Aimed Fury

Long time no Blog

2010-01-05T13:03:00.000-05:00

I know I haven't updated in a while. Real life has had me pinned down lately and any free time I have had lately I have been spending actually playing or reading a good book. We had a medium sized emergency with our house and luckily our insurance company came through for us and it's taken a while to get our house back in order. In any case I should have time to update from time to time again now.

In short my Hunter has been doing a lot of gearing up lately, some Arenas, and even some raiding. Loving the new Group Finder and weekly raid quests. When I play I prefer to always be playing with other people. I am ALWAYS queued up to run an instance. I wish I had more time to play and work on some of the other things I want to get done in game. As it is I'll have to cut my Hunter play tmie down to be able to work on my Warrior (now level 73).

I am working on a Frost Emblem purchasing guide on the side. Hopefully I can finish it soon and get it posted up.

Ding 80 and Survivalism

2009-11-20T10:10:00.000-05:00

Well my hunter finally hit 80 this week and thanks to my awesome guild Initech of Cairne I managed to get some really nice gear upgrades. The one thing I was super excited to do as soon as I hit 80 was switch from a BM spec to a Survival spec for running heroics and raiding. So as soon as I dinged 80 I headed to the trainer to pick up Dual Specialization and specced Survival as my new main build. I'll be keeping BM as my off spec for soloing, farming mats, etc...

One thing I would suggest if you plan on respeccing, or adding a dual spec that results in a different play style, is to head to the nearest Training Dummy in town and practice, practice, practice!! It took me a good half hour of practicing, playing around with macros, and tweaking my shot rotation before I finally felt comfortable actually going out into the world as a SV Hunter.

Overall my first impressions after almost a week of raiding and heroics I have to say that I am really enjoying the SV play style, and I look forward to picking up some more gear upgrades so that I can start closing the enormous gap between me and the Mages currently claiming the top of the damage meters.

When I get a chance I'll upload some screenshots from the past couple weeks.

Playing as a Beast Mastery Specced Hunter

2009-11-13T10:33:00.000-05:00

So after leveling my hunter non-stop over the past month or two strictly as BM I have found myself falling into two separate "grooves" of how I play depending on my situation. Are these the best instructions for overall Max DPS in instances? Probably not but it works well for me when soling and feels "comfortable" I guess.

Single Mob Pulls

Hunter's Mark + Pet Attack
Mend Pet
Serpent Sting
Arcane Shot
Steady Shot

Basically the idea here is to keep Serpent Sting and Mend Pet refreshed at all times. Then use Steady Shot when Arcane Shot is on cooldown. I macro Kill Command to all of my shots to make sure I get the most use out of it.

Multi-Mob Pulls

Gather Mobs w/ Mend Pet up
Kill Command + Thunderstomp
Multi-Shot
Volley

I can usually take 5 - 6 mobs safely, more than that and it gets dicey from time to time. What I like to do is turn off auto-cast on Thunderstomp while I gather the mobs. I use a combination of pet pulling and misdirect to gather the mobs quickly, hit Kill Command then set Thunderstomp to auto-cast again. Your pet should have plenty of initial aggro now. I like to throw out Multi-Shots in between Volleys when it is available. Be prepared to Feign Death after your second Volley, especially if you get lucky with crits. Always keep Mend Pet up.

Aspects

If I am feeling lazy I will stay in Viper pretty much 100% of the time and never have to worry about pulling aggro or running out of mana. Basically a hunter in Viper is a well oiled machine that never has to slow down or stop for any reason. Most of the time however I am using the Dragonhawk aspect and going full bore out, burning up my Misdirects on my pet whenever it is available so I don't pull aggro. If I run low on mana I just switch to Viper for a pull and top myself back off.

Pets

While soloing I almost always go with my Tenacity pet, in my case Smokey the bear. I love the cleave component of his Swipe ability. While I have the Tenacity pet out I tend to AoE a lot more than single target DPS. However I do spent a good portion of my time with my Devilsaur pet (Lou), who is appropriately a Ferocity pet. Mostly I use him for instances, but I also pull him out in areas where AoE grinding just doesn't work well. In these cases I single target DPS down mobs alternating Misdirect and Feign Death from pull to pull.

I hope these tips can help any new BM hunters out there!

Need, Greed... Disenchant?

2009-11-06T12:48:00.001-05:00

Found this over at MMOChampion in the PTR Notes

Group Disenchanting Option: In addition to rolling Need or Greed on items, players now have the option to elect for an item to be disenchanted if an enchanter of the appropriate skill level is in the group. Disenchant works exactly like Greed except if a player wins the Greed roll, they will receive the disenchanted materials instead. Players who choose Need will always win the item and will always beat those that choose Greed or Disenchant.

I haven't seen anyone mention anything about this elsewhere yet, but being someone that has never been able to disenchant I think it's a huge and most welcome change!

Pre-80 Hunter Shopping List

2009-11-05T15:14:00.005-05:00

For my own tracking purposes here is the list of items I will be attempting to obtain on my way to 80.

Head
Swiftarrow Helm - Obtained
Headguard of Westrift - Drops from final boss of The Occulus (decent upgrade from the Swiftarrow if I can get it to drop)

Neck
The Severed Noose of Westwind - Reward from quest chain in Icecrown (Req. lvl 78) Should hold me over until I can get one of the DPS necks from the Argent Tournament

Shoulders
Virulent Spaulders - Obtained

Cloak
Embrace of Sorrow - One of the few pieces I'll actually be farming for. Drops in the Halls of Stone off the Maiden of Grief

Chest
Razorstrike Breastplate - Obtained

Bracers
Eaglebane Bracers - Obtained

Gloves
Swiftarrow Gauntlets - Obtained
Tear-Linked Gauntlets - Drop from Svala Sorrowgrave in Utgarde Pinnacle

Waist
Ranger's Belt of the Fallen Empire - Quest reward from Gundrak dungeon. Use this as a hold over until...
Giant Ring Belt - Requires The Sons of Hodir - Honored

Legs
Swiftarrow Leggings - Obtained
Leather-Braced Chain Leggings - Drop from Loken in the Halls of Lightning

Boots
Dragonstompers - Obtained

Rings
Signet of Bridenbrad - Obtained
Frog-Toe Band - Quest reward in Icecown (level 77)

Trinkets
Happy with my current trinkets for now.

Ranged Weapon
Hemet's Trophy Gun - Obtained

2H Weapon
Icier Barbed Spear - Obtained

Should I stay or should I go now?

2009-11-05T12:13:00.000-05:00

So I am almost level 76 and I still haven't quested anywhere other than Borean Tundra, Howling Fjord, and Dragonblight (which seems like it has the most quests I've ever seen in a single zone). Dragonblight is definitely beneath me now but I am having a hard time leaving the zone due to wanting to finish all of the excellent quest lines. The question I guess is: When is it time to move on to the next zone?

If I use the achievement for quests completed in a zone as my ruler for when I am "done" with a zone I'll be 80 before I finish the Grizzly Hills I think. On the other hand if I just use my level to determine which zone I should be in I would be missing out on all of the excellent quest chains (and the nice rewards that usually come at the end of these chains) and story lines I've been running into in each zone.

I guess I could always just come back later and finish off the questing in the zones. /sigh

When do you "move on"?

Got Trident?

2009-10-27T09:40:00.000-04:00

If you are leveling a new Hunter through WotLK and are in need of a nice weapon upgrade set your sights on the Tidebreaker Trident. This item is purchasable for 50 x Winterfin Clam from Ahlurglgr after completing the quest Winterfin Commerce.

I was able to farm up 50 clams in about 25 minutes. Just dive down into the water right outside the Winterfin Village and start picking clams up off the ledges as well as the bottom of the trench. Don't worry about getting stuck down deep with no air, there is a bubble fissure at the bottom. Find that and add it to part or you farming route and you can just make routes up and down the east and west sides of the trench. Make sure to kill all the murlocs on the way too since they also will drop the clams.

Get yourself a cheap Greater Savagery enchant and you will have yourself a nice weapon that will last you quite a while. Have fun farming and enjoy your sexy new trident!

Misdirect Macro

2009-10-22T11:40:00.001-04:00

When I hit Level 70 earlier this week I finally picked up Misdirection and I promptly wrote a new Macro to use it with.

First thing I always do in a group is set my focus to the main tank. So just click on the Main Tank and type:

/focus

and you are all set.

Then you can create a macro (all on one line):

/cast [target=focus,help] Misdirection; [help] Misdirection; [target=pet,exists] Misdirection

This will cast Misdirection on your focus. Or if you have a different group member selected cast Misdirection on them. Or lastly if none of those things are true (you are probably soloing) and it casts Misdirection on your pet. There are a lot of different types of Misdirect Macros out there, but this one seems to work for me.

A Busy Couple Days

2009-10-22T00:37:00.000-04:00

I'll let the screenshot speak for itself:

Hunter Hits 70, Gets Big Gun

2009-10-20T23:55:00.001-04:00

Yay! My hunter finally made it to 70! 6 days 20 hours /played

Apart from hitting 70 I also picked up a sweet quest reward gun (details to follow tomorrow night when I am not so tired) EDIT: Here it the gun's stats Fury of the Raging Dragon

Initech vs. Sunwell

2009-10-20T09:35:00.003-04:00

My guild Initech on the Cairne server completed their final "retro raid" last night. I went along on my lvl 72 Warrior (Hunter is still half a level from 70). I had a great time and I am pretty sure I wasn't the only one who picked up a few upgrades. Some of the loot in there is still viable even at 80 it seems. Fun was had by all regardless of our epic wipes on Felmyst and M'uru. I had a great camera angle (due to me being dead) on Felmyst swooping in to breathe on the entire raid, but I was too busy LMAO to hit the screenshot key.

I think Anzak said that with Sunwell completed it means that Initech has officially seen ALL of the content in WoW which is a fantastic accomplishment IMO. Go Initech!

I'll edit this and add the list of the items I received when I get home tonight since I can't get to wowhead from work :(

And here they are:

Felfury Legplates
Onslaught Belt
Blackened Naaru Sliver

These upgrades should help my push to 80 on my Warrior just that much easier.

He could.. go.. all.. the.. way! or not...

2009-10-15T11:22:00.001-04:00

Nose to the grindstone now. Monday my guild is doing a retro raid on the Sunwell and I just hit level 66. I am going to try and hit 70 by Monday night so I can come along for the ride and see if I can't get some choice loot to help me level a little faster.

Does anyone know the actual requirements for entering the Sunwell?

EDIT:

Requirement is level 70

And I fell just short. had to take my Warrior instead.

Hunter Macros

2009-10-13T11:43:00.004-04:00

Two posts in one day! I have been meaning to post this one for a while so here it goes...

Leveling up my hunter I found it more and more difficult to place things on my hot bars and keep my interface usable. In order to save a ton of space I resorted to the use of some macros that I just can't live without any longer. I'm not going to go through the process of how to create macros, so if you need an introduction go here.

Aspect Macro

This macro simplifies the use of my Hunter Aspects. I have this bound to one of the buttons on the side of my mouse, and through the use of the key modifiers (shift, alt, ctrl) I can easilly switch which Aspect I am using without any trouble at all. And most importantly I don't even need to display the button bar this is attached to (I use bartender as my hot bar manager).

/castsequence [nomodifier] Aspect of the Hawk, Aspect of the Viper
/cast [modifier:alt] Aspect of the Pack
/cast [modifier:shift] Aspect of the Monkey
/cast [modifier:ctrl] Aspect of the Beast

As you can see if I do not use a modifier it will just toggle back and forth between Hawk and Viper which is what I am doing almost all the time. 5 hot bar slots saved

Sting Macro

Here is another of my space saving macros:

/cast [nomodifier] Serpent Sting
/cast [modifier:alt] Viper Sting

This simply lets me use my default sting as Serpent Sting, but in there rare case when I need to use Viper sting I can just by hitting Alt then my key binding. 2 hot bar slots saved.

Pet Attack / Hunter's Mark Macro

Now this is something I found very useful.

/cast Hunter's Mark
/petattack [modifier:shift]

I have this bound to T (for target). Just hitting T will cast Hunter's Mark on the target but if I hit Shift - T it casts Hunter's Mark AND send my pet in to attack. This also has the side effect of reassigning the Hunter's Mark to whichever target I want my pet to switch to.

OMG Melee Macro

If in the unlikely event that you find yourself meleeing something (maybe in PVP). You can just mash this macro to dump the hurt on something in close range.

/cast Raptor Strike
/cast Mongoose Bite
/attack

Mount Macro

I know there are addons I can use to do this but I'm a macro kind of guy.

/cast [modifier:alt] Tawny Wind Rider
/cast [nomodifier] Great White Kodo

These were just a few examples of some of the macros I use. More to come in the future once I work out the kinks in some of the others I am working on. If anyone has any suggestions for useful Hunter macros, post them up!

Early Protection Gear in WotLK

2009-10-13T11:10:00.002-04:00

I haven't been playing my Warrior much but when I do I like to tank instances. And because I am a Max/Min personality when it comes to gear I am trying to put together a "wish list" if you will of the first set of WotLK tanking gear I will be shooting for. I personally don't like relying on random boss drops to gear up and I always look for crafted or quest rewards that I can get now to help later in the farming of better loot off of bosses.

Crafted Pieces

If you weren't a Burning Crusade tank then you may want to look into getting the entry level Cobalt piece crafted for you. The mats are minimal and these pieces will provide you with a good starting point for tanking places like The Nexus.

Cobalt Belt
Cobalt Boots
Cobalt Bracers
Cobalt Chestpiece
Cobalt Gauntlets
Cobalt Helm
Cobalt Legplates
Cobalt Shoulders

37 x Cobalt Bars will get you the entire set. If you are a miner you can scavenge up the ore pretty quickly while doing your quests.

Quest Rewards

Head over to the Borean Tundra and make sure you do all the quests over in Coldarra until you get:

Have They No Shame (68) for Tundra Pauldrons - Plate: Shoulders
Postponing the Inevitable (69) for Gauntlets of the Disturbed Giant - Plate: Hands
Quickening (69) for Boots of the Unbowed Protector - Plate: Feet

Once you have those quests get yourself a group to run through The Nexus. You can easily bang out all 3 quests in one run and net yourself 3 nice upgrades. Unfortunately none of the bosses seem to drop any decent tanking gear. So doing this dungeon more than once to get the quests done really isn't necessary. There are however a few nice DPS items in there which I'll probably cover in a different post.

Next time I get a chance I will cover the next level of tanking gear beyond these pieces which should hold you over until around level 74 or so.

A Hunter and his... Devilsaur?

2009-10-12T15:54:00.003-04:00

Yes that's right, I got myself a Devilsaur as my Ferocity pet. Un'goro Crater is probably my favorite zone in the game still. Where else can you find steamy jungle, a volcano, and giant-sized T-Rex mobs trying to sneak up on you? Add in some real Nintendo fanboy stuff with the Mario & Luigi and Zelda references and I can't resist. I love going back there to do my daily quest for the Venomhide Raptor mount (which I can't wait for).

I wasn't really sure if the Devilsaur you ended up with as a hunter had anything to do with the actual one you tamed so i hunted around for the one that I believe had racked up the most kills against me... the Ironhide Deveilsaur. I tracked him down threw down a freeze trap and started the tame. It was over before he got out of the trap and as he shrunk down to hunter pet size he changed skins into a non-unique Devilsaur hunter pet looking graphic, much to my dismay. Although, I have gotten several comments on him so far.

I named him Lou after Dante's original raptor pet back on Durotan in the very early days of WoW. If anyone know how to get a hold of Dante... please point him here ;)

And a new chapter begins

2009-10-07T09:37:00.000-04:00

Swath hit level 60 last night finally. Thanks to my guild letting me tag along on their run through Blackwing Lair the other night I had some nice Epic gear waiting for me. Although now that I am questing heavily in Hellfire Peninsula, and will probably start running some instances, that gear will be sold to the vendor sooner rather than later.

I am full Beast Mastery for my main spec so I have been trying to decide what I want to get for my first "exotic" pet. I am thinking some sort of Devilsaur since they can be fun for PvP.

The Nexus Review

2009-10-05T11:59:00.000-04:00

Well I finally got Swathcutter transferred over to Cairne and was able to get a group together to run my first instance in WotLK... The Nexus. I was able to run the dungeon twice in one night, once as a tank and once as DPS. Despite being horribly out of practice I think I did alright.

First off I have to give The Nexus a big thumbs up for ambiance. The look of the place was very nice I thought, and the layout lends itself well to go and hit any boss in any order you like (there were no restrictions that I could find). Which means if you and your friends are farming for a particular piece of gear you can head straight there. To add to the ambiance I thought the soundtrack for the dungeon was very well done.

There seemed to be a rather good mix of mob types in the dungeon as well... Humanoids, Elementals, Dragonkin, etc. If you were to go the Crowd Control route in this dungeon (like maybe on Heroic) it would make a number of different classes viable to help with CC in different sections of the instance.

The boss fights themselves I thought were rather lackluster. Mainly due to the fact that their "gimmicks" were easily dealt with. The caster chick splits into copies, just focus fire them down. The giant glowy voidwalker guy does nothing special, when he turns Pally on you any becomes invulnerable just kill the adds that show up, rinse and repeat. Now the Treeshaper boss had really good potential for a fun fight, but his spikes shooting out of the ground are easily avoided by simply standing on top of him. The mechanic for the (what has been the usual) final fight with the dragon in the central area, is easily avoided by staying mobile throughout the fight.

I wasn't impressed by the loot drops from the bosses, although they might be worth it for someone who just hit level 70. The quest rewards however I found very nice and was able to pick up a few upgrades to my tanking set.

The Nexus gets a B+ in my book. I just hope it gets more difficult on Heroic since it did seem overly simplistic.

Raking in the gold

2009-10-01T11:00:00.003-04:00

I don't know what it is, but I must be doing something right this time around. My hunter has been making great money off of the Auction House. I thought I would write a little post about what I've been doing to help anyone else that is leveling a new character.

The first thing I noticed when I starting making money off the AH is that on a mature server with lots of level 80s people have a ton of extra cash to spend on leveling their other characters and their professions.

Preparation

There are a few addons I would recommend getting (hit up Curse for your addon needs):
Auctioneer
SellJunk
Gatherer

Apart from this you will need the ability to disenchant. As I am a Skinner / Leatherworker and have no other characters on this server I have just been asking my guild mates to DE for me. I try to spread the work around so I don't spam anyone's mail boxes too bad ;)

Step 1 - Get the biggest bags you can afford
Step 2 - Take at least 1 gathering skill (2 if you don't feel like crafting, although I have found Leatherworking to be quite lucrative in a roundabout way, more on that later)
Step 3 - Never sell greens to the vendor. Always put them on the Auction House. If they do not sell the first time around I just DE them and post the resulting enchanting mats for sale on the AH
Step 4 - Buy Low & Sell High. I know it sounds dumb because everyone says it... But how many people do you know actually do it? I see incredible deals on the AH all the time. Stuff priced WAY below what it should be. So I just buy them up and repost at a more lucrative price point.

Now I haven't even been working hard at this at all, just doing it every time I pass through a major city and leveling like crazy. I had made my first 1000g by the time I was level 50 and that was at like 2.5 days /played. I power leveled my way through to 300 LW rather quickly by using the cash I had made to buy the materials I needed. This seemed like a big investment at the time but by selling what I made back on the AH I ended up making money in the end. If you work hard at it I think you could do far better than I have.

Good items to make money off of are good gear for twinking out for low level Battlegrounds, namely the Level 29 BGs. Any of the Eagle leather for druids or Monkey leather for Rogues seem to sell especially well for this bracket. You can usually pull in 15-30g at a minimum for these types of items.

Also good are any materials for professions. Level 80s working on new professions or starting alts for new professions would rather just buy the materials than go out and farm them. Cloth, Leather, and Ore all sell extremely well.

Conclusion

Level up and make plenty of cash while doing it! There is no reason why leveling a new character needs to be a drain on your main characters resources. Or why your new character shouldn't be able to afford everything they need on their own. Be creative, I have found the oddest things sell really well. If you are short on cash, browse the AH and see what is selling high and get to farming!

Brewfest in BRD

2009-09-30T16:24:00.003-04:00

Yeah I get it... I should have a level 80 character and be farming Coren or whatever his name is for the Brewfest loot. But while leveling my lowly Hunter I thought it was rather rude of Blizzard to put in high level mobs right at the entrance to BRD to one shot the unsuspecting new people leveling up.

Note to all players under level 55:

Run hard to the left when zoning into BRD or you will be granted a one way ticket to the Spirit Healer before you can even get yourself oriented.

Also note that the first pull of dwarves you pull WILL run when low on health. Often in a very unwelcome direction. >8(

Back in the saddle again...

2009-09-30T16:09:00.003-04:00

I'm back! With a new name for the blog, new template, and a fresh perspective on the game. For those that get the reference of the new title of the blog I need your help! Does anyone have my old avatar kicking around from our old guild forums?

For those that don't know I have moved to Cairne as my main server after coming back from a long break to Vek'Nilash to find all of the people I enjoyed playing with have transferred there. Since I quit playing prior to WotLK I had to shell out the cash for the expansion so I am little short currently to be able to pay for a transfer for Swathcutter, but he will no doubt make it to Cairne eventually in all his Fury!

In the meantime however I created a Tauren Hunter named Swath. Current level 55ish. Looking to hit Outlands by this weekend. I am REALLY enjoying playing as a Hunter solo. Not sure how I am going to like it in Raids. But as far as a Farming / Soloing / PvP character you can't really go wrong with the Hunter class.

Current plan is to get both my Warrior and Hunter to level 80 and then focus on whichever my guild needs more. Keep an eye on the blog for some informational posts in the future! For now it's all about the leveling grind!

Is it time?

2009-08-18T13:07:00.002-04:00

I've been away from WoW for a long time now. Lately I've had the itch to come back. I wonder who is still around... are my old comrades in arms still about? How is the Wrath of the Lick King expansion? What has it done to Warriors?

If anyone still swings by here to check on me hit me up on AIM (BGregorius0810).

A Warrior and his Gear

2008-02-15T10:44:00.002-05:00

One of the best things a Warrior can do is put together multiple Armor sets tailored to the current progress of his/her guild. I've been called a loot whore by many a guild mate, I prefer the term Gear Maximizer. The way I look at it, it is up to me to make sure that whatever I am doing, be it Tanking as protection or DPSing as Fury, that I am maximizing my contribution to the raid. My wife sometimes tells me I am obsessed with it, and I just try and tell her that it's my hobby. Some people knit or collect stamps, I collect gear for my Warrior.

Now the one common thing in all of these gear sets is hitting the minimum 490 Defense so you can stay uncrushable with Shield Block up against bosses. Read on for more about different sets of gear you can expect to collect.

Max Armor/Stamina Set

This will be your bread and butter set of gear and your main priority in gearing for. Having the largest health pool and greatest amount of Armor you can get will give your healers an easier time when learning new encounters and help pull you through some of the high damage spikes of certain bosses (Gruul) and even allow you to last long enough to keep yourself alive when your healers get incapacitated (like in the Maiden fight with Repentance).

Max Avoidance Set

As your guild progresses into higher level content and your healers become more proficient at keeping you topped off, you can start to sacrifice some of your health pool to maximize your Avoidance. A good article about this topic can be read over at TankSpot. This set of gear is all about maximizing your ability to avoid damage all together. Great for bosses that hit fast but not exceptionally hard. Avoidance tanking gear will stack Dodge, Parry, and Block Rating to try and minimize the amount of Damage Taken during the fight. Using this type of tanking gear is situational depending on the damage output of the boss you are tanking.

Resistance Sets

As the guild progresses you will run into encounters that may require certain resistance types to make the encounter much easier. During encounters where the majority of damage taken is not Physical all of your Mitigation and Avoidance stats are rendered useless against those attacks. Your only recourse is to put together Resistance sets. The best guide I have found on resistance sets for TBC is located over at TankingTips.com. Head on over there and take a look at some of the gear that is available and start collecting depending on what encounters are up an coming in your guilds future.

Wrap Up

Those are the major categories of gear sets you should be collecting as a tank. Obviously for your DPS set should be geared for your Spec. Stack Str/AP/Hit for Fury and Str/AP/Crit for Arms. If I ever go back to DPS I'll probably post about gearing up for that. I guess the main point I am trying to get across here is that as a Warrior you need analyze your performance after a wipe and make some gear adjustments if necessary. get yourself a good gear management addon like Outfitter and let it do a lot of the work for you. I have pre-defined gear sets for certain encounters, dungeons, PvP/Arena, Fury PvE DPS, Fire Suit, etc... it makes it a lot easier to stop by your bank and drop a whole set into the bank and pull another one out.

25 Man Raiding - Are we ready?

2008-02-14T10:37:00.005-05:00

Now I know my guildmates are going to read this, and some may agree or disagree, that's fine. This is just my opinion. The question I am trying to answer today is:

When is a guild ready for the 25-man raids?

I am going to use Gruul's as an example 25-man raid since it is the first intended 25-man encounter from what I understand. I am going to split this up into two sections. First we'll go over the group makeup and then gear requirements.

Check out the full post to read my complete ramblings on this topic

Group Makeup

In general you are going to need something close to the following group makeup:

3 - 4 Tanks
6 - 7 Healers
15 DPS

Just a note on tanks... Warrior, Pallies, and Druids are all viable tanks for 25 man raids. In some cases, such as the High King Mulgar fight other people will be tanking other than the usual tanking classes. A Mage will need to be tanking the caster, and 2 Hunters will be tanking the Shaman. Plan ahead and put together a set of high Stamina gear for tanking these fights and you will be doing your guild a big favor. It is the tanks responsibility to be aware of the encounters the guild is planning on tackling and gearing accordingly.

Having a good healing team for 25 man raids is imperative. Ideally you will have a healing team consisting of Druid, Shaman, 2 Pallies, and 2 Priests. If you feel you need a 7th healer shoot for a 2nd Resto Druid. More importantly than what classes you bring is how well your healers can coordinate their healing. There is a major difference in healing in 25 man raids. Its a switch between reactive healing and preemptive healing. When the bosses hit hard enough to one shot a tank who is at 75% health you need to make sure they always have a heal incoming that will top him off before the next attack. There are all kinds of addons that can facilitate this kind of coordination.

Now as far as the DPS goes you will want both melee and ranged DPS. Although I would lean heavilly on more ranged DPS. Maybe 4 or 5 melee DPS to 10 Ranged DPS. The important thing for the DPSers is to learn to maximize your DPS. Do some research, tweak your spec, try different DPS cycles, whatever it is you need to do to increase your DPS. If your attempts are failing due to Healers running out of mana (given sufficient gear), or you are hitting the Enrage timer, then those are big indicators that your DPS is lacking.

Gear Requirements

So what are the gear requirements for beginning 25-man raiding? I don't think there is any hard and fast answer to this question because I have seen under geared players far outperform people who were geared to the teeth. There are some guidelines though for tanks to make sure you are able to sufficiently handle the punishment you will take. The following is what I would consider minimum for doing Gruul for a Warrior, I don't know much about Pally or Druid tanks but I imagine the stats are not that far off (note these are all unbuffed stats):

14,000 Health
15,000 Armor
17% Dodge
17% Parry
25% Block
490+ Defense

For a Warrior fully raid buffed this will land you over 19,000 Health which is plenty for Gruul's. These stats are easily hit with gear out of Kara + Badge reward gear.

As for Healers I think you will be wanting to shoot for a +healing of 1300+ and 100+ MP/5. This should give you enough healing power and mana regen to last the duration of these fights.

Your measure for weather or not your DPS is sufficient or not will be if you can bring down the boss before you healers run out of mana. If your healers have sufficient gear and you are struggling to complete the encounter before they run out of mana then your DPS needs to go and get some better gear or improve their DPS through respecs, changing their DPS cycle, etc...

How do we progress into the 25 man content?

If you look at the group breakdown for a 25-man raid it is basically 2 well balanced 10 man raids + extra DPS classes and a healer or two. What this means to me is that if you guild can field 2 Karazhan groups each week that can both clear to at least the Prince in Karazhan then you are ready to make the jump to 25 man raiding.

IMO a guild that is trying to make the transition to 25 man raids should have two Raid Leaders, each responsible for leading their own Kara group each week. IMO the 10 man raid teams should be static, no switching of rosters each week. This way you can tailor each 10 man raid's schedules to be optimal for those on that team. Maybe an early crew and a late crew, or a T, Th, F team and a W, F, Sat. team. In any case the Guild Leadership should take steps to set it up so that both teams will prosper in Karazhan. Another good reason for having static teams is that it doesn't hurt to have a little friendly competition within the guild. Which team cleared it the fastest this week? Fewest amount of wipes? Most amount of loot awarded to a single person? It's all in fun after all...

It is difficult to gear up 25 people in one 10-man raid a week and it will leave a lot of people on the sidelines, by having 2 teams you keep everyone involved and gearing up each week. If your guild is short a few people and are having trouble fielding a second team for Karazhan don't be afraid to recruit some new players to help close the gap. There are a lot of great people our there in small guilds looking to move ahead in the game and would be willing to make a move into a fun and friendly guild trying to make the switch into 25 man content.

Some Item Analysis

2008-02-11T10:21:00.000-05:00

So here I am trying to gear up for tanking past Karazhan. My biggest weakpoint currently is my chest piece. I am still wearing Jade-Skull Breastplate and I could not decide if I should be saving badges for the Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian or waiting for a Panzar'Thar Breastplate drop off of Nightbane. It seemed like an easy decision at first since the Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian looked more like Paladin loot than Warrior loot. Read on for the full comparison...

Panzar'Thar Breastplate
1450 Armor
+51 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Blue Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +4 Block Rating

Equip: Increases defense rating by 26 (10.99 @ L70).
Equip: Increases your shield block rating by 24 (3.04% @ L70).
Equip: Increases the block value of your shield by 39.

Now with 3 +12 Stamina gems in it you are looking at +87 stamina on this piece along with the other stats. You could go for the socket bonus if you need the block rating I guess and lose some stamina but in general I thing the extra Stamina is worth the +4 Block Rating socket bonus.

Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian
1607 Armor
+60 Stamina
Red Socket
Yellow Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Stamina

Equip: Increases defense rating by 22 (9.3 @ L70).
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 38 (2.01% @ L70).
Equip: Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 35.

At first glance you think, bah Tankadin loot with a wasted on equip bonus. But looking again you see a nice socket bonus of +6 stamina. Lets see what we can gem in there to get it. Obviously a +12 Stamina in the Blue socket, maybe a Shifting Nightseye in the Red Socket for a +4 Agility and +6 Stamina, then in the Yellow socket throw in a Thick Dawnstone for 8 Defense (if you need it) otherwise maybe go for a Glinting Noble Topaz for the +4 Agility +4 Hit Rating maybe.

That will net you the +6 stamina socket bonus for a total of 84 Stamina, 4 agility, and 30 Defense (if you went with the Thick Dawnstone otherwise 8 agility, 4 hit, and 22 Defense). If you want to forgo the socket bonus and go for pure stamina you end up with +96 Stamina on this piece.

As you can easily see the Tankadin intended chest piece is far superior due to higher Armor, higher Avoidance, higher +Stamina potential, and far easier to obtain at 75 Badges vs. a low percentage drop off of Nightbane that you will have 1 shot at each week. Time for me to get going on my heroics and farming badges in Karazhan. I should have it in no time.

Karazhan Clear

2008-02-11T10:05:00.000-05:00

My guild on Vek'Nilash (Sarcophagus) vanquished Netherspite last night! That marks our first full clear of Karazhan. One thing I learned from a tanking perspective it is important for your tanks to know how to jump in and out of the red beam to be able to tank Netherspite for a full portal phase without getting much more than 30 stacks of the debuff.

So for you Warriors that are new to the technique what you want to do is take two or three ticks of the red beam then jump out of it for a few seconds and then get back into the red beam before you end up with the Nether Exhaustion debuff. Doing this allows you to simplify the fight greatly. The way we did it involved the tank who was not in the red beam to just take the green beam at all times during his non-red phase. Healers can still pop into the green beam for a second to get back to full mana, but they have to be careful to get back out of the green beam before the tank who is supposed to be absorbing the green beam gets Nether Exhaustion.

Once you get the hang of it I think the fight is pretty straight-forward.

Because It Is Hilarious

2008-02-04T12:17:00.000-05:00

This was too funny to pass up linking too. So without any further ado I bring you:

Karazhan Bingo

Enjoy!

Persistence Pays Off

2008-02-04T09:40:00.000-05:00

After what I counted to be 30 runs the Sun Eater finally dropped off of Pantheon the Calculator in Heroic Mechanar. I've been in sore need of a tanking weapon upgrade for a long time and it was great to see it finally drop.

I'd like to thank all of my guild mates that have been helping me run Heroic Mech lately to farm it out. In particular my wife Evandiya for staying up later than usual to complete these runs, Morok and Romulan for almost always being there in one form or another, Profchaos for pwning the demon pulls, as well as Kam and Zor for filling in on some of the later runs we did. I swore that last night would be my last run of Heroic Mech regardless if the sword dropped or not. I'm sure I'll go back if people REALLY need me to go, but I'd like a change of scenery for a while.

Mining Etiquette & Flak Fire

2008-01-30T14:47:00.000-05:00

So the other day I was doing my daily quests out in Blade's Edge Mountains, minding my own business. I am trying to banish my demons just like everyone else when out of nowhere comes some dwarf paladin on his epic mount bouncing on top of me. 2 seconds later he flies off and I am like well that was weird. Then I hear the Flak Fire charges go off all around me and one eventually hits me. He continued to do this over and over again until I got good enough to avoid being hit by the Flak Fire.

Then I think it was yesterday I am just heading out to do a bit of Aether Ray Wranglin' when I see a mineral vein pop up on my map. I head on over there and sure enough it is being guarded by 2 of those flayer type mobs. I pull and go stand next to the node while I fight them, and sure enough a Night Elf Warrior comes flying in and starts mining my node! I /rude to him he finishes up the /laughs at me.

Now these are the times I wish I played on a PvP server. But I am not on a PvP server I have to make due with what is available to me. Namely passive aggressive behavior. Turns out our Flak Fire friend did his bombing run prior to doing his banish demons daily. And I hadn't... So I proceeded to do the very same thing back to him... over and over and over again.

The second guy.. the vein stealer? He hadn't wrangled his aether rays just yet. And as it turns out all of the Aether Rays he tried to wrangle died before he got the chance to do so. Maybe it was me executing them... /shrug

They say two wrongs don;t make a right, but hey it sure made me smile on the inside. Maybe next time they will think before they grief someone.

Full post text

Back to Tanking

2008-01-29T10:49:00.000-05:00

After a long hiatus from tanking I am now back to Protection spec. Now that my wife's Priest is 70 it makes it much easier to get 5-mans together when all we need is 3 DPS. And I think it will benefit the guild more in the long run.

After my first few raids / heroics it feels like coming home. Always loved tanking, and while I had a great time DPSing with my Warrior I think Tanking is more of a challenge and it pushes me harder to get better gear.

Nightbane Down!

2008-01-28T10:31:00.000-05:00

My guild over on Vek'Nilash threw together an impromptu Karazhan raid to make our first attempts at Nightbane last night. After a great first attempt and a few wipes *cough* tank in zerker stance *cough* we brought him down. Not bad considering none of us had ever done it before.

Fury Warrior Karazhan Tips (Part 2)

2008-01-26T09:57:00.001-05:00

Last night we did from Curator up to Chess with a quick attempt on the Prince but it was late so we didn't try more than once. So with everything fresh in my mind and a cup of coffee to help I figured I would bang out the second part of my Fury Warrior guide to Karazhan which covers Shade, Illhoof, Chess, and the Prince.

Once again it's a long read so hang in there!

Trash up to Shade

Your typical trash here, just realize that a lot of the mobs are stunnable so take advantage of it to help save the squishy people. DPS Away an if a tank or a CCer goes down on some of the larger pulls you should be able to switch to defensive and tank away without too much trouble. A lot of magic damage up there so the Armor and Defense doesn't do you much good anyways.

Shade of Aran

I love this fight. It keeps the whole group on its toes while basically being an all out DPS fest. Stay close to Shade the whole fight unless you are running to the walls to avoid an Arcane Explosion. Make sure you coordinate with the other melee on who is interrupting Fire and who is Interrupting Ice spells. Let the Arcane Missles go unless they are going to kill someone.

When the Elementals spawn you should be assisting the Main Assist (or if you are the Main Assist get a target quickly) and burn them down. One of the things I am learning on Shade is that if Shade is casting Blizzard when the Elementals are up get in behind the Blizzad as it goes around the room and take down the first elemental you can get to.

Remember to save your Healthstones until right after you get hit with the Pyroblast. If the Pyroblast didn't kill anyone I hit Recklessness right away to burn him down as fast as possible. If a few people dies I might hold off on it until I see how the DPS is lookin'.

Illhoof

This fight is a lot of fun for a Fury Warrior I think. The only one who out damages me on this fight consistently is the Warlock and the Seed of Corruption for obvious reasons. During this fight I heavily recommend using Sweeping Strikes -> Whirlwind/Cleave as often as Rage allows for. You will get killing blows on the imps constantly and you will be spamming Victory Rush on the Boss every few seconds. If for some reason Victory Rush isn't up throw a Heroic Strike or two in there.

Make sure you create a macro for /target Demon which will allow you to get on the Demon Chains as fast as possible to try and save whoever is being sacrificed.

Trash up to Chess

This is probably some of the easiest trash in the dungeon IMO. As long as you have a Priest or two and a Pally or Hunter to Fear / Trap, you can plow through the larger pulls relatively quickly. Once through the larger pulls you have a decent amount of single pulls to clear to the Chess Event.

Chess

Not really much to say here just make sure you learn what each piece does and how to use their abilities. Be aware that the move and face commands are on a painfully slow timer. So moving next to an enemy piece is likely to get you pounded on without you doing anything until you can turn your piece to face the correct direction. This is really a very easy challenge. I've only seen it failed once.

Prince Malchezaar

While this fight favors the Ranged classes a Fury Warrior can still stay in the top 3 DPS easily on this fight. Run out when you get Enfeebled then Intercept back in. Your Intecept timer should be up every time. If the Enfeeble doesn't hit you pop Berserker Rage, position yourself with your back against the wall as best as you can and eat the Shadow Nova for a full Rage bar. During Phase 2 I usually pop a health potion when this happens just so healers don't have to worry about me.

Phase 2 is pull out all of the stops time. Use all of your cooldowns (if you are confident in your group throw Recklessness now as well) you want to burn him down through Phase 2 as fast as possible. In Phase 3 switch to two fast weapons and bring on the Executes. If you get the flying Axes hitting you switch to Battle Stance quickly so you aren't taking extra damage. Other that the Infernals dropping from the sky its actually a decent fight.

Well I hope this guide has been useful to someone! I had fun putting it together and once I get some experience in taking down Netherspite and Nightbane I'll put together some tips for them as well.

Spending time with my Druid

2008-01-24T13:20:00.000-05:00

I decided to hold off on Part 2 of the Karazhan Tips article until after another good run through there so I have it fresh in my mind. So today I thought I would just post a little about my new favorite ALT. Now I am not really an ALT person, I like to spend the majority of my time on a single character and really maximize their potential with the best gear possible with what is available to me. My Druid however has sparked real interest in me.

I have a lvl 29 twink Feral Druid over on Durotan (Hendarg) that I love to PvP with. I never thought I would have the ambition to level another character to 70 but lately the constant respeccing with Swath has been bugging me and I'd love to have a tank or healer I could play on the side for 5-mans or to bring on Raids when we needed an Off Tank or healer. Overall I've been very impressed with the Druid class so far (as of this writing I am level 30) and I am really looking forward to leveling with him. If I stay focused I estimate another 2 months to 70 (yes I level slowly).

I guess my plan is to raid with Swath and gear up my Druid on the side until he is a viable option to bring as well. That way I'll be able to be more flexible as to what the guild needs for our runs.

Fury Warrior Karazhan Tips (Part 1)

2008-01-23T11:10:00.000-05:00

Now that I am Exalted with the Violet Eye and have brought down all the bosses in Kara other than Netherspite and Nightbane I figured I would post up some of the tips and tricks I have learned running as a Fury Warrior in Kara so far. It's a long post so settle in and read on!

Attumen Trash Mobs

Mobs are stunnable so you can use Intercept to help mobs that break Crowd Control early. Just make sure to turn off Attack when you intercept to avoid breaking the new CC when it hits. Just intercept and then get back to the mob you are supposed to be DPSing. This is great for helping Hunters whose traps break early and their timers are almost up. Good group communication will help a lot here.

Midnight / Attumen

The most important thing to remember on this fight is that as a Fury Warrior you likely have a high Hit Rating as well as the half forgotten Defensive Stance in which you can Disarm. Help the tank that is holding aggro on Attumen by running over and Disarming him every time your timer is up. I put the Revenge skill on a side bar just so I can watch the cool down timer expire while I am in Berserker Stance.

Other than that this fight is just a straight up DPS fest. I tend to end up capped on threat when we are burning down Midnight. After he mounts up I tend to ramp up my DPS slowly so when I pop Recklessness at 20% I don't pull aggro before the timer is up or he dies.

Moroes Trash Mobs

I love the AoE pulls, especially if we have a Pally tank. What I do on these is pull aggro immediately on one of the non-elites and hit Berserker Rage to increase my Rage generation. Then I pop Sweeping Strikes, Whirlwind, and then spam Cleave throwing another Whirlwind every time I can. Chances are when the mobs get low you will drop one and the you can spam Victory Rush and drop a few in rapid succession.

Don't pull aggro on the Valets or Stewards as they are certainly capable of one shotting you when in Berserker Stance.

Moroes

Make sure you are DPSing the right targets, Intercept Shackles or Traps that break early to give the Priests/Hunters that extra second or two to get their mobs locked down again. Watch your threat once you are beating on Moroes. A few unlucky Blinds/Gouges on the tank and you will have Moroes beating you down.

Maiden Trash Mobs

What I like to do here is aggro the wolfhounds that spawn hit Berserker Rage, Sweeping Strikes and go to town with the Cleaves helping bring down the main target while holding the wolfhound away from the squishies.

Maiden of Virtue

I love this fight, well any fight where rage is basically unlimited. Just stand behind the Maiden and do as much DPS as possible. If your DPS is over and above your raid tanks ability to generate threat, wear one or even two of your threat reduction trinkets if you need to.

Opera Trash

Avoid pulling aggro on pretty much anything in this section. A lot of the mobs are un-tauntable so if you do chances are you are going down in a hurry. (I die a lot in this section because I am trigger happy). When fighting the performers stand in the spotlight that comes down on them, it will increase your DPS by a decent amount.

Opera (Crone)

During the Crone event tank Tito when he spawns, he doesn't hit hard and with Berserker Rage up he will drive up your Rage generation quite a bit. Another tip here is to throw some quick DPS on Roar as soon as he is up to get initial threat in on him. That way every time the fear breaks on him he runs back at you instead of going right at whoever is fearing him (in our case almost always a Warlock). You will occasionally end up taking a hit or two from Roar on a resisted Fear, but thats what they made Healthstones and Pots for. When I see Roar beelining for me I switch to Defensive stance (which pulls out my shield auto-magically) just in case he makes it to me.

Opera (Big Bad Wolf)

On the Big Bad Wolf fight break the fears and follow him all the way around the room when he is chasing someone. Stay to the middle of the room and you can hit him the whole way around easily. Easy fight.

Opera (Romeo and Juliet)

I am exhalted with the Violet Eye and I have yet to see the Romeo and Juliet event at the Opera. Once I do and come up with some tips for it I'll post them up.

Trash up to Curator

Be aware of the untauntable mobs and watch your threat. When the big arcane constructs hit you or the tank with the overcharged debuff (I forget what it is called) move away. Be aware that you cannot generate any Rage on the large Arcane Elementals in the pulls right before the Curator so concentrate your DPS on the smaller guys and fill your Rage bar to dump on the big guys.

The Curator

A Fury Warrior is an ideal candidate for soaking up the Hateful Bolts on this fight. It caps our Rage pool and we have more than enough Health to soak it up. With the additional damage taken during an Evocate is is the ideal time to use Recklessness. I usually wait until the 2nd, or (if DPS is slow) the 3rd Evocate, to pop Recklessness. During an Evocate your Heroic Strikes and Bloodthirsts will be critting for almost 5k each. I use a 1.4 Spd Dagger in my main hand during this fight to get as many Heroic Strikes as possible in during the Evocate. Normally the Curator goes down on this fight just as my Threat is about to pass the Main Tanks, I take it easy during the non-Evocate stages of the fight to make sure I have enough of a buffer to allow for a Recklessness boosted Evocate phase. No one should even come remotely close to you in damage on this fight. Another fight where it may help to wear threat reduction trinkets if you need them.

Fury Warrior Karazhan Tips (Part 2)

Tanks Breaking Crowd Control

2008-01-23T10:23:00.000-05:00

This is a repost of something I posted a while back on our guild forums. It is important enough to repeat however so here we go...

One thing I have noticed in recent PUGs, Heroic, and even some raids is that some Warriors don't break Crowd Control properly.

The ONLY reason you should ever be breaking crowd control with a ranged weapon is if getting that close will aggro more mobs. Otherwise a Shield Slam will always be your best bet when breaking crowd control. With a decent hit rating for a tank your Shield Slams will rarely if ever miss and it is not uncommon to see 1k+ Shield Slam crits. With the extra threat it generates and the large damage potential it is the best skill you have for breaking crowd control.

Read on for more...

Just make sure to build some rage on up on the previous mob before it dies. And you can easily fire off a Shield Slam -> Shield Block -> Devastate -> Revenge combo to put you sufficiently ahead of the group on the threat meter.

Another thing to note is if you know the mob is going to make a beeline for someone squishy, due to threat issues, you can do a couple things to help save that person from being hit. Taunt before breaking the Crowd Control if the mob is tauntable. If they are still after a squishy and are stunnable hit 'em with a Concussion Blow to give yourself a few more seconds of threat buildup. If by that point you still don't have aggro, then what you have is a case of noobaggro and there is nothing you can do but let the noob die. (Sadly this is me in more cases than not, I blame my uber DPS)

Warrior BG Power

2008-01-22T19:20:00.000-05:00

Love seeing Warrior domination in Eye of the Storm. We had a couple good healers in this match if I remember correctly. The trick to getting a healer to tag along with you in EotS is to save them from being killed as often as possible. Intercept, Intimidating Shout, Hamstring, Piercing Howl, whatever you can do to keep people off of your healer. Do that and they will very quickly realize that keeping you alive is in their best interests.

A good damage dealing tip for EotS is heavy usage of Sweeping Strikes and Whirlwind / Cleave. People tend to bunch up a lot when fighting for the nodes, use this to your advantage. As the fight for a node begins build up some rage, and when you have a good 3+ targets nearby Piercing Howl -> Sweeping Strikes -> Whirlwind -> Cleave Spam. If you are lucky one will go down and you can get a free Victory Rush in there.

Entering Zul'Aman

2008-01-22T09:20:00.000-05:00

Well my guild Sarcophagus over on Vek'nilash made our first exploratory run into Zul'Aman last night to basically see where we stood in terms of our gear vs. the instance. In an unfortunate turn of events I had to respec to Protection to off-tank for the run. This was not my first time in there as I had been in there with a previous guild, but still have not made it past the bear boss. With all that being said let's look at some of what I consider to be the stats to shoot for to begin Zul'Aman as both a tank and a Fury Warrior.

Read on for more...

Protection Stats (unbuffed)

15,000 Health
15,000 Armor
490 Defense
18% Dodge
18% Parry
25% Block

Now these are all just a little higher than what I have on Swathcutter right now, which in all seriousness indicates I am not ready to tank in ZA. The goal here is to get the biggest health pool possible to avoid dying from the very spikey burst damage you will encounter in the dungeon. A good example would be the 2 pulls prior to the bear boss with the riders in them. They hit for a good 1-3k on a normal hit, when they throw that debuff on you though you will be taking anywhere from 4-6k a hit.

Dual Wield Fury (unbuffed)

12,000 Health
100+ Hit Rating
30% Crit Chance
1900 Attack Power
Weapons: 90DPS +

Now on Swathcutter I sit at around 160 Hit Rating, 27% Crit, 1900 AP, and 154 Armor Penetration. I like the extra +hit and I think the drop in % Crit is worth the trade off for the Armor Penetration. Raid buffed it is not uncommon to see my AP hit over 3,000 with Mark, Kings, Battle Shout, Rampage stacked, Hourglass proc, etc. I found once my AP started peaking over 3k I really started to pull ahead on the dmg meters. What I would give to have a shammy in my group!!

Now about the weapons, I would recommend a 2.5 Spd or slower MH, but as for the OH I think that is a play style decision. Personally I prefer the smoother rage generation the fast off hand provides even though the current school of thought is that two slow weapons of the same speed will maximize DPS for Fury Warriors. I am in sore need of a MH upgrade for my Harvester of Souls, and I am current using the Gladiator's Quickblade as my OH weapon which should last me a while. Get the best available to you and put +20 Str on them. If you can afford it you can go with Executioner MH and Mongoose OH if you like as well.

Back to Karazhan

Later this week we will head back to Karazhan and work on our gear some more so we can make another good attempt in ZA in the future. Hoping to get Netherspite down this week!

The Warrior Dilemma - Respecs

2008-01-21T12:48:00.000-05:00

I constantly find myself respeccing. I raid as a Fury Warrior to maximize my PvE DPS and in doing so I consistently end up in the top 3 for DPS for our Kara raids. When it comes time to do my Arenas I find myself respeccing to Arms (mace spec) so that I can be most effective for my team. If we are short tanks one night I may go respec so that I can Main Tank. I have gear enough to play any of these roles, but yet I am still hindered by my Talent Spec.

On one hand I could stay Fury all of the time, but let's face it, the spec is no longer viable in PvP. In PvE Dual Wield Fury is the way to go for melee DPS no doubt. However we lost both Death Wish and Imp. Intercept from our Fury tree which took away any previous justifications for staying Fury for Arena / PvP. These days the Hybrid Arms / Fury specs are ruling the Arenas / BGs.

On the other hand I find it incredibly difficult to play and Arms spec in PvE and provide consistent high DPS. The major issues I find with this spec in PvE are lack of smooth rage generation vs. life expectancy of the mobs. Meaning when fighting trash mobs I feel like I never have enough rage to use as many Whirlwinds, Slams, or Mortal Strikes as I would like. Mortal Strike however is an incredible skill for Arenas and Battlegrounds, don't queue up without it.

I realize there are other classes out there that are in the same boat, but I still don't think the difference in specs is as dramatic as it is with the Warrior class. All I can say is thank god for daily quests!