Ooooh, re-specing sounds good. I actually made this dude before I knew what re-specing was - it never occurred to me to go back and do it.
Cool. No raiding at all, so I guess I’m good 
Are you talking about my Frost off-spec, or the fact that I’ve paired Fire & Frost in my main spec?
The main spec (0/53/18) is one I just grabbed from … somewhere. It’s basically a solo-questing-oriented spec, so the Frost is there mainly for survivability. The Frost off-spec (20/0/51) is a PvP spec that I haven’t actually gotten around to testing in PvP yet.
Your Fire/Frost main spec. I wouldn’t presume to comment on your PvP spec, since I’m the worst PvPer in the history of the world (of Warcraft.) 
Yeah, Frost is good for survivability, but if you’re looking for higher DPS in heroics. I would suggest swapping over to either Arcane/Frost or Fire/Arcane as an alternative.
Here’s a pretty standard Arcane/Frost build (I’m a raider, so there might be a bit of wiggle room to pick up some talents that would be more helpful outside of raids, but it’s a good solid spec.) My Fire build is highly dependent on hit (since it doesn’t even take Precision) but gets me down into useful talents like Focus Magic and Torment of the Weak. It’s a better spec for a higher gear level, but as I mentioned, the Arcane spec works better for starting T10 level gear.
My secondary spec is also Frost/Arcane, probably similar to the 20/0/51 model. It’s fun, but I almost never use it anymore. My main Arc/Frost spec was recommended a couple of pages ago, and I’ve been very pleased with it…pleased to the point that I use it for PVP as well. Could be I just never got the hang of PVP as a frost mage…but the Arc/Frost does facemelting damage, and I prefer that to the control of the Frost/Arc build.
PVP is sorta odd for me now. I’m wearing mostly PVE gear, so my resilence is shamefully low…like 350 or so. I get one shotted way too often…but I’m still a lvl 80 mage with almost 5k gear score, rocking over 20K hitpoints, capable of tossing out a 12K crit, so I still do ok in battlegrounds. Suspect I’d get pwned in arena, and might go back to the frost heavy spec if I try some arena eventually.
Honor accumulates so fast with the RBG that I might just go whole hog and get a full set of pvp gear too.
I’d rethink glyph of icy veins though. I wouldn’t want to be popping something that valuable for an escape. I’d also worry about push back limiting the usefulness of evocation. The spec is otherwise solid.
I just saw Mil0’s suggestions for glyphs in his post to me a couple pages back after I finished playing last night. I’m going with what he suggested for Arc/Frost–Arcane Missiles, Arcane Blast, and Molten Armor. I kinda hate giving up my current evocation glyph–it’s sometimes very useful to get a heal with the mana regen, and I’ll miss the mirror image glyph too–four mini-me instead of three, but Arcane Blast and Molten Armor will both add damage, so that’s where I’m going.
Your message appeared out of no where. I meant to comment on Rik’s PvP spec, which winterhawk11 left open.
It’s a rare drop spell “Ninja Post of Doom”. Allows caster to sneak in a post ahead of someone else’s reply, with a 5 min cool down.
Except for the occasional insane group that insists, against all logic, that it’s X first, then Skull. :smack:
All those guild hosting sites blend together for me, but if it’s the one I’m thinking of, it’s decent enough.
Oooooooooh no. Never, *ever, **ever ***Frost Nova in a group unless you can see that nobody other than the tank is in melee range of the mobs. When they get rooted, they’ll turn around and smack whatever’s highest on their threat list in range–which will probably be the healer.
FWIW, you can always buy an item, equip it to get credit toward the achievement, then sell the item back within 2 hours of when you bought it for a full refund (assuming you didn’t make any changes like gemming it, enchanting it, adding a buckle, etc.).
IMO, any RL who marks any mob but the kill target with Skull gets what they deserve.
And this is why GS is stupid–or rather, why it’s used so stupidly by so many people, because it’s a useful tool as long as you recognize its limitations. GS is an indicator of the absolute maximum output that someone is capable of, but tells you absolutely nothing about their skill or how they’re actually going to perform.
Yeah, Vent will probably push your latency even higher, and it’s pretty much the sine qua non for any raid other than a faceroll weekly or VoA, *especially *a PUG where the players aren’t familiar with each other’s strategies.
It can equal casual. “Casual” doesn’t necessarily refer to the amount of time someone spends playing the game.
I don’t mind someone being below the level of the group. I do mind someone being incompetent–i.e., unable to fulfill the *most basic *requirements of their role in the group.
Like I said upthread: fresh 80 doing 1500 DPS who needs every fight explained? No problem–happy to have them. Someone who rolls in doing maybe 1k and hoping that everyone else puts out enough to make up for their failure? No thanks, and get the fuck off my shoulders.
The percentage of Hit you need to avoid missing a current target varies by level. Like **Jas09 **said, spell chance to miss in PvE at level 80 is 4% against another 80, 6% against a level 82 (Heroic dungeon boss), and 17% against an 83 or equivalent (raid boss and some raid minibosses/trash). There are two basic ways to increase your chance to hit something: Talents and gear (the latter including modifications you make to the gear).
Mages have two talents to increase their hit: one in the Frost tree, which applies to all spells; and one in the Arcane tree, which only applies to spells in the Arcane school of magic, and so is only useful for Arcane Mages. (Note the difference between *trees *and schools: Arcane Missiles, e.g., is a spell in the Arcane *school *of magic, which any Mage who’s trained it can use.)
Once you have your spec set, you need to make up whatever hit you’re missing. Add up your talented hit bonus percentages, plus any racials or raid buffs you’d like to account for (e.g., add an extra percent for yourself as a Draenei). Consider the highest-possible-level enemy you’ll be facing, and subtract the number you added up from this baseline. Congratulations! You now have the percentage of hit you need to make up from gear. Equip everything, and check your hit. Subtract this percentage from what you have left to make up. This number is the percentage of hit that you still have to gain from enchants and gems.
Miss me and my dumb “Quasi-Q’s”?
I haven’t been playing as much lately as I am training for a bike ride, but meanwhile me and da Wolk’ reached level 75, the latter part of which we were disguised as a Scourge! 
(I love the way we run! Cracks me up every time!)
My guild, “Slightly Demented” is still active with 12 members who every now and then help themselves to some goodies and g’s.
I just wanted to reiterate how thankful I am for y’all’s help and ask one more queastion: how come I lose sound on windows Vista in general, but not in WoW.
What’s up widdat?
Thanks!
Quasi
That attitude makes me sick. You are just so fucking perfect in every way. Your pixels are more powerful than my pixels. Whoop-de-doo. Get over yourself already. Believe it or not, there was a time when you were that pathetic little noobling, struggling to keep up with the big boys, and somebody carried you. 1500 dps is an arbitrary suggested guideline. It is not Holy Law delivered to Moses on the mountain.
The RDF does not pop until there are 5 people on the team. If nobody ever queues up, from fear that some anal retentive min/maxer is gonna jump their shit for daring to play a freaking game incorrectly, then everybody has to wait longer for their RDF to pop.
If you just can’t bear to sully yourself to run with us common rabble, stick to your uberific guild, blow through heroics in 10 minutes, and then sit around telling each other how great you are on vent. What-freaking-ever.
:rolleyes:
/waves to Quasi. 
Just popped back on to talk guild website hosting. My current guild actually uses Guildomatic. The design is a bit clunky, but I don’t know how much of that is the templates and how much is whatever they did with it. The previous guild has been using Wowstead since the old site got hacked, and I actually prefer that layout.
My current guild uses Guildomatic as well. The forums have customizable skins, so you can pick something non-headache-inducing (which most wow-based forums seem to be…). The main page is kinda clunky, but I think that’s just the way it’s configured.
Point to one thing that shows me displaying this attitude. I’m not asking for 13k DPS in a Heroic. I’m asking for 1.5k–the bare minimum for a DPS to fill their obligation to the group.
Yes, there have been times when I’ve been carried–by friends and guildmates, who knew what they were getting into. I’ve NEVER gone into a group with strangers undergeared and unprepared. You know what I did when I hit 80? I hit the fucking Auction House and filled out the gaps in the gear I’d picked up through quests and regular dungeons, and then I spent more money gemming and chanting that gear, even though it would soon be replaced, so that I hit the Defense cap. Because it’s my responsibility, when I’m playing with other people, to do my job properly. Not just jump in as soon as I can and count on other people to cover my ass.
To be frank, you don’t know what you’re talking about. 1500 DPS is the widely accepted minimum amount that each DPS in a five-man Heroic has to put out in order for the group to be successful.
From “Heroics as a fresh 80: Don’t be that guy” (January 2009):
From “The Queue: The new standard” (December 2009):
See that? 1500 is the BASELINE. It’s the *minimum *that people need to be able to put out. It’s the number above which no one is allowed to complain. Which means that under that level, you’re not doing your job, and someone else has to do it for you, or the group will die.
Feel free to go nuts and real the hundreds of thousands of other sources that recommend 1500 DPS as the minimum to run a Heroic.
Nice excluded middle, there. How about people take an extra day or two after hitting 80 to run regular instances, including ones like ToC, which drops epics even in normal? How about people check their specs and rotations when their DPS is coming out low? How about people ask for help instead of jumping into a group where they can’t do the job they signed up for?
Again, it’s like you’re not listening to a god damned thing I’m saying. I’m not asking anyone to be perfect. I’m not asking them to be super-geared–as I’ve said repeatedly, I actually *like *it when I’m running with someone who can still get upgrades from the instance. I’m not even asking them to be good. I just want them to perform to the minimum level required for their role, when considered in a vacuum. Because for fuck’s sake, nobody should be counting on strangers to pick up their slack. EVER. For ANYTHING. Even if it is “just” a game.
Because you know what the point of a game is? Having fun. You know what’s not fun? Doing other people’s work for them. Do you think doing other people’s work for them is fun? I don’t. But of course, you’re not going to answer this question. Just like you haven’t answered every other question that could demonstrate how hypocritical your position is. Here’s another one you can ignore: if you’re on a relay team and you know one of your teammates is a really fast runner, would you just stroll along? Hey, the other guy can make the time up, right? Why shouldn’t you take it easy! Maybe stop to have a nice drink of water or something. After all, it’s just a game…
By your logic, DPS should be able to queue as tanks just to get into Heroics faster. After all, there’s the chance that someone else in the group will have a tanking spec and can swap to it and do the work. And hey, that DPS who queued as a tank got into the group faster than if they queued for a job they could actually do! So who cares if the rest of the group got screwed? After all, if they don’t like it, they can just kick the person. :rolleyes:
Notice those cites you’re so proud of, even though one of them does not say what you apparently think it does, are from 2009, the latter one from December 09? That was 8 months ago. Know what happens in 8 months in an MMORG? “Requirements” get a lot looser. Content gets easier. The heroics today are not the same heroics people were running in 2009. WotLK has been out what…almost two years now? People have run them dozens of times each. What was challenging this time last year is trivial now.
I just ran Utgarde whichever—the one with the guy you have to kill twice. Our tank was a bear rocking slightly over 3k gear score. He had some minor aggro issues, especially early in the run. Nobody died. Run took a few extra minutes, but all bosses down. No crime against humanity. No evil more vile than Hitler. Just a guy hoping to get his badges…which he did. Give him a few more runs like that over the next couple weeks, and he’ll be another bad ass bear tank.
By your logic, nobody that sucks at pvp should ever que up for a BG. Because if they can’t kill 47 people while hopping on one foot and jacking off with their left hand, without spilling their beer, they just aren’t good enough. Some special snowflake might have to take another BG loss. It’s just outrageous. People think Hurricane Katrina was a tragedy, but OMG! Some less than uber guy did something you don’t like in an mmorg. The horror.
:rolleyes:
Protip, dude. Shot From Guns isn’t a crazy hardcore min/maxing asshole. I know this because I am one. I do tell people how bad they are in RDF groups. I think everyone needs to do within 95%+ of their sim’d out DPS (assuming a 0.5 sec delay on refreshes). I don’t do quests for story or because it leads to the next quest. I do whatever gets me to the next piece of gear. I study every dungeon before I enter it so I know exactly what’s going to happen. My first time in ST, I told the shaman to stop being terrible and drop a tremor totem. I need to wait 15 minutes to kick people because I do it so often. I get kicked all of the time. I rolled on Mal’Ganis, but only because Blackrock is on the wrong coast.
I wouldn’t change any of this. This is how games are supposed to be played. This is fun. I’m only telling you all of this because Shot From Guns requirements were extremely generous. I read it and thought “S’up 5/12.”
Also, people who’re good at PvP don’t play in BGs. BGs don’t get you prize money.
Question for the melee gurus, since ElitistJerks doesn’t have the answers I want in a way I can find them.
I’m a Draenai dual-wielding Enhance shaman. That means I start out with a +7% to my hit rate.
So what should I be targeting for my hit modifier? The special attack cap (at a ludicrous +33 hit)? Or the dual attack cap (which would be something on the order of +20%)? What is the target +hit for the latter? Or is it somewhere in between?
Dude, no offense, you’re taking this waaaay too seriously. You realize that probably at least 50% of players can hit her “minimum” from the moment they ding 80, right? It’s not exactly crossing the Mississippi she’s asking of people.
Got in a VOA 25, so I ended up going with the belt tonight. Tricked it out with the buckle, socketed 2 red gems of +23 SP, and a purple one with +12 SP/+15 ST. Prolly shoulda got the spirit gem, but I like HP, and I still pvp every day.
Rocking over 5100 GS now. Just posted a career best 4129 dps against the Infinite Corrupter.
Yeah. Kahbueme’s loving his new belt.
Got nearly enough shards and triumph emblems to get a twink weapon and chest armor for another alt. Haven’t decided with toon it’s gonna be, though. Got a DK in progress (doesn’t everyone?), got a new hunter wanting a gun, got a 35 ret pally wanting a two hander, got a shammy holding at 24 because I don’t have a clue what I want to do with him.
Also thinking about moving my 'lock over to Cairne, to run with the BDL guys some…the 'lock is 50, hasn’t chosen a spec yet…used to be affliction, then went demonology to play with Fel Guard.
Finally, thinking I play too much WoW. But I want to get as much as I can in before football starts…
That may be true, in a very general sense, but SFGs point still holds true, because it is easier due to the abundance of over geared characters. It isn’t that heroics have actually gotten easier (you know except for the nerfing of Oculus), it’s that more of us are geared for end game raids now than we were a year ago. Yes we can make up the slack for underperforming characters, but expecting us to do so IS a rude thing to do. Yes, my TOC10 equivalent geared Druid can keep the under geared DPS alive in my daily random heroic, but in doing so I may be sacrificing a GCD that could be used on a tank, myself, or a dps performing the bare minimum for the group which in rare cases HAS made a difference between death or no.
Further as others have mentioned–1.5k is not hard to pull off. My DK with horribly crappy one handers can pull off 2.5k if I pay attention. My main was easily doing 2k at 75 in normals. Shoot–my cat Druid, in bear tanking gemmed/chanted gear can do that, and i’m probably the worst cat Druid on the planet! If you can’t pull that off then you are not ready for heroics and really are putting your pleasure ahead of your groupmates (you in a general sense, not you specifically). A lesson I learned the hard way when I bitched on these boards about not getting Naxx invites only to have it rightly pointed out that I hadn’t even run normal NR instances on said char (oh the pre-rdf days, I don’t miss them)!