Alts and Raiding - What to Do?

I have recently run into a very interesting circumstance lately.  I have my level 80 mage who I have geared up to the point of being able to step into early ICC.  Not the highest DPS by any stretch, but can step in.  I still want my moonkin as my main raider.  However, my guild is in the middle of running HMs for both 10 and 25 mans and my mage is not geared for that (except heroic lootship) and I need my geared moonkin for HMs.  In other words, how do you gear an alt when your main is required for your raids?

This question is something that I'm still very much working on myself, but here are a few ideas that I have come up with.

1) PUGs - Where my moonkin will most definitely be needed for my guild's main raids, I could easily get into some PUGs with my mage.  Of course, at this point, you run into PUG issues. (people leaving after the first wipe, complaining about loot, ninjaing, etc.)

2) Another guild with different raid times from your main - My main raids 25 mans on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday and 10 mans on Wednesday.  This means that finding a guild that raids on Sunday would be perfect for my mage.  Ner'zhul is also a PST server.  I could also find an EST server that raids earlier (say 6-8 EST) and still make it for my main raids.

3) Come in on farm content - Unfortunately, with the exception of heroic lootship, I don't know if we have any HMs on farm yet.  We have been downing HMs left and right (Conquest is currently 7/12 in 25 man HMs and 11/12 HMs in 10 mans), but I wouldn't classify it as on farm yet.  Plus my main still needs gear from some of the HMs.  I am still a little ticked that my mage got heroic Spyglass before my main did on 10 man heroic lootship.

4) Change my alt from PvE to PvP - Mages are pretty good at PvP.  I have thought about just running heroics to get enough triumph badges to get PvP gear and use the Stone Keeper Shards to fill in extra slots and just be a PvP mage.  It is easier to get gear doing that than raiding.

5) Realize Cataclysm is close and get another alt to level 80 - From the looks of some of the initial gear in Cataclysm,  I will be replacing raiding gear fairly quickly with quest rewards and dungeon gear.  My DK now has his heirloom gear to be able to tank dungeons up to 80 fairly quickly.  Then maybe my warlock, who also has heirloom gear now.

So what do you do with your alts when trying to gear them up?  If you have any other ideas, I would love to hear them.  Also, I'm gonna be a broken record, but I want to remind you about the Christmas in July contest.  Just take some guesses at some release dates and win cool stuff.

Moonkin DPS Rotation - Present and Likely Future

Note:  While part of me wants to continue about the firestorm that is RealID and another part of me wants to discuss the change to 31 point talent trees, I'm doing neither.  For RealID, what has been said has been said.  It will either sway Blizzard or not.  For the 31 point talent trees, I want to see an actual moonkin talent tree before I comment.

A lot of people who do not understand moonkins say that the moonkin rotation is very simple.  You probably hear people say it is just alternating between two buttons like 1112222222222222222221111111.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  There is a little more complexity to the moonkin rotation than that.

Now, everybody is going to have a slightly different rotation, but here is my rotation for my current situation.  Note that this rotation is for a fight with no adds, little movement, and no mechanic to limit casting, like normal Festergut or normal/hard Blood Queen.  In some fights, you may want to wait just a second more for Starfall or not use it all depending on the situation.  Also, if you are moving a lot in a fight, you might want to apply DoTs just a second before they fall off, especially if you can use Gift of the Wild to proc your 2T10 bonus.

Treants > Faerie Fire > Wrath > Insect Swarm > Moonfire > Wrath until Lunar Eclipse procs or Spyglass proc is up to 10 > Starfall when Spyglass proc is up to 10 > Starfire until Solar Eclipse procs > Reapply DoTs and use Starfall/Treants on cooldown in between procs > Keep alternating between Lunar and Solar Eclipses

Here are some of my particulars in my rotation.  One, I open with Treants because I want to start getting damage on the boss as soon as the tank touches him.  All my other spells have the potential to pull aggro off the tanks except for treants.  That is why I open with that.  However, opening with treants means they come to you first unless you give them some direction.  That is one of the jobs of Faerie Fire.  It directs the treants where to go in addition to apply Faerie Fire.  Unless the fight is an incredibly long fight like LK, you should only have to apply Faerie Fire once.  If you do have to reapply, I considering it a DoT to reapply.   I cast Wrath next before the DoTs (Insect Swarm and Moonfire) because I want Earth and Moon on the target to make it easier to start getting Eclipse procs.  Plus, it provides a damage buff to the DoTs.  After my DoTs are on the target, I just start casting Wrath.  I will only pause casting Wrath for two reasons.  One, if I get a Lunar Eclipse proc, I will start casting Starfire.  Second, I have the Muradin's Spyglass, which stacks up to 10 increases in spellpower.  If I hit my stack of 10 with the Spyglass, I will go ahead and cast Starfall for maximum damage with Starfall, which is based on spellpower.  After that, it is just alternating Lunar and Solar Eclipses while reapply DoTs and using my Treants and Starfall on cooldown until we have a dead boss.

As I said, this is my current rotation for what is essentially a tank and spank fight.  I can see where a few changes might occur before Cataclysm though.  For example, I would like to get Dislodged Foreign Object and Phylactery of the Nameless Lich.  This means that I would likely use Starfall sooner in my rotation versus where I use it now.  We also don't know what will come in Patch 4.0 that will change this rotation.  I'm not foreseeing anything in 3.3.9 that will affect it though.

When it gets to Cataclysm, I think our rotation will begin to change drastically depending on the new Eclipse mechanic and the new spells that will grant Lunar or Solar power.  Who knows what it is going to be (especially with the news of the new 31 point talent trees), but I'm almost certain you are going to see faster changing between Wrath and Starfire and a lot less dependency on random chance for Eclipse procs.  In addition, the new spells that give either Lunar or Solar power will almost certainly be added into the rotation somewhere, likely at the beginning and maybe even replacing Wrath to proc our Earth and Moon.  Whatever happens, I think it will add more complexity to the moonkin DPS rotation.

Just a reminder, the Christmas in July Contest is still going on.  Please check it out so that you can win some great prizes.  I'm gonna sound like a broken record, but I really want people to enter and then get the word out about this blog.    

   

RealID Part 2 - One Step Too Far

Damn you Blizzard.  The day that I finally get around to posting a blog about RealID and you have the balls to release something that almost makes me change my mind about RealID.  In case you missed the firestorm yesterday, Blizzard announced that the WoW forums will use the RealID and show people's actual names.  Parts of this sound fine and part of it sounds like the worst idea possible for Blizzard.

Here is my initial thought on this.  Blizzard is doing this to cut down on trolling.  How likely would you be to call Blizzard a retarded dumb piece of shit if your name was associated with your comment?  Probably not.  This goes back to what I mentioned yesterday about the John Gabriel's Greater Internet Dickwad Theory.  You take out the anonymity and you take out the dickwadness of the forums.  This sounds like a great idea and I'm sure it will cut down on the trolling although it will not eliminate it.  For proof of this, check out Warcraft's Facebook page where people post their Facebook picture and still troll.  However, it may also backfire and cut back on airing legitimate concerns about any Blizzard game.

Second, a lot of people are complaining that this is taking something that is voluntary and making it involuntary.  To a certain extent, I agree.  However, this is not necessarily a bad thing.  Every WoW player is going to or already has somebody in their RealID.  Even more people have Facebook where your name and picture can appear on a complete strangers "People You May Know" just because you share a few friends.  Even if you have your privacy settings to the max, they can still see your picture and name, which is even more than what WoW is doing.

One of the legitimate issues I have heard about RealID is players who roleplay.  As weird as I think it is to always pretend you are your character in game in actions and speaking, I can see where having your real name versus your character name on the forums would kill a roleplaying experience, no matter how little of it goes on anyway.  

The biggest issue that I think Blizzard is opening itself up to is litigation.  Now, it seems weird that I would mention this, but here is my theory behind it.  World of Warcraft's ESRB rating is T for Teen, which means children as young as 13 could be playing this game and posting on the forums.  As much as I like to think that no pedophiles play WoW, I would be naive to say that is true.  I could see a situation where a teenage boy or girl starts being stalked by someone because their RealID is on the forums and it leads to a situation that Blizzard would never want to happen to any of its players, especially teenagers.  If something did occur, it would just open up Blizzard to a civil lawsuit over something they could do nothing about just because they forced the RealID on the forums.  Add in the negative publicity of a situation like this and the cost to settle a civil lawsuit and you could be looking at the end of Blizzard in a worst case scenario.  Hopefully, something like this would never occur, but they are opening themselves up to it.

So is there a solution?  I feel that there is a solution that would work and involve two things.  One, make it an opt in.  Give players the option for their RealID to appear on the forums.  As I mentioned before, I personally wouldn't mind because all the places where my info is currently anyway in social networking so I would opt in if I actually posted on the forums, but a lot of people wouldn't for understandable reasons.  The other thing they need to do is make moderators moderate.  This would cut down on trolling drastically and not make RealID a necessity in order to cut down on trolling.

Also, I want to take this time to remind you about the contest we have going on right here.  I would encourage everybody who can to participate.  Either that or I'm getting a WoW mouse, FigurePrint, and PrintWarcraft for myself.            

Christmas In July Contest - Win Free Stuff From Redhawk's Gaze

 
I saw a tweet from one of the people I follow that their guild was doing this.  I thought it would be a great idea to do this on my blog.  They are having a pool on the release date of Cataclysm with prizes, etc.  Here are the rules for the Redhawk's Gaze Christmas In July Contest.

1) Leave a comment in this post with the following information.

- E-mail
- Name (Just cannot be Anonymous)
- Character Name
- Date that Cataclysm release date is announced
- Patch 4.0 release date
- Cataclysm release date

2)  This contest is working on what I call the Price is Right principle.  You cannot be over on your guess.  If Cataclysm release date is 12/1/10 and you guess 12/2/10, you will not win for that question unless everybody guesses over and we then move to whoever guess the closest and is over.  This is true for all three questions.

3) Since there is no chance of Cataclysm or any other of those dates being released in July, all entries must be in by July 31st, 2010 at 11:59 PM EST.  If by chance the Cataclysm release date is leaked in July, that question will become null and void.

4) The person who gets to the closest on all 3 release dates will win the grand prize.  If you get 2 of the 3 closest and somebody else gets the other 1 of the 3 the closest, the person who guessed 2 of the 3 closest will win even if they guess over on the third one.

5) Here are the prizes for this contest:

First Place Prize:  FigurePrints of any of your characters - $130 value
Second Place Prize:  A WoW Official Razer Mouse - $80 value
Third Place Prize - A PrintWarcraft Poster of any of your characters - $18 value

I will also be choosing 3 random people who reply in the post who will get an authenticator (unless they won one of the bigger prizes).  If you would not like to be considered for that because you have one, just put in your entry that you are not interested in the authenticator.  That way, it can help somebody who does need it.

6) In the event of a tie, the person who posted first will be the one to get the closest point for that question.


7) This is open to anybody who is interested in this contest.  I was thinking about limiting it to US only, but two of the prices can be sent as a gift certificate sent to your e-mail and the mouse is the only one that has to be mailed.

So there is not much else to say about this contest.  Have some fun.  Spread it to your friends and guild mates and tell them to come check out the blog and get some free stuff in the process and have some fun.

RealID - Why It Is Not That Bad?

First off, I would like to thank all the guest bloggers from last week, which were Natrii, Samsaric Warrior, Variant Avatar, and Luftitoom.  I would encourage you to go back and read their articles since it contained some great stuff as well as check out their great blogs.

In working with them, I have also been able to add them to my RealID and even some on Facebook. Since RealID has come out, there has been a lot of controversy about how it may decrease privacy since it displays your real name.   In my workings with it, I have not seen such a problem with the system.  Here are some of my thoughts on the new RealID system.

First, I have absolutely loved it.  I have thought it was great to see which characters my friends are playing on currently and see what they are doing, whether it is raiding or PvPing.  I have friends who were working on LK so I can stay on my server and give advice on how to handle LK while still playing my own game versus jumping off my character to go to a character on that server or even jumping in their vent.

Second,  I thought about all the ways I have already given my information out.  Let me just go through a few of them.  I have MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter all through the same e-mail address as my RealID e-mail adddress.  If you go to my profile on Blogger, you will find my e-mail address.  If you go to my Facebook page for this blog, you will likely find out which one is me in just a few minutes.  And I have the same amount of control over RealID as I do Facebook.  If I don't know the person, I don't have to accept them.  If I do, I can add them.

Third,  the only thing that even causes me some pause is the friends of friends feature.  However, it is not the easiest function to find and I have a feeling that it will likely be cut soon.  In the meantime though, I don't foresee this as an issue.  They can see my name, but they still have to request to be RealID friends and so I still ultimately have control.  I also cannot see their e-mail from the friends of friends screen.

Fourth,  this RealID may provide some accountability.  For my reason for this, you have to see John Gabriel's (from Penny Arcade) greater internet dickwad theory.

 
If you take out one part of this equation, you lose the ability to be a dickwad.  In this case, you take out the anonymity.  Again, you don't have to give out your info or accept RealID request from people you don't know.  However, knowing that people in the game do know who I am almost completely prevents me from being a dickwad ever.  I really don't have the personality of a dickwad anyway as anyone in my guild can tell you.  However, it is good to know that I have something backing up the fact that I can't be one.

So, overall, I really like the RealID system.  There are a few kinks that I wish they would work out, but overall, I'm very satisfied.  So if  you would like to hit me up on my RealID, just send me a request through my e-mail, bigdog1862@yahoo.com.  And you have the option to put a note in the request, just drop me a note in there about who you are and I will try to add you.

Getting Started in PvP as a Balance Druid - A Guest Blog by Lufitoom

So, you are a fluffy, feathery Moonkin and you want to start pvp-ing and you aren’t sure where to start.  I completely understand this.  When I went from an unkillable tree in battlegrounds to a Moonkin that seemed to day way too often, I had to rethink my play style and strategies.  With improvements to our survivability and our offensive skills, we are now viable and even dominating in battlegrounds.  I hope that these tips can get you started in the right direction and you find as much fun and satisfaction in melting faces as I do.

I am going to focus more on battlegrounds and world pvp rather than arenas.  Battlegrounds are the best way to get your feet wet and become comfortable with pvp.  They will also allow you to accrue honor and pick up some nifty off pieces that will increase your resilience, spellpower and stamina.  I am a firm believer that different people can excel with different builds and gear but there are some things that work best.

Getting the Right Spec and Glyphs

The first thing I suggest if you are interested in being the best you can in a battleground is to create a pvp spec.  If you are interested in seeing my spec, you can view it at here. There are many variations, however I suggest the following as “must haves” that are not used in pve much or at all:

Brambles:   Put 3 points into this skill.  It increases the damage of your Thorns and Entangling Roots by 75% (you will be amazed at how many Warriors and Rogues kill THEMSELVES on them) and increases the damage caused by your Treants by 15%.  In addition, while you have Barkskin up, the attacks done to you and done by your Treants have a 15% chance to daze the target/attacker.

Owlkin Frenzy:  Attacks done to you have a 15% chance of sending you into a frenzy that not only makes your wings/hands glow a sexy fiery red while you let out a loud Moonkin bellow, but increased your damage by 10%, stops any pushback of balance spells, and returns 2% base mana every two seconds.

Gale Winds:  Some people use this, others say it’s a waste.  I personally love having the extra 4 yards added to my Cyclone range and the 30% extra damage to Typhoon and Hurricane can be extremely handy.

Typhoon:  Some people use this in PvE, others don’t but it is so important in pvp.  The knockback and daze can get you away from a bad situation and also knock enemies away from teammates.  Oh, and let’s not forget the satisfaction of knocking enemies off of high cliffs.

Now on to glyphs.  I have tried almost every combination that you can imagine and when I finally stuck with these three glyphs I saw my damage and survivability increase substantially.  I highly recommend that you give them a whirl even if you “love” the glyphs you have.

Glyph of Focus:  Yes, it reduces the radius of your Starfall by 50% but it does increase the damage by 10%.  Back when Starfall stunned/dazed and broke people out of stealth the large radius in battlegrounds was great.  Now, the increased damage is what you are looking for and this will be one of your biggest and best killers.

Glyph of Starfall:  This reduces the cooldown of your Starfall ability by 30 seconds.  This is HUGE.  Starfall does a ton of damage and being able to use it so much more often will be so important for you in battlegrounds.

Glyph of Monsoon:  You will use your Typhoon spell more than you think and this glyph will reduce the cooldown by three seconds.  Doesn’t sound like much but it really is.

Gearing Up

I highly suggest grinding out at least a full Furious set.  You will need the resilience and the set bonus (Wrath of Elune) gives your Wrath casts the chance to reduce the cast time of your next Starfire by 1.5 seconds.  As for your idol, I suggest using your favorite pve one since the pvp ones are earned in arena and in my opinion, sorely lacking.  I won’t go into any more on gear since most of it is earned and this is just to get you in there and started.  Just remember, have ~6% hit and at the least, 74 spell penetration.

Tips For PvP Play

Now for the fun part.  Getting into the battleground and making the other team cry.  Some of these might make you groan and say “Duh!  I knew that!” but you would be surprised at how many people miss a few of these.

Cyclone, Cyclone, Cyclone!  This ability is so important.  Sure, it will let you get away or stop the damage on you but it does so much more than that.  Save a teammate from a pesky Rogue, stop a healer from healing, stop the hots from ticking on a target, stop another Moonkin’s Starfall, etc etc.  Don’t forget to Cyclone Shadowfeinds.  It stops the Priest from getting any of its benefits.  There are probably a million scenarios where a Cyclone is called for so DON’T BE AFRAID TO USE IT!

Don’t over-extend yourself!  I don’t know if it is our size or what, but we tend to run in like tanks.  You are ranged.  Get close enough for Starfall and to use your spells but STAY RANGED!

Hots and Nourish!  You can heal yourself but your first choice should be to cc the target first.  Cyclone, Entangling Roots, run like Hell.  But don’t forget to heal yourself.

Heal Others!  Battlegrounds are a team sport.  Don’t be stingy with your hots.  They might not be big heals but they might just be a life saver.

Buff the Raid!  It’s pvp.  Don’t just toss a Gift of the Wild before it starts.  Throw Thorns on everyone and their pets.

Be Prepared with Extra Buffs!  If you are world pvping or in battlegrounds, you can’t always depends on a Priest or Pally to be there to buff you.  Buy (or make) Runescrolls of Fortitude and Drums of Forgotten Kings.

Flask it Up!  Flasks are relatively cheap and it’s always nice to have the buff from Flask of the Frost Wyrm.

Stop the Mana Burn!  Priests will be one of the most (if not the most) annoying adversaries.  Shapeshift to Bear or Cat when you are getting mana burnt.

Warstomp and Shadowmeld.  Don’t forget you have one of these abilities.  If you are Tauren, warstomp to stun and get away/ranged.  Night Elves, this is so handy in situation like when you are versus a Mage.  Arcane Barrage?  Shadowmeld!

Abolish Poison/Decurse!  Do it.  To yourself, to your teammates.

Starfall!  Do it well and do it often.  Single target, multiple targets. 

Innervate!  I usually innervate at about 30%  Any lower and it causes mana problems for long fights.

Pvping as a Moonkin is a blast.  You will learn your own tricks as time goes on but this should get you in there and causing your enemies to drop dead around you.

Oh, and don’t forget to /dance every now and then.  It’s what we do!

You can find Lufitoom at www.lufitoom.com.

Death Knight Tanks - The Misunderstood - A Guest Blog Post from Variant Avatar

In switching my main on day one of Wrath of the Lich King from my Paladin to my Death Knight and even up to now, I find that so many people misunderstand what Death Knights truly bring to the table.  Many see us as just a "lol-tank", being told once that I can't tank because I don't use a shield.  These stereotypes may hold merit to those who don't understand the true benefits of their Death Knight's abilities, but knowing in detail what Death Knights can really do in a tanking role and what they bring to the table will make you and your group much stronger.

Currently there are 4 viable ways to tank for a DK.  Blood, Frost 2H, Frost DW and Unholy.  This is changing come Cataclysm where Blood will be the dedicated tanking tree.

Currently Blood tanking gives you the most effective health out of all the deep tree tanking builds.  Blood also gives you Hysteria which is a great buff to a melee (feral cat is best for this).  Though Blood currently does lack some of the proactive damage mitigation the other trees have (i.e. Bone Shield).  Though Vampiric Blood does provide you a nice health and healing done to you increase.  Also the self healing you gain through Death Strike is nice and many healers will thank you for the additional help this provides.  Multi-target threat generation is also not up to par with the other trees, but pulls ahead for single target threat, this is not to say that with Death and Decay, pestilence and blood boil you won’t be able to multi-target tank, you can, just not as effectively as the other builds.

Blood Tanking Build

Frost is a well rounded tanking tree for both single and multiple target threat.  Frost provides a ton of damage reduction talents in Frigid Deathplate, Unbreakable Armor, Guile of Gorefiend and improved Frost Presence.  One can only hope that this will be moved to the blood tree for Cataclysm.  The other huge perk is the ability to gain aggro quickly with Killing Machine - Howling Blast procs.  The biggest downside of Frost tanking is there is no real raid utility unless you spec into Improved Icy Talons. 

Dual Wield tends to be a bit more controversial than 2H due to the chance of increased parry chances by the boss, however parry haste is not in effect for any boss where this would be an issue.  However that being said, 2 slow weapons produce the highest amount of threat, though slow tanking weapons just don't exist.  So it is recommended to use slow DPS main hand, slow DPS off-hand or mix with a slow DPS main hand and a fast tanking off hand.  NEVER use 2 fast tanking weapons; you will wonder why your threat is constantly low if you do, and your group will be wondering as well.

2H Frost Tank Build

Dual Wield (DW) Frost Tank Build

Unholy tanking provides damage reduction through high avoidance and mitigation. Bone Shield is a staple ability of this spec that will absorb some damage coming in, though you will lose this after taking too many hits.  Along with big time spell damage mitigation.  The biggest benefit of Unholy Tanking lies in the raid buff of Ebon Plaguebringer.  This buff is also the biggest benefit of bringing an Unholy DPS DK.  Ebon Plaguebringer is similar to what Warlocks and Moonkin can provide in a magic damage debuff, but what DK's can do that locks and boomkin can't is the ability to quickly spread it to all nearby enemies.  Also what this debuff does that the others don't provide is an increase in disease damage as well, which make shadow priests scream with joy.  The biggest drawbacks to Unholy is lower single target threat, also Bone Shield while tanking tends to fall off very quickly.

Unholy Tank Build

So now that you know what each type of DK tank can do, you can make (hopefully) more intelligent decisions regarding them.  And hopefully we don’t see people spec’ing inappropriately and making the rest of us DKs look bad.

You can catch Variant Avatar at his website, http://variantavatar.com.