Rotations Out, Time To Get Your Priorities Straight

The days of set rotations are pretty much gone. That doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to get in a “groove” and know what buttons to push and when. But it does mean you’re going to need to adjust the way you look at using your spells and abilities. And your priorities will change based on spec and the natural progression of any given fight. Let’s look at the difference with a mutilation rogue rotation vs. priority list.

Rotations Look Like This:

• Stealth > Garrote > Mutilate once > Slice n Dice > Mutilate twice > Rupture > Envenom

Priorities Work Differently:

• flask,type=endless_rage
• food,type=mega_mammoth_meal
• apply_poison,main_hand=instant,off_hand=deadly
• speed_potion,if=!in_combat|buff.bloodlust.react|target.time_to_die<20
• stealth
• kick
• pool_energy,for_next=1
• hunger_for_blood,if=buff.hunger_for_blood.remains<2
• slice_and_dice,if=buff.slice_and_dice.remains<1
• rupture,if=buff.combo_points.stack>=4&target.time_to_die>15&time>10&buff.slice_and_dice.remains>11
• cold_blood,sync=envenom
• envenom,if=buff.combo_points.stack>=4&buff.envenom.down
• envenom,if=buff.combo_points.stack>=4&energy>90
• envenom,if=buff.combo_points.stack>=2&buff.slice_and_dice.remains<2
• tricks_of_the_trade
• mutilate,if=buff.combo_points.stack<4
• vanish,if=time>30&energy>50

There’s a LOT more information in the priority list. And even though it may look like greek at first, anyone can learn to decipher all those conditionals; so let’s do that.

Lets’ start with line 4:

• speed_potion,if=!in_combat|buff.bloodlust.react|target.time_to_die<20

The “!” means “not.” So you want to use your speed potion only when not under bloodlust and you don’t want to waste it when there is less than 20 seconds before the mob dies. The first bit is a bit of a double negative. You might think it means “NOT”"in combat.” But really it means don’t use it unless you are in combat. The pipes, the vertical lines in the formula (looks like this, | ) mean that the ! applies to all of the variables in the string.

react is another thing you’ll want to look for in these lists. Many times you’ll actually want to save a buff until you’re also under the Bloodlust/heroism buff to get max effect, other times, such as with speed buffs, you’ll want to take advantage of that buff all by itself and then get another boost from B-lust later. SO what this line tells you is that you want to use your speed potion as soon as you can – before anything else, in fact – but only if you are already in combat, not under heroism buff and not unless there are more than 20 seconds left before the mob/boss dies.

Next let’s look at line 8:

• hunger_for_blood,if=buff.hunger_for_blood.remains<2

Command lines like this will tell you precisely when to use certain abilities and buffs. In this case it tells you to wait to refresh Hunger for Blood when you see that you have 2 seconds or less on the buff.

Sometimes you’ll get multiple variables such as line 10:

• rupture,if=buff.combo_points.stack>=4&target.time_to_die>15&time>10&buff.slice_and_dice.remains>11

Which means you only want to use rupture if you have at least 4 combo points, there are more than 15 seconds before the mob dies, you’ve been in combat more than 10 seconds and your slice and dice has more than 11 seconds remaining.

Finally, we have the Sync variable as in line 11:

• cold_blood,sync=envenom

This tells you to use Cold Blood just before envenom when possible.

Once you’ve sorted all that out you can read it to mean that you open with stealth >Hunger for Blood > mutilate > mutilate to get your 4 combo points. Notice that we’re already way different than the rotation we showed first. Then you’ll Slice and Dice to get the buff up and follow with stacking combo points to 4+. Then it’s Rupture > Cold Blood > Envenom (only with 4 combo points).

After that it’s just back to stacking 4 points and timing rupture when your Slice and Dice falls to 12 seconds left and more points from Mutilate and the conditionals on envenom, which may mean pooling energy from time to time to make sure you are above 90 energy. Of course, you’ll notice that you also will go ahead and use envenom even if you DON’T have 90 energy if the debuff isn’t there since that command takes priority over the energy requirement of the next line.

Plus, if you follow these priorities you never have to worry about losing the SnD buff because you’ll be refreshing it more often with envenom. However, you want to use envenom if your SnD buff drops to 2 seconds or below.

All this means that it’s virtually impossible to build a standard “rotation” any more when you take into account all the variables that go into generating maximum DPS. The great thing is that you can use the Simulationcraft engine to get a priority list built for you along with about a hundred other good bits of info. We talk about using the engine in the post Making Gear Choices For Your Character. We don’t talk about priorities there, but how the engine can help you make gear choices. Every time you get a new piece of gear you can just rerun the engine to generate new Pawn scales.

Of course, you can just get all that information from our class build pages as well. We’re in the process of updating all of the builds for each spec and class for patch 4.0 and cataclysm, so if you’re not an uber theorycrafting geek you can just get the distilled Simulationcraft engine from DYS. We also try to take some of the technical goop out of the lists and put it in a little plainer verbiage.

Oh, and keep in mind that Lawbringer is not a rogue expert by any means. I know you Rogues are super picky, and I do have to admit that the priority list above is going to get some flaming and it’s actually based on a T10 simulation since there aren’t any new ones for 4.0 as of yet. But I do know this: every time I’ve used the priorities from Simcraft to help me figure out how to squeeze more DPS out of my toons – it always works.

So no matter what you’ve been doing, or what you’ve read at elitist jerks, give the priority lists a shot. We can virtually guarantee you’ll learn more about where your DPS really comes from and when to pop your abilities to get the absolute maximum DPS out of any toon or build you ever play.

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Powerleveling Fishing from 1-450

Powerleveling Cooking 1-450

This guide has survived four years and soon to be 3 expansions. It’s a combination of fishing and cooking together as we mentioned in our previous article: Cooking & Fishing, Leveling them together.

Now, to be completely honest, you don’t need to level fishing for cooking. You can go grind little bits of meat and parts off of mobs forever but getting the mats with fishing is so much easier and lets you get your fishing skill up to 450 as well. Besides that, it’s pretty nice to be able to make your own fish feasts from scratch.

1 – 50: Brilliant Smallfish = 80. Mats (1 Raw Brilliant Smallfish)

• 80 Raw Brilliant Smallfish
• Fishing Holes

51 – 100: Longjaw Mudsnapper = 80. Mats (1 Raw Longjaw Mudsnapper)

• 80 Raw Longjaw Mudsnapper
• Fishing Holes

101 – 175: Bristle Whisker Catfish = 120. Mats (1 Raw Bristle Whisker Catfish)

• 120 Raw Bristle Whisker Catfish
• Fishing Holes

175 – 225: Rockscale Cod = 80. Mats (1 Raw Rockscale Cod)

• 80 Raw Rockscale Cod
• Fishing Holes

226 – 275: Spotted Yellowtail = 80. Mats (1 Raw Spotted Yellowtail)

• 80 Raw Spotted Yellowtail
• Fishing Holes

276 – 325: Your Choice – or combination of the following = 80.

• Mightfish Steak. Mats (1 Large Raw Mightfish, 1 Hot Spices, 1 Soothing Spices)
• Mightfish Fishing Holes
• Baked Salmon. Mats (1 Raw Whitescale Salmon, 1 Soothing Spices)
• Salmon Fishing Holes

326 – 350: Golden Fish Sticks = 40. Mats (1 Golden Darter)

• 40 Golden Darter
• Fishing Holes

At this point the recipes come from the trainer directly or from purchases with Dalaran Cooking Awards from doing the cooking dailies.  As with any profession, it is much easier to do all of this at level 80.  You’ll have to do the cooking dailies regularly to complete the rest of this guide, but that’s not the fault of the guide, the game just requires it.

351 – 375: Baked Manta Ray = 60. Mats (1 Imperial Manta Ray)

• 60 Imperial Manta Ray
• Fishing Holes

Here’s where you’ll actually have to use some beast meat for a little while.  The mats are normally to be had on the AH, so you don’t have to go farm all of it yourself, but if you’re cheap you can look each one up and go get them yourself.

376 – 400: Great Feast = 40. Mats (1 Chunk o’ Mammoth, 1 Shoveltusk Flank, 1 Worm Meat, 2 Chilled Meat)

• 20 Chunk o’ Mammoth
• 20 Shoveltusk Flank
• 20 Worm Meat
• 40 Chilled Meat

401 – 420: Anything else, although Spicy Blue Nettlefish sells fairly well.

421 – 450: At level 420 you can cook all of the other recipes in the game except for fish feast.  We recommend Dragonfin Filet using Dragonfin Angelfish as we cover in this post: Fishing For Gold.  Dragonfin Filet and any of the other recipes you buy with the cooking awards will take you all the way to 450, where you can make the premier buff food in the game – Fish Feast.

It’s then that all your Dominating work will make you the most popular cook around.  Everyone loves a fish feast, and you can make serious coin cooking up any of the foods you grab the recipes for.  We highly recommend doing the cooking daily every day.  It will maximize your buffs, and your gold earnings – especially if you can dominate it with more than one toon.

Now, even though leveling fishing doesn’t require running all over the place any more, it’s still a pain in the tookus.  It might actually take longer.  It’s easier, but a larger time sink.  After about level 225 it’s 10 casts per skill-up and that means it will take you around 4-6 hours if you did nothing but fish.

We’ve also got a great little tip for how to get those last few skill points in cooking in the Leveling Cooking Tip post, as well as a nifty mod that makes getting all your recipes for cooking or any other skill a whole lot easier in the post Finding Recipes Made Easy.

This little guide should make the prospect of getting to those dailies on alts a bit less daunting.  So grab a pole and a pan and get to work!  Soon you’ll be cashing in, just like we do.

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Powerleveling Fishing from 1-450

This guide has survived four years and soon to be 3 expansions. It’s a combination of fishing and cooking together as we mentioned in our previous article: Cooking & Fishing, Leveling them together.

Now, to be completely honest, you don’t need to level fishing this way. You can stand your toon of any level in Dalaran at the fountain and go all the way from 1-450 if you like. But as long as you are at it, why not get your cooking up to 450 as well? Besides that, fishing is pretty dull and moving around a bit to catch different types of fish can break the monotony to some degree.

1 – 50: Brilliant Smallfish = 80. Mats (1 Raw Brilliant Smallfish)

• 80 Raw Brilliant Smallfish
• Fishing Holes

51 – 100: Longjaw Mudsnapper = 80. Mats (1 Raw Longjaw Mudsnapper)

• 80 Raw Longjaw Mudsnapper
• Fishing Holes

101 – 175: Bristle Whisker Catfish = 120. Mats (1 Raw Bristle Whisker Catfish)

• 120 Raw Bristle Whisker Catfish
• Fishing Holes

175 – 225: Rockscale Cod = 80. Mats (1 Raw Rockscale Cod)

• 80 Raw Rockscale Cod
• Fishing Holes

226 – 275: Spotted Yellowtail = 80. Mats (1 Raw Spotted Yellowtail)

• 80 Raw Spotted Yellowtail
• Fishing Holes

276 – 325: Your Choice – or combination of the following = 80.

• Mightfish Steak. Mats (1 Large Raw Mightfish, 1 Hot Spices, 1 Soothing Spices)
• Mightfish Fishing Holes
• Baked Salmon. Mats (1 Raw Whitescale Salmon, 1 Soothing Spices)
• Salmon Fishing Holes

326 – 350: Golden Fish Sticks = 40. Mats (1 Golden Darter)

• 40 Golden Darter
• Fishing Holes

At this point the recipes come from the trainer directly or from purchases with Dalaran Cooking Awards from doing the cooking dailies.  As with any profession, it is much easier to do all of this at level 80.  You’ll have to do the cooking dailies regularly to complete the rest of this guide, but that’s not the fault of the guide, the game just requires it.

351 – 375: Baked Manta Ray = 60. Mats (1 Imperial Manta Ray)

• 60 Imperial Manta Ray
• Fishing Holes

Here’s where you’ll actually have to use some beast meat for a little while.  The mats are normally to be had on the AH, so you don’t have to go farm all of it yourself, but if you’re cheap you can look each one up and go get them yourself.

376 – 400: Great Feast = 40. Mats (1 Chunk o’ Mammoth, 1 Shoveltusk Flank, 1 Worm Meat, 2 Chilled Meat)

• 20 Chunk o’ Mammoth
• 20 Shoveltusk Flank
• 20 Worm Meat
• 40 Chilled Meat

401 – 420: Anything else, although Spicy Blue Nettlefish sells fairly well.

421 – 450: At level 420 you can cook all of the other recipes in the game except for fish feast.  We recommend Dragonfin Filet using Dragonfin Angelfish as we cover in this post: Fishing For Gold.  Dragonfin Filet and any of the other recipes you buy with the cooking awards will take you all the way to 450, where you can make the premier buff food in the game – Fish Feast.

It’s then that all your Dominating work will make you the most popular cook around.  Everyone loves a fish feast, and you can make serious coin cooking up any of the foods you grab the recipes for.  We highly recommend doing the cooking daily every day.  It will maximize your buffs, and your gold earnings – especially if you can dominate it with more than one toon.

Now, even though leveling fishing doesn’t require running all over the place any more, it’s still a pain in the tookus.  It might actually take longer.  It’s easier, but a larger time sink.  After about level 225 it’s 10 casts per skill-up and that means it will take you around 4-6 hours if you did nothing but fish.

We’ve also got a great little tip for how to get those last few skill points in cooking in the Leveling Cooking Tip post, as well as a nifty mod that makes getting all your recipes for cooking or any other skill a whole lot easier in the post Finding Recipes Made Easy.

This little guide should make the prospect of getting to those dailies on alts a bit less daunting.  So grab a pole and a pan and get to work!  Soon you’ll be cashing in, just like we do.

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The Artisan First Aid trainers for both factions will give you a Quest Called “Triage.” Once you complete this quest, you will gain your Artisan First Aid and be able to train with him for Heavy Mageweave Bandages, Runecloth Bandages, and Heavy Runecloth Bandages.

For Horde, you need to fly to Hammerfall in the Arathi Highlands. There is a prequel to this quest in Orgrimar, but it’s not necessary. In the first building on the left is Doctor Gregory Victor.

For Alliance, you need to see Doctor Gustaf VanHousen in Theramore, Dustwallow Marsh. There is also a prequel in IF for this, but you can skip it.

To complete this quest, the good doctor is going to give you some special bandages and ask you to treat a group of patients who are dying nearby. Before you start, make sure you have a spare action bar button to put the special bandages in so that you can use them at the press of a hotkey.

Once the quest starts, you’ll have to treat 15 patients before 6 of them die. If you don’t know anything about triage, it’s time you learned. Triage is a method of deciding who to treat first in emergency situations. The patients in this triage scenario range from Critically Injured to Badly Injured, and just Injured. In triage, you have to decide which ones to treat first. The critically injured guys may die before you get them bandaged anyway, so often you’re just going to let them expire. You need to focus on the Badly injured patients first, since you will have enough time to bandage them before they croak. Injured patients can be left for a bit.

You see, as time goes by, injured patients will become badly injured, and badly injured will become Critically injured. By treating the Badly injured patients, you will be able to save more lives overall. If you start treating the Critically injured patients first, most of them will die before you get done. By the time that happens, the badly injured patients will be critically injured and you’ll never catch up. You’ll just have everyone dieing before you can get anyone saved. That’s the function of triage, to save as many as you can – because you will not be able to save them all.

The lesson is: treat badly injured patients when you first start, and only treat Critically injured guys if you start the bandage process right after they spawn. You’re going to be in a room surrounded by six spawn points. Stand in the middle of the room and be sure to toggle “V” so that you can see all of the health bars. Use the keyboard to turn in circles and the mouse to select each patient. Then all you have to do is hit the hotkey in your action bar for the special bandages and you should do just fine.

When the quest first starts, you’ll have a selection of all three kinds of patients. Treat all the badly injured first, and let the critically injured guys die. Once the first critically injured patients die, you will be able to keep up with all the rest since most of the spawns will be merely injured or badly injured. Only treat Critical patients if you can begin to bandage them immediately when they spawn.

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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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How To Not Be A Nub, No Matter What Class You Play

You already know this, although it may not be on a conscious level, but WoW is actually several games rolled into one platform of graphics and interface. No matter what you like best, WoW gives you ways to do it. Achievements, the Auction House, PvP, Battlegrounds, Raids, gathering, dailies – there’s always something you can be doing no matter what part of the game you enjoy most. But one thing is certain: each of these aspects of the game is very different.

Although I fought the concept for quite a while, if you are good at PvP you are probably also good at anything else in the game that requires killing something. PvP requires such a high degree of awareness and quick response times that PvE in raids is pretty boring and tame in comparison. The real difference is that in PvP you’re only trying to coordinate the actions of up to five people, while in a raid you have at least twice that many and up to 25. If you think it’s tough to find just one other good PvPer to do 2’s with, it’s also harder to find 24 other excellent players to raid with.

And no matter how good you are at killing bosses and toons, that still doesn’t mean you know jack about making gold. We’re still shocked when we see otherwise excellent players relying on dailies and farming to make their gold. But to each – their own. Making gold on the AH is something that’s fun for me, while PvP = not so much. The truth is that very, very few players are good at EVERYTHING in the game. We all have a hole or two, and that’s because there are only so many hours in the day.

But one thing is for certain, there is a rather large divide between those who are ready to raid or begin serious PvP, and those who are not.

Typically the “not” class gets lumped into the “nub” category and they either give up on raiding or get better. Although I know a few who just have naturally thick skins and raid even though everyone knows they are a nub and will always be a nub, the vast majority of nubs just tend to stay that way and never get measurably better without a lot of intervention.

One of the keys to not being a nub is to make up your mind that you want to play well. Do what everyone else did to get better – research, adjust, take advice, ask questions. The difference between those who can and those who can’t can be boiled down to one thing: internal analysis. Constantly looking at what you are doing and wondering if there is a better way of doing it.

There is always room for improvement – even if you are the Fonze. As a matter of fact, the Fonze himself spends several hours each week trying to find out if anyone else is doing it better than he is, just so he never falls behind by even a step or two. It’s that constant improvement and struggle to win even more that separates the very best players from everyone else.

Which brings me, finally, to the point. We find ourselves at DYS in a situation where someone has done something a little better than we have, and in that something is a way for you to ensure that you reach a far greater level of mastery of killing things than ever before. We’re not going to let the cat out of the bag on the first bit until tomorrow, but today you need to know one thing that can make all the difference for both the nub and the pro.

Auction house aside (and don’t ask for farming routess either – you’re on your own there) there are two major things you can do once you get to level 80:

• dungeons and raids
• PvP.

That’s it – sure you can do a whole bunch of the solo achievements, but I don’t see a lot of that going on. Raids and PvP is where the vast bulk of the game lies. The endgame, and getting there is less than half the battle.

I used to tell my mom that when she first began to play. There is more game PAST 80 than there is before 80. She didn’t believe me until she got there. After that she was pretty boggled by the complexity and competition. So today we’re going to give all of you some advice that will help you hit 80 ready to go into almost any dungeon or raid environment and do well, even if you’ve never raided a lick in your life.

The key is leveling to 80 using instances. The benefits are too numerous to mention here, so check back tomorrow for a more complete accounting, but the one thing you need to know right now is that it will absolutely force you to play well or perish.

This is especially true for tanks and healers. Probably the worst thing you can do when you get the itch to try tanking or healing is to level that toon as DPS and then try to start tanking and healing after you hit 80. You’ll have 15 new spells to use and no idea what the heck to do with them, and four people yelling at you to do it right.

But, if you tank and heal from level 16 on, you’ll get the chance to use each new spell fifteen or twenty times in live fire situations before you get a new one. By the time you get to 80 you will have mastered all of them and the only thing left will be better gear. Now, you’ll still need to work on refining your style and spec (if I see another tree spamming Nourish I’m going to tear my face off), since some of the things you might have to rely on as you level up just aren’t as good at level 80 and in raids, but at least you’ll know where they all are and how they work.

It won’t make you a pro by any means, but you will be a much better tank or healer if you level up using instances primarily. Oh, and it’s faster too. That’s right, you can do only instances and the related quests and get to 80 faster than leveling solo. For the casual player it’s even better, since your toon will more than likely be in rest the whole way.

And this whole thing makes sense for DPS toons as well.

By using your spells just a few at a time and against bosses in real fight situations, you will have a better grasp at just where your DPS comes from than you ever could killing non elite mobs. Elites and bosses will give you a much better picture of how to actually kill something and work with other team members.

Which brings me to my last point. Leveling solo develops a LOT of bad habits that are just not kosher in instances and raids. Such as DPS pulling mobs. Such as tanks pulling entire rooms like they do on their level 80 with ICC gear. Being a low level toon in the right instances means you have to play properly most of the time. It’s actually a challenge. Steamvaults is still no joke at level 68. You might just learn to CC a bit here and there along the way.

So in the end what we’re saying is that if you really want to play the game as it is at level 80, you might as well get to 80 doing the same sorts of things you’ll be doing at 80. I’ve seen far too many people level their first toon solo and never do a single instance – they have no clue what in the heck to do when they attempt their first heroic.

So figure out how to heal, learn to tank and get a grip on how to do some real DPS in instances so that you can dominate once you hit 80. Oh, and you’ll get to 80 faster, with more gold and a lot better gear along the way as well. And check back tomorrow when we will reveal exactly how to take maximum advantage of instance leveling.

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How To Queue Like A Tank For Randoms As DPS

There is something very exciting coming for everyone at DYS in the next couple of weeks. We’re not going to let the cat out of the bag quite yet, but Gavin and Law are hard at work – and making some interesting discoveries to boot. For the last week, we’ve been chain running randoms as part of our research and we’ve discovered a nifty little work-around for those long Q’s for those of you who are DPS.

You know how it goes. Let’s say you’re like Law and have a couple of toons (or four) to do randoms with every day. Getting the invite if you are heals isn’t so bad, maybe a few minutes, while tanks will Q virtually instantly for the most part. Then you get on your DPS and sit there for 15 minutes while you wait around for the next tank. If all you have is DPS toons you have no idea how nice it is to queue up as a tank.

Typically, I will do my JC daily on my mage while I wait for the Q to pop. And then the cooking daily, perhaps fishing as well, and then – well, I get bored. Not much you can really do except sit there and watch for it. I guess I could farm, but I just don’t do that – especially on my raiding toons – at least not for herbs and ore. And killing elementals isn’t my idea of a good time.

So suffice it to say that I miss the queue from time to time. It’s not unusual to have at least one DPS miss most Q’s – they probably fell asleep waiting. And that just makes things worse. Go grab a drink, miss the Q and you’re back at the bottom of the list, another 15 minutes? Bah, there has to be a better way.

And there is. You COULD do what Gavin and I did and just swap out runs. We both have tanks and DPS toons, so we just switch around. The only problem with having a system like that is that sometimes we’re not on at the same time, plus, we have this big project to do together when we are playing

Beating The Dungeon Finder System

Gavin stumbled upon this little trick quite by accident. It’s unbelievably simple when you think about it, but it’s not very obvious. We’ve all been running randoms for months now, and until Gavin said something to someone else in a group, just out of the blue, I had never thought of it. Really, four toons with the “Patient” title and it never dawned on me.

We had been in a group with this shaman healer for three randoms in a row and he was begging Gavin not to leave the group – good tanks can be hard to find at level 30-ish. So Gavin said: “I tell you what, I really need to be moving along, but I WILL queue with you again and then drop so that you’ll be at the top of the list and get the very next tank.”

It went over my head for about two seconds and then hit me like a brick. I was practically yelling at Gavin over Skype. HOLY CRAP MAN! THAT’S IT! That’s what, he asked. That’s the secret right there! “I was just saying that,” he says, “I don’t know if it really works, lol.” Well, it turns out, it DOES work, and it’s an awesome work-around for all your DPS toon wait times.

OK, you’re still going to need a tank that will Q with you, but they don’t have to make the run. All they have to do is join your group, accept the Q and then bail. You’ll sit in the instance for maybe another minute, at the longest, while the dungeon finder grabs your group another tank.

This works best if you have two accounts. Just use your own tank (if you have such a beast) to queue yourself to the front and then bail him out and run on your DPS toon. No more wait times. Well, next to none. My average time to queue on Fenris as a tank is about 10 seconds, while on DPS it’s more like 10 minutes. By using my tank to Q my dps toons I get the tank time plus about 30 seconds standing in the dungeon waiting for another tank.

If you run two DPS toons every day through one random each, this little trick can save you between 10 and 15 HOURS a month. Bet you never though about how much time twenty minutes a day actually was huh? Instant queue’s for randoms on your DPS toons – it’s pretty simple, and quite Dominating.

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One Spell You Probably Never Use – But Should

We’ve posted the video below before, just because it’s a little funny (in a “OMG that guy is a psycho” kind of way).  And the reason we are doing so again has to do with AoE. That’s right, AoE. And yes, we are well aware of the fact that AoE DPS doesn’t count for anything. But, even though it won’t help you with ICC hard mode bosses, it’s still kind of fun to see something like 20,000 DPS on that big pull at the front of the plague wing.

We show the video again because it turns out that all mages should be running around screaming “I’M CASTING FLAME STRIKE!  AHHHRRRRRR!” Yes, root it out of the bowels of your spell book and stick it on your actions bars somewhere again. Way back in the day Flame Strike was pretty common, but now about the only time you see the animation is from the mages in HoR. Turns out it hurts, and it’s also a great way to boost your AoE Damage.

The best way to use Flame Strike is to wind one up as the tank is pulling the group. It will work best, of course, if you are familiar with your tank and know where he likes to set up. But just put a flame strike on the area where the mobs are forming and then Blizzard on top of them; death from above, death from below. (Doesn’t really fit with “one if by land” – oh whatever).

Another interesting thing about Flame Strike you may not know is that the AoE effect stacks. Two flame strikes will tick for 5 or 6 seconds together. You aren’t putting the AoE on a particular mob, you’re putting it on the ground. You’ll have to get a little creative to figure out how to use this effectively since a FS cast will eat up two seconds of Blizzard (which can crit, and FS doesn’t), but it’s something to keep filed away in your WoW memory bank. Also keep in mind that you want to try to catch as many mobs as possible in the burst when FS goes off, that’s where the meat of the damage comes in, the AoE is just gravy.

Whether or not you want to go double FS and then Blizz will be something you have to fiddle with. But if you did, you would get burst, burst, AoE, AoE, AoE. Sounds like fun. Your DPS for the next four seconds with double FS and Blizz hammering away is just ridiculous.

I sometimes find myself waiting around for a tank to get everything within the boundaries of Blizzard, although you don’t have to do so. But either way, a few quick heroics revealed that using a Flame Strike right before you channel a Blizzard certainly does buff your AoE DPS quite a bit. You’re getting two ticks of DPS almost the whole time Blizz is going on.

You’ll need to test for yourself whether it is worth putting up another FS after each Blizzard cast. A lot of it is going to be determined by how much health the mobs have left (as well as how many there are). At least this will give you something to do with your brain time – a bit of a change for Arcane mages who have worn a groove in three buttons. Here are a few pointers:

In groups of more than three

• Flame Strike and Blizzard once at the start of the pull

• If three or more mobs are left after the first Blizz, repeat FS/Blizz  if most have more than 50% health left.

• If there are three mobs or more with less than 50% health, Blizz until death – OR -

If less than three mobs are left or a pull of just one or two mobs:

• Flame Strike and then single target

Yeah, it’s not a bad idea to get a little AoE on even two mobs. Since it’s ticking away while you blast something to bits, it’s just more DPS you can put on the mob. You’ll want to cast your FS while the mobs are out of range of arcane blast, of course, so that you don’t burn up your casting time on FS for your heavy hitters. That’s what we mean about using up some brain time on this one instead of just hammering three buttons.

Timing your FS to get it out before you can cast an AB may not even be possible most of the time, and you certainly don’t want to trade even a single AB just to make sure you get a FS off all the time. Besides that, if your tank ends up sitting the mob down outside of the FS area, it was just a waste of mana. The trick is to catch the mob in the FS burst and be halfway through an AB before he even takes his first swing at the tank. And then pray the tank can hold aggro.

As mentioned by Graceygirl below, another neat trick to really max out your AoE is to use Presence of Mind just before your first Flame Strike. PoM triggers the Arcane Potency buff which will increase the crit chance of your next two spells by 30%. PoM will also make the Flame Strike an instant cast, it just doesn’t get much better than that. However, you won’t be able to do it on every pull, as PoM has a 1.4 min cooldown. But every minute and a half is quite often, and you should not overlook it.

But, if you are good at anticipating mob position and can mash four buttons instead of just three you can find some really good spots to squeeze out an extra 4000-500 DPS on single and two mob pulls, and several thousand on big pulls by using Flame Strike. Just be sure to yell a lot while you Dominate.

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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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Powerleveling Leather Working From 1 to 450

Leatherworking  is one of those professions that doesn’t get a whole lot of play.  But it does have reasonable gold-making and toon buffing potential for your character – plus it’s not all that expensive to power level if you do it properly.  Having a good Leatherworking Guide can certainly save you time and expense.  The link above will take you all the way through the steps to do it cheaper and faster.

Primarily we recommend that you use professions that have the greatest benefit to your toon for end-game activities such as arena and raiding.  The crafting professions are generally best for this but the list of professions with the best toon buffs combinations is fairly short.

You’ll see a lot of casters going with Tailoring and Enchanting, while mail and plate wearers tend to go with Blacksmithing and Jewelcrafting for their min/max needs.  It’s hard to beat those combinations for pure added power.  However, if you already have those professions covered and need something different for balance Leatherworking isn’t a bad choice either.

The fur linings can actually outdo the extra gem slots from blacksmithing, even if you are slotting in the JC only gems.  If Spell Power and Attack power fit your toon needs best, Leatherworking is a great choice.

The Leg armors and drums also have some decent profit potential from auction house sales.  And considering there are probably far fewer Leatherworkers than Tailors on many servers it means that for the most part you can probably make more selling leg armors than threads.  That’s not always the case on every server, but you might look into it.

Getting all the mats for leather working may be a little tough for power leveling, but if you know ahead of time what you need and have any patience at all at the ah you should be able to get it done without too much waiting and expense.  Northrend mats should be plentiful, it’s the mid levels that might give you fits.  A DK alt with skinning is just the ticket to solve that issue.

If you’re cheap, and don’t mind farming, skinning is a joke to level.  If you skin your way through the mats list in our Leatherworking Guide, you’ll have no trouble making it through the rougher parts of the leatherworking mats.  Plus, DK’s come with all the flight paths and and epic land mount to boot, so you don’t have to waste skinning on a main.

So while Leather working may not be your first choice, it’s certainly not a bad choice for an end-game profession.  And if you’re using it for raiding you may very well end up with one of the new 264 ilevel gear recipes which are selling quite well in patch 3.3.  As a matter of fact – I may just do JC/LW on my old druid.  In the end leveling leatherworking is not all that hard and gives you a chance to Dominate in raids and at the AH.

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