Oh, and another iteration of “Tom worries about his hit rating” - what would the tanks out there consider to be the minimum + to hit? I switched out a two-hander with a substantial hit bonus for one with a big mastery bonus, and now have only about a +3% to hit; should I just suck up the misses, or reforge some dodge/parry/mastery to hit?
I’m assuming that since you have a 2-hander, you’re a DK (apologies for being scatterbrained today)? 3% is a bit low but DK tanks don’t need to be hit-capped. I think mine is running at somewhere around 4.5% and I haven’t had much trouble. My threat is great, though every once in awhile I’ll miss my initial swing and then have to pound on the Taunt key to get the mob back because my DPS is kind of trigger happy.
If you do reforge, reforge whichever is the higher of Dodge and Parry, not Mastery. Mastery is your second most important stat as a DK tank (behind Stamina) because it adds to your Blood Shield.
In other news, had a good week, raid-wise. My little team (when my guild swapped to 10s instead of one 25, 10 of the top raiders formed their own team (I call them the Cool Kids Club) and the rest of us kind of had to scramble a bit) is 4/12 after only our first week of raiding. Conclave of Wind, Omnitron Defense System, Magmaw, and Halfus Wyrmbreaker all fell to our ministrations, and Valiona and Theralion are on notice (we had them down to about 30% when we ran out of time). I really like the new raid bosses. They’re hard enough that they take some effort and strategy (at least at this stage in the expansion), and a lot of fun to fight. And I’m back to being a full time tank again!
Another vote for “kushiel, the CC order is sap/trap/sheep-or-hex”. Your trap should be starting the fight. The cooldown for retrap is about half the time the trap lasts, so you have plenty of time to keep the trap up.
Okay! Does anyone have any advice for my other problem with trapping, seeing what I’m trying to trap? Any addons that make this easier? This might be just a general battle issue as opposed to a trap issue.
This might be a silly question, but do you have hostile nameplates displayed? The addon TidyPlates is really helpful to me with targeting.
So, about a month ago I dusted off my old WoW user ID and quickly learned that I needed to merge it with a Battlenet ID. That done, I found out that I could get ten free days to try out Burning Crusade. It seems the last time I had held an active WoW account was in 2006, shortly before BC went live. I snagged the cheap upgrades to BC and WotLK over Black Friday and eventually gave them a credit card number to get my account active. I scored a copy of Cataclysm for Christmas. I’m no longer a hard core gamer. In the last month, I’ve gotten a new BE paladin to level 20 something and took my old undead warlock that was level 42 up to 57. I also ran a DK through that class’s initial quest arc. I also have a level 59 alliance hunter and a level 60 horde shaman from back in the day when that was max level. I haven’t dusted these two off yet.
I’m having fun, but I really would like to find a place or some help to get back up to speed on the game overall. I’ve tried to do some reading, but it seems that a lot of my questions are things that I’m just expected to know at this point. Reading through the DK boards is honestly pretty confusing. Even skimming the last few pages of this thread leaves me with a lot of questions.
For example:
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What are heroics? I’m guessing hard mode dungeon instances and probably nothing I need to worry about at the moment?
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When should I be doing instances? Honestly, the last instance I did was some dungeon down in northern Tanaris back in the day.
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If I should be doing instances now, what’s the best way to get in groups for them? I’m in a small guild, but it’s going to be of no help what so ever (real life friends who aren’t playing at the moment).
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What are glyphs and how do I get them? (Ok, I have some idea of what they are, I’m more curious about the when and where of obtaining them)
For a bonus question, I have a friend who played WoW a few years ago on her Mac. She would like to play again, but the patcher is dying on her. Looking at the minimum requirements, she just misses on OS version. I think it says 10.5.7 minimum and she has 10.5.6 or something like that. Her G5 is also an older one that came out just weeks before Steve Jobs decided to jump on the Intel bandwagon. Her G5 isn’t Intel based. An Intel processor is listed in the minimum requirements. Is there any way around this, or does she need new hardware?
Any help or pointing me to reading sources would be appreciated. Thanks!
Precisely correct.
You don’t NEED to do instances until past level 80 (well, you never NEED to do instances); if you do them, you will probably get somewhat better equipment for your level than you would if you skipped them entirely.
You can “queue” for an instance through the Random Dungeon Finder (“I” on your keyboard) - this will match you with four random people from your server and several “nearby” servers; at lower levels the queue times for DPS characters can be quite long - half an hour or more; but on the other hand you can just keep questing while you wait. If you don’t have some friends leveling up with you, this is by far the easiest way to find dungeon groups.
Since you’re not in a guild with people who can make them for you, you’re pretty much stuck buying them off of the Auction House. If the prices are really high on a glyph you want, don’t pull the trigger too fast; check every couple days. The prices can swing a lot.
She’s out of luck. G-whatever Macs are no longer supported. I bought a new gaming computer specifically for that reason.
To answer your grouping question, the game now has something called the Random Dungeon Finder (RDF). It’s the button with the green eye on your micromenu (the bar with your Options/Quest Log, etc.). If you click on that, it brings up the window to queue for a dungeon. You can queue up for a random dungeon in your level range or ask for a specific dungeon (during holiday events which feature a dungeon boss, you can also queue for that, so no more looking endlessly for a Horseman group on Hallow’s End!).
And yes, heroics are harder versions of regular dungeons. I think there are only two heroic old-world dungeons (Deadmines and Shadow Fang Keep). The rest are Outland or Northrend dungeons. You can also queue for these with the RDF, which will indicate to you the ones you’re equipped to do (the ones you’re not equipped for will be locked).
Glyphs are created by players with the Inscription skill. You can get them from guildies or from the AH, or create them yourself if you have Inscription.
Welcome back RogueRacer! Someone will undoubtably beat me in with these answers, but maybe I’ll say something helpful.
Heroics are hard mode versions of 5-man dungons. Heroics are designed for (and limited to) maximum-level toons, so nothing to worry about until you hit 85. Technically, there are heroic versions of level 70 (BC) and level 80 (WotLK) dungeons, but there is no longer any reason to do them.
You can do the lowest level 5-mans at any time after level 12, I think, and the Random Dungeon Finder (RDF) becomes available to you at level 15. The RDF will ask you to select a role (DPS, healer or tank) and then team you up with four other people of approximately the same level, and stick you in a random level-appropriate dungeon. You can also queue for a specific dungeon. It’s a wonderful tool that has made dungeon running super easy even if you don’t know anyone. To use it, click on the icon that looks like an eye in your toolbar. The RDF is available from level 15 all the way up to 85, and you get special rewards for using it (blue gear items at lower levels, and gear “points” at higher levels). Whether or not you should be doing them is up to you, but you should check them out and see if you like it.
There are three types of glyphs (prime, major, minor) which have various levels of usefulness. Unless you have leveled the Inscription profession (or know someone who has) you’ll probably need to get these on the auction house, or by asking in the /Trade channel for someone to make/sell you the one(s) you want.
I can’t really help with the Mac questions.
This thread is a great place to ask questions.
Oh, also, if you use the RDF to group with strangers enough, eventually you get rewards like a title (“the Patient”) and a vanity pet (appropriately, a pug).
And don’t worry about asking questions that have already been asked. Nobody expects you to read all hundred+ pages of this thread (and at least that many on the previous thread). It’s actually more of a rolling conversation than a traditional Dope thread. Think of it as a sort of “guild chat”…somewhat literally! A lot of people on here (but certainly not all) are members of the Doper guild, The Burning Dog Legion, on Cairne.
In fact, if you get a hankering to roll a new toon, you might want to join the BDL. We can set you up with bags, glyphs, and other crafted gear as well as help with in-game questions.
Wow! Thanks for all of the quick answers everyone! 
My DK doesn’t have professions yet. If I decided to go the Inscription route, what mixes the best with it? From some quick reading am I right in thinking Herbalism?
Although years of playing MMORPGs (more EQ than WoW, others too) make me shudder at the thought of PUGs, I’ll give the RDF a try some night. Since I don’t know any of the dungeons above level 40 or so, I’ll probably be the liability anyway. :smack:
How about UI add ons? I used to use CT Mod back in the day. Although some of CT’s functionality from back then is now in the stock UI, I found that it was still going and I’m using it again. Is there anything else that is “must have” for a UI mod?
Bummer for my friend with the Mac. Of course, now that I’m not playing EQ any more, I could probably lend her a PC.
*edit: Actually, I think I was one of the early members of the BDL, although I never played much. I might be thinking about City of Heroes though too. I know I was a member of the SD guild for that one… C.E.C.I.L. was it?
From a logical standpoint, sure. From a dramatic standpoint, not so much… 
I do have nameplates displayed, but when you got something like this* going on, it’s difficult to land a trap for one of those enemies.
*just snagged first similar-ish screenshot I found online
Watch that link, kushiel…“wowgold” in the url always says “trouble” to me. Goldseller sites always seem to have all kind of things that need to be cleaned out of your computer in them.*
*Including keyloggers and trojans. You might want to do a scan for malware…you don’t need to have your account hacked.
Inscription requires plants and herbs to make the ink you will use, so if you don’t have herbalism you’ll have to buy the materials elsewhere (usually the Auction House).
So the ageless debate is, do you spend your time gathering herbs, or do you spend that time making money some other way and spend it on buying herbs on the AH? It’s up to you, really. IMO gathering them yourself is the most straightforward method but we’ve had that debate here not too long ago.
I don’t know if it’s reassuring or not that I went there on my work computer then. Hah! Running Firefox on Windows 7 with virus scans on download, not too worried.
Still having log-on issues on my home computer and I don’t think it’s associated with everyone’s problems the last couple of days…I was getting a Critical Error #132 and sometimes #123 over the last 2 days. Got rid of my WTF, Cache and Interface folders, updated my GeForce 9800GT graphics card (per battle.net solution threads) and updated my 9.0c DirectX to the udated version (11.0 is not recommended for my GeForce) and I even reinstalled all 4 disks of WoW…and now I get Critical Error #0. This happens at login, usually after I put in my account name and password and before I put in my authenticator code (since it’s a fresh new start at logging in). This has happened about a dozen times, with the CE #0 happening the last 2 or 3 times while trying to log on. If it matters, the whole WoW folder is in my E drive instead of my C drive because of space, but I don’t really think it’s a factor here.
Anyone experiencing this type of problem over the last 3 or 4 days? It was fine before I left for New Years on Thursday the 30th, and when I returned on the 1st, problems problems problems. Thanks all for being my therapists.
BTW, my work computer also has WoW on it, and it is currently working fine at the moment.