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LinkBack (47) | Thread Tools |
05/30/08, 11:12 AM
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#276 | |
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King Hippo
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Personally, I'd advocate getting the speed boost, then dumping the next 11 points into Resto for OoC. Especially so if you enjoy doing some lowby WSG for the excellent leather bracers at 40 or 50. At 50 it's right back to Mangle. Very first point I'd ever spend would be on Nature's Grasp though. |
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05/30/08, 12:37 PM
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#277 | |
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Piston Honda
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So, wait till 60+, finish out the minimum required of Feral then go into Restoration. If your into PvP/BGs then perhaps one point into Balance for Nature's Grasp but even then I can't imagine going into Restoration until Outlands |
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05/30/08, 2:56 PM
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#278 |
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Piston Honda
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I used to have my druid take enough points for OoC while mainly going feral, but given the low proc rate and the probability the proc can be wasted due to GCD stress or overkill I don't think its worth it until you have all the good feral talents. The fact that you can forget to put it back on makes it that much less useful if you're just focusing on mobs and not your buffs.
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06/03/08, 4:19 PM
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#279 |
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Piston Honda
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When is it possible and using which talent build does a boomkin become viable? I would like to try it but the early talents don't look like they would help much. Should I pursue feral for the first thirty or so levels and then swap over to Balance?
If so, what would you spend talent points on and when? |
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06/04/08, 11:31 AM
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#280 |
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Glass Joe
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For my druid i swapped to balance at lvl 58 because:
- prior to lvl 58 outland greens and quest rewards, leveling as balance it's simply gimped by the gear (lack of any serious spell dmg hurts) - I could get dreamstate and intensity (spirit on gear and spell dmg are the way to go imho, crit is the last stat to look at since it's so expensive on item budget) Leveling to 70 has been a blast (always had around 100 mp5 while casting), I soloed quests that with my first druid (feral) I couldn't do alone. Speaking about elite quests if a mob is rootable, just spam roots and nuke until it's dead.. For immune mobs (like the masteries in nagrand or the overseers in the forge camps) dot and run in travel form while your mana regen works for you (a feral druid would run OOM in few shifts.. I kited the overseers to zangarmarsh :P ), I came up with the idea of kiting because I couldn't find a group and I was leveling an hunter as well.. balance druids are wonderful kiters imho! My build at lvl 58 was this one: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft For melee mobs: - from range pull with starfirex2, the mob will be beating on you in the same moment you finish the second SF - cast root rank 1 (bind it on your mouse for increased profit :P), it's ridicolous cheap and you don't cast roots for dmg but for the cc - strafe or turn 180° with mouse and run back and cast Insect Swarm while doing it, don't use moonfire since it's less mana efficient and has an high chance to break your roots - starfirex2 (or less if you crit at least once) - profit! In this way you're taking a very little amount of damage from melee mobs (the most annoying ones due to the common interrupts and knock backs). Starfire it's mana efficient, scales well with spell dmg, the only downside it's the lack of push back protection.. stick with it Wrath is only good when you're doing difficult quests or you need to nuke down an add, very mana inefficient Insect Swarm cheap in terms of mana, does some decent damage, you can cast it while you're gaining range and doesn't never ever break the roots Moonfire I used it only for dofficult mobs or on adds for dealing some dmg while i was killing the main target, not mana efficient and tends to mess up your root and run back strategy Balance of Power is good because your roots have less chances to be resisted or broke, spend 2 points in it Force of Nature is very good for dealing with adds or tough mobs (never counted their dmg but with my outland greens they would do at least 4-5k dmg by themselves) RUNNING OOM at some point you'll run out of mana with you innervate on cd, you have two choices mainly: - equip your feral ap stave and random feral greens you come by questing (closet gnome or outfitter for fast gear swapping) and start punching a random mob to death while you gain something like 200-300 mana for each proc (30% of your ap becomes mana with 14 proc per minutes, a slow weapon means an higher proc chance) and you're gaining around 200mp5 while not casting; It's a unique mechanic and I'm sure blizzard didn't intend us to switch gear for maximizing the mana gain :P - just sit back and drink for 20-30 seconds the first choice takes a little longer but in the process you're gaining xp, I always did the first thing since I play on a pvp server and I couldn't simply drink/alt+tab Those are my personal opinions (I'm just a casual player) that I came with while leveling as balance, I hope you'll find them useful  Balance is the fastest way to lvl up? No! But it's a really fun spec to play, and it's more flexible than feral (healing early outland instances is just a matter of grabbing some +healing quest rewards and your mana regen can't be matched by any feral druid) Last edited by ECZO : 06/04/08 at 12:08 PM. |
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06/04/08, 11:56 AM
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#281 |
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Von Kaiser
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I would like to throw my 2 cents in for Paladin-Prot being overrrated, having levelled 2 paladins to 70 and trying both ways.
Before 34 or so we can agree that Ret is best, without consistent reckoning. For 34-61, while still in Azeroth, because of the 2.3 quest change, you want to do more quests than the days when prot aoe-grinding was invented. And I simply don't get all the people saying "quests are just killing a lot of mobs, so it's all the same". No it's not. There are a lot of casters out there, and it only takes 2 to ruin your day. Additionally: any runners are near impossible to deal with (who's paying attention when you're handling 15 mobs), and if they run and find friends, you may have 2 casters shooting you to death from afar before you notice. mobs that heal their friends can make prot-grinding hellacious. there are also hunter mobs who shoot at you, and net you then shoot at you any mob that stuns (meaning you can't block dodge or parry for a few seconds) could mean instant death It takes forever to kill a single lone mob (especially a caster). And a lot of questing does involve finding mobs who can't be grouped to others. Once you hit Outland, a) quests are less important but b) there are even more casters! Also, at 60, you can get Reckoning AND various retribution talents, which are really a great combination for Ret. A decent chunk of survivability, 45 sec stun cooldown, and having reckoning up about 30% of the time. Although either way, Paladins are slow, and very gear dependent. |
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07/23/08, 5:46 PM
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#282 |
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Glass Joe
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I wanted to make this its own thread, but as I haven't posted 10 times I can't create new threads yet and didn't feel like waiting heh.
Most rogues serious about leveling will say to go Combat swords or maces. I have been claiming a Subtlety spec (with ambushes and Remorseless, swapping out the dagger) where Ambush crits 100% of the time would be superior or at least on par with Combat. Until now I didn't have a rogue to back up my claims, so I made one and did some testing. My testing may not have been optimal, but I'll try and cover all the angles. Who better to tell me where I went wrong and give me pointers than the EJ folk? -Character Stats -Weapons Used -Techniques Used -Subtlety Results -Combat Results -Thoughts and Conclusions -Past and Future Talent Order ------------------------------------- ----------Character Stats---------- ------------------------------------- 40 Blood Elf Rogue Specs being compared: Subtlety spec Combat spec Stats with no talents: STR: 72 AGI: 183 STA: 121 SPI: 41 Damage: 105-147 AP: 335 Hit: 0 Crit: 10.36% Expertise: 0 Armor: 1086 Defense: 198 Dodge: 20.27% Parry: 4.92% ------------------------------------- ---------Weapons Used----------- ------------------------------------- MH as Sub and Combat: [Furious Falchion] of the Tiger with instant poison III OH as Sub and Combat: [Sacrificial Kris] of the Monkey with instant poison III Used only for the ambush as Sub: [The Ziggler] ------------------------------------- --------Techniques Used---------- ------------------------------------- Mobs fought: lvl 40-41 Jungle Stalkers (raptors) south of Grom'Gol in Stranglethorn Vale Sub: For the first fight or any fight without Remorseless, Cheap Shot > Hemo > (if Initiative didn't occur, Hemo again) > Ghostly Strike as they come out of Cheap Shot > 5pt Eviscerate > Hemo until dead. For fights with Remorseless, Ambush > Hemo > Ghostly Strike > (Hemo until 5pts, depending on if Initiative or Setup has occured) > 4-5pt Eviscerate > Hemo until dead. Combat: Cheap Shot > Slice n Dice + Blade Flurry (every time it was available) > SS until 4+ points > 4-5pt Eviscerate or Kidney Shot depending on mob health > SS until dead. Riposte every time it becomes available of course. ------------------------------------- ----Subtlety Results (Recap)----- ------------------------------------- Total time: 12:30 DPS: 125.8 * Total misses (including dodges and parries): 148 (27.9%) Poison procs: 69 My dodges: 47 (26.3%) My parries: 2 (1.1%) Downtime: ate 3 times Damage Breakdown: Melee: 34% Ambush: 22% Hemo: 17% Evis: 15% Instant Poison III: 6% Ghostly Strike: 5% *note* 19 fights opened with Ambush, 18 crit, 1 missed. The other 6 fights were opened with Cheap Shot. These 6 fights included the first fight, 3 of the fights after downtimefood, and 2 fights where I engaged a mob without Stealth to imitate the real world likelihood of not being able to start every fight in Stealth and with Remorseless. ------------------------------------- ----Combat Results (Recap)----- ------------------------------------- Total time: 14:23 DPS: 102.2 * Total misses (including dodges and parries): 142 (19.1%) Sword procs: 12 Poison procs: 134 My dodges: 30 (18.1%) My parries: 20 (12%) Downtime: ate 3 times Damage Breakdown: Melee: 60% Sinister Strike: 22% Instant Poison III: 13% Riposte: 3% Evis: 1% *note* Unlike Sub, every fight opens the same way with Cheap Shot, except two fights where I engaged the mob without Stealth to imitate the real world likelihood of not being able to start every fight in Stealth. ------------------------------------- ----Thoughts and Conclusions--- ------------------------------------- 1. With my tests, Subtlety put out 25 more dps, finished 2 minutes faster, and had the same amount of downtime as Combat. This seems to go against the claims that a Sub spec would require you to eat more, or kill slower, or put out less dps. On the contrary, Subtlety seems to take the cake in every category and tie in downtime. 2. My friend said I should have taken Improved Gouge over 3/5 Lightning Reflexes, and dome something like CS > SS > Gouge > Kidney Shot > SS > SnD > SS until dead. Assuming best case scenario, that this would somehow remove all downtime, Gouging every fight for 25 fights would still add 75 seconds to the total time, even if it saved 45 seconds of eating (lvl 35 food took me about 15 seconds to eat to full). That would be 30 seconds longer. 3. My friend also wondered why I didn't take 2 mobs at a time with Blade Flurry. Blade Flurry may allow me to attack two mobs at once, but it doesn't reduce my incoming damage. As I understand it, killing 2 mobs every 2 minutes isn't something a rogue does for efficiency, as it would do little other than to increase downtime. This would be different with Adrenaline Rush, where you would greatly increase your DPS on the 2 mobs, killing them fast enough to not hurt downtime much. Why didn't I take Adrenaline Rush at 40? I'll get to that next. First, my friend also suggested I Evasion when I BF kill 2 mobs, but that is only possible every 5 minutes, and would have only helped twice in my 14 minute test period. Also, in normal questing conditions, I tend to save Evasion for an oh sh*t moment, not burn it every cooldown. 4. As for my talent choices. With Subtlety, not getting Preparation yet should be a no-brainer. It won't help much with efficiently killing mobs, other than any trouble spots where my other important abilities might be on cooldown. With Combat, putting 2/3 Agression instead of 1/3 Agression and Adrenaline Rush was probably a mistake. Giving up 2 percent of SS/Evis damage to be able to drop 2 mobs at a time every 5 minutes, may have helped bridge the 2 minute and 25 dps gap between Combat and Sub. Could it have awarded more than 2 minutes and 25 dps? I don't know, but I wouldn't think so. 5. As for weapon choices. As combat, I would have liked to get a second sword for my OH, but I couldn't find any fast ones on the AH. A good fast sword probably would have been around 1.9 speed or so, which would have procced poisons less but procced extra sword attacks more. How would that have effected my dps? I'm not sure. With an OH sword and Adrenaline Rush I probably would have seen numbers like Sub was getting. 6. The testing data. 25 mobs is somewhat of a small testbed, but with these 40-41 raptors every fight was practically identical since they were simple brainless melee mobs evenly spaced apart with no hiccups. I would like to think had I spent longer testing, killing 50, 100, or 200 of more, the numbers would have been similar. Barring any major RNG dilemmas of course. Now let's look at some of the interesting numbers. 7. The damage breakdowns are about what you'd expect. Everybody knows the bulk of a Combat rogue's damage come from white damage. I notice that Evis only accounted for 1% of my Combat damage, so maybe I wasn't Eviscerating as much as I should have been. Due to the way the fights were going, every time I had 4+ combo points, I felt like it was better to Kidney Shot. As Sub, I didn't Kidney Shot often because I felt like it would have been wasting the dodge bonus of Ghostly Strike. Had I Eviscerated as Combat instead of KS'ing, I would have had to eat considerably more than 3 times. One number that surprises me is the poison procs. As Combat I had more than twice the poison procs as Subtlety. That in itself isn't surprising, as I was attacking faster with SnD and BF, but I'm surprised that Combat returned 25 less dps with that many more poison procs. ------------------------------------- --Past and Future, Talent Order-- ------------------------------------- I was going to test these builds in the 60s, but as they are focused on leveling after all, it's important to consider how they fare pre-60. 40 just seemed like a good testing spot. As with most classes, it is optimal to respec every now and then at pivotal points. In order to go with this Sub build, you need to be at least level 26. Until then it is best to stick with Combat or a mixture of Combat and Assassination. In the 60s, both builds will have several improving talents. Let's look at those. Combat at 69 From my 40 build onward, Combat gets 12% more Sinister Strike damage, Adrenaline Rush, 2% increased total AGI, and faster energy regen with Combat Potency. Then Combat picks up the same Assassination talents the Sub build will take, with Murder instead of Remorseless, Subtlety at 69 From my 40 build onward, Sub gets one more point in Setup and Premed for faster combo point generation, 10% more AP, 15% more AGI, 10% more damage to Ambush and all attacks 6 seconds afterwards, 5% more Hemo damage, and every other fight or 2 another 20% damage increase to Ambush. Then down the Assassination tree similar to Combat. Looking at what is to come, it looks like Subtlety will be improving considerably more than Combat will, although some effects are hard to quantify on paper like Adrenaline Rush and Combat Potency. With Subtlety, I will always be fighting with something increasing my Damage. My ambushes will always crit the mob to about 50% health, and I have 6 seconds of 10% increased damage to get the mob to 35% health (easily done), where Dirty Deeds kicks in and my specials do 20% more damage. So! That was a long post. I plan to test again at some point in the 60s, when I'm in Outlands and both specs will have all their tree's talents. I apologize in advance for typos heh. Thoughts? |
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07/24/08, 4:48 PM
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#283 |
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Glass Joe
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For all the people with enh shaman who are talking about bandaging...WHY!? Heal yourself, having healing spells is what makes enhancement shaman broken in terms of levelling speed. If you're taking so much damage that a single max rank HW doesn't fill you up, or maybe 1 HW then an LHW you're doing something wrong. Either you need to do more DPS (upgrade your weapons, make sure they're slow) or stop fighting red mobs.
When I healed instances as enhance I generally did so from within melee range. I would turn on autoattack on whatever the tank was tanking and heal as necessary. When I needed mana mid-fight (rare but happened) I'd just pop SR and get virtually a full mana bar back. Mental Quickness means having lots of AP which you want for soloing makes you a decent healer also. Once decent heal gear would drop I would sometimes equip that to heal bosses, but for trash it was usually a waste. You'd also be amazed how much less healing is required when the healer is also DPSing as effectively as an enh shaman does. Finally, healing off-spec generally makes you a better healer. You learn to do things the hard way, so when all those lovely talents come along when you respec for raiding suddenly things you previously found challenging are simple and stuff you would've found impossible is merely challenging and fun. The only "downside", and an intelligent player counters it after a couple pulls usually, is the spells you only get through speccing to heal. For shaman this is earth shield and if you can't figure out how to use that I don't know that there's any help for you. |
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07/24/08, 5:59 PM
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#284 |
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Don Flamenco
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From level 35 to level 57 (where you start getting stam heavy BC gear), Heavy Netherweave Bandages are insanely OP. In two to five seconds you can go from nearly dead to full HP with no mana cost at all, even faster than casting untalented HW+LHW. Yes, healing does keep you going fast, and you're very right about what it teaches you, but those bandages are far more powerful than you can imagine. It would be like having a bandage that healed for 15k at level 70.
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07/24/08, 7:15 PM
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#285 |
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Priest for Hire
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Simple: until the Wrath water shield change, mana is the main slowdown for an Enhance Shaman leveling pre 62 (or SR). So if I am using mana for Shocks or a Lightning bolt , then I am draining my mana pretty quick. So while I have all these excess bandages (since I always level FA on my toons) I use them to keep me out of the 5s rule and continue to pull faster
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07/28/08, 9:59 PM
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#286 |
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Glass Joe
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Question about early hunter talents: is it better to get Endurance or Imp Aspect of the Hawk? I don't think the pet's max HP matters all that much when leveling, but I am not sure how much of a benefit the Imp Hawk is after you consider potentially "wasted" procs. Can anyone weigh in? I am leaning towards Imp aspect, but I am not totally sold.
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07/31/08, 3:25 PM
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#287 |
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Glass Joe
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If you find yourself or your pet dying often: Endurance.
If not, the talent that increases DPS. It doesn't matter if it's even a .1% increase for 5 points (which it is not), but if you or your pet never die, there is no use to endurance training whatsoever. |
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08/26/08, 1:10 PM
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#288 |
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Glass Joe
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Levelling as Enhancement:
How bad would it be to use an [Executioner's Cleaver] instead of DW? DW is king I hear, but if I don't have 2 solid weapons laying around where do I draw the line? |
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08/26/08, 2:10 PM
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#289 |
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Bald Bull
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When you first get the DW talent, the difference between the two isn't incredible. The main thing about DW is that it scales better with gear. Without hit, DW gets 20% more auto-attack DPS from attack power, as well as larger contributions from hit and crit (even below the 2H hit-cap) because 1% more hit at 75% hit has a 25% larger proportional effect than that same 1% hit at 95%. Plus the main advantage to using 2Hers, bigger specials, is eliminated by the double-strike nature of windfury. However, if the rest of your gear isn't that great, the different narrows. Probably the biggest problems with such an ax is that at 3.8 speed, when flurried your windfury cooldown is just barely longer than your autoattack, and that when chasing down runners it's really nice not to have to wait 3 seconds for another chance at doing damage.
Leveling isn't exactly progression content so you can get away with a suboptimal build. That said, I would say only use the ax if your only DW options are greens that are several levels behind (like 8). Personally I think that not needing to rely on shocks to kill runners fast is worth it, especially without infinite shamanistic mana rage. |
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08/26/08, 2:47 PM
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#290 |
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Glass Joe
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Wow that was very informative. Thank you.
I can manage to get within 8 levels pretty easily for my weaps just from the AH if nothing else. On another note, I want the slowest possible 1handers for both spots correct? |
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08/26/08, 5:52 PM
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#291 |
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Glass Joe
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Yes, 2.6 is ideal. Again thats less important when levelling than at 70, but in general always aim for slower 1hs.
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08/27/08, 12:33 AM
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#292 |
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Von Kaiser
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When I levelled my shaman, I found that dual wield sucked hard until I put some points in DW spec. Instead I stuck to the [Ravager] and until 43 (and 4% hit), at which point I switched to some blue mainhand or another (I think it was the mini-thunderfury aka [The Hand of Antu'sul]), and [Flurry Axe] offhand. Flurry Axe with flametongue weapon works wonders since FT doesn't lose damage from being wielded offhand and scales quite fast with spelldamage, benefiting the ridiculous speed and extra attacks of flurry axe (you're get Mental Quickness, right?). Incidentally, I also found that the [Edgemaster's Handguards] are absolutely superb -- I enchanted a pair with 15 strength and wore them well into the Outlands (yes, I twinked my shaman plenty).
Regarding rogues, I must say that beelining to Blade Flurry and Adrenaline Rush is the way to go. More crit is all nice and dandy, but reliability trumps burst for levelling, and in the reliability department, combat provides close to pure goodness all the way to 40: - Improved Sinister Strike is a flat buff to your meat and potato attack. - Improved Gouge makes gouge a net energy positive (45 energy vs 5.5 seconds of peace and quiet for 55 energy back) and lets you get one more bandage tick in. - Precision alleviates the nasty miss strings lowbie dual wielding is prone to, and amounts to exactly as much white dps as cruelty (and better yellow dps too -- thanks to the two-roll system). - Deflection isn't all that great for dps (lol), but is strictly better than Lightning Reflexes, because of Parry haste and, most of all, Riposte. - Dual Wield Specialization is probably the single best dps-buffing talent in the whole tree. Take it and rejoice. You'll probably only take 4 points at this time to take Riposte, though. - Riposte is the single most energy-efficient damage skill in a rogue's arsenal. At a 10% chance per attack to activate, it's quite random, but works remarkably well with rogue-style AoE (aka, Blade Flurry) - Blade Flurry duplicates all damage you deal when you're fighting two or more mobs, and 30% haste is just (a fat layer of) icing on the cake. - Sword Specialization is a nice talent to have with a very fast offhand (since offhand swings proc extra mainhand attacks), but takes second place to filling the rest of DW spec and several higher level talents too. - Weapon Expertise amounts to the same total +hit as precision, except it costs only 2 points instead of 5. Remember the praise for Precision...? - Aggression is a flat, reliable boost to your Sinister Strike and Eviscerate. Can't complain. - Adrenaline Rush is what you've been working towards, and you can now use the rather insane combo of AR, Blade Flurry and Evasion to handle packs of up to 5 mobs easily. In melee packs of that size Riposte lights up quite reliably, and the debuff it places helps a fair bit with survivability too. After that, you're pretty much on your own. I'd say the next two key talents are relentless strikes and combat potency, but both are comparatively lacklustre as levelling talents (low hit rating and rare 5-point finishers considered). |
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08/27/08, 1:11 AM
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#293 | |
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Von Kaiser
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And of course, as mentioned before, once the +6% when dual wielding talent is picked up there isn't much reason to be using a two hander anymore. |
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08/27/08, 3:54 PM
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#294 |
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Priest for Hire
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Just like everyone else said, waiting until you get some points in Dual Wield Specialization is fine before switching. But an additional added benefit for to go DW is a higher uptime/procs of Shamanistic Focus, which makes it worth the mana to use more shocks.
I'm actually leveling a second Shaman right now and seriously thinking about slowing down a little until 3.02 comes out just for the Water Shield change. |
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08/28/08, 5:10 AM
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#295 |
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Don Flamenco
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Has there been any word on whether the reduced exp requirement for 60-70 will be put live in the 3.0 patch? If so it may be worth holding any alts at 60 and level them after the patch (with new and improved talent trees).
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