#SWTOR - Shadow Balance Spec

Now that I've been 50 for a little over a week, I wanted to publish the spec I've been running with. I have no idea if it's "right" for any one particular facet of the game, but it has served me and my chosen play style very well. I rolled a Consular with the intention of going Shadow Balance. It was advertised as a sort of hybrid melee/range, battlemage-type playstyle. Oh, and it had DoTs. Perfect for me.

The spec I worked out has (I believe) the following focuses: damage dealing, DoTs, self-healing, and force powers. Basically, every talent in the balance tree works toward those goals enough that I didn't angst-out along the way. Then I picked up a few in the Kinetic Combat tree that seemed to help the abilities I was using more of at that point.

I ended up with a 10/0/31 spec. Here's a screenie of it:

The two talents I chose not to take in the Balance tree were Pinning Resolve and Mind Ward. The first adds an additional force lift target and reduces force stun. The second decreases the damage you take from DoTs. Since this was primarily a damage dealing spec, it wasn't hard to pass on Mind Ward. As for the CC's, I was happy picking up the instant cast lift later and just having to tread lightly around one target.

In the Kinetic Combat tree I took Technique Mastery for the obvious damage improvement. Applied Force was also a good choice, as I use Double Strike a lot. Expertise was easy (a straight damage buff), which left me a bit of a decision with the last two points. I could have probably gone with something defensive (such as the straight endurance buff), but instead I opted to take Elusiveness, primarily for the drop to Force Speed. Even when not in combat, I like to spam that button, so it seemed like a talent that I'd get a lot of use out of, even if it wasn't a damage buff.

I opted not to go with any of the Infiltration talents because I didn't see them as being very useful for me. I don't use Shadow Strike a lot. I've never like backstab abilities. They're great when you know for sure that you're going to be able to move behind a target, but in PvP and in a lot of the pulls (even with bosses), I felt like I ended up tanking a lot, even if it was just adds. The other abilities didn't seem to buff damage all that much. Some lower cooldowns and others are defensive, but not seemed exciting. (Except for Misdirection. The speed boost was enticing, but not having to lock in first tier crap).

I feel pretty potent and hardy with this build. I also feel like I don't have whole lot of weaknesses. I can do powerful things at range. I can hold my own close up. All in all, I feel like this is a solid build. Anyone out there with thoughts otherwise? In support of? Feel encouraged to let me know.

Protection Paladin: 4.0.6

Hey Gang!

I wanted to touch on some of the changes that Paladins have seen since the Shattering (4.0.3 & 4.0.6). To be quite honest, Paladins haven't really seen any major changes. Shocking, I know!

Fuubaar is currently sporting all blues & epics 346+ ilevel at the moment and has only set foot into one Raid thus far (Concave of 4 Angry Elementals). She's feeling really good survivability & threat wise. Fully buffed, I'm flexing 160k+ health with little to no threat issues. Overall, I'm extremely happy with where Paladin tanks are right now.

CURRENT SPEC:

I'm using the 0/33/8 spec that really has a nice mix of survivabilty and threat. It works really well for heroics and I can't see much of a change for Raiding either. I only left out two spells in the Prot tree. Hallowed Ground because I rarely if ever use Consecrate so why waste the talent points. I also didnt invest any talent points in Hammer of Justice because I only use it on occasion to stun annoying mobs.

I picked up Rule of Law, Crusade, and Improved Judgement in the Ret tree. I did not put any points in Pursuit of Justice because I didn't feel that anything was worth giving up points in to pick up minor running speed. If I were to have to give anything up for it though, it might be Grand Crusader. I, personally, really enjoy the procs for the extra Avenger's Shield option.

CURRENT GLYPHS:

Prime Glyphs:

- Threat:

        * Hammer of the Righteous (AoE)

        * Seal of Truth ( Huge boost in Expertise)

        * Shield of the Righteous (Single Target)

- Survivability:

        * Seal of Insight (Replacement for SoT)
        * Word of Glory (Replacement for SotR)

Note: I use the three threat Glyphs because I don't really notice myself as having survivability issues. I'm close friends with my two healers... they would let me know if I felt squishy.

Major Glyphs:
- Recommended:
        * Focused Shield (Threat but remember to keep an eye on surrounding mobs as they wont be recieving any threat at all)
        * Holy Wrath ( Stun to mobs that we are seeing quite often in Cata)
- Optional:
        * Dazing Shield (This just gives you back your Daze from the good ol' days)
        * Lay on Hands (Shorten the Cooldown)
        * Divine Protection (40% magic reduction/ 0% Physical)

Note: I use the top three in that list. Personally, I enjoy the Dazing Shield effect. I've also tried not using the Focused Shield because it gives me more AoE threat. I just have to be more picky when I use my Avenger's shield.

Minor Glyphs:
Just pick three that you you the most.

NEW CHANGES:

One of the minor changes that Paladins have seen thus far into the Shattering is that during the 4.0.6 patch drop, Paladins got their very own basespell interupt that's off of the Global Cooldown!

And the peasents rejoice!

Rebuke has been a welcomed addition to my party. There are many many many interupt fights in cataclysm and my Hammer of Justice and Avenger's Shield just weren't cutting the Mustard. I didnt realize how much I would use this spell until they finally gave it to us. This also made me realize how much I love DPS who actually interupt! <3 My DPS Interupters!

The other, "stealth change" that we recieved was in regards to Holy Power still being aquired regardless of the outcome of a Crusader Strike or a Hammer of the Righteous be it a miss, dodge, parry or block.

There was a recent Blue Post on the offical Forums: mainly saying that this was intended and that we should not generate Holy Power if our attacks dont land. Needless to say, Paladins of all specs were up in arms about this. It really hit Prot the hardest though. Since ret is suppose to be hit capped anyways, they shouldnt be missing Crusader Strike. Thus, not really noticing a difference. The thing is, it is extremely difficult to be hit capped as prot without giving up a lot in return. Many tanks feared that this would not only screw up their rotations but hinder their threat generations greatly.

When I got home to test it out, I did notice the change in my rotation from the missed Holy Power. It was rather jarring at first but you got used to having your rotation be just a bit longer to get 3 Holy Power or to choose not to wait for all three and use the weaker ability anyways. After reading both the Offical Forums and my Maintankadin Forums, it wasn't as bad as it was made out to be. The Sky was not falling....

I believe that the biggest issue that people had with this stealth nerf was that it was... stealthed... and you know how much we hate stealthed rogues. If Blizzard would have come out and said,

"Hey Pallies, just wanted to let you know that if your Crusader Strike misses, you wont get Holy Power from now on. Calm down folks, I know that we said that we wouldn't do this because it would make Prot Paladins feel RNG but we had to change something about you to piss you off! The Mages were getting upset. We had to give them something. Suck it up Paladins, we haven't nerfed Word Of Glory yet..."

I would have shut my mouth in an instant :-)

So yeah, nothing too terribly exciting.



Here's an LOLCAT because this post is boring.



<3 Your Friendly Neighborhood Fuubaar

Protection Paladin Rotation: Max Threat Verse Survivability

Hey Gang!

So, it's been some time now since 4.0.1 dropped and our new spells, Holy Power, etc. had thrown our original rotations into a Cement Mixer. For many of us, it felt very foreign to us because many of the things that we took as "sacred" are no more.

After hitting 85, training all of my new spells, I was anxious to see how all of these new spells fit together. We gained Inquisition at level 81. Which at first seems pretty much only useful for our Retribution pals. It's a DPS increase when you use Holy power and scales with how many stacks we had while using it. If you use it with all three stacks of Holy Power, Inquisition lasts for 12 seconds.

My first reaction was why do I want to waste my precious Holy Power on a Damage increase? I have two extremely powerful spells that I can choose to use instead. Shield of the Righteous that does huge amounts of single target threat (currently critting for almost 20k with three stacks) and putting up Holy Shield that increases the amount of damage I mitigate by 10% and Word of Glory that gives me a very free self healing. Why do I, as a tank, give two Kodo Poops about Inquisition? Well, after further reading over at my favorite Forums, I saw theorycrafters proposing that if you use Inquisition with 3 stacks of Holy power, it will last you 12 seconds. Our rotation, from start to finish, is only 9 seconds.

This got my brain rolling...

Well, if I could have Inquisition on for the duration of my rotation in all the while working my Holy Power back up, it will last me until I get back to hitting SotR again. My brain just exploded at the thought of all that delicious threat that I would be creating. Om nom nom!

But here's the beauty of this whole entire thing. Holy power takes 9 seconds to rack up to 3. Most fights don't last very long. 18 Seconds is like an eternity when it comes to mob & boss fights. Having to wait 18 seconds to have your Holy Shield up feels like having unprotected sex with strangers and then deciding mid way that you probably shouldn't be doing what you're doing...

/gross

So brain, how do we get to play with our "Holy Shit Threat Happy Fun Time" without feeling "unprotected" for 18 seconds?

The answer is Divine Plea! When you hit Divine Plea (if Talented... which you better have it talented or I'll be sad!) It gives you an automatic 3 stacks of Holy Power right away before ever having to do anything! Hurray!

What I found to be the best single target threat rotation to be:
(Glyphed: Focused Shield) Avengers Shield-Divine Plea-Inquisition-Crusader Strike-Judgement-Crusader Strike- AS/ (Holy Wrath if AS didn't proc or off Cooldown)- Crusader Strike- Shield of the Righteous (repeat until dead... not you! The Boss!)

With this rotation you are getting the full effect of Inquisition through your entire rotation and not having to wait the entire 18 seconds to get your Holy Shield up. Best of both worlds. With this kind of threat start, it would be extremely hard for anyone to pull it off of you. This is the Ultimate front loaded threat move. Hell throw in your Wings and you have become a monster! Even your trigger happy mage would be hard pressed to pry that Internet Dragon off of you. With this kind of a lead on your threat, letting Vengence kick in will only make the ride that much easier.

Now, if you are more interested in AoE instead of Single target. It's pretty easy to make a few minor changes. Unglyph your Avenger's Shield so you are hitting 3 targets instead of 1. Replace Crusader Strike with Hammer of the Righteous and use Holy Wrath & Consecrate in your "off times".  If mobs aren't hitting too hard, you could even change your Aura to Retribution (if you don't already have a Ret Pally with you).

If Survivability is what really butters your bread, then I suggest a different strategy. I would focus more on keeping up your Holy Shield up for that additional mitigation and spot healing with Word of Glory. Again, I would pop Divine Plea before the pull, Shoot the mob/boss, use Shield of the Righteous and go to town gaining back your Holy Power Stacks. Once to three, pop Word of Glory. This is really nice even if you are topped off because (again if you specced into it) will create a bubble with the over heals. Rotate Shield of the Righteous with Word of Glory and you should be golden. Healers will cheer & babes will weep at how awesome you are at Surviving the most brutal content that Cataclysm could throw at you.

Now get out there & make your healers proud!

/slaps you on the ass for good luck!

<3 Your Friendly Neightborhood Fuubaar

Cataclysm Leveling Specs

Got a nice little request from reader Zorch the other day to share my leveling plans for Cataclysm.  We are on the cusp of the expansion where we will once again be encourage to reach a new plateau.  This one is only five levels away, so might go by quicker than those of years past.  The levels are much higher, though, so we may be surprised at the length too.  Either way, it's been a while.  We also have new trees to contend with, so there's plenty to discuss.  I'm going to try to talk about both my 'lock and DK, and I've convinced Fuu to pass on some brief Paladin info too.  I'll mash it all up into this post for one stop shopping.  'Tis the season. 

Affliction Warlock Leveling Spec
My primary spec remains Affliction.  It's what I plan to raid with, even if it's not the top spec, so I'll want to get some practice in with it on the route to 85 as well.  With the pared down trees, I don't really need to spec differently for a leveling build.  I can just work toward what I plan to raid with at 85.

The Affliction spec will have good self healing that will make it useful for questing, but really I'm interesting in dungeon running with it.  Rumor has it we may be called on to CC a bit, and with elementals being the big baddies in Cataclysm, Banish may come in handy quite a bit.  Additionally, Soul Swap provides a powerful spell that serves to make us dreadfully efficient in the dungeon, target-at-time paradigm.

My starting spec will be what I'm raiding with now.  See this post for specifics.  First, I plan to fill up Bane and then move on to Improved Soul Fire.  ISF will entice me to utilize my instant-cast soul fires a lot more in order to give me a temporary haste boost.  I imagine it'll almost be sort of like how we used Life Tap with the old glyph.  We'll want to use it to start, and then a couple more times throughout the fight.  We probably will not be able to keep it up like we did with the LT buff, but it will be helpful like a trinket.

The last point will likely go into Demonic Embrace for the Stamina buff.  It'll add a bit more survivability to the spec and seems to be the best of the low hanging fruit.  The only choice I can see is that I might want to take a point or two in Improved Fear if it's usage as CC becomes vital.  That may be my only respec.  If you find yourself using Fear a lot, don't be afraid to shuffle a point or two that way.  I'd take it out of Demonic Embrace and likely just use one, but really it just depends on if the utility is worth it.  There is that glyph out there that helps too.

Demonology Warlock Leveling Spec
I've traditionally really enjoyed having a Demonology off-spec for soloing.  I expect this not to change come Cataclysm.  Demonology traditionally provides hardiness and better burst ability.  Depending on how fast stuff seems to be dying, I like to have this spec to pop into.  Also, the AoE capability of this spec far outstrips anything else, so it's great for farming and kill quests.  Really it just depends on you can survive the gathering or not.

Like Affliction, I'll start here, and then fill up Shadow and Flame and Improved Soul Fire.  In this case, that basically does it.  The time to use this spec would be for AoE and quick dying trash.  If I need to be precise or have CC, I'm going to roll with Affliction.  This is a great spec to have in my back pocket, as it were.  I like to use this if I PvP on my 'lock as well.  The Hand of Gul'dan spell and talent makes it pretty effective, though I normally PvP on my DK, since it's what I rolled her for.  So pretty simple here for my secondary spec.

Dual Wield Frost Death Knight Leveling Spec
I plan to PvP level this toon.  As such, my spec reflects PvP utility while still being pretty solid for group DPS.  I'll start here, and then fill out Improved Icy Talons, Epidemic, and Bladed Armor.  I love howling blast with the slowing effect for PvP, as well as utility of the Frost spec.  I think the DW makes it a great PvP spec.  DK's can be pretty solid against casters, who seem to have the upper edge right now.  I popped in a spell reflect meta-gem, and your anti-magic shield really comes in handy.  Plus you can grip and rip, which is fun, and Icy Chains provides a nice root.  A Killing Machine powered obliterate is great for a killing blow.  The added bonus to my 'lock self is that I still get to play with DoTs here.

Fuubaar's Paladin Leveling Plans
Yes, I'm cutting in because, damn it! I'm important! I'll be continuing to level Fuubaar as Protection like I have every expansion. Now, leveling as prot is a bit easier for me because I have my pocket DPS. If you've never leveled as prot, I will warn you, it is a bit slower but you will never die. The main idea was that you would round up some mobs in the area and AoE them down. Now, from what I've heard from people in the Cataclysm Beta is that these mobs hit harder and are not meant for a DPS class to be able to pull more than a few at a time without running into trouble. Now, I'm going to assume since we have more survivability and lack in the DPS department that we would still be able to pull more mobs than a DPS but it will just take even longer to burn them down if you're soloing. I would highly suggest when pulling questing mobs, to test them out first before going head first into 10 of them at once o.0

Anyways, Fuu's talent plan will look a little different than what she's using now for Raiding. Mainly, from what I've found is that as long as you have the "Core" Talents, pretty much everything else is a bonus.

Major "must have" Talents in the protection tree are:

• Divinity- Mana and healing are going to be extremely important for healers and easier you can be on them, the happier they will be. We love our healers & we wont them to love us back. <3 Also, I know that I ranted a bit about this talent before being so worthless in Wrath but our other options aren't really all that great either.
• Judgements of the Just - Survivability
• Toughness- Survivability
• Sanctuary- Our Crit Immunity
• Hammer of the Righteous- Our AoE tanking ability
• Wrath of the Lightbringer- Huge DPS/Threat Boost Talent
• Shield of the Righteous- High Single target Holy Power Dump Threat Move (also triggers Holy Shield)
• Vindication- Attack Power Debuff on Mobs/ Bosses aka Survivability
• Holy Shield - Now passive. Is triggered by SotR and now increases our Damage Blocked (10% increase) rather than increased block rate.
• Sacred Duty- Passive Threat Bonus. "Set it and forget it!"
• Shield of the Templar- Avenger's Shield Cooldown.
• Ardent Defender- Our, now, new non-passive 1UP

With your left over talent points, you can pretty much put them where you feel is most useful for you. If you like to pvp as prot, then look for Hammer of Justice for faster stuns. If you want to focus more on AoE tanking, look at Hallowed Ground for cheaper Consecrations. Personally, I'll be looking more towards flexibility for chain pulling questing mobs so I'll want longer ranged Judgment pulls over in the Ret tree & cheaper WoG with Eternal Glory for soloing some of the tougher stuff.

If you would like to read further information regarding some highly theorycrafted Talent breakdowns, glyphs, gems, enchants, etc. I highly suggest you pay Theck over at Maintainadin a visit.

Ful's Meta Plans
I haven't worked at all on a tanking spec for my DK; I just don't feel like doing it since the death of DW Frost tanking.  That was sort of a fun little niche before, and I haven't really gotten excited about speccing into the Blood tree.  I've heard tales of disease-less tanking, but I just don't have the motive or opportunity to try it out yet, hence why I've not updated my guide.  I will likely remove the link.  I may get back to it in the future, but for now it's on hold.  Also, I'm going to hold off on updating the Enchanting List until I get more familiar with the expansion.  For now, those enchants are still pretty solid, though you'll want to watch out for things like taking spirit as a 'lock because it's worthless now.

Quite simply, these are my plans for leveling in Cataclysm.  My 'lock will be leveled through dungeons and quests.  My DK through PvP.  I also plan to roll a Druid Worgen from scratch for a healing capable toon.  I'm sure I'll write some about that along the way.  It seems to me that the pared down trees make things like a specific "leveling" spec a relic of the past.  The only wild card is really how much you, individually, will be required to use certain CC spells.  Thus, you may want to shift one or two points around, but the base is still there.  I can't say I'm altogether displeased with the simplicity of speccing, though it does make for less interesting writing.  Look for some reflections once I get rolling and I'll update my guides once I hit 85.  Definitely hit me up with any questions you might have along the way, and I'll at the very least try to research and make an educated response, even if I haven't experienced it yet.  Otherwise, pleasant leveling!

4.0.1 Demonology Warlock Primer

For some time now, I've been running my second spec as Demonology. I primarily use the spec for the dailies that I run, but I've also lately found it quite fun in Battlegrounds. The spec is a great spec, and it deserves to be broadcast in it's own right.  I will still (and probably always) raid Affliction, but Demonology has strengths where Affliction has weaknesses, making it perfect for an alternate spec.

The Strengths
What strengths, you may ask.  Here's just a few:

• Good Burst Damage.  
• Great finishing damage (under 35% you really heat things up).
• An engaging rotation.  Not just DoTs, but procs too.  
• High Survivability.  For a 'lock, it's the best you can get.
• A badass pet.  The Felguard really is the bomb. 

The Spec
Caught your eye yet?  Well, here's the spec: 0\31\5.

When reviewing this spec, recall my aim isn't necessarily to be the top DPS raid spec, but to have a solid spec that offers playability, survivability, and some fun AoE damage for when you want to pwn face.  It is always important to understand your overall goal before you spec.  This doesn't mean you can't tell me where you're going to put your raid points; I'd love to hear it and it might help others.

For my aims, I left out Improved Health Funnel, Mana Feed, and Master Summoner.  For IHF, I just generally don't use health funnel.  In PvE, it's usually not a big deal.  If you're an PvP person, this might be more useful for you.  For me, regular funnel works fine in a pinch, though I did end up glyphing it because there isn't a whole lot to choose from for minors anyways.

I didn't take Mana Feed because I feel like I have a ton of mana right now.  I can't see taking anything to help with mana consumption, because I'm hardly even life tapping as it is.  As for Master Summoner, demon summons are now made instant by burning a soul shard, plus the Demonic Rebirth talent weighs in with an instant, upon-death re-summon as well.  Thus, I didn't feel that Master Summoner was all that useful. 

I did fill up Bane and Improved Immolate.  I plan to use both spells a lot.  As I level, the difficult choice is going to be whether to go for Improved Corruption or Shadow and Flame next.  I like both talents, but am leaning towards S&F at this point.

The Glyphs
Here are the glyphs I'm going with:

• Prime Glyph of Immolate - Periodic damage increase by 10%, yes please.
• Prime Glyph of Incinerate - Provides a DPS buff for the spell you should be using during Molten Core procs.  I have Felguard now, but Incinerate seems to just be better.  Run your own tests on the dummy with each if you're curious.  Otherwise, Incinerate is probably the way to go.
• Prime Glyph of Metamorphosis - Increases you time in demon form by 6 seconds.  Longer is better.
• Major Glyphs - Shadowflame, Fear, Soul Link - I took Shadowflame and Fear because of the utility.  Soul Link increases damage shared by 5%, so it'll boost survivability as well.  I didn't see a whole lot would otherwise be useful, but these fit my aim.
• Minor Glyphs - Unending Breath, Health Funnel, Drain Soul.  All pretty worthless, so just pick what you think you'll use the most.  Warlock minors still suck. Health funnel at least stops pushback, which could be useful.

The Rotation
Before you do anything, make sure your buff yourself.  All 'locks should be popping on their Fel Armor, but you'll also want to make sure your Soul Link is active.  All specs have it now, so make sure it's up.  Good stuff.

Above 35% Health
Bane of Doom > Corruption > Immolate > Curse of the Elements > Shadowbolt Spam; Use Hand of Gul'dan to refresh Immolate; Use Incinerate during Molten Core proc.

It's pretty simple, only a few dots to keep up.  Doom is the way to go for Demo.  Use CotE if it's not covered elsewhere (Moonkin, Unholy DK, or other 'lock).  Also similar to my Affliction rotation, I like to get on the instants quick before moving to cast times.  This is pure preference here, as we don't have a spell like Soul Swap to worry about.

When Molten Core procs, you want to weave in three Incinerates. You may also want to use a Soulburn + Soul Fire for an instant cast here, but mostly just make sure you don't waste your MC proc.  Since MC will proc off Immolate now, it's important to keep Immolate rolling.  This is a change from when it used to trigger off of Corruption, however we still use Corruption since it will help our DPS.

Under 35% Health
At this point, Soul Fire will become a part of our rotation.  Once you see Decimation proc, then you should spam soul fire as much as possible.  We still want to keep our DoTs up.  Refresh them as needed, the same way you did above, just make sure you weave Soul Fires enough to keep Decimation from expiring.  It shouldn't be an issue in most cases.  Additionally, you don't have to do anything special when MC procs here, just keep using Soul Fire (unless I can find some numbers to tell me otherwise).

Metamorphosis
This is where you get to be big, purple (epic), and winged.  It is perhaps my favorite part of the spec, though it is by no means the "main part" as you've seen so far.  Meta is mostly a "Super Trinket" in that it does a whole bunch of cool stuff, primarily boosting your damage and armor.  Awesome stuff.  As such, we want to use it judiciously.  It has a rather short cooldown (especially when talented) that is similar to a trinket, so you should plan according.  The glyph makes it last longer as well.   I would not recommend macro'ing this into a spell as we do our trinkets, since the key to proper Meta usage revolves around situational awareness.

You see, with Meta usage, we gain access to new spells while in demon form.  The two we're actually concerned about are Immolation Aura and Demon Charge.  The aura will give you a >1k DPS DoT that radiates from you in melee range, and the charge will get you in range to use it.  You have to be aware that the aura is a pretty beefy AoE, so don't get yourself killed by pulling aggro.  Charging in, popping the aura, a Shadowflame, and then a mobile Hellfire amounts to a ridiculous amount of AoE damage.  Even my uber-geared pally partner has a hard time keeping the mobs off me when I do this.  It's also great for farming. 

Apart from the AoE goodness, you will just want to cast as normal.  If you're using this on a boss fight, say, then after you charge in (being careful not to get yourself cleaved or whirl-winded or something), pop the aura and a quick Shadowflame, then go back to your normal rotation.  If you're under 35%, use Soul Fire just the same.  There really isn't too much of a "trick" as far as when/how to use meta, you just have to be smart about it.  Any time you'd be gimping your normal DPS with things like moving, or strange "stop casting" mechanics, or awkward boss phases, you probably want to save you "Super Trinket".  After all, if you pop it and then have to stand there waiting while the Black Knight talks and rezzes and all that crap, then you've wasted some good bonus time.  Think of it as a personal Heroism (that you can use multiple times in a longer fight) that you have to try and use at the best times possible.  Also, don't forget to use this on trash too, since it's a pretty short cooldown.

The Stats
From the same thread as my Affliction post, I nabbed:

Warlock_401_Demonology        Sta=0.0167  Int=3.8362  SP=2.5270  Hit=4.7846  Crit=2.6957  Haste=2.5169  Mastery=2.4201

Thus, Stat priority isn't all that different from Affliction, except for one notable change:
Hit (until capped)>Int>Crit>Haste>Spellpower>Mastery>>Stamina.

As you can see, Crit is valued a lot higher than for Affliction.  Crit is simply going to be a better stat on this build.  After all, Crit is synonymous with "burst" and this is a burstier spec.  Gem, enchant, and stack accordingly.  Still, apart from those considerations, you still have to hit cap (at 17%), and those other stats are still pretty good for you.  Nothing earth shattering here.

Wrap Up
That's it for this primer.  I want to again voice thanks to Abigore, who introduced me to the spec.  He tends to take a more serious, raiding approach to the spec.  If you're interested, I encourage you to head over to his neck of the woods.  I tried to just skim the surface and give the basics, but even that started to get a bit lengthy.  This is a really fun spec.  I run a lot of random crap in this and it keeps me on my toes watching procs, buffs, and thinking about when to pop meta. The survivability can also come in handy when you find yourself pulling off of the tank (whether it be your fault or the tank's).  Plus, like I mentioned, it can be quite fun in BGs.  (I love popping out from behind a wall as a big scary demon... BOO!)  

As always, tips and feedback are most welcome.

Random Points of Interest

I actually played a felton over the weekend. A metric felton. I got dailies, got HH runs, got WG runs and dailies, hit up a few BGs, and even had time to finish up my the last "Classic" achievements in my bucket list (Classic Dungeonmaster and Argent Dawn Exultation).  All around it was time well spent.

I also picked up an addon called Auctionator at the behest of the Fuubaar.  With Auctioneer being out of commission at this time and me putting my little toes in the AH waters to see if I can tolerate it (since it is the best way to make money), she badgered me enough that I finally caved.  I'll be giving in the ole college try this week, but I hear it makes posting relatively brainless.  You tell how much you want to undercut, and it does the rest for you.  We'll see.

I'm actually fairly close to the gold mark I need to get 310% riding on my main toon.  With the addition of the fishing daily to my ICC dailies, I average almost 150g/day for an hour spent.  If I get a valuable reward from the fishing daily (nabbed a Str gem the other day), then the profits rise (sold it for 100g).  It's not the most efficient way, I know, but it's pretty solid for a small daily commitment (and not having to worry about "finding a niche").

The decision to top off my Argent Dawn rep came directly from my runs to finish off the Classic Dungeonmaster achievement.  I'd been wanting to take a day and knock out that achievement for a while, since a lot of those dungeons are going to change.  I'd actually done many of them before, but it was so long ago that I'd not gotten credit.  Stratholme was one such instance.  It's also a big one to farm for a mount/rep.  Thus, Fuu came with me on the off chance of a mount to drop (she gave the mount a good 20 runs a while back before deciding luck was not with her... it apparently drops about 1 in 420 some-odd runs, so she was pretty sure it'd land on her 421st run).  In any case, she had the route down for a quick clear, but what we didn't realize was how freaking efficient low dungeon running is with a Demonology Warlock in tow. 

You see, if you're specced for it (which you should be), you have mobility-enabled Hellfire.  This spell is absolutely killer for old instance farming.  Especially with Fuu on her Priest.  She would toss me a hot and off we'd go.  I'd just keep hellfire up and we'd literally run through the instance.  No stopping.  No looting.  Just running.  Efficient as hell for rep (and getting to the final boss quickly).  It probably took me 15 minutes to run the dead side of Stratholme, netting about 1500 rep in the process.  Hence why I decided to just top off the AD rep.  I did stop to loot the Corrupter's Scourgestones off of the bosses for the rep turn to speed the process even further.  There are 6 big guys that drop a Corrupter stone every time, and each stone turn in nets you about 150 rep (more if human).  Thus, it didn't take long to finish out.

Which brings me back to my newfound love of all things Demo.  I've been spending a lot of time playing in the spec.  Lack of raiding combined with the pure pleasure that is Demo right now has contributed very directly to a marked absence of Affliction experience.  I don't want to update my rotation stuffs until I actually get to give it a good, raiding test run, so I may try to work on my Demo stuff this week.  We'll see how it goes.  A business trip may or may not get in the way.

For now, I wanted to point you at Abi's great post here.  I will likely be regurgitating a lot of what he says and does (and, fwiw, have come independently to a lot of the same conclusions that he lays out).  I'm also planning to take a closer look at Affliction stat weights later in the week.

To wrap up this randomness, I wanted to post a rather striking screenshot.  I took it during my random travelings to get all my dungeons wrapped up in the old world.  I'm sure we've all noticed the new water texture, but have you seen the sun's rays?  And then seen them combined?  It really is quite breathtaking, and really makes me excited for the landscape changes in Cataclysm proper.  If they give every bit of texture a similar facelift... we'll it really will be like Warcraft 2.0.  Check it out.

I'm a sucker for sunsets on the beach.

HAOW: 4.0.3a Affliction Warlock Raiding Spec

Time to update my series, How to Afflict Others with Warlockery, for 4.0.3a.  As I get to them, they will cover such basics as speccing, glyphing, rotating, petting, and gearing.  Some of those may sound dirty, and they are, but not in the way you think.  As usual, the best place to start is with the spec, so off we go on the HAOWay to Hell...

The Spec
The most recent simulations preformed over at the Elitist Jerks forums point to our Affliction Warlock spec being the top dog, raid wise (at a T11 gear level).  However, the simulation also reveals an exciting parity amongst the specs that really hasn't been seen before.  It really does seem like all three trees are almost equally viable.  Having said that, it's never really been a choice for me: Affliction is my bag, baby.  As such, the spec I'm using at 85 is 32/1/8, a variation of the "affliction" spec in the simulation. 

Here's a picture for those of you that might not be able to access the link:

The affliction tree is loaded with all sorts of goodies, and I'm not going to break down each individual talent as they all seem pretty self-explanatory to me: pick the ones that increase damage.  Feel free to leave a question in comments if you have one, but most of them give very straight forward damage increases to our staple spells.  With the new, pared down tree system, we start by putting 31 points into the affliction tree to get Haunt and open up the other trees.  We end up putting most of the remaining points into the Destruction tree. 

I skipped the two fear modifier, because I don't find them useful (the glyph is enough), and I didn't pick up Curse of Exhaustion for the same reason.  The only points spent on a talent that didn't obviously buff damage was in Improved Life Tap.  You'll need to spend those points somewhere in order to advance the tree, and I figured more mana returned translates to less tapping, hence a DPS increase. 

I used one discretionary point to fill up Seed of Corruption talent (1/1) and also topped off Nightfall (2/2).  I also chose to fill up Shadow and Flame before Bane because of group make up.  You may want to do it the other way around, as Bane is probably the better talent for personal DPS, with S&F being better for a group if you don't already a similar buff (replacing Improved Shadow Bolts).  Eventually, you'll want to fill up both talents though.

I also dropped my last point into the Demonology tree.  First time ever that I've done that.  There wasn't anything that would immediately help my DPS at that point, so it seemed like a good idea to get the extra stamina and make myself a bit more hardy.

The pared down trees really make it easier to hone in on a spec.  I wouldn't call this "cookie cutter", by any means, but there are only a handful of points that can be juggled around.  Mostly, that juggling can be done based on preference and situation.  This is what I'm going to be using for raiding, feel free to leave your own suggestions.  Once we all start leveling in Cataclysm, I'll revisit this and update it again, but I wanted to get it up and linked on the left side.  Thanks to everyone who gave me input on my first cut at the spec, it really helped to clarify a couple of choices.

Preliminary 4.0.1 Demonology Spec

As we continue deeper into patch 4.0.1, I've found that it's time to deal with my second spec for my Warlock.  Traditionally, I've gone demo, and this shall be no different.  I love having a more utility/survival oriented off-spec for times when just killing isn't enough.  To be honest, my demo spec is the one I prefer to run around the world in, doing dodgy quests and the like.  It's just so much fun to round up stuff, pop demon form and Immolation Aura and watch the bodies hit the floor.  In any case, today is a preliminary look at my demo spec.

Eventually, I plan to rework all of my guides on the left and update them for 4.0, but our first two quick spec posts here have generated a lot of great discussion (and should lead to better guides), so I like going with a "prelim" post first.  This means I would love feedback.  My goal is to start here, and then as information becomes more readily available at theorycrafting sites and such, to compile that information into an updated guide.  So, for now, please read, consider, and respond.  Leaving links to your sources of research would help me a ton too.  In other words, I'm not claiming to "know it all" yet.  Like most of you, I'm just trying to use the information as its presented to make the best choices I can.

When reviewing this spec, recall my aim isn't necessarily to be the top DPS raid spec (demo rarely is that), but to have a solid spec that offers playability, survivability, and some fun AoE damage for when you want to pwn face.  This doesn't mean you can't tell me where you're going to put your raid points, I'd love to hear that and it might help others.  I just don't want to see the "you're an idiot" comment from someone who thinks the only thing there is to do in this game is raiding.  It is always important to understand your overall goal before you spec.  Raiding is only one goal.

Spec
Shut up, Ful! Spec already.  K, here 'tis:

I updated my spec based on feedback.  I'm not updating the above image, but a better spec can be found here.

In filling up the tree, I left out Improved Health Funnel, Mana Feed, and Master Summoner.  For IHF, I just generally don't use health funnel.  In PvE, it's usually not a big deal.  If you're an PvP person, this might be more useful for you.  For me, regular funnel works fine in a pinch, though I did end up glyping it because there isn't a whole lot to choose from for minors anyways.

I didn't take Mana Feed because I feel like I have a ton of mana right now.  I can't see taking anything to help with mana consumption, because I'm hardly even life tapping as it is.  As for Master Summoner, demon summons are now made instant by burning a soul shard.  Thus, I didn't feel like taking this talent either. 

I did fill up Bane and Improved Immolate.  I plan to use both spells a lot.  As I level, the difficult choice is going to be whether to go for Improved Corruption or Shadow and Flame next.  I like both talents, but am leaning towards S&F at this point.  Corruption just isn't as big of a deal for non-Affliction 'locks.

Glyphs
For Prime I picked up Immolate, Metamorphosis, and Felguard.  Immolate is a no-brainer as long as we're using the spell.  We should also be using our Felguard exclusively, so that one is pretty simple too.  I chose to go with Meta since I love the spell and it should be a nice DPS boost.  It may be better to roll with BoA here though, or something else to improve a less situational spell.

In the Major slots, I ran with Soul Link, Shadowflame, and Fear.  Soul Link is great to improve surviveability, which is why I went with that.  For Shadowflame and Fear: I tend to run around the world in my Demo spec.  That means if there is ever any random PvP, or if I choose to PvP, it will likely be in my demo spec.  Plus, I solo in demo.  I think this goal makes picking up these utility glyphs a pretty obvious choice.  It'll also give me a good chance to try out the new Fear mechanic to see if its worth it on my main spec (for Cata dungeons, if the vaunted use of CC does, indeed, return to us).

Our Minor glyphs still pretty much suck.  I nabbed Drain Soul like I did for my raid spec, then I grabbed Health Funnel as mentioned above.  I figured might as well.  Finally, I ended with the 'lock staple minor: Unending Breath.  It really is the coolest of the minor glyphs, though how often do we find ourselves in a river thinking: "Yeah, I would love to go just a small bit faster here.  Not a lot, heavens no, we're not a sealform Druid.  A little is nice though."  I think they should make Unending Breath put us on a demonic Jet-Ski, but that's just me.

Rotation
Pre 4.0 I was going with this:

Curse > Corr > Immo > S-bolts (Above 35%); (Below 35%) keep Corr and Immo rolling for Molten Core procs and spam Soul Fire as soon as you can get a Decimation going.

So far, I don't think a whole lot has changed.  We now can do both BoA and CotE, so I would throw both of those at the front.  (You may want to use Bane of Doom, I haven't checked the numbers yet, but make sure stuff will live long enough for it to pop).  You want to watch for procs the same way you did previously.  When molten core pops, I tend to go with an Incinerate.  It can slightly improve your DPS.  I believe they lowered the Decimate mark from 35% to 25% health, so check the tooltip for that.  Obviously, that'll just mean that we have a small window of "Decimate Phase".  Since Soul Fire can be made instant by burning a shard, I would use that combination to initiate my Decimate phase, but a Shadowbolt will always work too. So now we have this:

CotE > Bane > Immo > S-bolt (above 25%); Immo > Soul Fire (below 25%); Watch your procs, use Meta appropriately.  Use Hand of Gul'dan to refresh Immo when you can.  

(edit: modified after reading Abi's post and comments. Basically I want to drop Corruption and make sure to use HoG'd when appropriate.)

Metamorphosis still functions like a "super trinket", so pop it whenever you feel like being a hero.  Or just pop it to scare kids, your choice.  It opens up several abilities, but the most useful is the Immolation Aura.  This, along with the new Hand of Gul'dan and our normal AoE abilities can make for some great AoE numbers.  For single target, these spells aren't as useful, but on groups they're great.  Just be careful of pulling aggro, because you'll probably end up tanking if you throw all these together.  Great out in public, bad news in a raid.

For a single target boss, it's still a good idea to pop meta, charge in, pop Immo Aura, and then keep your rotation going.  I like to back load all my damage, so I tend to save meta for the end.  Finishing power is fun.  Additionally, if the fight is long, you want to pop an early meta so you can potentially use it twice.  You're going to have to gauge that for yourself, though. 

This is how I'm rolling.  I probably won't raid with it for a while (while I relearn Affliction), but I've already been using this out doing dailies and the like.  It doesn't seem like the "feel" of the spec has changed too much.  It still offers great survivability, better up-front damage than Aff'locks may be used to, and a fun, proc-based rotation.  Whereas Affliction may be more of a trance state of sustained death, demo to me feels more like a Captain Mayhem approach.  How are you demo 'locks out there doing it?  Similar?  Different?  Let me know.

(Edit: After I finished this, I headed over to Abi's site and he has a deeper look than I do.  We came to a lot of the same conclusion, which is good because he's always who I've patterned my demo playing after.)

A Preliminary Look at the 4.0.1 Affliction Warlock Spec

With patch 4.0.1 on our e-doorstep, it's finally time for me to acknowledge the existence of change around here. If you're a regular reader, you know I've pretty much avoided the pre-cataclysm buzz, favoring to focus on the here and now. Well, the here and now means respeccing in a completely redesigned talent tree.  Eventually, I plan to rework all of my guides on the left and update them for 4.0, but until I get time to do it properly, I want to throw out some preliminary thoughts about class setup (speccing and glyphing mostly).

It is important to note that these are preliminary.  That means I would love feedback.  My goal is to start here, and then as information becomes more readily available at theorycrafting sites and such, to compile that information into an updated guide.  So, for now, please read, consider, and respond.  Leaving links to your sources of research would help me a ton too.  In other words, I'm not claiming to "know it all" yet.  Like most of you, I'm just trying to use the information as its presented to make the best choices I can.

The first spec we're starting with is, as promised, my Affliction Warlock raid spec for 4.0.  Prot Pallys, Demo 'locks, and DK's will follow shortly.  The goal of the spec I'm presenting today is to be ready to continue raiding now.  This is not a Cataclysm leveling or raiding spec (there may be changes between now and then).  We're still raiding, so all of my choices are made with this (and my current group makeup) in mind.

Spec
So, without further ado, the big reveal:

Fixed the link here.

I'm not going to go through every talent I chose, but rather touch on those I avoided.  Since I'm using this to raid, my primary goal was to do whatever I can to maximize my DPS.  I choose all talents that obviously did that.  I skipped the two fear modifiers, since fear is rarely used in raids, and I didn't pick up Curse of Exhaustion for the same reason.  What I see as the only optional points when filling up the tree were the points spent in Improved Life Tap.  You'll need to spend those points somewhere in order to advance the tree, and I figured more mana returned translates to less tapping, hence a DPS increase.

Does anyone know what happened to Dark Pact?  Obviously it's not in the tree.  If I can still demon tap, I may put the points spent in ILT into one of the fear mods, since that might be more useful.  This is something I'll need to do some research about.

After I filled up my Affliction Tree, then the option to spend points in other trees becomes available.  I went right back over to look for my old friend, Bane.  You'll see a somewhat newish talent next to it called Shadow and Flame (which is mostly a re-skinned ISB, but including fire).   I actually opted to fill up S&F first as it makes a target weak to spell damage.  I'm assuming this would benefit all casters in the group (same as the old ISB), so it's a great raiding talent to pick up.  I plan to fill Bane out by 85.

Recall that you only get 1 talent point per every 2 levels, so the level required for this spec shows up as 79.  This is by design.  (I forgot about this and at first thought there was some sort of glitch).

Glyphs
The glyphs I chose are as noted:

• Prime - Bane of Agony, Haunt, Corruption (runner up: Unstable Affliction)
• Major - Felhunter, Soul Swap, Shadowflame (runner up: Life Tap)
• Minor - Unending Breath, Drain Soul, Eye of Kilrogg

Perusing the offerings, I found myself easily able to narrow my choices to four for Prime and Major.  The Minor glyphs are still pretty slim pickings for us, so I just went sort of how I've gone in the past.  I won't waste words on those. 

For Prime, Agony and Haunt are no brainers.  Corruption has always been a minimal (~50DPS at 80) DPS gain, but I don't know how much decreasing the cast time of UA would give me either.  I enjoy more Nightfall procs, so I went with Corr.

For Major, Soul Swap is a lock (I expect to love this new spell).  I also plan keep using my Felpup for as long as his DPS is a solid choice for Aff'locks.  Thus, the Felhunter glyph seemed to be a solid choice.  Finally, I decided to go with Shadowflame over Life Tap.  I'm hoping the slow effect on Shadowflame might work on the Valks for the LK fight.  If nothing else, it seems like a fun modification to a situational spell, and I'm already improving my Life Tap. 

Rotation
Lately, I've been doing this:

Shadowbolt > Haunt > CotE > Corr > UA > Refresh as needed, when not: bolt filler > LT as needed > Sub in Drain Soul for the last 25% filler.

It is important to note that Soul Shard mechanics have been changed, and I haven't even looked at how to use those properly yet.  For the sake of this preliminary look, I'm going to assume them to be a bit situational, or something you throw in every few rotations, or a modification of what we'll use anyways, and not a staple.  A.K.A - I'm going to ignore it for now until I understand it better.

With that said, the key change to note is that we should now be able to cast both Bane of Agony and Curse of the Elements.  Additionally, we'll have Soul Swap to use when popping between targets.  There also seemed to be some minor mechanics changes to Drain Soul and Death's Embrace that may make it worthwhile to use DS all the time (or none of the time, or just woven in with bolt filler).  The operative here is that I don't believe DS gets a special bonus for under 25% (edit: was moved till tooltip, still plan to use DS under 25%).  All of our spells do via Death's Embrace (and Drain Soul gets a buff when we're low).  I'm not sure how the numbers will work out, but I would think we'd need to keep S-bolts going to utilize the buffs we picked up in the Destro tree.

My plan is to start with my current rotation and squeeze the new stuff in.  The major mechanics don't really seem to change, but we may need to revisit this.  So, in 4.0 it'll look more like:

Shadowbolt > Haunt > CotE > BoA > Corr > UA > Refresh as needed, otherwise fill with S-bolt to keep S&F/ISB buff up, otherwise DS > LT as needed > Soul Swap before target dies if you're going to switch to another target.

What do you guys think?  I would love links to theorycraft numbers/data (and plan to run over to the Den and EJ when I get some time).  All in all, I'm pretty excited about the changes, though I haven't even touched on the soul shard mechanics yet.  Or the stat changes (just rolling with the gear I've got).  Or mastery (you can get the baseline at 80).  Sheesh!  The blogosphere should get mighty busy here.

Also, side note: we did some research and soul shard bags are going to be "converted" into a normal bag of "roughly equivalent" size.  Your guess is as good as mine as to what that means.

(edit: if you want to see some great counterpoints and further discussion, Poneria does a great job here.)

Worgen Druid Starter Kit

One of my concrete plans for Cataclysm is to roll a new toon. I mentioned it in passing yesterday, but I wanted to talk about it more in-depth today.  The decision is simple, obviously, and certainly not unique.  They're going back and redoing all of the early areas, so of course a lot of folks are going to want to experience that.  I'm no exception.  I've never been a big alt guy (I only have two max level toons in 3+ years of playing), but give me fresh content and I'll give it a shot.

As an aside: I do have several low level toons of each different race just to get a feel for the starting areas, but I never stuck with it once I hit the spot where I was revisiting areas.

In any case, I was easily convinced by the promises of Cataclysm to roll and alt.  The question then becomes: what class?  I could debate over race too, but with new races being added, it made that easy.  If you're Alliance, of course you want to at least try a Worgen. 

Back to class.  At first, I really thought I wanted to play a Shaman, but that isn't an option for Worgen.  One of the keys for my future alt was that it have the option to heal.  I have a straight DPS toon in my 'lock and a tank option in my DK; a healer option would round out my corps.  My current toons also represent a clothie and a plate wearer.  Really, in the absence of a Shammy option, leather seemed the way to go, which obviously meant Druid.  Simply, it was the class that met all my criteria. 

So, once I'd decided on rolling a Druid, it only made sense to investigate what sort of heirloom gear I could deck it out with in order to expedite the leveling process.  Not that I don't want to see the sights, just that I don't want to have to worry about experience gains.  I should get more than enough with a 20% boost.  Plus, I'm not doing this for the challenge of leveling or anything.  Being a bit OP isn't a big deal.

My planning consisted of two parts.  First, I asked Fuu to generate me a shopping list of heirloom spellpower leather gear.  She'd already done the heirloom thing, so it was familiar territory for her.  Plus, she's a gear list champ.  (Tanks... amirite?).  Second, I threw up a few questions I had yesterday to you, dear readers.  I got some great responses, so thanks for all that. Based on feedback, here's what I see to be the popular wisdom out there right now, and/or some tips that could help you if you're thinking of going a similar route.

• I'm going to level with as much of a balance spec as I can muster with the new tree system.  I will give priority to healing, but look to enhance my spell DPS as well.  Conventional wisdom is that Feral is probably the easiest leveling spec, but balance isn't bad either.  It's important to remember that my leveling is predominantly in a duo with Fuu; I rarely solo.  Thus, it won't be as bad for me to level a healer as if I were trying to do go it alone.  I think eventually I'd like to dual spec feral/resto, but that's not going to be for many moons.
• If you're going to the spellpower route, it may make more sense for you to pick up the cloth heirloom gear.  It's still got great SP stats and can be reused for a lot of the other caster toons.  I'm going leather because cloth bores me.  I've done the cloth thing, and like I said, I'm not really an alt guy anyways.  I doubt I will be rolling more toons with the intention of taking them to max level.
• I'm still not sure what happens to heirloom gear after they consolidate our currencies.  From what I've heard, heirlooms will clearly still exists, and probably be available for the new "Justice Points" or whatever they end up being called.  The issue I have here is what about things like Crusader's Seals vs. Emblems?  Right now you can get the same gear for different prices.  They're roughly equivalent in effort, but how does that get reconciled when the currency fix gets implemented.  How are Stone Keepers Shards taken into effect?  I'm worried that I'll get a bunch of gold from these things, but then have none of the currency needed to heirloom my baby Druid.  Thus, I'm trying to buy now, at least insofar as what I already have in the bank.  
• If you fish or PvP a lot: don't forget there is gear available through those routes.  I'm focusing primarily on PvE (though I imagine there will be some BG runs).  I will get a piece of BG gear just because I have the Stone Keeper's Shards, but otherwise I'm not too concerned about it.  I'm not a max level fisherman anywhere either (my 'lock is somewhere around 400), but if you are you can net yourself a nice heirloom ring.
• Don't forget the enchants!  I haven't gotten there yet, as I'm just now shopping for the gear, but you can get some solid enchants on any and all of your heirloom pieces.  
• Rumor has it that there will be a couple new heirloom pieces as part of the guild leveling system in Cataclysm.  Keep your eye open for those when it drops.  I believe my entire guild intends to re-roll, but we're smaller too, so who knows what this will make available to me.  I'm certainly not switching guilds, but I'm sure there will be a lot of pure leveling guilds popping up or reviving in the early days of Cataclysm.  Look for one of those if you're interested. 

Some good tips, and pretty much all thanks to some great comments left here yesterday (I did go back and try to look a few things up as well, but I think everyone was pretty much spot on).  I'd like to leave you with the shopping list that Fuu provided me.  I've split it up based on current currency and have bolded what I intend to purchase.  My budget is 900 Stone Keeper shards, 120 Emblems of X, and 40 Champion's Seals.  That's just what I happen to have on me, and I don't really want to farm for a complete set of heirlooms.  Just wanted to use what I have.  Because of how it worked out, I will be farming up 20 more Champion's Seals, just so I can make good on those and use the other currency elsewhere.  I think you'll see it makes sense, and will give a solid leather spellpower starting kit.

Shopping List provided by Fuu:

Stone Keeper's Sharded Gear

• Leather SP shoulders - Lasting Feralheart Spaulders - 200 Shards
• Staff SP + Hit - Grand Staff of Jordan - 325 Shards
• PVP Trinket - Inherited Insignia of the Alliance - 250 Shards (for the heck of it... I mean I have 900)

Emblematic Gear

• Leather SP shoulders - Preened Ironfeather Shoulders - 40 Emblems of Heroism
• Leather SP Chest - Preened Ironfeather Breastplate - 40 Emblems of Heroism
• Staff SP + Crit - Dignified Headmaster's Charge - 65 Emblems of Heroism
• SP Trinket - Discerning Eye of the Beast - 50 Emblems of Heroism
• Haste Trinket - Swift Hand of Justice - 50 Emblems of Heroism

Champion of Clubbin' Baby Seal Form Gear

• Leather SP shoulders - Preened Ironfeather Shoulders - 60 Seals
• Leather SP Chest - Preened Ironfeather Breastplate - 60 Seals
• Staff SP + Crit - Dignified Headmaster's Charge - 95 Seals
• SP Trinket - Discerning Eye of the Beast - 75 Seals
• Haste Trinket - Swift Hand of Justice - 75 Seals

*Spoilers* Paladin Cataclysm Stuffs: FINALLY!

Hey Gang!


We normally don't talk about new changes in the game that have yet to be implemented on this blog, but it's been a long time since any big information has come out for Paladins for Cataclysm. If you are someone who doesn't want to know or read about Cataclysm, you probably can just skip this post. All of the information that I am going to talk about can be found at http://www.mmo-champion.com/ and I will be adding my thoughts (like you give two Felpoops about what I actually think anyways).

I will be focusing on the Protection Paladin stuff with a hint of Retribution. Again, if you do not want to be Spoiled, please GTFO (with Love) :-D

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Holy

• Healing Hands now has a 1 min cooldown.
• Divine Plea is now trained at level 58. Down from 68. That's pretty good since they seem to be nerfing Mana Regen and other ways of getting mana back. Maybe beef it up a bit?
• Light's Beacon now affects each heal you cast on the target instead of just Holy Light and Holy Shock. Now heals the beacon for 50%. (Down from 100%)
• Holy Wrath no longer scales from attack power and deals 2400 Holy damage divided among all targets within 10 yards. 2400 Damage spread among friends isn't very much. I'm going to guess that this is a place holder for a MUCH larger number. *crosses fingers*
• Holy Shock now grants a charge of Holy Power. Ok, so this is how Healadins get their Holy Power stacks... I'm guessing that they really want Holy Paladins to have this be a big part of their tool box. Cool for them I guess.
• Seal of Wisdom is gone. This is extremely interesting that they are taking this Seal out. It has been my grinding Seal for a long time now. I also use it in heroics where I'm chain pulling and need mana. I wonder where they will be putting our mana regeneration.
• Seal of the Pure now seems to have a chance to restore the Paladin's mana. <---- Oh here it is :)
  
• Holy Light is now trained at level 14. Up from 5.
• Divine Light - A large heal that heals a friendly target for 7761.99 to 8648.14. Good for periods of heavy damage. / 30% of base mana, 40 yd range, 2.5 sec cast Cool that Paladins get a new EVEN larger heal.
• Divine Favor now increases your chance to critically hit with your next Word of Glory, Holy Shock, Flash of Light, Holy Light or Divine Light by 100%. / Instant, 1 min cooldown
• Denounce - You have a 50/100% chance when any of your Holy spells get a critical effect to make your next Exorcism spell instant and cost no mana. Similar to Ret's now.
• Sacred Cleansing is now a Tier 4 Talent. Down from Tier 5. In the back of my mind, I'm still really hoping that they don't get rid of Cleansing for all of the Paladin specs. It's really become second nature for me to cleanse myself & others not only during solo play, but raiding. If they do, I'll probably have to end up having some sort of hybrid Holy/Prot Off-spec that can cleanse so that I can go back to soloing everything.
• Infusion of Light is now a Tier 3 Talent. Down from Tier 4. It now only affects Holy Light. (No longer affects Divine Light)
• Blessed Life is now a Tier 6 Talent. Up from Tier 4.
• Enlightened Judgments is now a Tier 3 Talent. Down from Tier 4.
• Healing Light now affects Words of Glory.
• Tower of Radiance (NYI) *New* - Directly healing the target of your Beacon of Light has a % chance to generate Holy Power.
• Judgments of the Pure is now a Tier 1 talent. Down from Tier 2.
• Sanctified Light now affects Word of Glory and increases critical chance by 6/12%. (Up from 5/10%)
• Speed of Light *New* - Casting Holy Shock grants 5/10/30% spell haste for your next Flash of Light, Holy Light or Divine Light, and casting Healing Hands grants you 10/20/60% movement speed for 10 sec. Also lowers the cooldown on Healing Hands by 10/20/30 sec at all times.
• Clarity of Purpose *New* - Reduces the casting time of your Holy Light and Divine Light spells by 0.1/0.2/0.3 sec.

Protection

• Shield of Righteousness is now trained at level 44. Down from 74. This is a wonderful change in my opinion. This is THEE best Single target threat generation tool for a paladin. The earlier the better I say.
• Sacred Duty now only Reduces the cooldown of Divine Protection by 1/2/3 min.
• Improved Crusader Strike has been replaced with Grand Crusader - When your Shield of Righteousness and Hammer of Righteousness deal damage, they have a 20% chance of refreshing the cooldown on your next Crusader Strike and causing it to hit for 50/100% additional damage. Ok, this is the big whopper right here. Not only do they want us to introduce Crusader Strike into our rotation, but they are also making us leen towards a F.C.F.S. (First come first serve that means more or less a priority list) rotation rather than a 969. This would be a HUGE change up for old paladins. I really hope that they don't make it choppy but I'm going to guess that it will be at the beginning. I really enjoy the smoothness of a Protection Paladin rotation. If you get into a groove, it's beautiful. I can totally see myself staring at cooldowns and having to re-learn everything. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing though :)
• Ardent Defender is now a Tier 4 talent. Down from Tier 5. This little guy makes me nervous. So many QQ about this ability. "It's too OP!" they say. Well stuff it you mongrels. Everyone has something unique about their class and mine just means that I have a Super Mario 1UP. Is that so bad for your tank to have the ability to bounce back after taking a huge smack to the face? It's win win baby :-) <3 Ardent Defender.
• Divine Guardian is now a single rank talent and has been revamped (but is probably NYI) - Party or raid members within 30 take 20% reduced damage for 6 sec. Now this is what this damn talent was meant to be used for. The whole shinanagains of "I'm going to eat raid wide damage WHILE tanking this Dragon" sounded like such a stupid idea to begin with. I liked the redirection of damage part but redirect it to something that we WANT to die... like the Dragon :-)
• Holy Shield has been revamped - Increases your chance to block by 30% for 10 sec, and deals 97.8 Holy damage for every attack blocked. Consumes Holy Power to extend duration by 10 sec per stack of Holy Power. / 10% of base mana, Instant cast, 1 min cooldown Ok, I'm still quite confused on the HOLY POWER and wtf it even is. It sounds like you get a stack of it for doing a spell and can allocate these stacks to do different things. Being able to extend spell lengths or the potentcy just sounds Ultra Mega Sexy & will most definately add a level of complexity. Complex Paladin is a total oxymoron. Te-hee
• Hallowed Ground is now a Tier 3 talent. Down from Tier 4. If I remember correctly, this was the one that brought down the cooldown for Consecration by such & such amount of time. Or Maybe it was threat/ DPS increase. Anyways, they are mixing it up with the Paladin's entire rotation. Quite excited & scared....
• Vindication is now a Tier 5 talent. Up from Tier 4.
• Shield of the Templar is now a Tier 6 talent and has been revamped - Increases the critical strike chance of your Shield of Righteousness by 5/10%. In addition, your Shield of Righteousness critical strikes have a 50/100% chance of making your next Judgement a critical strike. LOLWUT?! I wonder where they got this idea from. Adding crit for tanks is a really odd direction to go. Crit's cool I guess o.0
• Spiritual Attunement is gone. More mana regen gone bye bye. What they should just come out & say is: We don't want you to regen mana anymore. You get one bar of this blue shit, make it happ'n Capt'n.
• Divine Sacrifice is gone. Previously Cheered... kthx
• Improved Exorcism is now Wrath of the Faithful - Increases the damage by 10/20% and critical strike chance by 10/20% of your Holy Wrath spell. I'm a total fan of this spell. If they do bump up the useability of this sexy AoE, they better have some more undead areas for me to wreck havoc on Skellies. An entire circle of undead skeletons always makes for a pretty screen shot :-)
• Improved Devotion Aura is now Protector of the Innocent - Your Auras reduce your damage taken by 1/2/3% and the amount healed on any target by 2/4/6%. So it just got a fancy name but does the same. whoopie....
• Sanctuary Reduces the chance you'll be critically hit by melee attacks by 2/4/6% instead of reducing damage taken from all sources. Well Poo. Not all incoming damage is Physical & Magical Damage is mighty painful. I guess Stamina will still be king when it comes to Fighting Fire (or Arcane, Shadow, Frost, Holy, or Nature)
• Sacred Oath is gone.
• Reckoning now gives you a 10/20/30% chance after blocking an attack for your next 4 weapon swings within 8 sec to generate an additional attack. Huh? So if a mob hits me & I block it, I have a % chance to hit him back within 4 swings for an ADDITIONAL Swing? This totally sounds like if all of the moons align and I'm facing Northwest with a light breeze in my face that I'll generate another swing.

Retribution

• *Divine Storm - An instant weapon attack that causes 20% of weapon damage to up to all enemies within 8 yards. The Divine Storm heals up to 3 party or raid members totaling 25% of the damage caused. Consumes all applications of Holy Power to increase damage dealt:
• 1 Holy Power: 22% Weapon Damage
• 2 Holy Power: 50% Weapon Damage 
• 3 Holy Power: 90% Weapon Damage / 20% of base mana, Instant cast
• *Crusader Strike now grants a charge of Holy Power. AH HA! This is what I was looking for. A way to generate these HOLY POWER OF FACEMELTING Magnitute psudo combo points! *cough* So now I can see where this is coming from. So you rack these stacks of Holy Power up by using your Crusader Strike and then expending them on abilities to make them more powerful the more stacks you have. So like a mix of a Rogue/ Druid Cat with Mana? Sure....
• Inquisition *New* - Consumes Holy Power to increase your Holy Damage by 30%. Lasts 10 sec per charge of Holy Power consumed. / 20% of base mana, Instant cast
• Conviction is now a Tier 2 talent. Down from Tier 6.
• Sanctity of Battle is now a Tier 3 talent. Down from Tier 6. Now reduces cooldown of Exorcism by 3/6 secs. (Up from 2/4 secs)
• Swift Retribution is now a single rank talent increasing melee and ranged attack speed by 20%.
• Fanaticism (Tier 4) is now Improved Judgment (Tier 2) - Increases the damage of your Judgment spell by 15% and decreases its cooldown by 3 sec.
• Judgments of the Wise now grants you 40% of your base mana over 10 sec. (Old - immediately grants you 25% of your base mana) WoW, this is the first mana regeneration spell that I've seen. Sounds extremely powerful too. I'll call it a MoT (Mana over time) Clever... I know.
• The Art of War is now a Tier 4 talent, down from Tier 3. It now has a 15/30% chance to proc from any melee attack (Old - 100% proc from Critical) and no longer reduce the casting time of Holy Light.
• Seals of Retribution is now a Tier 4 talent. Up from Tier 3.
• Eye for an Eye is now a Tier 1 talent. Up from Tier 2. It now gives you a 5/10% chance to cause 30% of the damage taken back to the attacker. This is probably one of the talents I'll be getting once I put my 31 points into Prot. Sound's really neat for a tank to have this actually. I totally envison one of those bullies on the play ground that pins the weaker kid down & makes him punch himself. "Quit hitting yourself!"  Maybe that's just me :-)

• Righteous Vengeance is now a Tier 6 talent. up from Tier 2.
• Improved Judgments is now Improved Crusader Strike - Increases the damage of your Crusader Strike by 15/30% and decreases its cooldown by 1.5/3 sec.
• Heart of the Crusader is now a Tier 3 (Up from Tier 1) single-rank (Down from 3 ranks) talent.

 All and all, I'm pretty excited about the reduced size & bloat reduction of the talent trees. Still waiting on my Beta invite because I SO want to test out these new abilities and see what type of rotation the New and "Improved" Protection Paladin is looking like.

Also, where is my Pally Pet?!

I can haz!!!!!

<3 Your Friendly Neighborhood Fuubaar

Knowing your Raiders: What spec are you again?

Hey Gang!


So, I've been talking to my Raidleader as of late about the in's & out's of our 10-man ICC raid. We were discussing DPS (the damage output & the Actual DPS raiders), Buffs, Debuffs, the works. Once we got on the subject of overlapping Buffs & debuffs that each class brings to the table, it hit me like Patchwerk's Hateful Strike. I don't have the slightest clue what specs our DPS were.

As a tank, you don't really care what spec everyone else is, you just care that the DPS is high & the healing is solid enough to keep us standing on our own two feet (or four if you're a druid).

Is this a good or a bad thing?

Our Raid group consists of:

Healers~
1X Discipline Priest
1X Resto Druid

Tanks~
1X Protection Paladin
1X Protection Warrior

Ranged DPS~
1X Elemental Shaman
1X Arcane Mage
1X Affliction Warlock
1X Beastmaster Hunter

Melee DPS~
1X Retribution Paladin
1X Enhancment Shaman

As you can see, I can spout them off pretty easily... now. I'm pretty embarrassed though because a few of these people I couldn't tell you before.

I had no clue that the Mage was Arcane. Maybe the Pew Pew should have set me off but I guess I never really looked too hard into it. Would it have really made a difference if they were Fire? Probably not. I can tell Frost Mages from their little water elemental now. So guessing what spec she was, well, it was a hit or miss without knowing more information.

Shamans all look the damn same. They drop totems & two out of the three stand in the back. What if the elemental likes to stand up close & personal to the boss? Well then, I sure couldn't tell you. I mean the chain heal is a dead give away that they are resto but really? I see 4 totems on the floor that are doing something, that's all I know.

Oh, let me tell you about hunters. Ummm they have a pet & they use a bow. You seriously need three separate trees to do that? Ok, ok, I understand that Beastmaster can tame sweet Spirit Beasts or lol T-Rex but what do the other ones do that really makes a difference in the play style? YOU SHOOT A BOW!

WoW, this is turning into a rant.

So ok, my point being, does it really matter, to a tank, what spec the rest of the party really is? I mean, does it help me in any way to know that the Warlock is Affliction rather than Destruction? I'm really just not seeing a major point to knowing that information if you are not the Raid leader.

What do you think? Is it important for you to know what spec everyone else is or do you just work around what you see?

<3 Fuu

Back in Pact

Nibuca mentioned it last week over at the MC, but I wanted to make a service announcement of my own.  Dark Pact is back.  Where did it go?  You may ask...

Well, back in the day (/hikesupbritches), all Aff'locks used Dark Pact.  It essentially made your pet a mana-battery, which at the time was mostly what pets were good for.  Additionally, it didn't have the potential to put you in dangerous health situations. 

This was also before the Glyph of Life Tap was introduced.  Once it was, though, the DPS benefits outweighed the risks, plus Life Tap was slightly reworked so that it made a lot of sense to use.  Thus, we all specced out of Dark Pact and started tap, tap, tapping again. 

Now darkness has reclaimed it's rightful throne.  Dark Pact has been made to trigger the Glyph of Life Tap, so that difference goes away, and the scaling has been reworked such that you should be getting more mana back per use when compared with Life Tap (even improved Life Tap).  Nibs linked the pertinent EJ article here, but I trust her judgment (and cannot view EJ at work).  Feel free to explore the nitty gritty. 

The bottom line here is that if you're a raiding Affliction Warlock, you should give some serious thought to speccing back into Dark Pact and replacing Life Tap with it in your dark castings.  After our ICC run last night, I went and did this myself.  I basically took the one "wtf-do-I-do-with-this" point I had stashed in Grim Reach and plopped it in Dark Pact, so I didn't really have to sacrifice anything spec-wise.  If you're one of those folks that had specced into Improve Life Tap, you could probably take a point from there. 

ICC in particular, but raiding in general has seen AoE raid damage increase a lot.  I presume the effort is to get us to have to move around while also giving healers something to worry about.  The side effect is that it can make Life Tapping somewhat dangerous and downright annoying for healers.  Normally, I wouldn't care if I'm being annoying to healers (case in point: our druid healer once asked, "Why do you always get hit at the start of battle?"  To which I replied, "Many Life Taps, handle it!"), but I also like to live, so it's a good move in my book.  The less I have to worry about cutting myself at the wrong time, the better, and it's not like Felpups are having mana issues right now with their redesign in earlier patches.

I haven't had a chance to see how it plays yet, but I did test the Glyph functionality and it works as advertised.  So hop on the good foot and do the Dark Pact.  Or something.

All the Single 80's

Put your hands up... No, no. I'm not going to sing today.  I'm going to pontificate on the path that I believe a fresh level 80 Warlock should take.  It's been noted that we're in something of a pre-expansion lull.  For a lot of people, this means leveling the alts that they may have wanted to get to 80 but never had the time.  Thus, I would guess there are a good handful of freshly minted or soon-to-be minted level 80 'locks out there.

I got a comment yesterday from Darthregis reinforcing this supposition and asking for advice.  Basically, he wanted to know what direction I would go if I had just dinged 80 on my 'lock.  Would my love for all things Affliction dictate my moves, or would I go a different route?  Even more specifically, he'd like to know about how to plan his gear.  Should he go with the Tier 9 gear from tokens, or a mix of T8 and T9, or even the gear from ICC 5-mans.  Furthermore, he mostly plans to be running heroics and the occasional lower end raid on this toon, so what would work out best?

It's a great question and one where the answer would not fit easily into the comment area.  Hence, post.

So to break it down, there are a few key points to consider here:

• T9 is notoriously Affliction unfriendly, though it is easy to get right now.
• Heroics are notoriously Affliction unfriendly, though they are easy to get into right now.
• In general, the fresh level 80 is looking to gear up quickly by running heroics.

So you can see, despite my undying (dare I say everlasting?) love for Affliction, the current state of the game is unfavorable to fresh 80 Aff'locks.  Mostly, this is due to how quickly stuff dies.  Affliction is probably the best sustained damage class out there.  Over time, our damage is smooth and constant when done correctly.  It adds up.  When stuff dies too quick, it chops us out at the knees.  Not much to it other than to suck it up.

Or go Demonology.  Yep, as much as I hate to admit it, the best choice isn't to somehow finagle a working spec out of Affliction, it is to seek refuge in the shade of a different tree.  Destruction might work, but I choose Demo.  Let's look at the Pros:

• Demonology has the highest survivability of all Warlock specs.  This is great news when you're pugging a lot and not sure if your tank/healer is going to be competent.  It allows you to somewhat fend for yourself.
• Demonology makes great use of the crit that is prevalent on T9 gear.  Destro is still probably the burst king, but Demo isn't bad.  Both benefit from crit far more than Affliction.  You can really make use of those Triumph emblems you'll be raking in. 
• Demonology is a great balance of sustained damage, burst damage, and finishing power.  It's really a "jack of all trades" spec, allowing you to adapt to the situations you're likely to find in heroics and lower end raids.
• The spec is FUN.  You get huge crits with soul fire.  You get to be a big purple demon.  You're weaving dots and procs.  You have crazy AoE potential.  It's an active spec that can keep you awake even when you're running Gundrak for the 25th time.

What about the cons?  Well I see only two:

1. If you plan to eventually raid Affliction (which I would suggest as Affliction is Raid King right now, plus I love the spec regardless), then you are not training your fingers to the rotation.  Practice makes perfect, and you'd be getting it in a different spec.
2. Again, if you plan to go Affliction, then once you get geared up, it might not be as ideal for an Affliction spec.  A simple respec might actually see a drop in DPS because of how crit is valued.

So here's what I would do (and have done).  I would spec Demonology right away.  I would spec it as I've linked up on the left there (in my Demonology Primer).  I would dual spec into Affliction.  For most of the time, I would run as Demo and gear as Demo.  For some of the harder fights in lower end raids (where you know the stuff is going to live), I might switch to Affliction to practice.  I can always practice on dummies later if I get into more serious raiding on my 'lock and find my finger training lacking.

I'd gear up to T9 as quickly as possible, but keep my eye open for hastier pieces.  Haste and crit are usually the trade-off stats, so any piece that has haste in place of crit, I'd snatch up.  I would not go so far as to keep two gear sets, but I would slowly replace my crit heavy gear with haste gear (probably using the Frost Emblems I begin to accumulate).  After all, haste is not bad for Demo specs, especially when you're trying to be quicker due to fast dying stuff anyways.  I would not get a "downgrade" just for the haste, but I would definitely favor haste pieces when looking for upgrades.  Eventually, you'll have a pretty balanced set that will work well for both specs.

It's simple, it's fun, and it'll keep you playing as an effective 'lock.  The reality is that Affliction is just not effective when the trash is falling over like dominoes in a whirlwind.  Start off Demo, switch to Affliction later.  That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.