Category: 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.

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.