The pre Kara gear guide I wrote 8 months ago was one of the most viewed posts I have written. Now that the expansion is hear I have received a couple of requests to do the same for Naxx. Since my original guide was so well received I am happy to help.
I want to warn you that writting this guide is a little tougher then the last one. When I wrote the Kara guide BC had been out for over a year and I had a lot of experiance with the expansion. I new which instances were easy and which faction reps were difficult to level. That is not the case with this guide. At the time that this guide was written I had only just dinged level 80. I have not run many WotLK heroics and haven't worked on the rep for any of the factions. Therefore I want you to understand a couple of things about the list before you jump to far in to it.
1. This list is not meant to be all inclusive. I have picked 3 or 4 options that I consider to be the best based on a variety of criteria. I will exclude some items because I have included an item that is obtained in a very similar way already. If you would like a complete list of all the items available I suggest you go to WowHead.com and do a search. That how I built this list.
2. I have selected these times based on three criteria: DPS, Obtainability, and Cost. I want this list to be accessable to all users. While DPS is the primary characteristic I rate the items on, do down rank a lot of them based upon where the drop from and how much they cost to craft. On top of that I admit that I have biases that influansted the list. I will try and expose those biases below.
3. I have excluded PvP gear almost entirely from this list. This is done for a couple of reasons. First, PvP gear is not itemized well for PvE content for the most part. Second, I personally hate BG grinding to obtain the items, and that is the way most people obain PvP gear. None of this is to say that PvP gear might not be better then the gear you currently have equipped, If you have PvP gear that out gears your current level of PvE content then feel free to use it.
4. In terms of pure DPS the stat equation is Hit > Spell Power > Haste > Crit, but I am currently a little biased against haste. That is because I am a little worried about mana currently. Until I am completely certain that I won't have mana issues I am going to give up a little bit if DPS for little more mana security. Therefore I tend to favor items with Crit over items with Haste if they are in relatively similar quantities.
5. I am also a little biased in favor of Hit Rating. The soft hit cap is 262.3 in WotLK, and looking at my own gear from BC I realize I am well short of that, so I expect most of you are also.
6. In building the list I haven't focused on the base stats much. Stam, Int and Spirit are important but not as important as the primary DPS stats. For the most part they are unavoidable and will come naturally. The one possible exception to this is Spirit. I have generally avoided it in an indirect manner. Items without Spirit tend to have higher DPS stats and are picked more often.
All that said, feel free to offer other suggestions in the comments. I do not have a monopoly on insightfulness and my have missed something. Now, on with the guide.
One Handed Weapons:
Note: I want to note it for the record that main hand / off hand combinations are almost always better then a two handed weapon assuming that all of the items are fairly similar in item level.
1. [Flameheart Spell Scalpel] - Rep Reward - Kirin Tor Revered - This one was easy. This is by far one of the best balanced items I've seen in the expansion, and is relatively easy to get since it is a rep reward. It has a ton of Spell Power with a good amount of Hit and Crit, plus a few base stats. You better have a pretty good reason if you walk into Naxx without this weapon.
2. [Titansteel Guardian] - BoE crafted - With 490 Spell Power it is obvious that this is a very nice weapon, and it is obtainable by anyone with gold. However, it has two issues that make me a little reluctant to run out and get it. First is the cost. Expect to pay a high price for this item. It requites 18 Eternals and 2 Frozen Orbs to craft along with several bars of Saronite and Titanium. The second issue I have with it is that it has no Intelligence on it. I know I say a lot about not worrying about base stats, but your usually deciding between an item with 20 Int or 30 int. Not 4o Int or none. It's just a little jaring.
3. [Beguiling Scepter] - Normal Mal'Ganis - CoT: Stratholme - Nothing really special here but this is a very nice weapon that shouldn't be to difficult to obtain.
Caster Off Hand
1. [Ward of the Violet Citadel] - 25 Badges of Heroism - I really hate that I am listing this time first, but I do so because of a simple truth. There are not many good Caster off hands available from instances and if your going to run heroics to get one you might as well go for this one since it is only 25 badges. It is head and shoulders above anything you can get out side a raid.
2. [Telestra's Journal] - Heroic Grand Magus Telestra - The Nexus - The 39 Hit Rating is what makes this off hand attractive, since we will need 262 Hit rating just to reach the soft cap. This is not a bad option to go for while you accumulate badges.
3. [Tome of Salramm] - Normal Salramm - CoT: Stratholme - Again, this is nothing special but it is a nice well rounded item with a good balance of stats.
Two Handed Weapons:
Note: I've said it once above and I will now say it again. I don't recommend using a two handed weapon. A Main Hand / Off Hand combo is almost always better. The reason is that Staves tend to be very heavy on base stats like Stam, Int and Spirit, and you can usually get more DPS stats with Main Hands and Off Hands. However, if you insist on using a staff here are a few options.
1. [Savage Gladiator's Focus Staff] - PvP Reward - Weapons are the one area where PvP items tend to be ok for PvP. They still waste itemization points on Resilience and extra Stam but they also tend to have good stats like Hit Rating. If your going to use a staff then this is a good one. To be completely honest I'm not sure how you can obtain this item. I think you may be able to purchase it with [Stone Keeper's Shards], but I'm not sure. If anyone knows let me know.
2. [Staff of Sinister Claws] - Heroic Herold Volazj - Old Kingdom - This is probably the best PvE staff pre-raid, but I have heard that Heroic Old Kingdom is really hard.
That is it for now. I will publish the next installment as soon as I can but it may take a little while with the holidays coming up.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Monday, November 17, 2008
WotLK: My First Impressions
Like everyone else I have been trying to play as much as I can over the past 4 days or so. Graylo is now a couple bars into level 75 and running through mobs like a mack truck. My alts are obviously resting except when I need them to DE something or check the AH. Overall my experience has been good, but I would like to go over some of my first impressions.
My Build:
As you know I listed my planned leveling build in a post a couple of days ago. On Wednesday I raided right up until I went to get my copy and in my excitement to get to Northrend I forgot to respec before I got on the boat. This turned out well because I noticed two things. I wasn't casting Starfire or Insect Swarm much. This makes Improved Insect Swarm pretty much useless. So I put those three points in Dreamstate instead.
The only other change I made while leveling was putting 2 points in Gale Winds. I did so for two reasons. First, I did a couple of instances with guildies and we did a lot of AoEing. Second, after a few bad pools I realized a little extra DPS from AoE would be nice. I'm not AoE grinding anything, but I find that it is helpful in a few specific situations, and Furor isn't much of a loss at this point.
The Look:
I think the Northrend art looks great. I can't be completely sure of my opinion because I recently got a new video card. So I don't know what the improvements have more to do with, my card or the expansion. Anyway, I think the game looks great. The detail in the instances and such is awesome.
Zygor's Leveling Guide:
I know I haven't taken it all the way to 80 yet, but I love what I've seen so far. It provides step by step details on how to get things done and where to go. All the while I've had the TomTom arrow to show me the way. I don't have much to compare it to since I haven't seen the Brian Kopp ingame guide but I don't think it could be much better.
The big difference is that Zygor's guide takes all of the administrative stuff out of the game. I don't have to worry about where to go when. I don't have to tab out to check wowhead or look at a guide and figure out the coordinates. All I have to think about is how to complete the quest.
I realize that some people look at leveling guides as cheating or taking the fun out of the game, so I realize that this product is not for everyone. However, if your interested in a guide and don't mind spending 50 dollars I highly recommend Zygor's guide.
(Just for the record, I am not affiliated with Zygor guide in any way other than user. I have not received any money or freebies from them. This post is purely my experience so far.)
Starfall:
Some of you may have heard the tanking joke "Paladin: When you need to tank absolutely everything in the room." Well, the new joke should be "Starfall: When you need to pull absolutely everything in the room." Don't get me wrong, I like it, but this ability has gotten me into trouble several times. I didn't realize just how big it's radius is, and in a couple of cases it has made a bad situation worse.
To be specific, I've had a couple of situations were I pulled a couple extra mobs and I popped Starfall to help get them down. Next thing I know I have 5 more mobs headed my way. This is a big reason why I put two points in Gale Winds. AoE is just the best way to go when you have 8 mobs beating on you. In most cases I've gotten out of it ok by popping all of my cooldowns, but I suggest that everyone be careful about when you uses Starfall.
Instances:
So far I've run The Nexus, Utgarde Keep, Azjol-Nerub, & Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom. I can't help but compare these four instances to the first 4 instances of BC. I think the WotLK instances are a big improvement over the BC instances so far. While some instances are still the long hallway that plagued BC, there was a lot of variety in the bosses. Virtually ever boss in Ramps, BF, SP, & UB was a tank and spank. Very few of the bosses I fought so far have been tank and spanks. So, I'm happy.
My favorite boss so far has been Herald Volazj in The Old Kingdom. I have a feeling that many will consider him to be the new Blackheart the Inciter from Shadow Labs, but I love having to DPS all of the adds down and then helping out my group members. I thought it was a lot of fun.
Quests:
Most of the quests are the type of quests that we have grown to expect from Blizzard. Kill 20 of this, Collect 10 of that, use this item on those mobs. Nothing really special, but that is to be expected in my opinion.
On the positive side we have gotten all of the new "vehicle" quests (for lack of a better term). For the most part I have enjoyed those quite a bit. Especially the quest where you ride the dragon around Wyrmrest Temple. I can't wait to try the instance where the whole party is on dragons.
On a negative note I do think Blizzard designed some of their quests quite poorly, and I'm not talking about spawn rates.
The first quest I absolutely hated was The Clutches of Evil. I'm sure it doesn't help that I did it at peak play time and I am sure it will get better after the crowds die down but it is an absolute nightmare now. The 15 eggs were easy, but the 15 whelps were like pulling teeth. For those of you that don't know the Proto-Whelps spawn from the fire of the Proto-Drakes that are flying above, and they generally don't spawn until the end of a breath. So you have a ton of people running around following the breaths looking for a spawn. I was in a full group to try and make it easier, but there were a ton of people all trying to get the same spawn. Luckily I am very fast with my moonfire and didn't miss many but it was rough. To make matters worse there was a follow up quest that asked you to kill the Proto-Drakes that caused the whelps to spawn. So there were times when there were no drakes in the air. All around just a poor design.
The second quest I hated was A Righteous Sermon. In this quest you have to go down to the dungeon of Wintergarde Keep and here a sermon delivered to an undead. Its not hard, you just have to watch a cut seen. The problem is that the cut seen takes about a minute and you can't group to complete it. As you can imagine in these busy times there were several people that all wanted the quest at once. I would have been fine taking turns to do it, but it was clear that no one else was interested in that, so It took me several attempts to get the quest done. This is probably the worst example of this that I have seen but it is not the only example. Blizzard needs to do a better job of avoiding these type of back ups in the future.
Summary:
As I said before I am happy with the expansion so far. It has been a little annoying waiting on respawns and I think we have all seen our share of asshats but those are to be expected.
I am looking forward to getting to level 77 so I can use my flying mount. I'm tired of having to run up and down all of these cliffs.
I want to say congrats to Erbodi. He is the first member of my guild to hit level 80, and he was the first Dwarf on my server to hit level 80. He said that his chat box was full of whispers after he got the achievement.
My Build:
As you know I listed my planned leveling build in a post a couple of days ago. On Wednesday I raided right up until I went to get my copy and in my excitement to get to Northrend I forgot to respec before I got on the boat. This turned out well because I noticed two things. I wasn't casting Starfire or Insect Swarm much. This makes Improved Insect Swarm pretty much useless. So I put those three points in Dreamstate instead.
The only other change I made while leveling was putting 2 points in Gale Winds. I did so for two reasons. First, I did a couple of instances with guildies and we did a lot of AoEing. Second, after a few bad pools I realized a little extra DPS from AoE would be nice. I'm not AoE grinding anything, but I find that it is helpful in a few specific situations, and Furor isn't much of a loss at this point.
The Look:
I think the Northrend art looks great. I can't be completely sure of my opinion because I recently got a new video card. So I don't know what the improvements have more to do with, my card or the expansion. Anyway, I think the game looks great. The detail in the instances and such is awesome.
Zygor's Leveling Guide:
I know I haven't taken it all the way to 80 yet, but I love what I've seen so far. It provides step by step details on how to get things done and where to go. All the while I've had the TomTom arrow to show me the way. I don't have much to compare it to since I haven't seen the Brian Kopp ingame guide but I don't think it could be much better.
The big difference is that Zygor's guide takes all of the administrative stuff out of the game. I don't have to worry about where to go when. I don't have to tab out to check wowhead or look at a guide and figure out the coordinates. All I have to think about is how to complete the quest.
I realize that some people look at leveling guides as cheating or taking the fun out of the game, so I realize that this product is not for everyone. However, if your interested in a guide and don't mind spending 50 dollars I highly recommend Zygor's guide.
(Just for the record, I am not affiliated with Zygor guide in any way other than user. I have not received any money or freebies from them. This post is purely my experience so far.)
Starfall:
Some of you may have heard the tanking joke "Paladin: When you need to tank absolutely everything in the room." Well, the new joke should be "Starfall: When you need to pull absolutely everything in the room." Don't get me wrong, I like it, but this ability has gotten me into trouble several times. I didn't realize just how big it's radius is, and in a couple of cases it has made a bad situation worse.
To be specific, I've had a couple of situations were I pulled a couple extra mobs and I popped Starfall to help get them down. Next thing I know I have 5 more mobs headed my way. This is a big reason why I put two points in Gale Winds. AoE is just the best way to go when you have 8 mobs beating on you. In most cases I've gotten out of it ok by popping all of my cooldowns, but I suggest that everyone be careful about when you uses Starfall.
Instances:
So far I've run The Nexus, Utgarde Keep, Azjol-Nerub, & Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom. I can't help but compare these four instances to the first 4 instances of BC. I think the WotLK instances are a big improvement over the BC instances so far. While some instances are still the long hallway that plagued BC, there was a lot of variety in the bosses. Virtually ever boss in Ramps, BF, SP, & UB was a tank and spank. Very few of the bosses I fought so far have been tank and spanks. So, I'm happy.
My favorite boss so far has been Herald Volazj in The Old Kingdom. I have a feeling that many will consider him to be the new Blackheart the Inciter from Shadow Labs, but I love having to DPS all of the adds down and then helping out my group members. I thought it was a lot of fun.
Quests:
Most of the quests are the type of quests that we have grown to expect from Blizzard. Kill 20 of this, Collect 10 of that, use this item on those mobs. Nothing really special, but that is to be expected in my opinion.
On the positive side we have gotten all of the new "vehicle" quests (for lack of a better term). For the most part I have enjoyed those quite a bit. Especially the quest where you ride the dragon around Wyrmrest Temple. I can't wait to try the instance where the whole party is on dragons.
On a negative note I do think Blizzard designed some of their quests quite poorly, and I'm not talking about spawn rates.
The first quest I absolutely hated was The Clutches of Evil. I'm sure it doesn't help that I did it at peak play time and I am sure it will get better after the crowds die down but it is an absolute nightmare now. The 15 eggs were easy, but the 15 whelps were like pulling teeth. For those of you that don't know the Proto-Whelps spawn from the fire of the Proto-Drakes that are flying above, and they generally don't spawn until the end of a breath. So you have a ton of people running around following the breaths looking for a spawn. I was in a full group to try and make it easier, but there were a ton of people all trying to get the same spawn. Luckily I am very fast with my moonfire and didn't miss many but it was rough. To make matters worse there was a follow up quest that asked you to kill the Proto-Drakes that caused the whelps to spawn. So there were times when there were no drakes in the air. All around just a poor design.
The second quest I hated was A Righteous Sermon. In this quest you have to go down to the dungeon of Wintergarde Keep and here a sermon delivered to an undead. Its not hard, you just have to watch a cut seen. The problem is that the cut seen takes about a minute and you can't group to complete it. As you can imagine in these busy times there were several people that all wanted the quest at once. I would have been fine taking turns to do it, but it was clear that no one else was interested in that, so It took me several attempts to get the quest done. This is probably the worst example of this that I have seen but it is not the only example. Blizzard needs to do a better job of avoiding these type of back ups in the future.
Summary:
As I said before I am happy with the expansion so far. It has been a little annoying waiting on respawns and I think we have all seen our share of asshats but those are to be expected.
I am looking forward to getting to level 77 so I can use my flying mount. I'm tired of having to run up and down all of these cliffs.
I want to say congrats to Erbodi. He is the first member of my guild to hit level 80, and he was the first Dwarf on my server to hit level 80. He said that his chat box was full of whispers after he got the achievement.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
OP Acheivements: The Last Straw
OMG Nerf the President of United States Achievement.
Its not fair that only one person gets to have it every 4 years and some people can get it twice. Not all of us have the time and money to work 16 hours a day for 22 months to get an achievement.
All Blizzard does is design content for end game raiders and the most hardcore of players that don't have real lives. Why does Blizzard habitually ignore more casual players? If blizzard doesn't remove this achievement and title or nerf it so that it is available for every one I am going to cancel my subscription and quit the game.
(Sorry, guys. I had to do it)
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Kil'Jaeden = DEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!
You know it's funny. We attempted KJ on 3 different nights before Monday. The first night we consistently got him down to 40% but realized there was a problem with our positioning and where the Shields were being cast. The second night we spent another 3 hours and almost killed him. Several attempts were below 10%, the best of which was 4%. We just needed to iron out a few kinks. Our third night was just an hour this past Sunday. We didn't expect to kill him that night because we didn't have a full raid and just wanted to practice collapsing. All of this lead up to Monday night that is clearly one of my highlights now.
One Shot. One Kill. One Bow.
It just goes to show what preparation can do. A big congratulations go out to Salty who picked up [Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury].
Now, I know this kill doesn't mean as much as the kills before patch 3.0.2. I also know that we probably wouldn't be able to kill the prepatch version right now. However, it still feels good. With this kill I got the Achievement of Outland Raider, which is one of the few Achievements that means anything to me right now.
The fact that we one shotted him would be really funny if you had heard our vent comments or read our forum posts over the past week. Most everyone had committed to staying in raid until he was down. So, to be standing there at 8:30 with everyone asking what we should do now cracks me up a little.
We did end up going on on to BT and killing IC and Illidan left over from our Tuesday raid. This was particularly nice for me since I was able to pick up the [Cowl of the Illidari High Lord]. It is ugly as sin, but it is an awesome helm and I finally get to use the [Chaotic Skyfire Diamond] that has been in my bank for six months because I expected to get a helm off of Vashj.
We also, bought a Hyjal ID that had just the last to bosses on it and killed them both. All in all it was a very good night. We have just one more regular raid night before the expansion is release and we are hoping that we can go 6/6 in SWP to get one more kill on KJ. Wish us luck.
(P.S. I noobed it up and didn't get any good screenshots from the kill or the bow. These pictures were taken from our Guild Website and I assume Sevrenwinter took them. Thanks for the help.)
Friday, November 7, 2008
A Look back at the Burning Crusade
I don't know about you guys, but with the expansion coming out in less then a week I am starting to feel a little nostalgic. Now that the game is about to move on to a new chapter it is hard not to look back at the 2 years we played the Burning Crusade and think about both the highlights and the hard times. Here are some of my highlights and lowlights from the BC era of WoW.
Favorite 5-man Instance:
Shadow Labyrinth - The reason I like Shadow Labs is the variety of bosses. There were all fairly different and definitely presented a challenge before I would fully raid geared. I know a lot of people hated the ogre boss but everyone remembers him hand it was definitely a unique fight. Overall, Shadow Labs has an epic feel to it that was missing from a lot of the other 5 mans. It was one of the few instances I didn't mind running multiple times.
Least Favorite 5-man Instance:
This one is tough. I think I'm going to have to give two answers.
Auchenai Crypts - I leveled 3 toons to 70 in BC and never ran AC once on any of them, on either mode. I can't really say that it is my least favorite if I never ran it, but there has to be a reason for missing it. I would have assumed that some one would have pulled me in for a daily or a heroic or something if it was decent. However, it sounds like I wasn't missing much according to most of the people I've talked to.
Mana Tombs - This one is probably due to lack of experience also. I didn't run MT much also, but I don't remember anything particularly fun about this instance anyway.
Favorite 25-man Raid Boss:
Kael'thas Sunstrider - I have only killed him once but I really liked this fight. It has great variety and complexity. While it was fun downing bosses on the first or second day of trying them, it ultimately felt kind of hollow. Nothing was really accomplished. The Kael fight is much more involved. In my opinion it is more fun to learn the little complexities of the fights and feel the sense of accomplishment when you down him. Plus everyone gets to play around with Legendary items if for only a few minutes. Ultimately Kael was one of the few fights that had a truly epic feel to it. My only regret is that I couldn't get a guild first kill on him.
Least Favorite 25-man Raid Boss:
Void Reaver - I hate the orbs. It is that simple. VR was the fight I performed worst on consistently. I know it isn't ranged friendly, but I think it is particularly bad for moonkin since we have one of the longest cast Nukes in the game.
Favorite 10-man Raid Boss:
This is actually a tie.
Shade of Aran - This one is a little funny because I hated this fight early on because it is fairly hard and my computer always lagged out on it. However, after I got a better computer I started to appreciate it. It has a nice level of randomness and complexity that wasn't seen from a lot of the early bosses. It wasn't predictable but the randomness alone wouldn't wipe your raid like it would on Prince.
Jan'alai (Dragonhawk) - I really like the mini game. It provided a little tension but was beat able. Plus the trash leading up to him provided a little niche for moonkin. Yes, there are other ways to control the scouts but moonkin were probably best at it.
Least Favorite 10-man Raid Boss:
Netherspite - This one is a little funny because I thought it would be one of my favorite bosses after reading the strat. However, I think I have run it to many poor players or with very little organization. It seems like someone dies every single time. When I've run kara with my alts recently I'm just trying to get the fight over with.
Worst Moment in the Burning Crusade:
This one won't come as a surprise to anyone who knows me or has read this blog for a while. My worst moment in BC is clearly when Wandering Alliance broke up in January of 08. I lost some friends in that split and seriously considered quiting the game at that point. To be completely honest, I don't think I've had as much fun with a guild as I did with old WA since then. Don't get me wrong. I think LoE is great, and after I progress with them in WotLK and get to know some of the people better I will probably feel differently, but old WA was something special. Raids were focused but you could joke around a little. When not raiding you could hang out in vent and talk with people about different stuff. I guess I just felt closer to old WA then I have with any of my guilds since.
Most Shocking Moment in the Burning Crusade:
Logging into wow for raid and finding out that my guild no longer existed was very shocking. It wasn't really bad because I was kind of looking for a good way out, but shocking none the less. What made it so shocking was that it was completely unexpected. When most guilds fall apart you can see the cracks for a long time but the guild leaders hang on for dear life. In this situation there was drama leading up to it but none of it seemed to be a guild killer. Really the guild could have been saved, but there were a few straws that broke the camel's back and the GM decided to throw in the towel.
Best Moment in the Burning Crusade:
Killing Vashj was by far my best moment in BC. After my worst moment above a lot of people said that we wouldn't be able to rebuild into a guild that could clear SSC, but we did. On top of that she is such a tough fight, and is the toughest guild first kill I've had with a guild. Killing her felt like we had accomplished something as a team. I just wish she had dropped a druid token just once.
That's it for me right now. If there is something else I remember I will added it. What are some of our highlights of BC? Post them in the comments if you would like to share.
Toon Update:
Graylo - Lots and Lots of Sunwell. We have downed the Eredar Twins but it proved to be harder then I expected. Little things prevent us from killing them for a while. People would fall off the ledge or conflag the raid. It was very frustrating but it proves that even with the nerf you can't just walk into SWP and kill bosses. We eventually did pull it all together and down Twins with a little more then an hour left in raid.
With that we headed to Muru. In contrast, Muru wasn't nearly as difficult. It's not that complex of a fight. Its mainly a personal DPS race that has been mage much easier by the patch and the new WotLK talents. We were able to down him after only a few attempts and got the guild first kill the same night that we killed Twins.
Since then we have been working on Kil'jaeden. This is a great fight, but we haven't killed him yet. On the first night of attempts we were reliably getting him down to about 40% but couldn't go much farther. Our positioning was a little to spread out and we were a little to far away from the orbs when the spawned. We changed our positioning a little bit and the next night we tried him things went better. On our best attempt we got him down to 4% but were a little frustrated that we couldn't get him down. Our biggest problem now seems to be people not surviving long enough. I think we just need to just get a little more experience with the fight's mechanics and he will go down. The good news is that we have all tonight to get it done, and there is a general consensus that we will continue to raid until he is down since we are running out of time. Wish us luck.
Graypal - He is just waiting for the expansion and DEing stuff. I'm still thinking about turning him Holy at 80.
Grayfel - I've been running as many raids with him as I can to get gear. He has been through ZA and Kara a couple of times but the real luck came when I got into a guild TK pug. A couple of guildies wanted to see if we could short hand VR and I got my lock into the raid. It went remarkably well. We ended up 15 manning VR and I got the T5 shoulders. We then decided to go on to Solarion and 10 manned her, and I got the caster legs that drop off of her. All in All it was a good night for my lock. I also now have over 150 badges and will spend them soon to replace some of my remaining holes in my gear.
Grayvik - The little mage is coming along nicely. He is just short of 30 and doing pretty well. I'm starting to get an hand of how to survive with him, and I am enjoying his progress. I doubt he will progress much over the next few weeks/months, but I am looking forward to getting him to max level.
Leveling Guides:
For those of you that don't know, I am a big fan of leveling guides. I leveled Graylo from 30 - 60 using Jamie's guides at WoW-Pro.com. I then used Brian Kopps Alliance guide to get Graylo from 60 - 70. I also used it to get Graypal and Grayfel from 1 - 70, and have used it for my mage also. For the most part I think it is a great guide, but I am considering using a different one after the expansion for a couple of reasons.
First, he is charging for the WotLK upgrade. This gives me a good reason to look around at my other options. Second, he hasn't said anything about if his guide will be available on Thursday when the game is released. This has made me a little nervious since I don't want to try and pick up a guide in the middle.
So, I'm wondering if any of my readers have experience with any of the other guides available. I am leaning towards trying the Zygor Leveling guides. The addon they have created to display the guide looks really nice and they say it is ready for Thursday. Have any of you tried the Zygor guides or some other Leveling guide I should look at? If so, please post in the comments what you thing about them.
Favorite 5-man Instance:
Shadow Labyrinth - The reason I like Shadow Labs is the variety of bosses. There were all fairly different and definitely presented a challenge before I would fully raid geared. I know a lot of people hated the ogre boss but everyone remembers him hand it was definitely a unique fight. Overall, Shadow Labs has an epic feel to it that was missing from a lot of the other 5 mans. It was one of the few instances I didn't mind running multiple times.
Least Favorite 5-man Instance:
This one is tough. I think I'm going to have to give two answers.
Auchenai Crypts - I leveled 3 toons to 70 in BC and never ran AC once on any of them, on either mode. I can't really say that it is my least favorite if I never ran it, but there has to be a reason for missing it. I would have assumed that some one would have pulled me in for a daily or a heroic or something if it was decent. However, it sounds like I wasn't missing much according to most of the people I've talked to.
Mana Tombs - This one is probably due to lack of experience also. I didn't run MT much also, but I don't remember anything particularly fun about this instance anyway.
Favorite 25-man Raid Boss:
Kael'thas Sunstrider - I have only killed him once but I really liked this fight. It has great variety and complexity. While it was fun downing bosses on the first or second day of trying them, it ultimately felt kind of hollow. Nothing was really accomplished. The Kael fight is much more involved. In my opinion it is more fun to learn the little complexities of the fights and feel the sense of accomplishment when you down him. Plus everyone gets to play around with Legendary items if for only a few minutes. Ultimately Kael was one of the few fights that had a truly epic feel to it. My only regret is that I couldn't get a guild first kill on him.
Least Favorite 25-man Raid Boss:
Void Reaver - I hate the orbs. It is that simple. VR was the fight I performed worst on consistently. I know it isn't ranged friendly, but I think it is particularly bad for moonkin since we have one of the longest cast Nukes in the game.
Favorite 10-man Raid Boss:
This is actually a tie.
Shade of Aran - This one is a little funny because I hated this fight early on because it is fairly hard and my computer always lagged out on it. However, after I got a better computer I started to appreciate it. It has a nice level of randomness and complexity that wasn't seen from a lot of the early bosses. It wasn't predictable but the randomness alone wouldn't wipe your raid like it would on Prince.
Jan'alai (Dragonhawk) - I really like the mini game. It provided a little tension but was beat able. Plus the trash leading up to him provided a little niche for moonkin. Yes, there are other ways to control the scouts but moonkin were probably best at it.
Least Favorite 10-man Raid Boss:
Netherspite - This one is a little funny because I thought it would be one of my favorite bosses after reading the strat. However, I think I have run it to many poor players or with very little organization. It seems like someone dies every single time. When I've run kara with my alts recently I'm just trying to get the fight over with.
Worst Moment in the Burning Crusade:
This one won't come as a surprise to anyone who knows me or has read this blog for a while. My worst moment in BC is clearly when Wandering Alliance broke up in January of 08. I lost some friends in that split and seriously considered quiting the game at that point. To be completely honest, I don't think I've had as much fun with a guild as I did with old WA since then. Don't get me wrong. I think LoE is great, and after I progress with them in WotLK and get to know some of the people better I will probably feel differently, but old WA was something special. Raids were focused but you could joke around a little. When not raiding you could hang out in vent and talk with people about different stuff. I guess I just felt closer to old WA then I have with any of my guilds since.
Most Shocking Moment in the Burning Crusade:
Logging into wow for raid and finding out that my guild no longer existed was very shocking. It wasn't really bad because I was kind of looking for a good way out, but shocking none the less. What made it so shocking was that it was completely unexpected. When most guilds fall apart you can see the cracks for a long time but the guild leaders hang on for dear life. In this situation there was drama leading up to it but none of it seemed to be a guild killer. Really the guild could have been saved, but there were a few straws that broke the camel's back and the GM decided to throw in the towel.
Best Moment in the Burning Crusade:
Killing Vashj was by far my best moment in BC. After my worst moment above a lot of people said that we wouldn't be able to rebuild into a guild that could clear SSC, but we did. On top of that she is such a tough fight, and is the toughest guild first kill I've had with a guild. Killing her felt like we had accomplished something as a team. I just wish she had dropped a druid token just once.
That's it for me right now. If there is something else I remember I will added it. What are some of our highlights of BC? Post them in the comments if you would like to share.
Toon Update:
Graylo - Lots and Lots of Sunwell. We have downed the Eredar Twins but it proved to be harder then I expected. Little things prevent us from killing them for a while. People would fall off the ledge or conflag the raid. It was very frustrating but it proves that even with the nerf you can't just walk into SWP and kill bosses. We eventually did pull it all together and down Twins with a little more then an hour left in raid.
With that we headed to Muru. In contrast, Muru wasn't nearly as difficult. It's not that complex of a fight. Its mainly a personal DPS race that has been mage much easier by the patch and the new WotLK talents. We were able to down him after only a few attempts and got the guild first kill the same night that we killed Twins.
Since then we have been working on Kil'jaeden. This is a great fight, but we haven't killed him yet. On the first night of attempts we were reliably getting him down to about 40% but couldn't go much farther. Our positioning was a little to spread out and we were a little to far away from the orbs when the spawned. We changed our positioning a little bit and the next night we tried him things went better. On our best attempt we got him down to 4% but were a little frustrated that we couldn't get him down. Our biggest problem now seems to be people not surviving long enough. I think we just need to just get a little more experience with the fight's mechanics and he will go down. The good news is that we have all tonight to get it done, and there is a general consensus that we will continue to raid until he is down since we are running out of time. Wish us luck.
Graypal - He is just waiting for the expansion and DEing stuff. I'm still thinking about turning him Holy at 80.
Grayfel - I've been running as many raids with him as I can to get gear. He has been through ZA and Kara a couple of times but the real luck came when I got into a guild TK pug. A couple of guildies wanted to see if we could short hand VR and I got my lock into the raid. It went remarkably well. We ended up 15 manning VR and I got the T5 shoulders. We then decided to go on to Solarion and 10 manned her, and I got the caster legs that drop off of her. All in All it was a good night for my lock. I also now have over 150 badges and will spend them soon to replace some of my remaining holes in my gear.
Grayvik - The little mage is coming along nicely. He is just short of 30 and doing pretty well. I'm starting to get an hand of how to survive with him, and I am enjoying his progress. I doubt he will progress much over the next few weeks/months, but I am looking forward to getting him to max level.
Leveling Guides:
For those of you that don't know, I am a big fan of leveling guides. I leveled Graylo from 30 - 60 using Jamie's guides at WoW-Pro.com. I then used Brian Kopps Alliance guide to get Graylo from 60 - 70. I also used it to get Graypal and Grayfel from 1 - 70, and have used it for my mage also. For the most part I think it is a great guide, but I am considering using a different one after the expansion for a couple of reasons.
First, he is charging for the WotLK upgrade. This gives me a good reason to look around at my other options. Second, he hasn't said anything about if his guide will be available on Thursday when the game is released. This has made me a little nervious since I don't want to try and pick up a guide in the middle.
So, I'm wondering if any of my readers have experience with any of the other guides available. I am leaning towards trying the Zygor Leveling guides. The addon they have created to display the guide looks really nice and they say it is ready for Thursday. Have any of you tried the Zygor guides or some other Leveling guide I should look at? If so, please post in the comments what you thing about them.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Moonkin Builds: Leveling to 80
Wrath of the Lich King is being released in just over a week, and I think a lot of us are starting to think about how we are going to level. With that in mind I have come up with a little guide talent guide for moonkin looking to level from 70 to 80.
Introduction
It is important to remember that leveling is different then raiding. Both play styles are technically PvE, but the nature of the fights are fundamentally different.
Raid builds are created for maximizing personal DPS over the long hall and buffing raid members to increase raid wide DPS. Survivability is important but predictable. As long as you have enough Health to withstand the fight mechanics, you can survive the fight with a little self awareness.
Fights are much shorter while leveling, and damage can be fairly unpredictable with unexpected adds. Leveling builds should focus more on short term DPS and survivability. You want talents that can give you a controlled burst of DPS and help you run away if needed.
On top of that I think there are two distinct leveling styles that dictate some of your talent choices.
The first style I call the "Root and Nuke" style. A person that uses this style likes to stand at max range, root the mob, cast starfire, and repeat. They try and control the mob as much as possible and take as little damage as possible. This style favors some one that has a relatively low level of gear and can't take many hits. This style also fits someone that instances a lot while they level.
The second style is the "Tanking" style. This is the style I think I will prefer in WotLK. The primary goal of this style is to kill the mob as quick as possible. Since you will take some hits using this style, it favors some one with a high level of gear for the extra DPS and Stamina. Using this style you're a little more prone to getting yourself into bad situations. Therefore, survival talents are a little more important.
Core Talents (link)
This is what I consider to be the core of the talents of a moonkin leveling build and I expect most moonkin would pick all of these up without any help. Most of these are self explanatory, but lets take a look at a few of them.
Balance of Power - Obviously this is a core talent for a raiding build, but some may argue that it isn't needed for a leveling build. It will be less useful for experienced raiders with quite a bit of Hit from gear, but Hit is useful while leveling. You still have a 5% base chance to miss a target of the same level as you. Higher level mobs will have an even grater miss chance.
Owlkin Frenzy - This one depends a little on how you level. Someone that is very good about using Roots to keep the mob away from them and avoiding adds will have less use for this talent. This is how I leveled to 70, but I think my path to 80 will be different. My gear level allows me to kill mobs quickly, and don't have the patience for rooting anymore. Using this "tanking" strategy for leveling makes Owlkin Frenzy a very valuable talent.
My Expected Build (Link)
This is the build I plan to use for leveling when Northrend opens up. I will go over the talents I picked and the talents I skipped, but the general theme to my choices is DPS and killing things mobs quickly.
What I picked up:
Brambles - This talent goes very well with my Tanking style. The primary benefit here is the 75% increase to thorns in my opinion. Since the thorns damage now scales with Spell Power, Thorns packs a punch that hasn't been seen before. On top of that the possible stun with Barkskin makes this a great survival talent to help get you out of those sticky situations. Root and Nuke players may like this talent also for the extra damage to their roots.
Typhoon - I have been very critical of this talent in the past, and I'm still not a big fan of it to be honest. I'm picking it purely as an Oh S#*t button. If I get to many mobs on me I hope to be able to use the knock back to get a little space and run away.
Force of Nature - I've picked this talent for a burst of DPS after a bad pull or when trying to solo an Elite. You can also use them to tank a mob temporarily. They won't change the way you play but the give you a couple of options.
Starfall - This talent is particularly good for bad pulls. It gives you a little extra damage and has a chance to stun the mobs. Again, it won't change the way you play, but does give you more options.
Nature's Focus - This is an all around good survival talent. If you use the Tanking style it allows you to get Wrath off with very little push back. It also helps you get off emergency heals or CC when things are going poorly.
What I skipped:
First off, I skipped pretty much all mana regen talents. I'm not having many mana issues as a raider, so I don't expect to have big issues while leveling. Really the only thing mana regen does for you is allow you to drink less while leveling.
Introduction
It is important to remember that leveling is different then raiding. Both play styles are technically PvE, but the nature of the fights are fundamentally different.
Raid builds are created for maximizing personal DPS over the long hall and buffing raid members to increase raid wide DPS. Survivability is important but predictable. As long as you have enough Health to withstand the fight mechanics, you can survive the fight with a little self awareness.
Fights are much shorter while leveling, and damage can be fairly unpredictable with unexpected adds. Leveling builds should focus more on short term DPS and survivability. You want talents that can give you a controlled burst of DPS and help you run away if needed.
On top of that I think there are two distinct leveling styles that dictate some of your talent choices.
The first style I call the "Root and Nuke" style. A person that uses this style likes to stand at max range, root the mob, cast starfire, and repeat. They try and control the mob as much as possible and take as little damage as possible. This style favors some one that has a relatively low level of gear and can't take many hits. This style also fits someone that instances a lot while they level.
The second style is the "Tanking" style. This is the style I think I will prefer in WotLK. The primary goal of this style is to kill the mob as quick as possible. Since you will take some hits using this style, it favors some one with a high level of gear for the extra DPS and Stamina. Using this style you're a little more prone to getting yourself into bad situations. Therefore, survival talents are a little more important.
Core Talents (link)
This is what I consider to be the core of the talents of a moonkin leveling build and I expect most moonkin would pick all of these up without any help. Most of these are self explanatory, but lets take a look at a few of them.
Balance of Power - Obviously this is a core talent for a raiding build, but some may argue that it isn't needed for a leveling build. It will be less useful for experienced raiders with quite a bit of Hit from gear, but Hit is useful while leveling. You still have a 5% base chance to miss a target of the same level as you. Higher level mobs will have an even grater miss chance.
Owlkin Frenzy - This one depends a little on how you level. Someone that is very good about using Roots to keep the mob away from them and avoiding adds will have less use for this talent. This is how I leveled to 70, but I think my path to 80 will be different. My gear level allows me to kill mobs quickly, and don't have the patience for rooting anymore. Using this "tanking" strategy for leveling makes Owlkin Frenzy a very valuable talent.My Expected Build (Link)
This is the build I plan to use for leveling when Northrend opens up. I will go over the talents I picked and the talents I skipped, but the general theme to my choices is DPS and killing things mobs quickly.
What I picked up:
Brambles - This talent goes very well with my Tanking style. The primary benefit here is the 75% increase to thorns in my opinion. Since the thorns damage now scales with Spell Power, Thorns packs a punch that hasn't been seen before. On top of that the possible stun with Barkskin makes this a great survival talent to help get you out of those sticky situations. Root and Nuke players may like this talent also for the extra damage to their roots.
Typhoon - I have been very critical of this talent in the past, and I'm still not a big fan of it to be honest. I'm picking it purely as an Oh S#*t button. If I get to many mobs on me I hope to be able to use the knock back to get a little space and run away.
Force of Nature - I've picked this talent for a burst of DPS after a bad pull or when trying to solo an Elite. You can also use them to tank a mob temporarily. They won't change the way you play but the give you a couple of options.
Starfall - This talent is particularly good for bad pulls. It gives you a little extra damage and has a chance to stun the mobs. Again, it won't change the way you play, but does give you more options.
Nature's Focus - This is an all around good survival talent. If you use the Tanking style it allows you to get Wrath off with very little push back. It also helps you get off emergency heals or CC when things are going poorly.What I skipped:
First off, I skipped pretty much all mana regen talents. I'm not having many mana issues as a raider, so I don't expect to have big issues while leveling. Really the only thing mana regen does for you is allow you to drink less while leveling.
Eclipse - Its just to random for leveling. It can and will give you a DPS boost, but a lot of the buffs will be wasted on down time.
Gale Winds- Since Hurricane is a channelled spell and Typhoon doesn't do a whole lot of damage, there just no point in picking it up. Moonkin aren't able to AoE grind mobs that are the same level as the us. (Did not find picture.)
Talent Points from 71 - 80
Really these points won't have a huge impact on your leveling. I've already picked up all of the main talents that increase your DPS, and there is nothing else that significantly increase your survivability. For a rough guideline, I would put the first five points in Furor. This will give you a little extra DPS, a little extra mana, and little more regen from mana on crit. After that I would probably put the next three in Dreamstate, just to reduce the amount of drinking needed. Finally, I would probably put 70th point in Eclipse for potential extra DPS, and respec at 80 to a raid build.
Again, none of these have a big impact on your performance but you have to put the points some where.
Other Points of View
Phaelia over at Resto4Life wrote a post a while back on the choices Resto's face when picking a leveling build. She provided several different options from pure Moonkin Pew Pew to pure Tree form.
I disagree with some of the choices Phae made in her Moonkin builds, but if your think about healing part of the way to 70 she has presented some good options. You can find the post here.
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