Caster Headgear

I've finally gone ahead to understand about gems and such.

The meta-gems are a bit underwhelming at the moment, but they do offer a way to hit the high numbers without having to get unique & epic PvP gems.

With the right meta-gem and the right mix, Hood of Oblivion comes very close in terms of +dmg and stats to the two tailored helms without requiring the mats to make them. Another possibility is the blue quest reward, Evoker's Helmet of Second Sight. The Hood looks nicer of course, but sometimes, easy is more important than looks...

Things every Tank wants non tanks to know

I found this post on the WoW forums, written by Ziloxus (obviously an alt) from Deathwing. Makes a good read on what to do & how to tank...

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This post is something of a cathartic exercise for myself. If someone gets something out of it great, if not that’s fine too. I feel like I got it out of my system before the next pug either way.

Things every warrior tank thinks every non tank should know.
My ability to generate threat over an extended time frame is inversely proportional to your ability to generate threat.
Huh? Ok here is what I mean, we will use a mage for this example but the same applies to rogues hunters, or anything else not a warrior or a bear druid.

As a fight commences both of us have two bars. We both have big full green health bars. Under my health bar is a big empty bar. Under your health bar is a big full blue bar. When you do dmg, it drains your blue bar. When I give or take dmg it fills my red bar. You have all the ammo you need at the start of a fight to make all kinds of threat which will pull all kinds of aggro. I don’t have much ammo to generate threat or take aggro, it takes me a minute.

The difference is that at the beginning of the fight, your threat making resource; mana, is full. You at this moment can activate whatever ability you want and instantly create tons of threat. Mine is empty. My resource, rage, fills up as I give and take dmg. Over the course of the fight I will get a lot to spend, so the longer the fight goes on the more and more threat I make. Problem is at the beginning of the fight I have little or no rage. It takes me time to build the threat to hold aggro off of you.

So what does this mean to you? It means that if you start every pull with your biggest most evil 10 second cast fireball, it’s gonna be real tough for me to get aggro off of you with my empty rage bar.

How to apply this advice: You need to learn to pace your dps. Whether you are a mage or a rogue or a lock whatever (except hunters who feign death whenever the cooldown is up) start off the fight with lighter lower dmg attacks. As the fight wears on rank it up to the bigger meaner stuff. You can do the same amount of dmg, but instead of front loading all of your dps (and threat) back load it.

Seriously, this is the biggest problem I see with every single DPS class in the game. Yes, I can taunt the mob off of you, but then the taunt is on cool down. What if the mob then does an aggro wipe like a knock down and it goes after you? What if it stuns me right after I taunt so I can’t build threat? You should be trying to play in such a way that you don’t ever have to see the warrior taunt outside of extenuating circumstances like aggro wipes.

When not to stun.
Ok so you have a stun button. I’m happy for you, no really I am. Stun buttons are great. You see a mob start to cast a heal or a “Level 5 Death to Tank” stun him, that’s fabulous. You see something chewing on a healer, stun them, awesome. A mob “attempts to run away in fear” go nuts stun lock them to the floor.

So why insist on stunning a mob I just pulled? Why stun the mob I just taunted? Here is what happens when you do that. When I am tanking I don’t really do dmg to make rage. My little red bar fills up when I take dmg. If you stun early in a pull I don’t get pounded on so I don’t gain threat so I don’t hold aggro, so someone like a healer or a mage is going to get the aggro. This wont usually produce a wipe, most mobs you can stun aren’t a big deal, but seriously, why make things more difficult then they need to be?

If you absolutely need a rule of thumb, wait till there are two sunders on a target before you stun it.

What to do when you get aggro.
The tank won’t always hold aggro. That’s a fact. Maybe the tank sucks, maybe he got feared, maybe he got stunned, maybe you just unleashed a cruise missile that crits the target for umpteen gazillion points before the tank had so much as an auto-attack on the mob. Whatever the reason, eventually you are going to have the mob beat on you.

If you are wearing pajamas and the mob is elite I understand the panic that sets in. You don’t want to get two shotted. I don’t want that either. So let me explain first the two things NOT to do.

Don’t nuke the thing with another cruise missile! You just pulled aggro so why go nuts trying to dps the thing to the floor before it can kill you? This isn’t a lvl 11 Defias Pillager, most likely you wont take it down in time. What you WILL do, is generate another gajillion points of threat that the tank needs to top to get it off of you. Stop hurting it. If you have a threat mitigator (cower, feint, fade, feign death) use it, if not. Just hold still for a sec. It wont be for very long, soon enough you will be sticking it full of sharp metal things or setting the mob on fire again. Just don’t make it harder for the tank to get the thing off of you.

Don’t run for the hills! I am a bit baffled as to where this gut reaction comes from. When you were lvl 40 did you outrun a bear or something? I don’t think you did. Do you think if you run far enough you will drop aggro? In an instance an elite mob will not drop aggro until you are dead or until you have left the instance. Running won’t keep the mob from chewing on your keester the whole time you run around, really it won’t. The mob runs the exact same speed you do. Guess who else runs the exact same speed you do. That’s right, me!

So if train A leaves Phoenix at 5:10 a.m. Pacific time headed east at 45 miles per hour, and Train B leaves San Diego at 5:10 a.m. Pacific time headed east at 45 miles per hour, at what point does train B catch up to Train A? That’s right! Never! So when train A dies in a monstrous fireball or twisted metal and diesel fuel, it is probably even going to blame train B for not saving it.

You need to run TOWARD the tank, at the very least hold still.

Ok Pally OT, bear OT or other Warr OT, when should you taunt off of me?
Um, really close to never. Why on earth are you taunting off of me? Are you trying to prove a point? Are you trying to demonstrate that you can tank as well as me? Great for you! You have tank buttons too. Now I have to burn my taunt to pull the mob back off of you so you don’t die, or so the healer doesn’t waste mana on you. Now my taunt is in cool down if I need it.

The only time you should taunt off the main tank is if I ask you to. When will that happen? Only if the healer dies and I need to bandage, or if it’s a fight that requires a tank rotation. That’s it.

Now of course there are times when things are confusing, something is chewing on the healer and you are trying to save the day and I taunt and then you do too. That’s fine, you did the right thing in saving the healer, don’t beat yourself up about it, you don’t need to apologize to me for it either. I saw what happened, I’m 4% smarter than I look.

When should you bubble me?
I hope this is a priest asking this, I really don’t need divine intervention thanks. If you bubble me I don’t get threat from taking damage. Don’t bubble me before a pull. Don’t bubble me early in a pull. If my bar is mostly red, sure if you think I need the extra mitigation and there isn’t time for a real heal, bubble me.

Don’t BOP me please, it’s a fantastic way to kill healers.

The pull.
Sometimes we aren’t going to fight the mob out where it is standing. Some times I will even shoot the mob and then duck behind a corner. This is not the universal “unleash your mana wielding ranged casting might” signal. What probably happened is I saw a little blue bar under the mob out there; I want him to come to me so I shot him, then broke line of sight. If you shoot him, guess what, he will stand right where he is and shoot back. Then I have to go out there and risk pulling the whole room to get him off of you unless you figure out how to duck behind corners too, that is assuming that the Moonkin and the Hunter standing next to you didn’t just take your cue and unload their blue wad all over the mob you just launched WWIII on.

The sheep
We pull 3 mobs on accident. You can sheep or seduce or scattershot or whatever. That’s a fabulous idea. Don’t sheep the thing I am beating on! You know what will happen? It will break and I will already have another move queued up behind the move that broke the sheep which will break the next sheep you are trying to do since you didn’t change targets. You might not be familiar with the “F” key. Click me, then click “F”, now you are targeted on my target, so target something else, anything else and sheep that.

Multi mob pull
Ok so we just got more than we can handle and I am tanking 3 mobs with no offtank. Attack my target would you? I only have so much rage to spread around. If you start shooting something that I am not concentrating on your going to pull aggro, then I have to decide whether I let you die, or whether I go pull it off of you and risk letting the rest of the party die while they keep attacking the thing I was attacking. The “F” key works great for this too.

The off tanks target
Just because I am the main tank does not mean that my target is the most important target to kill. In fact, often it is the opposite. I am the main tank because I take the best beating. The Hunters wind serpent that is tanking that other orc over there wont hold up as well as me. His target needs to die first. My target should be the last one to die. Those other tanks aren’t built to take the abuse I do, help them out. I will be ok, I have all kinds of squishies watching my back. Seriously, go fight the other guy’s target.

Shadow Priests
Vampiric embrace is not healing period. I don't care what your best friend or class leader told you. Sure, if there is a real healer around, go nuts spamming mind flay all day long. But if you are the only healer, freaking heal. VE will keep everyone alive that is not me. When I am tanking 3 elite mobs at once, and you think you are going to keep me alive with just VE, we will all die a horrible death. But, sure enough after the wipe, you are still in shadow form pew pewing from the back. Oh, and if you are not the main healer, but the MH dies, guess what? You are now the MH! Congratulations! Your job has just changed, now you need to drop out of shadow and keep me alive, and VE still won't cut it.

Just a few things that some folks that don’t play tanks don’t seem to grasp. Use these tips for fun and profit, or ignore them, that’s fine too, I don't care. Unless you are in my pug.

Factions

This is just to help me remember the target factions I'll try to achieve for my guys (& gals)... Brackets indicate good-to-have. There is also a deliberate slant towards their roles (Warlock and Paladin are to be my mains, raiders, best gear people. Hunter is my farmer. Warrior is my BS/LW provider & Druid (eventually) the alchemy provider.)

Thrallmar
Need Honoured for the key to the Heroic mode for Hellfire Citadel instances.

Exalted includes a nice caster sword (unless I get the dream Greatsword of Horrid Dreams), Blacksmithing pattern for Shield spike, and Leatherworking pattern for +AP/+CSR leg armor patch. 24 slot Ammo Pouch pattern is also available at Revered. Alchemy receipes are available by Honoured.

Warlock - Honoured (Exalted)
Paladin - Honoured
Hunter - No requirement (Exalted)
Warrior - Exalted
Druid - Honoured

The Mag'har
You get to buy a goat at Exalted... There is also a decent Mail head gear and 2-handed axe. At Revered, there is Leatherworking receipe for shaman leather gear, and (useless) transmutation receipe for Alchemy. At honoured is the 18 slot quiver for hunters.

Warlock - No requirement
Paladin - No requirement
Hunter - No requirement
Warrior - Revered
Druid - Revered

Cenarion Expedition
Need Honoured for the key to the Heroic mode for Coilfang Reservoir instances.

Exalted includes a nice caster ring, nice healing off-hand, Jewelcrafting & Blacksmithing pattern for Nature Resistance, Leatherworking pattern for +Sta/+Agi Leg armor patch and the Receipe for Flask of Distilled Wisdom. Revered provides the best viable arrows in the game pre-raiding, as well as the +AP/+HR patch to head armor as well as a transmutation receipe.

Exalted also allows the purchase of the Hippogryph mount.

Warlock - Honoured (Exalted)
Paladin - Revered (Exalted)
Hunter - Revered
Warrior - Exalted
Druid - Revered (Exalted)

Sporeggar
Not many rewards with just a couple of very nice Alchemy receipes at Revered and Exalted (potion to reduce aggro!). There is a nice wand at Revered, but it won't last long, as there are better wands from quest rewards later. The cooking receipe for pet buff food is nice, but available at Neutral.

There are a bunch of decent quest rewards available at Friendly. The quest rewards seems to be very catered for specific classes, Staff for Druid, 2-handed mace for Pally and Shamans (& possibly Druids), Polearm for Hunters & 2-handed sword for warriors. It's an easy quest anyhow. Good to get unless you've got a better Blue from instance drops. At neutral is a quest in Underbog. Decent rewards but nothing too exciting.

When at Exalted, can get the Sporebat pet as well.

Warlock - Neutral
Paladin - Friendly
Hunter - Friendly
Warrior - Friendly
Druid - Exalted

The Scryers
(Will consider for Warlock, Paladin, and Druid only as they are my Scryers)
The caster ring and the superior shoulder enchant is at exalted. Pattern for the epic spellthread is also at exalted. Not much choice then...

Warlock - Exalted
Paladin - Exalted
Druid - Honoured

The Aldor
(Will consider for Hunter & Warrior only as they are my Aldors)
Nice one-handed sword and the superior shoulder enchant at exalted. Patterns for Fire Resist Leatherworking and Blacksmithing culminate at exalted also. For the hunter the green shoulder enchants are available at Honoured.

Hunter - No requirement (Honoured)
Warrior - Exalted

Lower City
Need Honoured for the key to the Heroic mode for Auchindoun instances.

At exalted, nice caster mace for pally (it's has less crit but more stats as compared to the Thrallmar sword), as well as a nice polearm for DPS usage. Flask of Chromatic Resistance receipe is also available then. Decent jewelcrafting patterns at Revered, including one for a Frost Resist neck (if this become necessary). The other alchemy receipe (for Major Shadow Power) is also at Revered. Arcane Resist cloak pattern is available at Honoured for Tailoring. At Revered is the pattern for 24 slot quiver.

Warlock - Honoured
Paladin - Revered (Exalted)
Hunter - No requirement
Warrior - Revered
Druid - Revered (Exalted)

The Sha'tar
Need Honoured for the key to the Heroic mode for Tempest Keep instances.

At exalted is a very nice healing mace & a nice tanking shield. Revered holds the +dmg/+hit enchant to head as well as a decent +spell crit trinket and healing to weapon & ring enchants. Receipe for Flask of the Titans is available at Exalted but Revered holds another transmutation receipe & pattern for Alchemist's Stone.

Warlock - Revered
Paladin - Exalted
Hunter - No requirement
Warrior - No requirement
Druid - Revered (Exalted)

The Consortium
Lots of Jewelcrafting receipes up to Revered, which also has an interesting Ring enchant. There are Leatherworking receipes (looks like for Rogue) going up to Revered. The 18-slot Ammo Bag is at Honoured, as is the Tailoring receipe for Gem bags. Engineering receipe for Seaforium at Revered. The monthly free bag of gems isn't too shabby either... The key to Yor's chamber in Heroic Mana-Tomb will require Exalted.

Warlock - Revered (Exalted)
Paladin - Revered (Exalted)
Hunter - Honoured
Warrior - Revered
Druid - No requirement

Keepers of Time
Need Honoured for the key to the Heroic mode for Caverns of Time instances.

At exalted is the receipe for Flask of Supreme Power as well as the formula for agility gloves enchant. Revered are the Jewelcrafting patterns including one for Fire Resist neck. Will need Honoured for the Drums of Panic pattern for grinding Leatherworking. The tanking head enchant is at Revered.

Warlock - Honoured
Paladin - Exalted
Hunter - No requirement
Warrior - Honoured (Revered)
Druid - No requirement (Exalted)

Sha'tari Skyguard
Not much point to this faction unless I get bored for a flying manta. Looks like I'll skip it.

Netherwing
Same here, unless I get bored to grind for the flying dragon; which does look nice. Maybe I'll do it...

Ogri'la
The only decent thing at Exalted is the caster off-hand. There is a decent +heal cloak for Revered. If I get bored, maybe I'll grind for it... If not, guess will skip...

Warlock - No requirement (Exalted)
Paladin - No requirement (Revered)
Hunter - No requirement
Warrior - No requirement
Druid - No requirement (Revered)

Luffa, wat Luffa?

Nope, not Wool Cloth...

Luffa is a trinket that removes a Bleed effect. Used to be considered useless and I remember scoffing at people who wore this in Molten Core...

It's recently been brought into the spotlight as the second boss of Karazhan (Moroes) performs a Garrote on a randomly targetted player, which does 1k damage per 3 seconds for 5 minutes. For non-dorfs, non-ice speced mages & parties without pallies, Luffa is the only way to remove this bleeding effect.

Time for all my non-pally toons to go do that stupid quest in Searing Gorge

Now, I realise that guy wearing Luffa into Molten Core was not a noob... He was a visionary...

Scryer vs Aldor

Wowwiki has a nice comparison for this here. Basically there isn't a huge impact. The Exalted gear would not be so replaceable so they will be a point of consideration. The big difference will be the inscriptions. Tailoring spellthreads will also be a consideration for Mart.

Warlock - Scryer
Not a hard decision. The +dmg spellthread pretty much confirms it. Would have prefer the marginally higher +dmg on the Aldor inscription, but it's not a biggie. The Exalted ring and the Revered trinket are nice.

Paladin - Scryer
Being a blood-elf, Aldor would be a slightly longer grind. In the end, the Scryer quest reward neck helped to confirm it. If I go healing, the healing staff can be considered.

Warrior - Aldor
No real preference either way, but I marginally prefer the +def armor patch over the mana regen patch...

Hunter - Aldor
Not really important either, since I doubt her rep will get high enough to matter... But I'll take Aldor for some variety

Druid - Scryer
The only alchemy receipe is with Scryer... Easy choice, I guess...

Chinese New Year!

Another festival, another pretty dress... :)

On a seperate note, finally Honoured with the Scryers on my lock. No biggie but now have access to the Blue Spellthread.

You Don't Say..........

Something to keep an eye for if you are playing one of the two new races.

Draenei and Blood Elves start out as friendly to the Aldors and Scryers respectively, and hostile to the opposing faction. This means that it makes it slightly easier if you join the 'right' faction and a lot harder if you join the 'wrong' faction. For example, an Aldor Blood Elf would still be Neutral only after doing the choosing sides quest and will need to do the repeatable turn-ins to get to Friendly.

Paladin Epic Mount

I found this on Wow forums (by Haylo, also from Shadowsong), since I will eventually need to do this, I thought will be good to archive it now.

The level 60 Blood Elf paladin mount quest is the following:

1. Talk to the Silvermoon trainer which gives you a quest to talk to a blood knight downstairs in the paladin area. She wants you to bring her 40x Runecloth, 10x Sungrass, 6x Arcanite Bars, 5x Dark Runes and 150g.

2. When this is complete she requests that you kill 15 Scourge Siege Engineers and 3 Meat Wagons. These are located in the north of EPL near the entrance to Ghostlands and can easily be soloed

3. Once this is turned in the quest giver asks you to loot a vial of Holy Water from the library wing of the Abby in Tyr’s Hand (it’s a little dish on a table) and return to her. The mobs in Tyr's Hand are elite so you will need a group of 2 or 3.

4. She then asks you to purchase Crepuscular Powder (150g) from the poison vendor and an Arcane Catalyst (45g) item from the reagent vendor, both of which are located in Silvermoon and bring them back to her. You will also need a Pristine Black Diamond and a Azerothian Diamond.

5. Finally you are given the task of extinguishing the Eternal Flame in the chapel in UD Strat. It is the church that is two pulls into the instance. When you do this the quest giver who is normally in the chapel attacks you. Next 6 elite paladins ride up and you have to fight them. Once the paladins have been defeated you can turn the quest for both the epic mount ability and the Silvermoon tabard. If you want the Epic Hawkstrider you have to pay only 90g as the training is included with the completion of the quest.

So, in total, we're looking at

40 Runecloth
10 Sungrass
6 Arcanite Bars
5 Dark Runes
1 Pristine Black Diamond
1 Azerothian Diamond
345G

Not a huge saving over the Epic Chicken (540G for training, 90G for the mount), but who wants to ride the chicken when you can get a nice red charger?

Valentine's Day

The V day event has started and it's time to do the silly things once again...

I'm still thinking of getting the little cupid goblin pet for one of my toons (probably Gren the hunter) but requires luck... Fortunately, I did get the black dress and of course it looks gorgeous on my Blood Elf.

Previously, I always thought the Chinese New Year cheongsum looks nicer mainly because it did cover up a lot of the bones and rotting flesh for the undead. Now, I'm not so sure. When the CNY event is up, I'll get it and then I can compare...

Tailoring Specialisation

Since my warlock will obviously benefit more from the Frozen Shadoweave gear than the others, it's an easy choice to pick Shadowcloth specialisation. Grinding to 350 skill was tough, but with helping others in the crafting of a few Imbued Netherweave Bags, and some extra bits of gear, I got there.

Of course, the quest to gain specialisation requires you to go to the Altar of Shadows in Shadowmoon Valley, a lvl 70ish area. I figured on starting to gather the mats early so I set out there. After a couple of wrong turns, getting a bit lost and dying a couple of times, I found the Altar and it was great to see that the choice of Scryer was a big help, since the nearest flight path, at the Sanctum of the Sun, is a Scryer-only city.

On making my first Shadowcloth, it was a nice pleasent surprise to get a nice buff of +25 stamina for one hour. I could farm the mats for Primal Mooncloth but I decided to hold on that, since I intend to grind my retired Shaman's tailoring to 350, specialise in Mooncloth and camp him at a Moonwell. Anyway, I need 32 Shadowcloth (4 for the shoulders, 8 for the boots, 14 for the vest and 6 for the soul bag), so at least I'm making a start on that.

To round out my other gear, there is a choice of Spellstrike (Hood and Pants) or Battlecast (Hood and Pants). The problem of the pants is that both are worse off to my Fel Infused Leggings. The set bonus is nice, but not THAT nice (especially for Battlecast). Likelihood is that I'll make the Spellstrike Hood, and leave it at that. But that would also mean another 10 Spellcloth and other Primal craziness to gather.

Of course, the other alternative is the Voidheart Crown and Gloves (need 2 pieces for the set bonus, and the other slots, Chest, Pants and Shoulders, are taken). The Gloves looks like a shoo-in without competition, but it's a pretty close call between the Voidheart Crown and Spellstrike Hood. Well, I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

Coffee, Tea or Me?

Unfortunately, it's not some voluptuous temptress offering this, but a much tougher choice is presented to players now... Aldor or Scryer...

While I have yet to reach that stage of the game, I've been reading up on this when I found out while researching Reputations...

Basically, when you reach Shattrath City, you are presented with a choice of joining either the Draenei priests (Aldor) or Blood Elf renegades (Scryer). Gaining reputation with one costs results in a loss of reputation in the other. Both sides offer differing rewards and changing reputation later on is a HUGE hassle. There is a nice comparison of the two sides here

Looking at it, it looks like I'll be going with Scryer for my warlock and pally and Aldor for my hunter and warrior. Guess I'll know more when I get there.