Jabari's WoW Theory and Practice

Spec Doctor: PvE Warrior Arms Hybrid

2008-02-17T08:44:00.000-08:00

When starting up a new game, there are always mistakes made at the start. Luckily, World of Warcraft is very forgiving of talent-tree mistakes. (Bad memories of Diablo 2 coming back...) With a little bit of in-game money, you can wipe out all of those problems and start over, or change focus completely!

Here's an example of a Warrior build from a new player (now at level 63). He has a good idea in general (Arms/Prot, to be able to DPS well while questing, and be the MT for the 5-man instances), but there are a few problems with the spec.

Let's clean it up!

This build is meant for a character that uses a 2-hander to quest and do DPS, but is also a reasonably good tank for 5-mans as well. This spec is not appropriate for someone who quests with sword+shield, someone who is tanking raid bosses, or for someone who dual-wields while questing. For the first two, a full protection spec is recommended, and for the last a 0/31/30 Fury hybrid is much better than an Arms hybrid.

Current Build

Talents are fully taken, except when noted in parenthesis.

Arms (33):
Deflection
Imp. HS
Imp Charge (1/2)
Iron Will (4/5)
Imp TC
Imp Overpower
Anger Management
Deep Wounds
Impale
Death Wish
(Mace) Spec
MS
Second Wind

Prot (21):
Anticipation
Tac Mastery (2/3)
Shield Spec
Last Stand
Imp Shield Block
Imp Revenge (2/3)
Imp Sunder
Imp Taunt

New Spec (@ 63):

Changes:
Improved Heroic -> Improved Rend
- Now, I'm not saying that Improved Rend is a great talent. Far from it. However, Heroic Strike is terrible for 2-handers (as I've shown here), and if you aren't raid-tanking you won't have the rage to fuel every-swing Heroics. You will be using Rend however, as it is a reasonable use of the rage and puts a nice +4% damage debuff up. 3 points need to go somewhere to advance down the tree, and this is about the best spot for this type of build.

Iron Will (4/5) and Improved Overpower -> Imp. Charge x1, and 2H Specialization (5/5)
- Iron Will is purely a PvP talent, and not a great one at that. For PvE, stuns/charms don't happen nearly enough to justify taking this talent.
- Improved Overpower is a nice talent, but there are two things working against it:
* It doesn't work in Defensive stance
* We're going to reduce monster Dodge by 1.5% (with Defiance), so it won't trigger as often. Even-level mobs will Dodge 3.5% of the time, and Imp. OP gives you 50% extra crit on that dodge, so it's effectively 1.75% to crit (i.e., worse than Cruelty, and stance-specific to boot)
- Adding the 2nd Improved Charge point, which is very nice for questing.
- Adding 2-Hand Specialization - 5% extra damage on everything is good (while questing)!

Second Wind -> Blood Frenzy
- Second Wind is another purely PvP talent. We'll take Blood Frenzy instead, which is a great, great talent. 4% extra damage for melee (including yourself) and hunters. Keep Rend up on the mob!

Shield Spec -> Toughness
- Toughness is a better Damage Reduction talent than Shield Specialization is. Not having the Rage-gen on blocks is a bummer, but you can only get one of the two with this spec, and Toughness is better. It also works while questing, where Shield Spec doesn't.

Improved Revenge + Improved Taunt -> Defiance
- Defiance has always been required for any kind of tanking. Defensive stance threat bonus is normally 30%, this makes it 45%. They've recently added 6 Expertise to this talent, which makes it totally incredible! (6 Expertise gives 1.5% enemy Dodge and Parry reduction - that's a 3% DPS/threat increase for both soloing and tanking!)
- Improved Revenge is an ok talent, but not strictly required, so it can be dropped.
- Improved Taunt is not that good. You really shouldn't be Taunting every 10 seconds, much less 8. I don't take this in my full protection spec, so there's definitely no room in a hybrid spec.

2 Improved Sunder, 1 TM, Improved Shield Block -> Cruelty
- Cruelty is required for basically all Warrior specs. Extra crit is extra damage (for DPS types) and extra threat (for tank types). It also helps with Deep Wounds and Impale from the Arms tree.
- Tactical Mastery and Improved Sunder Armor are both important for this spec, and will both be filled out. I just like to fill the whole Arms tree and Cruelty first. You could certainly fill these out in the other order, especially if you're mostly tanking and only occasionally soloing. I would still fill the 33 in Arms first, as Blood Frenzy is better point-for-point than Cruelty.
- Improved Shield Block is an absolute requirement for raid bosses, but not for 5-mans. In a 5-man, the only thing Shield Block is good for is to get Revenge to light up, and a single block accomplishes that.

Final Spec (@ 70):
Fill out the rest of these in order to get to the final spec:
Imp Sunder (2/3, 3/3)
TM (2/3, 3/3)
Conc Blow
Imp Bloodrage (x2)

Final Note: If you want to hold out on Cruelty and tank a bit more, then use those 5 points to fill Imp Sunder, TM, and Conc Blow at level 63, then the next 5 go into Cruelty, then the last 2 into Imp Bloodrage.

Hunters: You are 2-roll combat table, not 1!

2008-02-07T08:21:00.000-08:00

Well, it looks like I was wrong with Hunter shot mechanics. *sigh*

It seems that all Hunter shots are based on a 2-roll system, not a single "table-based" roll. Even for Autoshot.

For example: If you have 5% to miss, the game first makes a "hit" roll (0..5 is "miss", everything else is "hit"), and if that lands in the "hit" area then it makes a second roll for everything else (for hunters, this can only be "hit" or "crit").

What that means is maxing hit rating first is even more important for hunters, as misses lower your actual crit rate.

If all melee "yellow" attacks are two roll (seems to be true for Rogues, unknown for others), that makes getting "yellow hit-capped" an absolute priority. That also means that Expertise is an amazing stat, even for non-tanks (that shouldn't get Parried), if the wowwiki 2-roll melee working is correct (dodge/parry/block on first roll along with miss, then 2nd roll has just crit).

Can someone confirm 2-roll specials (non-rogue) for me? Should be fairly easy, as a "blocked crit" is sufficient (stormstrike/WF for shaman are both yellow I believe). For the life of me, I can't remember having a blocked-crit Heroic/Shield Slam/Revenge as a warrior, but there's no way I can say that I never saw it, either.

Quick note...

2008-01-30T15:35:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update:

I'm going to refocus this blog to being strictly WoW stuff. *points at new title* Going to delete all the non-WoW posts, and also mess around with the layout a bit.

I'm also working on setting up another focused on game design - it should be ready to start up in a few days, with my new project I'm starting on. Keep an eye out for it, as I'll be looking for volunteers to help me in testing it out!

WoW Bloggers Forums

2008-01-24T12:01:00.000-08:00

Just noticed this pop up at a couple of other sites, so I'll link to it as well.

Blog Azeroth

Looks to be a good resource - I'm new at this so it'll definitely help!

Warrior 2H DPS (spec and sim results)

2008-01-22T09:23:00.001-08:00

This post over at Altosis started a small discussion about Arms 2H Warrior specs - whether it was better to use Endless Rage and Improved MS, or go with a MS/Slam build. Since lots of things are random procs (Sword Spec, WF totem, Flurry), I threw together another sim. Much tougher than the BM Hunter one!

I've used the following basics for each test run:
30% crit (before AxeSpec), 2000 AP (before shout), 3000 mob armor, Weapon is Gorehowl (3.6, 345-518). That seem reasonable? Too low perhaps?

Tried 4 different specs:
#1: 41/20 (Imp MS, EndRg, BF, Imp Shout)
#2: 41/5/15 (Imp Bloodrage, Defiance (+6 expertise))
#3: 33/28 (Imp Slam, Blood Frenzy, 3/5 Flurry)
#4: 31/30 (Slam, 5/5 Flurry)

Base results:
#1, Sword, WF, no Heroic-ing: 820 DPS
#2, same setup: 816 DPS
#3, 0.2s "Slam-lag": 923 DPS
#4, 0.2s "Slam-lag": 925 DPS

Couple of interesting results that I've seen:
- Sword Spec == Axe Spec. It's nearly identical. Axe spec gives slightly better Blood Frenzy uptime, but just use the best weapon you have among those.
- Using Heroic Strike REDUCES DPS! When I use "best-case" Heroics (spec 3/3 ImpHS, only use at 100 rage and not within a GCD of MS or WW), it's about equal to never using it at all. DPS drops off dramatically if you trigger it any earlier than that. Yes, you overflow on Rage a ton by not using it, but that simply doesn't matter.
- WF Totem is a huge amount of DPS: 10% to 15% extra, depending on build (it's better with the Slam/Flurry builds, as those can use the extra rage and crits far better)
- Slam builds are super-sensitive to "Slam-lag". Going from 0.0 to 0.2 latency on the Slam gives a 5% overall DPS loss. Going from 0.2 to 0.5 gives another 7% DPS loss.
- Slam at 0.5s lag is STILL better than 41/x/x, and by quite a bit.
- If MS and WW are both available, use MS first. It's not a big difference between the two, but using MS first is better.
- SpamString-ing is no good either, even with SwordSpec. It is, however, better than using Heroic! (But not better than doing nothing *laugh*)
- 33/28 is probably strictly better than 31/30. The personal DPS is almost identical (assuming the mob bleeds), and at this simulated gear level, it's gonna be another 30 to 40 DPS for each other physical melee class, with the associated threat benefits (Multiplied by Defiance for Warrior and Bear tanks, and Feign-able/Vanish-able by Hunters and Rogues)

One of these days I'll add Bloodthirst/Rampage builds to be able to compare those too, but that's gonna take a while to do.

BTW - if anyone wants any of the sims I've written, shoot me an email or a comment. I can provide source code as well - let me know.

The Melee Combat Table (aka: Dispelling "You can't crit what you don't hit")

2008-01-17T07:31:00.000-08:00

Sheesh - there seems to be an absolute and total misunderstanding of melee (and hunter shot) mechanics over at the BRK Forums. I've seen it posted about 5 times in 2 different threads (about the Animal Handler talent) that "I take AH so my FI uptime is better" and "the pet can't crit if it doesn't hit".

THIS IS WRONG!!!!

WoW attack mechanics make a SINGLE ROLL for melee attacks, and compare the result against a table that is "built up" in a specific order. That order is as follows:

Miss
Dodge
Parry
Glancing Blow (only PCs vs Mobs)
Block
Crit
Crushing Blow (only Mobs vs PCs)
Hit

The table is built up from bottom (miss) to top (hit). Hit is everything left over that isn't already covered by something else.

We'll build the table a hunter pet (0/2 AH, 5/5 Ferocity, buffed by LotP) against a boss, attacking from behind it (so no Parries or Blocks):

0.0 - 9.0	Miss	9% vs +3 mob
9.0 - 14.6	Dodge	5% base, +0.6% vs +3 mob
14.6 - 39.6	Glancing	25% vs +3 mob
39.6 - 59.0	Crit	5% base, +10% Ferocity, +5% LotP, -0.6% vs +3 mob (19.4% total)
59.0 - 100.0	Hit	Everything else (41%)

Now, we'll throw on the 2 Animal Handler points (+4% hit), and build the new table:

0.0 - 5.0	Miss	9% vs +3 mob, -4% for 2/2 Animal Handler
5.0 - 10.6	Dodge	5% base, +0.6% vs +3 mob
10.6 - 35.6	Glancing	25% vs +3 mob
35.6 - 55.0	Crit	5% base, +10% Ferocity, +5% LotP, -0.6% vs +3 mob (19.4% total)
55.0 - 100.0	Hit	Everything else (45%)

See what happened there? The pet's chance to "hit" went up by 4% (just like the talent says - amazing!), but it's chance to crit REMAINED THE SAME! FI uptime (a proc-on-crit) is going to be the same regardless of the extra +hit.

Now, there is one situation where your hit chance can affect chance to crit, but that is a super-rare case nowadays.
"RogueTard" likes big shiny crits - it's all that he specs and gears for. He's also stupid, and attacks from the front of the mob. He's Assassination/Subtlety speced (so no Precision), and is geared out with +50% crit equipment and talents.
Let's build his combat table vs the boss mob:

0.0 - 28.0	Miss	9% vs +3 mob, +19% Dual Wield
28.0 - 33.6	Dodge	5% base, +0.6% vs +3 mob
33.6 - 49.2	Parry	15% base, +0.6% vs +3 mob
49.2 - 74.2	Glancing	25% vs +3 mob
74.2 - 79.8	Block	5% base, +0.6% vs +3 mob
79.8 - 100.0	Crit	5% base, +50% equip/talents, -0.6% vs +3 mob (54.4% total)
N/A	Hit	Everything else (0% - nothing left)

Neat! His massive 50% crit stuff gave him..., er..., a whole 20.2% crit chance. He's "crit-capped". In this case, +hit gear will actually make him crit more, as the reduced "Miss" shifts the whole table down and opens up more crit. This is an extreme example, obviously, and super-rare nowadays.

(BTW - none of this applies to spells - only melee and hunters)

(Edited to make the tables look nice, and to fix a minor math mistake)

BM Hunters - the last talent point

2008-01-11T13:40:00.000-08:00

BM Hunters have had a bit of a dilemma for a while now - once all the "mandatory" points are taken, there are 3 talents that all want to be filled out (Frenzy, Animal Handler, and Bestial Discipline) and 1 point too few to do it.

The "common knowledge" is that 4/5 Frenzy is "best", with some people even taking points out of Bestial Discipline because GftT covers it. Everyone (except for me, of course) thinks that 2/2 Animal Handler is required. (I was wrong on this one BTW - those 2 points need to be there...)

Well, I'm tired of wondering. I'm a programmer, so I wrote a simulator! It's rough, but it's fairly accurate - no accounting for latency or shot travel time, but everything else is modeled correctly.

Ran a bunch of scenarios with a couple of "gear" setups, and varying talent setups. The results are interesting, and totally against the "common knowledge".

General Notes:
- Frenzy and FI both do fall off, even with 5/5 Frenzy and a 20% pet crit rate (LotP). How much it's down is dependent on the hunter crit rate (because of GftT), but they do drop off.
- LotP is, by FAR, the best BM hunter buff. That 5% crit drops Frenzy and FI downtime by two-thirds, minimum. Because of that, I almost think that Improved Seal of the Crusader is a required raid debuff if there is >1 BM hunter in the group.
- Improved Hawk is also important - it raises the # of shots fired by the hunter by 7-8%, and also increases Frenzy and FI uptime (feedback through GftT). Stop using Viper on bossfights - get your mana from Elixirs/Weapon Oil/Mana Pots!

For Jabarii's gear level (new-ish level 70), the best setup is to have 2/2 Bestial Discipline, 4/5 Frenzy, and 2/2 Animal Handler. My crit rate (18.5%) isn't high enough to keep from focus-starving the cat from time to time, so 2/2 BD makes a big difference. (I get more hits from the extra AH point than the "lost" Frenzy attacks, to the order of one per minute.)

For BRK's gear level (mid T5), that changes. His crit rate is quite a bit higher than mine (26.6%), so he gets a lot more focus out of GftT than I do. His best setup is dropping the point from BD, so he would have 1/2 Bestial Discipline, 5/5 Frenzy, and 2/2 Animal Handler. For him, the attacks gained by the 5th Frenzy point cancel out the focus "downtime" from not having the other BD point - total # of attacks are about the same, but 5/5 Frenzy has 2 advantages:
- In any fight with interruptions, getting Frenzy up guaranteed on the first crit is huge. Also, the pet will be full-focus as well, so the BD points aren't as useful.
- Extra gained attacks from Frenzy are "base" pet attacks, which scale off the Hunter's AP (and raid/group buffs). Extra gained attacks from BD are Claws, which don't scale at all.
- Giving BRK a Feral Druid for LotP widens the gap further.

Now, I don't know where the actual "tipping point" is to move that talent point from BD to Frenzy - I would imagine that it's somewhere around 22/23% crit range.

TL;DR version: Go 2/2 AH. If crit < 22-ish, take 4/5 Frenzy and 2/2 BD. Otherwise, take 5/5 Frenzy and 1/2 BD.

Raid makeup theory (aka: when Trueshot aura rocks!)

2008-01-07T07:18:00.000-08:00

Cool, with all the "theory" out of the way, we can go back to the original exercise put up by 2.5 orcs. His (theoretical) invite-list looks like this:

Warrior (1) (Arms)
Druid (4) (Feral, MT), (Feral), (Balance), (Resto)
Paladin (4) (Prot), (Ret), (Holy), (Holy)
Mage (2)
Warlock (2) (Aff), (Dest)
Priest (3) (Holy), (Shadow), (Shadow)
Shaman (4) (Enh), (Enh), (Ele), (Resto)
Rogue (1)
Hunter (4) (BM), (BM), (MM), (SV)

This setup is unusual in a couple of ways - first, the single warrior and rouge (and 2 ENH shaman to go with them), and secondly in the MM Hunter that we're going to leverage very well.

Normally, Trueshot Aura (TSA) is simply worse than either FI or (the first) EW from the other two hunter specs. 125 AP is about 18 DPS for a rogue, and the 3% from FI is better once the Rogue hits 600 DPS. Also, FI works for spellcasters as well (as I used in my "ideal" setup below).

In this case though, we're going to have FOUR characters, all putting out far less than 600DPS, that pick up the aura, and 5 more that all get the bonus (by putting all the hunters together). This makes the MM hunter give more total RaidDPS than another BM would!

Group 1 (TSA group):
MM Hunter
BM Hunter
BM Hunter
SV Hunter
Feral Druid (non MT)

Group 2 (WF):
ENH Shaman
Rogue
Arms Warrior
Feral Druid (MT)
Ret Paladin

Group 3 (spellcrit):
Balance Druid
ELE Shaman
Mage
Destro Lock
Shadow Priest

Group 4 (healers):
Resto Shaman
Holy Priest
Holy Paladin
Mage
Shadow Priest

Group 5 (leftovers):
ENH Shaman
Aff Warlock
Holy Paladin
Prot Paladin
Resto Druid (Treeform)

That last group is ugly, but there isn't much to be done about it I don't think. There are still some synergies there (WoA and mana stream are good for that motley crew, though unleased rage is almost totally wasted), and it's a great group for the Tankadin (which should MT whatever possible in this setup). I think the 5th spot in the TSA group is better with LotP than the shaman though (as the pets don't get any benefit from GoA as far as I know - please correct me if this is wrong), and the Feral should love it (2*FI and TSA, whee!)

Raid Makeup Theory (part 3) - grouping them up

2008-01-05T10:10:00.000-08:00

Ok! Now that all the players have been invited to the raid, it's time to set the groups up. This is a very important task - the groups need to be set up to maximize synergies between members.

There are two ways to set up each group. The first is around a powerful buff (windfury, moonkin aura), the second is around a role (main tank, healer). Both are used below.

I'm using my "invite-list" below, with the spare spots being a Dreamstate Healer spec Druid, 2 additional mages (3 total), a combat swords Rogue, and a BM Hunter.

Group 1 (Windfury group):
- Enhancement Shaman (what the group is built around)
- Arms/Fury Warrior
- Rogue
- Rogue
- Feral Druid (LotP is powerful in this setup)

Group 2 (MT group):
- Protection Warrior (MT)
- Warlock (preferred with Improved Imp)
- Protection Paladin (Either Devo or Retri aura, as appropriate)
- Shockadin Paladin (sanctity buffing the Tankadin's Threat)
- Resto Druid (tree of life aura)

Group 3 (Spellcrit Group):
- Balance Druid (Aura)
- Elemental Shaman (Totem of Wrath)
- Mage
- Mage
- Shadow Priest (mana battery)

Group 4 (Main Healer group):
- Resto Shaman (Mana Tide)
- Holy Paladin
- Holy Priest
- Disc/Holy Priest
- Dreamstate Resto Druid

Group 5 (other DPS):
- BM Hunter
- BM Hunter
- SV Hunter
- Mage
- Warlock

Looks good to me - any comments or questions?

Raid Makeup Theory, part 2 (setting classes)

2008-01-04T11:17:00.000-08:00

We'll say that for a 25-man raid, you need a minimum of 3 tanks (including a Paladin Tank, which cuts the required number down) and 7 main-spec healers. The others are free to be DPS classes/specs of any sort. You want a minimum of 3 Paladins for blessings.

We'll attempt to keep the class makeup as even as possible, with the following rules:

1. The required debuffs must be covered.
2. The most powerful group buffs will be present. These buffs are so powerful, that they will make up for the character's lower personal DPS.
3. Once the group buff is covered, a "pure" class will be taken over a duplicate of the "support" class. For example, a Rogue will be taken over a 2nd Enhancement Shaman (but not over the first).
4. For Tanks and Healers, the classes will be spread out as much as possible as they have different strengths.

The characters would be something like this:
Dedicated Tanks (3):
- Protection Warrior
- Protection Paladin
- Feral Druid

Dedicated Healers (7):
- Restoration Shaman
- Holy/Disc IDS Priest
- Holy Paladin
- Restoration Druid
- Shockadin Paladin (40/0/21)
- Holy Priest (with CoH)
- (any healer)

DPS:
- Balance Druid
- Mage
- Warlock * 2, one with Malediction and 5/5 Shadow Embrace
- Shadow Priest
- Rogue Tri-Spec (11/20+/21+, for Hemo)
- Survival Hunter
(this ends the required buffs/debuffs section)
- Enhancement Shaman (unleashed rage / windfury)
- Elemental Shaman (Totem of Wrath)
- BM Hunter (the SV one doesn't likely have IHM)
- Arms or Fury Warrior (melee group best choice)
- (4 DPSers - mages, rogues, non-SV hunters, a Ret Pali, etc)

Look good? Organizing the groups is next!

Raid Makeup Theory, part 1 (required debuffs)

2008-01-04T07:32:00.000-08:00

2.5 orcs put up a post about group makeups, for both small and 25-man raid groups. Setting up raid groupings is an interesting exercise, especially in that 25 is a bit of an awkward number to work with. It seems like a lot, but you can't quite squeeze everything in that you would like to.

There are three things that need to be taken into consideration for setting up a 25-man raid.

#1) Are all your required raid buffs covered? (Do you have a Paladin with Kings? Shaman with Earth Shield? Warlocks with Improved and un-improved Healthstones? Do you consider Improved Divine Spirit required?)

#2) Are all your required raid debuffs covered? (Expose Weakness? CoS/CoE? One of your warriors have Improved T-Clap and Improved Demo-shout?)

#3) Are your groups set up for maximum synergy?

#1 seems pretty easy, so this post will be about #2.

Here's my list of "required" debuffs, with any associated spec in parens:
- Sunder Armor
- Improved Thunderclap
- Improved Demoralizing Shout
- Improved Faerie Fire (Balance Druid) - too good not to have, see here
- Judgment of Wisdom
- Judgment of Light
- Fire Vulnerability (Improved Scorch - Fire Mage) or Winter's Chill (Frost Mage)
- Malediction Curse of Shadows (Affliction Warlock)
- Curse of Elements (improved preferred, but not required)
- Shadow Embrace (Affliction Warlock)
- Improved Shadow Bolt
- Shadow Vulnerability (Shadow Priest)
- Misery (Shadow Priest)
- Vampiric Touch (Shadow Priest)
- Hemorrhage (Tri-spec Rogue) - the threat-gen from this is excellent
- Improved Hunter's Mark
- Expose Weakness (Survival Hunter)

(16 of them)

Here's a list of "nice to have, but probably not required" debuffs:
- Blood Frenzy (Arms warrior, but note that this one takes up 2 debuff slots as Deep Wounds must be up)
- Improved Judgment of the Crusader
- Curse of Recklessness (but I'm not totally sure when it's appropriate to use this)
- Vampiric Embrace (Shadow Priest)

(5 more here)

Since there is a 40 debuff limit, the following will need slots reserved for temporary use so that the more important things are guaranteed to stay around:

DPS debuffs:
Deep Wounds (1 per Arms/Fury Warrior)
Lacerate/Mangle (whatever the Feral Druid one is)
Ignite (shared between all Fire mages, correct?)
Fireball (one per Fire Mage)
Corruption (1 per Warlock)
Siphon Life (1 per Affliction Lock)
Curse of Agony/Curse of Doom (1 per Lock not putting up CoS/CoE/CoR)
Mind Flay (Shadow Priest)
StormStrike (Enhance Shaman)
Rupture (one per Rogue)

Eek - that's a lot!

Raid class/spec composition is based on this, and up next! :)

WoW Macro (Notes and link)

2007-12-10T19:19:00.001-08:00

According to BBBB, my "focus" macros were wrong - setting the focus is now just "/focus" (instead of "/set focus=target"), so use that instead for the CC targeting macros.

Also, Kirk has put up a very nice set of articles on macro-writing:

Part 1 - (what's a macro anyway?)
Part 2 - ("secure" commands and conditionals)
Part 3 - (your first simple - and then not-quite-as-simple - macro)
Part 4 - (troubleshooting a broken macro)
Part 5 - (focus, form, and inventory)
Part 6 - (shortening a gigantic macro to under the char limit)
Part 7 - (intro to scripting)
Part 8 - (scripting part 2)

These articles are awesome - read and learn - thanks Kirk!

Current 2.3 Enhancement Shaman Specs

2007-12-05T17:41:00.000-08:00

It seems that I'm getting a lot of hits for "2.3 enhancement spec", so I'll put these in a nice, easy to find place.

ENH/Resto (preferred)
ENH/Ele (slightly higher damage, a bit less utility)

I like the Resto minor better, but both specs are good.

More Useful Hunter Macros

2007-12-04T07:35:00.001-08:00

Big Bear Butt has been working on his hunter trapping macros, using basically the technique that I have described below, except that he's putting a "/stopcasting" after the Arcane/Distracting shot macros (so that he doesn't autofire at the main, preferring to wait until the tank has a more solid threat lead). Nothing wrong with that at all, of course.

He had an interesting question however - asking how to get your pet onto the "focus" if the trap gets resisted.

I have always had the following macro for my pet: "TankIT"
/petattack
/petautocaston Growl
/cast Intimidation

This causes the pet to go "tank" my current target - it makes the pet attack, turns Growl autocast on, and casts Intimidation (extra threat + stun). This has been an occassionally-useful macro (to save healers mainly, in 5-mans) - just remember that you have to turn Growl back off in time for the next pull!

In the comments to BBB's post, Kirk said that you could put a target in the "petattack" command. When I looked around before, you couldn't do that (no modifiers if it's not a /cast command) - has something changed? If so, that's super-useful, and you can have another macro "PetTankFocus" that's the same as the above, but has "/petattack [target=focus]" as the first line.

Has anyone tried this?

Improved Faerie Fire - talent benefits (but not for you)

2007-11-30T12:01:00.000-08:00

Improved Faerie Fire is the strangest talent in the entire game of WoW - it's the only one that I can think of that has no direct benefit for the person taking it. +3% melee hit to the target is not much useful for a spellcaster.

Delos (The Laser Chicken) commented:
"The raid leader sees them [the melee] doing 2% more dps, and by comparison you falling by 2%."
"...and you'll start to look less and less desirable than that mage/warlock vying for your spot..."

For your own individual place on the meter, that's true. However...
Warrior tanking gear has almost zero +hit on it. (Brigin goes over it very well here) +3% hit with a Warrior MT means that they're directly generating 3% more threat, plus less missed Taunts. I don't know Bear gear that well, but I'm guessing that it's going to be the same with a Bear MT.

(It's a lesser effect for Paladins - HS, BoS, Conc and JoR need spellhit)

...IFF directly raises the entire raid's threat ceiling by 3% - that's pretty nice.

You also get a nice benefit for Enhancers (that don't stack +hit), Hunter Pets (that can't), and undergeared Rogues/Fury Warrs/Ret Palis/Hunters (that should, but aren't capped yet).

Raiding Moonkin can't be judged just by DPS - you don't get the benefit of everyone else's debuffs (just CoS), but the benefits that you give out boost the raid nicely.
(Don't forget that you can put the Moonkin Aura with healers that provide Inspiration/Anc. Healing for the tanks - often overlooked, and a huge plus for tanking)

Cast of Characters: Amashan

2007-11-30T09:42:00.000-08:00

Was linked by Delos over at Laser Chicken - thanks a lot! *smile*

I have a "baby" Balance Druid of my own - Amashan (see Cast sidebar for Armory link)

I needed a new banker character once my hunter started actually getting levelled, so I created a Druid for some unknown reason. The name was a slight adjustment to something that came up from the Random button on the character creation screen. (Remember, I'm awful with names, and just needed something quickly)

At some point, I leveled to somewhere around 20 (bored, burning off rest XP, etc) - was specced Feral of course, as that's "the only way to level". He wasn't really meant to go much further, only to mess around with when I was totally bored of everything else.

A little while ago, one of my old managers got his old Diablo-2 group into WoW, and they were all happily learning and exploring the game for the first time. They had a "set" group that would do instances once a week, and stay even-leveled otherwise - any other time put in would need to be on a different character.

Soon, my old manager (who I'm good friends with) had an alt (a warrior) up to the same level as Amashan was at, so we ended up grouping up to level and quest together - I was his "guide" (cheating of course by following Jame's guide), and we blasted through a bunch of stuff quickly together. I respecced to Balance at the start of that, as I already had tank, healer, and melee DPS types, and being able to summon Treants seemed like it would be a blast.

If I can get back with that group again, I'd really strongly consider power-leveling Amashan up to run with them, Balance all the way.

Balance Druid Spec question: Improved Faerie Fire seems like an uber-skill for raids, but how do you get those points and keep the threat reduction from the Resto tree? Do you drop the Wrath pushback skill?

ENH Shaman stuff...

2007-11-29T08:20:00.002-08:00

Couple of interesting things for Enhancement Shaman:

Regarding the differences between ENH/ele and EHN/resto, the tradeoffs seem to be:
- ELE: +5% DPS + Elemental Warding
- RST: Totem Range, Improved Anhk, no hit-rating requirement

Both seem to be good. I would probably stay with the resto minor, as I really like the totem range, but 5% extra damage is certainly not a small number.

Shatter has an interesting post about Shaman and totem selection (disclaimer: some foul language). Current theory is that WF is the required totem to place only if there is a warrior in the group (due to the extra rage generation "feedback" from the extra swings). I'm pretty sure that WF is also better for Retribution Paladins, as well. WF == GoA for rogues (or it's close enough to not matter), so use what's best for the rest of the group.

Renoobed (great site, BTW - make sure you check out the link to the Looking for Group comic as well) is promising the SHAMAN POST. He's been talked badly about his poor shaman (tauren female FTW, just like Dustweaver), and I've been trying to stick up for her. *chuckle* Can't wait for the post.

Edit: The post is up, and it is good. (Although I quite like DW-ing, TYVM)

WoWInsider had an interesting column about "where are all the shaman?" They seem to be the least played class, particularly alliance-side (5% population or so). That's a shame, as they are really fun to play (but they don't farm well at all, and that might be some of it). They seem to be a vital piece of any 25-man raid - BRK's guild really needs to get one, especially with their class makeup (very rogue and cat-druid-heavy) . (will get a link when I can, blocked from here)

Not many Shaman blogs around, either. Perhaps I should make an Enhancer my main and make this a shaman-focused blog once I get back into playing again? :)

2.5 orcs - fun read for hunter/shaman

2007-11-26T07:17:00.000-08:00

Was linked - returning favor *smile*

Two and a half Orcs is a blog for a couple that has recently started playing, running a hunter and a shaman (2 of my classes - cool!) Both orcs (good choice, BTW).

It's always fun for an experienced player like me to read up on people that are seeing the game freshly - a reminder of "old days" in a way.

CC Technique (aka: Responding to Bad Advice from a (usually) Good Source)

2007-11-21T11:53:00.000-08:00

BRK is an awesome source for hunter info, and has a lot of good advice and tips (some of which I've even learned from!) However, he's hopelessly stubborn when it comes to his technique to trap a mob. He recommended his "pull shot" macro again just now, and that always sets me off for some reason. I've commented there before and given my technique (and why it's superior) like 4 or 5 times now, and he either doesn't read it, or refuses to try it - I haven't seen him reply to any of my comments (and he has directly replied to some of my other comments before).

The BRK way:
1) Set up a "pull shot" macro, something like "/cast Arcane Shot(Rank 1); /stopcasting"
2) Position, select CC assignment, lay trap
3) Use macro once pull happens. Auto-shot normally turns on when you cast the Arcane Shot - the "/stopcasting" line turns it off so that you don't break your own trap.
4) Somehow find and select the current target
5) Send pet, start shooting. Move and retrap if needed.

Problems with the BRK way:
- There can be a huge amount of lost DPS during step 4.
- If the trap breaks, and something else (like a healer) has aggro on the (no longer) trapped mob, you have to somehow re-select it, and shoot at it enough to get into the next trap.

Jabari's CC Technique:
I use the built-in "Focus" feature to control the CC assignment. You can set anything as your "focus", and the game remembers that. You can set up macros to do stuff to the "focus" without actually having it selected.

Setup) You'll need to make (at least) 3 macros.
- The first is a "Set Focus" macro: "/focus"
- The others are to cast shots at the focus: "/cast [target=focus] Arcane Shot" (This fires your max-rank Arcane Shot at the current "focus", without needing to have it selected, and without switching targets. You will want at least one more for Distracting Shot, and perhaps others (for Concussion Shot and Scattershot)

Pull setup:
1) Select your CC assignment, hit the "Set Focus" macro. The mob's portrait should get a faint white "outline".
2) Select the "first to die" target. Hunter's Mark it. Get in position and lay trap.
3) When the pull happens, hit your "Arcane the Focus" and "Distract the Focus" macros.
4) This will turn on Autoshot, attacking what you have selected. Look at that! You are already shooting at the right guy! Amazing! Send pet, shot rotation, mob dies, go to the next, etc etc.
5) Move and retrap if needed. If your CC mob shoots off somewhere else, hit your "shoot the focus" macros again to get it back to you - still without switching targets!

What's nice about this, is that any class can use it for CC - mages should make a "sheep the focus" macro, Warlocks for Seduce and Banish, Druids for Hibernate/Roots/Cyclone, and so on.

Super useful, higher DPS, and it always works. Give it a try - you won't be disappointed! ;)

(Edit: I guess my "set focus" macro was wrong - updated it to be correct)

Enhancement Shaman Spec

2007-11-21T10:33:00.000-08:00

Before 2.3, the Enhancement Shaman spec was super cookie-cutter - 0/41(Shammervate)/15(NG+Totem Mastery), with a few spare points (that I put into Improved Ankh and Anticipation).

The 2.3 change to Mental Quickness (30%AP -> Spellpower/Healing) makes that a must-have talent now, as well as 1 more for Shamanistic Focus (where the 2H point may not have been taken before). A standard ENH/RST build now would look something like this.

The extra spellpower and low-cost Shocks make going into the Elemental tree much better (as base shock damage is much higher now, and they don't run you out of mana). Is this a reasonable ENH shaman build now?

You pick up Concussion (+5% shock/LB damage), Reverberation (5 sec shocks instead of 6), 15% fire totem damage, and 10% reduced incoming elemental damage. You give up 3% hit/spellhit and 10 yards of totem reach. (You lose 25% off totem mana cost too, but Enhancers have basically unlimited mana now.) The hit I can live with (ENH doesn't rely on it like rogues and fury warriors do), but I worry about losing totem area - 20 yards is a small area for them to cover.

How does the flat DPS compare between the two? (I think 15% fire totem damage is a big factor here - Searing should hit for a ton with the extra Spellpower and that talent). If it's better (and it should be), how bad is the loss of 30 yard totems?

(One other thing - 5 second shocks make the rotation ES, ES, FS, because the FS dot is still up at the 10-second mark... I think FS does more than ES with full raid buffs, and it also gets more of the SP bonus...)

What's your most amusing WoW memory?

2007-11-20T09:14:00.000-08:00

Any good stories from your playing that make you chuckle?

Here's mine:
Was in a Mana Tombs group with Dustweaver. Our group was pretty badly underlevelled for the instance, but we eventually made it to the end boss (but didn't kill him). Group disbanded after about 5 wipes on him.

A couple of days later, I log on with Dust again and almost immediately get a whisper ("You up for MT again?") from the Paladin that healed the run from before.

I was just going to quest and such, so I accepted and headed down there. Had a level 70 warrior tank this time, and the rest of us were proper level so we should finish it at least. Rest of the group was a lock, mage, and the paladin.

As soon as we kill the first boss (the voidwalker thing), the paladin immediately posts a damage-meter report. I was on top (Brag: by a pretty good margin), then everyone else in a clump below that.

From paladin: "Thanks a lot - you just won me 10 gold".
Me: "????"
From paladin: "I bet the lock and the mage 5G each that you'd be on top of the meter after that boss".
Me: "*chuckle* You're welcome."

Brag #2: I was using Wrath of Air the whole time - figured it would make the run go faster (w/the lock, mage, and healer) instead of WF. Yes, I asked the warrior if that was ok first.
Beat: 10G isn't much of anything - he should have bet more!
Variance: Nerf Shamans ;)

What's your favorite WoW memory?

Cast of Characters: Dustweaver

2007-11-20T09:00:00.000-08:00

Even though Dustweaver was my 4th character that hit 60, I'm going to go introduce her 2nd for a couple of reasons. The first is that there is a definite dearth of Shaman blogs around (as is probably fitting for the least played class) and that my next post is going to be focused on Shaman specs.

Dustweaver is my Tauren Shaman, level 65.95 (grr, one more bar to get the earth elemental). Herbalist/Alchemist - no specialty yet, but would probably go Potion Specialty.

She is Enhancement spec - pretty basic spec (although I need to get into the new Mental Quickness).

The name (of which I'm horrible with, remember?) is from the opening CGI sequence, where the shaman grinds the dust between his fingers and then goes Ghost Wolf and then runs off. Nice name - I've gotten a few compliments for it.

Not much else to describe, other than my amusing story, but I'll put that in a separate post.

Added some WoW links...

2007-11-16T08:30:00.001-08:00

... but I think I just missed on getting into BRK's link-list - bummer.

Cast of Characters: Jabari

2007-11-15T11:24:00.000-08:00

When I first got into the game, we had a group of friends at work that were all starting up and creating characters at the same time (one of them had gotten the game a bit before, and talked the rest of us into getting it - 10-day trials are equivalent to "first hit's free").

None of us had ever played MMOs before (diablo2 doesn't count), but someone was bright enough to look around and figure out that we needed a "tank", a "healer", and then the rest of the people killed things. Being the glutton for punishment that I am, I (got) volunteered for the "tank" role. How hard could it be, anyway? *chuckle*

I picked a warrior, of course (our healer picked a Druid, so I couldn't be that to tank, and no horde Paladins at the time). Unfortunately picked a Troll - had no idea at the time how good "+5% HP" was, but oh well.

The name was found from a baby-name site - "Jabari" means "valiant" (Swahili origin), and it sounded very troll-ish, so I went with it. I'm normally terrible with names, but this one turned out pretty good.

So our merry group of 7 co-workers formed the Fallen Elders guild, and ran from 1-60 doing all the instances (ugh Uldamann and BRD). Hit 60 right about when Zul-Gurub was released. We joined up with another small guild to work on that, making good friends and pretty good progress. I shared MT duties with one of their warriors, and we cheered as each other picked up Bloodlord's Defenders and other cool stuff from ZG. We had finally just gotten the tiger boss down a couple times, when...

Our group got restless, and wanted to do MC. Our "guild alliance" found another group of similar size to do that. Problem - a group of 40 with a single priest is Not Good(tm).

Jabari went on the shelf after that. He eventually picked up the Aegis from Hakkar, the Defender of the Timbermaw (from extreme boredom), and got to tank MC and AQ20 a bit, so that was cool.

My preferred Warrior MT spec is a little different than normal - I drop Imp-D-Stance to pick up Improved Heroic (9-rage heroics are so nice for threat gen and soloing) and Anger Management (super bargain for 1 point since I'm there already). Looks like this:

Arms(12):
- Defl, Imp-TC, Imp-Heroic, AM

Fury(5):
- Cruelty

Prot(44):
- ImpBR, Antic, SSpec, Tough, ISB, LS, Defiance, ISunder, CB, 1HS, SMastery, SS, FRage, Vit, Deva.

My WoW Credentials

2007-11-14T13:26:00.000-08:00

I'm going to do a lot of discussion and theory about WoW on the blog, sometimes getting into finely tuned details about various game mechanics and such. Here is my basic history and credentials with the game.

My WoW account is currently frozen, as Real Life has currently intruded too much for the time being. That said, I understand a lot about the game from my time playing, and still like to follow the game theory as that is always interesting. I'll get back into it as soon as my life settles down a bit. *smile*

I have 4 characters at level 60+ (1 at 70) that I feel I know the classes fairly well about (Warrior, Hunter, Shaman, Priest). My "main" character has changed multiple times due to circumstances - I'll go over each character in much more detail in future posts. I also have a Warlock and Druid in the "mid-levels" (30s-40s). All my characters are Horde on the Kilrogg server.

My current "main" (the Hunter) has his Kara key, but I've never been in there (or past that, obviously). I raided 40-mans up through Vael pre-expansion, mostly with the Priest, so I have raiding experience (but not big-time raiding experience).

First!

2007-11-14T13:16:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Jabari's blog!

I'll be blogging about World of Warcraft theory, Real Life discussions/advice, and cooking. Comments and contributions are welcome - I would like to build up a friendly community to talk about various things both in- and out-of-game.

Disagreements are certainly fine, but please be respectful.

I am new at blogging, so any tips and/or comments about layout, writing style, or anything else are highly appreciated.

Thanks for stopping by - I hope that you return!