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[SnakeswithLasers]

Maelstrom weapon isn't going to change things very much for soloing.

You should always lava lash first, though. For soloing (and dungeons as well), go searing totem-lava lash-stormstrike-earth shock. The damage from searing totem is always going to outweigh flame shock's dot, and it boosts your lava lash, the biggest dps move for an enhancement shaman.

Ok, that sounds reasonable. I usually go lava lash second so that it can get a couple stacks of searing up first, but this makes sense.

A minor annoyance while soloing is totems. I know totems are a billion times better than they were (this level 58 shaman has actually been around since a couple weeks after launch, but I'd always found it horribly boring); however, they are still have some non-charming qualities. Dropping and picking up is great now (and sets! omg!), I love the new mechanics--but my problem is while I'm soloing, my totems always get knocked out by adds. When there is a pull where I know I'm going to grab two or more, I pull with chain lightning to keep the aggro on me. However, if someone just moseys up, he inevitably goes after my totems. Not a huge gripe, just a niggle.

Do you more experienced shaman have ways that you deal with totems and aoe threat?

 

[Dresden]

Ok, that sounds reasonable. I usually go lava lash second so that it can get a couple stacks of searing up first, but this makes sense.

A minor annoyance while soloing is totems. I know totems are a billion times better than they were (this level 58 shaman has actually been around since a couple weeks after launch, but I'd always found it horribly boring); however, they are still have some non-charming qualities. Dropping and picking up is great now (and sets! omg!), I love the new mechanics--but my problem is while I'm soloing, my totems always get knocked out by adds. When there is a pull where I know I'm going to grab two or more, I pull with chain lightning to keep the aggro on me. However, if someone just moseys up, he inevitably goes after my totems. Not a huge gripe, just a niggle.

Do you more experienced shaman have ways that you deal with totems and aoe threat?

Lava lash is so good that you use it off the cooldown any chance you can get it, even without searing stacks. Enhancement shaman have infinite mana, just spam them if they get knocked out. You never need totemic recall.

The stoneclaw glyph is also absolute gold.

 

[TheYanger]

You can only battle rez once now during an encounter.

3 times. But yeah, it wasn't rezzes, several other compelling reasons you could theoretically stack druids.

 

[Won]

Blizzard really needs to improve that LFD tool. Just had a group with a tank, who barely had more health than me, the Moonkin struggled to get 7k dps and the mage didn't even hit 4k dps. No way this group is gonna finish anything.

 

[Songbird]

Any vets know of good guides or just tips for newbies in crafting? I've brought my engineering to journeyman after neglecting it until now, and my mining is almost there too.

What I want to know is how can I find mining nodes in the wild easily? Looking at maps and running around steep hills seems to do the trick but it's still pretty rare to find one. Cloth for engineering recipes is easy to find on mobs but the ingredients are starting to get very exotic (I haven't found a copper tube yet). Putting the ingredients together is the easy part, getting them is what's tough.

So any tips for smooth harvesting and skill increasing? I really want to build a flying machine for Outland!

Get the gatherer ui addon, it'll help you figure out where the node spawns are. Other than that, just going around a zone around the mountainous areas are your best bet. Mattering which ore you're going after there's usually particular zones which are considered the best.

Time to get UI modding then, thanks for reminding me. I used "mapwow" to find known node locations but I got restless in the end. It does show the kinds of ore in each zone.

 

[Ferrio]

Any vets know of good guides or just tips for newbies in crafting? I've brought my engineering to journeyman after neglecting it until now, and my mining is almost there too.

What I want to know is how can I find mining nodes in the wild easily? Looking at maps and running around steep hills seems to do the trick but it's still pretty rare to find one. Cloth for engineering recipes is easy to find on mobs but the ingredients are starting to get very exotic (I haven't found a copper tube yet). Putting the ingredients together is the easy part, getting them is what's tough.

So any tips for smooth harvesting and skill increasing? I really want to build a flying machine for Outland!

Get the gatherer ui addon, it'll help you figure out where the node spawns are. Other than that, just going around a zone around the mountainous areas are your best bet. Mattering which ore you're going after there's usually particular zones which are considered the best.

Blizzard really needs to improve that LFD tool. Just had a group with a tank, who barely had more health than me, the Moonkin struggled to get 7k dps and the mage didn't even hit 4k dps. No way this group is gonna finish anything.

What do you expect them to do? Same shit would happen before the LFD group. No way blizzard is going to be able to gauge how a player will perform.

 

[Macattk15]

3 times. But yeah, it wasn't rezzes, several other compelling reasons you could theoretically stack druids.

Ah. Well I just knew it wasn't unlimited anymore. Is it only 1 in 10 mans? Cause I could of sworn that we tried to battle rez someone and we couldn't cause the shaman in the group re-incarnated. Was weird.

 

[SnakeswithLasers]

Lava lash is so good that you use it off the cooldown any chance you can get it, even without searing stacks. Enhancement shaman have infinite mana, just spam them if they get knocked out. You never need totemic recall.

The stoneclaw glyph is also absolute gold.

I'm having trouble unlearning mana conservation techniques. :lol I shelved this shaman so long ago that I'm just not used to being able to not only cast totems, but also pull with lightning bolt if they're far away and use spells on cooldown. It's pretty crazy.

 

[funkmastergeneral]

3 times. But yeah, it wasn't rezzes, several other compelling reasons you could theoretically stack druids.

There was speculation it had to do with rooting the adds

 

[Flib]

Ah. Well I just knew it wasn't unlimited anymore. Is it only 1 in 10 mans? Cause I could of sworn that we tried to battle rez someone and we couldn't cause the shaman in the group re-incarnated. Was weird.

It's 1 rez in ten-man.

 

[borghe]

Blizzard really needs to improve that LFD tool. Just had a group with a tank, who barely had more health than me, the Moonkin struggled to get 7k dps and the mage didn't even hit 4k dps. No way this group is gonna finish anything.

What do you expect them to do? Same shit would happen before the LFD group. No way blizzard is going to be able to gauge how a player will perform.

think parts of the problem is that the way heroics are designed now, a mostly 329-330 ilevel group is going to have to put forth a near perfect effort to win. unfortunately without heroic gear there's not much you can do to get your ilevel above 329-330 so that blizz could raise requirements.

I said it on the previous page but it bares repeating here. Heroics are being nerfed now (see DM), and will continue to be nerfed. Take that as you may, but I really think Blizz accomplished what they wanted.. Gave a much greater challenge to the hardcore guilds. Now that the hardcore raiding guilds are mostly off of heroics aside from dailies, you'll see heroics nerfed so that 329-335 pugs will have a significantly easier time. Really there is very little incentive for Blizz at this moment not to do this. The only people who would complain about the nerfing are already well past the content, and all nerfing heroics does is makes it easier to get 346 gear and your 480 VPs a week (or JPs for twinking heirlooms if you really care about that sort of thing). Still will take 3 weeks to get your cloak, and another 12 weeks total (three months) to get your three tier 11 pieces. Might as well nerf the heroics to the trivial level that they already are to the crowd that blizz made them so much tougher to appease in the first place..

 

[The Lamonster]

Is it just me or does none of this game have snow??

Are there seriously no snow effects in all of Northrend?

 

[notworksafe]

Ah. Well I just knew it wasn't unlimited anymore. Is it only 1 in 10 mans? Cause I could of sworn that we tried to battle rez someone and we couldn't cause the shaman in the group re-incarnated. Was weird.

Yeah, three in 25, one in 10.

 

[mcrae]

Blizzard really needs to improve that LFD tool. Just had a group with a tank, who barely had more health than me, the Moonkin struggled to get 7k dps and the mage didn't even hit 4k dps. No way this group is gonna finish anything.

to be fair when you first gear up in heroics you do about 5k dps, and people cleared them on that difficulty

 

[mcrae]

think parts of the problem is that the way heroics are designed now, a mostly 329-330 ilevel group is going to have to put forth a near perfect effort to win. unfortunately without heroic gear there's not much you can do to get your ilevel above 329-330 so that blizz could raise requirements.

theres really a TON of rep gear, and BoE items, and lots of the pvp gear is better than sub-333 gear

 

[Fularu]

Is it just me or does none of this game have snow??

Are there seriously no snow effects in all of Northrend?

It snows in Northrend and various snow covered zones

 

[borghe]

theres really a TON of rep gear, and BoE items, and lots of the pvp gear is better than sub-333 gear

heh... I don't know why I didn't think about rep gear... oh wait.. yeah I do. Because by the time I hit revered rep with most of the factions I was already mostly geared from heroics. yeah, then I suppose they could raise the ilevel requirements a little on heroics.. maybe like 335 minimum rep (meaning grinding out rep for twilight, deepholm and TB dailies for those 346 items. plus you get hyjal 346's just from finishing the zone quests)

 

[SnakeswithLasers]

to be fair when you first gear up in heroics you do about 5k dps, and people cleared them on that difficulty

5k dps shouldn't be doing heroics. I guess it depends on the class, but that's pretty low to expect a healer to keep their mana up with a group of 5ks.

 

[Twig]

I replaced my Honor neck with a Justice neck finally, and my DPS dropped!

Actually, my DPS just kind of seemed lower than general all last night, even before I got the JP neck. I wasn't doing anything different, and the group makeup was mostly the same, except for lack of a druid. (Usually a druid guild buddy tanks, but he wasn't around.) I dunno what happened. )':

For reference, as arms warrior, I generally got anywhere from 7.5k-8.5k DPS, but last night I was struggling to even maintain 6.9k... never did break 7k! I'm still wearing a decent portion of PvP gear, but am slowly replacing it as time goes on, except I'm trying to keep the 4-piece set bonus as long as possible.

Also, queues with a healer are slower than queues with a tank. I did not expect this. D:

Maybe I should just man up and finally start tanking.

In even sadder news, I'm 326 away from exalted with Dragonmaw after today's dailies. Don't have time to run a heroic right now so I can't top it off. SAD SAD SAD. )':

 

[J-Rzez]

Where can I see the damage charts group makeups?

Texted my friend to see where he got the info from. I remember reading some articles and I even think in Tankspot a couple times they mentioned "this fight is easy when you have all ranged" lol.

I mean, sure, there's a lot more movement, a LOT more downtime on melee dps now than before, but still I'm usually topping the charts or close to it on the fights.

 

[borghe]

5k dps shouldn't be doing heroics. I guess it depends on the class, but that's pretty low to expect a healer to keep their mana up with a group of 5ks.

the problem is there is no real path once you hit 85 beyond heroics. Like I said, if they raised the ilevel requirement, really the only thing you could do until say 335 is grind out therazane and twilight highlands rep for those 346's.. you could get a 346 from hyjal when you complete that zone.. if you happen to have the faction that controls TB you could do those 12-18 dailies, otherwise you only get 6 dailies in TB, and then you could get the 70 JPs a day from a random regular dungeon. Just saying, that's not much of an end game for non-raiders, to go from random regulars and open world, to grinding dailies for a week or two just to get into heroics.

as for your 5K assertion, our guild did it just fine 2-3 weeks ago. Go in, figure out where to adjust on a wipe, fix it and win. Once we were all in mostly 346 gear the fights were basically trivial. Now that most of use are in 1/4-1/2 359 gear, I dare say heroics are almost back to the wrath days.

In even sadder news, I'm 326 away from exalted with Dragonmaw after today's dailies. Don't have time to run a heroic right now so I can't top it off. SAD SAD SAD. )':

lol.. this is how it ALWAYS is. The day before I got Earthen Ring I was 400 short....... and I just couldn't bring myself to running another heroic that day (think it was midnight though). Sadly I finished Twilight Highlands quite a bit after hitting 85 and...... there are a few Earthen Ring rep quests there. sigh... not a ton, but it would have put me over that 400 heh..

 

[Ferrio]

the problem is there is no real path once you hit 85 beyond heroics

Uhhh regular instances? People forget these exist?


So almost done with my dps set now. But MAN, is queueing as dps painful, especially when you're main is a decked out tank. Everytime I see the tank messing up/is an asshole/severely undergeared , I get all twitchy.

 

[Won]

What do you expect them to do? Same shit would happen before the LFD group. No way blizzard is going to be able to gauge how a player will perform.

Improve at least the gear check. This group probably was way below the avarage ilevel of the available player pool. I don't have a problem with dragging a bad player or a "not so well yet geared" player through an instance, but this was a bit much.

But apparantly they are working on improvements anyway. We will see.

to be fair when you first gear up in heroics you do about 5k dps, and people cleared them on that difficulty

I definitely did much more than 5k. :/

 

[borghe]

Uhhh regular instances? People forget these exist?

333 instances limits you pretty much to HoO, Lost City and GB. I believe the faction tabards DO work in those regular instances.. but between honored faction and those three you get 333 gear.. only 4 points above the 329 requirement. so for 346 faction gear you would have to run those three dungeons HOW MANY TIMES??????? ugghhhh...

not to mention you still aren't "fixing" anything. You are just compensating bad players by over gearing them (wrath). I'm not saying that there aren't problems right now with LFD, but all of the proposed options pretty much come down to "make things easier". Whether it's raising gear requirements or lowering difficulty, it's all pretty much the same net gain.

edit - putting together an average ilevel for the group actually isn't a bad idea. the only problem I see is that the higher ilevel people get, the more they are going to be punished by getting stuck with lowbies. still, if there were a way to do this it might work. like at 329-334 you only can/will have one such player in a group.. so at that level queues will be longer. then 335+ your queue times drop. In LFD it could be something like:

<329: You do not have sifficient gear to run heroics
329-334: Your queue times may be longer as we match you with an appropriate group.
335+: Optimal queue time.

Like I said, it still doesn't "fix" bad players.. just over gears or compensates for them.. but still, at least it lowers the difficulty a little and gets more people queuing for randoms.

 

[notworksafe]

Hm. I thought I was getting bored with WoW, but it seems I was just getting bored/frustrated with Paladin tanking. Druid is really so much fun!

Of course now I have to level my Druid 15 levels now... :\

 

[Jazzy Network]

Hm. I thought I was getting bored with WoW, but it seems I was just getting bored/frustrated with Paladin tanking. Druid is really so much fun!

Of course now I have to level my Druid 15 levels now... :\

I found druid tanking to be meh. Even if it's fun they are probably the worst tanks in the game right now.

 

[Entropia]

Hm. I thought I was getting bored with WoW, but it seems I was just getting bored/frustrated with Paladin tanking. Druid is really so much fun!

Of course now I have to level my Druid 15 levels now... :\

Pally Tanking is so, so easy. :x

 

[SnakeswithLasers]

as for your 5K assertion, our guild did it just fine 2-3 weeks ago. Go in, figure out where to adjust on a wipe, fix it and win.

I'm not being a snob or anything, but if your DPS isn't doing more than 5k in 329 gear in a heroic, something is wrong with your rotations or your whole group is ret paladins (/sarcasm). Sure, there will be variance depending on how much movement is involved, but those numbers are low.

I'm not saying the instances aren't doable (especially for a guild with communication), but if someone is planning on pugging, the advice is to get good enough with skill and gear that your DPS is more than the tanks, or else heroics are going to be more painful than they are worth.

I'm not really fighting with you on anything here, I just feel that those DPS numbers are low based on what I've seen possible in "entry level gear" for heroics.

 

[etiolate]

Blizzard really needs to improve that LFD tool. Just had a group with a tank, who barely had more health than me, the Moonkin struggled to get 7k dps and the mage didn't even hit 4k dps. No way this group is gonna finish anything.

Thats more an issue with gear and only way to get gear is to heroic. DUN DUN DUN!

I hit 85 doing a godo 8-10k dps before and the sudden fat drop in haste/crit/mastery from revalued levels wanked up my dps. I think they should have reevaluated the curve on stats at 85.

 

[Flib]

I found druid tanking to be meh. Even if it's fun they are probably the worst tanks in the game right now.

I love druid tanking, and it's great once you have thrash. Our armor buff on ptr is going to be fun as well.

Druid tanking is very viable right now, no complaints from my healers in raids.

 

[notworksafe]

Pally Tanking is so, so easy. :x

That's the thing! I found it just to be mindless, and would just get bored. With Druid, I find that I actually have to put effort into it and am having much more fun.

We'll see if this continues as I level, however.

EDIT: As far as viability at 85, I can't comment. But it's more than viable at 60 and is a lot more fun than Paladin.

 

[Rapstah]

I'm not being a snob or anything, but if your DPS isn't doing more than 5k in 329 gear in a heroic, something is wrong with your rotations or your whole group is ret paladins (/sarcasm). Sure, there will be variance depending on how much movement is involved, but those numbers are low.

I'm not saying the instances aren't doable (especially for a guild with communication), but if someone is planning on pugging, the advice is to get good enough with skill and gear that your DPS is more than the tanks, or else heroics are going to be more painful than they are worth.

I'm not really fighting with you on anything here, I just feel that those DPS numbers are low based on what I've seen possible in "entry level gear" for heroics.

I had a Fury Warrior do 2.5k DPS on Throngus in Grim Batol the day before yesterday. We actually downed him and the boss before with that guy in the group which felt crazy afterwards. Erudax is still so fucking hard though.

 

[PatzCU]

Switching my offspec/daily questing spec to Prot from Ret. Ret is so worthless its laughable. So bad in fact, that I get offended when I see Ret pallies in my group because they have two perfectly viable specs to choose from yet they chose the worst in the game.

Does anyone do their dailies as a prot paladin? I can't stomach Ret anymore...

 

[Ferrio]

I had a Fury Warrior do 2.5k DPS on Throngus in Grim Batol the day before yesterday. We actually downed him and the boss before with that guy in the group which felt crazy afterwards. Erudax is still so fucking hard though.

Erudax is easy, the trouble is blizz made the fight too class dependant. Got two classes that can slow? You're in the clear... otherwise... ugh

 

[Twig]

I had a Fury Warrior do 2.5k DPS on Throngus in Grim Batol the day before yesterday. We actually downed him and the boss before with that guy in the group which felt crazy afterwards. Erudax is still so fucking hard though.

I thought Erudax was pretty easy. Did it last night for the first time. EDIT: Ah, yeah, as Ferrio said, we had THREE classes that could snare. Wasn't a big deal.

Actually that whole dungeon is pretty easy, as long as you have competent people. There's nothing too complicated about any of the bosses. The only scary thing is the dragon breath when you're also trying to handle the fire adds. Sometimes causes a panic.

...

Or when you're me and you have a fire add chasing you and you heroic leap away 'cause they couldn't snare it in time and feel damn good about yourself


and then the next fire add also chases you and you don't realize it and run STRAIGHT TO THE TANK

(we still beat him but man i felt dumb)

 

[Rapstah]

Erudax is easy, the trouble is blizz made the fight too class dependant. Got two classes that can slow? You're in the clear... otherwise... ugh

Had Shadow Priest, Death Knight and Druid on him (which is optimal really, two slows and one knockback) but they still let two eggs hatch. I had to help the druid kill one of the adds to stop more from hatching! I'm a disc priest with 2k DPS! Was all the more rewarding to only just down him like that though, the Death Knight died on the last vortex.

 

[Bisnic]

I had a ele shaman doing 1.8k-2k DPS in H GB the other day. How the fuck do you do that at 85 is a real mystery. That dps was good at 80 when you were in greens!

He would have been kicked sooner if he wasn't in the same guild as the tank. We skipped Drahga after 4-5 wipes, and everyone gave up on the dragonkin TRASH before Erudax because of another 2 wipes.

I still wonder how we killed Forgemaster Throngus... Probably because me and the DPS DK were doing around 10K DPS, but still...

 

[Manus]

I entered Black Rock Caverns on my Warlock alt with my tier 10 heroic set and was doing around 8k dps. This was at 80, so a lot more people are doing more than 5k dps in normal dungeons. But I have seen Shadow Priests that do less tha 4k a fight. I don't know if their just bad or that Shadow Form is pretty bad in Cata.

 

[Tacitus_]

to be fair when you first gear up in heroics you do about 5k dps, and people cleared them on that difficulty

Lol no. I just dinged my rogue and she does 7k on bosses in 320 ilvl gear. And I still have my leveling spec with no +energy for backstab execute!

But speaking of Landslide, the enchant is awesome. It seems to have no ICD at all and on an Arms warrior it stays up pretty much all the time you are hitting something.

I entered Black Rock Caverns on my Warlock alt with my tier 10 heroic set and was doing around 8k dps. This was at 80, so a lot more people are doing more than 5k dps in normal dungeons. But I have seen Shadow Priests that do less tha 4k a fight. I don't know if their just bad or that Shadow Form is pretty bad in Cata.

They're just bad/have horrible gear. Spriests are sitting around the middle of our DPS.

 

[Fragamemnon]

Does anyone do their dailies as a prot paladin? I can't stomach Ret anymore...

Yes, and it's very very easy. Doesn't take long to kill things, especially when you pop your damage cooldowns (wings, plea) when they are up and always shield of the righteous when Sacred Duty procs.

 

[NameGenerated]

Does anyone know how to return the chat window to its normal form after installing and uninstalling Prat? It stayed all tiny. I don't know why I bother with these addons. Every month I try some new crap that I never like/is way too complicated and it always fucks something up when I try to go back to normal.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I entered Black Rock Caverns on my Warlock alt with my tier 10 heroic set and was doing around 8k dps. This was at 80, so a lot more people are doing more than 5k dps in normal dungeons. But I have seen Shadow Priests that do less tha 4k a fight. I don't know if their just bad or that Shadow Form is pretty bad in Cata.

But your level 80 DPS is completely meaningless because your combat rating depreciate incredibly rapidly as you level. DPS isn't actually higher now than it was in ICC until you start getting into raid groups and 346 gear.

 

[dimb]

But your level 80 DPS is completely meaningless because your combat rating depreciate incredibly rapidly as you level. DPS isn't actually higher now than it was in ICC until you start getting into raid groups and 346 gear.

Yeah, my crit rating got absolutely gutted as a warrior.

 

[TheExodu5]

Is anyone else a blacksmith? I'm a little annoyed about the itemization at 525. There is a PVP set leading up to it, around 500. Then at 525 and for HUGE amounts of costly materials you get two pieces each of an epic DPS, healerdin or tank set, an epic shield, all at ilevel 359... or rare ilevel 346 weapons.

The only crafting profession that has the right to complain is Engineering. One fucking purple, the highest cost to level, no good melee dps enchant, unusable belt tinkers due to backfires, no way to make a profit, and the list goes on...

But your level 80 DPS is completely meaningless because your combat rating depreciate incredibly rapidly as you level. DPS isn't actually higher now than it was in ICC until you start getting into raid groups and 346 gear.

Doesn't really matter in higher level instances though, as you'll barely be hitting high levels as 80. 15% crit rating at 85 is better than 40% crit rating at 80.

 

[Ferrio]

The only crafting profession that has the right to complain is Engineering. One fucking purple, the highest cost to level, no good melee dps enchant, unusable belt tinkers due to backfires, no way to make a profit, and the list goes on...



Doesn't really matter in higher level instances though, as you'll barely be hitting high levels as 80. 15% crit rating at 85 is better than 40% crit rating at 80.

I'm curious why JCs don't have any epic craftable items.

 

[mcrae]

The only crafting profession that has the right to complain is Engineering. One fucking purple, the highest cost to level, no good melee dps enchant, unusable belt tinkers due to backfires, no way to make a profit, and the list goes on...

the head is a very nice intro epic for cloth, i think only 4-5 heads beat it and thats counting the heroic versions. as well the 480int/12 sec 60sec CD on gloves is extremely nice, i think its only beaten by the tailering embroidery.

 

[Songbird]

Just reached Outland and Shattrath City! I might complete the Aldor quests now I'm he-
Oh, they just kicked me out of the city. Racists.

 

[Manus]

I'm curious why JCs don't have any epic craftable items.

Yet for some reason the blues we can craft, some require up to 5 chimera's eyes. Which is nuts.

 

[SnakeswithLasers]

Just reached Outland and Shattrath City! I might complete the Aldor quests now I'm he-
Oh, they just kicked me out of the city. Racists.

Enjoy Outlands; don't believe the haters. Hellfire Peninsula is a rad zone. With the exception of the quests at the crashed zeppelin and the voidwalkers, it's good fun. Especially once you hit 60 and get a flyer--and double especially if you have the 5k for fast flying.

I am going to pound through these next 11 levels (to 69) so that I can get ghost wolves and wreak some havoc.

 

[LowParry]

If you're a caster, and want to bring your dps up 2-3k more, buy or make a Darkmoon Card: Volcanic. So so good.