So, is WOW worth going back to?

[Selby]

Been pretty much doing that, but with more scorch, since it's got a faster cast time. I'm probably miles from the hit cap at this point though.

Depending on your gear and spec (which we don't know your talent choices ;-) ) you need between 11% and 18% hit for raid bosses.  Use less Scorch and more Fireball, and get your crit numbers into the 35% range to make fire really shine if you want to keep it.  Basically you want to keep hot streaks up as much possible to get all those wonderful DoTs on the mobs you are targeting.  One thing to consider, if the mobs die REALLY fast in your group, Living Bomb won't necessarily go off on all of your targets and your DPS will go down.  If I find the tank keeping decent aggro on all mobs and the group damage high, I just use Blizzard on groups.

I would drop the fire spec and pick up arcane and frost. Arcane is the highest dps spec in PvE, and frost is the best for soloing(you're almost incapable of dying).

My Arcane and fire specs are both neck and neck for DPS on single targets and AoE, so I don't see one particularly better or worse than the other.  Arcane is much simpler to do though and I like it for the no-brainer aspects.  I love frost for leveling and PVPing, but if you try and bring a frost mage to a raid people bitch because the damage is considerably lower.

[WoopeeTuralyon]

Oh, frost is useless for raids  and yeah, fire can compete with arcane on a good mage, but arcane is easier. Depends on your preference,  really.

[Azazel]

OK, I'll spec Arcane for the dual. I won't get rid of fire, though - I loves my fire mage. My wife is Frost specced as I mentioned, and we duo PVE quests so we get the slows and such from her and the pyroblasting from me. Arc looks like the best bet for random heroics with random douchebags though, if it's simple and high dps. And I guess it'll be something new to play with for awhile. Especially while I'm still undergeared.

Selby - I found that in some groups the mobs do die really effing fast, which is why I've been using scorch. I was always a fireball guy until a friend talked me into scorch before I stopped. But then again, Scorch had 5 ticks you needed to build up back then, so I guess it's changed a bit. I was using it more to get more spells off before the mobs fall down and have a chance for an instant pyroblast. It's also why I was thinking Frost might have been good, since you can jack up the damage from the Blizzards. But anyway - Arcane it is (for now).

Next question - is there a good Arcane spec tree guide for Heroics?

[Azuredream]

Fire surpasses Arcane at 264-277 gear levels for raids but Arcane is way better for heroics because you can just blow all your cooldowns and spam Arcane Blast on the boss for insane DPS. Also your Blizzard is better and trash dies too fast for LB (usually).

[WoopeeTuralyon]

Fire surpasses Arcane at 264-277 gear levels for raids but Arcane is way better for heroics because you can just blow all your cooldowns and spam Arcane Blast on the boss for insane DPS. Also your Blizzard is better and trash dies too fast for LB (usually).

Really? I learned something today!

[Selby]

Next question - is there a good Arcane spec tree guide for Heroics?

Try this.  I've been spec'd that for a good 6-7 months now (after they made some changes) and I do top 3 DPS in the 264-277 tier gear level of my raids.  Get the Arcane Blast, Arcane Missile, and Molten Armor glyphs and do the same rotation I stated before (4 stacks of arcane blast, missile barrage as it procs or just use arcane missiles instead).  Once you get the hit cap (11% for most) gem for +SP above all else and toss in +sp\+haste gems as available for the color matches.

[Azuredream]

According to WoL Fire is actually quite a bit ahead (4000+ DPS higher) if you look at the 25 heroic parses, especially like Saurfang or BQL where Heroism is popped late due to Molten Fury. When you have 90%+ crit and 1000+ haste you can put up some insane numbers (only thing that even comes close is fury warriors with shadowmourne).

[Selby]

When you have 90%+ crit and 1000+ haste you can put up some insane numbers (only thing that even comes close is fury warriors with shadowmourne).

I've read all that too... but I've just yet to actually make it happen.  Maybe I need more practice ;-)  I did pull 27k on a trash pull, so I know crazy numbers are definitely possible =P

[WoopeeTuralyon]

A lock in my guild did 94k on a fleshreaper trash pull.

[Azazel]

Thanks. Will definately go Arcane on both characters with that spec and glyphs for the Heroic DPS, and gonna stick with Fire for fun duoing. 

[apocrypha]

Be warned, you will be an agro magnet in most heroics. High AOE dps will pull a mob or 3 off of a lot of tanks, so be prepared to ice-block and/or eat the odd death. Don't be afraid of deliberately slowing down your dps with lower-geared/skilled tanks 

[Azazel]

That's cool, and I've already done a bit of that with my fire spec. I'm looking at getting as much DPS possible as going so I can just keep flying under the radar so I can gear up. I'll probably also have to do my wife's mage as well. 

Oh - the LFG tool seems to have completely morphed into the Random heroic dungeon finder. Is there still a quest-lfg tool? There's some group quests I'd like to do. Also, is there a way to set up for older dungeons, like TBC ones. Some heroics there I'd like to knock over, partially for the achievements and also to get old, old quests out of my log...

[Rendakor]

There's no quest-lfg tool. The /lfg tool works for BC dungeons while they're in you're level range. Once you outlevel them, you have to go to them manually.

[Azazel]

fuck. That thing was useful. 

Another question - is there an option to turn off the guildmate auto-fill in the mailbox? So it can be like it used to be and just autofills people from your actual friend list?

[Rendakor]

If you use Postal you can configure exactly what you would like to AutoComplete from: Alts, Recent, Contacts, Friends, Guild.

[Azazel]

Feck. So many mods.

On another note - Emblems of Heroism and Valor - are these, for want of a better term, discontinued now? I was looking at some heirloom gear for my alt(s), but much of it uses these tokens. (Can you mail heirloom items cross-faction?) Also tossing up between some Stone Keepers' Shard Heirloom gear, or the Black War Mammoth. Leaning towards the Mammoth actually, since it won't be achievable once Cata comes out and these dungeons are forgotten about...

[Arrrgh]

Feck. So many mods.

On another note - Emblems of Heroism and Valor - are these, for want of a better term, discontinued now? I was looking at some heirloom gear for my alt(s), but much of it uses these tokens. (Can you mail heirloom items cross-faction?) Also tossing up between some Stone Keepers' Shard Heirloom gear, or the Black War Mammoth. Leaning towards the Mammoth actually, since it won't be achievable once Cata comes out and these dungeons are forgotten about...

The old emblems are for gems and heirlooms.

You can also use stone keeper shards to buy a clickable widget that gives 2000 honor and is BoA. Nice for mailing honor to an alt, or use the honor to buy gems in Stormwind.

[Selby]

(Can you mail heirloom items cross-faction?)

Sure can.

And the old badges are useless except for getting the gear that you can buy from them.  When starting out a fresh 80 some of that gear is pretty good (200-226 range) so there's no reason not to get it (especially if there isn't a better item from the ICC heroics).

[Rendakor]

Heh, I think you guys missed his point. You can downgrade from Triumph > Conquest > Valor > Heroism, so you can still get those Heirloom items for your alts.

[Azazel]

How does that work? Downgrading I mean? Looks like I'm going to have a ton of Triumph over time. Also, is there really a max of 2 Frost badges per day or is there another way to get them? I worked out that it'll take 45 days min of running daily heroics to get a chestpiece. Which seems slightly excessive.

[proudft]

The triumph vendor sells conquest badges at the low low price of 1 triumph for 1 conquest.  The conquest vendor sells valor badges at 1 conquest for 1 valor.  The valor vendor sells.... eh, you get the drift.

You can shift-click to buy a bunch, thankfully.

Frost badges are limited, yep.  You get a few from doing the ICC 5-man quests for the first time, 2 for your daily heroic, a couple from VOA, 5 for the weekly raid, and the rest each week from actually going into ICC and killin' raid bosses.

[Rasix]

There's also a money changer NPC in the sewer inn that works for all.

[dd0029]

You can shift-click to buy a bunch, thankfully.

Note that this is the only instance I know of that is not limited the the normal 20 at a time deal.  I was buying heirlooms and needed to shift 75 and found it out by accident.

[Rendakor]

Shift-clicking is limited by what the item stacks to; there has never* been a hard-cap of 20.

*at least not in WotLK.

[Ingmar]

How does that work? Downgrading I mean? Looks like I'm going to have a ton of Triumph over time. Also, is there really a max of 2 Frost badges per day or is there another way to get them? I worked out that it'll take 45 days min of running daily heroics to get a chestpiece. Which seems slightly excessive.

Frosts drop from the weekly raid quest, and from running ICC and the top guy in VoA. The 2 frosts per day thing is more a bone thrown to people to let them get some mileage out of the dungeons than something intended to be the primary path to that gear. If all you're planning to do is the triumph-dropping heroics anyway then you don't really need the frost badge stuff anyway.

[dd0029]

Shift-clicking is limited by what the item stacks to; there has never* been a hard-cap of 20.

*at least not in WotLK.

Probably one of those things I never really put 2 and 2 together.  Most things you could buy had a stack limit of 20, so 20's what you could buy.  The more you know.  Not quite as bad as figuring out at lvl 40 on my priest, note my soon to be 3rd 60 at the time, that you could eat and drink at the same time, but close.

[Merusk]

How does that work? Downgrading I mean? Looks like I'm going to have a ton of Triumph over time. Also, is there really a max of 2 Frost badges per day or is there another way to get them? I worked out that it'll take 45 days min of running daily heroics to get a chestpiece. Which seems slightly excessive.

As mentioned the 2/day is a bone thrown to folks who don't want to raid.  There's also a something you should know about what pieces you should buy.  Don't buy a Leg or Glove using frost badges.  Those drop off the Archavon instance bosses which are easily PUG'd after a Wintergrasp battle.  You only get one shot a week at the 25 and 10 man versions like any other raid but it's still better to do that than to blow frost badges on these pieces. 

The best pieces to pick up using your limited frost badges are (imo) your trinkets, then your rings/ belts/ etc. (Unless you're of a class where the T9s are equiv to the T10 bits.)   Only after that would I buy armor, because it's so damn expensive to get.   Without raiding you're not going to be able to get anything good for those slots out of instances and the triumph badges are better spent on your T9 armor bits and then heirlooms for alts and then gems for the AH.  Besides Full T9 is way overgeared for dailies and heroics and the first zone in Cata will replace most of your items. (Hello B.C.!)

[Morat20]

I'm going for the full T9 set, and both rings. Figure I'll use my limited frost on trinkets, actually. Still got to figure out what to do about a ranged weapon.

Once I get the full T9 set, I'll get the heriloom items. You can get a LOT of triumph badges just doing a few heroics.

[Zetor]

I got this gun from the AH for my hunter when I hit 80, haven't regretted it since. Yes, I know it's a tank gun... it's also fairly cheap (I bought it for 1k) and due to the way how hunters scale with raw weapon damage/dps (see also here), it does more damage than any non-raid weapon and raid weapons before the middle/end of ICC10. If you're BM spec, it's even better than some of the ICC25 ranged weapons due to its fast speed. With that gun and zero raid gear I can do 4.5k sustained dps in heroics and 7k in raids single-target as survival spec while also providing replenishment, which isn't too shabby imo.

If you don't want to blow money on the AH, the next best ranged weapon is this crossbow from heroic pit of saron. Next step down is this gun from heroic TOC and this gun from normal pit of saron. I recommend against buying the 'intended BOE epic gun', it is much worse than any of the alternatives and way too expensive..

[Azazel]

Really? They're going the Hellfire route again? Didn't they get lots of complaints last time?

I was hoping that the heroic gear could be useful for a few levels at least -compared to the frostsavage gear we were wearing when we stopped playing

[Sjofn]

I don't know if they got "a lot" of complaints relative to their actual playerbase. I know the raiders were mostly annoyed, but back then that wasn't really a lot of people.

[Azazel]

Another possibly-dumb question. I just got my triumph badge hat. Looks like shoulders next, then the wand. Should I be looking at the Hateful Gladiator's Chest and Legs? - there doesn't seem to be an upgrade path using triumph badges for those slots, and as we've seen, Frost Badges will take forever.

or is there something else?

[Ingmar]

There is indeed something else - if you go to the actual cloth vendors in the tailor shop they have the T9 pieces for sale - hat, shoulders, chest, pants, gloves. For most classes you want to hit the 4 piece set bonus so I would probably be looking at buying the T9 shoulders rather than the higher level off-set ones unless you have an unexciting 4 piece bonus on your T9.

[Merusk]

I don't know if they got "a lot" of complaints relative to their actual playerbase. I know the raiders were mostly annoyed, but back then that wasn't really a lot of people.

By this point the only folks who'll be truly pissed are the ones with the legendaries that'll be replaced in the first zone or two.   It was a shocker for some of the old raiders who were used to the EQ model of "This will last you until the next raid progression, all that crap off of grinding mobs is for you to vendor to the plebeians who don't know better."

[Azazel]

There is indeed something else - if you go to the actual cloth vendors in the tailor shop they have the T9 pieces for sale - hat, shoulders, chest, pants, gloves. For most classes you want to hit the 4 piece set bonus so I would probably be looking at buying the T9 shoulders rather than the higher level off-set ones unless you have an unexciting 4 piece bonus on your T9.

ergh. I went to the vendor in the alliance compound tonight, because I thought that was the only place to trade in the tokens. I bought the 75-point hat, and the 95-point one would have been achievable tonight as well and is even better (and has set bonuses). Fuuuuck.
And yes, my "tradeback" timer is up.