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[keeblerdrow]

Even if you don't particularly need the hit, get the Triumph Emblem trinket. Blues will very much get you passed over for ICC invites. A good rule of thumb for gemming that won't get you any raised eyebrows is below ilvl251 gemming rare (blues) is okay, above that, you best be putting epic gems in every slot. As far as gemming goes, you gem for your best stat exclusively except if you need to fill a meta requirement. Use a prismatic gem (nightmare tears, etc) for your meta requirements, which should take care of most unless you're one of those unfortunate souls who has a 2 blue gems requirement for a dps meta. In that case, use a prismatic and then a purple (blue+red) gem. Beast Mastery hunters will want to stack Attack Power, Survival hunters will want to stack Agility, and Marksman hunters can more-or-less stack either. Pick your stat accordingly and stack in. I disagree with others in that I will forego all socket bonuses for my main stat and only use the prismatic to get a really good bonus on one piece of armor.

People looking for raid members really do pay attention to how you gem and how you enchant to see if you're the type that takes your role seriously. It's nice that you're leveling enchanting, but if you'd like to get some better gear out of ICC, you're gonna have to back seat that money sink to properly accenting your gear. Also, just by kneejerk reaction, no one will invite someone with a Rare (blue) item to their raid unless it's some sort of massive anomaly in their otherwise impeccable gear.

Your gear may not be good enough for ICC at this point, but you should be getting into and running ToC 12 & 25 and ToCG 10 & 25 with no problems. And you can get a lot of upgrades out of those easy instances.

Gearing is about finding what's best for your character and what you like (this game is just a dressup doll simulator, after all). Gemming and enchanting is a metric used by everyone else to see how much you're willing to put into learning your character and how much effort you will put into making sure you're in tip top shape. I'm sure Runeforging in Cataclysm is gonna be the same way.


Also, Alex, you are insane. It's very very easy to hop from fresh 80 to the last tier of raiding content in the expansion. I think with the tools they had available, Blizzard has done a magnificent job making even the latest levels of raiding accessible to anyone willing to put in even a moderate amount of effort.

 

[firex]

all right, I'll probably add glyph of blocking once my warrior actually hits 80. right now I have glyph of revenge/glyph of cleaving. My minors are glyph of bloodrage, glyph of battle and glyph of thunderclap, but I can make glyph of charge if it's actually good. One of my friends said it's not that useful, and trying to just armory raid tanks on my server is pretty pointless because they have totally different glyphs just for ICC and stuff.

Still, this is way tougher than my paladin where I just had a strict rotation I could slightly deviate from after a minute or so when gcds started catching up, but dungeon finder grouping wasn't so bad. I might need to work out some different keyboard binds.

 

[Bisnic]

I hate you for that pic I tried to find that stupid dragon for weeks without any luck.

For a proto drake, i gave up on my mage after trying for months to get the green one from the oracle egg.

Then, one day, the blue proto drake dropped for the 1st time in H UP while i was tanking it with my warrior. While at the same time someone dced a few secs before the boss died for some reason. So only 4 people rolled for it, and i won! Been proudly using it since then. :lol

I could probably get the red one with my mage since im only missing a few heroic achievements, but he's guildless & pugs dont give a shit about doing Oculus achievements or that "kill 100 zombies in 1 min in H COS" or whatever unusual achievement i still have to do.

 

[Meier]

Man, I told you earlier. Your gemming is all over the place. Unless you're below the hit cap, gem only agility (unless the bonus is really good, which isn't really the case with any of your gear). Also, I don't know if you're still BM, but change to survival or MM. I'd suggest survival until your gear is really good.

I will look into replacing the gems with straight agility outside of what is necessary to keep my meta bonus. I did switch to Survival about a week ago which made a big difference in my DPS thanks to the vasty improved crit percentage which is over 40% now. I actually could in theory switch to MM based off of what I've read on the Hunter forums (once you're at about 4000 unbuffed RAP) but I like the mana generation of the Survival tree so I'll probably stick with it for the time being.

 

[Entropia]

Got my ICC10 Drake last night. That thing is so bad ass!

 

[keeblerdrow]

For a proto drake, i gave up on my mage after trying for months to get the green one from the oracle egg.

Then, one day, the blue proto drake dropped for the 1st time in H UP while i was tanking it with my warrior. While at the same time someone dced a few secs before the boss died for some reason. So only 4 people rolled for it, and i won! Been proudly using it since then. :lol

I could probably get the red one with my mage since im only missing a few heroic achievements, but he's guildless & pugs dont give a shit about doing Oculus achievements or that "kill 100 zombies in 1 min in H COS" or whatever unusual achievement i still have to do.

I'd bet one is Less-Rabi, you poor soul.

 

[Bisnic]

I'd bet one is Less-Rabi, you poor soul.

Nope, i actually got this one. And i was the one to interrupt the last Transformation's attempt where you have half a second to react. With Counterspell who have like a 24 secs. cooldown on top of that. :lol Was pretty much luck, i was thinking, "he's gonna use it, he's gonna use it...Counterspell NOW!" *crossfingers* "Oh shit, i guessed right..."

fuckyeah.jpg

 

[Alex]

Also, Alex, you are insane. It's very very easy to hop from fresh 80 to the last tier of raiding content in the expansion. I think with the tools they had available, Blizzard has done a magnificent job making even the latest levels of raiding accessible to anyone willing to put in even a moderate amount of effort.

Not saying it's hard, I always over preen my character to the most of extreme of levels before starting to raid. What I am trying to say is that later in the cycle, it's costly, obnoxious and unnatural to any kind of really entertaining game flow, IMO. I just think they should pace their loot and content better so they don't have to completely usurp it with things like this to ease people in.

I mean I like loot, but if they weren't so focused on invalidating everything you have on every few months, and instead took other routes every now and then, that'd be really nice.

From what I see, it almost becomes kind of FFXIy with the angst, impatience and elitism on every last little droplet. I mean I can cope with it, but it's not a fun environment to muck around in.

It will be rad when the new expansion goes up and everyone gets to learn and progress together in a more natural way before the gear ladders set in.

 

[keeblerdrow]

Nope, i actually got this one. And i was the one to interrupt the last Transformation's attempt where you have half a second to react. With Counterspell who have like a 24 secs. cooldown on top of that. :lol Was pretty much luck, i was thinking, "he's gonna use it, he's gonna use it...Counterspell NOW!" *crossfingers* "Oh shit, i guessed right..."

fuckyeah.jpg

That's pretty eerie. The only character I have Less-Rabi on is my mage, too. I was the one to get the final interrupt but I wasn't even thinking about it. I knew how bum-luck the entire affair was that I wasn't even expecting to get it. Especially in a PUG from Dungeon Finder and especially on my first run of it in heroic after hitting 80. I just kinda threw out the counterspell as an afterthought and got it. Turns out the best way to get the achievement is to not care. Who knew?

 

[RiskyChris]

Not saying it's hard, I always over preen my character to the most of extreme of levels before starting to raid. What I am trying to say is that later in the cycle, it's costly, obnoxious and unnatural to any kind of really entertaining game flow, IMO. I just think they should pace their loot and content better so they don't have to completely usurp it with things like this to ease people in.

I mean I like loot, but if they weren't so focused on invalidating everything you have on every few months, and instead took other routes every now and then, that'd be really nice.

From what I see, it almost becomes kind of FFXIy with the angst, impatience and elitism on every last little droplet. I mean I can cope with it, but it's not a fun environment to muck around in.

Later in the cycle it's less costly or obnoxious to gear up. The flow from fresh 80 to icc is very very easy and not very unnatural at all.

 

[Meier]

Ok guys, enough ass wiping, he asked for help

First of all, being a DPS who is extremely dependant of his weapon dps, you need a new weapon and I suggest this:

http://www.wowhead.com/item=50444

Yes, it's a tanking weapon, but it's damage output is better than yours and there is a chance you may get it in AH.

Other alternative: farm Pit of Saron until you get this:

http://www.wowhead.com/item=50262

Then the obvious one would be to get the two T10 pieces you need (and combine it with 2 pieces of T9 you already have). Do daily random heroics and the ahune fight, that's 4 frost emblems until 4 july.

For trinkets, I suggest you farm Trials of Champion (normal) for a Banner of Victory:

http://www.wowhead.com/item=50262

And the forge of Souls for this:

http://www.wowhead.com/item=50198

Boots need a replacement ASAP, Try to get into heroic Hall of Reflection runs to get this:

http://www.wowhead.com/item=50295

Or try to buy/craft this:

http://www.wowhead.com/item=45562

Very generic tips but I think that will give you an objective (aside of the gems, enchants, etc).

I've done the ToC a good number of times without any luck.. lost out to a rogue and a DK on the NES as well. Think I have done HoR about 10 times with no luck on the boots. I will check out those crafted ones although I imagine they're very, very expensive.

I asked on the Hunter forums about buying some with my Honor but it sounded like most felt like it wasn't worth it. Outside of the Mirror of Truth, badges aren't very helpful for trinkets sadly so I will keep running the TOC. I pretty much hate the Forge of Souls so I doubt I'll keep trying for the NES. Thanks for the suggestions though!

 

[firex]

I don't think they'll be too expensive if you trade frozen orbs for runed orbs. Then again on my server crusader orbs are like 150g tops, runed orbs are even cheaper.

 

[HarryDemeanor]

New Trainer UI:

 

[firex]

not bad. A little more intuitive than the current trainer + with no more multiple ranks of spells, it won't look so bloated.

 

[Bisnic]

Oh, i didn't know we could learn new spells every lvl between 1 & 60, just like 60-80 currently, in Cataclysm.

Nice change.

 

[RiskyChris]

I hate you for that pic I tried to find that stupid dragon for weeks without any luck.

I fucked up on my first tlpd spawn as I had just woken up and was washing my face and wasn't familiar with the paths. The second spawn (seen at the bottom) was just this past Tuesday about 2 hour after I had gotten home from jury duty and I was watching E3 videos. I fucking fat-fingered my hotkeys and dismounted instead of targeting, losing me a critical 20 seconds. After that I destroyed any hotkey that wasn't target or ice lance anywhere near my WASD keys :lol


Overall, 25 vrya sightings, 22 kills / 3 tlpd, 1 kill (click for higher res)

 

[funkmastergeneral]

New Trainer UI:

human druid trainer?

 

[Door2Dawn]

human druid trainer?

Worgen.

 

[Meier]

I don't think they'll be too expensive if you trade frozen orbs for runed orbs. Then again on my server crusader orbs are like 150g tops, runed orbs are even cheaper.

I just checked the mats and they're not bad at all. I am a skinner so I could probably get these made for fairly cheap in all reality. Guess I'll hold onto the next Arctic Furs I get. Maybe I'll grind for these tonight.

 

[funkmastergeneral]

Worgen.

oh yea completely forgot about that. I'd like to go back to my alliance warrior for next expansion, but really don't feel like playing with a bunch of furries.

 

[Bisnic]

oh yea completely forgot about that. I'd like to go back to my alliance warrior for next expansion, but really don't feel like playing with a bunch of furries.

Yeah, because you really don't feel like playing with a bunch of furries with taurens around you on the Horde side.

But i agree that Worgen will probably be more popular. Not only because they're a new race, but because werewolves are cooler than minotaurs(although taurens are more of a walking cow than a minotaur) for most people.

 

[firex]

I just checked the mats and they're not bad at all. I am a skinner so I could probably get these made for fairly cheap in all reality. Guess I'll hold onto the next Arctic Furs I get. Maybe I'll grind for these tonight.

if money is a serious problem I would also work on the argent tournament dailies. You won't get jack shit worth using from it, but it takes me like 15 minutes to do both the champion and valiant tiers of dailies on my shaman with enhance spec, and I get like 150-200 gold factoring in any random crap I find on the way and taking the cash bags instead of reputation commendations.

 

[J-Rzez]

Yeah, because you really don't feel like playing with a bunch of furries with taurens around you on the Horde side.

But i agree that Worgen will probably be more popular. Not only because they're a new race, but because werewolves are cooler than minotaurs(although taurens are more of a walking cow than a minotaur) for most people.

Well the difference here is that the worgen have a more "anime" look to them, which will indefinitely attract the real full blown furries. The tauren don't have that look.

 

[firex]

Yeah, because you really don't feel like playing with a bunch of furries with taurens around you on the Horde side.

But i agree that Worgen will probably be more popular. Not only because they're a new race, but because werewolves are cooler than minotaurs(although taurens are more of a walking cow than a minotaur) for most people.

sad truth is tauren are super popular for horde for most people. second most popular race after blood elves, though I think there's a huge gap between the two. It kind of sucks because tauren racials don't really suit classes that aren't tanks (not that racials really matter, but still) and my experience with bad players is always skewed way higher as a % for tauren than any other race I group with in dungeon finder. which is odd considering they can't be paladins yet and I almost never see them as DKs.

should also add that like, every tauren warrior I group with is pretty good so I think those are people who legit rolled tauren just because they think the racials are best.

I just don't know wtf is up with getting bad tauren hunters/DKs in dungeon finder, like 80% of the ones I grouped with in my battlegroup are bad.

 

[TheDrizzlerJ11]

Starting up again haven't played since BC and friend talked me into coming back for cataclysm. Using my free 10 days on wrath. Played Vanilla back when I could summon my pet in the AH and blow everyone up from the Baron debuff . Also played BC. So I haven't really been a nub since everyone was one. My 70s are hunter + druid. Any Vanilla Boulderfist or BC Blood Furnace here? I'm gonna probably end up Kel'thuzad or Boulderfist this time around.

 

[firex]

Unrelated, but I wish blizzard would come up with a reason to gem for socket bonuses. Maybe only on set pieces, like giving some kind of additional bonus if you match sockets on 2/4 pieces of a set. Or maybe Cataclysm will make it so they're worth hitting anyway since they at least are shifting gems around so there are 1) less of them to consider when gemming and 2) good gems for all classes in all color types. maybe it's just OCD on my part but I like to see socket bonuses lit up, but they are so awful in almost all cases except when they realize "hey we fucked up sockets, here's an item with all red sockets" for dps. It's especially bad on most healer gear I've seen, because spell power isn't worth gemming for really, so red sockets suck, which makes yellow the best for pretty much everything and consequently, the least commonly found socket.

 

[notworksafe]

Starting up again haven't played since BC and friend talked me into coming back for cataclysm. Using my free 10 days on wrath. Played Vanilla back when I could summon my pet in the AH and blow everyone up from the Baron debuff . Also played BC. So I haven't really been a nub since everyone was one. My 70s are hunter + druid. Any Vanilla Boulderfist or BC Blood Furnace here? I'm gonna probably end up Kel'thuzad or Boulderfist this time around.

Hasn't been posted in a few pages, but this spreadsheet should help you decide. I personally recommend Area 52 if you want to go Horde, but I'm biased.

Inspired by the Red Dead Redemption OT - I've created a form and corresponding spreadsheet to keep track of GAF WoW players.


Sign Up

Overview

Don't forget to add yourself when you make your character!

 

[Mr. Luchador]

Been saying it at least once a week for the last month now; think its time to go on a break once I've leveled this last alt to 80. Aggramar seems to be stuck in pre-expansion slump, very little activity and a lot of jerkism.

 

[Macattk15]

sad truth is tauren are super popular for horde for most people. second most popular race after blood elves, though I think there's a huge gap between the two. It kind of sucks because tauren racials don't really suit classes that aren't tanks (not that racials really matter, but still) and my experience with bad players is always skewed way higher as a % for tauren than any other race I group with in dungeon finder. which is odd considering they can't be paladins yet and I almost never see them as DKs.

should also add that like, every tauren warrior I group with is pretty good so I think those are people who legit rolled tauren just because they think the racials are best.

I just don't know wtf is up with getting bad tauren hunters/DKs in dungeon finder, like 80% of the ones I grouped with in my battlegroup are bad.

Whaaaaa? I rarely see Taurens besides Tanks. Orcs on the other hand are EVERYWHERE.

 

[Meier]

if money is a serious problem I would also work on the argent tournament dailies. You won't get jack shit worth using from it, but it takes me like 15 minutes to do both the champion and valiant tiers of dailies on my shaman with enhance spec, and I get like 150-200 gold factoring in any random crap I find on the way and taking the cash bags instead of reputation commendations.

I actually have no clue what this even entails.. I'll have to look into it further.

 

[Evlar]

Whaaaaa? I rarely see Taurens besides Tanks. Orcs on the other hand are EVERYWHERE.

You never notice any Horde druids?

 

[Won]

You never notice any Horde druids?

They are rarely in Tauren form.

 

[Evlar]

They are rarely in Tauren form.

True. They spend a lot of time in bear and cat and Tootsie Roll Owl forms, which doesn't seem to help the "no furries" argument.

 

[Bisnic]

Whaaaaa? I rarely see Taurens besides Tanks. Orcs on the other hand are EVERYWHERE.

If you check warcraftrealms.com, they are actually 2nd, far behind blood elves of course. I always thought undeads were 2nd and orcs 3rd. I guess the undead racial nerf hurted them.

I know the website isnt 100% accurate, but still.

Kinda sad to see 1,042,324 blood elves at #1 and taurens with 559,472 at #2. So much for the "savage" Horde eh? :lol

Then you look on the Alliance side and see how unpopular dwarves & gnomes are.

 

[dimb]

If you check warcraftrealms.com, they are actually 2nd, far behind blood elves of course. I always thought undeads were 2nd and orcs 3rd. I guess the undead racial nerf hurted them.

I know the website isnt 100% accurate, but still.

Kinda sad to see 1,042,324 blood elves at #1 and taurens with 559,472 at #2. So much for the "savage" Horde eh? :lol

Then you look on the Alliance side and see how unpopular dwarves & gnomes are.

It's crazy for me to see what little love Dwarves get.

I bet for the expansion they're expecting to see most new players roll Worgen.

 

[Ponti]

I keep hearing people saying how their new lvl 80 tank keep getting insulted in heroics, but i've had a bunch of tanks in the past with only 24-27k HP unbuffed and people never say a thing about those tanks(unless they suck really bad at their job). Maybe i'm just lucky.

My tank isn't new, but yeah I get this a lot. It's weird cause before I was able to multi-mob tank in vanilla/TBC (when it actually needed proper skill) and not once did I ever hear that I was a bad tank. Always the opposite, I met a lot of great players through instances before this dungeon finder. Now though it's the total opposite, so many moronic people nowadays and EVERYTHING that goes wrong is ALWAYS the tanks fault, even if it wasn't. Its like it's hard wired into folk the minute something fucks up, even for the most unreasonable stuff. :lol First time ever I've been called a "n00b tank", among other things. Even had a Priest today in Halls of Reflection tell me I should know when I'm going to get stunned and 'anticipate' it i.e. see into the future and somehow not get stunned. Won't even get started on the idiots that expect me to carry them through an instance.

I knew the community was bad before, but it's taken a serious nose dive. I honestly think, community wise, the dungeon finder was the worst thing to happen to this game. Think I'll be spec'ing for DPS for the first time ever on my Warrior once Cata comes out, if I still have the will to put up with this shit.

 

[Azwethinkweiz]

I just realized that one of the posters on here is Buffmaniac on Mal'Ganis. I swear we've tanked some pug ICCs in the past together before.

 

[Flib]

If you check warcraftrealms.com, they are actually 2nd, far behind blood elves of course. I always thought undeads were 2nd and orcs 3rd. I guess the undead racial nerf hurted them.

I know the website isnt 100% accurate, but still.

Kinda sad to see 1,042,324 blood elves at #1 and taurens with 559,472 at #2. So much for the "savage" Horde eh? :lol

Then you look on the Alliance side and see how unpopular dwarves & gnomes are.

One of the reasons Taurens are so popular is that every Horde druid has to be one, so that skews it big time.

 

[vilmer_]

Maintenance is killing me.

 

[firex]

Whaaaaa? I rarely see Taurens besides Tanks. Orcs on the other hand are EVERYWHERE.

Maybe it's different at 80, I just know server census + warcraftrealms has tauren as the 2nd most popular horde race, and orcs/trolls/undead all lag kind of far behind.

 

[Swag]

I just realized that one of the posters on here is Buffmaniac on Mal'Ganis. I swear we've tanked some pug ICCs in the past together before.

What's your toons name? Your not on the GAF database :lol

 

[Azwethinkweiz]

What's your toons name? Your not on the GAF database :lol

Ilriel.

I know, I'm too lazy to put my info in there.

 

[notsol337]

I just added my mage/rogue to the database. I just wish I could toy with my brand spanking new warrior some more BUT NO Blizzard wants to take all day patching stuff.

 

[firex]

reason #499 why EJ is a joke site and I hope Cataclysm makes it irrelevant for gear discussion:
http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t20765-shaman_enhancement/

This is their only resource on enhancement shamans for gear. It is outdated and a clusterfuck to actually search for posts with updated info, which makes it hard to know how accurate any data is on things like the section on gems (where it says "gem hit or crit, but if you are in sunwell gear gem agi/AP" and nothing else, so it's not even updated for level 80 beyond meta gems). Even worse is that they don't take engineering into account for glove enchants, but do for boots...

I mean, yeah, I could do the math myself with the formulas they give, and find that shit out, but for a forum dedicated to theorycrafting and figuring out math for this shit so we don't have to, they sure don't actually do it for like 3 or 4 classes.

 

[Sciz]

if money is a serious problem I would also work on the argent tournament dailies. You won't get jack shit worth using from it, but it takes me like 15 minutes to do both the champion and valiant tiers of dailies on my shaman with enhance spec, and I get like 150-200 gold factoring in any random crap I find on the way and taking the cash bags instead of reputation commendations.

It isn't quite as viable now as it was when 3.2 first came out, but you can supplement the daily income from there by buying pets with the seals you get and posting them on the neutral AH.

 

[Evlar]

Elitist Jerks (the site) has taken a precipitous dive in quality over the past eight months or so.

 

[firex]

It isn't quite as viable now as it was when 3.2 first came out, but you can supplement the daily income from there by buying pets with the seals you get and posting them on the neutral AH.

that's the other thing I plan on doing, after I get a couple more heirloom trinkets. I have a sickness where I want my troll warlock and goblin hunter to both have 2 heirloom trinkets, so I need to buy 2 more of the haste one.

oh and about EJ, I really haven't found another site with any info for shamans. I guess being the least popular class means they won't get their own sites like warlocks, priests, rogues etc. get.

 

[funkmastergeneral]

reason #499 why EJ is a joke site and I hope Cataclysm makes it irrelevant for gear discussion:
http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t20765-shaman_enhancement/

This is their only resource on enhancement shamans for gear. It is outdated and a clusterfuck to actually search for posts with updated info, which makes it hard to know how accurate any data is on things like the section on gems (where it says "gem hit or crit, but if you are in sunwell gear gem agi/AP" and nothing else, so it's not even updated for level 80 beyond meta gems). Even worse is that they don't take engineering into account for glove enchants, but do for boots...

I mean, yeah, I could do the math myself with the formulas they give, and find that shit out, but for a forum dedicated to theorycrafting and figuring out math for this shit so we don't have to, they sure don't actually do it for like 3 or 4 classes.

I can answer any questions you may have about enhancement. I've stopped raiding recently, but my main for most of the expansion was an enhance shaman.

I hope you're using enhsim

Edit: Also some of the best theorycrafters behind enhsim have quit due to how shitty the spec has become.

 

[Duki]

part of it is that they're the only ones who can be druids

part of it is they're fucking huge and hell yeah who doesn't want a giant weapon goddamn

 

[J-Rzez]

They better pull a nice card here and activate OS 2.0 for the states now after how long this down time is today. I just tried logging on for the first time today, expecting it to be up and running as I had to grab a few things before raid, and I see it's down. All over this crap Bnet 2.0 stuff.

Now I'm questioning if our raid's going to be cancelled tonight due to this.