official World of Warcraft

[Gerowen]

This was my first toon ever, made him WAY back in the day when I was playing vanilla WoW. Some of you guys may remember those days, when there was no such thing as Outlands, you got leveling XP from BGs, there were no flying mounts and you didn't get your epic land mount until level 60, :p. Anyway, I dumped him at level 50ish for a paladin, then cancelled my WoW account, as of yesterday I am back in the game and figured I'd go ahead and play the old mage. Got him up to level 56 and completed BRD for the first time ever on this guy.

Screenie

[Gerowen]

What do you guys think of this talent build for raid dps as a mage?

Proposed Talent Build

Current Character Sheet

[+Anarkii Subscriber²]

Hit 40 and got my charger :)

Grats dude! :) Oh yeh something I just found out the other day; if you mouse over the mana part in your unit frame, the mana part changes to your experience bar.

[the evn show]

What do you guys think of this talent build for raid dps as a mage?

Proposed Talent Build

My understanding is that living bomb is 1.5 metric assloads of your DPS in a raid fire build - far more than the trivial amount you'll gain from the arcane talents:

• extra int: 0.4% critical strike chance
  
• Clear Casting + POM = 10% chance for 30% more crit = 3% crit (why not just use focus magic which would work out to almost exactly the same amount of crit for far less points?)
  

Fire is one of those "you actually need +hit" specs so you're going to want precision.

Realistically: your best bet for content like AQ40 is going to be fire down to living bomb, skipping all the "fun" talents like impact, and hotstreak. If you've got somebody else to provide the imp. scrotch buff for you, then pick up incineration instead. example. Your primary stats on gear will be +hit until 17% (-3% for a 40-man raid because you'd certainly have someone providing a buff for that) and then you'd stack spell power (because point-for-point it gives your more DPS than critical strike).

If you're going to BWL then you'll want to be frost (dragons aren't bothered by fire). In that case go frost down to deep freeze skipping all the fun talents (ice barrier, brain freeze, etc) example. The nice thing about frost is that it's fairly easy to play at 60 it provides some raid utility (replenishment, winters chill), and you only need 11% chance to hit in a 40 man raid.

For level 80 raiding feel free to copy Rhyden to see standard issue fire and arcane specs.

Well if that's what you like to do I would recommend renewing. If anything, you'll only waste $15 if you decide it's still not worth it. But now you have a full battlegroup worth of servers to find people to group with from, so it's sooooooo much easier.

For what it's worth, I ran some tests with friends yesterday:

• If you say you can tank: you get instant queues. That explains why there are so many 0-threat, 22k HP tanks running around: They're just DPS classes pretending so that they can farm badges.
  
• If you say you can heal you get instant queues (never more than 30 second wait). Healers seem to be a mixed bag: some good, some horrible.
  
• If you're a DPS class you have a wait, sometimes upwards of 15 minutes. There's just too many of them.
  

If you're a 'desirable' class like a healer or tank, and you join as a group with a DPS then you can expect the long 15 minute waits. Tank+healer groups also have waits of a couple minutes but much less than tank+dps. Groups with tank+healer+dps queued up as quickly as tank+healer groups. Not as fast for tank/healer individually, but way faster for the dps. 4-person groups with tank+healer+2 dps queue instantly.

Queuing for a specific dungeon tends to be a longer wait: several minute in the case of a tank or healer where as random dungeons are generally much faster.

It seems if you like to instance your best bet is to queue up by yourself and say you'll tank or heal any random dungeon.

Edited December 13, 2009 by evn.

[gigapixels Veteran]

For what it's worth, I ran some tests with friends yesterday:

• If you say you can tank: you get instant queues. That explains why there are so many 0-threat, 22k HP tanks running around: They're just DPS classes pretending so that they can farm badges.
  
• If you say you can heal you get instant queues (never more than 30 second wait). Healers seem to be a mixed bag: some good, some horrible.
  
• If you're a DPS class you have a wait, sometimes upwards of 15 minutes. There's just too many of them.
  

If you're a 'desirable' class like a healer or tank, and you join as a group with a DPS then you can expect the long 15 minute waits. Tank+healer groups also have waits of a couple minutes but much less than tank+dps. Groups with tank+healer+dps queued up as quickly as tank+healer groups. Not as fast for tank/healer individually, but way faster for the dps. 4-person groups with tank+healer+2 dps queue instantly.

Queuing for a specific dungeon tends to be a longer wait: several minute in the case of a tank or healer where as random dungeons are generally much faster.

It seems if you like to instance your best bet is to queue up by yourself and say you'll tank or heal any random dungeon.

This is all dependent on battlegroups though. I have never waited more than 5 minutes on my mage by myself or with a tank or healer.

[Eric Veteran]

This is all dependent on battlegroups though. I have never waited more than 5 minutes on my mage by myself or with a tank or healer.

I queued my 80 shaman up for Violet Hold and it took about 10 minutes to pop. I didn't mind at all as my guild is currently on sabbatical and I couldn't find anyone else to do it before. I got tossed in with 4 ~75 toons and they were quite happy, too, since I passed on all the loot.

I can't figure out if you can LFD lower-level dungeons, though. I still need to finish Magister's Terrace and TK.

[systemx]

I love the new random dungeon tool, although being dps, i have to for 5mins+ each round on Barthilas. You can also do dungeons at any time you want and not having to worry if you can find the right classes in the wee hours of the realm time.

Managed to farm 100 emblem's of triumphs within 12hours, so not too bad!

I did notice if you leave a group while being in the dungeon, you get a debuff from deserting the group.. But if you teleport out of the dungeon and leave the group, you don't get the debuff.. Anyone else can duplicate this?

[Gerowen]

Best weapon EVER!

Screenie of some guy I saw with it (IT ACTUALLY PLAYS MUSIC!)

Item Link

[d10p]

Anyone know of a good alliance AND horde realm in the EST time zone? by good i mean not empty and nice balance of alliance:horde players.

[gigapixels Veteran]

I love the new random dungeon tool, although being dps, i have to for 5mins+ each round on Barthilas. You can also do dungeons at any time you want and not having to worry if you can find the right classes in the wee hours of the realm time.

Managed to farm 100 emblem's of triumphs within 12hours, so not too bad!

I did notice if you leave a group while being in the dungeon, you get a debuff from deserting the group.. But if you teleport out of the dungeon and leave the group, you don't get the debuff.. Anyone else can duplicate this?

There's no debuff from leaving early. The debuff you saw is the 15-minute debuff you get when you first get into the group, which keeps you from finding another group too quick. I'm honestly not sure of the reason for that debuff in the first place :/

Anyone know of a good alliance AND horde realm in the EST time zone? by good i mean not empty and nice balance of alliance:horde players.

Well Burning Legion is pretty good. I've had characters on both sides (although I'm fully Horde now), and it always seemed pretty balanced. Wintergrasp seems to switch off pretty often, and I never hear of either side doing a ton better than the other. It's CST though (GMT -6), but even being 2 hours off (I'm PST) there are a lot of people on almost all the time (except when it gets to about 2 AM PST).

[Gerowen]

The only problem I have with the new lfg tool is that, with the lack of tanks, I've been through about 3 runs now that failed. I'm starting to think they should make 18+ only servers because all 3 of the tanks that left us were leaving because, "My mom says I have to get off the computer." The latest one took us through about half of the instance, we were looking at a boss, and then says that his mom is making him get offline, I'm just thinking, "Are you f***ing serious?"

[the evn show]

There's no debuff from leaving early. The debuff you saw is the 15-minute debuff you get when you first get into the group, which keeps you from finding another group too quick. I'm honestly not sure of the reason for that debuff in the first place :/

"Oh crap, Culling of Stratholme? That's too much RP for 4 badges Just requeue until you get Nexus".

or

"The tank only has 30k HP? and I have to roll against a druid for leather? Forget this, I'm leaving."

Dungeon Deserter goes on the first person to leave a group formed with the dungeon pug tool - it keeps them from leaving a group and queuing up for something else right away. It doesn't matter if they were in a group for 45 minutes, they'd still get it.

The other one is just a 15 minute cooldown on using the dungeon finder to keep people from 'afking out' if they get stuck in an instance they don't like.

[gigapixels Veteran]

"Oh crap, Culling of Stratholme? That's too much RP for 4 badges Just requeue until you get Nexus".

or

"The tank only has 30k HP? and I have to roll against a druid for leather? Forget this, I'm leaving."

Dungeon Deserter goes on the first person to leave a group formed with the dungeon pug tool - it keeps them from leaving a group and queuing up for something else right away. It doesn't matter if they were in a group for 45 minutes, they'd still get it.

The other one is just a 15 minute cooldown on using the dungeon finder to keep people from 'afking out' if they get stuck in an instance they don't like.

Ah, I've never had that before so I just assumed he meant the dungeon finder cooldown. Thanks for clearing that up :)

[Stokkolm]

Since I'm a Prot/Ret Paladin I find the new LFG tool to be very handy. It was slightly annoying when I didn't feel like tanking and queued up as DPS though, the wait time was a lot longer. If I queue up as a Tank it's instant, if I queue up as just DPS it's anywhere from 2 minutes to 15 minutes.

I'm on Madoran in the (I believe) Vengeance Battlegroup.

[_neutrino Veteran]

Thought i would share on here as well

Its Rather nice. here are the Dimensions

56.8 x 27.4 x 49.53 cm; 2.04 Kg

And for you folks that are native to the US and don't understand that's

22.4 x 10.8 x 19.5 inches ; 4.5 pounds

I posted this on my Blog as well however thought i would post it here for those who might want to see.

[Argi]

Where's that horde decal from?

[gigapixels Veteran]

So I started leveling a warrior... I don't know if it's the heirlooms or some class changes, but I have never enjoyed a warrior so much. I used to never be able to get one past level 8 or so, but I'm already level 30 after starting him only a few days ago. I'm leveling prot so I can get into instances quickly, and warrior tanking is a lot more fun than I expected (especially since I'm so used to the easy AoE threat with pally tanking). I've also gotten numerous compliments from people saying how great of a tank I am, so that's nice :p

My one issue is that I have to wait till 50 to charge in Defensive Stance... That was one thing I was excited to do after seeing warrior tanks doing it at 80, and then I found out I had to wait so long :(

Where's that horde decal from?

You can probably do some simple editing to the one on the Battlecry page: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wowanniversary/battlecry/

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

As a level 43 what's the quickest way to get plate armour?

I have blacksmithing/mining but it seems I'll need to spend a bit of time farming ore to get up to plate - My blacksmithing is only just over 200.

I know I could instance but I've been powerleveling with a guide rather than instancing. Plus I'm ret for leveling, I assume most instance runs would want me healing or tanking.

Or is it best just to stick through with mail/quest rewards till I get to higher levels? It's not as if I'm struggling with quests, I'm pretty much pwning everything thanks to my weapon The Pacifier.

[Argi]

So I started leveling a warrior... I don't know if it's the heirlooms or some class changes, but I have never enjoyed a warrior so much. I used to never be able to get one past level 8 or so, but I'm already level 30 after starting him only a few days ago. I'm leveling prot so I can get into instances quickly, and warrior tanking is a lot more fun than I expected (especially since I'm so used to the easy AoE threat with pally tanking). I've also gotten numerous compliments from people saying how great of a tank I am, so that's nice :p

I found the heirlooms made a huge difference. Convinced me to level a pally which had been around level 35 for 2 years.

As a level 43 what's the quickest way to get plate armour?

I have blacksmithing/mining but it seems I'll need to spend a bit of time farming ore to get up to plate - My blacksmithing is only just over 200.

I know I could instance but I've been powerleveling with a guide rather than instancing. Plus I'm ret for leveling, I assume most instance runs would want me healing or tanking.

Or is it best just to stick through with mail/quest rewards till I get to higher levels? It's not as if I'm struggling with quests, I'm pretty much pwning everything thanks to my weapon The Pacifier.

It's easier to just stick with what you have and upgrade pieces as they come. Once you hit Outlands it'll all be replaced anyway. :)

[gigapixels Veteran]

I found the heirlooms made a huge difference. Convinced me to level a pally which had been around level 35 for 2 years.

Yeah, I think that's a big part of it. But -- and somebody who's had a warrior can correct me if I'm wrong -- it feels like the combat is a bit quicker than it was when I tried before. By that I mean it feels like I'm using more abilities more often. Before it felt like I was just waiting and waiting for rage to build, and now sometimes I want it to build faster, but overall it seems much faster now.

[Spacce]

Well I'm giving the game another try..

I've been curious about the recent patches and haven't played in about 6 months.

Decided to try a fresh new server, started a gnome warrior, I always wanted to try a little size tank. (tried DK but not for me)

I have to say that I really like the little changes they made to the game, the built in quest helper mostly so far helps a ton.

[gigapixels Veteran]

Well I'm giving the game another try..

I've been curious about the recent patches and haven't played in about 6 months.

Decided to try a fresh new server, started a gnome warrior, I always wanted to try a little size tank. (tried DK but not for me)

I have to say that I really like the little changes they made to the game, the built in quest helper mostly so far helps a ton.

Just wait till you get to level 15 and can use the new Dungeon Finder (unless you already are). It makes leveling so much more fun, especially if you're a tank or healer.

[Minifig]

I got a MASSIVE upgrade for my Bloodshed band last night:

My old ring:

Bloodshed Band

Binds when picked up

Finger Miscellaneous

+86 Strength

+86 Stamina

Requires Level 80

Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 54.

Equip: Improves hit rating by 44.

My new ring:

Ring of Rotting Sinew

Binds when equipped

Finger Miscellaneous

+95 Strength

+103 Stamina

Yellow Socket

Socket Bonus: +4 Strength

Requires Level 80

Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 69.

Equip: Improves hit rating by 38.

I was told to equip it right away even though I won it fair and square with the roll (much to my dismay).. That's the problem with pugs.. :(

I could have sold it for 19,000 gold. :blink: :o :pinch: ..

But, since it was such a huge upgrade anyway, I wanted it for the upgrade, so I used it.

The good thing is, if it drops again, I can still get it again, I just can't equip it again.. profit margin this time!

[dead.cell]

Just wait till you get to level 15 and can use the new Dungeon Finder (unless you already are). It makes leveling so much more fun, especially if you're a tank or healer.

Oh definitely! Working on a mage lately, eagerly trying to get one leveled up despite my typical inability to play clothies. Last night, with shoulder/chest heirlooms (and some rested XP), I got almost 2 levels going through SFK. (Y)

From what I've seen though, it can be very frustrating finding a group of people that actually know what their doing in the 60-79 bracket range, since it requires people to know their class quite a bit more than the lower areas.

I was told to equip it right away even though I won it fair and square with the roll (much to my dismay).. That's the problem with pugs.. :(

I could have sold it for 19,000 gold. :blink: :o :pinch: ..

But, since it was such a huge upgrade anyway, I wanted it for the upgrade, so I used it.

The good thing is, if it drops again, I can still get it again, I just can't equip it again.. profit margin this time!

Hell no, if I could've sold it for THAT much, I would've sold it without a doubt in my mind. Great boost, sure, but I've still got professions among many other things I still need to work on. :/

[_neutrino Veteran]

Where's that horde decal from?

oh i Made it myself. I have a Vinyl cutter that i use with Adobe Illustrator

Here is another one i did for my Macbook.