Refine Your Skill And Hit 80 In Record Time

We’ve been hinting at this for weeks now. Gavin and Law have been testing out a new way of leveling from 1 to 80 and it has exceeded our expectations. There comes a time when you just have to admit that you have to really stay on the front end of the curve in order to keep dominating, and this time it wasn’t us.

The new dungeon finder system brings the power of instance leveling to anyone and everyone. And even without the RaF bonuses, it’s faster than leveling solo. Plus, as we mentioned yesterday in the article “How to NOT be a Nub”, you’ll end up being a far better player on your new level 80 toon if you level in instances than if you go the solo route.

Leveling solo can leave you with a lot of bad habits as a DPS; and for tanks and healers it’s even worse.

You will hardly ever see anyone leveling in a healing or tank spec, so you end up with a level 80 toon that you have no idea how to play as a tank or healer – having been DPS the whole time up to 80.  But that has changed and the days of the solo leveler have become obsolete, even if you don’t know it yet.

Oh yeah, you can scoff if you like. When the car was first invented, folks laughed too. But in just a few decades the horse drawn carriage went from being the primary form of transportation to something you do out of nostalgia. the dungeon finder system has made solo leveling something that is just far less efficient and it won’t be long before most players figure that out. You can get on the cutting edge now, or be left in the dust. And WoW changes and moves a whole lot faster than RL.

Besides just being faster, as well as letting you play your desired spec (such as prot or resto) instance leveling also gives you far better gear and a lot more gold as you level up. The rewards from instance quests are far better than those from solo quests. As a matter of fact the xp per quest is about double and you can do quite a few that have blue gear as rewards. Throw in the extra gold from those quests as well as the enhanced loot from mobs and bosses in instances and you’ll be richer and far better geared when you hit 80.

That means you won’t be the dude starting heroics in quest greens doing pathetic DPS or struggling to keep people alive or hold threat. Most of your items will be blue at a minimum and the whole term “quest greens” will be far below you. You will go right from leveling straight into heroics and be able to hold your own while you rack up the 232 level epics and beyond.

Now, if you’re going to do instance leveling, you still need to do it the right way. And it’s not enough just to queue up the random dungeon finder and hit it that way. The ONLY way to use instance leveling is to combine the randoms with the dungeon quests as well. That’s where the real speed comes in. The problem is that those instance quests are scattered out all over the world of Azeroth and you could reasonably spend hours looking them up and chasing them down. But that’s where our test comes in.

Our good friend Dugi has developed the first instance leveling guide. If you’ve used our horde leveling guide before you know how much easier it makes everything. People tell us all the time they miss the guide being there to tell them every little step once they hit 80, that they almost feel lonely without it. Dugi’s dungeon leveling guide uses a version of the mod we used for Gavin’s guide, with a few neat perks of his own.

Dugi’s mod is highly refined with a slick UI. It makes moving between guide segments really easy, it’s quite a step above all of the other guide mods on the market. But once you get past the ease of use, you get to the real meat of Dugis dungeon leveling guide.

The guide will lead you all the way from 1-80 doing only instances and their quests. And trying to do it without a guide like this would be mind-boggling to say the least. Most instances will have quests from several different zones, or even continents, and the quest givers are typically in out of the way places and give you prerequisite quests that are hard to chain without a lot of time spent on Wowhead. Forget that, I have better things to do with my time, like level fast, and Dugi’s guide does all the heavy lifting for you.

And if you do happen to go ahead and do a RaF account and use Heirloom items, you can just move forward into the next dungeon segment if you find yourself doing dungeons several levels below you. So this is the one guide on the market that will work for anyone, at any level – it leaves no one out in the cold to fend for themselves.

So that’s where we’ve been the last few weeks, testing Dugi’s awesome dungeon leveling guide. At first, we were both a little skeptical to say the least. We’ve been leveling toons for years and Gavin broke the world record using our horde leveling guide, and we’ve both fiddled with powerleveling in dungeons. While powerleveling works like a charm, it’s also kind of a pain – not to mention a bit of a bore.

But after just a few dungeons we knew Dugi had hit the nail on the head and made our solo guide virtually obsolete. He’s even got some special bonuses in store for those of you who want to upgrade from Gavin’s Horde guide (which will no longer be available) to the new dungeon leveling system. It takes a lot to impress Gavin, but once you try dungeon leveling with all the dungeon quests built into a guide – there is just no way you’ll ever go back to solo hacking your way to 80.

Maybe the best part is really getting to know your new toon. Playing all the way to 80 as a healer and a tank has been a nice change of pace. Sure, some groups are a little lamer than others, but that’s to be expected. Some solo quests suck more than others too. None of this would be possible, of course, without the random finder. Just last year this would have been silly to even try. Putting together a group for Maraudon? Forget it, it aint happening – but the random dungeon finder can set it up.

I almost forgot another bonus. One of the reasons people don’t mess with the old world dungeons much is because they never did them and don’t know their way around. Dugi went above and beyond on this one. Dugi’s dungeon leveling guide includes a map for every single dungeon in the entire game. Plus, each map has very clear markers for boss locations and quest item mobs and pickups.

The maps alone are worth the price of admission for me. WC is a pain in the fiddle faddle even if you’ve done it several (hundred) times like I have. Throw in all those instance quests all over the world and make it easy for me to pick all those up, now we’ve got a winner.

Now I know what some of you are thinking: “I’m not going to spend money on some guide!”

And I used to be the same way, I know exactly how you feel – at least I used to. But then WoW became a real hobby. I have other hobbies, like golf, that cost me a TON just to get started. Then there are green fees ($50), a new putter ($150), some sweet shoes ($125), but shooting in the 70’s? Priceless.

I can’t directly attribute a better golf score to the shoes, but it certainly seems to help. Most hobbies are like that, you spend a lot of money because whatever it is you are buying increases your enjoyment in some way. I know this dude who plays paintball and he’s always getting some new gun or gear, but I have no idea if it makes him a more [deadly?] paintball player.

A guide for WoW is no different – or is it? The very first money I ever spent on WoW that didn’t go to Blizz went to Dugi. I had long since gotten over being cheap about my hobbies. And I used Dugi’s original guides for quite a while until I met Gavin. And I can say from personal experience that the fastest way from Nub to Pro starts with good information.

Without Dugi’s guides it would have taken me much longer to become Lawbringer. We surpassed some of that original advice, but frankly I never level without a guide of some kind running – which is why we built gavin’s guide in the first place. Gavin and I both wanted an in-game interface that reminded us what to do next. Even Gavin is human and you can’t memorize the entire leveling process – a guide helps even the best levelers stay on the right track.

So, if you really enjoy WoW, Dugi’s dungeon leveling guide can actually make leveling a lot more fun. You’ll level faster, get better gear and never be stuck wondering where to go and what to do next. You’ll have more fun leveling your toons, which is never something I look forward to all that much unless I’m vegging out, and leveling while brain dead is awesome with a guide.

So when you’re ready to Dominate leveling – there is no better or faster way than instance leveling. And Dugi’s dungeon leveling guide is the only one of its kind. It’s slick, easy to use and will have you going from 1-80 faster than ever before. It’s not easy to impress Gavin when it comes to WoW, but after using Dugi’s guide we are firm believers that there is no other guide out there that even comes close, not even ours.

And to sweeten the pot we’re going to throw in a couple of bonuses of our own. For a limited time we’re going to throw in a copy of Gavin’s Horde leveling guide for those times when you feel like going solo, or if you’re DPS waiting on a dungeon queue. We won’t be selling Gavin’s guide alone any more, so this is your last chance to get it.

But the big bonus is Gavin’s Auction House Mastery guide. That’s right, while you are dominating the leveling scene, you can also learn how to completely pwn the auction house, making more gold in less time than ever before. Hundreds of other players have used Gavin’s Auction House Mastery guide to blow the roof off their earnings – and you can do the same.

Here’s what you are getting when you order Dugi’s Dungeon Leveling Guide right now:

• Dugi’s Dungeon leveling Guide 1-80

• Gavins Horde Leveling Guide ($20 Value)

• Gavin’s Auction House Mastery guide ($30 Value)

That’s three completely Dominating guides for the price of one. No other offer for your favorite hobby even comes close to this kind of value. You’ll have more fun, level faster and make more gold. And it’s all just a click away. Use the link below for the Gavin Garrett bonuses when you order Dugi’s Dungeon Leveling guide right now.

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First Aid Leveling Tips

Yes, I know what the ‘pros’ will say, that a First Aid guide for WoW is silly.  But maybe they don’t know everything about everything.  And yes, leveling first aid isn’t really on the level of brain activity that might be required for brain surgery or calculus – but if you would rather NOT have to think about it any more than necessary, it’s nice to have it all listed out for you neat and clean.

At the very minimum it will save you a couple of trips back and forth between the AH and the trainers.  Really, if you could just go to the AH and buy every single scrap of cloth you needed (and you already knew exactly how much you would be needing) and could just stand at the trainer and hit the ‘create all’ button and come back every few minutes – that’s not something a total nub would do.  Just a little Dominating.

But even in first aid in wow there is a little trick we can let you in on that will save you s tidy bit of gold through the middle of leveling first aid.  And you wish you had thought of it – really.

Remember back in the day having to go all the way out to Theramore or Hammerfall for your artisan First Aid quest?  Triage is not required any more, but those of you who skip it are missing out on a couple of things.  Blizz giveth, and Blizz replaceth that way.  Not exactly biblical, I know, but . . .

Anyway, when Blizz removed the requirement for the Triage quest, they added an incentive in the form of a XP bonus that doesn’t seem to have a level cap.  In other words, you can still go grab the first aid quests at any point on your way to 80 and get XP based on your level.  Not bad to snag 10,000 to 20,000 experience out of a foofoo quest eh?

And if that’s not enough for you, just go out there during your first aid powerleveling work to save yourself a tidy bit of gold.  Enough for a decent repair of your mains T10 gear after a few wipes – seriously.  You see, the good doctors will train you for Heavy Mageweave, Runecloth and Heavy Runecloth Bandages absolutely free if you complete the quest.

All of those first aid recipes will set you back 37 gold 50 silver if you buy them anywhere else.  Excuse me, but I can turn that 37 gold into about 50 in a couple day’s work – throwing it to some trainer is not my idea of a good time.  Getting to Theramore may be a pain (hush Horde, Hammerfall is easy), but not enough of a pain to blow almost 40g.

So there you have it, a decent couple of tips out of something you thought was completely worthless.  You really shouldn’t judge before you read.  If you already knew about this little trick, you’re not a nub.  If you thought you were REALLY pro and didn’t know it – tsk.  If you’re glad to know it, stick around, we find this kind of thing all the time.  It’s why we (and you) can Dominate.

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Moonkin Form Druid DPS Build

For about as long as we’ve been in WotLK the Boomkin druid is always something you want in your raid for the killer buff – but might have been a little hard to justify bringing because it was tough to do great DPS as a Boomkin.  Apparently Blizz didn’t want Moonkin form to be an also-ran in the latest patch, and so the Balance tree got some really significant buffage.

With the following gear, the balance druid can actually get respectably close to his feral cousin with a max theoretical DPS of 10,034.  That’s a bit of a far cry from the top end feral build going at more than 11,000 but there are a couple of things to keep in mind about that.  First, the feral priority list is far more complex and it’s much easier to drop or clip the rotation.  Next, while people like a nice kitty around, a boomkin who can pull their weight will get a warmer reception.

Plus, how much more fun can you have than pwning face while dressed up like a giant owl?  And the SNL dance – awesome.  I always liked Thunder chicken more than cat form anyway, so it may be time to dust the old druid off and give him a spin around the block in the following spec.

Gear

Example T9 Gear For Balance Druid

Talents

Druid DPS Talent Build Balance Boomkin

Glyphs

Major

• Starfire
• Moonfire
• Insect Swarm

Minor

• The Wild
• Unburdened Rebirth
• Thorns

Of course, the minor glyphs are completely up to you, but the set above is pretty standard.  If you do a lot of running around you might use the glyphs of Aquatic form or dash, since they boost movement speed (dash only occasionally).  And since none of the above glyphs figure into DPS at all you might also consider the Typhoon glyph if you can find reasons to use it.

Priorities

• Flask = Frost Wyrm
• Food = Fish Feast
• Mark of the Wild
• Moonkin Form
• Faerie Fire
• Typhoon – when moving
• Speed Potion
• Innervate – when mana below 2,000
• Treants
• Starfall – when NOT under effects of Eclipse
• Starfire – when 4pc T9 buff is up
• Moonfire – if no moonfire debuff
• Insect Swarm – if no insect swarm debuff
• Wrath – until lunar eclipse procs
• Starfire – if cast time is less than remaining timer on lunar eclipse
• Wrath – if cast time is less than remaining buff on solar eclipse
• Starfire

I’m no expert on Boomkins, and I’m sure the thread will help me iron this out.  But it doesn’t look like a lot has changed for a while with thunder chickens.  Hit the boss with FF, pop treants, potion, trinkets, Moonfire, Insect swarm, Wrath until Lunar Eclipse, Starfall, Starfire until solar eclipse.  Refresh Moonfire and insect swarm debuffs and just swap back and forth between wrath and starfire depending on which eclipse has procced. If you have neither eclipse and dots are ticking, throw starfire until solar eclipse.  Past that just remember to pop treants and starfall when the cooldowns are up.  I will update this based on input from the thread, but it’s basically what I was doing a year ago on my druid.

Damage Sources

It wasn’t until patch 3.3 that the boomkin really had a true chance of getting back in to the top DPS mix, but whatever they changed sure has helped.  We might even convince Gavin to crawl back behind the feathers and start slinging a little chicken pain around in ICC.  But one thing is for certain – it’s not just cats that Dominate any more.

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How To Power Level Jewelcrafting

Now that we are well on our way here at DYS to getting you the best builds for all the classes, it’s high time we jumped up and became your go-to source for professions as well.  We’ll start it off with our Jewelcrafting Guide.  We’ll do the best we can to get all of the professions up in short order, including the secondary professions such as first aid and herbalism.

Dominate Your Server Jewelcrafting Guide

Just use the link above to go directly to the complete jewelcrafting powerleveling guide.  The rest of this article will discuss the ins and outs of leveling jewelcrafting as an overview.  We just might be able to save you a lot of time, gold and headaches if you’ll flow through this bit first.

Leveling JC is something Law will probably never do again, which means at least not for a few more weeks.  It still irks me to no end that about the only way to level the dang thing without spending what amounts to a small fortune is to farm your way through it – YUCK BOMB!  That’s right, the only way you can reasonably spend less than a huge pile of gold on mats for this is if you have a miner and a whole lot of hours to kill.

I prefer to use other people’s hours, that’s what the AH is for.  So I suppose if you are also patient you can just meander along through the leveling Jewelcrafting process as you find good deals for what you need, but I’m not that patient.  Rich and impatient means that I leveled JC from 1-450 in about 6 hours.  Not all in one sitting, of course.  It took a few days when there just wasn’t a single truesilver bar left on the entire AH and I had to wait for someone else to go get them for me.

But in the end I’m pretty happy with having chosen jewelcrafting for my shaman.  I had already done Blacksmithing and dropped Inscription for JC – for the buffs.  Sure, the shoulder enchant is awesome, but the JC only gems are even better – plus two extra sockets to shove more stats into from BS.  For  a lot of classes it’s really hard to beat the BC/JC combo for min/max.  It would be almost as good on my Mage as Enchanting/Tailoring, though not by much.

Anyway the first reason you should consider JC is the same reason we always recommend you choose a profession – because it helps your toon do whatever it is you like most.  PvP guys like engineering, but it’s pretty much novelty stuff in Raids (yes I know that repair bots can be handy but honstly there is a repair guy or three inside ICC).  While you will find tanks with mining skill for the buff, there are other professions with better buffs.  In other words, Gathering professions just don’t help your toon all that much for the most part, at least, not enough to do them on a main.

Lawbringer Has one toon for all of the professions (even though I skip gathering for the most part), which means that I make everything I need on all my toons.  One man show.  Flasks, threads, gems, chants, I never buy crafted anything – buy the mats cheap and make it my dang self.  And in that way Jewelcrafting has been the awesome of the bunch.

It’s hard to imagine living without jewelcrafting and enchanting, with alchemy coming in a close 3rd place.  One toon has fishing and cooking maxxed and there is a tailor and leatherworker in the mix to deal with the leg enchants.  But being able to cut your own gems is awesome.  You don’t have to ask if “anyone has the +12 to nub / +10 geek gem, you just keep up your dailies and go get it.

Now, JC is NOT my favorite thing to use for making gold, although you will see in this thread that there are people who swear by it.  It feels more risky to me since there is such a high cost of entry to the market as a seller and the ongoing costs (in the form of auction house deposits) can absolutely kill your margin.  But I do have a few pet gems that I keep up on the AH at all times – on our server the PvP Meta gems are a good, consistent sellers.

When you use our guide you might not want to go buy all of the mats at once.  It’s hard to keep track of everything, so do it by each guide segment.  Buy all of the mats for apprentice, get them in your bags, then stand at the trainer while you use up the mats.  Then it’s off the the mailbox to clear your inventory and back to the AH for mats for the next level.

We’ve tried to make the guide in such a way that it will be the cheapest route on most servers from 1-450, but you might find a different sweet spot in your leveling where you can get something like 80 shadow gems for next to nothing.  So shop with your eye on the guide page and look for those opportunities.  Even though we think the guide is about as good as it can get, it can’t take all things into consideration for all servers all the time.

In the end we think you’ll enjoy jewelcrafting as much as we do (even though Law resisted it completely for two years).  Is Jewelcrafting the best profession in WoW?  Maybe it is for some people, and it certainly might be the best one for you.  But one thing is for sure, getting your jewelcrafting leveling done with speed and precision (and at the lowest possible cost) is completely Dominating.

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The Drama Queen

The drama queen comes in many forms is always highly amusing and entertaining.  But the DQ is also a breed that all guild masters have to keep an eye on; for some can actually be dangerous .

As I have said before I have been a GM for over 10 years now in many different games.  And I have come across many drama queens in my time, as well as all the other types of folks we have mentioned in our personality series in the casual corner.  There are several types of drama queens.

Harmless Drama Queen

One of my fondest memories back in the old Noverlogic delterforce 2 days was when a young [high pitched kid] that thought he was the dogs b…….s was screaming on Roger Wilco (no vent in those days):

“Hes cheating! Hes cheating!  I f….ing shot him loads!”

This after several weeks of explaining the concept of lag (it was the old dial up days]).  So again we explained about how – due to his lag – it was like shooting at fish under the water, i.e. what he was shooting at was in fact 10feet to the left of where he saw it as on his screen.  So we go into the next team death match and its not long before again he’s at his screaming:

” I spun round that time! I must have got him! He’s cheating!”

And he is getting louder and louder.  You can hear the spit from his mouth hitting his mic I mean this guy has lost it big time.  At this point our version of the Fonz says:

“oh stop crying cos your a noob and couldn’t hit a barn door from 6 feet with a shot gun.  If you have lag hit alt+f4 – that will fix it .”

So, you guessed it, the kid hits alt+f4 and windows shuts his game.  Well with that the kid just goes ape.  You hear his seat screech across the floor as it hits the wall behind, and he’s verbally attacking his computer.  You can hear him thrashing about knocking mugs and books around.  You hear pencils flying across the room – then you hear this loud

BANG

CRASH

accompanied by:

“I’ll teach you to lag you f…….. b….”

. . . as he beats his own pc to death with a baseball bat live on air.

Well I have to say its one of the funniest things I have ever heard online during a game.  There was 30 of us in the game and a total of 100 in the Roger Wilco server.  We were whooping and crying and laughing for about 2hrs.  No one could play any more – it was just too funny.

OK – so no less than 2 days later he is back online.  Having convinced his parents (and the police) that he had single-handedly fought off a burglar and that he had to throw his pc at him as the burglar had got hold of the bat.  So mummy and daddy got him a new pc with all the latest gizmos on it – and he still had lag (lol).

So that was just one of his many adventures, but you get what I mean by a drama queen.  This one was harmless to the guild, although; like all of this type, he would turn any minor problem into the biggest disaster of his life.

- – - – - – - -

Our next drama queen was of the dangerous ilk!

What do I mean by this?  Well, they complain so much about every thing (and nothing) but are not at all funny – just loud and annoying.  They sulk when they can’t get their own way, and generally disrupt the ambiance of the game, although not in a malicious way.

Like when I was playing wow in the beginning with a lot of the guys from deltaforce2 and a few we had picked up over the years with other game titles.  Add to the mix our newfound friends in wow and we had a group that had played between 1 month and 9 years online together.  We pretty much did things the Dominate way and always had.

But one of the new guys had a problem with this.  He just could not understand why we bothered to help lower toons, or why we explained the fights, or why he should not be allowed to need every item . . .

Now none of this was done in guild chat or vent it was all done via whisper to any one he could get to listen – almost resulting in a guild split.

These Drama Queens get a  G-kick.

- – - – - – - -

Since then I have had the displeasure of meeting our final drama queen type:

The malicious cunning greedy argumentative constantly moaning and finding fault Drama Queen

They are the virus you never want on your computer.  At 1^st they seem helpful and pleasant to talk to (its just a feint).  They make a point of talking to every one old and new (its just to widen their web of deceit).  Then you start to notice that they do not help with any of their many toons, in fact they are the 1^st person to jump onto any raid or group that their toons are not saved to – and they will sit there waiting for others to join no matter how long it takes for the group to form.

But they will never offer to get on their other toon that could fill the missing roll so that someone that does not have a high lvl toon can get in on the run.  And since the group can’t get the class they need, the group breaks up and the same person now starts mouthing off that nothing ever gets done since the leaders of the guild are no good and no one is ever online and every one else is to blame.  When, in fact, they could have solved the issue in the first place just by not being selfish.

They normally have wormed their way into the very spine of the guild and start their campaign of turning the guild inside out (to what ends one can only guess maybe to be leader themselves).  And when confronted will always try to change the subject or turn the blame to someone else.  Then they will apologize say it was stress from work so you all hug and forgive – but even then:

Its all part of there plan to sucker you in again.  All the time this is going on the guild is suffering which gives him more ammunition for his next attack.  At least until the guild dies Or you G kick him.  The fun part about this one is all the time he is trying to split the guild.  The members are moaning about him and as always he gets found out and just when he is ready to make his final attack . . .

You Launch the wrath of the guild on him and let him run to the spine of the guild for support only to find that the guild is 100% behind the leadership so all the leaders need do is G kick.  The members turn on him – all the leaders have to do is sit back and enjoy.  And the funny thing is that you instantly notice a difference in the ambiance of the guild,

Then a member that has not been on for a while turns up and “says where is [insert drama queen name] the drama queen?”  So someone tells the story of how they got G kicked and they reply:

“Dam, you finally sussed him out?  Hes been getting away with it for ever , I’ll let [insert former guild member name] know.”

And before you know it four old members have come back every one is having fun – laughing and joking again.

- – - – - – -

The drama queen; they wont help you Dominate, but they will give you hours of entertainment.

Have fun – Anibow

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Well, Not Exactly A Bubblehearth, But It’s Close

If you know Lawbringer at all (especially from the Dominate guilds) you know that I absolutely loath pvp.  Yes, I know it makes me weak and inferior to Fonze and the Dudes and all that yadda-yadda.  Whatever, I can live with the big fat monster gaping empty hole in my game.  It’s just not gonna happen.  I have no desire and certainly not enough time to learn all the nuances of that part of the game.  I’ll just stick with making a ton of gold and being a go-to healer for everything else.

Since I do dislike PvP so adamantly it pained me to level my last two characters on a pvp server.  Nothing breaks the flow of a good leveling session than being ganked 5 times in Stranglethorn because some lvl 80 is running around getting his kicks knocking off all the level 40’s.  Seriously, go arena or whateveritis you folks do.  It’s an even bigger waste of time to try to “teach them a lesson” and go get your 80 to spank them as this normally becomes an all-out zone war.

So for the most part I just go do something else and let the pvp goobers duke it out while I do something resembling constructive.  This is all tongue-in-cheek of course.  I have nothing against you if you love pvp, it’s just not my cup of tea.  So anything that keeps me from having to deal with it is a very nice cup of tea that I enjoy greatly.  Which brings us to the following tip.

It’s one of those teeny tiny little bits that’s not going to change the way you play wow, and most of you will be relatively unimpressed.  But it’s a cool little loophole that might save you an hour or two while leveling on a pvp server, or any time after that for that matter.  It’s cheap, convenient and gives you an almost paladin-like bubble hearth that is pretty effective.

It’s not QUITE as good as a bubble, since you can’t just stand there with folks hammering away at your invulnerablness while you get your hearth cast off.  So technically NOT a true bubblehearth, but it’s as close as you’re going to get without being a paladin.

We’ll call it the HideNhearth, and it will only work if you are out of combat.  So it’s not going to save you from being one shot if you’ve already been targeted by that level 80, but it will certainly completely eliminate the chain ganking corpse camping scenario.  You don’t even have to have blazing fast timing or reflexes, just a short stack of potions and your hearthstone on a hot key somewhere.

Here’s how it works:

• Pop a Potion of Lesser Invisibility
• Hearth
• Get on with your day

Couldn’t be easier.  You see, the lesser invisibility potion is not broken by the hearthstone cast, such as mage invisibility, Night elf Shadowmeld, or Rogue Vanish and Stealth.  There is no other “hide and hearth while you are hiding” skill in the game.  All you can do under other forms of stealth is – hide, and maybe run around a bit.  Shadowmeld doesn’t even allow you to do that.

All the above skills WILL drop you out of combat, and that is important here.  You can’t go under the effects of Lesser Invis potion in combat, so if you’re already targetted you’re left with the “run like a sissy” option and hope they just leave you alone.  But if you are already dead, you can just hit the potion as you rez and hearth and leave your potential corpse camper sitting around or a while waiting on something that aint gonna happen.  Which I like – you waste my time, I waste yours.

The really funny thing about this tip is that I took my banking toon – Auctionear – out to try to get a decent screenshot for this, but unfortunately being under the effects of invis make for a sorry screenshot.  I was going to run over to a Horde hot spot and try to show this in action, and while I was on my way to Thrallmar in Hellfire Peninsula some level 80 guy named “Uwilldie” (undead rogue) flew over and dismounted right next to me.  Level 68 DK vs T9/10 rogue, no way.  I’m trying to MAKE gold on this guy not going for repair bills.  So I pop a potion and hearth – doesn’t get more real and in-game relevant than that.  I had to chuckle about how much I might have used it leveling my mage.  You’ll forgive me for not having a crummy screenie.

The potions should be pretty cheap, and you probably won’t use this technique too often, which makes it an inexpensive way to buy back some time and less frustration.  It’s not exactly what you might call Dominating, but it is a useful tip and thanks to Beastarro for sending it to us at editor@dominateyourserver.com   At the very least it’s worth one slot in your bags and a “where the heck did so-and-so go” every now and then when you’re bored.

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Hit Rating And Spell Hit Rating For Moonkin Druids Explained

There really isn’t an easy way to completely understand hit rating. There are so many variables involved when it comes to talents, abilities, resistances, and the fact that Blizz has a tendency to change their mind from time to time (such as making all hit rating just plain hit rating instead of both mele and spell hit rating, whew!)

But since you are probably looking for spell hit rating we’ll just leave it at that and separate out the different classes so that you can find what you need without having to root through some huge table (if you can even find one that makes sense).

So here we go with Balance Druid Hit rating and caps. To keep thing simple we’ll just go straight for the kill shot and not go into some tedious explanation of combat ratings and all that other what-not. So here goes.

In order to maximize your DPS you need to get hit capped before you worry about anything else. For every 26.232 hit rating you will gain 1% DPS. There is simply no other stat that matters more until you hit the cap. Once you ARE hit capped, more is worthless and then other things become more valuable. Be sure to see our post on Making Gear Decisions For Your Toon.

So now that you know you must be hit capped to maximize your DPS, we need to talk about what the heck the hit cap is. You’ll hear two terms when people talk about the hit cap. One is the hard cap, the other is a so-called soft cap. The hard cap means that you have reached a point where more hit is worthless, the soft cap is a term used for abilities past which point have diminishing returns. There is no such thing as a soft cap for hit rating. You are either at the hard cap, or you are not capped and need to get there.

The absolute hard cap for hit is 446 Hit Rating = 17% in the tooltip

The hard cap represents the amount of hit necessary to ensure that you never miss. That means the hard cap is a 100% chance to hit any and every mob in the game. It may not seem like a big deal to have a 1% chance to miss, but if you miss on a big, fat Moonfire it will seriously erode your DPS in a big, fat hurry. Now let’s talk how to hit the hard cap without having to get to 446 hit rating from gear and gems.

We’ll start at the top and work our way down. For every one of these things you have available, your hard hit cap for spell hit drops to the next number down. Just find yourself in the list and you’ll know how much hit you need to have to be hit capped and never miss. Keep in mind that anything that adds +% chance to hit does not necessarily show up in the tooltip (like +17%), so the hit rating is a much better way of looking at things.

• Dranei or Dranei in Party – Hit Cap = 420

• Druid With Balance of Power – Hit Cap = 342

• Dranei in Party Druid with Balance of Power – Hit Cap = 315

• Druid with Balance of Power and Improved Faerie Fire – Hit Cap = 263

• Dranei in Party Druid with Balance of Power and Imp Faerie Fire – Hit Cap = 237

Keep in mind that heroic Presence is party only, so folks may be fighting to get the Dranei in their group, meaning you might not always be able to count on this buff – plus it’s a 30 yard range so on fights with a lot of movement you may be out of range for it from time to time. Your best bet is to stick with the absolute cap of 263.  It can be tough to get hit capped when you first hit 80, but later on you’ll be looking for nearly every chance you can find to dump hit for spell power or crit or just about anything else.

One more factor to consider is that many bosses will have a certain amount of resistance to one or multiple schools of magic. In the end the balancing act can be almost impossible to land precisely between just enough hit to overcome both the regular combat hit rating and any resistances a boss might have. It’s not a bad idea to just go for 263 as a Boomkin and anything above that is going to overcome a certain amount of resistances that might be present. But it would probably not be a great idea to carry around a hit rating of 350 at the expense of spell power or something else. You can get anal retentive about it if you wish and figure it out for every boss, but only if you have a lot of time to kill.

So there is hit rating for Druids made simple.  Once you get hit capped it’s far better to try to stay as close to 263 or 237 as you can (and still be over) and then use the Simcraft Engine to figure out what else you should be stacking and how much. The less hit you can get away with and still be over the cap, the more of those other DPS stats you can stack which will really bring your DPS up to Domination levels.

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Survival Build For Patch 3.3

A few weeks back we gave our readers the new top dog of hunter builds with our Marksmanship spec here: Highest Hunter DPS Build For Patch 3.3.  But just because Marks made a push past Survival in the max DPS build race certainly doesn’t mean that Survival is now an also-ran.  As a matter of fact, if you are more used to playing Survival and don’t feel like making the switch to a whole new play style, this Survival build still Dominates.  At a mere 164 DPS short of the max Marks build, this Survival spec pumps out a brutal 10,920 DPS (max theoretical).  So without further ado . . .

Gear

Sample Gear Survival Hunter Patch 3.3

Talent Builds

Survival Hunter Build Max DPS

Glyphs

Major

• Serpent Sting
• Kill Shot
• Explosive Shot

Minor

• Mend Pet
• Feign Death
• Your Choice

Priorities

1. Flask = Endless Rage
2. Food = Blackened Dragonfin
3. Hunters Mark
4. Summon Pet = Wolf
5. Auto Shot
6. Aspect of the Hawk
7. Rapid Fire
8. Kill Shot
9. Kill Command
10. Explosive Shot
11. Black Arrow
12. Serpent Sting
13. Aimed Shot
14. Steady Shot

As usual with all our build guides, this is a priority list and NOT a rotation.  You obviously cannot use kill shot until the mob is below 20% health, but it would take priority over all your other shots if the mob is below 20% health.  Keep an eye on the thread below for expert commentary from master hunters who can fill you in on all the details of a prioritized shot rotation.  It’s far less complex for hunters than DK’s and feral druids, however.  You should be able to figure the rotation out on your own based on the priority list here.

Damage Sources

Yeah, the uber geared marksman may still beat you a little in DPS, but if youre like a lot of people and loath change you can just stay survival and do just fine.  It’s too bad there isn’t a completely Dominating Beast Mastery build for raiding, but hey, you can’t have it all.  besides, the gigantuan pets tend to tick people off.  Too much stomping leads to bad blood between friends.  But this Survival spec will certainly keep pace in the latest round of top DPS wars, and we still see a lot of hunters sticking with Survival over Marks.  Good luck Dominating with your Survival hunter.

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Hit Rating For Spells And Mages Explained

There really isn’t an easy way to completely understand hit rating.  There are so many variables involved when it comes to talents, abilities, resistances, and the fact that Blizz has a tendency to change their mind from time to time (such as making all hit rating just plain hit rating instead of both mele and spell hit rating, whew!)

But since you are probably looking for spell hit rating we’ll just leave it at that and separate out the different classes so that you can find what you need without having to root through some huge table (if you can even find one that makes sense).

So here we go with Mage Hit rating and caps.  To keep thing simple we’ll just go straight for the kill shot and not go into some tedious explanation of combat ratings and all that other what-not.  So here goes.

In order to maximize your DPS you need to get hit capped before you worry about anything else.  For every 26.232 hit rating you will gain 1% DPS.  There is simply no other stat that matters more until you hit the cap.  Once you ARE hit capped, more is worthless and then spell power (up to about 4k spell power for mages) haste and crit become more valuable.  Be sure to see our post on Making Gear Decisions For Your Toon.

So now that you know you must be hit capped to maximize your DPS,  we need to talk about what the heck the hit cap is.  You’ll hear two terms when people talk about the hit cap.  One is the hard cap, the other is a so-called soft cap.  The hard cap means that you have reached a point where more hit is worthless, the soft cap is a term used for abilities past which point have diminishing returns.  There is no such thing as a soft cap for hit rating.  You are either at the hard cap, or you are not capped and need to get there.

The absolute hard cap for hit is 446 Hit Rating = 17% in the tooltip

The hard cap represents the amount of hit necessary to ensure that you never miss.  That means the hard cap is a 100% chance to hit any and every mob in the game.  It may not seem like a big deal to have a 1% chance to miss, but if you miss on a big, fat Arcane Blast for 15K it will seriously erode your DPS in a big, fat hurry.  Now let’s talk how to hit the hard cap without having to get to 446 hit rating from gear and gems.

We’ll start at the top and work our way down.  For every one of these things you have available, your hard hit cap for spell hit drops to the next number down.  Just find yourself in the list and you’ll know how much hit you need to have to be hit capped and never miss.  Keep in mind that anything that adds +% chance to hit does not necessarily show up in the tooltip (like +17%), so the hit rating is a much better way of looking at things.

• Dranei or Dranei in Party – Hit Cap = 420

• Mage with Precision OR Arcane Focus – Hit Cap = 368

• Dranei or Dranei in Party Mage with Precision OR Arcane Focus – Hit Cap = 342

• Arcane Mage with Precision AND Arcane Focus – Hit Cap = 289

• Dranei or Dranei in Party Arcane Mage with Precision AND Arcane Focus – Hit Cap = 263

There are a few levels past this if you do a lot of 25 man raids, or have just the right combination in your ten mans.  If you always run with a druid that uses improved faerie fire or a shadow priest using misery you can get by with just 210 hit rating.  And if you happen to be a Dranei or have both a Dranei AND SP/ImpFf in your raid you can do as little as 184 and be capped.

Keep in mind that heroic Presence is party only, so folks may be fighting to get the Dranei in their group, meaning you might not always be able to count on this buff – plus it’s a 30 yard range so on fights with a lot of movement you may be out of range for it from time to time.  Your best bet is to stick with the absolute cap of 289 unless you ARE a Dranei (in which case you will always be in your party and can’t get out of range without some wicked bipolar debuff) in which case you can always be safe with a hit rating of 263.

The bottom line is this.  If you are an arcane mage your basic hit cap is 289.  If you are a Dranei or always party with a Dranei your basic hit cap is 263.  Everything else is just gravy.  Now, the more gravy you get, the more hit rating you can drop in favor of other stats.  But the reality is that it’s much harder to balance staying just barely above the cap than it is to find a bunch of gear without hit on it.  It can be tough to get hit capped when you first hit 80, but later on you’ll be looking for nearly every chance you can find to dump hit for spell power or haste or just about anything else.

One more factor to consider, however is that many bosses will have a certain amount of resistance to one or multiple schools of magic.  In the end the balancing act can be almost impossible to hit precisely between just enough hit to overcome both the regular combat hit rating and any resistances a boss might have.  It’s not a bad idea to just go for 289 as a mage and anything above that is going to overcome a certain amount of resistances that might be present.  But it would probably not be a great idea to carry around a hit rating of 350 at the expense of spell power or something else.  You can get anal retentive about it if you wish and figure it out for every boss, but only if you have a lot of time to kill.

So there is hit rating for mages made simple.  If you are arcane, your goal is 289 add in Dranei and it’s 263.  Once you get hit capped it’s far better to try to stay as close to 289 or 263 as you can (and still be over) and then use the Simcraft Engine to figure out what else you should be stacking and how much.  The less hit you can get away with and still be over the cap, the more of those other DPS stats you can stack which will really bring your DPS up to Domination levels.

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The Cat Is Back In Patch 3.3

Not too long ago we did a post about feral druid cat form and had our fair share of negative feedback from the feline community.  It seems that any feral build without mangle was just not going to satisfy certain kitties with quite finicky tastes.  we promised we would revisit the build in a form that included mangle, and here it is.  It’s not going to put out as much overall DPS, but if you’re used to it it might just be better for you than the new version without Mangle.  Besides, with a max DPS of 10,913 theoretical dmg you might just find it’s plenty anyway (plus one moar button to push when face-rolling).

Gear

http://www.wowhead.com/?profile=14726081#talents

Talent Build

http://www.wowhead.com/?profile=14726081#inventory

Glyphs

Major

• Savage Roar
• Rip
• Shred

Minor

• The Wild
• Unburdened Rebirth
• Dash

As is the case with most builds, the minor glyphs are mostly up to you since none of them figure into direct DPS in any way. So if you are in love with something else feel free to use it, but these are pretty typical.

Priorities

This build does Mangle, and adding something to the priority list certainly does not make the list less complex.   It’s not nearly as bad as some DK lists with internalized rotations inside the list, but there are some conditionals you have to bear in mind. Check the thread below this post for input from the folks who do this all the time for more nuts and bolts. And remember, this is NOT a rotation, so things may seem a little out of order. It’s a priority list, so get that straight before you complain.

• Flask = Endless Rage
• Food = Hearty Rhino
• Form = Cat
• Maim (interrupt)
• Faerie Fire
• Tigers Fury (when energy is less than 40)
• Berserk (when energy is less than 90)
• Savage Roar (without SR buff)
• Savage Roar (With 5 combo points on target and Rip has more than 6 seconds left)
• Shred (to extend Rip when Rip has less than 4 seconds)
• Rip (when at 5 combo points to debuff target)
• Ferocious Bite (when combo points are at max and target has less than 6 seconds to die)
• Ferocious Bite (at 5 combo points and rip has more than 10 seconds left)
• Mangle
• Rake (unless the target will die in less than ten seconds)
• Shred (if you have more than 70 energy)
• Shred (when Omen of Clarity procs)
• Shred (when combo points are below 4 and rip has less than 3 seconds left)
• Shred (if the target will die in less than ten seconds)
• Shred (if Berserk is still active)

Damage Sources

Remember that according to the wikki simulcraft engine, this build Feral Druid Spec Pwns Face WITHOUT using Mangle does 214 more DPS than a mangle rotation. And the build above is the Mangle inclusive build everyone yowled for.  Either way you want to go , it turns out that a well-played cat really does Dominate.

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