplicity’s sake, I’m going to lump all the Toravon the Ice Watcher results into one:

1) minimum stats tanking toravon, how to do toravon, toravon taunt, toravon “emblems of frost”, frost resist toravon, can you 2 heal toravon, toravon 10 how many tanks needed

That ought to be sufficient.

For tanking stats, I presume that if you can tank Koralon, you can tank Toravon. I think there’s less damage taken in the Toravon encounter overall. Figure 35k+ health for 10-man and 40k+ health for 25-man. You will only need two tanks for Toravon, just like Koralon, Emalon and (back in the day, anyways) Archavon.

I recommend taunting Toravon every 3-4 stacks of Frostbite.

Yes, Toravon drops 2 Emblems of Frost on BOTH 10-man and 25-man, just like Koralon dropped 2 Emblems of Triumph on both 10/25.

You don’t need frost resist gear for Toravon. It’s advisable to have Frost Resistance Aura from a paladin or Frost Resist Totem from a shaman, however, just to mitigate the frost damage. But resist gear is, in no way, needed.

Yes, you can 2-heal 10-man Toravon. My (not well-geared) resto shammy successfully did so with a druid. I chained off the tanks and the druid hotted up the raid.

As to how to do Toravon, here’s a guide I wrote last week.

2) “body and soul” rotface

Totally. Awesome plan. If you have a holy priest specced for Body and Soul, have them toss the infected people a shield. Good call.

3) “invisibility potion” putricide

I think I see where you’re going with this. You think if you can go invisible (like mages can) in combat, before a phase change, you can get free DPS on Putricide, right? Not bad thinking, to be honest, but I’m pretty sure this doesn’t work. During my sneaking around Orgrimmar to get the BB King achievement (that video’s still forthcoming, btw!), I used the invisibility potion to no effect once I was actually IN combat. If, however, I was fading out of visibility when I engaged mobs, it worked fine. So, sorry. Only mages and rogues, to my knowledge, can use their abilities to get some free DPS on Putricide.

4) does divine sacrifice stack

That’d be a big ol’ “no”, sorry. If you activate Divine Sacrifice and another pally does so immediately after you do, your DS will fade on yourself and the raid, and the other paladin’s will become active. You CAN use them back to back, however. On heroic Twin Valkyrs on 25-man, for light vortex, the other holy pally pops his divine shield/divine sacrifice, then I pop mine after I see his emotes in raid chat. The theory here is that his DS will have already been consumed by the insane raid damage light vortex causes by the time I go through the globals to activate my bubble and then DS.

But no, it doesn’t stack.

5) do icc bosses drop emblems of frost

Yes. Each boss on 10 and 25-man versions drops 2 Emblems of Frost, even the Airship battle. (Although that one doesn’t give you any rep.)

For clarification, here’s how you can currently get Emblems of frost:

a) 2 per level 80 character per day for the successful COMPLETION of a random heroic dungeon

b) 5 per level 80 character per week for the successful completion of the weekly raid quest

c) 4 per level 80 character per week for downing Toravon on both difficulties (2 Emblems of Frost for each 10 and 25-man kill)

d) 2 Emblems of Frost per boss killed in Icecrown Citadel on 10 and 25-man difficulties

e) 5 Emblems of Frost per ICC weekly quest completed (up to two — one on 10 and one on 25-man)

If you can down the Lower Spire, the Plagueworks, The Crimson Halls and heal up Dreamwalker, for example, on both difficulties, plus you do your random daily every day, plus you kill Toravon twice, plus doing two ICC raid quests, plus the weekly quest, you would get:

8 from Lower Spire, 6 from Plagueworks, 4 from Crimson Halls, 2 from Dreamwalker (20 total) — times 2 for 10/25-man, so that’s 40 from boss kills in ICC. Random heroic done daily is another 14 badges. Toravon dead twice is another 4. Two ICC raid quests is another 10. Then the regular weekly raid quest is another 5. So that’s like, 73 badges in a week. Yowza. Makes me want to get my non-raiding toons into ICC. :P

6) mobs dying to ret aura not giving loot

Not sure if you mean that you were just sitting there, afk, with ret aura on, and something beat on you until it died, but if that’s the case, that makes sense. Your character has to deliberately attack the mob in order to get credit/loot for the kill. Hunters and warlocks have the same problem with pets. If I send my cat over to wail on something and he kills the mob without my having even shot at the mob once, then I don’t get loot.

If you mean that the killing blow was from ret aura and you didn’t get loot, open an in-game ticket.

7) two elixir or one flask?

Well, now. That’s an interesting question and generally depends on what stats you’re looking for. As a holy paladin, I use Flask of Distilled Wisdom. But because I’m an alchemist, my flasks last two hours. So I’ll generally finish up my raids with two elixirs instead — which are actually better than the flask. I use Guru’s Elixirs and Elixirs of Mighty Thoughts. Due to my being an alchemist, I get a slight boost to each of these elixirs and will end up with slightly more mana/intellect than if I use the flask, not to mention another 200-some health from the Guru’s. So technically, it’s better for me to use the two elixirs than to flask.

Your mileage may vary, however. On my hunter, I’d much rather use a Flask of Endless Rage because 180 attack power is more than I’d get from an Elixir of Mighty Agility or Wrath Elixir along with an Elixir of Mighty Thoughts. (Why an intellect elixir? Careful Aim.)

In most situations, a flask will do just fine, but definitely check out wowhead.com for consumables you might prefer to use.

8) razuvious be tanked in icecrown gear?

No. He casts Unbalancing Strike. Apart from the fact that wowhead.com says it hits for about 100,000 physical damage AFTER mitigation, it reduces your defense rating by 100, leaving you crittable. Note that it WAS possible to tank the level 60 Razuvious in Sunwell gear, but even then, you risked an unlucky hit that would instantly kill your tank. I do not believe this would now be possible or would even be possible once we’re in Cataclysm.

9) onyxia where should healer stand

Onyxia is, believe it or not, your standard dragon fight. That means two things off the bat: being at her head is bad and being at her tail is bad. All dragon fights in this game (well, boss-dragons), without exception (I believe) have some sort of damage at the head and some sort of damage or otherwise bad thing at the tail.

So, being a healer, you should go left or right and stand about 25 yards away from Ony at her midsection, so you can heal melee, ranged and the tank. I prefer to go left, but that’s leftover from 40-man Onyxia, where I was usually in Group 1 and we had groups 1, 3, 5 and 7 go left, 2, 4, 6 and 8 go right.

10) flash of light hot tick

You know what? I always put Sacred Shield up on my target (if I’m not sharing with the other holy pally) and ALWAYS put up (and try to keep up) my Flash of Light HoT. It’s not that it ticks for anything like Rejuvenation or Renew, but it’s a bit of extra healing which is never, ever a bad thing. Does it lower your overall healing per second? Yes, because the time you spent casting Flash of Light could have been used to cast Holy Light. But honestly? I care more about keeping my tank alive than my numbers.

Raid-buffed, my FoL HoT ticks for anywhere from 450/tick to 950/tick, depending on if I crit or not. Every second for 12 seconds. That’s really not too bad. I do miss my 4pc T9, though, which doubles that.

Okay, I wrote this throughout the day. Time to post and try to get some sleep.

Kurn's Q&A #4

Kurn / / q&a, raiding, ramblings

Whew. I do not recommend leaving the weekly raid until the last possible day for, oh, three of your toons. While I did Madrana’s on Wednesday or something, Kurn, the shammy and the mage were all done in the last 24 hours. Stupid Patchwerk. Well, at least it wasn’t Flame Leviathan, right?

Anyways, on to the search terms that led people here and my responses to them!

1) “rotface mutated infection discipline shields”

Uh, definitely a good call, in my opinion. The mutated infection target gets a debuff that causes damage every second for 12 seconds. Ow. As the person who usually heals the infected people with a beacon on the tank, let me tell you, I APPRECIATE you shielding the infected people. :)

2) “anub togc heroic cleansing totems”

Useless, sorry. The debuffs on your add tank aren’t dispellable by regular abilities or by cleansing totems. Better to use Nature Resistance totem or Aspect of the Wild. Having said that, we got TOGC 25 Anub to 10% tonight. I tell you, I’ll be psyched to bury that bastard for good.

3) “how does a warrior tank heroic hor”

Hello, Mr. or Ms. Prot Warrior. Thanks for stopping by. It’s true, you have a more difficult job in Heroic Halls of Reflection than the other three tanking classes do. You also have Spell Reflection, which can also be glyphed and talented. So I’d recommend at least the glyph, if not the full 2/2 talent points in there.

You also have Vigilance. Use it on your healer.

Probably the best way for you to do HoR is out in the open. You’ll have room to maneuver, you’ll be able to Charge to Phantom Mages, you’ll be able to see what you’re doing so you can effectively use Thunderclap and Shockwave. For you guys, I HIGHLY recommend the following kill order, which I would then communicate to the group before the start of the event:

– Phantom Mage. Kill it. Kill it dead. The flamestrikes, the frostbolts, fireballs and chains of ice all suck a lot for you. So burn it, or keep it CCed via shackle/turn undead/freezing trap.

– Ghostly Priest. They heal. Kill them! Interrupt casts!

– Spectral Footman. You can actually leave these ’till last, but you MUST maintain aggro on these guys. They shield bash.

– Shadowy Mercenary. Their shadowstep sucks and their poisons are evil. Still, if you have Vigilance on your healer, you should be able to taunt back quickly. Be ready! They can also incapacitate a member of your party for a couple of seconds, so be ready to pop a CD if it’s the healer.

– Tortured Rifleman. Really not too bad, if a bit annoying. CC if possible, otherwise, just grab aggro on them now and again.

Cleave, Shockwave, Thunderclap, these will all be KEY for you to successfully do this. You’ll also want to be hyper-aware of what adds are up and where they’re positioned.

4) “devo or retri aura for 5 man heroics”

Depends on who’s in your group and what spec you are. I’m going to guess you’re a prot pally with 3/3 improved devotion aura. Basically, your extra +healing is a waste if your healer is a tree, but since it’s available in every aura (like ret’s Swift Retribution), that doesn’t really help the issue. Honestly, if you have a shammy with Stoneskin totem or a druid who’s buffed you with Mark of the Wild and you feel like you’re having aggro issues, Retribution is the way to go. If you have a crapton of armor anyways, go Retribution aura for extra threat. If you’re not getting hit hard enough to require enough healing for Spiritual Attunement to keep you topped off in terms of mana, go Retribution aura. Otherwise, stick with devo.

5) “dodge chance to tank 10m icc paladin”

Ugh, ugh, ugh. Thanks to Chill of the Throne, you lose 20% dodge. Which sucks. I’d say that, depending on your gear and such, probably 7%ish (after taking the debuff into consideration) would be a minimum. Just my guess, though.

6) “healing forge of souls shammy”

Hey, I actually know how to do this! Okay, so here’s the deal… Tremor totem on the first boss. Pop hero right off the bat on the second boss. Apart from that, it works like most any other instance — keep your tank up, hope there’s not 3 hunters spread out in 3 corners of any room so that chains don’t hit them and make use of Riptide/Healing Wave/Healing Wave if you have to. There’s nothing wrong with using your whole mana bar on one boss fight or half of it on one trash pull. The important thing is keeping people up.

For some reason, I almost always die on the last boss, thanks to idiots not knowing the following:

– stop DPS when mirror is cast on a player, because that damage gets cast on the targetted player!

– don’t stand in purple circles

– don’t stand there letting ghosts whack on you

– don’t stand in front of the boss when the purple beam is active.

If your group is dying due to any of those issues, not your fault, shammy. Not your fault.

7) “strength stamina gem vs agility stamina paladin”

Let’s be clear about this. Strength, without talents or anything, gives a paladin 2 attack power per point of strength. Agility gives paladins armor, dodge and crit. Strength should always win out over pure agility. Apart from anything else, Divine Strength gives you 15% extra strength, so if you have 100 strength, that bumps up to 115 strength via that talent and no kings or anything. Then kings comes into the mix and adds 10%. That’s another 11-12 strength. So instead of 100 strength, you now have 126 strength. That means you went from 200 AP to 252 AP. That’s pretty significant. And a lot better choice than, say, 100 agility.

8) “tank guide don’t let the healer die”

Mr. or Ms. Tank, I love you. Thank you. That said, sometimes your healer will die despite your best efforts. Sometimes it’ll even be their fault. But most of the time, it’s going to be yours.

In order to minimize that, here are some tips:

a) Be familiar with the fight. If there are adds that spawn, know that they will charge the healer as soon as they spawn, due to healing aggro. Be ready to pick them up.

b) Be aware of your current surroundings. Change your camera angle to watch the healer so you can taunt quickly if needed.

c) Don’t let that one mob go wail on the healer. Seriously. You’re tanking. Hold them. Don’t let five go running off as you tank one, don’t let one go running off as you tank five.

d) Interrupt spellcasts. Sometimes your healer can be targetted by spells that will result in them dying. So interrupt when you can. Also know what to interrupt. Interrupting heals takes priority over everything, with mind controls a close second. Offensive spells come last, but should still be interrupted.

Apart from doing what you can to prevent something from beating on your healer, there’s not a lot I can tell you. Some healers are just dumb, though, and will stand in fire/void zones/poisons regardless.

9) “why cant pugs do ony”

I laughed out loud at this one. Thing is, they can, but the organization and execution of most pug raids is, well, lacking. Or laughable, if it exists. Apparently, it’s super-hard to do basic healing/DPS/tanking assignments. :P If you find yourself in a fail Ony pug, try to organize your fellow whatever you are. If you’re a healer, help organize healing. Tank? Figure out who’s got Ony, who’s got whelps, who’s got the add. This kind of help really makes a difference.

10) “blood prince council exploit”

Sorry buddy, but:

a) I don’t know of any Blood Prince Council exploit

b) I don’t believe in exploits. I mean, obviously they exist, but I do whatever I can to not make use of them. CHEATING IS BAD, OKAY?

Besides, Blood Prince Council? NOT a hard fight. Just spread out, keep the orb thing in the air, heal your tanks, kill the active target. Bam.

Okay, that’s it for the Q&A for this week. Coming up later this week, ICC strats! Stay tuned.

Quick Q&A response!

Kurn / / q&a, tanks

Okay, this search term that led someone to my site CANNOT WAIT until Monday’s regular Q&A post.

“do i need defense to tank regular dungeons”

Yes. Let me say that again. Yes.

Granted, you’re not going to have much defense gear to tank Deadmines, but if you’re talking about regular dungeons from 70-80, or even 60-70, defense does matter.

Here’s the deal. If you want to tank, figure out what level the end boss is in the instance through WoWhead. Say you’re 74 and you want to tank regular Violet Hold. Well, Cyanigosa is level 77. You never want to tank mobs 4 or more levels above you, due to crushing blows becoming a possibility, but 3 levels is about average. So you can do VH at 74.

But what defense do you need? The number you are looking for, when you hover your mouse over your defense rating is the chance to not be hit/critically hit by 5.6% for a boss 3 levels higher than you, 5.4% for a boss 2 levels higher than you, 5.2% for a boss 1 level higher than you and 5.0% for a boss of your own level. This is because bosses (all mobs, really) have a base 5% chance to crit and this number increases by .2% for every level the creature has above you.

If you don’t have the required numbers mentioned above, try real hard not to go to an instance with mobs that are higher level than you.

The numbers at 80 are:

535 defense to be NOT critted by a boss 2 levels higher than you (heroics) and 540 defense to be NOT critted by a boss 3 levels higher than you (raid bosses).

If, of course, you are a druid with 3/3 Survival of the Fittest, you cannot be crit unless the mob is something like 5 levels above you, so you do not require any additional defense. You CAN, however, be crushed by mobs 4 or more levels above you, so stick to 3 or fewer levels of difference between you and the mobs you’re tanking.

It’s part of why I actually enjoy tanking on my druid. I know that as long as I go to a level-appropriate instance, I can’t get crit. :)

Kurn's Q&A #3

Kurn / / q&a, raiding, ramblings

Time for another browse through my site stats and the keywords that brought people here!

1) “does shadow ward stack with acclimation”

I actually had to look this up. Shadow Ward is a warlock spell in the Demonology tree. Acclimation is a death knight spell in the Frost tree. They are self-buffing spells only, so Shadow Ward does not stack with Acclimation as a warlock cannot get Acclimation and a death knight cannot get Shadow Ward.

If you mean the buff you get from the Blood Prince Council fight, Shadow Resonance, I do believe that Shadow Ward would stack with that. (And since it’s a buff from being the ranged/caster tank on that fight, it doesn’t matter if Acclimation stacks with it.)

2) “flask mastery”

There is no “flask mastery”. It’s Elixir Mastery in alchemy that will proc flasks. It’s been this way since The Burning Crusade and has continued into Wrath.

3) 70’s regular dungeon dk defence

Hi there, Mr. or Ms. Death Knight Tank. Thank you for doing research into defense rating! I presume that you were looking for the number your defense rating should be to render you crit-immune as you level.

540 is the number you’re looking for at 80 when fighting level 83+ (raid) bosses. 535 is the number you’re looking for at 80 when fighting 82 level (heroic) bosses.

Of course, the ratings change as you level and so level 80 numbers don’t help terribly much. What you’re looking for is when you hover over your defense rating is:

Decreases chance to be hit/critically hit by 5.6%

That’ll let you tank a boss or mobs 3 levels higher than you. Any higher than that, and you get into crushing blows, so don’t go tanking a 76 when you’re 72. You’re going to die quickly.

Remember to check your defense rating whenever you ding, because it will change due to the way the rating system works. You need less defense the lower level you are and more of it the higher level you are. That’s why 490 was the magic number for raid bosses at 70 and 540 is the magic number today.

Or something like that. Have I mentioned that I don’t do math very well?

4) “are priest still good healers? 3.3”

In a word, yes. That’s the short answer. The longer answer has to do with what you want to do with your priest. If you want to repeatedly drop 20k crit heals on your party members, then no, priests aren’t good for that. You want a pally in that case. If you want to roll Renew on the raid and pretend you’re a resto druid, then no, priests aren’t great for that, either.

Priests can have two main strengths, using Discipline and Holy specs. If you’re a disc priest, you are suddenly AMAZING at mitigating damage and do very solid single-target healing. If you’re a holy priest, you are pretty fantastic at helping to maintain the health of the raid, via Circle of Healing, Renew, Prayer of Mending and such. Both holy and disc priests come with valuable cooldowns, Pain Suppression for the disc priest and Guardian Spirit for the holy. Both specs of priests are an integral part of any raid composition. In fact, my ideal group makeup is:

2 holy paladins, 1 disc priest, 1 holy priest, 1 resto shammy, 1 resto druid

Granted, I’m biased because I’m a paladin. ;) But priests are necessary pieces of the healing composition puzzle. A disc priest is invaluable on Saurfang and Putricide for damage reduction, a holy priest is almost mandatory on heroic Anub’arak for Body and Soul and both types of priests are always able to be used in any healing situation.

So yes. They are still good healers. In fact, my guild is currently looking for a disc priest with a holy offspec, so drop a line in the comments if you’re interested.

5) “can you get rhok’delar now that they changed onyxia?”

Well, according to WoWHead, the Mature Black Dragon Sinew will be a 100% drop off the black dragonkin mobs in the Burning Steppes IF you have the quest from the Ancient Petrified Leaf. So go to MC, get the leaf from Domo’s chest (50% drop rate) and then start the quest. Once you get the quest A Proper String, you should then be able to kill dragonkin to get the sinew.

Some notes about fighting the demons, since I did this back in the day:

– you MAY be grouped when you do the demons, but no one — not even your pet, and that includes the snake trap — can do any action during the demon fights that would cause them to get on the demon’s aggro list

– you MAY be buffed prior to your engaging the demon, so long as the buff is something that just sticks on you (no renew/rejuv/etc — but kings, mark, fort, they’re all fine)

Hands-down, this was the most fun I’ve ever, ever had on my hunter. I wish I could do something like this again. And yes, that even includes the 13975 deaths I had to Franklin the Friendly/Klinfran the Crazed. That bastard.

6) “wow needle encrusted scorpion automatically passed”

That would be because you (or whoever automatically passed) already have it. It’s a unique item, not unique-equipped. So check your bank or your bags, because you can’t get a second Needle-Encrusted Scorpion. Sadly. :)

7) “how do i get to dalaran”

Well, Dalaran is the major city in Northrend, so I get why you want to go there. :) If you’re low-level, the best way is just to get a mage to port you there. If you want to be able to fly out of there, however, you’ll want to make sure you have the flight point at Wyrmrest Temple, too. That’s a good hub and definitely links up to Dalaran. What I like to do is link the following (Alliance-only, sorry!) routes as I’m levelling (from West to East):

Valiance Keep (Borean Tundra), Unu’pe (Borean Tundra), Star’s Rest (Dragonblight), Wyrmrest Temple (Dragonblight), Wintergarde Keep (Dragonblight), Amberpine Lodge (Grizzly Hills), Westguard Keep (Howling Fjord), Valgarde (Howling Fjord). That allows me to fly from one start zone to the other, and will give me a connection to Dalaran as well.

As a mage, at level 71, you get a quest to go to Dalaran and you learn the Teleport: Dalaran spell. Everyone, I believe, gets a quest to go to Dalaran at level 74 (which is when a mage gets the spell for Portal: Dalaran).

As to where it actually is, it’s in Crystalsong Forest, north of Dragonblight. :)

8) “tanks who taunt on pull”

They’re dumb. No, really. They are. They go in and taunt, which has no real effect, and then their taunts are on cooldown when the over-eager DPS opens up. Splat goes the DPS and the tank tries to get aggro back as best they can. Unless the taunt has a damage component to it (like a paladin’s Hand of Reckoning), this is a super dumb move. And even then, it’s not like a paladin doesn’t have better ranged pulling options. Seriously.

I refer you to Kurn’s Guide on How to Behave as a Tank in Dungeons, point #4.

9) wow gemmin t9 paladin

Well, T9 is pretty good gear. I mean, coming from the perspective that this used to be available solely through badges earned in TOC/TOGC and off Koralon, it’s pretty good. Now you can get all your emblems from heroics and buy ilvl 232 without ever setting foot in TOC.

That said, I don’t know what spec you are, random T9 paladin, looking for gemming advice.

However…

Holy: Probably want to gem all 20 intellect gems, called Brilliant King’s Amber, (unless you’re a FoL spammer stacking spellpower, in which case, I doubt you would google for gem advice) with 1 orange gem (Luminous Ametrine) and 1 green gem (Dazzling Eye of Zul) to satisfy your meta requirements. Or, get a Nightmare Tear for the meta requirement and gem intellect everywhere else.

Prot: Make sure you’re at 540 defense, that you have met your meta requirement and then gem 30 stamina with Solid Majestic Zircons.

Ret: Make sure you’re not ignoring your hit and expertise caps, meet your meta requirement, then go nuts with the 20 strength gems called Bold Cardinal Ruby.

10) wow icc 10m composition

Basically, you want 2 tanks, 5 DPS and 3 healers. You ideally want one of the healers to be a direct healer (pally/disc priest) and one of them to be a raid healer (holy priest, resto druid, resto shammy). You want the third healer, not the single direct or a single raid healer, to have a DPS offspec.

You do the first four bosses with 2 healers, then switch to 3 healers for Rotface, have 2 for Festergut and then 2-3 for Professor Putricide. For the Crimson Halls, you’ll DEFINITELY want 3 healers for the Blood Prince Council and probably 3 for Queen Lana’thel. (Haven’t done her yet.)

Apart from that, things you’ll want to include:

– Blessing of Kings (1 pally or Drums of Forgotten Kings)

– Gift of the Wild (1 druid or Drums of the Wild)

– Fortitude (1 priest or Runescroll of Fortitude)

– Replenishment. I don’t care if it’s even a frost mage, Replenishment is soooo good.

– At least 1 person to cleanse curses for Deathwhisper (moonkin/resto druid, resto shammy, mage)

– At least 1-2 ranged DPS for Saurfang kiting of the adds

– At least 1 ranged DPS who can tank on Princes

That’s the bare basics. What is also nice, but still basic:

– Heroism/Bloodlust

– Blessing of Might/Battle Shout

– Blessing of Wisdom/Mana Spring Totem

– Hand of Sacrifice/Pain Suppression/Guardian Spirit

– Strength of Earth Totem/Horn of Winter

– Flametongue Totem/Totem of Wrath/Demonic Pact

– Swift Retribution Aura/Improved Moonkin Aura

– Rampage/Leader of the Pack

That’s just my two cents, really. I don’t even go into Trueshot Aura/Abominable Might and Windfury and all that jazz. The possible combinations are really hard to be “bad” as long as most of the basics are taken care of.

On a related note, I’m getting a LOT of search terms regarding strats, so I’ll be posting basic strats for the Lower Spire and the Plagueworks in the coming days, which should be workable for both 10 and 25-man groups.

Kurn's Q&A Time #2

Kurn / / q&a, ramblings

So I went poking through my site stats again. Let’s look at a few interesting search terms, shall we?

1) holy paladin improved judgements

Please, please, God, please have shown holy paladins to go to this entry:

http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/?p=317

2) “halls of reflection” heroic howto

Head over to Kurn’s Guide on How to do Heroic Halls of Reflection Without Being Lame and Cheap. Note that I don’t mention the cliff “strat”. That’s because it is, in my mind, an exploit, similar to standing on the ledge in Mandokir’s room in ZG. In other words, just plain ridiculous.

3) addon healer is drinking

Well, now, this could be interesting. I don’t actually know of an addon that lets you see if your healer is drinking, like that pops up with “ZOMG DON’T PULL HEALER IS DRINKING” or something. If one exists, please post in the comments!

Otherwise, keep an eye on your healer’s mana bar. Basically, if they’re above half, you’re good to go on trash. You can also, you know, look at the party portrait of your healer and see if they’ve got the eating/drinking buffs on them, or just watch your healer to see if they’re eating or drinking. But thank you for being considerate of your healer’s mana!

4) can dps use death and decay in instance

The quick answer is yes. The longer answer is, let your tank pick up all the adds, first. While Death and Decay is good damage, it’s also high-threat. You’re going to pull off the tank if you drop it ASAP unless your tank is totally on the ball.

5) does flask of frost wyrm proc with elixir master

Why yes, yes it does. So do all flasks, from Flask of Distilled Wisdom to Flask of Stoneblood. Flasks count as elixirs for some unknown reason. And that’s why very few people were potion masters in BC and now that you can use one potion per fight, even fewer alchemists are potion-specced. I was potions for a long time, given that I use to live on mana potions in a raid, but even I gave that up and went elixir.

6) could a balanced nightseye gem count as two sockets

Yes! It astounds me how few people realize this.

Purple gems (like nightseye, twilight opal, dreadstone) are a mix of red and blue stats. Red and blue make purple. So a purple gem counts for both 1 red and 1 blue.

Orange gems (monarch topaz, ametrine) are a mix of red and yellow stats. Red and yellow make orange. So an orange gem counts for both 1 red and 1 yellow.

Green gems (forest emerald, eye of zul) are a mix of blue and yellow stats. Blue and yellow make green. So a green gem counts for both 1 blue and 1 yellow.

A Nightmare Tear matches any socket AND counts as all three of the gems and so is known as a “prismatic” gem. So if you’re a holy paladin with an Insightful Earthsiege Diamond as your meta (and it should be!), having one Nightmare Tear in your gear somewhere will be enough to activate your meta all on its own.

Also, a note about the Eternal Belt Buckle. This adds an extra socket to your belt. It is a “prismatic” socket, because it can hold any colour gem. You are NOT required to use a prismatic gem (such as the Nightmare Tear) in this socket! I still see WAY too many people walking around with a Nightmare Tear in their belts for no reason other than the fact that they think they can’t have another gem in there.

7) hunter kiting dk icc boss

Ah, on Saurfang, are we? Your job, hunters, is likely to wail on the blood beasts he calls out. Watch your boss mod timers, drop a frost trap near the spawn points and use Distracting Shot to get them to walk over it towards you. Hope your range knows how to focus fire! :)

8) getting a mage geared for icecrown citadel

I’m still a pretty craptastic mage, but for anyone aiming to gear up for ICC, here’s what I recommend:

– 4/5 Tier 9 (232 is okay, but 245 is better and 258 would be amazing)

– All the badge items you can get that are ilvl 245 that actually, you know, help your toon out

– A couple 264 badge items

– Friendly or Honored Ashen Verdict ring

That’s assuming you’re trying to app to an ICC guild. That’s probably what I’d be looking for in terms of gear from just about anyone. Pugging it will probably require full T9 and a handful of ilvl 245 items. On my server, you get laughed at if your “gear score” is under 5000. (I do not like the concept of “gear score”, but it’s become a fairly sad reality on Proudmoore.)

9) pugs having problems with second wing in ice crown

No freaking kidding. Rotface and Festergut and Professor Putricide aren’t a walk in the park like the Airship or anything. There’s a lot of coordination that needs to take place on all of these fights. I haven’t even killed Putricide yet (although I came close on 10-man last night). Hopefully we’ll down him tonight before the new content opens up tomorrow.

10) why are so many dps idiots

Haha, okay, my final search term for the day. Honestly, I wish I knew. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that the DPS has one job — kill stuff. They don’t really need to worry about dispelling stuff (except mages! You should always decurse!!!). They really have very little in terms of responsibility. You lose a DPS on a fight, eh, big deal. You can still down a boss with the remaining DPS. They’re expendable. I think that because they focus on that one job so much, they ignore everything else except their own damage meters. So they don’t care if they pull aggro, they blame the tank. Guess what, buddy? If you pull aggro off your tank, YOU ARE WRONG. If you don’t save the healer’s ass by sacrificing yourself or your pet or something, YOU ARE WRONG. So what if the boss enrages? Gotta be the healers’ fault for letting DPS die, right? WRONG.

DPS has to stay out of crap on the floor, has to down adds, has to beat enrage timers. And sadly, 75%+ of the DPS out there are total morons who wouldn’t know what Naxx looks like because they’re spending all their time in the instance staring at their meters.

Pro tip: Pay attention to your surroundings and your Omen window instead of Recount.

Rotface and Cleansing Totem

Kurn / / guide, icecrown citadel, q&a, raiding, shamans

I haven’t really spoken about strats for ICC25 as of yet, mostly because I’m not a raid leader or even a healing lead at this point in time, which suits me just fine.

But I found this in my search stats, and thought I should address this immediately:

“rotface cleansing totem”

No! Don’t do it! I know I am a HUGE proponent of Cleansing Totem. I have said, repeatedly, that shammies should drop it all the time because it’s the best totem ever.

But dropping it on Rotface is BAD. As soon as the person with mutated infection gets cleansed, they drop an ooze. Dropping an ooze in the group is similarly BAD.

What we do, and your mileage may vary, is have everyone stack up on Rotface and beat on him at close range, sidestepping Slime Spray and running out when the big oozes explode.

If someone gets the mutated injection, we have them run to the OT who is on the outer edges of the room, dodging slime pools and trying not to run headfirst into the slime that fills up quadrants of the room.

We do not currently cleanse any of the people with mutated infection. This is similar to most people’s strategies on Grobbulus in Naxxramas. Just let it fall off naturally. The reasoning is that it appears that cleansing someone will reset his timer on casting it and will eventually lead to more casts of mutated infection, leading to more slimes, leading to more explosions, leading to less DPS just by virtue of people running away, not even taking into consideration the number of people who may die due to more infections, slimes and explosions.

So, long story short: NO CLEANSING TOTEM ON ROTFACE. Your raid will thank you for not cleansing, I promise. And if they don’t, point them here. :P

Kurn's Q&A Time

Kurn / / q&a, ramblings

So I’ve been poking through my web server stats and have noticed a bunch of interesting questions coming to me as the referral through search engines that brought people here. I thought I’d take a few of them and answer them, since many include keywords that I’ve talked about, but haven’t necessarily actually answered.

#1) “aspect of the wild stack with gift of the wild”

Nope, sorry. Aspect of the Wild and Nature Resistance Totem do not stack with each other, nor with Gift or Mark of the Wild. Paladin auras for Frost, Fire and Shadow Resistance also don’t stack with Shadow Protection from priests, totems from shammies or Gift or Mark of the Wild. I know, I know. It’s sad, isn’t it?

#2) “resetting cross realm instances”

Seriously, I don’t know how. Anyone out there know?

#3) “first gear from emblems of triumph mage”

Honestly, it depends on your gear. I went for the shoulders first because I knew I was scrubby and the ilvl 232 shoulders (T9 from badges) at least give me the appearance of some kind of legitimacy.

#4) “best way to dps as a hunter while moving alot patch 3.3”

Of course, hunter DPS will always be better while standing still, so we can get our autoshots and steady shots off. The best way, IMHO, to DPS in a fight with lots of movement is to time your instants. Like, step, shoot, step, shoot, if you can. Or, just get to your destination ASAP. Use Kill Command for your pet while you’re moving and consider Rapid Fire once you’re at your destination, unless you have a specific burn phase you want to use it on.

#5) “holy paladin improved judgements”

DON’T TAKE THIS TALENT IF YOU ARE A HOLY PALADIN. See: http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/?p=317

#6) “how long does it take to run icecrown citadel”

That depends. The first four bosses, in a non-PUG, should take about 60-90 minutes, if you’re familiar with the fights, either on 10 or 25. Festergut, Rotface and Putricide are a good deal more challenging than the first four fights. My current guild has not yet gotten Putricide with 5 attempts used this current reset and I do not believe anyone on my server or my past two servers have gotten him yet on 25-man. He is apparently doable (though not easy) on 10-man. It took my guild about 80-90 minutes of attempts to get Rotface down and about an hour to get Festergut down, though half the raid had 10-man experience.

#7) “which icc dungeon has the vendor”

It’s actually inside the raid instance. Basically, go up the front steps to Icecrown Citadel, past the battering ram. That’s the raid entrance. Any two people (as long as they’re both over level 10) can make a raid, and you don’t need a clear raid to get in, either. So party up with someone, make it a raid and then zone in. Your tier vendors are scattered throughout the first room. And there’s a portal to Dalaran over on your right, too. (Note the Argent Crusade repairman for those not exalted with the Ashen Verdict — cheaper repairs if you’re exalted with the crusade!)

#8) “how we get t8 paladin”

Okay, I chuckled. Run Ulduar. Or kill Emalon.

As a reference, here’s where the tier is located in Wrath content and how to get it, apart from getting it in VOA:

Tier 7 – Naxxramas, Obsidian Sanctum (gloves)
Tier 8 – Ulduar
Tier 9 – Three ways: a) Emblems of Triumph for the ilvl 232 version. b) Trial of the Crusader for a Trophy of the Crusade, which can be combined with Emblems of Triumph for the ilvl 245 version. c) Trial of the Grand Crusader, killing Anub on heroic, for a class-restricted token/token/token that can be exchanged for the ilvl 258 version.
Tier 10 – All tier must be bought with Emblems of Frost for the ilvl 251 version. Once you have this version, a class-restricted token (same classes as T6, T7, T8, T9), which drops from end-bosses of wings, so like Saurfang and Putricide, can be combined with that item for the ilvl 264 version. This DESTROYS the ilvl 251 version, including enchants, so when you upgrade, bear that in mind. Once you have the ilvl 264 version and heroic modes open up (after killing Arthas) you will be able to access other tokens that, combined with the ilvl 264 version, will give you ilvl 277 versions.

#9) “how to get aggro as dk damn fast on boss”

Well, I’m not a death knight, but make sure you’re in Frost Presence (you’d be surprised how many DK tanks don’t use it) and ensure that you drop Death and Decay. Then I think you go about applying your diseases. I could be wrong about the diseases, but D&D is a high-threat move on a 30 second cooldown that lasts for 10 seconds. You should be able to establish aggro pretty quickly in the first 10 seconds.

#10) “eye of the beast in icecrown citadel”

I presume you mean Eyes of the Beast, meaning using your pet to look around and such. Standing outside of the Plagueworks the other night, waiting for the hunters to pull Stinky or Precious, I was whispering to my RL friend (and healing lead) about how long the hunters were taking and I laughed, remembering that I used to be THAT HUNTER who had to do the dreaded pet pull for Baron Geddon and Shazzrah in Molten Core. So I was like “pet pull!” and my friend replied that that’s what one of the hunters was doing. :) I was like “YES! Way to go hunter! Kickin’ it old school!!”

And for what it’s worth, the TankSpot video on how to kill Stinky and Precious:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKe2N7wKxKs

#11) “reset dungeon with clique”

OOH, a question I can totally answer! As long as it’s not about resetting cross-realm dungeons… If you use Clique and have bound something to your right-click, you may find that you are unable to, you know, right click on people’s portraits to trade them, inspect them, etc, or even your own character portrait in order to leave group or reset an instance. Open Clique. Go to Frames. Untick anything you don’t habitually click on in order to heal someone. For example, I NEVER heal through portraits and always heal through Grid, so I untick any frames that don’t have “Grid” in the title. That means that your mouse bindings are only active when clicking on the frames you use to heal with.

#12) “new voa 3.3 patch”

Not sure when, but it should match up with the new arena season. There will be a new boss, Toravon the Ice Watcher, to fight that will drop ilvl 251 Tier 10 (on 10-man) and ilvl 264 Tier 10 (on 25-man), as well as PVP pieces and 2 Emblems of Frost on both 10 and 25-man.

#13) “onyxia how many tanks healers”

10-man, you only really need two of each if you’re adequately geared. Otherwise, 2 tanks and 3 healers. For 25-man, 2 tanks (if the tanks don’t suck) and 5-6 healers. If the tanks suck or you’re unsure about them, get 3 tanks. You shouldn’t need more than six healers at the very most.

#14) “how to dps a kited boss”

Very, very slowly. ;) Just kidding. It depends on who’s doing the kiting. Is it a hunter? We have a taunt, so we can keep aggro almost indefinitely — as long as we don’t run out of room to run. Is it a shammy? Watch their threat and pray they’re using Frost Shock. Is it a mage? You will probably eventually surpass the mage’s threat. Possibly with a warlock as well, unless they have time to cast Searing Pain.

Or, if you just mean a traditional tank having to move around a lot, use a lot of instant abilities and get to your destination ASAP.

#15) “guide to halls of reflection heroic as healer”

I’ve tanked it more than I’ve healed it, to be honest. But here are some tips specific to healers, to go hand-in-hand with Kurn’s Guide on How to Successfully Clear Heroic Halls of Reflection Without Being Lame and Cheap.

a) If you’re a PALADIN: Beacon and shield the tank, keep them up and keep the FoL hots ticking. DO NOT worry about the poisons too much and ask a shammy, if you have one in the group, to keep Cleansing Totem down. Once the tank establishes aggro, feel free to hit Holy Wrath and stun all the adds. Make liberal use of any racials to get you out of CC, like Every Man For Himself. Save your bubble for the first boss if you can, if you have Divine Sacrifice. Bubble, DivSac just before a fear. For Marwyn, do not cleanse the magic effect (Shared Suffering) unless people are mostly topped off. Heal first, THEN cleanse. For the waves at the end, turn evil on an abomination if you have a spare global. Use Divine Plea on the run. Still use Holy Wrath when you can. Use Bubble/DivSac if you have it just after the second wave spawns on the last wall.

b) If you’re a PRIEST: Stick close to your tank and be prepared to shackle a ranged (Phantom Mage or Tortured Rifleman). Make liberal use of Guardian Spirit or Pain Suppression. Prayer of Mending is beautiful here, as well. Obviously, you can’t cleanse poisons, so also ask a shammy to drop Cleansing Totem if you have a shammy in your group. Make sure to use your Shadowfiend early on in waves in case you need it again on a boss. Fear Ward YOURSELF for the fears because you’re not going to have as much health as everyone else. Always heal yourself first after a fear on the first boss. For Marwyn, like pallies, do not cleanse the magic effect (Shared Suffering) unless people are mostly topped off. Heal first, THEN cleanse. For the waves at the end, shackle an Abomination if you can, but it’s not the end of the world if you can’t. Expect EVERYONE to have aggro at the last wall and toss out renews, PoM, a PoH if you can, CoH if you’re holy.

c) If you’re a SHAMAN: Drop Cleansing Totem. Chain Heal. Win. ;) Seriously, though, Cleansing Totem is your best friend. Falric’s fears aren’t mitigated by Tremor Totem (they’re a horror effect, I believe), so don’t worry about that. ES the tank, obviously, and make sure you hit riptide and then CH that target for the boost to CH from RT, which will hopefully chain through most of your group. Nature’s Swiftness/Healing Wave at your discretion, usually on yourself or a squishy DPS after a fear. Make sure you decurse Cursed Arrow or any stacks from Well of Corruption. Heroism/Bloodlust is best used when the SECOND group of adds spawn on the last wall on the chase fight, as is your Earth Elemental. Cleanse Curse of Doom as needed and basically do what you can to stay alive. Pop your self-rez if you die and drop mana tide immediately. You cannot be out of commission for long.

d) If you’re a DRUID: Use Abolish Poison if you have no shaman in your group to get rid of those pesky poisons. Keep a Rejuv on yourself and the tank at all times and save Swiftmend for yourself or the tank if you get in trouble. Wild Growth on cooldown during Falric will go a long way towards mitigating the fear damage. Decurse Cursed Arrow and stacks from Well of Corruption. Do not hesitate to use Nature’s Swiftness/Healing Touch on yourself or your tank at any point in time. You can likely do the boss fights with 2 DPS and you can always battle rez someone, so your priorities consist of you and the tank. For the chase fight, keep your hots rolling, WG on cooldown, because everyone is going to get aggro and will take at least some damage.

That’s it for now. Hope you found the search terms as amusing as I did! :)