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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First Aid Leveling Tips

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Powerleveling Leather Working From 1 to 450

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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How To Power Level Jewelcrafting

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

Dominate Your Server Jewelcrafting Guide

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s how it works:

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

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

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

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

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

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Hit Rating And Spell Hit Rating For Moonkin Druids Explained

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Dranei or Dranei in Party – Hit Cap = 420

• Druid With Balance of Power – Hit Cap = 342

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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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When And What You Post Can Make A Big Difference

This one hearkens back to an old saying – since some of us are older than others (and I’m not sure they even use this phrase much any more) an intro is in order.

“That guy could sell [snow cones/refrigerators/ice cream/(anything cold)] to an Eskimo”

Yeah maybe – but wouldn’t he sell a LOT more snow cones to people in Phoenix, Arizona?  I mean there are some people that are just born with a certain amount of arrogance, and it is quite natural for that to directly translate to e-peen.  In other words, why go out of your way to sell the worst possible items at the worst possible time in the worst possible way just to prove you can sell something.  There is another old saying that I like quite a bit better:

“Work smarter, not harder.”

That, in a nutshell, is our entire gold-making system.  You can go farm, you can track hundreds of items, you can depend on your main toons’ crafting professions, you can spam trade chat, you can sell ice in Northrend . . .

As for me, I prefer smarter.  Now, being smarter doesn’t mean you’re some sort of genius.  All it means is that you track what works and what doesn’t work quite as well.  Then you have to filter that information to find out what really works best based on some sort of quantifiable number.  We can all be very subjective about things, being smart is when you set your preferences aside and just make a cold, hard decision based on cold, hard facts.

And that’s what we did.  For two years we tracked everything about everything we did that had anything to do with gold in any way.  What we came up with is a way of making gold that is based on a very simple root – time.

For a few years, I was a personal trainer.  I did the same thing with working out.  I hate working out – HATE IT.  So when I found a system that cut the time requirement down to the bare minimum and got even better results – I could do that.  And it was so simple I could teach other people how to do it as well.  The cool thing is that it works every time, for every person, regardless of age or any other factor.

And the idea rubbed off into everything else I do.  So when I started in WoW, it wasn’t long before I realized I needed more gold – a lot more.  So I applied the time factor to everything I did to make gold – and I did it all.

• My first 1000 gold farming copper, tin and bronze in Darkshore (pretty nub stuff)
• Grinding mobs for cloth
• Farming SMGY
• Farming rares for twinks
• Crafting blues
• blah
• blah
• blah

That was pre-BC.  Around the time the Burning Crusade came out, I was full tilt into the AH.  And what I found was that I could make more gold at the AH in less time than any other method.  And not just a little more gold – a LOT more.  I could scan the AH for under-priced stuff other people had farmed (copper, cloth, twinkitems) and then just re-list it for a profit and never leave IF.

And that is why I never farm – ever.  There is always someone else out there willing to waste hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of their time and sell those farmed mats to me for under market price – it’s the silliest thing I ever heard of.  Then, for about 2 minutes worth of work, I can turn right around and sell those mats for market price and make 15%-50% profit.

If I was just doing it with copper and tin it wouldn’t amount to much really.  But when you do it for EVERYTHING – it turns into a lot of gold really fast.  But I have digressed egregiously from our original premise – well, sort of.

When you begin operating an AH-only methodology, you get a really good feel for how the market moves.  And you don’t have to be anal retentive to sense things.  Today we’ll look at just one timing tip that can make a big difference in how fast you make gold on one type of crafted item – and time is everything.

A few days back we posted the article: Best Gold-Making Professions On Bank Alts, which was a follow-on from the article: Alchemy – WoW Quest Tricks.  Both of those articles bring us to the real point.  If you’re going to use a bank alt for crafting professions (which you should) there are some professions that fit bank alts better than others.  Alchemy is a great fit for a bank alt.

If you’re going to use alchemy on a bank alt, you need to be an elixir master for the procs of extra elixirs and especially flasks.  Since you’re getting the mastery for flasks, you will want to be selling those flasks for maximum profit – and now we come to the point.

As you scan the AH for things to sell throughout the week, the temptation is to just post them as you get them.  For certain categories, that works well – such as mats.  Mats are like a little black dress or blue jeans, always in style in every season and decade or day of the week.  We only resell items (armor, weapons etc.) on weekends when the most people are on (especially the nubs who don’t get to play all that often).  And there is a best time for other things as well.

For flasks, it’s Tuesday.  I know I know, big surprise, but it’s an easy thing to overlook.  After server reset, everyone is rushing back into ICC or doing the weekly for their frost badges, or even VoA for the week and the demand for flasks goes from a trickle to a roar.  And since there is a huge demand spike on Tues, there is a corresponding price spike potential.

If the raid leader requires you to flask and there are only 10 flasks on the AH (all yours btw) then you will pay whatever the price is or you don’t raid.  Pretty simple when you think about it.  Buy up all your flask making mats during the week and on the weekends (especially from the farming goobers who are killing time on Sat afternoon).  Then on Monday brew up a few dozen of each.  Tuesday morning you can throw all your flasks up on the AH (even buying out the other guys selling too cheap), corner the market, and quite easily double whatever you spent on mats.

So:

• Get you a DK
• level to 68
• get elixir mastery
• buy up flask mats during the week
• make flasks on Monday
• buy out cheap flasks Tues
• sell all flasks Tues
• make another 1,000g a week
• Dominate

It’s when you start stacking things like this that you really start to get rich in WoW.  Find a sweet spot for alchemy, Inscription, JC, DE, resale, mats and whatever else you can get your grubby little enterprising hands on and pretty soon you will never want (or need) to pick another weed, kill another mob or swing another pick as long as you play WoW.  And, you’ll have a LOT more gold to boot, which is quite simply – Dominating.

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