Simple questions. Simple answers. Complex questions. Flow charts.

[Sheepherder]

The trinket out of H-AN is decent if you just need stamina.

[K9]

If you're a chain pulling tank or healer with minimal downtime you can manage ~21+ badges an hour depending on what instances you get, and how fast you get past the queue (my server tanks queue and are in instantly).

Even for a tank with instant queues, you would have to be getting one of the four 5 badge heroics (there are 16), however all of those tend to be longer. You would also have to be executing them perfectly and at speed, which isn't guaranteed with randoms. 21 badges per hour is an upper limit to what you can get; 12-15 per hour is more realistic, and even that involves very grindy playing.

[Ingmar]

Factoring in getting the slower heroics like Strat and stuff I figure I average about 3 heroics/hour as a tank as long as the groups are decent. That's 5-7 triumphs per instance (after the first one) so yeah 21 in an hour is pretty rare.

[Draegan]

For my tanking set I'm going to just roll on tanking gear in heroics while dpsing.  I'll just get some friends to roll with me.

[Nebu]

Reading this reminds me of just how much I'd love playing WoW if I had a set group to run instances with.  I think that my love of DAoC stemmed from having an incredibly strong to play with nightly.  Now our damn jobs and lives interfere with gaming... priorities suck!

[Nevermore]

Yeah I feel bad for tanks coming along now who missed their chance to farm up the 2 brewfest stamina trinkets.

I feel bad for tanks coming along now that have to deal with all the impatient idiots that want someone who's obviously in the beginning stages of their gear to pull half the dungeon at a time.

[Draegan]

I've never used dual spec before.  Last time I played was Jan'09 and I've recently come back but I didn't need it while leveling.  I just hit 70 and I've going to grab it so I can have a dps and tank spec.  I have a few questions.

How does it work switching specs?  From what I know already it's a timed cast that you can use out of combat and it automatically switches your spec and your glyphs correct?

How do you guys set up your UI?  Do you use bartender and manually switch your hotbar profile?  That's my only concern really since I hate setting up my hotbars.

[Selby]

How does it work switching specs?  From what I know already it's a timed cast that you can use out of combat and it automatically switches your spec and your glyphs correct?

Easy.  Go to your talent window, click the spec you want, and click the "activate these talents" button.  Takes 2-3s and you are done.  Resets any buffs you cast on yourself and others (not flasks or ones that others have cast) and resets to 0 any mana\energy\rage\rune power you happen to have.

How do you guys set up your UI?  Do you use bartender and manually switch your hotbar profile?  That's my only concern really since I hate setting up my hotbars.

Your bars are unique for each spec.  Once you change from one spec to the other, your bars switch automatically too (all 6).  I use zero add-ons for managing my UI.

[K9]

Bartender should preserve your bars for each spec; it's really very flexible and one of the easiest mods to configure.

[Rasix]

Bartender should preserve your bars for each spec; it's really very flexible and one of the easiest mods to configure.

Dominoes works pretty good as well.  Only problem while leveling is that it wouldn't upgrade spell ranks when you were switched.  Nothing quite like blasting away with yesterday's spells.

[Draegan]

Bartender should preserve your bars for each spec; it's really very flexible and one of the easiest mods to configure.

I've used bartender for quite a while.  I'll have to give it a shot.  Does it save your configuration as well and detect a change spec automatically?

I've noticed that it automatically switches Bar 1 when I change stances.

[Morfiend]

Are you primarily PvPing?  Since your gloves are your only piece of PvP gear, I'm going to assume no.  So, for PvE, the Paladin tier 9 (the set you can buy outside ToC for the regular badges) set bonuses look like they're pretty good.  So you should for sure replace gloves, legs, and helm with tier 9 (ilvl 232).  And possibly your BP, even though it will only be a sidegrade, it will also give you the 4 piece which is 5% crit on judgments.  All that is if you don't plan on raiding enough to get frost badges.  

If you do plan on raiding enough to get frost badges, forget all that and spend your regular badges on the 245 gear you can get from the badge vendor in Dalaran.  Then spend your frost badges on the tier 10 stuff you can get from the vendor inside an ICC raid instance.

But yes, you really should only PvE with PvP gloves if it's the only option, as the item budget is wasted on resilience in PvE.

As far as ArPen for Ret, yes it's not a very highly desired stat.  From a cursory glance at the EJ Ret Thread, it looks like you prioritize hit until cap, strength, expertise to cap, and then crit.  So pass that ArPen plate/trinkets/rings/necks to DPS warriors, and get strength/crit.  

The reason for the PVP gloves, is for the glove special bonus (+5% crusader strike damage) which back in Burning Crusade was BiS gear. The t9 chest and shoulders are both downgrades. The chest because I would be trading haste for ArPen and the shoulders are just a direct downgrade.

I plan on doing some casual raiding. Nothing hardcore, so I dont think I will be getting a massive amount of Frost emblems any time soon. As to passing on ArPen, I wish I could. Seems like Blizzard has put it on every fucking piece of plate gear.

[K9]

Bartender should preserve your bars for each spec; it's really very flexible and one of the easiest mods to configure.

I've used bartender for quite a while.  I'll have to give it a shot.  Does it save your configuration as well and detect a change spec automatically?

I've noticed that it automatically switches Bar 1 when I change stances.

It mirrors what the default bars do. If you are a Warrior/Druid/Shadowpriest it will give you different bars for each spec, and then within each spec you will have different bar layouts corresponding to your current Stance/Form/Shadowform etc. So a warrior would have 2x3 sets of bars to configure iirc.

[Azuredream]

I'll add my own noobish question to attempt a derail: what's a good rule of thumb of when to AE instead of single target? I usually go with 4 mobs.  And does backdraft affect the channel time of Rain of Fire?  I find that my AE DPS is pedestrian at best and even on a fight like Onyxia I'm doing about as much single target damage as AE (5.5-6.5K+. Varies a lot it seems). 

Backdraft doesn't affect RoF, but Empowered Imp does. I AoE when there's 4+ mobs as well. Since our AoE is not particularly strong and our rotation doesn't need any time to 'rev up' single target is the way to go on 3 or less, at least in my experience.

[WindupAtheist]

I'm never going to raid, so I think I'm just going to be that guy who does DPS in his PVP suit and spend badges upgrading that. I was doing 2.5k in heroics in just my honor gear + HTOC5 axe and that's plenty, especially for someone who doesn't stand in the fire and has enough situational awareness to occasionally save the day by dropping LoH on the tank or healer. Maintaining two complete suits is just too much grinding and shelling out for gems/enchants.

[Ingmar]

I'll add my own noobish question to attempt a derail: what's a good rule of thumb of when to AE instead of single target? I usually go with 4 mobs.  And does backdraft affect the channel time of Rain of Fire?  I find that my AE DPS is pedestrian at best and even on a fight like Onyxia I'm doing about as much single target damage as AE (5.5-6.5K+. Varies a lot it seems). 

Backdraft doesn't affect RoF, but Empowered Imp does. I AoE when there's 4+ mobs as well. Since our AoE is not particularly strong and our rotation doesn't need any time to 'rev up' single target is the way to go on 3 or less, at least in my experience.

I think it varies by class. I read recently that the threshold for mage AE is down to 2 mobs, at least for flamestrike. My rule of thumb on my moonkin is I AE if there are 3 or more mobs alive, and always finish the channel even if it drops to less than that during the duration, since hey, I already PAID the mana for that damage, I might as well get my money's worth, at least in the sort of normal chain pulling heroics we have these days where there's not much chance to drink etc.

[Selby]

My personal mage rule of thumb for AoE is "can the tank hold my aggro?" as even if there are a decent number of mobs to make it attractive (last part of DTK) most PUG tanks won't be able to keep the adds off of me, so I just single target everything down and do better work that way.  When I review the numbers of each fight, AoE is almost never worth it compared to my single target DPS unless there are 4+ mobs being affected by it.

[Fordel]

Three or More, AE Galore!

[Draegan]

Got my UI and dual spec set up last night.  Works great, less of a pain in the ass than I thought.  I had to get rid of bartender and I'm using Dominos now (I actually like Dominos over Bartender).

The biggest pain in the ass last night was training my 2h wep skills.

Fury seems slightly faster than prot with killing speed.  Maybe I need more gear?  Shrug.  I'm assuming I'm not missing anything (Armory Link for my spec) with just whirlwind, bloodthirst and slamming with the proc.  My gear is crap still except the weapons so maybe that's it.  I seem rage starved and I forgot charge was battle stance only.  Booh.

Any handy macros out there?  Maybe sticking berserker rage onto WW or BT?  Stance dance macro with charge?

[Jayce]

Fury seems slightly faster than prot with killing speed.  Maybe I need more gear?  Shrug.  I'm assuming I'm not missing anything (Armory Link for my spec) with just whirlwind, bloodthirst and slamming with the proc.  My gear is crap still except the weapons so maybe that's it.  I seem rage starved and I forgot charge was battle stance only.  Booh.

Wow. Thanks for this.  I haven't played Fury in so long that the times I switch to it, I just realized that I totally forgot about Bloodsurge, improved WW and improved berserker stance, all of which I have.  Good thing I only quest in Fury and don't try to actually DPS.

Also, Fury spec reminds me how much I  the Warbringer talent.

[Fordel]

Warbringer is arguably the most powerful single talent point in the game.


Maybe ShadowForm beats it, maybe.

[Ingmar]

Maybe in PVP. In PVE it is mostly a convenience factor thing (albeit a very nice one.)

You also forgot Moonkin Form. 

[Lantyssa]

Why do you mock us?

[Musashi]

Got my UI and dual spec set up last night.  Works great, less of a pain in the ass than I thought.  I had to get rid of bartender and I'm using Dominos now (I actually like Dominos over Bartender).

The biggest pain in the ass last night was training my 2h wep skills.

Fury seems slightly faster than prot with killing speed.  Maybe I need more gear?  Shrug.  I'm assuming I'm not missing anything (Armory Link for my spec) with just whirlwind, bloodthirst and slamming with the proc.  My gear is crap still except the weapons so maybe that's it.  I seem rage starved and I forgot charge was battle stance only.  Booh.

Any handy macros out there?  Maybe sticking berserker rage onto WW or BT?  Stance dance macro with charge?

Not sure why you'd want berserker rage tied to whirlwind or bloodthirst.  Also don't know why you'd want charge tied into a stance dance macro.  This is a conventional stance dance macro.  Is this what you mean?

Code:

# show Berserker Rage
/cast [stance:3] Berserker Rage; Berserker Stance
/cast Defensive Stance

This is for tanks to get out of fears they can see coming.  For example, when Onyxia shakes the ground in phase 3, or Nef, or Nightbane, etc.

Here is a shitload of warrior macros.

Here is a shitload more of the PvP variety.  (Beware: website is made out of 100% pure epeen.)

[kildorn]

I'll add my own noobish question to attempt a derail: what's a good rule of thumb of when to AE instead of single target? I usually go with 4 mobs.  And does backdraft affect the channel time of Rain of Fire?  I find that my AE DPS is pedestrian at best and even on a fight like Onyxia I'm doing about as much single target damage as AE (5.5-6.5K+. Varies a lot it seems). 

Backdraft doesn't affect RoF, but Empowered Imp does. I AoE when there's 4+ mobs as well. Since our AoE is not particularly strong and our rotation doesn't need any time to 'rev up' single target is the way to go on 3 or less, at least in my experience.

3 or more for locks, though it's sometimes easiest just to burst things down. Also, if you're in the 4+ range and have a shitton of mana/can tap without your healer getting in trouble, Seed of Corruption is actually really freaking good right now. Just tab seed tab seed tab seed and it winds up cranking out silly amounts of damage for crazy amounts of mana.

[Ingmar]

Three or More, AE Galore!

One or two, just pew pew!

[fuser]

3 or more for locks, though it's sometimes easiest just to burst things down. Also, if you're in the 4+ range and have a shitton of mana/can tap without your healer getting in trouble, Seed of Corruption is actually really freaking good right now. Just tab seed tab seed tab seed and it winds up cranking out silly amounts of damage for crazy amounts of mana.

I'd say 4 or more for boomkins, just not dps efficient as rolling your dots. Even then you have to keep your dots up. Moonfire/insect swarm everything then hurricane, if there's above 50% dot all again, if not dot and dd.

Starfall is risky due to range and aggro, watch out if you add it to a cycle.

[Ingmar]

Maybe in content where stuff doesn't die in the time that one hurricane takes, but its a waste of time to pre-DoT everything in your typical heroic.

[Gobbeldygook]

Code:

# show Berserker Rage
/cast [stance:3] Berserker Rage; Berserker Stance
/cast Defensive Stance

This is for tanks to get out of fears they can see coming.  For example, when Onyxia shakes the ground in phase 3, or Nef, or Nightbane, etc.

There's no more need for stance dance macros for fear, berserker rage is usable in every stance.

[Fordel]

Three or More, AE Galore!

One or two, just pew pew pew!

You forgot a pew!

[Draegan]

Got my UI and dual spec set up last night.  Works great, less of a pain in the ass than I thought.  I had to get rid of bartender and I'm using Dominos now (I actually like Dominos over Bartender).

The biggest pain in the ass last night was training my 2h wep skills.

Fury seems slightly faster than prot with killing speed.  Maybe I need more gear?  Shrug.  I'm assuming I'm not missing anything (Armory Link for my spec) with just whirlwind, bloodthirst and slamming with the proc.  My gear is crap still except the weapons so maybe that's it.  I seem rage starved and I forgot charge was battle stance only.  Booh.

Any handy macros out there?  Maybe sticking berserker rage onto WW or BT?  Stance dance macro with charge?

Not sure why you'd want berserker rage tied to whirlwind or bloodthirst.  Also don't know why you'd want charge tied into a stance dance macro.  This is a conventional stance dance macro.  Is this what you mean?

Code:

# show Berserker Rage
/cast [stance:3] Berserker Rage; Berserker Stance
/cast Defensive Stance

This is for tanks to get out of fears they can see coming.  For example, when Onyxia shakes the ground in phase 3, or Nef, or Nightbane, etc.

Here is a shitload of warrior macros.

Here is a shitload more of the PvP variety.  (Beware: website is made out of 100% pure epeen.)

I'm only talking about leveling shit.  Nevermind.

[Malakili]

Code:

# show Berserker Rage
/cast [stance:3] Berserker Rage; Berserker Stance
/cast Defensive Stance

This is for tanks to get out of fears they can see coming.  For example, when Onyxia shakes the ground in phase 3, or Nef, or Nightbane, etc.

There's no more need for stance dance macros for fear, berserker rage is usable in every stance.

Yeah, i was going to post this.  I remember the days when we were recruiting tanks and if they weren't good stance dancers they were right out.  In any event, a lot of stuff like that seems to been removed/made obsolete by Blizzards design choices.  While I do sort of appreciate that they want to make the game more accessible to all their players, and they want their game mechanics to be transparent enough that you don't NEED to go to elitist jerks to learn how to play passably, I do think that a lot of what I liked about early WoW was this sort of depth, and in Wrath I felt like a lot of it was gone, which is one of the reasons I didn't stick around very long post-80.

[Musashi]

I didn't know they changed it.  Thing is that it isn't really realistic to expect someone to do it consistently.  It's one global just to get into the right stance, then one to get out of the fear, then another one to get back in defensive (from Berserker no less - the one where you take 20% more damage), that's three seconds for you to be destroyed by the holy shit monster du jour.  Then, on a 2.5 second fear cast, you had a 1 second margin for error for avoiding the fear.  Not to mention 1.5 second fears (You had to use a timer and guess for this one).  Factor in latency and you can probably imagine the amount of coke you have to do in order to get this right.  It basically meant that the macro was mandatory.  And I'm pretty sure they don't want to design noobs into the world where nerds write macros.  This was pretty much the sole reason that led the majority of raiding guilds to alliance where fear ward was free money.

[Sheepherder]

Stance changes don't actually trigger a global cooldown.

[WindupAtheist]

So when I'm farming Scholo for runecloth and junk, I sometimes get these dark runes that take 600-1000 life and give 900-1500 mana, 15 minute cooldown. I'm a ret paladin with a mana pool slightly less than 6k. That makes one of these runes worth 16-25% of my mana bar. Granted I don't run out of mana often, but that... doesn't sound useless for being a billion year old vanilla item. Think I'll farm some up and see if I find a use for them.