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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Interesting Items In The Next Patch

We recently put up a page for the Patch WoW links at Blizz. But we also want to give you some more insights incase you don’t go into patch notes like some folks (and you know who you are). So here are the more interesting tidbits coming from the current PTR notes.

Titansteel bars will no longer have a cooldown, expect prices to drop a bit since supply will be able to more adequetly match demand. The same thing applies to Moonshroud, Spellweave and Ebonweave – no more cooldowns on those.

Random dungeons have been such a hit that the concept is moving into the Battlegrounds. Using this system will give you extra honor equivalent to 30 kills the first time through each day and an extra 15 for further BG’s the same day. Since honor per kill is being doubled, that’s going to mean a lot more honor in random BG’s than queueing for specific battles. Marks of honor for specific battles are also being removed, we can only assume that those items which required marks will now be purchased with honor instead.

the deserter debuff for bailing on a random dungeon has been increased to 30 minutes. leaving a random party for any reason will trigger this debuff, which overwrites the usual 15 minute debuff. This will prevent some of the goonery for instances like Occulus, where people leave the second they see where they are. Honestly, just make the run mon.

For holiday bosses, you can now queue for the encounter without having to do the prequel quests each year. As long as you’ve done the boss before at least once you can just queue up random and go spank them.

But the big one is that those worthless Frozen orbs will now actually be useful for more than just vendoring. A new NPC is being added in Dalaran that will convert your Frozen orbs to other items. Here is the list of what he sells in exchange for frozen orbs (consider this to be currently accurate but Blizz has been knows to change their mind at the last minute).  You can see the (current) list of items Frozo is selling at the link below.

Items you can get from Frozo the Renowned

Frost Lotus for a Runed Orb – that’s going to help some.  It’s also going to raise the value of the orbs a bit and lower values for certain eternals.  Since only one orb drops per heroic, there shouldn’t be a huge change in Ah prices for the items above, but beware the first week or two while everyone blows through all their extra orbs they might have sitting around.

I’m kicking myself now for finally vendoring about 60 of them, but you might be able to snag a few cheap stack off the AH before this change goes live.  There are also some class changes you’ll want to take a look at.  Once again DK’s are getting the most fiddling while most other classes remain fairly static.

It’s not what we would call a Dominating patch, but Frozo and the random battlegrounds will be a nice couple of changes.

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Survival Build For Patch 3.3

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

Gear

Sample Gear Survival Hunter Patch 3.3

Talent Builds

Survival Hunter Build Max DPS

Glyphs

Major

• Serpent Sting
• Kill Shot
• Explosive Shot

Minor

• Mend Pet
• Feign Death
• Your Choice

Priorities

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

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

Damage Sources

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

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Hit Rating For Spells And Mages Explained

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Dranei or Dranei in Party – Hit Cap = 420

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Cat Is Back In Patch 3.3

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

Gear

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

Talent Build

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

Glyphs

Major

• Savage Roar
• Rip
• Shred

Minor

• The Wild
• Unburdened Rebirth
• Dash

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

Priorities

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

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

Damage Sources

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

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Change Of Pace Build For Mages In Patch 3.3

When all you’ve got is a two button rotation, things can get a little dull.  And at least with the build below you can go right from leveling directly to raiding for at least part of the time.  You might still want to go arcane on Boss fights, but the frost spec has a little more utility on trash.  It’s an idea anyway.  I actually keep this frost spec on my mage for doing dailies and just random 1v1 killings.  In the long run it’s not going to rival the top DPS builds, but it can keep you from going completely numb in the brain from face-rolling arcane.  You can see our Arcane spec here: Arcane Mage Build.

Gearing Example

Frost Mage Gear Early Patch 3.3

Talent Build

Frost Mage Talents For Patch 3.3

Glyphs

Major

• Frostbolt
• Water Elemental
• Molten Armor

Minor

• Your choice – has no impact on DPS so suit yourself

Priorities

1. Flask = Frost Wyrm
2. Food = Fish Feast
3. Water Elemental
4. Arcane Brilliance
5. Focus Magic
6. Counterspell (Spell Interrupt)
7. Icy Veins
8. Mana Gem
9. Speed Potion
10. Deep Freeze
11. Frostbolt (when Target is frozen)
12. Fireball (when Brain Freeze is up)
13. Cold Snap
14. Mirror Image
15. Frostbolt
16. Evocation
17. Ice Lance (when Target is frozen)
18. Fire Blast (when moving)
19. Ice Lance (when moving)

Damage Sources

When you are leveling you might drop a few points into Frosbite, Imp. Blizzard and permafrost, but its not really necessary.  Once you get the perma pet you blow stuff up so fast that slowing them down is a little bit of overkill.  It’s about 1,00 DPS less than arcane, but should have more utility for trash pulls, and more buttons to push on Bosses, although using this for progression kills is hardly recommended.  But if you are looking for a change of pace from time to time as an off spec, this frost build is about as Dominating as it gets outside of Arcane.

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Not Just A Raid Buff For 25’s Any More – Shadow Holds Its Own In 3.3

Another class that gets the short end of the PvE stick because of how OP they can be in PvP is the priest.  One little change to keep these guys from melting every face in arenas and they get a little worthless for PvE – again.  But the interesting thing about 3.3 is that there doesn’t really seem to be any class that is just completely on the bottom of the pile.  Almost every class has at least one spec in the 10k range, and the priset is now no exception.

Gear

Shadow Priest Example Gear Setup

Talent Build

Shadow Spec DPS Build

Glyphs

Major

• Shadow Word: Pain
• Mind Flay
• Shadow

Minor

• Fortitude
• Fading
• Levitate

(As per usual; the minor glyphs are quite a matter of personal preference since they have little or nothing to do with DPS in most cases).

Priorities

1. Flask = Frost Wyrm
2. Food = Fish Feast
3. Fortitude
4. Divine Spirit
5. Inner Fire
6. Shadow Form
7. Vampiric Embrace
8. Potion of Speed
9. Shadow Fiend
10. Shadow Word: Pain
11. Vampiric Touch
12. Devouring Plague
13. Mind Blast
14. Mind Flay
15. Shadow Word: Death (if moving)
16. Dispersion

Damage Sources

Remember to run your own numbers to get your Pawn scales for your current toon.  Plus, re-run your scales in the engine every time you get a new piece of gear so that you are always completely up-to-date when it comes to making gear choices.  We show you how to do that in the Article Making Gear Choices For Your Character. It’s been so freakin’ long since Law did shadow (think leveling with Sherpaman before WotLK as in this article: The Solo Priest; You Can Do It! and The Lawbringer Rules ) that I won’t even attempt to give you insight into the priorities here, you’ll have to get that from the thread below.

But at least at this point the shadow priest is more than just a decent addition to a 25 man raid, they can actually be a big contributor on an individual basis in the form of some seriously massive, and quite Dominating, DPS of their own.

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Retribution Is Back With A Holy Vengeance

Perhaps no other class waxes and wanes more in overall DPS than the paladin.  A lot of it has to do with PvP.  Paladins get a PvP buff, then in a week there is one in almost every arena team pwning face.  That’s no kind of balance so they get a nerf, then they are worthless in PvE.

We’re not sure why Blizz has such a hard time keeping PvP and PvE separate for pallies, but at least for now, the Ret paladin can do more than just respectable damage in raids.  The following build and numbers bear that out.  Since all we’ve done on Paladins for quite a while has been about tanking, we thought it was high time to do a DPS build for them.

Remember that the following comes from the Simulationcraft Engine.  If you have any problems with the use of gear or glyphs, you can download the engine yourself and tinker with the simulated toon and rerun the numbers for yourself.  Be sure to save your output and post it below if you can beat the preset numbers.

Also, once you’re done retrofitting your toon with any new spec changes and glyphs, run the engine yourself to get a fresh set of Pawn scales – you can read how, and why you should do this, in the article: Making Gear Choices For Your Character.

Gear

Gear Suggestion Character For Ret Paladin Early Patch 3.3

Talent Build

Retribution Paladin Build For Patch 3.3

Glyphs

Major

• Judgement
• Seal of Vengeance
• Consecration

Minor

• Anything you like

Priorities

• Flask = Endless Rage
• Food = Dragonfin Filet
• Seal = Vengeance
• Hammer Of Justice
• Divine Plea
• Arcane Torrent – (Assuming You’re A Blood Elf)
• Avenging Wrath
• Judgement – (Your choice here depending on raid makeup and mana issues)
• Crusader Strike
• Divine Storm
• Consecration
• Hammer of Wrath
• Exorcism
• Potion of Speed

Damage Sources

Ret experts should help out the neophytes by giving tips on how to use the priorities above, and there will probably be some discussion about how gear choices might have changed a bit now that three wings of ICC are open and it is at least fairly likely you could have gotten one to three pieces of t10 or t10 equivalent gear by now.

If you had your Paladin DPS spec on the sidelines for whatever reason, it might just be time to dust that bad boy off and give him (or her) a whirl.  One thing is certain, a decently geared Ret paladin can pump out some seriously dominating DPS in patch 3.3.

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