Sep 18

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been playing a Death Knight and loving it. The resource system is extremely unique, and takes some planning and strategy to use effectively–face-rolling will severely gimp your DPS and/or tanking. I thought I’d take a bit of time to discuss Death Knight combat.

Runes and Runic Power

Death Knights use a unique system to activate their spells and abilities. This sytem consists of runes and runic power. Some abilities cost one or more runes to activate–these abilities generate runic power, which maxes out at 100 (without talents). Like rage, it begins to decrease when out of combat. Other abilities use up runic power.

Death Knights use three rune types–Blood, Frost, and Unholy. There are two of each rune type, as shown in the picture. When you use an ability that uses one or more runes (and it successfully lands), it places each of those runes on a 10-second cooldown. (If an ability does not successfully land, it gets placed on a shorter cooldown.)

Let’s take a look at some of the Death Knight’s abilities and their cost to cast.

Abilities that Cost Runes

Here are some of the abilities that you start off with as a level 55 Death Knight. You can mouse over them to see the entire spell, I will only list the rune cost and the major details.

Icy Touch (1 Frost) – 50-54 Frost Damage + Frost Fever (Disease)
Blood Strike (1 Blood) – 50% Weapon Damage + 23 + 11 * Number of Diseases
Plague Strike (1 Unholy) – 30% Weapon Damage + 10 + Blood Plague (Disease) + Removes one HoT from target

As you can see, the basic abilities cost one of its corresponding rune type, and do differing amounts of damage. Icy Touch and Plague Strike do less damage than Blood Strike, but are designed to get diseases on your target so you then get more damage out of Blood Strike.

Let’s take a look at a more advanced spell that you learn at level 56.

Death Strike (1 Unholy, 1 Frost) – 60% Weapon Damage + 67 + Heals the Death Knight for 100% Damage Done * Number of Diseases

Another strike that scales with your diseases. Starting to see a pattern here?

As you start to refine your talent spec, you’ll start noticing patterns, and eventually, a rotation will evolve. Let’s take a look at a few talents from Unholy, my favorite talent spec.

Epidemic, Outbreak, Reaping, Desecration, Crypt Fever, Ebon Plaguebringer, Wandering Plague, Rage of Rivendare

As you can see, Unholy focuses a lot on your diseases. But, take a very good look at Crypt Fever. “Your diseases also cause Crypt Fever, which increases the damage of other diseases on the target by 20%.” So, not only does it make the diseases already ticking away on your target stronger, but it also causes a new disease. Remember how Blood and Death Strike scale with additional diseases? Yep, this counts as another disease! That’s an extra 11.25 damage with Blood Strike, and another 100% damage done toward healing with Death Strike.

Also in the Unholy tree is a new strike.

Scourge Strike (1 Unholy 1 Frost) – 65% Weapon Damage as shadow damage + 84 + 42 * Number of Diseases

A few things about this ability: (1) it scales very well with your diseases (42 damage per, as opposed to 11 with Blood Strike), and (2) it does its damage as shadow damage, which means it is unmitigated by armor. Pretty nice huh?

Getting Your Diseases on a Target

So, as you can see, Unholy is all about your diseases. To get the most damage from Scourge Strike, or the most healing from Blood Strike, it is in your best interest to get your diseases on a target as early as possible. But, if you’re not careful about which abilities you use and in what order, you can find yourself without a rune that you really need. Let’s take a look at the beginning of a typical Unholy cast rotation

IT = Icy Touch
BS = Blood Strike
PS = Plague Strike
DS = Death Strike
SS = Scourge Strike
BB = Blood Boil (see below)
Numbers = Seconds/End of Global Cooldown
* = End of Global Cooldown
F/B/U = Frost, Blood, Unholy Runes (Dashes indicate cooldowns)

0  *  3  *  6  *  9  *  12 *  15 *  18 *  21
|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|
IT PS SS BS BB
F-------------------F                          < Frost
      F------------------F                     < Frost
         B------------------B                  < Blood
            B------------------D               < Blood
   U------------------U                        < Unholy
      U------------------U                     < Unholy

So–we start off with Icy Touch at 0 seconds. We use Icy Touch because (1) it is a ranged attack, and (2) because it sets up two diseases on our target (Frost Fever and Crypt Fever). After that global cooldown is over, at 1.5 seconds, we cast Plague Strike, setting up Blood Plague. We now have 3 diseases on our target, so at 3 seconds we’ll cast Scourge Strike to deal a good amount of damage to the target.

Do you see what’s happened now? We’ve used both our Frost runes and both our Unholy runes. The earliest we’ll get another Frost is at 10 seconds. Since our only strike in the meantime is Blood Strike, we’ll use it at 4.5 seconds, again taking advantage of all our diseases, but not doing as much damage as Scourge Strike.

Next, I’ve decided to cast Blood Boil. Let’s take a look at Blood Boil (a level 58 ability).

Blood Boil (1 Blood) – 59-71 Shadow Damage * Number of Diseases (all enemies within 30 yards)

So, we do a decent amount of damage to our target–a minimum of 59 * 3, since we have 3 diseases on our target. But, remember that talent, Reaping? “Whenever you use Pestilence or Blood Boil, there is a 100% chance that the Blood Rune becomes a Death Rune when it activates.”

A Death Rune is a rune that can act as any other type of rune; if you need a certain rune type, and it is on cooldown, it will use your Death Rune instead. If can be useful for longer rotations or grindnig; by using Blood Boil and Pestilence now, I can have two Death runes up instead of Blood runes, giving me the ability to use them as Unholy and Frost for a Scourge Strike. I’ve marked it in red on the chart above.

In the meantime, these abilities have been generating runic power.

Runic Power

There are many abilities that use runic power. A few examples are Death Coil, Summon Gargoyle, and Unholy Blight. Notice that Unholy Blight is the bottom tier Unholy talent, and although it doesn’t actually add a disease to a target, any mobs within 10 yards of you are considered to have another disease on them, giving even more power to your strikes that stack with diseases.

Conclusion

I hope you can see now regarding what I meant when I said you couldn’t just spam/faceroll your way to the top of the charts with a Death Knight. As you gain levels, you will learn even more abilities to add another layer of complexity into your rotations, such as Blood Tap, Rune Strike, Death and Decay, and Obliterate (which by default consumes all diseases on a target, but does very good damage).

All in all, the Death Knight rune/runic power system is very engaging. I recommend everyone try it, even if they don’t plan on playing a Death Knight in the end.

Related posts:

1. Tanking as an Unholy Death Knight
2. So, You Wanna Play a Death Knight: Unholy Tree
3. So, You Wanna Play a Death Knight: Basics
4. So, You Wanna Play a Death Knight: DPS
5. So, You Wanna Play a Death Knight: Blood Tree

Sep 2

I’m pretty excited for my feral druid. I realize it’s still beta, but as of right now, Wrath of the Lich King is bringing several buffs to the druid class, both direct and indirect. Let’s take a look at 15 reasons every feral druid should be looking forward to the content patch and the expansion.

Before we get into new abilities and talents, let’s talk about the changes to energy and mana regeneration. Before, energy and mana was awarded every two ticks, meaning if you were two energy away from a Shred (and oh, how often did that happen!), you had to wait a full two seconds before being able to Shred again. No more! Now enery regenerates in a constant, smooth fashion, ticking once for every point of energy! This is a huge buff to anyone except Death Knights and Warriors (and druid Bears), because their special ability resource (rage or runic power) works differently.

[Late Edit] I almost forgot! Furor is being modified to allow you regenerate energy out of Cat Form, and allows you to keep X of it when reentering Cat Form–fully talented, it’s 100%! Fly around for a while, find a mob, shift into Cat and have 100 energy. Sweet!

Now let’s get on to the new/changed stuff!

Druids are finally getting a "normal" rez via Revive! While this is technically a restoration spell, feral druids will still, of course, have access to it, allowing tanks and DPS to assist with rezzing fallen party members after combat.

Next we have Savage Roar, the new druid Cat Form finisher. I haven’t been able to play with this spell, but it seems the idea is to use spell rotations similar to a rogue: get Savage Roar up for the bonus damage to Rip, and keep Savage Roar and Rip running throughout the fight (Similar to rogues using Slice and Dice and Rupture).

Tiger’s Fury got a significant revamp. The energy cost and low returns in DPS made it so useless, some druids didnt’ even have it on their hotbar. Now, however, it has no energy cost, does not invoke the global cooldown, and talented (see below), returns 60 energy to the druid. Even untalented, it’s worth hitting every time it’s up.

Primal Precision is a new talent in the feral tree, offering expertise to both Bear and Cat Form. Expertise reduces a mob’s chance to dodge and parry, and is always a welcome addition to a feral druid’s arsenal. Furthermore, Cat Form finisher’s that are dodged or miss return 80% of the energy to the druid, making a second attempt quicker.

One of my favorite changes to an old-time druid ability is Feral Charge: now with Kitty power! In cat form, Feral Charge does not require a path to the target, only line of sight. It works basically like a rogue’s Shadowstep, in that you end up behind the target, although currently you don’t face the target’s back. Doesn’t break stealth, so a great way to get behind a mob quickly for a nice Pounce. Furthermore, Cat Form Feral Charge dazes the target for three seconds.

Survival of the Fittest has been modified to provide 6% crit reduction. With the removal of crushing blows from mobs three levels above you, and assuming the mechanics behind critical strikes from bosses hasn’t changed, feral tanks can now receive crit-immunity solely from this talent. No defense needed!

King of the Jungle is a new talent in the feral tree, giving a boost to damage in Bear Form while enraging by 5%, which may or may not counter the loss of base armor. However, the addition of Tiger’s Fury returning 60 energy in Cat Form is amazing.

Infected Wounds is yet another new talent in the feral tree. While at first it seems that this is a PvP oriented talent (and that is certainly part of it), it is also a decent tanking buff. After a few seconds of tanking with your face, your mob will move up to 50% slower (making it easier to catch if it strays), and their attack speed will be reduced by up to 20%, a great addition to the feral tanking arsenal.

A reduced cooldown/rage cost of our staple ability is never a bad thing.

Rend and Tear gives a bonus to Maul when using Lacerate, and the increased critical strike chance to Ferocious Bite is incredible while soloing (with my mediocre gear, this would put Ferocious Bite at a 90% crit chance on a bleeding target).

Berserk, the new top-tier feral talent, is amazing. I don’t care if you’re tanking and need some extra AoE threat right now, DPSing and need a sudden boost, or PvPing and need to become immune to CC, this ability does it all. Its cooldown is longish, but not horrible for such a great ability.

Omen of Clarity has been changed a bit. First of all, it’s a passive ability instead of a buff. Great change, one less buff to cast every 30 minutes. Secondly, it no longer procs from yellow (special) abilities–only auto-attacks. However, the proc rate has been almost doubled. This is theoretically a buff, but that is yet to be seen.

Master Shapeshifter is a new talent in the restoration tree that gives good bonuses to every druid form there is. However, picking up this talent is difficult without giving up some feral talents.

The only problem with all these new amazing talents is that it’s very difficult (if not impossible) to hit them all. Blizzard has stated that they want players to have to choose a little between Cat and Bear form abilities, so my guess is they’re not done playing with the feral tree quiet yet. At any rate, I’m excited, and you should be too!

Related posts:

1. 2 More Reasons Feral Druids should be Excited about Wrath
2. Why I Love Druids
3. IS NOT MAN ANGLE
4. Follow the Crowd: Feral Price of Dire Bear
5. BA Shared Topic: Preparing for Wrath of the Lich King

Aug 29

It’s all over the WoW blogosphere by now, so I’m sure you’ve heard: there’s been an announcement that a huge change to how raid buffs, debuffs, and buff stacking is going to work. I won’t quote the article here, but you may go read it for yourself.

I really like the spirit of the change. It’ll certainly shuffle some things around at first, but eventually everything will settle down, and the world will continue–raids will down bosses and epics will be distributed and progress will be made and the world (of Warcraft) will be at peace. And stuff.

There was one change that surprised me a bit.

Shadow Weaving: Buffs only self.
Improved Shadow Bolt: Buffs only self.
Expose Weakness: Buffs only self.
Shadow Embrace: Buffs only self.

I was planning on speccing survival on my hunter for the expansion because of the benefit to the raid provided by expose weakness, and with that in addition to hunting party (providing mana/energy/rage/runic power regen to 10 raid members), a survival hunter, while having lower DPS, could provide strong benefits to the raid. It will be interesting to see how expose weakness and similar talents work out in the expansion.

Related posts:

1. Heroic/Raid Saves in 3.1
2. World Event for WotLK
3. What Can a Discipline Priest Bring to Your Raid
4. These are the People in your Raid
5. 15 Reasons Feral Druids should be Excited about Wrath

Aug 28

I’m a strange mix of “hardcore” and “casual,” depending on how you define those two words. I guess WoWWiki’s “dedicated” covers it pretty well. I play almost every day, have two 70s and a small army of alts, and do Kara. But, I’ve never been in a guild that raids on a schedule, had a character with really good gear, been in the top of a PvP or arena bracket or anything else like that.

At this stage in the game (read: just before an expansion release), a lot of people stop doing various things for various reasons, most of it having to do with gear (for those who only care about the gear). Raiders stop raiding, PvPers stop PvPing, and if you’re not a tank, good luck getting a heroic group. So, I’ve decided to sit down and think about where *I* am in my WoW, and what I’m going to do for the future.

Determine a Main

I currently have two level 70 characters: a feral druid and a marksmanship hunter. I also have a 67 warlock that could hit 70 in a hurry if I wanted. The druid has decent gear, some Kara gear with some crafted epics thrown in, just a quest green or two remaining. The hunter is a little bit more green (pun intended), with a couple crafted epics and a Kara drop or two.

I got into my hunter pretty hard when I got tired of tanking on my druid. Seemed like all the groups I were in had folks that could do 1,500 DPS right off the bat, and I just couldn’t hold aggro against it with my gear or skill level, although people expected me to. I think a lot of this had to do with dinging 70 so late in the BC era.

Recently, though, I’ve been playing the druid a bit more, and am really getting back into the swing of kitty soloing, and would be interested in getting back into tanking, especially with the new swipe hitting four targets and associated glyph making things a bit easier.

Really, I’ll always be an altoholic, so “determining my main” really means figuring out which character I’m going to get to 70 first. Since my pally tank is only level 20, and I really enjoy the druid, this will likely be my choice.

Level Tradeskills

There’s nothing worse than having to level up your tradeskills again–unless it’s realizing that you never finished leveling them the first time! I’m a 375 herbalist and alchemist on my druid, but I’m only 362 or so on engineering on my hunter, though her mining is at 375. Some of the engineering goodies look pretty neat, and I need to get the mats ready for my roflcoptor for when she gets her epic mount training.

Which brings me to my last point…

Gold and Epic Flyers

If there’s one thing I can absolutely guarantee will be useful in WotLK, it’ll be gold. The more the merrier. Also, currently, at level 77, you can do a simple quest chain that unlocks Cold Weather Flying, which allows you to fly in Northrend. No expensive training or anything like that. So, the earlier I can get my epic mount training, the better. I think I’m going to get it for my druid first, both because I’m going to level her first, and also because she’ll need a Heroic Sethekk Halls run to get it.

So there you have it! My list of things to do before WotLK comes out. What are you guys doing to prepare?

Related posts:

1. BA Shared Topic: Preparing for Wrath of the Lich King
2. Travel Speed: Travel Form vs. Mount
3. The Death of the Epic Mount Quests
4. Not Joining the Bandwagon
5. The Slightly Deeper End of the Big Kids’ Pool