When you run as many auctions and toons as I do, having enough bag slots can become a serious issue.  I will buy out hundreds of auctions every week for resale, as well as having to manage the items for my rolling auctions as they expire every couple of days.

Add to the auction items the little piles of BoE greens, consumables and commodities (cloth, leather, metal) I pick up while leveling and raiding and it can end up being quite a mess if I didn’t use a toon for the sole purpose of asset management.  If you do everything with your main character log on right this minute and create two more characters to help you with your item management.

Even though I want to tell you how to work your trade mule, let’s start with the concept of using a dedicated banking toon.  On every server and every account I will have a single toon who does nothing but go back and forth from the mailbox to the auction house.

For Alliance choose a Gnome or  Dwarf and run them up to Iron Forge.  Horde players should use a Tauren in Thunder Bluff.  Those cities are simply the best places for commerce because the ah and mailbox are very close together.

Instead of taking time out with your main (or any other alt your are leveling) to do your ah business, always use your banking toon.  This will help more than anything to avoid mistakes and confusion.  Simply mail every single item of value to your banker and then you can deal with the whole pile at a time when you can concentrate on what to do with each piece.

Use your banker to post all your auctions and hold your gold.  I also use my banker to buy items for my toons to use as well.  My main rarely visits the ah, I’ve got more important stuff to do with that guy.

Now that you’ve got a banker, create a mule toon.  With a mule, it makes no difference what race you select although I will normally use a human for Alliance and an orc or troll for horde.  Just run this level 1 toon to the nearest inn with a mailbox and there they will stay forever.

The really neat thing about using a mule is that you can take advantage of a little exploit in the way the mail system works.  This tip will make it so much easier for the new player who doesn’t yet have the gold to blow on a full set of big bags for all their toons.  It will also make life easier for you power ah users since I don’t think we’ll ever get 250 slot bags!

When your banker’s mailbox and bags are jammed full and you’re waiting for the weekend to post all of those goodies at the auction house just use the bulk mail system and mail everything to your mule to hold.  Every mail you send can contain up to 12 items.  You can clear hundreds of items out of your mailbox and bags in just a few minutes.  I also recommend mail mods such as “Open All” and “Postman” to help speed up this process even more.

Once your Mule has everything in the mail you can let it sit there for up to 30 days.  I never leave things in there that long, but that’s the max.  After 30 days, those bulk mail items will just get returned to the banker - it doesn’t even cost you the mail fees!

But here’s the cool trick.  When it’s time to send everything back to your banking toon, just log your mule, open the mail and hit “return.”  You can return hundreds of items to your banker in a few clicks and zero postage fees.

Using the mail this way gives you hundreds - even thousands of absolutely free bag slots.  If you use the mail system to it’s maximum advantage, you’ll never have to worry about running out of space or blowing too much gold on bigger bags before you can really afford to.

You will also know exactly how to handle extra items.  Everything just gets mailed to your banker - simple.  When you have time to concentrate on what to do with everything, your banker will either post items on the ah or mail them to the mule to hold until they are ready to be sold or just to hold if you like.  Your banker will almost always mail things exclusively to your mule, and all your other toons will almost always mail everything to your banker, it makes visiting the mailbox short and sweet.

You’ll notice that the screen shot for this article shows my mule in Booty Bay.  On most servers I keep one mule for each faction in Booty Bay so that I can take advantage of moving things back and forth between Alliance and Horde auction houses.  This is a topic for another time, but if you can stand running your mules to booty bay (multiple deaths are often inevitable, especially for ally) then you really set yourself up for some dominating moves between faction auction houses.

It all sounds too simple once you read through it.  But there are so many players I see on their main toon at the auction house day after day that I thought it would be a great tip for those of you who do not use banking toons and mules up until now.  It will make your life a lot simpler and expand your storage space to near infinity.

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18 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

If you have been following my arena guides lately then you should now be entering the arena with a strong team setup coupled with a sophisticated communications setup to enable your team to perform to its best.

But all that planning is for nothing if you cannot execute your attack in the right way, as with the preparations you make before attacking, the way in which you initiate your attack is vital to winning in the arena.

Should your team end up confused and scattered in the attack it is a fast road to a lost match, likewise should you be able to force confusion upon your enemy it can make your wins easier to obtain. The trick is to force the other team to play into your own hands and style; make them dance to your tune and victory is assured.

One basic and effective opening tactic is a rush, this favors high burst dps teams to take advantage of the confusion for an easy first kill. The plan is simple, hit the other team hard and from an unexpected angle before they have a chance to identify what composition they are against.

An example of an effective place to rush is Blades Edge, most teams generally line up at opposite ends of the bridge and spend some time scouting out the other team, an effective rush will instead mount up and ride to the opposing teams ramp up to the bridge to hit them in the side.

The big downside to a rush is that while the other team will not have time to scout you out, neither will you have time to identify an effective target to nuke and so it is easy to end up with your own team confused without proper leadership.

A second effective opening tactic, and my personal favorite is harassment. This generally relies on having dispell classes move forward and purge one or two of the enemy buffs before backing off again quickly. In this manner you can weaken the enemy without fully engaging them and try to make one of their members panic and charge you.

If harassing, remember to land an attack from a distance on warriors in order to put them in combat; this stops them from utilizing charge against you which is the most common way you will be chased down as a harasser.

You can also harass with mana drains such as viper sting and by utilizing low rank DoT spells which cost far more mana to be removed than they do to cast. Further harassment tactics extend to the killing of hunter and warlock pets; these are sometimes left on aggressive stance and will charge out when attacked, enabling them to be killed alone.

The third tactic involves mass AoE crowd control and is effective when combined with a slightly delayed rush.   What it typically involves is a class such as a rogue sapping enemy healers or a mage polymorphing them before/as you charge in. This forces them to trinket in order to begin healing.

It is at this point that you hit the entire team with an AoE fear such as intimidating shout or howl of terror. The healers, having previously trinketed will now be out of control and likely to run out of line of sight of their team mates, causing chaos in the enemy’s organization.

This tactic does however rely on the other team being bunched up and you being the attacker.

The final opening tactic is the stealth hunt, if you know the other team has a stealth class, especially a rogue, then the chances are high that they will be sniffing around your team scouting you out. If you can catch them out with a low rank AoE to detect them or by utilizing the shadow sight gems then you force the other team to attack in order to rescue the stealth member.

This can lead to the opposition lacking organization in their attack making them much easier for you to dominate.

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4 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

We walked you through getting to Nat Pagle for this quest, and it’s high time I showed you how to catch those four fish.  Before you head out, be sure to bring along your shiny baubles otherwise you’ll kick yourself when you get to the first fishing hole!

Here’s the link to the Quest on wowhead - http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=6607 Nat asks you to go catch four fish and then return to him when you get them all. What we’re going to do is show you the fastest order to go get these fish, and the best spots to fish.  For reference, paths in yellow are for Alliance, and Horde is red.

FISH #1 - Feralas Ahi

For the Feralas Ahi just fly to Feralas (Feathermoon for Ally, Camp Mojache for Horde) and run to the little lake in the middle of the map to catch the Feralas Ahi. The map is pretty easy to follow here. Just run down to the bridge that crosses over the waterfall and jump off the road. There’s a little spot that sticks out into the pond with no roaming mobs. This one is easy for both factions.  I normally get the Ahi in just a few casts.

FISH #2 - Sar’Theris Striker

After you get the Ahi, fly to Desolace for the Sar’Theris Striker. Horde will only have to get off the bird at Shadowprey Village, run a bit south down the coast, and fish.  Be sure that you leave Shadowprey village completely, your sub-zone on your minimap should read Sar’Theris Strand, you cannot catch this fish while the zone map reads Shadowprey Village. Ally have a little longer run from Nijels Point down to the coast.

FISH #3 - Savage Coast Sailfin

Now fly back to ratchet and take the boat to Stranglethorn Vale. As soon as the boat lands, just hop off the north end of the dock and swim over to the first place you can stand near the little camp of pirates. This fish, the Savage Coast Blue Sailfin takes about 2 minutes to get. You might even try to catch one right off the end of the dock.

FISH #4 - Misty Reed Mahi Mahi

Now for the last (and hardest) fish to nab, the Misty Reed Mahi Mahi. Horde toons can fly to Stonard, but Ally Chars will have to fly to Nethergarde Keep in the Blasted Lands, or to Darkshire in Duskwood and run around Stonard to catch up

When you get to the beach, avoid the Murlocs and you’ll find a little spot just after the sand ends where there are no giant crocs or Murlocs patrolling and you can fish in a little peace. Once you’re done here, hearth out.

Now all you have to do is go back to Nat Pagle and turn in your fish, and you’re done! Congratulations and happy fishing! Oh, and always remember to Dominate.

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6 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

Hybrid classes form the backbone of many an instance group or PvP team, acting as the essential supporting mesh that pure classes rely on - often being the unsung heroes within the group.

Playing as a hybrid requires a great deal of skill to master compared to a pure class, especially in PvP and as such can take a while to learn for new players; however if you are up to the challenge then a hybrid class can be far more powerful than their pure-bred brethren.

There are two main play styles within the World of Warcraft that each hybrid class fits within which can loosely be described as an offensive style or a defensive style, below is a description of each and pointers to help you get the most out of your hybrid.

Offensive Hybrids

An offensive hybrid is a damage dealing class primarily and a backup healer as its secondary role. Examples of classes that fall within this category are shadow priests, Moonkin and Shockadins.

The trick to mastering these classes is to know when your healing abilities are required.  Far too many new players achieve a state of tunnel vision towards the damage dealing aspect of these classes; which is only a portion of your potential.

Nothing emphasizes the strength of an offensive hybrid more than arena play. At the start of a match an offensive hybrid is able to analyze the other team to assess just how pressured his own healers are going to be; and as such, how much he will need to support his own team as opposed to applying pure damage.

A simple example is the choice a Shockadin must make in 2v2 arena - if he should use avenging wrath or his defensive bubble. By analyzing the other teams’ damage output he can choose to either go all out on the attack with avenging wrath (should the other team lack damage) or play it defensively with his bubble against burst teams to try and simply outlast them.

Options like this simply are not available to pure classes but dramatically increase the range of team compositions with which you can effectively fight within the arena.

Similarly in PvE many late game encounters such as Archimonde can cause raid members to become separated from their healers while taking significant damage; nearby offensive hybrids can act as an emergency response if they are attentive.

Defensive Hybrids

A defensive hybrid is primarily a healer and offensive support is their secondary role. With the introduction of free spell damage on all healing kit each healing class fulfills this role - though some better than others.

Good examples of the most effective defensive hybrids are the Restokin build and holy paladins. In contrast to an offensive hybrid, the defensive hybrids’ challenge is knowing when to put its offensive potential into play.

While an offensive hybrid is more about assessing the overall situation and deciding if you need to play it safe, playing a defensive hybrid to its potential is much more about the timing and reactions needed to exploit a situation.

Similar to an offensive hybrid, many new players focus solely on the healing aspect of a defensive hybrid to the cost of all else, but when they become more comfortable with their class they can begin to bring the offensive aspects into play to push their class potential to the limit.

The arena is, once again, the place where bringing your offensive potential to full effect shines the most. A holy paladin who only focuses on healing may eventually succumb to crowd control or loss of mana when playing it safe; leading to a slow death.

However should that same paladin take to the offense at key times by using his hammer of justice to stun an enemy healer to prevent heals while unleashing supporting damage in the manner of a Shockadin; then he can at the very least put the other team on their back foot, if not force a kill.

By utilizing both the offensive and defensive aspects of your hybrid you ensure a level of unpredictability and adaptability in your actions, becoming much more of a threat to help ensure your domination of others.

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14 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

Previously I have covered how to go about creating your arena team to give yourself a good chance of success, however going into an arena match with a strong setup and basic plan is only one small aspect of the battles within.

There are many steps and tactics that you can undertake to improve your teams’ chance of success before you are even engaged with your opponents; indeed many matches are won or lost by the preparation made right at the start.

Arena combat is highly competitive and so you must give yourself every possible advantage to be able to keep up; you can guarantee that your opponents will be utilizing every possible means they can get to improve their game play and so, you must do likewise.

The first thing to work on is improvements to your teams co-ordination and communication. To that end, one of the most important things to have for any serious arena team is voice communication.

The in game voice chat is unfortunately not too great - often having problems with its volume being much too quiet even when set to its maximum output. The two voice chat applications generally used throughout any competitive game play worldwide are Team speak and Ventrillo.

By making sure your entire team is connected to a voice chat server and has working microphones you instantly boost your performance due to being able to watch each others backs far more efficiently.

For example, healers can call out when they are silenced allowing hybrids to provide emergency backup healing as needed, and the DPS classes can co-ordinate their attacks and crowd control with much more speed to put some serious pressure on the opposition.

The second means to boost your team co-ordination is so simple and yet missed by many players. Arena combat can get very hectic and your team can end up scattered leading to confusion as to where the rest of your team is at any one time. This can lead to players becoming isolated from support.

The solution is simple, assign everyone in your team a raid marker. This allows you to easily track exactly where your team mates are at any one time, even through walls; a vital piece of information to ensure that you don’t end up accidentally getting out of line of sight of your healers.

With team communication and co-ordination improved, the next step is to improve the information available to you about your enemy. A fairly standard arena management mod is Proximo ( http://wow.curse.com/downloads/details/8291/ ) and what this lovely little mod does is provide a target status box for every member of the opposing team that you can target them by. But more importantly it shows this information the second anyone in your team with Proximo targets an enemy player.

This allows you to very quickly know at the start of an arena match just what you are up against in order to form an effective plan. And if you don’t manage to target everyone in the opposing team then one of your teams stealth classes, if you have one, can go and “scout out” the other side with ease.

Be warned however that hunters have discovered a nasty way to bug out Proximo. When you target someone via Proximo it targets by name, and hunters have taken to naming their pets after team mates to mess up your targeting.

Now, fully prepared to dominate, it is time to prepare your attack!

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5 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

Arena season 4 has now officially begun on all servers, and with it the new Brutal and Guardian PvP items are now available. The big twist this season however, is that team selling has truly been stamped out and most items now require a player to have a high enough personal rating to purchase them.

The quality of the items available however is extraordinarily high; high enough to match or exceed the power of loot obtained from heroic badges and so it is well worth players to look at entering the arena in order to gear up.

Most of the items available require a personal rating of 1700 and this should be an achievable goal for many players if you enter with a favorable team setup and a solid plan. Outlined here are some basic pointers in assembling your own arena team to help you hit that 1700 target.

Which Bracket?

The first question you should ask yourself is if you want to be playing 2v2, 3v3 or 5v5 arena. It is much easier to assemble a 2v2 team but your team setup is critical to success here and this bracket allows for few mistakes. 5v5 allows a much broader range of successful team setups since each player can compensate for their teammate’s weaknesses -  but it can be a large hassle to schedule times when your whole team can play.

3v3 is a comfortable medium between each bracket being both relatively simple to organize a team and allowing a reasonable variety in class composition. If you are fairly new to the arena, I would highly recommend the 3v3 bracket to you.

Forming the Team

The first thing you need to keep in mind first and foremost when forming your team is each individual’s survivability since this will have a huge impact on your tactics.

As an example, having a subtlety rogue in your team allows you to play rather offensively since he is difficult to directly attack and highly mobile, as such he will require little healing which allows him to successfully partner with a DPS class stacked team or a more offensive hybrid healer such as a moonkin or shadow priest.

In contrast a warrior has little in the way of escape measures but hits like a freight train to compensate, if he went with a fully offensive team he could easily be burned down and as such a warrior is best accompanied by a healing teammate.

By keeping in mind the survivability of your teammates you can ensure that your team composition supports each other to counter your weaknesses rather than just compounding the problems.

Making a Plan

The second most important thing in arena is to have an overall plan as to what the team strategy is to win and select classes that will accomplish that. There are several highly successful strategies common place in the arena that will work well for newcomers.

The first basic strategy is a drain team, this relies on having mana draining abilities available and in order  to accomplish this you require a hunter, priest or warlock present. The main idea is to have steady damage on the opposing team to wear them down while directly attacking the enemy healers’ mana. If you can make the enemy healers run out of mana before yours do then you can easily start killing off his team mates.

A similar strategy to this is a grind style team. These teams tend to have a high number of healers accompanied by a dps class whose damage does not ever “run dry” - usually a warrior. The goal here is to be so survivable that nobody in your team can easily be killed while slowly chipping away at the enemy team until something gives way, usually the enemy healers running out of mana.

The final basic strategy is the burst team. This style of team is very risky but can be quite effective due to its instant shock value. The trick is to take 3 dps classes that can dish out horrendous damage while supporting this with a high amount of crowd control and silences. What the plan entails is to hit one person as hard as you possibly can while stopping him from being healed.

The big risk however is that if your burst does not succeed then without a healer your team will gradually be picked off, as such it is vital to pick the correct target. Attacking someone who has an escape measure such as a paladins bubble or a mages iceblock will cause your attack to fail.

Attacking a class such as a warrior or shaman however yields a high success rate.

With these simple tips you should be able to construct a strong backbone to your arena team and be ready to dominate your way to that 1700 rating target.

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12 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

Over the next 11 days you have a unique opportunity. If you’ve been thinking about starting a new toon or cruising one of your current alts up to level 70 don’t waste another minute!

The midsummer festival is in full swing right now all over the WoW landscape. While there are events associated with the festival that we will cover tomorrow (such as some serious gold to be made) today we wanted to let you in on how the festival can really buff your leveling runs.

In each zone there are bonfires burning. The bonfires are lit every midsummer to symbolize the hottest part of the year with flames. This all seems a little silly to me, but hey, people do silly stuff all the time when they are making up excuses to have a party! Wouldn’t ice cream be better for this time of year? Oh well, I guess fires when it’s already hot outside is fine.

When you visit a bonfire controlled by your faction (Alliance or Horde) there are several things you can do that will give you rewards or buffs. You can also earn some nice change by visiting bonfires controlled by the other faction and snuffing them out! Here’s how this festival is a once a year opportunity to level those alts.

When you complete midsummer festival quests you will receive an item called Burning Blossoms. These blossoms can be used at the bonfires to light them or you can collect a lot of them and turn them in for some fairly decent rewards. The quests are easy and mostly involve running to talk to various NPC’s so it’s pretty easy to collect the blossoms.

As you are out questing be sure to keep a few blossoms in your bag and be aware of the locations for all the bonfires in the zone as well as nearby zones. Whenever someone lights the bonfire (of your faction) for the zone you are in you will get a buff that adds a 30% chance to add fire damage to each attack you make. The amount of fire damage is pretty big and scales with the level of your character. At lower levels it normally results in a one-shot kill when it procs. At level 70 this buff adds a chance to do 700 fire dmg. But the fire damage buff is only the beginning!

You’ll want to stock up on burning blossoms for this next buff. If you use a burning blossom near a bonfire that is already lit you will also gain +3% to your critical hit rating. This buff also adds fire damage to each attack! You can actually gain this buff as well as the bonfire buff every time you light the fire yourself using a Burning Blossom. With both of the fire damage buffs and increased crit chance you will be blowing mobs up like an elite.

At each bonfire there is also a pole. Dancing around the pole gives you an experience per kill reward of +10%! To dance all you have to do is toggle the gear cursor when standing near the pole. Your toon will go into a frenzied spinning dance and you can watch the experience buff increase as you spin.

Be sure to dance for about 60 seconds every time you visit the pole. This buff has a sort of “slow fill” on the countdown timer. The longer you dance, the longer the buff lasts - up to 60 minutes.

You can see how stacking these three buffs can really speed up your leveling times. Don’t waste this chance to scoot through about 50 levels over the next 11 days. You won’t get an opportunity like this for another year. Get out there now and Dominate with those alts!

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9 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

By now you know that we’re big fans of fishing for your main character. We know it seems like a big pain to level fishing, but it can become a good money-maker when combined with cooking in the end game. Beyond that, you can get lots of decent buffs from cooked fish - most of which are just as good, if not better, than buffs from high-end alchemy potions; and the mats are so much easier to get.

In the career of an angler, you can train the first two levels at the fishing trainers to get to skill level 150. after that, you have to get the book “Expert Fishing - The Bass and You.” From Old Man Hemming in Booty Bay. But once you reach level 225, you have to do a quest to get the Artisan level training. This guide is going to walk you through that quest chain. Once you finish this quest and can go to 325, all you have to do is grab the next book, “Master Fishing - The Art of Angling” from Juno Dufrain at Cenarion Refuge in Zangaramarsh.

But let’s take a look at the Artisan Quest and tell you the easiest way through the thing. There are a couple of starter quests you can do to help you find Nat Pagle, but we’ve never done them. Just go straight to Nat. He’s on a little Island in the bay almost due west of the piers of Theramore. His coordinates are 59,60 and here’s what the fellow looks like, just chillin’ on his own little island (and drinking a bit too much we might add).

It’s a little easier for Alliance to get to Nat than Horde, since Ally toons can just jump off the docks after taking the boat from Menethil to Theramore. Horde toons will have to run from the Barrens and then through the Dustwallow Marsh. Or they can fly to Brakenwall Village and then run over to the Bay.

The following Screen shots will walk you through getting to Nat if you’re Alliance. From where the boat docks, run to the second red block as shown on this shot from the mini map.

Pay attention to which way you should be facing - like this:

Now that you’re facing about the right direction, this is what you would see if you were looking back toward the docks.

From here, Swim straight toward this little lump in the distant mountains.

After swimming for about 20 seconds you’ll see this Island straight ahead:

Swim around this Island on the left side as shown with the red path. As soon as you round this island, you will be able see Nat standing on the one behind it.

If you take a look at the mini map, you can see what that will look like when you get close, as well as the path you should swim in red.

Here we are standing behind Nat, looking back toward Theramore, so you can get an idea of how to get back, as well as a shot of his location on the World Map.

Please note the level 42 Thresher in the water near the other Island. Those guys are all over the place, so swim carefully if you are under level 40.

For Horde, just take this path to the coast, and then hug the coastline, staying out of the water as much as possible until the coast breaks back to the west. From the Barrens, follow the Yellow path. Yes it is easier to run up the road and avoid as many mobs as possible. There are lots of Lobster guys in the water along the coast, so the going can be a little rough since they have a frost bolt attack that will slow you down and make running from them difficult - especially if they catch you in the water.

You can get this quest only after level 35 and only if you have completely maxed out your fishing skill at 225. And, honestly, you wouldn’t be able to go to the places you’re going to need to go until at least level 40, so don’t sweat this quest until then.

Here’s the link to the Quest on WoWhead - http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=6607

Nat asks you to go catch four unique fish and then return to him when you bag them all. In part two later this week on DYS we’re going to do is show you the fastest order to go get these fish, and the best spots to fish. If you follow our directions you should be able to complete this entire quest in about an hour, and that is truly dominating!

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20 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

One of the most versatile classes to play is the druid. They can be set up for tanking, healing, melee DPS, and ranged DPS. The best part; any spec is highly effective.

Given the balance and restoration trees, there are some incredible abilities that can lend support to each other. Keep reading on to learn how to manipulate these two talent lines to get a dps/healing effect that is incredible for PvP, raiding, and just running simple heroics.

Before I explain, here is the link. This is known as the Dreamstrate healing spec. The idea is to use the talent abilities Lunar Guidance and Dreamstate to replace ToL (tree of life.)

Dreamstate healers spec fully in intellect and +healing. They are not reliant on spirit because it really does nothing for them. The cycle of healing consists of lifebloom, rejuvenation, and regrowth on at all times while casting healing touch (HT) appropriately.

HT is extremely powerful (especially with empowered touch) so lower levels of this ability are required. Healing touch will not be spammed, but used appropriately when big heals are needed. Combining it with nature’s swiftness is vital for getting a 6k heal in half a second to save a tank. With 1800 bonus healing and empowered touch, a HT crits for 10k or more.

The only thing that hurts this spec is losing swiftmend and the threat that HT generates. However, the effect of HT easily replaces swiftmend. The bonus healing from ToL form is replaced with Lunar Guidance.

Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of the dreamstate build:

Pros:

• Spell damage is now applied, also giving an extra ability (Insect Swarm)
• Moonglow reduces nearly all spells by 9% mana cost
• No shapeshift form. Healing touch can now be used and no speed reduction
• Dreamstate gives 10% mana regeneration every 5 seconds
• Nature’s Grace

Cons:

• No Swiftmend
• No Improved Regrowth
• No Empowered Rejuvenation
• Casting Healing Touch causes more threat

This is a different strategy to bring to the table, but is still very effective. It all depends on your style and equipment. The druid is very diverse and can be manipulated in several ways. In addition, the ability to off-DPS or solo daily quests without difficulty makes it much easier than being full restoration. There is plenty of DPS to carry around through this build, making the life of a healer more simplistic.

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37 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

We had such awesome feedback during our writing contest, I decided to give you guys the floor one more time. During our writing competition we had so many players submit entries with a very high level of expertise that it was quite startling. So now what I want you to do is help us explore a very overlooked aspect of the WoW playing experience.

We could go on for months and months about action bars, UI mods and macros without ever getting close to covering even a fraction of the things you can use in those areas. We will certainly do our best to give you some major players in the UI mods genre in the coming weeks, and our staff writers are hard at work paring down the options into useful articles.

But first, we’re going to take a closer look at how our readers actually interface with the game by finding out what hardware master players are using. I mean, what good is having all those extra bars and macros if they are difficult to access because you use a crummy stock mouse and gooped-up keyboard?

I personally use a programmable mouse that activates macros and other functions. When I play a hunter, my right clicks go through a complete shot cycle, so I have far greater control over the combat sequence. I am able to do everything a hunter is good at without ever really worrying about what should come next, my mouse takes care of most of it for me. That way I can spend more time (especially in raids) watching for those surprises and changes in the combat environment that require my special attention. But without my particular mouse, it would be virtually impossible to accomplish.

Our editor, Lawbringer swears by a particular game pad he uses. I gives him 36 extra keys to play with. He actually goes in a very different direction with his play style. While I never take my hand off the mouse, he rarely touches his. With a compact keyboard, a little clever hotkey assignment, and a bar mod, he has over 60 hotkeys at his fingertips without ever having to do anything like press [shift]+F1 or [Cntl]+5. He plays fast, fast, fast. Since virtually every skill is at his fingertips, the only thing he ever has to wait on is cooldowns!

If you have a setup that enhances your game play, now is your chance to tell us about it. Keyboard, mouse, peripherals, headsets, monitors - anything that you use to increase your ability to dominate!

Post your setup and why it helps you dominate as a reply to this thread. We’ll review the submissions and then do a series of articles about the very best products you guys actually use. It will be a huge help to the new and intermediate player looking to advance to serious raids and PVP action. Those of you who have already been through the process of selecting the very best equipment to use can give them a little great advice and we’ll help you by giving everyone links where they can find all the cool toys you recommend.

I know you guys like to brag, so let me have it. Show Gavin how your setup rocks the competition, and gives you the ability to truly Dominate!

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