My Ghoul’s middle name is Einstein!!

While questing in Terokkar Forest doing the questline that involves killing Orc Peons, I was doing my usual, rounding up the mobs while mounted in groups of 4-5, diseasing them all, then killing them AOE. 

 This is the first time I’ve grouped up ‘runners’ since dropping out desecration from my build, (the graphic lag was too annoying) and those pesky Orc Peons all are ‘runner’ types.  Now the anti runner abilities we have are fairly limited… long cooldown on Death Grip, and I need my frost runes for better abilities than slowing a runner (maybe not in an instance!!).    

 Enter my latest Ghoul ‘Dirtmuncher’ (erm……. cmon Blizz some of these names are questionable at least!!).  Now he seems to be intelligent enough to know he should be chasing the runners down for me.  I’ve seen other ‘clever’ behaviours, like he pounces on casters out of my AOE range that are blasting me.  In fact in defensive mode my Ghoul really covers my back!

I can see DK’s Ghoul’s getting blamed for pulls because of this, like poor hunters were, when groups needed a blame hound (a runner aggros anyway without a pet trying to kill it people!!!) 

 So well done Blizz, nice job done on Ghoul AI  

Well….. nearly they are a nightmare for pulls if you don’t remember to switch them off defensive, but I’ve hot keyed one of my mouse buttons to the pet attack button and toggle the defensive pet button if I need to.  I like keeping control of who my pet is attacking, it makes it easier for get phase 2 of diseases up without the pet killing your target!!  It’s handy if you have casters hitting you to switch to defensive

Need more ra… runic power!!

Looks like I am having a rethink for my level 80 build.  I’ve realised the importance of having more runic power, so 130 is my target on the forth tier of Frost.  Furthermore making Obliterate not remove diseases means it should end up my strike of choice (third tier).  So Instead of going for 11 points in frost, I am going further up the tree and getting 19 points in there instead, keeping the ‘good stuff’ from Unholy. 

The reason for the re-think, I’ve seen bigger single hits from obliterate, but needed to recast my diseases on the target.  Also the benefits of 130 runic power are just too good to turn down, especially as my Glyph of Death Strike improves the damage/heals per 5 runic power. 

I’ve also decided that my pull will be Icy touch, and that Death Grip will be saved for a runner/lost aggro taunt owing to its long cooldown.  So talenting Icy Touch up to 30 yards is a must for me. 

Until I can talent obliterate, I’ll be trading Death Strike for Scourge Strike in my rotations, depending on my health.  But once Obliterate is talented to not remove diseases, I’ll be removing Scourge Strike from my build.

Oh… and once I learn how to post links on this page I’ll be linking my final build and Armory page!!

Death Knight Unholy AOE Levelling (v2)

I have found group pulls really boost your XP and help you level much quicker. 5 deads mobs in one pull = 5 times the XP!! An Unholy Death Knight has one of the best tool sets I’ve seen for AOE levelling, but it is a bit more complicated!

I’ve also found Unholy Blight (the 51 point talent in Unholy) more useful than Death and Decay for big pulls, I’ll explain why later! A couple of hours practising group pulls in Western Plaguelands is time well spent before hitting Outland, because the mobs are 50-54 there and a lot of areas are made for AOE. If you quest there as well, you’ll hit Outland at 60 with your group pull technique well on its way!!

This is what I’m doing at 64.

I have a Ghoul pet, so my first consideration is setting the ghoul to passive, this is not so important if you gather your mobs mounted, as I do (and I switch to pet defensive) but if you are pulling on foot it is a must, a defensive pet has a mind of it’s own!!! Next I mount up for my group pull with as much runic power as I can, and I don’t worry too much about period where I’m not doing anything other than auto attack, due to rune cooldown time. Your Auto Attack hits pretty hard, so I suggest you rotate about the mobs AFTER you have your diseases up!! Only having Auto Attack available is unavoidable, but a good rotation can minimise this time.

Before i pull I like to have bone shield up (it is essential!!), remember this also uses an Unholy rune, and runic power decays over time out of combat. I’ve improved Bone shield with Glyph of Bone shield for one extra charge so it is 20% more effective, a nice Glyph bonus and one I believe I’ll be keeping for end game. Bone Shield is essential because of the 40% damage mitigation, so if you pull 5 mobs, it effectively takes 2 out of the picture straight away!!! 3 doesn’t sound so fearsome, 5 is the magic number for AOE, I did manage 12 at one of the cauldrons in WP at 59 before I had Death and Decay (DD) and Unholy Blight (UB), needless to say I died on that pull but managed to finish the job as a Ghoul! I have also glyphed Death Strike because it is almost as good as a primary heal with 100 runic power, and it doesnt use runic power but one frost, one unholy.

I like to kill a single mob and build up my runic power before pulling a group, I then re-cast Bone shield which means you need to think about the Unholy Rune cooldown. I also set my interface so I can see the mobs health bars over their heads. You need to watch who you cast your second phase diseases on, making sure they don’t die before you cast pestilence!!! This is a mistake I have made a few times, it can send things pear shaped!!!

For my spell rotation I open with Icy Touch, then Plague Strike, then Pestilence to disease all my targets. I have talented my disease to 18 seconds and even doing this will leave a period where not all my targets are diseased. I have found getting a decent cycle catering for the rune cooldown to be quite complicated.

For Levelling I do not use Death and Decay, because this leaves you for runeless for quite a long time. One ability costing one blood, one frost and one unholy is expensive, and I’ll be using it more as an Instance ability ‘pull’ ability, so I am not discounting it. Just for levelling I’m not as interested in threat as I am in an active cycle, and getting both Unholy Blight and Death and Decay up while putting down lots of AOE damage means I am unable to use Death Strike as much as I’d like. This is not an issue for Instances because hopefully someone else is healing you!! So no Death & Decay and Unholy Blight is a nice runeless replacement. Ignore the QQ’s about this ability on the EU forums!!! People obviously should not bother with Unholy Blight (or death and decay) for single targets, it only truely shines with groups of 4-6 mobs!! Unholy Blight at 60 runic power it is also quite expensive, but you’ll find getting there isn’t too difficult if you do not use Death Coil, an ability I save for single targets or runners.

This leads me to another point, I have two bars set up, one for single targets, one for AOE, but that’s another post!!

For more AOE damage Blood Boil also add up on diseased targets with three disease!! With Reaping this also creates a Death Rune from a blood rune, and these are invaluable for an additional Death Strike if you are taking a hammering!!

I use Rune of Sword Shatterer on my 2 hander, for the extra 4% parry as well. You need all the mitigation you can get, because the more you have, the more mobs you can kill in one group!!

I’ve not yet found a good way to do this without any time periods where all 6 runes (or the ones I want) are on cooldown but here is my rotation, tweaked from my first version after last nights play!!

BR= Blood Rune, FR= Frost Rune, UR = Unholy Rune DR= Death Rune, x=Cooldown o = Available rune.

		BR	BR	FR	FR	UR	UR
1	Icy Touch	o	o	x	o	o	o
2	Plague Strike	o	o	x	o	x	o
3	Pestilence	x	o	x	o	x	o
4	Blood Boil	x	drx	x	o	x	o
5	Death Strike	x	drx	x	x	x	x
6	Unholy Blight	x	drx	o	x	x	x
7	Icy Touch	x	drx	x	x	x	x
8	Plague Strike	o	drx	x	x	o	x
9	Pestilence	x	dr	x	x	o	x
10	Death Strike	x	drx	x	o	x	o
11	Death Strike	x	drx	x	x	x	x
12	Blood tap	dr	drx	o	x	x	x
13	Death Strike	drx	drx	x	x	x	x

 Note: Occasionally you will need to silence casters but that is a runic power ability and only on a few occasions have I needed to use a blood rune to do that with Strangulation.  I do not use Death Grip, unless there is a runner.  I have tried to maximise the number of death strikes, and try to use them with as much runic power as I can to max the return from Glyph of Death Strike.

It’s a long ‘rotation’, more of the whole fight to be honest!  I have my disease at 18 seconds but this rotation takes into consideration 12 sec diseases. 

Hopefully you pick the right mob to start your disease phase, I cycle about the group because I’ve found Auto Attack hits really hard with the 25% shadow damage talent, so the mobs go down quite fast.   I’ll try to post a video of this rotation, but there are already a few good ones out there. 

I use Blood tap (which I have also glyphed to remove the 6% health penalty) to death strike a little earlier.  Use it is you are losing a lot of health.  If the group’s health is still high at the second disease phase, I use Blood Boil at point 10 instead and go back into an Icy Touch -> Plague Strike -> Pestilence -> Blood tap cycle, either way it is best to end the fight with a few death strikes. 

For most pulls this table does me fine, and I can use Scourge Strike for some of the Death Strikes above if my health is ok, because it uses the same runes.  

This rotation is pretty much my staple at 64. There is no such thing as a definitive rotation, you need to react to whatever the pull throws up, but this one seems to be working for me. I’ve not included any spell caster silences, Anti Magic shield etc, and you will be using these depending on the make up of the group you pull, the silence is a runic power abilities and so far I’ve found I have no problem generating runic power if I actively use my abilities.

Melee groups are easier without a doubt. I have also found Death Knight AOE a lot more fun and a bit more complicated than doing the same thing with my 70 Protection Paladin (much as I love playing my Pally, this is true!!!)

I’ll do something for instances when I have a few more under my belt!! Do you have any better rotations/suggestions for levelling? All are tips welcome!!!

Ambassador Lichbane

Well I did it today   I didn’t plan where I would get the achievement but it happened at the most appropriate place it could have…. In Uldaman at the Corpse of a Paladin   A nice 550 Gnomeregan Exiles reputation to take me to exalted with them.

Some pointless facts about the journey:

I made 115K XP and 64g from quests, 208g made in total including vendors and loot, just under 2 gold was spent on flights.  It took 758 quests (although i know it can be done with less if better planned) and I had 1day 23hours /played at 58 when I got it.  It could have been done faster as well but I made lots of coffee, had a few phone calls and watched the Scotland vs Argentina match while half playing!!

Now the fun begins…. I quickly got to 60 doing cauldron quests in Western Plaguelands, and bought my 59/60 skills, finally getting Death and Decay and Unholy Blight.  Even without them I was AOE’ing lots of mobs in WP to level quickly.  Should be fun when I can use the extra two damage spells.  I respecced getting rid of Desecration because of the graphic lag it caused my machine.  I’ve a geforce 8800 Ultra and it couldn’t cope with it!!  God knows what it would be like on a lesser card!!

I can now start messing about with spell rotations and seeing what the Unholy DK can do, and I’m looking forward to it!!!

The making of an Ambassador continued….

I’ve completed the dwarf/gnome start up area, and all the quests in Loch Modan.  I did the Dun Modr Dark Iron Dwarf quests in Wetlands as I was questing my way to saving Stonewrought Dam (Yes I am a hero, saviour of Loch  Modan and Wetlands!!!!).  I also decided to save Thandol Span while I was there, because those pesky Dark Iron Dwarves were going to blow it up too!! 

I then ventured into Gnomeregan and did 5 out of the 6 quests there (missing Data Rescue because I’m not an Engineer).  I think I’ve been in Gnomeregan the least of all the Instances pre- WotLK, and it was a little confusing because I didn’t know it as well. 

One tip I’d offer is, if you do this without Death and Decay, pull the elites with death grip, get one disease on them, then use pestilence, if you crit them and they die, you can use corpse explosion, remembering it doesnt work on mechanicals!!  I found this quite useful on the groups of gnomes around Mechanar.  Another cool thing was I was getting more than one hit on the elites, and while the mobs are not hardy enough to start taking 3 hits, or get to a stage where I could reliably use pestilence and blood boil, I could start to see what it will be like when I’ve got higher level mobs to tank.  I’m looking forward to when I can pull larger groups and start using my diseases… perversely I think it will be quicker clearing Instances when I can. 

Corpse Explosion and the Glyph of Corpse Explosion combined seem useful as a finisher, if timed right.  I could also set my Ghoul to defensive and make him work for his keep at last as well.  He was getting bored running about beside me anyway, at least I don’t have to feed him!!  Up till now he killed things too quickly, and so did I, in fact most went down one shotted, and his ‘focus dump’ adds a nice extra DPS.  Corpse explosion is also handy for making sure I tagged everything before he started slapping them about!!!

I’m revered with the 3 remaining factions, Ive hit 17k Ironforge, 13.5k Gnomeregan rp and 18k Draenei.  So still some way off the magic 21k with the three factions, but getting there.  It looks like the Gnomes are going to need the most work.  I may have to start looking for specific quests rather than grabbing all I find with the low level quest tracker.   

I’m going to quest through Wetlands, Arathi then Southshore.  Then I’ll clear out the Scarlett Monastry.   Hopefully I’ll not need to go to Badlands and clear out Uldaman, but it is looking increasingly likely that I will need to.  I suppose if I do that I may as well get the sceptre, go kill a princess, and then get me a mallet as well!!  I am champing at the bit to get to Outland, I could be well into the 60’s by now if I had

When I get the Ambassador title, I might make a wee guide for the WOW Death Knight forums… hmmm this could be another title of a post in itself, WHERE ARE THEY BLIZZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Making of an Ambassador

It’s now /played 25 hours and 21 hours at level 58!! So far I’ve got my Death Knight exalted with Stormwind and Darnassus, and completed all the quests in Deadmines/Stockades/Blackfathom Deep. I’m now half way through revered with the Exodar!! I’ll do the Dwarf/Gnome areas and all the Gnomeregan quests in the next few evenings. Hopefully finishing things off in the Scarlett Monastry.

Questing like this is a ‘novel’ experience, you can follow the lower level quest chains right through without hitting any level caps, and makes it a lot more like a story driven journey. Levelling usually means you need to wait a while for the next instalment, but when it is condensed like this, it really shows off Blizzard’s story telling!!

Would I do this again with another ‘hero’ class? Probably! hehe.

Back to the mission in hand!!

I remembered way more quests in Azuremyst Isle as I levelled with my Shaman, but quite a lot seem to be Draenei only, so it looks like it is going to be quite difficult hitting exalted in Bloodmyst Isle (where I am at the moment and the original plan!!) even as a human. At worst if I complete all the available quests I find, using my memory, wowhead and the low level quest tracker, then I’ll hit exalted in Bloodmyst Isle. If not I may do the remaining Draenei quests in Forest Song in Ashenvale, and head over to Swamp of Sorrow. I can also get some Exodar quests in Outland but I know I’ll get there questing and will not need to quest in Alterac Valley or go on a runecloth grind.

I prefer questing to item grinding because it is more interesting and I like the stories you come across!! I think I’ve done most (if not all) of them across a few different characters, so it is nice to consolidate them all into one Hero character. It seems appropriate!

One very useful thing I’ve found is I have not yet been to Ironforge, save to pick up quests for Stockades and Blackfathom deep and I have not yet done the Dwarf/Gnome start up zone, yet I hit Reverred with Ironforge whilst doing the Draenei start up area with the additional faction reputation alone and I am only less than 1k off Gnomeregan Revered, and before I started I was worried more about getting Gnome rep than any of the other factions!! So even if I don’t get exalted by finishing all the quests I find in Bloodmyst Isle, I expect the additional ‘alliance rep’ I get from the dwarf quests will get me there so I can do it before I level to 59. A 58 Ambassador would be quite a personal achievement!! At the current rate and with a bit of luck it will be 10-15 more hours /played till I get the Ambassador title, maybe once I hit the Scarlet Monastry and complete all the quests there. I’d be pretty pleased if I could get there at level 58!!

This title feels a bit more substantial than those I was getting while playing Warhammer Online!!

I’ve done nearly 450 quests already, so I am definitely in the questing groove! I am still miles away from the Loremaster title, for either island. Who knows maybe I’ll come back for that after I hit 80! I’d like to solo Onyxia as well!!!!!

I was intending to do as many of the classic dungeons, with all their associated quests as I could. But perhaps the lure of outland and Northrend’s new journey to level 80 will be too strong!! We’ll see!!!!

Oops…….. I’ve still to start my Blacksmith skill, and cooking and fishing!!!

I’ve already seen level 75 Death Knights on my server, so good luck to whoever gets the ‘World first’. I expect someone somewhere already has!!!

I’m not in such a rush myself!! To many ‘fluff’ items to do first!!

 

 

 

 

A new beginning…….

Well my game didn’t turn up on Wednesday, thanks Amazon… you’ve just lost a customer, and earned a new nickname in this house….. Scamazon!  So I did what many other Amazon customers did… went to a midnight opening at my local Tesco much to the bemusement of my wife!!  There was quite a queue when I got there, and it was fun seeing the delight on peoples faces as they rushed out clutching their copy!!  One person was in such a hurry, he had to get called back for his change!!!!

I made my Unholy Death Knight as soon as I got home, and got to bed after 4am with a level 58 in all the Death Knight blues.  They look awesome, I’m not going to spoil what happened for readers but one of my first achievements was ‘Duelicious’!!  The cut scenes set the tone well, and all bodes well for the journey to 80 and End Game!  I’m looking forward to continuing the story line that the event in Eastern Plaguelands opened up.  Certain parts of it reminded me of the Onyxia chain quests.  One suggestion I would make is take a slow walk into Stormwind the first time you go there, don’t run, and read the shouts while you do!!

The siege warfare looks like it is going to be fun based on this taster!!  And my highest ‘hit’ is over 80k on my achievements!!!  I doubt I’m going to top that!!! 

I am now into the next phase, getting my faction rep for the ‘Ambassador’ title.  First Instance done was the Deadmines!!  An Appropriate start.  I’ve quested right through Elwynn, Westfall and Redridge… and have all the Stockades quests for tonight, and a trip to Duskwood to look forward to before heading across to Teldrassil!!   Doing lowbee quests with a 58 DK is a breeze, and its surprising how quick you fly through them, and the memories of doing them the first time are nice as well!!

The ‘Diplomacy’ racial makes a massive difference, I was half way through revered with Stormwind as I logged…. and yes, it was because I got asked to Heal Utgarde Keep with my Shaman, it was nice an easy, but that’s another story!

Last Kara run…..

Well, as a 10 man anyway!! 

We did our last Kara run last night before we all shoot off into Northrend, start Death Knights and all level at different rates.  It was fun and a little sentimentally sad!!! 

It started off as a guild run into Hellfire Citadel to help two guild alts hit 70.  I was asked to respec my Elemental shaman Resto for the run, so it was also my first opportunity to play the new healing spec and see riptide etc.  WoW is all I can say, looks like Shaman healing is going to be lots of fun in Northrend, two HOTS with Riptide and Earthliving weapon, and all my Ele haste gear along with the new Spellpower mechanic will make shift back and forward from resto easy!!!! 

Our usual Druid main tank GM led and it was easy mode, he gets well over 20k buffed health and with the new Strength of Earth totem the two of us could probably have duo’ed it!!  I don’t think I went under 80% mana for the run except for a messy pull on the first boss and I wasn’t using mana stream (well one of the alts was a enh shaman!!).  So a nice easy reminder of playing healer, and a good while since I’ve been in a non heroic instance.  With the place cleared and some quest hand ins we saw the 70 achievement flash up in guild chat and our new guild 70’s decided to start a kara pickup group.  We only needed 3 additional players over the guild, shame all the old timers couldn’t have joined, but a few were already locked in another Kara run. 

The guy off tanking was a respecced fury warrior, who had fallen in love with the new Prot spec, and we couldn’t get a lock, but the hunter alternative did an awesome job, and topped out the DPS meter.  Shame he was from another guild!!

Cutting a long story short I loved every minute of the run, Kara is a breeze now although I did have a few random deaths and a 29g repair bill!!!  Ancestral awakening and high crit rate make keeping a group up easy, and procs of Earthliving on Riptide caused me a fair bit of overheal, but more is better than less!!!  

I was lucky at Prince, I finally got Helm of the Fallen Champion, almost fate to get the set piece at the end of the last week of Burning crusade. 

I wish in one way that healing wasn’t so much fun, or that I’d done a little worst, as I know what will be coming as I’m levelling my Death Knight!!!!!!

Crafting, the Auction House and ‘The Game’

Inspired by: http://bookofgrudges.wordpress.com/2008/11/09/wow-world-of-resource-management/

Resource management is a game a lot of people enjoy… indeed its a way of life, Capitalism!! I’ll paraphrase a quote from Danny Devito in ‘Other Peoples Money’ talking about ‘the game’, ‘Larry the liquidator’ (Devito) says you spend your life making pots of cash and whoever dies the richest wins! For some people dabbling on the Auction House is their end game. They get their ‘warm glow’ from watching their bank balance grow…. they are also playing ‘the game’!

Now I’m not knocking this, but just saying I’m happy if the ‘Larry’s’ are happy too. I play WOW for dungeons and quests. Questing, pre BC paid for my first epic mount not the AH, although I did drop off a few Blues to sell as I levelled!!! But in my defence I always undercut!!!!

Daily quests paid for my epic mount. Then doing the Netherwing dailies made so much gold it also paid for my alts flyer as well. The Daily quests were a bit like deja vue some days, but I didn’t mind because the reward was worth it.

My first 60 didn’t get an epic mount or flyer off their own back because I made most of my mistakes with him!!! Somewhat perversely using the Auction house means you need the auction house to continue developing, to get your Epic mounts. I think the AH is a shortcut, like a cheat code if you will. Some people use cheat codes, some don’t. It is also the place where gold farmers earn their crust. This I suppose is the another aspect of free market capitalism… a service economy if you like. One that some people get upset about. Eitherway I am not moralising here, but I cannot understand how someone can get a bit of pride flying around in something someone else ‘bought’ for them.

I now use a ‘live off the fat of the land’ method for my characters after realising the AH can be a ’scam’, poses some moral dillemmas and crippled my first 60’s income pre-BC buying ‘yet another’ blue that I could have made myself!! I don’t waste gold in the AH, I do find it is a good place to find patterns so I may have funded a gold farmer in some of my recipe purchases, but I always got my crafting mats myself. The gold earned farming them made it worth it, and they filled the gap between raids alongside some fishing and cooking expeditions!!

Your first high level character can become a sugar daddy!! If you do your alt right and learn from your first characters mistakes, the Alt can end up paying for the sugar daddies mount as well!! Mounts are secondary fluff anyway…. they are only to get you to the dungeons!!! I am pleased I wont need to buy an epic ground mount for my Death Knight, and like the idea that the DK specific flyer upgrades with your riding skill! That means I have 22 levels (55 to 77) to earn 6k gold, 1k for the mount, 5k for the skill and there are lots of quests on that path…. Easy, even without Dailies I think!

The first thing I suppose most people do is get their alts some bags!!! I’ve gone a little further with my Death Knight, I’ve also bought some Glyphs while they are going so cheaply…. Glyph of Bone Shield 5g!! Glyph of Death Strike 1g! Erm yes I got them from the AH but farmers don’t sell cheap!! (I made my own bags though!!!!!!!)

For all my characters I use an armor crafting tradeskill for my ‘blues’, i.e. Tailoring, Leatherworking and Black Smithing. I have not yet gone for another trade skill on a character. Inscription, Enchanting and Jewelcrafting seem to almost be a secondary trade skill, one to level after you hit max level. And I am happy to’share the love’ with my guildies, free with your mats, and I’ve been lucky that we have good JC/ENCH in guild!! Guilds always felt the right way to play ‘the game’. Maybe I am a ‘Red in the bed’ commie!!!

The great thing about levelling with crafted ‘blues’ is I found them tricky to ditch in dungeons, because they were pretty good items as well. Indeed they got me my dungeon invites. I also made ‘entry level’ Raiding gear in both WOW Classic and Burning Crusade.

A perfect example is the Netherstrike set I made for my Shaman, I spent about 24-30 hours making it and yes it was grindy, but it did get exciting as I got closer to the finished product, I also waited and made all three pieces in one go (in Stormwind so people standing around could see three epics pop up!!!!!). The time obviously didn’t include skilling up Dragonscale leatherworking in the first place, but that was done in tandem to levelling, and it ‘forced’ me to go to dungeons for rep…. terrible huh!!! No it never felt grindy because there was always something useful at the end of it. With this set I got nearly two years of raiding, the trade ‘epics’ opened the door. I think I made two more items after that (nice epic boots and shoulders!), the rest of my gear dropped from bosses! That was the end game for crafting for me, I never felt tempted to dabble in the AH with my wares!!

Blacksmithing never felt as useful, my paladin and warrior are both as BS’ers (erm…), even the Armorsmith I had for my Pala, but I believe they have ‘fixed’ Blacksmithry in WotLK, so tanks can make decent entry level sets with decent +def ratings. Getting to 300 Blacksmithing with my Knight will be grindy starting at 55, but I will be doing that at the same time I go for my ‘Ambassador’ title. I am taking my time to get to Outland because I don’t want to have to go back, and I want to travel in style!! I’ll be getting to 375 BS in Outland.

I am also taking a hunter to 80, once my Death Knight Tank and Shaman Healer are 80, because the hunter will be the best class to allow me to start getting a secondary crafting skill, he is an engineer, miner. I did plan on dropping my 300 engineering for herbalism but after seeing the motorbike engineers can make, who knows, maybe I’ll be levelling him in shaman made mail, and making him my DPS’er instead of my gatherer!

I’ll be levelling cooking and fishing in tandem as well….

Lots of waffle today!! But all said because I believe that craft skills are essential for making an end game raiding character, they open the door for you, so don’t neglect them!! And if you make them your end game and dabble with the market…. enjoy!!!!

PVP/PVE interface Tip for button bashers…. Vive la Blizzard toobar!!

This is a suggestion to help with fast combat… and may be more appropriate for PVP but I use it for both PVE and PVP. 

WOW is not a twitch games like many First Person shooters, it is much more tactical.  I find that  spell global cool downs really help because they give you quite a long time to adapt your strategy on the fly…..1.5 seconds is an age in combat!!!  Most people can react way quicker than 1.5 seconds!!  And GCD is probably only there to allow for latency!! 

All good tactics require having the right buttons to hand when you need them, and having a cluttered interface is BAD!!!! 

Cluttered interface =  cluttered mind (sounding like my dear old mum here!!!). 

I don’t claim to have invented the techniques below!!  But I do think I use them as they were designed to be used!! 

So here is a suggestion I use on most of my characters (I do something subtley different on my Warrior because of stances… wrong blog!!!), it helps me so hopefully it helps you too.

Here are some tips: 
1.  Group your combat spells into rows of six.  Create 6 different groups of 6, think about them tactically and try to put them down in the order you will use them.  If you pop an attackpower/spellpower/Haste etc trinket before an ability, also put it in your group of 6. 

My keyboard buttons 1-6 are the quickest to reach if I don’t want to move my left hand about a lot.  Six functions are enough to be looking at one time and this allows 36 spells to be easily accessible!!

2.  Turn off all the extra combat bars in your interface menu, i.e. bottom left, bottom right, right bar and right 1.  If they are on they cannot be scrolled through in the main tool bar.  They also clutter up the screen!!

3.  Learn to use the available tool bar scoll options, the blizzard default key strokes is Shift + mouse scroll wheel ‘up’ or ‘down’.  This greatly speeds up tool bar selection.  You can also use hotkeys shift + 1 for bar 1, shift + 2 for bar 2 up to 6.  You can click the tool bar scroller, but this is a bit slower and needs more mouse accuracy.  I use the mouse scroll wheel and shift more myself I think it is the quickest.  

I also set the ‘G’ buttons on the G15 for each bar the for ‘o shit’ moments when I lose track of what bar I am on…. G1 for bar 1 ( key mapped to shift +1), G2 for bar 2 (Key mapped to shift +2 etc).  I rarely use this option but it’s available!

4.  Find the mouse sensitivity that suits your style of play and practice moving your character holding down mouse 1 and mouse 2 or by keeping W held down and holding down mouse 2.  No two people will use the same sensitivity, it’s almost like a finger print!!!  Take some time over this, you’ll be surprised that after spending half an hour or so, you’ll find a ’sweet spot’ that suits you, and you’ll be in total control over your movement.  You’ll wonder why you never did this before!!!.

5.  STOP CLICKING with your mouse!!!!!!!!  You have to move the mouse to click, you can’t control your character while doing this and ITS SLOWER!!!!!!  Mousing over the button also puts up tool tips you only need to read a few times!!

6.  Use the Blizzard default hot keys.   It saves you time in the long run, especially if you clean install regularly!!  They are really well thought out.  The buttons around WASD are standard hotkeys, and I like the Blizzard design, T to attack, F to assist. 

7.  Minimise your hand movement.  Being mobile during combat is pretty essential for both PVE and PVP, but that doesnt need to mean you move about a lot!!  You’ll be quicker if your hand has less distance to travel.  Personally I don’t like moving my hand too far away from WASD and I like using my mouse mostly for movement, not clicking.  That’s why 1 to 6 works for me… you may like 1 to 8, or 1 to 5!

8.  Use mouse buttons for Interupts/counterspell/purge/kick/escape trinkets/racials etc.  I only put normal combat abilities on the numbers 1-6, my mouse has 5 extra buttons, I use 3 of them for instants, these are the only ones I put on the toolbar on keys o, -, =, and I key map the other two to abilities in the keymapping screen, like petattack.  Putting the interupts etc on the toolbar means I can always see their cooldowns.  Because I only use the mouse for abilities you need to use instantly I don’t want to wait to use them!

9.  Use ESC to stop casting.  I don’t use Macros for my instant spells, but I suppose you could write them with some kind of stop casting command to mean they will be available even if you are in mid cast.  I prefer to use the ESC escape key to stop casting.

10.  Use your spell book for trade skills, etc.  Do you really need a shortcut to your cooking skill etc!!!!

11.  Try not to change your mind about your set up too often.  If you use the same one for a long time it will became instinctive.

The fact I use only 6 combat functions on buttons 1 to 6 and 3 quick cast options means I have quick and easy access to 39 functions… how many classes have 39 combat actions?  Using 6 buttons means I can also group them into suitable cycles.  Something I expect to be doing for my Death Knight.

I have also tried deliberately to stick to a ‘no mods’ here.  Mods, and Macros cause interface lag….. You may blame the server but sometimes it’s also your interface mods that can lag your combat.

Once you’ve tried this you’ll probably steer clear of most mods and Blizzards toolsbars are the quickest, and once you are used to using them, you can reduce their size.  Using buttons doesnt need a big target on the screen!!!

As a wee bonus (and something from 65 days played as a hunter!!!)

One of my favourite techniques is ‘jump shots’… I learned this to do the hunter epic quest back in the day when this was useful!!!  A hunter needs to be facing their opponent to shoot them, but needs some distance because of the dead zone.  If you are running away from your target you can jump, turn to face them in the air (you don’t need to be totally facing them, anything over 90 degrees is enough), then shoot an instant shot, then turn back to face the way you are running then land, Doing this makes you a pretty formidable kiter.  It looks cool too, like you are shooting over your shoulder!!!  I have not tried this with other classes but I guess the same thing will apply for any kiter.  Perhaps a death knight shouldn’t be sharing this technique!!!!!

I used to use bar mobs and had 5-6 bars of 12 buttons each showing all the time, with a load of the buttons hot keyed.  I did fancy designs, big buttons little buttons and spent a lot of time trying to pretty up my screen.  Before I used mods I had the standard toolbars all showing… i.e. left bottom, right bottom and right bars 1 and 2 showing, also hot keyed and that needed time to set up and was less efficient than the bar mods.  Both techniques were cluttered, and were slower to use because I had to find the buttons with my left hand or my mouse flicked about the screen wildly.  The mouse is far better used for movement, so this hindered doing things quickly.   Holding down both mouse buttons, and hitting the number buttons for instants makes a character very mobile in combat.  Combine this with the jump shot technique and your combat will get really fluid. 

The most annoying thing about Bar mobs usually happens nearly every time there was a patch especially if you had a druid/warrior………….  I felt I was spending too much time messing about moving things around when all I wanted to do was play.  I also changed my mind a lot and felt like each patch meant I needed to relearn how to use my character again. 
If you had asked me 12 months ago I would have heavily criticised Blizzards interface, but if you learn to use it, you’ll find it surprisingly more efficient than every bar mod out there especially for quick combat.  Now all they need to do is let me unlock my character and target/targets target windows like you can with the focus target, and I’ll be totally happy. 

Many resources I’ve seen talk about the benefits of this mod and that mod, but I find the standard Blizzard toolbar the best, and have found that it is elegant and simple and a lot more flexible than it looks… if you learn to use it!!!

So try this……..go with Blizzards standard interface…. try using ’shift Scroll wheel Up or Down ‘.  Try only showing 6 combat buttons at a time…. believe me you’ll find you don’t need to move your hands about much and your reaction times will improve drastically.