How to Gear Your Disclipline Priest for PvP

 Priests, PvP  Comments Off on How to Gear Your Disclipline Priest for PvP
Oct 062013
 

Gearing your Discipline Priest (or any class) properly is essential to a better PvP experience. If you hope into the BGs (or, ack, arenas) in your item level 400ish greens, well, it’ll be tough. It’s not like dungeons or raids or heroics, where you need a certain minimum item level. Nope, you get to hope in with whatever you got.

If you’re not yet 90: You need to have accumulated 7,500 honor to get the PvP weapons, yet the weapon is the biggest possible upgrade. So as much Battleground PvP as you can before you hit 90. You will want to burn about 4k (maybe on mounts) and save 3,500. Then, when you hit 90, you immediately buy a Tyrannical Gladiator’s Energy Staff (or equivalent pair of weapons.)

If you’re already 90 you’ll have to work a bit harder.

At 90: You can either buy the Crafted Malevolent gear set, if you have lots of gold, or poke around the Timeless Isle for a couple hours, opening chests, and collecting your 496 PvE gear. Since everyone, regardless of gear, has 72% Resilience (as of patch 5.4) the PvE gear will be fine for honor grinding in the BGs. If you get both PvP trinkets you get an additional 10% Resilience.

Getting better PvP gear: PvE gear is downrated in the PvP settings (BGs, arenas, etc.) so the PvP gear is better. Yes, your ilevel 560 PvE gear is downrated to 496 or so. Grind up the points for the Tyrannical Honor gear.

The best Discipline Priest PvP gear for season 14 (Patch 5.4) is the Grievous set. If you’re going to do rated BGs and/or arena you will want to get this asap and the Tyrannical gear will be better for starting  that than the PvE gear, though not by a lot. (Healers only get 50% of the value of the PvP Power on gear.)

Your stats:

  1. Spirit before anything else, until you’re “Ok” with your mana use.
  2. Mastery for the absorb shields on top of the heals.
  3. Int for more powerful everything.
  4. Haste is pretty nice, especially when you hit the breakpoints to get an extra tick on your “over time” spells. (Go here, scroll down to the Priest card.)
  5. Crit is arguable. Some pan it, some love it (Divine Aegis effect.) Of  course, you have to be able to get enough crit rating to make that worthwhile….
  6. Hit is unnecessary
  7. Reforge to Spirit, if you need the mana, Mastery before Haste for the rest.

Discipline Priest Gems and Enchants

Your PvP gear socket bonuses are all Int or PvP Power. Since, as a healer, you only get 50% of the value of PvP Power anyway, it might be worth your while to ignore socket matching on any pieces of gear with a PvP Power bonus and just gem for Int/Mastery: Artful Vermilion Onyx

Enchanting

Go for Spirit, if you still need more, otherwise Int and Mastery. There are no head enchants, so ignore that part.

Everything in one pic

(Click image for a larger view.)

Discpline Priest PvP Gear Guide

Enhanced by Zemanta

The Hunter 5.4 Changes, Good or Bad?

 Classes, Hunters, Patch Notes  Comments Off on The Hunter 5.4 Changes, Good or Bad?
Sep 022013
 

As with all the classes, the Hunter 5.4 changes are numerous. Some are pretty big (Readiness,) some are buffs or nerfs, and a few are just “quality of life” type stuff. So read on for the details.

Nate that tool tips (hover over the link) show the 5.4 patch info. (For all the official 5.4 patch stuff go here.) To get to level 90 ASAP and kick Hellscream out of Orgrimmar, go here.

General

  • New! Counter Shot is now a baseline interrupt ability learned by all Hunters at level 22. This makes up, somewhat, for Silencing Shot being removed from the talent trees and given to Marksmanship as an ability.
  • Dead! Readiness has been removed. Given the massive burst that people were using it for, maybe it needed to be removed. Various other abilities have been buffed to make up for some of the change. It’s probably a great change for game balance, but will force you to work a bit harder.
  • Arcane Shot now deals 125% ranged weapon damage (up from 100%) and had its focus cost increased by 50%. So it now hits harder and you’ll be tossing off fewer than before. You’ll get a harder hitting strike.
  • Deterrence now has a 3-minute cooldown (up from 2 minutes) but has 2 charges. This makes it more flexible than before. Need to use it and then again in 30 seconds? Now you can.
  • Disengage now has a cooldown of 20 seconds (down from 25 seconds). This is a nice change.
  • Explosive Trap had its overall damage decreased by 30%. Proportionately, more damage has been removed from the initial damage than the periodic effect. The glyph is unchanged and causes it to do knockback, which may be more useful anyway.
  • Hunter’s Mark now has a duration of 20 seconds while in PvP combat (down from 30 seconds.) No change for PvE and PvP doesn’t need a 30 second mark anyway.

Pets:

  • Revive Pet no longer requires the Hunter to have line-of-sight to their pet. This is a nice “style of life” change.
  • Stampede damage dealt by pets when the ability is used outside of an Arena or Battleground is no longer reduced by 75% (The tooltip is wrong.) It now does full damage anywhere else, such as PvE and World PvP.
  • The following Hunter pet abilities no longer cost Focus to use: Dash, Dive, and Charge.  This gives you more incentive to go ahead and use them at the start of a fight.

Beast Mastery

  • Beast Cleave‘s range has been increased to 10 yards (up from 8 yards.)  Great for burning down larger groups.
  • Kill Command damage has been increased by 34%. Another useful buff.

Marksman

  • Aimed Shot now deals 450% ranged weapon damage (up from 350%.) Ouch. Combined with your Careful Aim you will be doing major damage with your openers.
  • Binding Shot is no longer a Marksman Hunter ability and is once again a talent. Silencing Shot takes it’s place.

Survival

Talents

  • A Murder of Crows now deals 40% more damage. This makes it very competitive with the rest of the tier and might make it the “go to” talent (for long fights) of the tier.
  • Aspect of the Iron Hawk now reduces all damage taken by 10%, down from 15%. 5% more damage won’t kill you (maybe,) but it will hurt a bit. Note that Spirt Bond was buffed.
  • Spirit Bond now regenerates 3% of total health every 2 seconds while the Hunter’s pet is active (up from 2%).
  • Glaive Toss no longer initiates auto-attack. (If you want it to start your auto-attack then stick it into a macro with /startattack and you get the old effect.)
    • #showtooltip Glaive Toss
    • /startattack
    • /cast Glaive Toss
  • Lynx Rush‘s damage has been increased by 30%. Sweet. With the boost to Murder of Crows this tier has become more interesting.
  • Narrow Escape‘s root effect is now a nature spell (was a physical spell.) This will make it easier to dispel.
  • Silencing Shot is no longer a talent and is now an ability that replaces Counter Shot for Marksman Hunters. Other Hunters still have that Counter Shot for interrupts.
    • Binding Shot is no longer a Marksman Hunter ability and is once again a (level 30) talent.
  • Wyvern Sting now has a range of 40 yards (up from 35 yards).

Glyphs

New Major Glyphs

  • Glyph of the Lean Pack: Reduces the range of Aspect of the Pack to 7 yards. Are there some of you that like smaller packs?
  • Glyph of Enduring Deceit: Camouflage also reduces spell damage taken by 10%. I can see how this will have some use here and there. All damage reduction effects are nice (unless they’re on the other guy, of course.)

Major Glyphs

  • Glyph of Mend Pet now has a 100% chance of cleansing 1 Curse, Disease, Magic or Poison effect from the Hunter’s pet on each tick (up from 50% chance.) This can help pet survival in certain situations.
  • Glyph of Mending now speeds up the periodic effect of Mend Pet to restore health to the pet every 1 second doubling the total amount healed over 10 seconds. Very nice change, a big boost for your pet.
  • Glyph of No Escape now increases the ranged critical strike chance against targets affected by the Hunter’s Freezing Trap by 100% (up from 20% chance.) Ouch. This may become a required buff depending on how often you use Freezing trap.

There are no new minor glyphs

Enhanced by Zemanta

Holy Paladin PvP Gear Guide

 Paladin  Comments Off on Holy Paladin PvP Gear Guide
Jul 282013
 

Mists of Pandaria Holy Paladin PvP Gearing: How to Gear Enchant and Reforge a Holy Paladin in WoW PVP – Season 13 Patch 5.3

BY RUGMOUSE // APRIL 11, 2013

How to Gear Enchant and Reforge a Holy Paladin in WoW PVP - Season 13 Patch 5.3

This guide is a collaborative effort with Necrolina, produced by SkillCapped. All of our written guides are available for free, and we encourage you to post them wherever you’d like as long as you use a link back!

Note: This guide was originally for patch 5.2 and has been updated by me for 5.3. Here is the original pageAlso this guide assumes that you’re level 90. If you’re not yet there, then go here and get there.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1. Stat Priority
  2. Adjusting Stats As You Grind
  3. Optimal Final Stats
  4. Getting Started
  5. Honor Gear
  6. Conquest Gear
  7. The Best Holy Paladin PvP Gear in Season 12
  8. Holy Paladin PvP Professions

 

STAT PRIORITY FOR HOLY PALADINS

Mandatory

Healing spells always land on your target, which makes Spell Hit rating obsolete for healing spells. Holy Paladins also have Holy Insight, which is more than enough additional Spell Hit to reach the 6% Spell Hit cap when trying to assist in damaging your team’s kill target, Holy Wrathto reduce damage output, or land a timely Hammer of Justice. It is also of note that although it is not mentioned in the tooltip, Hammer of JusticeBlinding Light, and other control abilities, benefit from Holy Insight as well.

There are no “Mandatory” stats for Holy Paladins.

Ideal Stat Gains

In this section, you will find a list of stats along with their descriptions; stats are ordered based on their importance. While gearing, you should focus on achieving the following stats based on this priority hierarchy:

  • Intellect
    • Intellect increases your spell power and chance to Crit with spells. In previous expansions, Intellect also had the added benefit of increasing your mana pool, but mana levels are now static in Mists of Pandaria. Increasing Intellect will increase your healing throughput and your heals will return more health to your target per spell. In addition, Critical Strike is one of our top priorities in terms of secondary stats!
  • Spirit
    • In Mists of Pandaria, mana pools have been capped at 300,000 mana and can no longer be increased by stacking Intellect. Spirit increases the rate at which mana regenerates.  While mana efficiency is pretty solid for Holy Paladins, Spirit helps to ensure your mana pool is not depleted over the course of a PvP encounter.
  • PvP Resilience
    • PvP Resilience reduces the damage your opponent does to you. In a PvP scenario, increasing your damage or healing output is amazing, but decreasing the amount of damage you take can dictate how a PvP scenario plays out. You can’t heal if you’re dead!
    • In patch 5.3 Resilience has changed. The value of the gems has been cut in half (320 to 160) and everyone enters PvP with a base resilience of 65%, regardless of gear. In addition, Res. has been removed from most high end gear, though it’s still present on low level gear.
  • PvP Power
    • PVP Power increases all of your healing against other players. This additional healing increases linearly and does not fall subject to diminishing returns, making this stat more and more effective as you gear your character.
    • The additional benefit to healing spells is 50% of the damage increase PvP Power provides for dps classes, making this stat a bit less enticing for Healers, but still an effective throughput stat.
    • PvP Power was also nerfed in 5.3, by a third, and the gems values were also cut in half. The PvP Power on your gear will be fine, but don’t gem for it.
  • Mastery
    • Holy Paladins benefit from Mastery: Illuminated Healing, which creates an damage absorb shield on targets you cast direct healing effects on.  This increases Holy Paladin throughput by a significant margin, as the overwhelming majority of Holy Paladin healing spells are considered direct healing.  Mastery is an excellent secondary stat to allocate into.
  • Critical Strike
    • Critical Strike, or Crit, is another decent stat to accumulate for a Holy Paladin. Critical Strikes when using Holy Shock activate our passive Infusion of Light.  The reduced cast times on Holy LightDivine Light, and Holy Radiance makes topping off you and your teammates much easier, and can make a huge difference in how a PvP encounter plays out.
  • Haste
    • Haste reduces the cast time of your abilities and reduces the duration of the Global Cooldown (the minor cooldown that is invoked after casting spells). Haste helps to ensure your important spell casts go uninterrupted (Holy LightDivine Light, etc.), an important factor in PvP, as there are several interrupt mechanics in the game.  Although beneficial, the reduced cast times do not justify allocation out of other important secondary stats.
    • Divine Favor can also be used in a pinch, when additional haste and crit is required for survival.  This ability is quite potent, as it also increases the crit chance of Holy Shock even further, which could lead to even faster casts via Infusion of Light

 

Stat Priority

Intellect > Spirit > Mastery > PvP Power > Crit > Haste > PvP Resilience

 

ADJUSTING STATS AS YOU GRIND

Here we will be explaining exactly how to obtain, and what the optimal gear choices are while building up your character. While you are accumulating gear, it is important to recognize that until you have your completed set, your stats will constantly be changing. It is extremely important to be mindful of what stats are most important for your class as you work towards your optimal set, and make item selections based on what will have the most profound impact on your performance.

  • Always try to accumulate as much PvP Resilience as you can until you are in the best gear Season 12 offers. Being able to survive with enemy players on you is going to be extremely important. Without proper peeling techniques from your partners, you can be in trouble very quickly, so it is not advised to prioritize Intellect (or other throughput enhancing stats) until you reach a decent PvP Resilience level.
  • It is unnecessary to work for more resilience, unless you feel the need for it. With the base 65% and your heals you should be fine.
  • Mana efficiency is another concern, and maximizing your energy regeneration and throughput will also help to extend your life and the life of your partners. While stacking Spirit does help with this (and recommended), it is important to try and find a balance of Spirit, Intellect, and PvP Power that works with your play style. Remember, more Intellect means higher heal values, which will result in less healing necessary to keep your team topped off.

OPTIMAL FINAL STATS FOR HOLY PALADINS

These stats reflect what we have researched and believe to be the best obtainable stats for Season 13 using Conquest gear with the Elite gear set. These stats are here to give you a benchmark as you work towards completing your gear set.

  • Mastery: 3,345
  • PvP Resilience: 9,067
  • Spirit: 8,088
  • Intellect: 14,721
  • Haste: 3,302
  • PvP Power: 11,584
  • Crit: 2,991

GETTING STARTED

This section is geared towards people who have recently hit 90 for the first time, or have an under-geared alt that needs to be primed for beginning the PvP gear grind.

Upon achieving level 90, we do NOT advise you to just jump into an Arena, or start grinding Battleground’s, or do any sort of PvP for that matter fresh off of leveling in your leveling items. Chances are many of the enemies in a Battleground will significantly out-gear your fresh level 90, which means they will have a significant advantage over you in a PvP setting. Something that we promise will save you a lot of grief, speed up your grind, and make your PvP experience that much more enjoyable would be to obtain the crafted PvP gear right away. Here is a list of all of the items you should immediately obtain before you start PvP’ing in Mists of Pandaria:

Note: in patch 5.4 this will all be Malevolent Crafted gear, though the gemming and reforging should be the same.

Tip: It is normally much cheaper to get the materials for these items yourself and have someone craft them for you, rather than buying them off of the Auction House. Even if you just buy the materials off the Auction House and spam trade, it’s normally cheaper. Always check first for good deals on the Auction House, though!

Tip 2: Gemming and enchanting this gear is not really necessary, since (ideally) you won’t be in it very long. If you do want to gem & enchant it, and have the gold, then scroll down to the Conquest gear for recommendations.

HONOR GEAR

Should I get the Honor Gear?

The short answer: 0/2 Malevolent Season 12 gear is roughly in-line with Malevolent Season 13 gear. 1/2 and 2/2 upgraded Malevolent Season 12 gear is better than Malevolent Season 13 gear.

The detail: Not only is there a new arena season in patch 5.2, but also new PvE content. Blizzard did not want Honor PvP gear to have the same (or higher) item level as the PvE gear available from the Looking For Raid system. The decision was made to reduce the item level of the Malevolent Season 13 gear available for purchase, while increasing the Stamina, PvP Power, and PvP Resilience values to offset the differential. Season 12 gear that was earned last season is not effected by the change.

If you did not participate in Season 12, honor gear should be accumulated to increase your characters power. The stat differential going from the Crafted Dreadful set to Malevolent Season 13 gear is significant and will greatly increase you chances of success in a a PvP setting.

Malevolent season 12 gear that was not upgraded is essentially in line with the Malevolent season 13 gear. The differential between 0/2 upgrade Malevolent season 12 and Malevolent season 13 gear is miniscule, if any differential at all, so it is NOT NECESSARY to upgrade. If you have any upgraded season 12 gear (1/2 or 2/2), those pieces will be superior to the lower item level gear available for honor and those items should be retained.

What Honor Gear to Get, and What Order

If you did not participate in season 12, you should upgrade your gear using the Malevolent Season 13 set available at the honor vendor. Below you will find a list of all of the honor gear pieces you can obtain. They are listed in order of their stat benefits to you. That is, if you go follow this list in order, you will get the best stats first. This is not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but we feel if you are going to gear up, you might as well do it in an efficiently as possible.

If you already own the Season 12 equivalent of this gear, simply skip over that item and proceed to the next!

Gems for the Holy Paladin Honor Gear

Take the first gem if you feel like you need more spirit, the second choice is for more healing power.

For enchants  scroll down to the Conquest gear for suggestions.

The Gear

CONQUEST GEAR

What Conquest Gear to Get, and What Order

This season, there are two tiers of conquest gear. In hopes of creating a more level playing field, Blizzard has decided to do away with rating requirements for all items (except for a weapon enchant to help differentiate players that have attained a high rating). This means that all players will have access to the best PvP gear available, provided they earn enough conquest points to purchase the items.

The second tier of conquest gear, or “elite” gear, is only available for purchase once you’ve amassed a certain number of conquest points for this season. Once 27,000 Conquest points are earned, it will unlock the “elite” tier gear. It is also important to mention that a new honor quartermaster will also be made available, which will have the non-elite gear available for honor points! This will be of particular value to hybrid classes, as they can participate in Battlegrounds to purchase their off-set PvP items.

If you have a mix of upgraded and non-upgraded gear from last season, prioritize the gear that has NOT been upgraded. The stat gains will be greater.

Gems for the Holy Paladin Conquest Gear

In patch 5.2 the best choice was to get as much Resilience as possible. In 5.3 everyone starts at 65% Resilience, so that advice is no longer useful. PvP Power is similar, in that the stat was nerfed and the gem values were cut in half (320 to 160.)

Go here if you need help getting enough gold for all your stuff.

Take the first gem if you feel like you need more spirit, the second choice is for more healing power.

Chest – 2,250 Conquest Points

Tyrannical Gladiator’s Ornamented Chestguard

Head – 2,250 Conquest Points

Tyrannical Gladiator’s Ornamented Headcover

Weapon (Main Hand)

Tyrannical Gladiator’s Gavel

Weapon (Off Hand)

Tyrannical Gladiator’s Redoubt

 

Legs – 2,250 Conquest Points

Tyrannical Gladiator’s Ornamented Legplates

Shoulder – 1,750 Conquest Points

Tyrannical Gladiator’s Ornamented Spaulders

Feet – 1,750 Conquest Points

Tyrannical Gladiator’s Greaves of Meditation

Waist – 1,750 Conquest Points

Tyrannical Gladiator’s Clasp of Meditation

Hands – 1,750 Conquest Points

Tyrannical Gladiator’s Ornamented Gloves

Ring 1 – 1,250 Conquest Points

Tyrannical Gladiator’s Band of Meditation

  • Reforge
    • From Haste to Mastery

     

Wrist – 1,250 Conquest Points

Tyrannical Gladiator’s Bracers of Meditation

 

Back – 1,250 Conquest Points

Tyrannical Gladiator’s Drape of Meditation

Neck – 1,250 Conquest Points

Tyrannical Gladiator’s Pendant of Meditation

  • Reforge
    • From Haste to Mastery

 

Ring 2 – 1,250 Conquest Points

Tyrannical Gladiator’s Band of Cruelty

  • Reforge
    • From Crit to Spirit

 

Trinket 1 – Crane Deck

Relic of Chi Ji

  • Reforge
    • None

 

Trinket 2 – 1,750 Conquest Points

Tyrannical Gladiator’s Medallion of Meditation

  • Reforge
    • None

 

THE BEST HOLY PALADIN PVP GEAR IN SEASON 13

Elite Gear is available for purchase after earning (not necessarily spending) 27,000 Conquest Points. Any piece of gear that actually alters the appearance of your character will have an Elite upgrade (in other words – chest, helm, legs, shoulders, gloves, belt, boots, and weapon).

Remember, once you earn 27,000 Conquest Points this season, you will also be able to purchase Non-Elite Conquest gear with Honor Points! This is of particular value to hybrid classes that would like to switch specs, from say a healer, to a dps class. Instead of having to use additional Conquest Points on your off-spec gear, you can farm Battlegrounds for your gear! Note: the 27,000 Conquest Point threshold is essentially a full set of conquest gear.

Follow the same gemming and enchanting template that was used in the previous section.

 

 

HOLY PALADIN PVP PROFESSIONS

Our goal is to give you the absolute best gear set up you can achieve as a Holy Paladin in Season 12, and part of that is choosing the right professions. Before we tell you what the best professions are, we should note that when comparing professions, there is a very marginal benefit to your overall gear set, and you should not sacrifice a profession you really enjoy for the sake of a minor stat increase. Leveling a new profession can be costly!

That being said, here are the best professions for a Holy Paladins in Mists of Pandaria PvP:

Blacksmithing

This is the best Profession for a Holy Paladin because of the two extra gem slots that can be used to refine your stats. Blacksmithing offers you the best customization, as you are able to increase primary stats, along with the freedom to choose various secondary stats, such as Mastery, Spirit, or even PvP Power and PvP Resilience! Other professions simply do not offer this much customization for your character.

The next two Professions were a split decision between our pros, and are totally up to what you want to do.

Jewelcrafting

Jewelcrafting allows your character to use Willful Serpent’s Eye in two of your red slots. This offers you a boost to survivability along with some added damage. Mysterious Serpent’s Eye is also available to add even damage and healing throughput, if you feel your survivability is sufficient.

Engineering has the Synapse Springs gadget, which is pretty sweet.

Herbalism has Lifeblood, a massive Haste cooldown.

Good Luck!

This guide is a collaborative effort with Necrolina, produced by SkillCapped. All of our written guides are available for free, and we encourage you to post them wherever you’d like as long as you use a link back!

Please let us know how the article was. Were we missing anything? Do you have any further questions? Was the format useful? Feel free to Like, Share, and Comment on this post. 

Enhanced by Zemanta

Should You Play a Rogue in WoW?

 Rogues  Comments Off on Should You Play a Rogue in WoW?
Jul 012013
 

Should You Play a Rogue in WoW?Well, I’m kinda biased, with two lev 90 Rogues and a 65 (somewhere, collecting dust he is.)

WoW Insider asks the question Should You Play a Rogue in WoW? Naturally my answer is, “Yes!” But read on to see what they have to see about it:

If you’re just getting started with World of Warcraft, don’t worry: you’re not too late to have plenty of fun. (In fact, we think this is a great time to be playing WoW.) But getting started can be a little tricky with all the choices you have to make. Which race you select is a primarily cosmetic choice, but the class you pick — and whether it’s a good fit for your preferred style of gaming — is a choice that will make all the difference.

But we’re here to help make that choice at least a little easier by talking you through WoW’s classes, one at a time. And on the menu for today is the rogue. In World of Warcraft, rogues are lightly armored meleers who use stealth to get in close and then hit their target with precision strikes. The rogue is one of four classes in the game that focuses solely on DPS: their three talent specializations only changing their preferred way of dealing damage.

If getting up close to the bad guys and always being in the middle of combat sounds like your thing, a rogue may be the ideal class for you. Read on for more about what to expect.

Just what is a rogue?

Don’t write rogues off as just another melee damage class, because rogue gameplay is definitely unique. Instead of focusing on heavy armor and heavier weapons, rogues are light on their feet with leather armor and tend to use smaller, one-handed weapons — most commonly daggers. But lighter weaponry — rogues can wield daggers, fist weapons, one-handed maces, one-handed swords, one-handed axes — doesn’t mean they aren’t hard hitting.

Rogues have lots of tricks up their sleeves, dual-wielding weapons coated with poison and striking from stealth for extra damage. Rogues have three talent trees, just like the other classes, but each one focuses on a slightly different way of dishing out damage: assassination focuses on poisons, combat focuses on general combat, and subtlety focuses on stealth abilities.

Click here for the rest

Now I like the concept of sneaking up, positioning yourself, and then attacking. I’ve always played Subtlety and Shadowstep just rules, even if any Rogue can now have that ability (since the start of Mists of Pandaria.)

Leveling is fast and easy. Rogues maybe only surpassed by Hunters in terms of leveling speed, but Rogues are more fun, IMO.

Have anything to add?

 Posted by at 5:45 pm

Druid Forms – Lions and Flyers and Bears, Oh My!

 Basics, Druids  Comments Off on Druid Forms – Lions and Flyers and Bears, Oh My!
Jun 122013
 

Druids are the one class in the World of Warcraft that can take on a variety of forms. Sure, the Shaman has her wolf forms, but your Druid forms amount to so much more. Your various forms can run, swim, fly, do massive damage, and so on. This shapeshifting is one of the things that makes the Druid so very versatile and effective in any aspect of the game.

Of course, if you’re going to use all of the Druidic forms well you’re going to have to put in some effort. The class is a little harder than others because of this same flexibility.

So what are these forms?

So let’s do a run down of the various Druid forms that are available to you and what they’re all about in the mists of Pandaria.

First off is your “Caster Form.” This is what you start with as a brand new character and, for a few levels, it’s all you will have. It’s the same as everyone else gets, too. You will be just your basic Night Elf, Worgen, Troll, or Tauren and you’ll be throwing the “Wrath” spell around a lot. 

Cat form and belf friendCat form comes in at level 6 and is where you can really start doing some damage. Of all the Druid’s various forms this is the one that does the most damage, right up close and personal. You get large bonuses to your attack capability and faster movement speed. At level 10 you get even better if you take the Feral spec.

Add in one of the Tier 1 talents and things get even better, movement-wise.

The Druid's Bear formBear form, at level 8, can also do some damage, but that isn’t the Bear’s main forte. Survival is, and when you hit level 10 you can pick the “Guardian” specialization (spec.)

The Guardian is a “Tank,” which just means that in dungeons and raids you get to be the center of attention and your job is to keep the attention of all the enemies in the immediate area. (See what I meant by Survival?)

You will never do as much damage as the Cat, but you will last a lot longer. For leveling, it’s not bad at all, since there are several times when you’re able to round up a group of enemies and destroy them. Too bad that doesn’t work with players. 😉

Druid Travel Form - The StagTravel form, at level 16, is a nice speed increase. You take the form of a Stag, antlers and all, and trot right along at the same speed as a basic mount. If you prefer the old Travel Form (prior to Mists of Pandaria) you can get a Glyph of the Cheetah.

Aquatic form, looking for a fishy lunchAquatic form, level 18 – kinda like SCUBA diving, now you can explore all those underwater places and swim around at a decent speed. As with all Druid forms you cannot be polymorphed by wandering mages while in this form. Want to swim even faster? Get a Glyph of Aquatic Form.

MoonkinMoonkin, at level 29 – This form requires the “Balance” spec and if you aren’t Balanced you can’t do the Boomkin thing. Balance is the Druid’s version of the Mage, you stay at range and lob damage at the opposition as opposed to doing it “face to face.” While in this form you get more Arcane and Nature damage and take less yourself.

You also increase the spell haste of all your party and raid members, which is a nice perk.

Troll Druid Flight FormFlight form, acquired at level 58, allows access to all those high places in the Outlands. You will have to wait until level 60 and then get a Flight Master’s License from your home city to be able to fly in the lands of Azeroth. Cold Weather Flying will be necessary to fly in Northrend and you have to wait till 90 to fly in Pandaria.

Epic flight form, at level 70, allows you to reach those high places even faster. You can keep the same licenses as before, you’re just faster now.

Druidic Tree Form, from the GlyphGlyph of the Treant teaches you the Tree Form. This used to be the form that Druid healers (Restoration) would take, but now it’s optional.

One advantage to the Tree, besides role-playing, is that you stand out in a group. Your team can more easily find you and aid you, such as in PvP or a raid.

One of the additional cool things about shapeshifting is that it allows you to immediately pop out of “Movement Impairing Effects.” If some player or other enemy slows you, for example, you can shift forms and immediately escape. Sometimes you can also escape from other effects. This is a very nice ability to have in PvP.

Lastly, just because you can shift to various animal forms it doesn’t mean that you can talk to them. They’ll treat you just as if you were any other class and will take no note of your awesomeness.

Oh well, can’t have everything, can you?

Enhanced by Zemanta
 Posted by at 10:41 am  Tagged with:

The Combat Rogue in Mists of Pandaria

 Mists of Pandaria, Rogues  Comments Off on The Combat Rogue in Mists of Pandaria
Jul 182012
 

Worgen Rogue in Tier 13 with Legendary DaggersYou’re the swashbuckling master of the flashing blades and are at or near the tops of the DPS charts. Maybe not so hot as an Arena machine, that’s Subtlety’s forte, but you can do just fine in the Battlegrounds. Leveling, of course, is quick, easy, and painless for you.

Due to the complete revamping of the talent system in Mists of Pandaria the Combat Rogue just might be interesting in PvP, as well as a DPS machine.

Rogues, all Rogues, have a pretty high skill cap. This means that it will take some work to get to the top, but you’ll rule when you do.

Contents

stats weapons poisons gems enchants
race professions raid build & glyphs

 

Stats

  • Primary: Agility, and then more Agility.
  • Secondary: 7.5% Hit > 7.5% Expertise > Haste
  • Weaker Stats: Hit over 7.5% > Mastery > Crit > Hit over 17%
  • Useless: Hit over 27%, Expertise over 7.5%, Int, Str, Spirit
Hit and Expertise now use the same progression:
  • 3% for same level enemies
  • 4.5% for +1
  • 6% for +2
  • 7.5 for +3, eg: raid bosses.
Reforge weaker stats to stronger stats.
Get that Hit and Expertise, then all else goes into Haste.

 

Weapons

Once upon a time Combat Rogues had talents giving them extra stats with particular weapon types. That is no longer the case. Use the best one-hand weapons you can find, if you have a choice between available weapons then pick the one that matches your racial (eg: Human expertise with Axe and Mace.)

  • Weapon speed is no longer a factor in Mists of Pandaria. Any one hand weapon should be fine in either hand, though you could put a dagger in the off hand if you want to experiment.

 

Poisons

Poisons are abilities and buffs, you no longer have to stock them in your bags or buy them from a vendor. You can use one lethal (eg; deadly) and one non-lethal (eg: Crippling) at a time. Each “dose” lasts for one hour and is weapon independent. You can switch weapons (and poisons) at any time and you’ll still have your poisons working, without having to re-apply them.

Lethal

  • Deadly (lev. 10, ability) does damage over time. You will use this one in all PvE content (ie: dungeons and raids.) In PvP you should only use it when the opposition is not being healed.
  • Wounding (lev 30, ability) does instant damage and suppresses enemy healing, which makes it more valuable for PvP.
  • Instant poison is dead and gone.
Non-lethal
  • Non-lethal: Crippling (lev 20, ability) slows your opponent’s movement. Nice for mobs (or players) that run away.
  • Mind Numbing (lev 28, ability) slows opponent spellcasting.
  • Leeching Poison (lev 45, talent) heals you for a percentage of the damage done. Harder hits from you = better healing.
  • Paralytic Poison (lev 75, talent) stacks up and on a 5th stack stuns your opponent for a few seconds.

 

Gems

Once you get into item level 417+ gear get into the M of P gems, even if they’re grimly expensive. They’re far superior to the Cataclysm gems.

In M of P the gems for secondary stats will have higher values than those with primary stats. For example, this quick gem vs the comparable delicate gem. In Cataclysm Rogues could stick with all Agility gems and be just fine, in M of P the gemming will be more interesting. You will probably want to match socket bonuses.

 

Enchants

As with gems, the Mists of Pandaria enchants are much better than the earlier enchants. Head enchants are gone, shoulder enchants come from the Inscription profession. Go for Agility first, then Haste, then whatever looks best according to the stats above.

MoP enchants require item level 372 or better and you’ll notice that they are somewhat better than their Cataclysm counterparts. New enchants (and gems) are always very expensive when the appear, and sometimes afterwards. If you need more cash to be able to buy these things then check our Tycoon review.

 

Race Choice for Combat Rogues

Pandarens can become Rogues, Draenei and Tauren still can’t.

Blood Elf

  • Arcane torrent restores some Energy and silences opponents. Skilled with Enchanting.
Dwarf
  • Can wash away bleeds and reduce damage. Ranged expertise is mostly useless.
Gnome
  • Expertise with (small) swords is nice and their escape ability has occasional use, especially in PvP.

Goblin

  • Rocket jump is a nice leap into or out of combat (it also breaks stealth.) Vendor discounts make compulsive buying less painful. A bit of added Haste is nice.
Human
  • Diplomacy makes for easier rep grinding, Mace/Sword expertise is nice, as is their escape ability (especially in PvP.)
Night Elf
  • Shadowmeld can save your butt if things go bad, since it drops aggro and is usable in combat. S’meld to stealth to escape. Quickness makes you a bit harder to hit and you also get slightly faster movement while stealthed.

Orcs

  • Blood Fury is a great burst racial, and expertise with Axes and Fist weapons is pretty cool.

Pandaren

  • Bouncy for less falling damage, faster leveling through longer lasting Rest XP, better buffs from food, skilled with Cooking, can choose to be either Horde or Alliance.
Troll
  • Berserking is a nice racial for bursts, ranged expertise is pretty useless.
 Undead
  • Can wash away fear and such, drain life and be healed, eati dead bodies frees up a bag slot since you won’t have to carry basic food.
Worgen
  • An extra Sprint is sweet, added Crit is nice, but it’s not your best stat. Skilled with Skinning (which adds some Crit.)

 

Professions

Profession bonuses are much higher in Mists of Pandaria than previously and many crafts will requires Bind on Pickup items to create (requiring Spirit of Harmony, for example, though the finished item might well be Bind on Equip. Pretty much like the old Chaos Orbs from Cataclysm, but a lot more recipes will requires the Spirits. Maybe they’ll become BoE, like the orbs did, but they aren’t there now.

The Haste buff from Herbalism makes it worth considering.

  • Alchemy – You get better and longer effects from your own potions. For example, and extra 320 Agility and an extra hour for the best elixir.
  • Blacksmithing – Equip two more of the gems you can find.
  • Enchanting – Enchant your own rings for added agility. +40 to each ring in Cata, 160 in M of P.
  • Engineering – create useful items and equip Synapse Springs, for a big agility burst for 10 seconds. 480 in Cata and 2,940 in M of P. Beware of side-effects in PvE settings. Lots of generally useful gadgets and backfire don’t matter so much in PvP.
  • Inscription – Nice shoulder enchant. +130 Ag in Cata, 520 in M of P. In addition to making glyphs you (or some other scribe) will be making everyone’s shoulder enchants.
  • Leatherworking – The bonus is a pretty nice bracer enchant for added Agility. +130 Ag in Cata, 520 in M of P.
  • Jewelcrafting – create (and equip) better gems than otherwise available. +67 Ag in Cata, +320 in M of P.
  • Tailoring – Make your own flying carpet. Oh, you want damage. Well, you can add a nice cloak enchants that sometimes adds a nice chunk of attack power. +1000 AP in Cata, +8,000 Sp in M of P.
  • Herbalism – A small heal over time with a very nice Haste effect (+2880 Haste rating for 20 seconds at skill level 600.)
  • Mining – More stamina, 480 at max level.
  • Skinning – More crit rating, also 480 at max level.

 

Combat Rogue Raid Build

These are the abilities that you pick up from choosing Combat as your specialization (spec.)

Talents are completely revised. Take all your Cata build and throw them away. You now have six tiers of talents, gained (one tier each) at levels 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, and 90. Any spec can pick any one talent from each row. Any level 60 Rogue can now take Shadowstep, for example.

Talents and glyphs are swapped in the same way. Tome of the Clear Mind is what you use to swap glyphs at 86+.

Combat Rogue Talents

Combat Rogue DPS build for Mist of Pandaria

Talent Descriptions:

  1. Shadow Focus – Abilities no longer cost Energy while you are stealthed. Sap to Ambush (or any opener) at zero energy cost. Nightstalker might be better for leveling, with it’s speed and opening damage.
  2. Combat Readiness – Take less damage as fight gets longer. Not really a great tier for PvE and CR’s probably the best of the lot.
  3. Leeching Poison – your strikes heal you. Toss up between this and Elusiveness. Leeching might provide more general utility and take a bit of pressure off your healers.
  4. Preparation – Finished cooldowns. More vanishes to energy free Ambushes. Also resets defensive cooldowns for added survival.
  5. Prey on the Weak – When you disable an enemy with your stuns they suffer increased damage from all sources for the duration of the effect. If your opponent can be affected by Cheap Shot or Kidney Shot and and is being attacked by several people then it can take quite a bit more damage. Paralytic Poison might have value against trash that survives long enough. Dirty Tricks is more for PvP.
  6. Anticipation – Stores excess CPs on target and applies them after a finishing strike.No more wasted Combo Points. If you do a lot of target switching then Versatility might be a good choice.

Glyphs are a bit different from before. Primes are gone, Majors modify damage and effects, Minors make small changes to some effects, such as increrased range.  You can have three each, six total, at level 90. Tome of the Clear Mind is what you use to swap glyphs at 86+. Get supplies to changes talents and glyphs from your Inscription supplies vendor or off the Auction House.

Major Glyphs: 

  1. Deadly Momentum – Kills refresh Slice and Dice and Recuperate. Great for leveling and fighting trash. Leaves more Combo Points to spend on damage.
  2. Adrenaline Rush – Reduces important cooldowns by a small amount.
  3. Sprint – Faster sprinting, for the Usain Bolt Rogue, when you just have to be there right now.
Minor Glyphs
  1. Distract –  Increased range for this ability.
  2. Blurred Speed – Run on water while Sprint is active.
  3. Killing Spree – Returns you to the same spot which you started, for a bit more positioning predictability.

Blast through Mists of Pandaria to the level cap!

 Blast through Mists of Pandaria to the level cap, Click Here to Start!

 

 Posted by at 1:32 pm  Tagged with:

Subtlety Rogue in Mists of Pandaria

 Rogues  Comments Off on Subtlety Rogue in Mists of Pandaria
Jul 132012
 

A Quick and Dirty Subtlety Rogue Guide

An Undead Rogue in Vengeful GearA lean, mean, backstabbing machine. Known for PvP ownage, Sub also can do very well in PvE, you just have to be good at managing your finishers and energy. Nothing wrong with Shadowdancing a boss, ya know.

 

Stats

  • Primary Stat: Agility, nothing else comes close especially with your Sinister Calling ability (+30% Agility)
  • Secondary:
    • PvP: Hit to 3% > Crit > Expertise to 3% > Haste
    • PvE: Hit to 7.5% > Crit > Expertise to 7.5% > Haste
  • Weak: anything else (Mastery, excess Hit or Expertise.)
  • Reforge to your Hit cap, then all else to Crit. If the weapon already has Crit and you’re Hit capped, then reforge to Haste.
  • Note: If you dual spec and you’re not switch gear sets, then Haste is a good stat to reforge into. It’s at least a decent stat for all Rogues.

Weapons

  • Daggers in both hands
  • Main: Wound poison in PvP, Deadly in PvE
  • Off: Leeching in PvE, Crippling in PvP.

Gems

  • Gems and enchants can be expensive. Go here if you can’t afford them.
  • Delicate Agility or Mystic Resilience gems only. Nothing else matters. MoP gems are much better than Cata counterparts.

Enchants

  • MoP enchants are much better than Cata counterparts.
  •  Enchant for Agility before Crit before Haste
  • Weapon enchants

Race

Pandarans can be Rogues, Draenei and Tauren are the only races that can’t.

MoP = Mists of Pandaria

  • Pandaren: May join either Horde or Alliance, can stun with a touch, level faster (longer lasting rest XP,) increased benefits from food buffs, less falling damage, good with cooking.
  • Alliance
    • Night Elf: Quickness helps with survival, Shadowmeld can be used in combat to drop aggro or break incoming spells. Faster stealthy movement.
    • Worgen: Sub loves Crit and Worgen  get a 1% bonus to that stat. Good with Skinning, which adds to Crit rating. Sprint ability is quite useful.
    • Gnome: Expertise with daggers is nice, small size really is useful in PvP, escape is nice. Good with Engineering and Synapse Springs is a nice Engie gadget to use.
    • Human: Diplomacy is nice if you’re rep grinding, escape ability allows you to use two DPS trinkets in PvP.
    • Dwarf: Stoneform washes away bleeds and reduces damage, Ranged expertise is next to useless.
  • Horde
    • Orc: Bloody Fury for the burst, stun resistance (reduces a 6 second stun to about 5 seconds.)
    • Undead: can remove effects, consume dead players, can drain health from enemies.
    • Troll: Berserking, damage Vs beasts (Worgen don’t count,) reduction in movement impairing effects.
    • Blood Elf: Arcane Torrent restores energy and silences opponents
    • Goblin: Rocket jump (breaks stealth) is a good escape, increased Haste, Good with Alchemy for an action bar full of potions.

Professions

Most of the professions offer a net gain of about 80 Ag. points over the regular enchants or item enhancements. In Mists of Pandaria it will be about 320 Ag.

  • Alchemy: Better effects and more duration from Chemisty. Figure an extra 320 Ag and and extra hour from your Flask of Spring Blossoms.
  • Blacksmithing: Slot two extra Agility gems.
  • Enchanting: Enchant your own rings with additional Agility (40 each in Cata, 160 in MoP)
  • Engineering: Useful gadgets, Synapse Springs adds a lot of Ag for 10 seconds on a one min cooldown.
  • Inscription: Very nice shoulder enchant.
  • Jewelcrafting: Slot better gems
  • Leatherworking: Nice bracer enchant.
  • Tailoring: Flying carpet and a cloak enchant that sometimes adds Attack Power.

Subtlety Rogue Abilities Talents in Mists of Pandaria

Any spec of Rogue can grab any one talent from each tier. This means six talents at level 90. This also means that any Rogue can take Shadowstep and that PvP Rogues cannot have both Shadowstep and Prep.

  • 10 – Hemorrhage – adds a bleed in addition to the basic damage, replaces Sinister Strike. This is your “bread and butter” attack.
  • 10 – Master of Subtlety – more damage (10% more) when attacking from stealth.
  • 10 – Sinister Calling – increases total agility by 30%. Agility is already the #1 stat for all Rogues, this makes it even more true for Subtlety.
  • 20 – Find Weakness – openers bypass 70% of opponent armor for ten seconds, giving you the chance to drop some serious damage.
  • 30 – Premeditation – adds 2 combo points to target before your attack.
  • 40 – Backstab – requires man hand dagger, must be behind target. This is great for dungeons, but is a bit tricky to use while leveling or in PvP.
  • 50 – Honor Among Thieves – Gain combo points from the crits of party members.
  • 60 – Sanguinary Vein – Improves Rupture and all bleeds.
  • 70 – Energetic Recovery – Slice and Dice for faster energy recovery and more white damage. Have S&D up at all times.
  • 80 – Mastery: Executioner – Increases damage done by finishing strikes
  • 80 – Shadow Dance – now 8 seconds (was 6, before M of P,) allows use of abilities out of stealth, such as cheap shot and extra ambushes.

Here’s a build to try out. You can switch talents anytime, as long as you’re not in combat. Bring up your talent page, pick a row with a learned talent,

Subtlety Rogue PvP Build

Subtlety Rogue PvP Build for Mists of Pandaira

  1. Shadow Focus – Abilities no longer cost Energy while you are stealthed. Sap to Cheap Shot to Vanish to Ambush to Shadowdance at zero energy cost.
  2. Nerve Strike – Opponents does less damage when coming out of Cheap Shot or Kidney Shot.
  3. Leeching Poison – your strikes heal you, but it means you won’t be using Crippling (or another) poison. Elusiveness will allow you to avoid a lot of burst damage, so might be more useful in some situations.
  4. Shadowstep – Teleport to target, friend or enemy, but no damage increase. Don’t open with it, use it to catch up with runners, disengagers, or blinkers. Prep has definite use if you use those CDs more than you need the mobility, and Burst of Speed also provides mobility and escapes and might be perfect for flag carrying.
  5. Prey on the Weak – When you disable an enemy with your stuns they suffer increased damage from all sources for the duration of the effect. This is a weak tier, but this talent can be useful with some coordination. Dirty Tricks has some definite PvP possibilities.
  6. Anticipation – Stores excess CPs on target and applies them after a finishing strike. Never again waste CPs. Versatility is great if you switch targets regularly.

 

Sub Rogue Raid Build

 

xxxxxxxxxxxx

 Posted by at 6:14 pm

Patch 4.3 Class Balance Remarks from the Devs

 Blizzard, Classes  Comments Off on Patch 4.3 Class Balance Remarks from the Devs
Nov 112011
 

Man, it must be an interesting job to be the guy in charge of class balance…

The Devs (specifically Ghostcrawler) discuss what’s happening with the various classes in the 4.3 patch. Not all specs are covered and Rogues aren’t covered at all. I have no idea what that means. This is a clip from part 1, part two is below this:

Part 1:

Back in June, I wrote a blog explaining the context behind some of the changes in the upcoming patch that might not be intuitively obvious. That blog ended up being one of the most popular ones we’ve ever done; even players who disagreed with the specific changes appreciated our explanations for what we were trying to accomplish. Therefore, we’d like to continue in that fashion and we figured there was no reason to wait until 4.3 was “on the shelves” to get the ball rolling.

One note before I dive into things. If you haven’t read the previous blog, “Rate of Change,” now might be a good time. There are some changes that we want to make to class mechanics or balance in general that we don’t think are fair or appropriate to spring on players in the middle of an expansion. These include things like the power of interrupts or the active mitigation model we want to implement for tanks. We’ll get there, but in short term we fundamentally believe that it’s important to pick our battles.

On with the show. Note that most of these changes are mechanics changes. We have not yet finished enough testing to be confident in our benchmark damage, healing, and tanking numbers for 4.3. When we finish those, and when we see what some players are capable of doing on the PTR (or even what they theorycraft or sim based on PTR numbers) there will be additional changes. Off the top of my head, I’d say Fury warrior damage is almost certainly too high and Resto druid AE healing (ignoring the effects of Tranquility of course) is also too potent.

You’ll also notice some classes aren’t mentioned at all. It’s possible we’re just happy with them, but it’s more likely we just haven’t gotten to them yet. We don’t want to hold a PTR until every single thing is done, because that minimizes test time.

Melee DPS

Overall, we think melee DPS in dungeons and raids is still too low. We think melee DPS is fine in PvP, and we think melee DPS is competitive against ranged specs against target dummies, but in actual encounters with all of their moving pieces, melee falls behind. To attempt to adjust for this imbalance, we have improved the benefit to attack power given by the various raid buffs (Blessing of Might et al.) to melee only. Hunter DPS is fine, or even high in 4.2, so we didn’t want this buff to extend to them, which is why the AP benefit is now 20% for melee attacks but still 10% for ranged attacks.

Vengeance

As promised, we allow for this tanking mechanic to now ramp up quickly when the tank is taking damage.

The rest of the above post deals with class specific changes, see it here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3615095

Part 2 goes into more details. Again, not all specs are covered and Rogues aren’t covered at all. The changes to the Mortal Strike type of effects (reduced healing on the target) should cover Wound Poison, though.

Mortal Strike (and similar debuffs)

We dropped the healing debuff from 50% to 10% some time ago, but were convinced at 10% that it was hard to appreciate the effect at all. We want to try Mortal Strike et al. at 25% to see if it feels useful but not mandatory. If 25% is too much and 10% is too little, then it may mean the entire mechanic may not have much of a future. We decided to only change the debuff for the warrior, rogue, and hunter, restoring the original relationship between “strong” and “weak” MS that we had in Lich King.

Click through to see the class details: 4.3 class changes

There will be thousands of comments on the above posts, might as well click through and add yours. QQing doesn’t help, but if you can add some solid evidence to support your remarks, then go for it.

Click on the Lightwell

 Priests  Comments Off on Click on the Lightwell
Jan 142011
 

From MMO-Champion – there seems to be some concern regarding the Lightwell mechanic. So in the interest of educating myself and the one or two others who might be reading this, here’s some info.

  • It is the highest heal-per-mana (hpm) spell for priests.
  • You can click it from up to 20 yards away.
  • Clicking it will not change your target and does not trigger the global cooldown.
  • It heals for more per tick than Renew.
  • It can be used while stunned, disoriented, sapped, blinded or casting.

WoWhead’s description:

  • Lightwell
  • 30% of base mana
  • 40 yd range
  • 0.5 sec cast
  • 3 min cooldown
  • Creates a Holy Lightwell.  Friendly players can click the Lightwell to restore (((2878 + ($SP * .308)) * 3) * 1.25) health over 6 sec.  Attacks done to you equal to 30% of your total health will cancel the effect. Lightwell lasts for 3 min or 10 charges.
  • You can click it from up to 20 yards away.

From a comment on that page:

This spell is way more powerful then you all think.  This spell can be used while

  • Tanking
  • Kiting
  • Blinded
  • Stunned
  • Disoriented
  • Sapped
  • Casting another heal or spell
  • You can click it from up to 20 yards away.

You don’t even need to un-click your current target. Lets compare with a more favored heal over time, Such as Renew.

Lightwell costs 30% of base mana, and does 10charges or “casts”.
So really its 3% of your base mana for every charge.

(the following is at 290 spell power)
Each charge heals 10,000 over 6seconds.
As for renew its 6,124 over 12seconds and costing 18% more mana per cast (compared to each charge)

You can literally be in two places at once, having your light well positioned properly. Heal ranged dps, or yourself while your to busy focusing on people who are dieing rather then injured. The ticks also tick faster [down from over 6seconds] with your haste. All you have to do is, Click.. and we will be well on our way to appreciating this spell.

Lightwell

Group around the lightwell

Did you know that  You can click it from up to 20 yards away?

Cataclysm Assassination Rogue Builds

 Rogues  Comments Off on Cataclysm Assassination Rogue Builds
Dec 302010
 

Assassination’s looking pretty good these days, at least from my point of view. Here are a pair of builds, one for PvE and one for PvP. Naturally some talents may change depending on your exact team, raid, preferences, etc.

For both builds…

  • Daggers only
  • Slow main, fast off-hand
  • Instant poison in main, deadly in off, crippling is applied via deadly brew
  • Wpn DPS > Agility > Mastery/Haste/Expertise > Crit

Level 85 Assassination Rogue DPS Build (31/2/8)

This build is aimed at maximum DPS, not max suvivability.

Assassination (31 Points)

  • Coup de Grace – Rank 3/3
  • Lethality – Rank 3/3
  • Ruthlessness – Rank 3/3
  • Quickening – Rank 2/2
  • Puncturing Wounds – Rank 3/3
  • Deadly Brew – Rank 1/2
  • Cold Blood – Rank 1/1
  • Vile Poisons – Rank 3/3
  • Seal Fate – Rank 2/2
  • Murderous Intent – Rank 2/2
  • Overkill – Rank 1/1
  • Master Poisoner – Rank 1/1
  • Cut to the Chase – Rank 3/3
  • Venomous Wounds – Rank 2/2
  • Vendetta – Rank 1/1

Combat (2 Points)

  • Precision – Rank 2/3

Subtlety (8 Points)

  • Nightstalker – Rank 2/2 – In theory this will allow for more “attack from stealth” situations.
  • Relentless Strikes – Rank 3/3
  • Opportunity – Rank 3/3

Glyphs

  • Prime – Glyph of Mutilate
  • Prime – Glyph of Rupture
  • Prime – Glyph of Backstab
  • Major – Glyph of Tricks of the Trade
  • Major – Glyph of Feint
  • Major – Glyph of Sprint
  • Minor – Glyph of Safe Fall

Level 85 Assassination Rogue PvP build (32/2/7)

Think of this build as a starting point and adjust to fit your game. For example, if Improved Expose Armor doesn’t work for you then change it.

Assassination (32 Points)

  • Coup de Grace – Rank 3/3
  • Lethality – Rank 3/3
  • Ruthlessness – Rank 3/3
  • Quickening – Rank 2/2
  • Puncturing Wounds – Rank 3/3
  • Deadly Brew – Rank 2/2
  • Cold Blood – Rank 1/1
  • Vile Poisons – Rank 3/3
  • Seal Fate – Rank 2/2
  • Overkill – Rank 1/1
  • Master Poisoner – Rank 1/1
  • Improved Expose Armor – Rank 2/2
  • Cut to the Chase – Rank 3/3
  • Venomous Wounds – Rank 2/2
  • Vendetta – Rank 1/1

Combat (2 Points)

  • 1. Improved Recuperate – Rank 2/2

Subtlety (7 Points)

  • Nightstalker – Rank 2/2
  • Relentless Strikes – Rank 3/3
  • Opportunity – Rank 2/3

Glyphs

  • Prime – Glyph of Mutilate
  • Prime – Glyph of Rupture
  • Prime – Glyph of Vendetta
  • Major – Glyph of Blind
  • Major – Glyph of Kick
  • Major – Glyph of Garrote
  • Minor – Glyph of Distract
  • Minor – Glyph of Poisons
  • Minor – Glyph of Safe Fall

More details here: Assassination Rogue Guide