Well, I’m not 100%, but I am on the mend, and so I’m going to take today to suggest a few good reads (and listens) for your enjoyment.

A while back we looked at the most famous Warlocks in WoW, and while Ner’zhul (the original Lich King) never actually became a Warlock, his story is very much intertwined with those of characters we investigated – Gul’dan and Kil’jaeden amongst others. Therefore, this great article on his lore from WoW.com is definitely worth a read!

A common theme of complaint these days seems to be ‘WoW is too easy’, or something along those lines. I haven’t really said anything on the matter, although I do agree that the game is become maybe a little too “casual-friendly” – which is a term I use loosely – but there are a couple of podcasts who have been discussing it and a lot of their points would be my points. These are the two best ones I’ve found on the subject:

• The Slash 2 podcast, episode 17.
• World of Warcast, episode 95.

Darth Solo of WoW Alone wrote a great, in-depth post on The Truth About Inscription! *dramatic music*

HitTheCap at last managed to hit the cap (after just two and a half months in actuality). So well done to Tella on that achievement!

Yes, I know it’s not a really informative and interesting post, but I’m building my way back up. Additionally, work gets in the way a lot, so if anyone fancies solving some vector mechanics for me…

Vel.

I hit 30 this morning on my baby lock. If anyone is interested in following her progress, feel free to snoop

To celebrate I hit yet another Battleground, sunny Arathi Basin. To say I got mangled would be an understatement !!

The difference between 20’s to 30’s is just massive. The opponents have a vast array of new spells to crucify you with and more importantly the level restrictions on items for enchants has now diminished as most items being worn are 35+, this in case you did not realise is the benchmark to start using the burning crusade enchants on gear. So far I have never been one shotted that I am aware of but the tally in one match was probably double figures or close to it. Rogues working in teams , druids working in teams meant I got to know the spirit healer very well

One of the items I need a little later on [35] are the gloves from Revelosh in Uldaman, namely Revelosh’s Gloves of Healing. So far I have attempted him 25 times and still no ‘of the healing’ yet. I do have the ‘of the eagle’ though which are on one side incase I opt for a stamina boost and forfeit the +15 spell damage in my build. Luckily he is very close to the entrance and so it’s literally 5 – 7 minutes to get to him and reset the instance again for another attempt. With the slaughtering I am taking in the battleground right now at this level, I am happy to keep farming for these gloves and then scarlet monastary for another item until I hit level 34.

As I started this guide a little late on my lock, I have a new character ready for logging now and twinking. A baby rogue in the wings – link to come soon when I actually make a start on her.

I’m not sure about other classes, but something irks me with warlocks recently.

As a warlock, you have 3 dps trees, affliction, demonology, and destruction. Each with its pros and cons.

What irks me is when people, usually ‘noobs’, switch instantly to the ‘top’ spec. I’ve seen people running ramps with DS, one for affliction and soloing, and one for destruction, for instances. lolwut. The difference between the specs is so little than it amounts to nothing more than a few hundred dps at the top end, let alone in ramps.

Most of these people don’t even fully read into why each spec is better than another, and I think a perfect example of this was with stars and their world first yoggy+0 kill, where they actually stacked affliction warlocks. I think this sent quite a few people into shock (WUT?! DESTRO NOT TOP? WUT!) that their cookie cutter spec they chose without much concern about why its top, or how to gear it, was suddenly, not so top. Knowing your spec, and how to play it, where its strengths and weakness’s are, will more than make up for that few hundred dps difference.

Don’t even get me started on warlocks who gem and gear for crit, thinking that haste is a useless stat for destro… ‘because its those big numbers that put my dps over 3k’. Lolwut.

resoconto finesettimana: sono rimasta a casa ho guardato due poco-impegnativi-ma-commoventi filmetti koreani (my sassy girl e windstruck) su youtube (ce vole coraggio), ho “suonato” e mi son fatta le foto cafone con la chitarra (altrettanto cafona). questa sotto è la mia preferita, con quest’ espressione che denota intelligenza e spigliatezza, colta a sorpresa da un autoscatto partito prima del tempo, nota anche come “faccia da pollo”. (pà sei contento adesso?)

non è che vado in giro per casa vestita, stavo facendo la maratona andata e ritorno e ri-ritorno da mediaworld, per cambiare un decoder di merda acquistato con troppa fretta. risultato: il nuovo decoder è peggio del precedente. non se vede ncazzo. poi mi son ricordata la *delicatezza* nei modi di colei o colui ha toccato il cavo dell’antenna per l’ultima volta. e quindi niente, impugno sto cavo dell’antenna e, con ormai poco stupore, me rimangono un pezzo in una mano e un pezzo nell’altra. e io che ho perso ore a smadonnà contro quelle povere scatolette nere e a cercare tutti i firmware nuovi, ma vaffanculo va. ma poi dico, come se fa a spezzà un cavo del televisore? è di metallo eh.

roflcopter

Taetra Sorrowstar, all five feet five inches of her, was a delicate Blood Elf that on first glance looked as if she’d never worked a hard day’s labor in her life. However, closer inspection often revealed the smears of dirt, oil, and god-knows-what-else across her hand-stitched robes, the scrapes and scabs on her pale skin, and the agitated, haughty expression of a first-class tomboy.

On this particular day, nestled close to the blacksmith in the Lower City of Shattrath, she was clambering over and under a strange, rocket-shaped contraption that looked about ready to either blow up or fall apart, depending on how hard she hit it. Akema Icemane, Taetra’s close Tauren friend, peered curiously at the patched metal and garbled paint job.

“What, exactly, is this supposed to be again?” she asked, touching the wet paint and then trying, in vain, to scrub it off her white fur.

“A copter,” came Taetra’s blunt reply as she flipped upside down and scooched her way into the footwell.

‘A what?”

“A flying machine.”

“And you built this?”

“Yes.” The young Elf twisted to look up at Akema through her gem-studded goggles. “And you keep quiet about it. It’ll work perfectly fine.”

“It’s just… well… Tae, you don’t have much luck with -”

“Hush, Ake.”

“I’m just worried that you’ll -”

“HUSH.” Twisting herself upright, she pressed the large red button installed next to the crooked steering wheel, and with a massive cough of black smoke and a severe amount of shaking and seizing, a dented propellor rose from the back of the machine and, lo and behold, lifted the odd device into the air. Taetra let out a whoop of joy as Akema stumbled back, scrubbing ash and grease from her fur.

“Tae, turn that thing off, you’re going to get yourself killed!” Akema cried, but the Blood Elf either couldn’t hear her or didn’t care in the least.

“Alright!” Taetra yelled with excitement, her grin flickering only somewhat as the propellor lost power for a moment and the machine dropped a good ten feet of height. “I told you I could do it, Ake! I told you!”

So lasse ich mir .pdf-Preise gefallen! Adamant Entertainment feiert Jubiläum und hat den Preis vieler ihrer .pdf-Produkte auf einen Dollar gesenkt! Neben vielen interessanten Sachen auch vier für Pathfinder.

Das Tome of Secrets (ehemaliger Preis 34,95 !!!) ist wohl das interessanteste davon, es bietet “Advanced Options for Players and Gamemasters” auf 192 Seiten. Darunter drei neue Rassen (u.a. Halb-Oger und Sauraner), acht Klassen (Priester, Ritter, Warlock, Warlord, Artefakt-Erschaffer) und regeln u.a. für Flaws, Stunts oder Moral.

Die drei Fell Beasts bieten wöchentlich (!) jeweils 10 neue Monster. Teil 1 bietet die Gnadenblume oder den Flußgeist, Teil 2 die Puppenspinne und verschiedene Totseelen-Elementare und Teil 3 Tiefe Wesen (Deep Ones), Silberfische, Menschenaffen und Skorpionwächter.

Sorry for the lack of interesting titles, but I really just can’t come up with an interesting one for what I have been doing since last post.

Lets start with the fact I got Sero to Northrend! Yay go me… and so I have spend countless hours looking up what to do with her next. I have to say that Shadow Priest and Lock have been probably the easiest to level classes, it’s almost boring.

Dot Dot Drain…Drain… Life tap.. start again. but well it’s fast and I’m showing a bit of interest in the class it’s self. I hope it get’s a bit more interesting when I actually have to worry about DPS.

I herd that affliction is the highest dps, but ranked one of the hardest spec/classes to play. I guess I’ll just have to check it out a bit more to come to a conclusion.

I also found out what Weight scaling is all about. I didn’t really get it all at first, but it took me looking in to level 80 warlock gear to really figure it out. I normally just threw any old gem in to my gear as long as it matched.  I guess it really doesn’t really matter all too much to the person who doesn’t care about 1/100 of a dps. But one should always try to maximize his/her potential right? right!

So I spent about 2-3 hours punching numbers in to both my cell calculator and my computer. Don’t ask me why both…. seemed more…productive. I can just tell you this.. I can’t effing wait till Cataclysm now. Not having to waste such time on trying to Min-max my gear will be a god send. I could have been doing something more productive like…. like…. watching cute puppies on Youtube! THINK OF THE PUPPIES! “/clear throat” What I ment to say was like using such valuable web space and time trying to maximize your UI or rotation, or even getting out of your chair.

And trust me a lot of UI’s I have seen… omg…how can you SEE?! all you see is your buttons.. damn..

Back to something less….yea..

Another thing I have been waisting my young life on is reading the Crap that players seem to drag in to the wow forums on a daily basis.

Witch just means that 95% of all complaining is QQ.

People complaining about the Stat changes in Cata (Cataclysm) saying it’s going to take the skill out of playing. Math isn’t a skill. Time isn’t one either.

People whining that Horde is Better then Ally.. or vise versa…

One class is OP… like Druids and Paladins.. Well… bout flippin time druids are.. and dammit why couldn’t I stay a druid… Any one wanna adopt a Bear tank?

That there dps is too low and so they roll Enhancement shamans, and use Fast off-hands and Dual windfury…
Sorry that one went a bit to ..personal.

Or Raid leaders who whine about one person not doing well enough. when they tend to put double standerds on you.
“I want you doing 7k dps….but don’t die, and dispel, interrupt, and run around nakid.”

but I guess the stupidity about people thinking other people are stupid.. or undeserving. Will continue to go on and on forever. At lest I get a good kick out of it!

Lastly I leave you rogues with.. I’m sorry you had to be come dinner! >)

Courtesy Dominic Hobbs of WoW.com

Create Soulstone: The cooldown on this spell and duration of its buff have been lowered from 30 minutes down to 15 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.

I’ve always felt that the cooldown on this ability was rather long, and it’s nice to see it’s being shortened to bring it in line with the fact that instances these days are much shorter and faster than they used to be. More wipe recovery is good, no?

Affliction

Improved Drain Soul: This talent now reduces threat by 10%/20%, up from 5%/10%.

There have always been issues with Warlock threat, whatever Blizzard have said, and hopefully this will address some of them. The main problem is often that we can’t simply just let our dps drop to 0 to prevent any threat being generated, as our DoTs will continue to tick. Obviously this problem is therefore especially apparent with Affliction, which relies heavily upon DoTs, and so 20% less threat from two points in this talent will help out the spec quite a bit.

Improved Felhunter: This talent now also reduces the cooldown on the felhunter’s Shadow Bite ability by 2/4 seconds.

The developers are pushing quite hard for the Felhunter to be viable again (so Affliction will use it instead of the Succubus or mana battery Imp) and allowing the puppy’s main attack to hit more often – leading to increased damage – is a good way of doing it.

Shadow Mastery: This talent now also increases the damage done by the felhunter’s Shadow Bite ability by 3/6/9/12/15%.

As above – the more damage done by the pet, the better. Whether or not we’ll see the Felhunter become the de facto Affliction pet again I’m unsure, but it’s certainly going to be more of an option.

Demonology

Decimation: Redesigned. When Shadowbolt, Incinerate or Soul Fire hit a target that is at or below 35% health, the cast time of Soul Fire is reduced by 20/40% for 8 seconds. Soul Fires cast under the effect of Decimation cost no shards.

Right, wowee, some major changes happening here. So the current effect needs SB or Incinerate to hit a target at 35% health or less to activate it. This will be the same with the new effect, except Soul Fire will also proc it, which is nice. However, the current effect will reduce the cast time of the next Soul Fire by 60% (assuming two points), whereas the new effect will reduce the cast time of the spell by 40% for 8 seconds.

What this means is you’ll be able to cast more SF spells per proc – the number depends on your haste – meaning more dps per proc, despite the relatively slower casting times compared to the current effect. I would also assume that casting SF then refreshes the effect, so you can just keep going and spamming it, providing you don’t have to move or do anything else for more than 8 seconds. I haven’t tested this on the PTR, but if correct, we can say goodbye to the weaving technique of mixing SB and SF, and hello to constant SF spam under 35%. It’s simpler, but less interesting. Of course, we still don’t get charged any shards for Decimated SF spells.

Demonic Pact: This talent now also increases the warlock’s spell damage by 1/2/3/4/5%.

A simple buff to give us some more damage, since we Demo Warlocks are often bullied into speccing into this by our raid leaders for the bonus to raid dps, and it’s only right we should have some personal gain.

Molten Core: Redesigned. This talent now increases the duration of Immolate by 3/6/9 seconds and provides a 4/8/12% chance to gain the Molten Core effect when Corruption deals damage. The Molten Core effect empowers the next 3 Incinerate or Soul Fire spells cast within 15 seconds (Incinerate: increases damage done by 6/12/18% and reduces cast time by 10/20/30%; Soul Fire: increases damage done by 6/12/18% and increases critical strike chance by 5/10/15%). Molten Core now has a new spell effect.

Another pretty large change to dissect. The effect today (with 3 points) gives our Shadow and DoT spells a 15% chance to increase the damage of our Fire spells by 10% for 12 seconds. Lots of numbers there, but lots more coming up. So the new effect is firstly going to give our Immolate spell a longer duration – this is nice; more dps for less mana usage and less time casting. The next part of the redesigned effect will give our Corruption spell a 12% chance to trigger MC; we therefore have less chance of proccing it, as it can only be from one spell and the % chance is less, although admittedly it’s a spell we should all have up anyway.

When we do trigger it, instead of a bonus to Fire damage, we’re going to get a reduced cast time and more damage on the next three Incinerate spells cast in 15 seconds. Alternatively, we get more damage and crit chance on the next three SF spells within 15 seconds. Obviously you can cast either spell and get the respective effect, up to three times. What this change means for you in terms of dps depends on the fight really, but I suspect in general it will be a dps increase when the effect procs – the downside could be its chance to proc, which is less than it is now, as mentioned. It does definitely mean that we need Corruption up when we’re Decimating under 35% however, for the SF bonuses.

Destruction

Conflagrate: Redesigned. This talent now consumes an Immolate or Shadowflame effect on the enemy target to instantly deal damage equal to 9 seconds of Immolate or 8 seconds of Shadowflame, and causes additional damage over 3 seconds equal to 3 seconds of Immolate or 2 seconds of Shadowflame. In addition, the periodic damage of Conflagrate is capable of critically striking the afflicted target.

This is a nerf unfortunately, but let’s be fair, Conflagrate was getting pretty crazy, especially in PvP. The fact that the DoT damage (which only lasts 2-3 seconds) is a slight relief, but it looks like you Destruction folks will just have to spec Demo live with it.

Destructive Reach: This talent now reduces threat by 10%/20%, up from 5%/10%.

Similar to the threat reduction given to Affliction really.

Ruin: This talent now also increases the critical strike damage bonus of the imp’s Firebolt spell by 100%.

More dps from the pet favoured by most Destro Warlocks in PvE, whilst not increasing damage in PvP too much. This is simply balancing.

Pets

Avoidance (passive): Now reduces the damage your pets take from area-of-effect damage by 90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.

More balancing of PvE with PvP – your pets will die far less often to those nasty bosses, but still will be killable by those nasty players.

Doomguard/Infernal: These pets now innately have Avoidance like all other warlock pets.

Again, just a balance to bring these pets on par with the regular ones.

Inferno: The cooldown on this summoning spell has been reduced from 20 minutes to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.

Good for those few of us who use this pet to finish a fight with, or for if you need a really quick AoE stun, as we can now use it more often.

Shadow Bite: This pet ability now does 15% increased damage for each of the warlock’s damage-over-time effects on the target.

Summon Imp: This ability is now available from the trainer for level 1 warlocks and no longer requires a quest to learn.

Glyphs

Glyph of Life Tap: The effect of this glyph now has a chance of activating when Dark Pact is used.

While you should always be proccing this with Life Tap, because it’s frankly better and doesn’t prevent your pet doing damage, it will be nice to proc it “by accident” when you do use Dark Pact. I’m struggling to find any solid numbers on this, but I’ll give a more in-depth explanation.

Right now, the max level Dark Pact ability takes 1200 mana from your pet and gives it to you. Life Tap takes 1490 (modified by Spirit) of your own health, and gives you an equivalent amount of mana. Unless for some reason you have a negative amount of Spirit, Life Tap will therefore always return more mana than Dark Pact, so it really depends on your health and your pet’s mana as to which spell you use. With the new changes to the Felhunter and its Shadow Bite ability (which returns mana to the Felhunter if talented), the issue of draining this pet’s mana won’t be so much of an issue as it can keep doing damage, so if it does become the major Affliction pet, we could see Dark Pact become more prevalent than it is now. If you’re using another pet however, I would still recommend Life Tap to proc this effect; it’s also worth noting that Dark Pact only has a chance (numbers to follow) of activating the effect whereas Life Tap activates it 100% of the time.

Glyph of Quick Decay: This glyph allows for the warlock’s haste to reduce the time between periodic damage effects of Corruption.

A thrilling new glyph which looks set to help Affliction back up from the bottom of the spec pile, having this will allow your Corruption to tick faster according to haste, so while the effect will run out faster and require renewing, your dps should increase as it literally is more damage per second. Expect to need to make some changes to your Affliction rotation to allow for more regular refreshing of this spell.

Bug fixes

And to finish, a whole swathe of bug fixes…

Conflagrate: This spell will no longer benefit inconsistently from the talents Emberstorm and Improved Immolate, as well as the Glyph of Immolate and Tier 9 set bonus. Just as for Immolate, all stacking percentage increases will be applied additively instead of multiplicatively (+10% and +20% make +30% instead of +32%). In addition, Conflagrate used with Shadowflame will now scale properly from spell power.

Curse of the Elements: Rank 4 has been increased to 11%, up from 10%.

Drain Soul: This spell now deals 4 times the normal damage for all ranks. Previously it was only ranks 6 and above.

Glyph of Conflagrate: Now updates the tooltip of Conflagrate to remove reference to Conflagrate removing an Immolate or Shadowflame effect on the target.

Glyph of Siphon Life: This glyph will now modify the tooltip on Siphon Life correctly.

Glyph of Unending Breath: Now updates the tooltip on Unending Breath to indicate it increases swim speed.

Hellfire: Dealing damage to another player with this ability will now put the Warlock in combat.

Improved Shadow Bolt: This talent no longer causes a bug that removes all resilience from pets.

Soul Link: Damage transferred via this ability can now be prevented by damage absorption effects.

Suffering (Voidwalker): Ranks 5-8 had the incorrect taunt radius of 5 yards and have all been adjusted to a 10-yard radius.

Overall, it’s pretty good, and where it’s bad, it’s needed for balancing. I’m looking forward to testing the new Demonology changes in particular, and expect a report once 3.3 hits as to how everything is working. For detailed information on how the different raiding specs will perform with these changes, see the WoW.com article here.

Feel free to comment on anything I’ve missed or gotten wrong with regard to the changes. Also, what are you looking forward to most?

Vel.

I went around to Silvermoon this morning to find an RSP that had mostly OOC information in it for my next entry. I found one, actually, and was very happy with what I found! What a perfect choice! I grinned and Screenshotted the blood elf warlock’s OOC bullcrap.

Alright! The normal wharrgarbl of “I am an elite role player and I will not do these sort of things so don’t come near me. Also, I spell magic with a K because I am totally a Wiccan in real life!” Perfect. Just what I needed for my OOC post about being OOC in RSP.

But then, I looked at her name. Kayla. I worked with a girl named Kayla. Hendrix? Like that old LSD using guy that made some really good music? I’m pretty sure that doesn’t sound Elven. Oh well, guess she just couldn’t think of a good last name using the typical blood elf pattern of VerbNoun or visa versa.

I kept reading past the OOC parts. Surely, she was an esteemed role player, since she had such high standards for the role play she will participate in, right?

Right?

Wat

You sure you wanna read the rest?

So much for being an esteemed role player, eh?

Looks like we have a Mary Sue here, ladies and gentlemen!

I have respect for Blizzard’s Lore, they have been working on it for 15 years now, most likely even longer. I play by the lore, my characters are people in this world and they are not characters but real people in this twisted, war torn world. This whole concept seems to take away from that whole idea.

It also rapes lore like a female character in one of Toni Morrison’s novels. (Okay, that joke is credited to Varendil.) EDIT: The women get raped in Toni Morrison books. And stop stealing all my good jokes! Although you linked my story, so I’ll forgive you.

Spilling Mountain Dew on the computer and waking up in the video game you’re playing? Light, why does this sound SO FAMILIAR? Protip: If you want to make a “Unique and special” backstory for your character, make sure it isn’t the plot from an anime first.

Let’s see what else we got here:

• Talking about her weight and of course, her chest. BUT IT’S NOT OKAY TO LOOK GUIS, SURE SHE’S TOP HEAVY BUT DON’T YOU LOOK OR I’LL SHADOWBOLT YOU!
• Singing metal lyrics around Silvermoon? Not sure if  “Hammer Smashed Face” has any real lyrics to it..even if this video is telling me otherwise.
• She’s calm, cool and collected..BUT SHE HAS A TEMPER SO SHE WON’T BE A VICTIM, OKAY?!
• Two bumps on her brow? This can only mean HORNS~ (Looks like SOMEONE finished their Maghar quests!)

“I’m actually a human girl from Cali who of course, loves WoW so much and is totally single, but now I am INSIDE of it and totally hot and unique and one of those mysterious warlock chicks because I was such a bad ass skater girl who played video games before I got sucked away into a magical world…did I mention I have huge tits? But don’t you dare look at them, I am a single warlock who is totally TURNING into a demon. Don’t you see the horns!?”

Ya know, reading over this again, I can’t even comment any more. Maybe I’ll just hand this off to Varendil so he can have fun with it. I’m utterly spent by this bullcrap.

Lan out.

Varendil in.

Thank you, Lanuria. I never would have caught the .hack//SIGN thing. I’m just not kawaii enough.

These are the RSPs that make me regret throwing away that old vodka.

I don’t have much to add. First, it’s nice to see that Kayla’s RSP is brought to you by Mountain Dew. Do the Dew.

Second, there are so many Hendrix references that Lan missed. The fact that she’s a foxy lady, that she clearly burned the midnight lamp thinking of this story, and, of course, The Wind Cries Mary Sue. There’s also a reference to the Western Plaguelands quest All Along the Watchtowers to be made, but I’m too lazy to contrive it.

Third, and this is true of lots of people, not just Miss Kayla Sue: Nobody cares what ’song relates to her the most.’ I mean, we already know you’re metal because you DRINK MOUNTAIN DEW and HAET TWILIGHT, plus the fact that you’re GROWING HORNS so we don’t need to see that you’re into the Guitar Hero nemeses that are Dragonforce.

Oh, and humans don’t grow bigger breasts upon becoming blood elven.

My advice for the future, Ms. Hendrix? Roleplay isn’t always about just being the person you wish you could be, at least so blatantly. I don’t wish I was Varendil, because I’m still young and have no kids IRL. Varendil’s merely a person I’m interested in, fascinated by, and that makes it easier to get under his skin and roleplay him. No one’s interested in Kayla Hendrix the human blood elf gone wrong thing, no matter how passive-aggressively you tell us to look at her breasts.

I also don’t get how a Mary Sue can hate Twilight when Bella’s the biggest one of all. Maybe in the same way homophobes are also more likely to harbor homoerotic urges of their own.

P.S.: You said pensieve when you meant pensive. Harry Potter’s not very metal, miss Dragonforce.

The Tier 10 set bonuses will come with the newest patch 3.3.

All set bonuses are listed below, classes arranged in alphabetical order.

Death Knight

• Death Knight T10 Tank 2P Bonus – Increases the damage done by your Death and Decay ability by 20%.
• Death Knight T10 Tank 4P Bonus – When you activate Blood Tap, you gain 12% damage reduction from all attacks for 10 sec.
• Death Knight T10 Melee 2P Bonus – Your Obliterate, Scourge Strike, and Death Strike abilities deal 10% increased damage.
• Death Knight T10 Melee 4P Bonus – Whenever all your runes are on cooldown, you gain 3% increased damage done with weapons, spells, and abilities for the next 15 sec.

Druid

• Druid T10 Restoration 2P Bonus – The healing granted by your Wild Growth spell reduces 0% less over time.
• Druid T10 Restoration 4P Bonus – Each time your Rejuvenation spell heals a target, it has a 2% chance to jump to a new target at full duration.
• Druid T10 Balance 2P Bonus – When you gain Clearcasting from your Omen of Clarity talent, you deal 10% additional Nature and Arcane damage for 6 sec.
• Druid T10 Balance 4P Bonus – Reduces the cooldown on your Eclipse talent by 6000.
• Druid T10 Feral 2P Bonus – Your Swipe (Bear) and Lacerate abilities deal 20% additional damage and the cost of your Rip ability is reduced by 10 energy.
• Druid T10 Feral 4P Bonus – Your Enrage ability no longer decreases your armor and instead decreases all damage taken by 12%, and the periodic damage done by your Rake ability can now be a critical strike.

Hunter

• Hunter T10 2P Bonus – Your Auto Shots have a 5% chance to cause you and your pet to deal 15% additional damage for until cancelled.
• Hunter T10 4P Bonus – Your Shot abilities deal 4% increased damage to targets afflicted with Viper Sting, Serpent Sting, or Wyvern Sting.

Mage

• Mage T10 2P Bonus – Your Mirror Image ability also causes you to deal 15% additional damage for 10 sec.
• Mage T10 4P Bonus – Your Hot Streak, Missile Barrage, and Brain Freeze talents also grant you 12% haste for 3 sec when the effect of the talent is consumed.

Paladin

• Paladin T10 Holy 2P Bonus – The cooldown on your Divine Favor talent is reduced by 60 sec.
• Paladin T10 Holy 4P Bonus – Your Holy Shock spell causes the next Holy Light you cast within 10 sec to have 0.3 sec reduced cast time.
• Paladin T10 Protection 2P Bonus – Your Hammer of the Righteous ability deals 20% increased damage.
• Paladin T10 Protection 4P Bonus – When you activate Divine Plea, you gain 12% dodge for 10 sec.
• Paladin T10 Retribution 2P Bonus – Your Seals and Judgements deal 10% additional damage.
• Paladin T10 Retribution 4P Bonus – Your melee attacks have a 4% chance to reset the cooldown on your Divine Storm ability.

Priest

• Priest T10 Healer 2P Bonus – After your Pain Suppression and Guardian Spirit talents expire on your target, they grant your target 10% increased healing received for 10 sec.
• Priest T10 Healer 4P Bonus – Your Flash Heal spell has a 15% chance to reset the cooldown on your Circle of Healing and Penance Spells.
• Priest T10 Shadow 2P Bonus – The critical strike chance of your Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague, and Vampiric Touch spells is increased by 5%.
• Priest T10 Shadow 4P Bonus – Reduces the channel duration and period of your Mind Flay spell by 51%.

Rogue

• Rogue T10 2P Bonus – Gives your melee finishing moves a 13% chance to add 3 combo points to your target.
• Rogue T10 4P Bonus – Your Tricks of the Trade ability now grants you 15 energy instead of costing energy.

Shaman

• Shaman T10 Restoration 2P Bonus – Your Riptide spell grants 20% spell haste for your next spellcast.
• Shaman T10 Restoration 4P Bonus – Your Chain Heal critical strikes cause the target to heal for 25% of the healed amount over until cancelled.
• Shaman T10 Elemental 2P Bonus – Your Lightning Bolt spell reduces the remaining cooldown on your Elemental Mastery talent by 1 sec.
• Shaman T10 Elemental 4P Bonus – The cooldown on your Lava Burst ability is reduced by 15 sec.
• Shaman T10 Enhancement 2P Bonus – When you activate your Shamanistic Rage ability you also deal 12% additional damage for 15 sec.
• Shaman T10 Enhancement 4P Bonus – Each time the beneficial effect of your Maelstrom Weapon talent reaches 5 charges, you have a 15% chance to gain 20% attack power for 10 sec.

Warlock

• Warlock T10 2P Bonus – The critical strike chance of your Shadowbolt, Incinerate, and Corruption spells is increased by 5%.
• Warlock T10 4P Bonus – Each time your Immolate and Unstable Affliction spells deal periodic damage, you have a 15% chance to gain 12% spell haste for 10 sec.

Warrior

• Warrior T10 Protection 2P Bonus – Your Shield Slam and Shockwave abilities deal 20% increased damage.
• Warrior T10 Protection 4P Bonus – Your Bloodrage ability no longer costs health to use, and now causes you to absorb damage equal to 20% of your maximum health. Lasts until cancelled.
• Warrior T10 Melee 2P Bonus – When your Rend and Deep Wounds abilities deal damage you have a 2% chance to gain 20% attack power for until cancelled.
• Warrior T10 Melee 4P Bonus – You have a 20% chance for your Blood Surge and Sudden Death talents to grant 2 charges of their effect instead of 1 and for the duration of the effect to be increased by 100%.

Warlock Tier 10

This post will be updated as the patch notes are changed.

Well, with patch 3.3 looming ever closer I’ve decided it’s finally time to do a review of the patch notes and take a look at what we can expect, both as Warlocks and in general. Today, we’re going to look at the new features (from a Warlock point of view) that stand out to me as well as anything notable to do with other classes, and tomorrow we’ll examine the actual (much more exciting) Warlock changes themselves in detail. Here we go!

Meeting Stones: To use any Meeting Stone, it is only required that the character’s minimum level be 15. There is no maximum character level requirement for any Meeting Stone.

This is a very useful change for people who want to boost lower level characters, or even for people who previously would have been just slightly too low or high to use the stone when in a normal group and would keep the others waiting. I can also see the meeting stones being used as a method of transportation now – “Hey mister, can you summon me using that stone for two gold?”. At least it might relieve the pressure on us Warlocks to do it!

Area-of-Effect Damage Caps: We’ve redesigned the way area damage is capped when hitting many targets. Instead of a hard cap on total damage done, the game now caps the total damage done at a value equal to the damage the spell would do if it hit 10 targets. In other words, if a spell does 1000 damage to each target, it would hit up to 10 targets for 1000 each, but with more than 10 targets, each target would take 1000 damage divided by the number of targets. 20 targets would be hit for 500 damage each in that example.

This is pretty self-explanatory, but simply put, they’re preventing AoE damage spells from doing too much damage by giving the spells a damage cap. If you’re attacking 10 mobs or less, you’ll see no change from how it works currently, but if you’re attacking more than 10, you’ll only do as much damage as if there were 10, and the damage will be divided equally up between the mobs. I can see why this change is needed – Rain of Fire, for example, does some pretty crazy damage sometimes, and the dps does spiral out of control.

Pet Resilience: All player pets now get 100% of their master’s resilience.

Fantastic change for us! Our pets will be significantly less squishy in PvP now, making them harder to kill and reducing the time we’ll have to spend re-summoning them.

Lay on Hands: This ability will place Forbearance on the paladin if used on his or herself. It will not place Forbearance on others.

This Paladin change is going to be great for those of us who hate fighting them – Forbearance is the debuff which prevents Paladins from using their bubbles or wings, meaning we’ll no longer have to effectively kill one three times since they will need to choose between a bubble and a LoH. So we’re just killing them twice now.

New option – Castable Debuffs: Enabling this will cause only debuffs you have cast on an enemy target to appear.

Really, it depends on how you like your debuffs (read: DoTs) to be displayed, or even if you have them displayed at all, as to how major this change is for you. For those of us who do use the default UI to manage their ticking spells of doom, this change should help quite a bit, because unless you really care as to whether that Warrior has Sundered, you can now turn off all debuffs except your own. They should be much easier to find amongst the many with this change enabled, and indeed they should also show up larger so they’ll be easier to see, too.

New option – Consolidate Buffs: Enabling this adds a buff consolidation box near the mini-map. Very short term buffs (e.g. Replenishment) and very long term buffs (e.g. Prayer of Fortitude) are filtered into the buff box. The icons are stacked here, but they can still be seen by moving the mouse cursor over the buff box. Long term buffs will move out of the box when they are about to expire. Buffs such as important procs (e.g. Art of War, Maelstrom Weapon), cooldowns (e.g. Bloodlust / Heroism, Combustion) or limited in range (e.g. totems and paladin auras) are always displayed.

You’ll never be without your beloved Metamorphosis ever again.

Enchant Weapon – Black Magic: This enchantment now sometimes increases haste rating for the caster rather than inflicting the caster’s target with a damage-over-time effect. It is also now triggered by landing any harmful spell rather than inflicting damage with a spell.

I’m unsure as to the exact nature of this change (how much haste, how often, etc), but I do have a feeling it will be a dps increase for anyone out there using it. Putting another DoT on a target is nice, but it only affects that one creature, and I don’t think it’s affected by your spell power or anything like that. A haste increase will raise your dps against anything that you’re attacking, even if you change targets, and benefits all of your spells.

• Target Effects: When this UI feature is activated, Fear, Silence, Frostbolt, and Hamstring will all now display text over the target’s head indicating what type of effect has been applied.

Nice and easy now to see who you’ve sent screaming in Fear, and who’s still to go.

Warlock T10 2P Bonus – The critical strike chance of your Shadowbolt, Incinerate, and Corruption spells is increased by 5%.

Warlock T10 4P Bonus – Each time your Immolate and Unstable Affliction spells deal periodic damage, you have a 15% chance to gain 12% spell haste for 10 sec.

These are the two set bonuses from the Tier 10 (Icecrown Citadel raid) items. The two piece is nice, with a simple 5% damage boost to all our staple spells for each spec, and the four piece is perhaps aimed more towards Destruction and Affliction Warlocks, with some tasty hasty. However, Demonology specs which use Immolate will still benefit here, and most of them do, so this ain’t a problem. You can see what the set itself looks like at the top of the post, in case you were blind and missed it on the way down.

Overall? I’m pretty happy with all of the above, and I can’t find much to complain about. Let’s hope the same is true of next time, when we examine the fun and exciting Warlock class changes!

Vel.

Doro rockt wieder reichlich amtlich! Was sich schon auf Calling The Wild über weite Strecken andeutete, findet auf dem symptomatisch Fight betitelten Nachfolgewerk seine konsequente Fortsetzung. Nach der Balladenphase in der ersten und der Elektronikphase in der zweiten Hälfte der 1990er-Jahre stehen mittlerweile wieder knackige Heavy-Rocker auf dem Plan, die ein um das andere Mal an Scheiben wie Force Majeure oder den 1987er-Warlock-Klassiker Triumph And Agony erinnern.

Natürlich kommt ein Album von Fräulein Pesch nicht gänzlich ohne Balladen aus: So beginnt “Undying” verdammt ruhig, nimmt jedoch in der zweiten Hälfte überraschend Fahrt auf, während “Wild Heart” als eine Art Halbballade durchgeht. Eher kitschig klingen dagegen “Fight By Your Side” und vor allem das mit deutschem Text und englischem Refrain operierende “Hoffnung”. Nummern wie der als Auftrittshymne für Box-Weltmeisterin Regina Halmich komponierte Titelsong, der Banger “Always Live to Win”, das teilweise spanischsprachige “Salvaje”, das gediegen vorwärts pumpende “Sister Darkness” oder das mit einem Shout-Refrain versehene “Chained” treten dagegen mächtig den Allerwertesten. Weitere Akzente können die von Kiss-Boss Gene Simmons komponierte Midtempo-Hymne “Legends Never Die” und das im Duett mit Pete Steele eingesungene, teilweise an Type O Negative angelehnte “Descent” setzen. –Andreas Stappert

Des Lebens Sinn ist Hoffnung tragen
Durch Dornen seinen Weg zu schreiten
Sich durch ein Höllentor zu wagen
Um in die Finsternis zu gleiten
Der bittren Liebe Schmerz zu finden
Der Versuchung widersteh’n
In Glut der Leidenschaft sich winden
Dem Bösen ins Gesicht zu seh’n

Gib mir Hoffnung dass es weitergeht
Hoffnung dass ich’s übersteh’
Hoffnung dass Du nie von mir gehst
Hoffnung dass es weitergeht

(Chorus)
Give me hope in a hopeless hour
Give me hope and a way to believe
Give me hope strength in any hour
Give me hope
Give it all to feel relief

Denn jede Rose die gebrochen
Und jeder Stachel in Deiner Hand
Aus Verzweiflung zugestochen
Wird nur durch Liebe ausgebrannt

Gib mir Hoffnung dass es weitergeht
Hoffnung dass ich’s übersteh’
Hoffnung dass Du nie von mir gehst
Hoffnung dass ich’s überleb’

(Chorus)

Und wenn die Nacht mich dann umhüllt
Und mich die Sehnsucht
Wachen zwingt
Den Raum mit Einsamkeit erfüllt
Bohrend in mein Herz eindringt…

Gibst Du mir Hoffnung dass es weitergeht
Hoffnung dass ich’s überleb’
Hoffnung dass Du nie von mir gehst
Hoffnung dass Du zu mir stehst

(Chorus)
Give me hope in a hopeless hour
Give me hope and a way to believe
Give me hope strength, love and power
Give me hope
Give it all to feel relief

Oggi ci occuperemo del control deck basato sull’eroe Warlock Destruction Mazar. Si tratta di un deck i cui punti di forza sono dati dall’ally control, dal board control e dall’hand control grazie all’uso ed alla combinazione dei poteri di alleati, ability, equipment e location che di volta in volta verrano esaminati.

Eroe
Mazar

Il flip di Mazar è un ally control in quanto con al costo di 3 e rimuovendo dal gioco un pet presente nel cimitero, distrugge un alleato; per quanto riguarda i pet, in questo deck esistono solo 4 copie.

Alleati (18)
3x Gromble the Apt
3x Adam Eternum
4x Hesriana
3x Mikael the Blunt
3x Weldon Barov
2x Dimzer the Prestidigitator

Per quanto riguarda gli alleati, si segnala subito la presenza di un alleato dotato di escape artist, ossia  Dimzer the Prestidigitator, e di un alleato il cui potere ricorda questa keyword, ossia Adam Eternum, il quale con il suo 5/3 al solo costo di 3, è uno tra i più potenti alleati di controllo dell’Alleanza capace di sottrarsi agli attacchi avversari; il potere di Gromble the Apt consente al proprio eroe di comportarsi come una risorsa aggiuntiva, venendo a pareggiare nei proseguo dei turni una delle carenze di questo deck, vale a dire l’assenza di carte a costo 1; Mikael the Blunt in combinazione con la location Eye of the Storm è un ottimo ally control in quanto infligge 2 danni ad ogni eroe o alleato che ritorna ready; Weldon Barov è indubbiamente una delle carte più potenti fino ad ora uscite capace di proteggere il proprio eroe con 3 ally token 1/1 e protector creati alla fine di ogni proprio turno; infine  il pet del warlock Hesriana da un lato si configura come ally remove e dall’altro come clone del potere dell’alleato rimosso: da usare sempre contro gli alleati chiave.

Abilità (19)
4x Drain Will
4x Eye of Kilrogg
2x Victimize
4x Banish to the Nether
3x Steal Essence
2x Backlash

Per quanto riguarda le abilità, Drain Will, Eye of Kilrogg e Victimize sono degli ottimi hand control, capaci addirittura di far pescare carte aggiuntive, come nel caso di  Drain Will e Victimize, o di guardare la mano avversaria, come nel caso di Eye of Kilrogg; Banish to the Nether è la migliore board control del warlock in quanto consente di rimuovere dal gioco un alleato, un’abilità, o un equipaggiamento bersaglio; Steal Essence invece è una carta da usare per infliggere danni all’avversario e per curarsi, ottima da usare in combinazione con Vengeful Gladiator; infine Backlash, unica carta inserita in questo deck che richiede un eroe destruction, consente di poter pescare una carta aggiuntiva nel caso in cui in l’eroe avversario infligga danni al proprio eroe.

Equipaggiamento (8)
2x Zhar’doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer
2x Abyss Walker’s Boots
2x Vengeful Gladiator
2x Voidfire Wand

Per quaqnto riguarda gli equipaggiamenti, essi possono dar vita a diverse combinazioni: Zhar’doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer rimuovendo dal gioco 3 abilità presenti nel proprio cimitero infligge 3 danni ad un eroe o alleato bersaglio e cura il proprio eroe di 3 punti ferita; Abyss Walker’s Boots rimuove semplicemente dal gioco una qualsiasi carta presente in un qualsiasi cimitero; Vengeful Gladiator non solo rimette in mano al proprio proprietario un alleato bersaglio ma permette di giocare qualsiasi carta, propria o dell’avversaio, che è stata rimossa dal gioco, ed ovviamente ciò grazie a  Zhar’doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer, per quanto riguard ail proprio cimitero, e Abyss Walker’s Boots, per quanto riguarda il cimitero avversario; infine Voidfire Wand si presenta come una minaccia aggiuntiva che costringe sempre ad una risposta immediata visto il  proprio potere di impedire il draw delle carte da parte del giocatore avversario.

Location e Missioni (15)
4x Eye of the Storm
2x In Defense of Halaa
2x Corki’s Ransom
4x Forces of Jaedenar
3x Information Gathering

Per quanto riguarda la location, Eye of the Storm, come già detto, viene utilizzata in combinazione con Mikael the Blunt, ma consente anche di utilizzare il potere di Adam Eternum, e per questo motivo è stata inserita  anche la risorsa In Defense of Halaa che aumenta i counter presenti su una carta; Corki’s Ransom è un ottimo draw aggiuntivo da utilizzare ogni turno, mentre Forces of Jaedenar e Information Gatherin assicurano un buon riciclo di carte soprattutto in casi di emergenza.

Side Deck
1x Zhar’doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer
1x Adam Eternum
2x Serr’s Signet
3x Suspendend Curse
3x Engulfing Blaze

Per quanto riguarda le Side Deck, oltre ad una copia aggiuntiva di Zhar’doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer e di Adam Eternum, Serr’s Signet consente all’eroe di sabotare, e quindi eliminare, abilità o equipaggiamenti presenti in gioco; Suspendend Curse, come Banish to the Nether, è un board control che consente di rimuovere dal gioco un alleato, un’abilità, o un equipaggiamento bersaglio ma solo a partire dal turn osuccessivo a quando viene giocato; ed infine Engulfing Blaze che infligge 3 danni a tutti gli eroi e alleati presenti è un ottima carta contro i mazzi rush.

In definitiva il warlock destruction Mazar si rivela come un ottimo control deck, capace di puntare sia sull’ally control, sia sull’hand control che al board control, e di chiudere la partita sia con gli alleati che con l’utilizzo continuo di Zhar’doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer e di Steal Essence grazie all’uso di Vengeful Gladiator. Punti deboli di questo deck sono l’assenza di istant di controllo e la presenza di poche risposte contro abilità o equipaggiamenti presenti in gioco, fatto questo che comporta di considerare, secondo il parere di chi scrive, il Warlock Destruction Mazar un gradino sotto ai mage control per eccellenza: Varanis Bitterstar e Vor’na the Wretched.

Ayer llegué a casa a las 20hrs, como siempre. Me duché y me dispuse a preparar la cena. Tuve que substituir el plato japonés que iba a cocinar por una ensalada porque teníamos superávit de lechugas u.u

A todo esto, acabé de cenar a las 21:35 hrs aprox. y me dirigí a mi precioso iMac para entrar en TS y acto seguido al WoW. No creía que fuese a entrar a raid pero quise cenar antes por si acaso volvían a ninjainvitarme.

No quise perder tiempo así que entré con Freixenet directamente y me puse a prospectar todas las menas que la Orca cumpleañera me había donado y hacerle unas gemas a Atrani para que pudiera ponerlas en el equipo nuevo que le había caído. Por cierto, subí joyería a 450 por fin : >

Ni siquiera sabía que se podían prospectar las Menas de Titanio hasta que lo oí en TS… tendré que buscar información sobre esas nuevas gemas épicas.

Hice 3 ó 4 gemas y entré con Atrani para linkear Encantamiento por el chat del clan. Los invites a raid ya habían empezado y pensé que ese día lo tendría libre. Me dirigí a Cumbres para empezar toda la serie de quest de los hijos de Hodir y de paso rellenar mi bolsa de almas que estaba vacía por primera vez desde que el mundo es mundo.

Tras hacer unas pocas quest tenía pensado ir a farmear motas de fuego y paños de Tejido de escarcha para craftearme el equipo de frost resist ya que había prometido en el foro que lo haría ya mismo. Todo eso y, si surgía la ocasión, hacer la diaria y ToC5 hero.

Hasta ahí bien… todo estaba planeado, mi bolsa aullaba falta de las almas de varios entes desdichados que acabarían alimentándola. Tic tac tic tac los minutos pasaban y los 3 primeros bichos que había decidido descuajeringar y desalmar estaban bugeados. Ya me estaba picando la mosca a la nariz cuando recibo un ninjainvite que desató pavor en mí: no tenía el equipo de escarcha crafteado, no tenía más que 2 ss en la bolsa, no había comprado pots y seguía llevando partes del equipo azul y sin gema.

Bueno… decir que pese a tener mejores partes de equipo que la última vez, hice el peor dps de la historia -ever-. Y no, no soy una maniática del recount ni del dps ni nada, pero tengo que intentar estar a la altura al menos, de algún modo. Estoy aprendiendo a usar a la bruja en raid, qué usar y qué no, qué rotaciones, etc. así que es normal que me fije en todo. Por no hablar de acostumbrarme a ser dps y no healer. Parece tonto pero un boss cambia totalmente solo con cambiar de rol.

Como positivo remarcar dos cosas: aprendí la mecánica de 3 bosses nuevos y no cometí ningún fallo (que yo sepa) que causara un wipe. Cosas negativas: nos enfrentamos a Hodir (encima avance!!) yo sin mi equipo de escarcha y pillada por una cadena de salto que me hizo retroceder al borde de la runa grande = me hizo cubito = cuando me liberaron me comí una runa pequeña = alfombra en el suelo babeando sobre las baldosas y viendo con penita cómo los demás se dejaban hasta el último ml de sudor del cuerpo para tirarlo a escasos segundos del enrage.

¡Y lo consiguieron! Fue una curiosa estampa, toda la raid en el suelo excepto el pollo NPC que bailó literalmente sobre nuestros cadáveres. Fue raro… para ser avance no hubo alegría o tal vez era yo que estaba mohína. No sentí el orgullo de haberlo tirado ni mucho menos sentí que mereciera llevarme el drop que cayó, me supo a ceniza.

Pero de ahí viene el reto. No sé cuánto tardaré pero tendré el equipo y las manos, volveré y saborearé cada k de daño que le haga a ese malnacido frigorífico barbudo Y luego iré a por Thorim y me cargaré tantas oleadas de enanos-runosos (que no ruinosos) que vengan como sea posible Y saltaré de alegría cuando  termine cada combate depié porque entonces, para mí, será un First Kill.

Well, I finally made it. Character number 4 has made it to level 80. Rossini the warlock dinged 80 on Sunday, and then promptly ran off to help my roommate get through some Outland dungeons on her level 62 hunter. We did Ramps, Blood Furnace, Slave Pens, and Underbog. I probably should have been using the voidberry to tank, but I used the Felguard and he made quick work of most of the mobs. We ended up getting her about 1 bar from level 64 before she logged off. It was good times.

I then hopped in queue for regular ToC and got a group almost instantly. They were farming for some DK weapon or something, so we must have run it nearly 5-6 times. I got the abyssal rune and that’s it. I swear every piece of leather and mail must have dropped in there, but not a single piece of cloth. Boo. Not even the neck piece for casters. I was disheartened. They did invite my warlock to their guild though, but being the GM for Crits, I had to decline. It might look bad if the GMs alt runs off somewhere else.

Speaking of Crits, we’re growing, lots actually. It’s time to invest in a larger vent server. We’ve picked up many players who are casual raiders and the Crits evening crew now consists of many 80s who are ready for anything, and yet not crazed about raiding. It’s awesome. Many people have been inquiring about us as well as the good word spreads. We’ll need to start running 25s I guess and a couple of 10s each week. I’m still hoping that people will step up as raid organizers since I don’t raid much at all myself.

I’m hoping to get the warlock in on a few more ToCs and hopefully some of the easier heroics, he probably could be carried through, but I like to try and be useful. A Naxx-10 would be awesome; I might have to set that up in the guild. I bet there are plenty of alts that would go. Actually a Naxx-25 would be good for farming badges as well.

So now that there are 4 level 80s, and three of them are “satisfied” I’ll work on getting mostly epics for the warlock for a bit and then off to level up the next toon. The shaman, Borka. So then it will be both mail wearing classes, and all three cloth wearers. I have a feeling though that as I level up the final toons to make it to 80, the shaman, druid, DK, and dare the paladin even make it? I will be satisfied with them just making it to 80 and wearing a few crafted epics. That will probably be good enough for them. If I have 7 level 80s by the time Cat rolls out I’d be impressed and possibly embarrassed with myself.

“D” from LFM: Need Healer Plz is continuing on with the non-meme memes, this time focusing on my personal favorite role in WoW – DPS! There was no tagging involved at all, but I’m a HUGE sucker for Q&A and I get to answer from 3 different perspectives! Huzzah!

What is the name, class, and spec of your primary dps?
Sammich, Druid, Moonkin. Abigore, Warlock, Demonology (Meta/Ruin). Schoolgirl, Priest, Shadow.

What is your primary dpsing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)
Everything but PVP.

What is your favorite dps spell/ability for your class and why?
Sammich – Eclipse. I love the fact that Eclipse forces you to pay attention and not get lost in the “rotation” portion of DPS. Plus 7 or 8 20k Starfire crits in a row looks GREAT on the meters ^_^. Abigore – Decimation. I loved Soul Fire back in Vanilla-WoW and it’s nice to get to use it again. Big crits are big. Schoolgirl – Mind Sear. I don’t think I really need to explain why this spell is the cat’s pajamas.. the bee’s knees.. the.. you get my point. It kills a lot of shit with a lot of pain.

What dps spell do you use least for your class and why?
Sammich – As a Moonkin, I use all of my DPS spells whenever the situation arises but I’d have to say Force of Nature (Treants) only because the cooldown is longer then Starfall. Abigore – Searing Pain, Shadowflame. Searing Pain wins by a large margin and isn’t even on my bar. Shadowflame is fun for farming but I never use it in raids. Schoolgirl – Any Holy DPS spell, Shadow Word: Death. I suppose the Holy spells don’t really count, so SW:D wins. I use it solo’ing, but raiding I never use it at all. The damage is garbage, it scales poorly, it annoys healers.

What do you feel is the biggest strength of your dps class and why?
Sammich – Significant amounts of sustained burst DPS. I crit hard and often. Being a Druid also allows me to toss Innervates on healers that don’t know how to manage their mana and battle rez the Mage’s who forget they have Ice Block. Abigore – Sustainability if that’s a word. A Warlock that can manage Life Tap properly will never run out of mana and never get their health too low to throw healers in to a panic, but Warlocks sure are a huge pain in the ass to heal aren’t they? Every pull.. Life Tap. How did Laeyla ever deal with me doing that for so long?! Schoolgirl – AoE and Replenish. Granted, other classes have Replenish, but Mind Sear is hands down the best AoE spell in the game. Shadowform’s damage reduction sure comes in handy as well.

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your dps class and why?
Sammich – gear. A lot of the best itemized gear is cloth and there are a lot of Moonkin who can’t even roll on it because of guild loot rules, etc., which is stupid IMO. Better is better. Abigore – Destruction is still too dominant to make Demonology or Affliction competitive. Schoolgirl – Single target DPS. Anyone who has raided as a Shadow Priest will tell you that they’re getting destroyed by DPS’ers in half the gear on single targets. I think it’s mainly because haste and crit scale so poorly with Shadow Priests and there is really no burst to help with burn phases/Bloodlust (or Heroism).

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best dps assignment for you?
It’ll be the same answer for all 3. Every boss is different, so whatever gets the job done.

What dps class do you enjoy dpsing with most and why?
I LOVED playing my Shadow Priest until they changed Shadow Form and nerfed the dog shit out of our DPS. It felt like it needed skill to be successful and didn’t have a “rotation”. Right now though, hands down, Moonkin. It’s a whole lot of fun, requires reacting to buffs and managing cooldowns a bit more and I love prodiving so many raid buffs.

What dps class do you enjoy dpsing with least and why?
Anything melee, Mages, Hunters. I’ve never been a big fan of melee even though I raided as an Enhancement Shaman in TBC for about 4 months. Mages just seem to be too similar to Destruction as a Warlock which I also find to be a little boring. Hunters seem like fun, I just can’t get in to them to save my life. The only spec appealing to me is Beast Mastery which I don’t think is a good raiding spec anymore.

What is your worst habit as a dps?
Sometimes I get sidetracked while leading raids and forget to refresh DoTs or I notice I’ve just been spamming Wrath for god knows how long while yelling at someone to stop standing in fires or to DPS the burrowers. Tunnel vision FTL. Same thing for my Lock and Priest.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while dpsing?
DPS who fail, have bad specs, poor gem choices, zero attention to rotations and do 1/3 of the DPS as the #1 slot.

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other dps?
Sammich – I don’t know about balanced but I put out as much or more as the other specs. It’s really the player behind the toon unless they’re a Shadow Priest. That sentence hurt to type but it’s true. Abigore – If by balanced you mean “only has one viable raid spec” than sure, yeah, why not.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a dps?
I use Recount on all of my toons and sometimes we use WWS in our guild, but I try not to look on my Priest. It’s depressing.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your class?
Sammich – That Moonkin are still “Oomkin” but there has been a lot of changes to Moonkin mana regen and I have zero problems with mana. Abigore – That Meta/Ruin isn’t a good raiding build. I’ve beaten Destruction Locks on the meters before. Like I said before, it’s the player not always the gear. Schoolgirl – That Shadow Priests are still good DPS. They’re usually the same people that die to Whirlwinds, Fires, attack dragon bosses from the ass, etc.

What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new dpsers of your class to learn?
Moonkin – How to gear. Warlock – To not let the naysayers get to you when you show up to a raid and you aren’t Destruction. Shadow Priests – Why their DPS is low.

What dps class do you feel you understand least?
Rogues, for sure. I don’t have a Rogue above 47 and never cared to try one.

What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in dps?
I use ForteXorcist for all of my toons to track DoTs, debuffs, prcs, etc. On Sammich, I use Squawk-and-Awe to track Eclipse procs and cooldowns as well as WiseEclipse to squeeze out more DPS. I also use Decursive to help with poisons and curse removal. On Abigore, I just use Forte and Power Auras to track Decimation phases and to make sure the Life Tap glyph buff is up. On Schoolgirl I only use Forte and Decursive to help with cleansing.

One stat above others, or balanced stat allocation, and why?
Hit rating is #1 for all 3 of my DPS followed by Spellpower. I try to balance haste/crit on my Moonkin, haste on my Warlock and crit on my Priest. I need to balance haste and crit on Sammich because I need to crit for Eclipse to proc but I want to cast Starfires as fast as possible. Demonology is a heavy haste spec because you get so many crit talents in the build itself. Casting Shadowbolt/Soul Fire faster is much better than relying on crits. I focus on crit for my Priest because of Shadowform’s mechanic to let DoTs crit. Haste only benefits Mind Blast, Mind Sear and Mind Flay right now but it’s very minimal.

Here we are again with Getting Started in Warcraft. Today I’m going to cover selecting a class to play. Just like selecting a good server realm to play on (see Part 2), selecting a class that fits your play style will go a long way in making Warcraft more enjoyable for you.

There are ten players classes in the game today: death knight, druid, hunter, mage, paladin, priest, rogue, shaman, warlock, and warrior. Each class has its own unique abilities and play style although many of the classes overlap in the roles they perform within the game. We’ll go over the differences in the various classes later on.

One special note about the death knight class if you are starting World of Warcraft for the first time — you cannot create a death knight character unless you already have another character that is level 55 or higher in the game. The death knight is considered a “hero” class and starts with a set of near epic level armor, an epic mount, and higher profession skills than a beginning character. As such, Blizzard has limited it to players who already have a high level character in the game.

After you’ve selected the realm you want to play on, the character generation screen will appear.

Now, there's a handsome looking devil.

I’m going to leave the selection of which faction to play, Horde or Alliance, up to you. If you have friends that already play one faction, go ahead and select that faction. If you are starting to play World of Warcraft for the first time and you don’t know or even care which faction you play, I suggest doing a little reading on the WoWWiki and Blizzard web sites to get a general understanding of each faction. You can also try out a few of the beginning zones as a Horde or Alliance character and see which faction appeals to you based upon the beginning quests and the lore behind them.

Looking at the Alliance, you have the following races to choose from: Human, Dwarf, Night Elf, Gnome, and Draenei. For the Horde you can choose from the following: Orc, Forsaken (also known as the Undead), Tauren, Troll, and Blood Elf. After you choose your race, you can then select the sex of the character, the class, and also customize the facial features, hair color, and so on by cycling through the options at the lower left of the character generation screen. Once you have all your options picked out, read up on the description text at the right about the race and class to get some background on your selection.

Overall, the classes can be divided or categorized a couple of different ways. The first important way to look at classes is whether they are a “pure” class or a “hybrid” class. Pure classes are ones that can only perform one “role” in the game; they cannot fulfill multiple roles such as damage dealing and healing. The pure classes include the hunter, mage, rogue, and warlock. Hybrids, on the other hand, can be set-up to perform multiple roles such as tanking, damage dealing, and/or healing. The hybrid classes include the death knight, druid, paladin, priest, shaman, and warrior.

You may wonder why you would want to play a pure class if the hybrid classes can perform multiple functions. Pure classes do have one major advantage over hybrid classes. Given that all things are equal such as gear and level, a pure class will be able to generate substantially more damage and have more ways to reduce the amount of damage they incur from other players or computer generated monsters than a hybrid class. For instance, the hunter class is able to provide the greatest ranged damage of any class and can avoid getting attacked through the use of various traps that incapacitate enemies for a certain amount of time. The other pure classes have similar abilities. A hybrid class such as a priest, on the other hand, may not be able to create as much damage as the hunter, but would counter the hunter with a combination of damage and being able to heal itself. You can see how this can make for some interesting fights between classes and how they counter each other in player versus player combat.

Looking at class roles, there are three roles that players can perform when working in groups to complete quests or dungeons. These roles are “tanking,” “damage-dealing” (also called “dps”), and “healing.”

A paladin tanking a mob.

Tanking involves attacking a computer-generated monster (also called a “mob”) and being able to withstand huge amounts of damage while keeping the monster’s attention on yourself (so he doesn’t attack the other members of your party). A tanking class will have a large amount of armor, usually wearing high-quality plate armor and carrying a shield. Tanking classes include the death knight, druid, paladin, and the warrior. A good “tank” is absolutely essential to a group and is generally looked upon as the leader for the group, choosing which targets to attack first and in what order. If you enjoy getting into the face of monsters and being able to take a massive beating, this is the class role for you.

A “dps” or damage-dealing class is one that assists the tank in defeating enemies by generating huge amounts of damage and using “crowd control” methods such as traps and stuns to remove any monsters or enemy players from combat while the main target is brought down. Damage-dealing classes differ in how they go about this. For instance, rogues have the ability to make themselves invisible and can stealth up to targets to stun them and perform damage. Hunters can shoot with a bow or a rifle while using a trained pet such as a bear or tiger to attack the target. Mages and warlocks use a combination of different types of spells to perform their damage either directly or over a certain amount of time. The dps classes wear mail armor, leather armor, and/or cloth armor which provides less protection than the plate-wearing tanking classes. The classes that can perform damage-dealing include almost all the classes in the game and classes that are usually viewed as best for one role such as tanking, can also specialize in damage-dealing as a secondary role (such as the warrior). However, the primary damage-dealing classes are the hunter, mage, rogue, and warlock. If you prefer to dish out lots of damage and use your cunning to escape from opponents, then a damage-dealing role may be the one for you.

A druid in bear form (for tanking) and a hunter.

The healing classes do exactly what their name implies — they keep all the other members healed so they can kill the target or complete a necessary quest. A good healer is invaluable to a group and are highly sought after by guilds. Healers not only heal but provide important utility or “buffs” to a group such as additional armor or health for all the party members. Healing classes include the druid, paladin, priest, and the shaman. Healers generally will have less armor or protection capabilities than a tanking or damage-dealing class (which is made up by the fact that they can heal themselves when needed). Playing a healer can be especially gratifying knowing that you kept your party alive during a difficult dungeon fight or quest.

The best advice I can offer when selecting a class is not to be afraid to try them. You have nothing to lose by trying out several until you find one that you really enjoy. In the next installment of this series, we’ll take a look at starting to play in the beginning zones and choosing your professions.

Many of you may have heard of the tanking and healing memes that are flying around. Many of you may not have heard that there’s also one for us dps classes, as created by the Death Goddess. Not being one to shy away from random questionnaires, here we go!

What is the name, class, and spec of your primary dps?

Veliaf, my Human Warlock who – as you should all know by now from reading my blog – is Demonology specced. Because it’s superior. In every way.

What is your primary dpsing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)

Unfortunately, probably five-man heroics, because I can’t raid as much as I want to. I’ve been known to dip into the battlegrounds however, in which case I spec into Destruction. But not because it’s better! Just for a change, y’know, so that I can appreciate Demonology all the more. We can’t have the best spec all the time.

What is your favorite dps spell/ability for your class and why?

That’s a tricky one, and could be either Metamorphosis or Soul Fire. The former turns me into a hulking great Illidan-type demon with wings and fire and a 20% boost to my damage, and really represents the awesomeness that Demonology has to offer. On the other hand, my Soul Fires crit for crazy amounts (read – 17.6k, once) and the idea of throwing a whopping great ball of fire at my enemies appeals. It’s a bit mage-y though…

Artist's rendition of a demon with fire and things. Products and colours may vary.

What dps spell do you use least for your class and why?

Well, out of all my potential dps spells, Searing Pain, because I rarely need to pull threat (which it does an excellent job of for its minimal damage) and hence never really use it. Out of the ones I actually use, Incinerate, because unless certain things have proc’d, Shadow Bolt does more damage and brings greater benefits to the raid or group. Fire spells aren’t very Demonological either (would you believe that’s actually a word according to my spelling and grammar filter?).

What do you feel is the biggest strength of your dps class and why?

We have the ability to kill things in many different ways. As Affliction, we can bring the pain in agonizingly small amounts over a long period of time, or as Destruction we can go the complete opposite and make steak of a Tauren within the space of about three GCDs. Then there’s also Demonology, where, if our opponent hasn’t already keeled over from the majesty of our talent spec, we can summon a demon with a freakin’ great axe to come and lop their head off while we cackle manically. The new end-of-tree Demonology talent in Cataclysm is actually Demonic Cackle: “You cackle, and your evil cavorting summons the darkness incarnate to surround the target of your laughter, causing them to go blind and deaf while bending them to your will as your second minion. Lasts until cancelled, or you get bored of mocking them in their anguish.”

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your dps class and why?

Trash. Our DoTs need time to build up to their full potential, and even our direct damage spells take a bit of time to charge up and let go, which doesn’t help for things which die quickly. So that only really leaves us with some meagre AoE… Unless you’re Demonology of course.

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best dps assignment for you?

Point me to the boss and let me kill it. Don’t ask me to kite, because I’m squishy and cloth-wearing and likely to die. Don’t ask me to handle the adds, because I’m rubbish at killing trashy things. Just let me stand and bring pain.

What dps class do you enjoy dpsing with most and why?

Well I’m biased in that I only have two dps classes at 80, but my favourite is still the Warlock. On occasion, I have been known to enjoy pewpewing with my Arcane specced Mage however.

What dps class do you enjoy dpsing with least and why?

Again, I’m limited in my knowledge of playing other classes at 80, but I hate playing Warriors with all my heart, so I guess they’ll do.

What is your worst habit as a dps?

Cleaning out gunk from my Demon Form wings when I should be killing things I’ll admit, sometimes I do put up DoTs on everything in the pack of things we’re attacking to boost my dps a bit, and it can does aggro more than I’d like.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while dpsing?

People posting Recount meters, and, more specifically, people posting Recount meters either for trash pulls or for ‘Overall damage’, which unfortunately is the default setting, because that includes trash. DPS ON TRASH IS NOT IMPORTANT.

Vaguely related pun on the word Recount, showing underperforming dps QQing.

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other dps?

Yeah, I think so. Sometimes I’m top on meters, and sometimes I’m not, but the classes surrounding me always vary. My only complaint is Arcane Mages, because since they got buffed their dps has soared to ridiculous levels, and they love it, damn them.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a dps’er?

I do use Recount and WWS parses, but I don’t post them in chat. Generally, though, I know how well I’ve done just from the feel of how it went. If I haven’t really tried, I can tell, and likewise if I’m doing the most I can and holding up the whole group, I know it and am proud.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your class?

That we have a shred of goodness in our hearts? Oh, no, that we enjoy giving out healthstones. Or that we have an endless supply of soul shards? No, actually, that we enjoy being whispered from across the world by someone wanting to be summoned, who also assumes we can do that by ourselves.

What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new dpsers of your class to learn?

Learning to time your DoTs, especially if you play Afflictions (fools! Spec Demonology!) is one of the hardest things to learn, but it’s also one of the most important. You don’t want to cast them so that they only run for half of their duration, but at the same time you don’t want to clip them or let them fall off the opponent without refreshing them. You also need to be aware of how casting the DoTs fits into a rotation.

What dps class do you feel you understand least?

The answer here depends on how you ask the question. I mean, I’ve never understood Paladins – why would anyone want to dress up in gear like that? But no, seriously – if you mean which class do I know least about, I’d have to say Warriors or Priests, and if you mean which class do I play but not quite ‘get’, I’d say the Druid.

What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in dps?

Omen Threat Meter is a necessity, as is DBM. Specifically for dps though? TellMeWhen is my number one. I did write a post or three about my addons and things recently – see here and here.

What stat to stack, and why?

Personally, I aim to stack 1337ness. Since that’s limited to Demonology Warlocks however, the generic “hit until capped and then Spellpower with some Intellect and a little Stamina mixed in” is advisable. The reason being, you can have as much killing power as you like, but it’s all useless if you miss! Once you’re certain you’ll hit them, Spellpower gives you the best damage / unit of stat, but you do need Intellect for increased mana, and a little Stamina (not too much) to allow you to Life Tap. Spirit doesn’t hurt, giving us more mana / health when we do Tap, but please don’t stack it specifically.

Well, if you’re still reading, congratulations, because I’d probably have given up when I started talking about wing-gunk. Remember, you too can join the conga meme chain and participate – make sure to shoot a link to the Goddess so you can be added to the list!

Vel.