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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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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How To Meet All Your Meta Gem Requirements With One Stone

For the min/max guy this is going to just make you mad so you can go read something else. But if you’re a normal person and sometimes wonder exactly what gem to put in every single slot you have you may just appreciate this tip.  It’s a neat trick because it’s a pretty cheap way of getting your meta gem activated without having to put something goofy in a yellow socket just because you need something yellow.

For almost every class, you are going to end up with a piece of gear with a strange socket color.  And that means you have to start doing all the math over again or maybe you’ve just given up (like Fury warriors and some Shaman healers) and just chosen the best gem and it goes in every single slot no matter what – socket bonuses be danged.  Or maybe you just go cross-eyed wondering where in the heck you’re going to get a blue gem to activate your Meta gem in your helm when you’ve got zero blue sockets in sight. (don’t forget about Eternal Belt Buckles by the way).

Only problem with saying bye-bye to your socket bonuses is that you probably don’t have all of the right color gems in place to activate your meta gem.  We’re not going to go into picking meta gems for class and spec, that’s an argument waiting to happen (and it can happen somewhere else).

But there is one little gem that should be easy to get your hands on no matter what server you’re on that will activate any meta gem no matter what the requirements are with a single socket.  That gem is the Nightmare Tear.

Not terribly long ago this was a JC only gem, but patch 3.2 made it available to everyone as a unique equipped item.  That means you can only use one of them, but at least you don’t have to be a Jewelcrafter any more.  The price on some servers may be a little higher than you would like, since making one requires a Dragon’s eye, but you should be able to peg the price for getting this cut from the price of Dragon’s eyes on your AH (if there are any).  The only other mats required are 5 infinite dust, and there is probably more of that on most servers now than there is real dust in your house.

The cool thing about the nightmare tear is that since it will fit any socket color it also acts for some odd reason as every socket color once you put it in.  So for frustrating Meta gems like the Relentless Earthseige Diamond which requires three different gem colors to activate, you can throw a Nightmare Tear in your helm with this and get on with your day.

Granted, for some classes, like mages, this isn’t the greatest choice.  And for the mage there are plenty of good gem choices that make the use of the Nightmare Tear to activate a Meta completely unnecessary.  But even for Mages if you just want to throw a meta in a level 219 hood or something while you are gearing up and don’t feel like spending another few hundred gold activating it, a single nightmare tear isn’t a bad idea.

It’s a hassle free way to get around not having to use a Yellow gem if you really don’t want to waste another socket on a Yellow gem when there aren’t any decent yellow gems for your class or spec; or any other color for that matter.  It’s a pretty easy way to activate any meta gem no matter what the requirements might be.  It’s not even lazy, but it is easy – and Dominating.

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Highest Mage DPS Using Best In Slot Gear From T9

Using BiS gear, excluding new content from patch 3.3, this is the  highest single target DPS there is (or was). With new Tier 10 becoming available since 3.3 hit the realms, there will be new information available soon, but since the BiS for T10 may not be available for some time now, this is as good a place as any to start.  Arcane Mages have ruled the DPS charts for some time now, and we don’t expect that to change any time soon.  Mages were designed to be the all DPS all the time channel, and this build will get you tuned in to Dominate.

Gear

http://www.wowhead.com/?profile=14306468

With best in slot gear the theoretical max for this build is higher than any other class or build in the game at 10,587 DPS.  The link above will show you a character paper doll screen at wowhead where you can take a peek at the gear you are looking for. This figure(DPS) is calculated based on a 300 seconds encounter on a single target, level 83 mob.

Talent Build

http://www.wowhead.com/?profile=14306468#talents

Glyphs

• Arcane Blast
• Arcane Missiles
• Molten Armor
• Slow Fall
• Arcane Intellect
• Fire Ward

Of course, the minor glyphs are completely up to you, but the major glyphs are a must have for maximum DPS.

Priorities

Ironically enough, this has got to be one of the simplest rotations in the game …

• Molten Armor
• Icy Veins
• Arcane Missiles
• Arcane Blast
• Trinket (On Use Items)
• Mirror Image
• Arcane Barrage (if Moving and Blast Has 4 Stack or no Missile proc)

It’s basically 2 buttons, that’s it, Arcane Blast and Arcane Missiles.  Lather, rinse, repeat, throw in a Mirror Image and an Icy Veins from time to time, top the charts, mash more buttons, yawn, Dominate. As counter-intuitive as this may sound, No, you don’t use Arcane Barrage, it’s just not as cost effective. Build up with Arcane Blast and then lay down the Arcane Missiles and do it over and over.  The rest of the things in the list just increase the output of your two main spells.  You can throw in a Barrage if you are on the run and dont want to waste a 4 stack of Blast, but if you can stand still – missiles is the only way to go.

10,587 DPS Arcane Mage Single target damage spread

Like we said, pretty simple.  Hit Icy veins every time it’s up, pop your trinkets as soon as they are off cool down and the rest of the list in order.  It’s pretty much just Blast and Missiles. Use Mirror image to multiply your damage output , but keep in mind it is last on the list and should be timed properly.  You should be able to easily get them all in, however.

Pawn Scale

( Pawn: v1: “Arcane”: HitRating=3.7733, HasteRating=2.1107, SpellDamage=1.8406, Spirit=1.2953, CritRating=1.1455, Intellect=1.0797 )

As you can see Hit rating is THE biggest priority, more then Haste and SP combined! Every spell you miss is damage you’re not doing and a cool down you just wasted. If you’re already hit capped and know how to juggle when to get more hit and when to skip it for Haste, you can use the next scale:

( Pawn: v1: “Arcane”: HitRating=0.0000, HasteRating=2.1107, SpellDamage=1.8406, Spirit=1.2953, CritRating=1.1455, Intellect=1.0797 )

There is quite a bit of information for you on this page, and this write up doesn’t account for mana management, but this is something you should be fairly familiar with by now. Stay tuned for more builds in different specs for every class over the next month or so. If you liked this you’ll LOVE what’s coming next.

Don’t be Great, Dominate!

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Recruit your best friend …  YOURSELF!

In the 1st article we outlined the basics of the RAF program.  In this article we will explore the ways to exploit the program for maximum DOMINATION.  Some of these setups may be beyond you and/or your computer’s abilities.  It is up to you to choose the one that best fits you and enjoy the free extra xp.

Let’s start with the basic Acct setup as this is the same regardless of how you use the program.  You will end up having 2 accounts with this program, the Veteran account and the Recruit account.  The veteran account is your main account that you want a new alt on.  The recruit account is a free account you are just using to gain extra XP with.  Now lets get down to business.

1. The 1st step is to send YOURSELF a recruit a friend email using the warcraft website.  Just log into the veteran account (via the Blizzard web site) and send a RAF invite to your email address.
2. When you receive the trial offer email follow the email instructions and in no time you have a free 10day trial that is tied to your main account.  This is what can be called a disposable account. After the 10day trial, you may never use it again. Now the fun begins.

Log onto your veteran account and roll up your desired new alt.  Please keep in mind that the trial account is Vanilla WOW, so no Draenei or Blood elf quest zones are available for questing with the trial account.  You can make one of those on your main account if you wish, but the pair will not be able to use those starting areas.

Character pairing tips.

• If you make a melee based toon, I highly recommend a Shaman for the trial account if possible, but honestly any healer class will do quite well. I like the shaman because they can just drop a few totems which will buff your primary toon, then sit there ready to heal if needed. Again, maximizing benefit for least amount of work.
• If you make a caster toon, then you will probably want a melee class for the trial account. If you’re not planning to dual box, then any old toon works on the trial account as it is just going to pop up when needed.

Now that your accounts are set-up and you have rolled your toons lets discuss working the pair.  We covered Multi boxing in a previous Casual Corner article.  Make sure you read it, it covers the basics of the Multi boxing style of leveling, and nothing changes when using it for RAF.  Well nothing other than getting THREE TIMES the XP per kill and quest!

It is realy just that simple. In no time at all your new alt will be level 20 and into the fun levels, or better yet all the way to lvl 60 and ready to hammer outlands into submission!

Now I know your all asking, well what about the toons on the trial account? You have options for those toons.

• If you really want those toons, you can always pay to move them to your main account.
• Or if you want to push and get maximum boost you could turn the trial account into a full blown account, which buys you a full month of bonus XP mayhem and opens the door to RAF your way on to lvl 60 on both accounts.  An added bonus of the recruit account being a full account is that now you can trade between toons to make sure they are both geared! Plus after those 60 levels you then have 30 free levels on the trial account to hand out to another toon on the veteran account WOOT!

One last tasty RAF leveling tip;

Leap-frogging Levels:  When dual boxing try to keep the recruit toon’s lvl slightly ahead of the veteran account toon. This can let you leap-frog the veteran toon a level at the last minute before hitting 20. When the recruit toon dings to 20 and the veteran is just a hair short of 20 the recruit can gift the veteran toon a level! BAM your lvl 19 that was 99% to 20 is now 99% to 21 YEEHAA! Then turn in that last quest on the veteran and catapult into 21 in style! This also applies to lvl60 if you decide to convert the trial account into a full blown vanilla WOW account.  Get the Veteran account to lvl59.99 and then gift it a free level!

You can do similar when your gifting levels to your other alts.  Before you start gifting levels, get the verteran account alt as close as possible to going Ding THEN grant the levels.  That way you are working for cheaper lower level XP and buying your way higher into the gifted levels.

I am not a power leveler by any means.  But this system really makes power leveling possible for even the most casual WOW player, and you could soon find yourself with a fleet of 60’s ready to sprint thru outlands. At one Point in a single month I ended up with a total of six lvl 60 toons, two pairs I ran up and then a pair of toons on the veteran account that were already lvl 30 and were granted free levels to 60!

Something to  watch for

Blizzard recently did a sale on vanilla wow, it was $5.00 for the full base game, including the free 1^st month.  For $5.00 you had yourself a power leveling tool good all the way to 60! Sadly, this was a 2-day sale and is over, but keep your eyes open, you never know when they will do it again, and pricing for the base game should only drop as they release Cataclysm.

Alts are cool, chicks dig scars, DOMINATING is eternal.

Wicked of Dominate
<Fenris>

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Leveling the Hardcore Casual way

In the last few years Blizzard has made numerous changes to the “low level” game to help get players into Northrend as quickly as possible.  XP is lower per level and quest rewards are increased, leveling a toon has never been faster.  Add to that the Recruit-a-friend (RAF) program they implemented back in June 2008 to help push players into TBC content and we have an Altoholics paradise!

I am going to share a little set-up I have found quite useful for getting toons past the often tiresome lvl 1-mid 20’s, FAST.  I am talking 1-20 in a single day of relaxed playing, or a single evening after work if you use Gavin’s guide or know the start zones well.  The best part it is FREE! This article will focus on the lvl 1-20 program.  It can be adapted to help all the way to lvl 60 as well, but more on that later.

Many players do not truly understand or appreciate the RAF program.  They do not realize it can be a leveling tool; they don’t have any friends to recruit, so why pay attention right?  A few of us Milk it for every level it is worth! To begin lets cover a few key points about RAF:

• The RAF invitation includes a FREE 10day trial account for the “new player”

• Once the offer is accepted the accounts are linked for 90-days, well past the 10-day free trial (more on this later).

• This trial account is a Std trial account; it can’t trade, buy in AH, and is quite limited due to past abuses.

• The trial account is Vanilla WOW, with no access to Blood Elf or Draenei starting areas.

• When the linked accounts are partied together they both get TRIPLE XP for EVERYTHING that is not grey to them. That means mobs AND quests, but they must be partied to get the bonus.

• Each toon can summon a toon from the other account once per hour.

• For every 2 levels gained by the recruited account they can gift a free level to a lower level toon on the veterans account.

• ALL bonuses stop at lvl 60.

• After 1^st paid month on recruit acct, the veteran acct gets a free month.

• After 3 paid months the recruit account can gift one Zhevra mount to any single toon on the veteran’s account.

As you can see the benefits are quite large, and well worth exploiting.  Now that I have outlined the base program for all of you I will throw some teasers and tips out to you to get you thinking about the next article.

• Holidays;  Blizzard is now giving xp for the holiday quests, the RAF program triples this too, so take advantage and get some easy triple xp! The recent Pilgrim holiday was a a perfect example and I actually double dipped. Those that follow DYS read about how easy it was to get 1-300 cooking skill for a few gold, but each quest kicked out 3x XP using RAF!! As a toon in my teens I was seeing 3500xp per quest!

• Traveling: The free hourly summon ability is extremely handy. It works not only with the new alts, but all toons on both accounts.  What I found worked well was having the toons hearthed to different places.  Like one in Org and one in UC. Need to travel to TB or Org for a quest turn in, hearth the toon there and summon the other toon.  Need to head back to UC for training your undead priest, hearth him home, train and then summon him back.  Need to run to the next FP or quest point?  Log onto a bigger toon , fly there, then summon the other toon to you.  Log off the big toon, onto the new alt and use the trail to summon him.  Bam, in minutes you safely made the journey. I actually used that to get both toons every FP in both continents when they were only lvl 20 over the course of a week.

That’s all for now, see what trouble you can cause and as always DOMINATE.

Alts are cool, chicks dig scars, DOMINATING is eternal.

Wicked of Dominate
<Fenris>

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We’ve told you before to level cooking alongside of Fishing. You’ve heard us say over and over that cooking can get you some gold and how every class in the game can benefit something from cooking. You’ve also heard us tell you how big of a pain in the @$$ it is. Then THIS IS YOUR CHANCE. We’ll show you how to get cooking to 350 in an hour.  There are complete guides to the actual festival itself out there but this article will focus exclusively on the cooking aspect of it.

It all has to do with Pilgrim Festival. This will require you to run from Undercity(Stormwind) to Orgrimar(IronForge) and ThunderBluff(Darnassus) but will net you a bit of gold and those precious cooking levels that are such a pain to get. Assuming you’ve got no skill in cooking you’ll want to get to Undercity and train up cooking at the Pilgrim Festival Cooking trainer.  Buy the Bountiful cookbook from the vendor and open it up to pick up the 5 Festival recipes and learn the first one right away: Spice Bread Stuffing

Undercity/Stormwind

Buy:

• 60x Simple Flour
• 60x Mild Spices
• Create 60x Spice Bread

The recipe will go gray on you at 40 but you’ll get to use the extra you buy to make the last few points.  Once you’ve got 60x Spice Bread, combine it with 60xAutomnal Herbs (from Pilgrim Vendor) to make 60xSpice Bread Stuffing and get to 100 cooking (or a little more).  Don’t forget to train up cooking before you get to 75 cooking skill or you’ll have to re-cook the bread. Learn Pumpkin pie recipe (at 100)

Buy

• 70x Ripe Tirisfal(Elwynn Pumpkin)
• 70x Honey
• Create 70x Pumpkin Pie

Again remember to train up cooking when you get to 125 (but before 150).  Once you hit 160 cooking, learn the Cranberry Chutney recipe and travel to your next destination (Orgrimar/Ironforge).

Orgrimar/Ironforge

Buy:

• 70x Tangy Southfury Cranberries(TangyWetland Cranberries)
• 70x Honey
• Create 70x Cranberry Chutney

Again remember to train up cooking when your skill reaches 200 and before it hits 225. Learn the Candied Sweet Potato recipe at 220 cooking and move on to your next destination: ThunderBluff/Darnassus

Thunder Bluff/Darnasuss

Buy:

• 70x Mulgore Sweet Potato (Teldrasil Sweet Potato)
• 70x Honey
• Create 70x Candied Sweet Potato

Train cooking between 275 and 300 and return to Undercity/ Stormwind for the last part of this adventure.  This part will require you run around like a turkey after … well … Wild Turkeys

Go outside Undercity/Darnassus and kill Wild Turkeys and remember to loot them, you’ll need quite a few so don’t be shy they are scattered all over the start area and spawn rather quickly.

Back to Undercity/Stormwind

Buy:

• 140x Honey
• 70x Automnal Herbs
• kill 70x Wild Turkeys
• Create 70x SlowRoasted Turkeys

Voila! Your cooking skill should be at 350 or a little above (355?) In the process you’ve managed to accomplish all the seasonal cooking quests and have enough for 3 days’ worth of dailies. All of which should buy you more then enough Turkey Shooters to turn all the rogues you need for the achievement (assuming you don’t miss too often)

This is BY FAR the cheapest and most effective way to level cooking you’ll ever get. The recipes don’t go yellow until you’re 10 pts away from the next one (which is whyI make you buy 70 instead of the minimum 60 you really need). To be honest I didn’t do the math on this and it’s so cheap that I’m not even going to bother. 5-10 gold ? … the amount is infinitesimal, ridiculous even.

Regardless whether you do the seasonal events or not this is a DOMINATING way to level cooking and it only comes around once/year so better take advantage of it now or you’ll regret it come Christmas when you need to get your MerryMaker title. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

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Welcome back to the second installment of the DK series.  Today, we’ll cover Glyphs and Rotation.

Glyphs are pretty straight forwards; you saw them in the link to the build on Yesterday’s article. The only argument I see is for Glyph of Icy Touch instead of Glyph of Disease. And after field testing it in multiple scenarios, based on my play style and rotation I just prefer the Glyph of Disease because of the instant refresh of all diseases. After all the less time I spend refreshing a DoT, the more time I can spend DPSing.

Glyph of Death Strike- Major
Glyph of Dancing Rune Weapon-Major
Glyph of Disease- Major
Glyph of Horn of Winter-Minor
Glyph of Pestilence-Minor
Glyph of Raise Dead- Minor

When it comes to rotation, some classes have a fixed rotation (Prot Paladins) while other classes have a priority-based rotation (Feral Druids). Death Knights can, ironically put out more damage with the simplest of rotations. It’s probably why we’re accused of “Face Rolling”, but every DK knows that’s just plain Jealousy, even if no other class will admit it!

Step1: Put up your Diseases

Plague Strike(Puts: Blood Plague) and  Icy Touch (to put Frost Fever on your target)

Once those are up you can forget about them for the rest of the fight and as long as you remember to keep them up with Pestilence, you’re golden. Remember, Pestilence is a top priority before your diseases run out, It’s far less “expensive” to keep them up than it is to renew them if they fall off.

Step 2: Do your thing!

Death Strike, Heart Strike (x2), Death Coil (Runic Power Dump),

Death Strike, Heart Strike (x3), Dancing Rune Weapon

Rince and repeat.

It’s preferable to wait for the second time through your rotation to ensure that you have all 4 Blood Worms up before you call your DRW, but if you already have 4 Blood Worms, you can go ahead and pop DRW on that first pass. With the glyph, your DRW is up for 17 seconds and will spend the next 73 seconds on cool down. During that time Death Strike and Heart Strike are pretty much all you need, as long as you remember to keep up Pestilence before your diseases run out.

Now this may sound a little simplistic and too good to be true, but on the PTR I’ve personally done 8.4K DPS and after enchanting and gemming up the gear, I brought that up to a staggering 10,200 DPS. (Ok, it’s in full T9 and 245 Epics, but still …)
This just proves that a rotation doesn’t have to be complicated to generate results and that some times, the simplest way is the best way.

Next time we’ll cover Gemming and Enchanting as well as some base stats and their importance to a DK.

… To Be Continued

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Products We Love – Razer Naga, The Ultimate WoW Gaming Mouse

Click Here To Order Yours!

We’re a big fan of nifty peripherals here at DYS, just in case you hadn’t noticed, but every now and then even we get blown away.  Every month or two we test a new product in the market to see if it offers something more for our readers.  In order to get a review at this site, the thing really has to add something to the wow experience for the novice and pro alike.  Not making our cut doesn’t mean it’s a bad product, just that it doesn’t meet our Dominating and demanding flavor.

But every now and again we come across something that actually changes the way we play.  The Sennheiser headphones are great, but won’t really make you a terrific player.  The G13 game pad will – I still use both of them every single time I play.  But the Razer Naga blows away everything we’ve ever reviewed by such a huge margin that it’s a little hard to know where to start saying just how good it really is.

First things first, then.  It’s a standard size mouse (even though the button field looks pretty intimidating in the pic above) with 12 extra keys on the thumb side (for righties anyway).  That is the big difference between the Naga and every other mouse on the planet.  It has the standard left, right, scroll, scroll click, four and five buttons as most gaming mice – but adds twelve more keys for your thumb.  One look and we KNEW we had to give it a spin.

How Does It Feel?

In just ten seconds it was apparent it was the most comfortable mouse ever.  It’s like holding hands with your sweetheart.  The texture is just smooth enough to be soft, just matte enough to be completely slip free.  Not only do your index and middle finger glide into the perfect rest position, but there is a little shelf for your ring finger and a cup for your pinky that actually make it more relaxing to have your hand on your mouse than anywhere else.  You hate to let go of the thing to type.  So in the tactile area the Naga gets a 10+ out of 10.

Cursor Response

The drivers are super easy to install both on Mac and PC.  The interface is clean and offers a degree of movement control that is nothing short of outstanding.  It supports Dpi ranges from 100 to 5600 – which is a range from nearly dead turtle to fighter jet speed.  You can also adjust the acceleration factor and frequency response over broad ranges.  But the really slick part is that you can set it to control the X and Y axis Dpi independently.  That is a real WoW factor.  If you use a wide screen setup it is so nice to have the cursor move faster from left to right than up and down.  Cursor response and setup = 10 of 10

Movement and Function

Most mice have a few little slip pads on the bottom and a big bright lazer or whatever.  This beauty has a slip ring around the entire perimeter of the bottom, which makes it glide like butter.  It even has an extra slip ring that completely surrounds the invisible lazer orifice.  One thing is for certain, if your mousing surface isn’t completely clean, you’ll know it in about half a second. (we also prefer the Lazer exact mat for all our mice, but it’s especially nice with the Naga).  I prefer a free-wheeling mouse, but since very few have that option I can’t deduct too much for the incremental scroll.  The four and five buttons are right up at the very front and absolutely WILL give your a hand cramp if you try to use them very often, but we’ll get to why this makes almost no difference later.  And, finally the button clicks are easy enough to make without much force, but firm enough to avoid lots of accidental clicks – pretty much perfect.  Movement and function = 9 of 10

Extra Juice

Now we get to the good stuff.  Those 12 extra buttons are so good it’s not even fair to rate this thing against other mice.  It turns all those other mice into meece.  There’s everything else – and then there’s the Naga.  I pitched my G3 in a drawer for good and didn’t have a qualm in the world about doing so – and I loved that mouse.  Even apart from the extended functionality, the Naga is just a much better overall mouse, but those extra keys are WAY past incredible.  And then I played with them.

I fully intended to try to use as little hyperbole as possible, but that’s completely impossible in this situation.  Compared to every other mouse I’ve ever used – and I go through mice like a tomcat, the Naga would have no peer, leaving even the G3 completely in the dust.  But those extra buttons make it so different that it becomes completely unfair to all the other mice in the world.  If the G3 (a really good mouse) rated a 45 out of 50, the Naga (even without the buttons) would have raised the bar to 60, and that’s no kidding.  Those 12 new buttons put the bar at 100, and we’ll put the Naga right there 95 out of 100, which means there really isn’t any way to compare apples to apples.  everything else just got pwned.

That extra button pad automatically binds to either the: 1 through = keys on your keyboard or the number pad keys, whichever you prefer.  I already had bar one and two in Bartender assigned to those suckers as it is, so with the flip of a switch I can use my one mouse to toggle 24 keys – it’s so slick you have to use it to believe it.  And then comes Vuhdo – yikes.

Plug this thing into Vuhdo and you are one little macro command away from complete and total healing Domination.  And, in reality, it could almost make the choice between Healbot, Grid/Clique and Vuhdo closer to meaningless than ever before.  We’ll discuss that macro in the next article since it’s so slick and useful for so many other situations, but just know that you probably would never use it nearly as much without the Naga.

You’re Wasting Time Here!

All there is left to say is get one.  Get one right this minute.  Do not pass go, do not argue, just get it and Dominate.  Ask for it for Thanksgiving, your birthday, Christmas and New Years.  Beg, borrow, cheat, lie, steal or work like a fiend until you can get one.  Get up from your chair right now and go to the store – yes, it’s THAT good.  Once you plug this dude in, you’ll find 50 new ways it can improve your WoW life in about 5 minutes.  I am seriously excited about this thing, as if you couldn’t tell, but it really is the single best gaming peripheral I have ever seen.

If you can’t stand it, and we’ve done our job, you can click on the pic at the top of this article (or below) to go directly to Amazon and get one for yourself.  You don’t have to use our link, of course, but honestly, once you use the Naga you’ll never know how you played with anything else.   Go get one, and bring your Domination to a whole new level of pwn.

Order The Razer Naga Now

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Making Gold For Newbies Doesn’t Have To Be Guesswork

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  Um, whatever.  This is a dog eat dog world, and if you’re doing something well it’s only a matter of time before you’re not alone any more.  For more than two years we’ve been teaching people how to Dominate – especially at the auction house.  But from time to time we have to step back (even though the pros gripe at us) and start back at the beginning.

A few days back we brought back an article from back in the day talking about using enchanting for making gold.  Amazingly we get the same old crud from people who think it’s more complicated than that, but disenchanting will always be one of the cornerstones of any good wow gold making business.  But it certainly isn’t the whole story.  Everyone should be using far more than enchanting to make gold and today we’re going to talk about sniffing out the pros in your market and following their lead.  It’s a way to break into the business without getting your feet all that wet.

In the real world marketing sector, there is a lot of follow-the-leader.  Innovation is expensive and very hit or miss.  But a formula that works well tends to work pretty well for lots of things.  We’re working on a technique for the very advanced gold maker, but it takes a ton of gold to do it on a lot of things and it can be risky (or at least it seems to be dangerous – the worst that can actually happen is a break even).  And one of the ways we figured out what the Chinese gold farmers are REALLY doing these days came from price capping.

Price capping is also a pretty advanced technique, and you don’t have to know how to do it to make some gold using it.  It works best if you’re the one in charge, but you can also ride the wave of someone else price capping if you know how to spot it and what to do when you see it.  Below is one example of a price cap.

You see at the top a few stacks of Mageweave at 924% above market price.  This can only be one of two things: somebody made a mistake, or someone is price capping.  Of course, even the price cap might just be ignorance, but let’s give this dude the benefit of the doubt.  Now, in this case the price cap is not going to work.  You can’t move a market of four pages of stacks with four stacks.  The only thing that’s going to happen from this move is maybe a 1% or 2% bump in the overall price of this item.

Here is another example of a price cap done right.  You might recognize the name.  But I also recognize the names above me.  It doesn’t take too long to figure out who is price capping.  When you scan for mats to resell, you’ll start to see the same five to ten names all the time.  As a general rule; those guys are your real competition at the AH, and everyone else is buying them new shoes.  Of course, all pros aren’t going to the hall of fame, and we’ll see why in a second.

This is the way that price capping is supposed to happen.  The difference here, although you can’t see it, is that the majority of the Northern Stew on the AH has been capped which will seriously affect the price.  You can also see another example of someone price capping who doesn’t really know what they are doing.  After being on this particular server for a while I know that Poliea and Tracea are alt bankers for one person – whose main banking toon happens to be Katharinea, not too hard to figure out who that is after a while.  But whoever it is isn’t much competition because she ends up buying all of my price cap markdowns and never price caps hard enough to actually move the market.

But more to the point, when you see something like what is happening above, it means someone is trying to move the market up.  When you see that, it’s a good time to buy out whatever low priced items there are left on the AH that the price-capper has left behind and then resell immediately as prices rise.  In other words, you can buy a little Northern Stew at 1 gold and resell it at 2 gold.  They are pretty sure to sell since almost everything else on the market is 14 gold, if you see what I mean.  Or you can cash in on their price capping push by cooking up some Northern Stew a few stacks at a time and the price-capper will probably buy you out in an effort to corner the market.

The point is that you can tag along behind the big boys and make a pretty good living riding their wake.  The water is smoother and you won’t have to risk very much.  Making a profit from a moving market without having to move the market is pretty shrewd, and just a little Dominating.

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