Which talent tree is the right talent tree?

Here I am to discuss talent trees, we have all been there trying to squeeze out the best we can from healing to DPS back to tanking. But when we change our specs over to match the "theory crafted" best we may lose abilities/utilities that we may need or have wanted.

To start lets discuss DPS:

Is there such a thing as too little DPS? Some classes have talent trees that limit their DPS to the point they're avoided by everyone that is max level, and others increase there DPS so much they're universally accepted as the "only viable" spec. What does this mean? Are the other trees really that "bad"? Are they ever of any use? Were they there solely to add some leveling ease? Lets take a look at some under used specs.

For a Mage, frost is the plague spec outside of PVP despite having reasonable raid utility. Talents that allow replenishment (a % mana return for all raid members) talents that slow down adds, freeze them in place, and in some cases encase them in ice and stop them from attacking for X seconds.

For a Warlock Demonology is pretty much on the shelf after you are 80. Why? cause it's pet based damage and again is considerably lower than the others. Like frost this is avoided for the low DPS, despite having a raid wide (proc based) spell power buff from the felguard.

Yes I know my name is being cursed and your mashing your faces with your palms at each consecutive word. But Remember these spec still deal damage and in a 10man 3-4k is not overly low. Yes tanks can make 3k etc etc but the point being that some DPS are already pulling 8k so 3 toons getting 8k and you getting 4k but providing more mana other buffs etc may not be a bad trade off for a DPS "loss". There are heaps more than this I know, this is just to make you think, raid leaders should be aware of these advantages. Of course DPS is still gear dependent to a certain extent and at higher levels of gear the gap may close enough to make it viable again.

In 25mans would these become more viable? Not really, because your utility isn't really felt, as a Shadow priest can provide replenishment and they're not the only ones, but again its not likely to be used in a 10man either as no one will accept your utility for DPS losses. Basically these are lost specs, they are covered in so much hate in 10mans and do not stand out that much in 25's so is there a point to this post?

Well yes, the point I am making is that these are still viable despite the hatred. Why are they viable? Because your guild can still request this of you, and you should make them aware that you can provide a specific buff. It may be a one off thing or a permanent thing. The beauty is that dual spec allows you this freedom between boss fights so if you need a spec for one fight but not the rest then why not have an off spec for that fight? Why not have it for a fight you know your guild can easily beat with your lower DPS from a utility spec?

Healers, there is not much for healers you would think, but again there is. Healers have a few tricks in their trees for different things. They have raid/AOE heal talents to focus there healing through multi-target healing, or single target talents to push their single target heals as far as possible. A healer will spec based on what they are doing for there guild, or for how they heal, and others spec a cookie cutter talent tree. The problem with cookie cutter trees is they hover dangerously close to the point that people start hating the tree or their class. Specs for how you play have the opposite effect. You like your class, you have all you want, but you may let others down due to a few missed choices. Specs for how you heal again fall in between this and make you think about talents you want or talents that cookie cutters suggest. Tanks are in the same boat and many warrior tanks will sometimes take two talent specs in with one for AOE and one for single target. Why? because they cannot take both well enough, healers are the same and DPS falls on another scale where they have the ability to kill either way but can be substantially weakened in utility.

So to clarify what all that dribble means:

* The "best" spec is not always the right one
* Spec as a mixture of what you do and how you do it
* Tanks and Healers specialize between multiple or single targets
* DPS.... Raid contribution based on selective talents and trees
* WHO CARES WHAT YOUR DPS IS AS LONG AS YOU DID IT RIGHT!


Yes I know half the WOW community is now going to end me, the other half sees my point and the third half....hang on.... Anyway, the point being all trees are viable as long as you make them viable.

If you want more DPS there is going to be a more prominent tree, utility again has more prominent talents that may be missed by cookie cutter trees. So work out what you like and what everyone in your guild is comfortable with and have fun. Hell I play a frostfire mage and that spec died on release, so enjoy what you do and make it work. Remember, you can't dps if you're taking a dirt nap because you didn't give yourself utility talents. A healer with no mana is not a healer, its a liability. A tank with no.... HEALTH! is not going to save your DPS'n butt. You may be there to kill but you are all linked to each other.

Egamad...the SHAMAGE

The path to tankhood.

Ok, so I realize many people are taking advantage of the looking for group system for faster leveling, I myself am one of them. But while anyone can DPS and a mediocre healer will do for a 5 man, the tank is the make and break point.

Last night on my hunter (lvl25) I had to use my pet to tank because or Paladin tank (lvl25) could not generate enough aggro to hold my auto shot /sigh. He later tried to reprimand my use of pet to tank and proceeded to tell me how to play my class (or so he thought). For one I have my pet passive by default, and at this level I keep all his tanking/solo questing abilities on his bar ready to save a healer or myself, the DPS loss is not that crucial.

The problem though was not me at all, yes I pulled aggro but after waiting 3 secs and having my first attack pull aggro is surely not my fault. I realize as DPS its my job to watch my aggro, but Omen does not work until you attack or heal a target that is in combat or puts you in combat, so until my first shot I have no idea where my aggro or the tanks is at (hence the 3 second head start). The situation gets worse as he was still yelling at me to turn my pets growl off, (its worth noting at this point my pet was still on passive and sitting beside me) when he could not generate aggro fast enough anyway.

The tanks of this upcoming wave are not something I want my Shaman (lvl80) to be healing, seriously there are a lot of people rolling these classes for these roles and having no idea how to play it. So here is a run down.

Tank: Keeping all targets in FRONT of you is an important trick to learn, it's hard to defend attacks from behind so learn to position them. TAB targeting is another great trick for tanks as many players still prefer to AOE down mobs than single target so make sure to stack threat across all with a TAB or mouse targeting rotation. Aggro, Taunts, Cooldowns, these are cornerstones of your class and many require you to be in a situation to warrant there use, so remember what talents you have and do not be afraid to use them when needed, 2minutes -3 minutes there not long times at all. REPAIR YOUR GEAR!! seriously there is nothing worse than a certain paladin screaming at you for saving the party when his weapon has no durability and he cannot hold aggro.

Healer: You stand somewhere away from possible patrols or other mobs, and you heal. Remember to be stocked up on Water (mana re-gen drinks) each time you sign up, and do not be afraid to do what I call *combat re-gen*, the art of drinking right before the pull and still be drinking in the middle of combat, you can usually squeeze out enough mana before your single big heal to the tank. As with most roles remember to use ability's like fade if your a priest to keep aggro low, as not all tanks are created equal and just because he has 4 mobs hitting him, does not mean a healers aggro will not peel it off.

DPS: Seriously, you know your job, you kill and you do it fast, but for the love of good stop posting the charts up no one cares if you pulled 13k but because you didn't sheep a mob we wiped, and in my case at 25, did not frost trap it, did not off tank on the pet, you may be a Damage toon, but your also a utility when played right. The difference between trash wipes is often not a DPS issue, but which class did not use a crowd control, or Off tank, or heal when the priest went OOM, or innervate etc. Stop comparing your E-peen and realize we are a unit of 5-10-25 or 40 players... and that you are part of a group, yes you signed up to kill, but you can still kill and you can save the day with traps or sheep, and banish etc. While we are the damage dealers and more damage is better, saving the group at the cost of a few seconds on boss is nothing. If you can save the healer then do it! do not wait around for someone else to do it. The list for DPS is to massive the do's and dont's is an article alone.

So I will leave you with that, remember what your role is and think of what else you can do, PVP skill can be used in PVE when it all goes to hell. Crowd control is still valid and necessary, offer to OT something if your plate or a pet user, offer to sheep anything they mark with X. If the tank is having a hard time with 4 mobs use 1 or more of the above to make life easier, all tank classes should now where there taunt is so picking up a CC or pet tanked mob is no great task.

Bringing you more as I get to it, but please add to this as I'm sure this is global and not limited to my battle group.

Egamad.

Where did Foo go?

TO ULDUAR !!!

Thats right, after some help downing Malygos he has progressed himself into Ulduar.

Anyone who knows Foo, or has been in his guild or a PUG with him, will understand he is a calm methodical palyer. Most people like me have trouble with repeated wiping. Foo, while annoyed he may get, works on what went wrong throwing fish and buffs at everyone in his way.

Ulduar, the next great conquering plane for Foolich, Foo..... Oh there is to many. Foo, is one of few people that choose to do things in order, I recently started a ICC progression with my newly 80 mage (I had the gear) and have skipped alot of the early content that Foo revels. So as I do, I take my over geared shaman and heal his runs, or my mage and destroy what ever I get set onto.

I like the idea and concept of doing everything in order, but I do everything fast, and come back sautrdays and some other nights to do some less stressful (not always) runs of lower raids. It is surprising how much you can learn from Ignis, and how hard some fights can still become despite there relative ease. So for everyone pining for Kingslayer, just relax the buff will go up to a max of 40% and everyone will be a kingslayer so chill, and the titles you want like immortal and such, come from the lower tier 80 raids. So myself and a few others take it apon ourselves to clear these with what should be easy mode (with our high gear) toons, and farm the achi's for mounts or titles or hell the achi's themselves.

So after this brief carry on about raiding in lower tiers at 80, I'm off back to work, stupid short breaks...../sigh..

Do not disregard the lower tier runs as skills and gear still drop, and at worse aim for achi's and get the Ulduar Proto... or the Immortal title.... Did I mention the 400+ gold from BOE's? the gold for simply killing and looting? No... oh well now you know.

See you in Dal or shatt or whether my portals take me, or my raids.....

Egamad, Wizdom - Cealestrasz

DING! 80

Ok, here is the back story, I had a mage and rogue hovering and the 70's for a really long time accumulating millions worth of double exp, so I decided to level my mage as I already had an enhancement shaman to for melee.

So, now that you have the story, here is the point. 80 hurts! Getting to 80 is easy but can be costly if your like me and try avoid quest grinds. So when I dinged I realized I was 80, with no hit no spell no stamina and by god no gear ( all relative to what I should have of course). Foo helped out with some moonshroud gear, and I have grinded heroics day and night to get 3/5th's of my Tier 9 set. I have spent more time in the BG's as I have found honor can be faster to gain and is easier to get into a BG than a heroic queuing alone. So I have some PVP gear mixed with PVE, but hey who cares the stats where better and until I can suitably replace them they will stay. Now granted I will not be walking into ICC laden in PVP gear, however for heroics I think the Odd piece simply because it has better stats than a PVE counterpart you are able to use, is ok.

Maybe I am wrong, but my shaman started healing Heroics in the 78 PVP set, no one noticed or cared. Now my mage uses some hard earned honor to bolster his gear where I cannot find a tank or healer to chain with me to get the preferred items. So is this acceptable for a new 80? Is it ok to use PVP gear to help with stats while you chain heroics in the effort to get the right piece?

As far as I am concerned PVP gear only carries one useless stat in the form of resilience and maybe the abundant health, which in a raid is of negligible use. However as many are aware there is PVP style fights in raids today. For example the faction champs of Trial of the Champion are a PVP battle and I know that people bring there PVP sets to this fight. ICC also has some PVP battles (correct me if I am wrong but it is what I have been told by raid leaders) and yet PVP gear has no place in a PVE raid environment in many peoples eyes. While I do not believe taking a full pvp set rings/trinks and all to ICC is a great idea, there are times where it has some merit, or atleast a hint of usefulness. So for 80 as a DPS it is much easier and quicker for me to farm honor than triumph, unless I get a tank or healer I mite as well Quest for the 15 minutes I will wait.

If anyone has a view on this please let us all know...

Can PVP gear be used for stats in heroics?
Can PVP gear be used in any PVE raids?

OP, is there such a thing?

What makes a class/spec over powered (OP) ? A warlocks ability to easily dispatch mages, or a rogues ability to easily dispatch warlocks? These are class counters, and in many cases spec Dependant.

Examples of this is that a Subtlety rogue would suffer greatly against a Arms or fury, hell any to most warriors with half the brain power they should have, but a combat or mutilate rogue could go toe to toe a lot longer with more success. So does this mean that Warriors are overpowered because they killed that sub rogue with ease? Nope, does it mean warlocks are overpowered because a Chaos bolt critted for 15K+, surely not. A frost mage can kite a kill alot of melee classes but other casters, warlocks with felpuppy's and even other mages, or even a priest, can knock that mage down.

So OP, what does this really mean, and when can it be used? Well in the case of the Retadin, it can, Blizzard has themselves stated that Retadins are not where they should be damage wise. While a rogue is a glass cannon that can kill you quickly or control you quite well, they are a cooldown Dependant class, everyone can admit that there main abilities are on arguably long timers. So a rogue one shots half your health, a chaos bolt takes you to the grave, a divine storm messes up your hair, each class has a way to deal significant damage, just because it happened does not make them OP.....well not always... There is so many factors as it stands such as dodge, resilience, Health, block, crit, spell/attack power, expertise, hit, etc etc that if someone has enough of each and you lack in one, you could be facing a dire end.

PVP is all about that balance, you want to kill fast, but you risk the result of your EPIC PWN's to be a lack of survivability. So we stack, stamina, spell power, enchant for the flavor and so on to try to achieve enough damage to kill without it becoming a maim, and take a big enough hit to still have time to activate that fight or flight spell we all have. So balance it up we do, in arena this is more important, and also more varying than in BG's. In a BG you can get away with damage orientated stat stacks, where as arena you need to mix it up based on group composition, which will again change in 2's,3's and 5's and you may be there just to rain damage on a healer, or to survive and distract there damage dealer.

So back to the original Question, is there such thing as OP in PVP, there certainly is, some classes and specs are designed to over power some classes and spec compositions, where as others as is the Retadin, are really just a jack of all trades. Head over to WOW.com and have a look at there take on fighting a Retadin, there is also some blue posts about the Retadin and it's need to be beaten with the Nerf bat.

In PVE the OP situation thickens, as there is some fights like in ICC that are not friendly to all DPS, and as such people geared for ICC25 still struggle to get over 4-4.5k DPS on some bosses, casters mostly. However this can be spec Dependant as I have seen warlocks with over 5.5k GS (if you follow that) of different specs (destro and affliction) pull numbers that are 2-3k apart. So, in ICC affliction looks to be better for warlocks due to movement, or is Destro in need of buffs?

More later....

Time management?

I play wow for a couple of hours a night, most nights I like to relax after work by handing some horde there entrails. However this results in me losing gold, I try to farm, but have to be in the right "mood" to do it. I try to quests but its so monotone I log off.

So, managing my time to get Gold, level toons, kill those dark bastardly horde, and ultimately get to 80, is proving somewhat harder than I would like. My solution? Well basically I have a mage with herbalism and alchemy maxed, spend 1hour flying around northrend or even lower areas I can make a few 100 gold. I have a maxed miner, and again same situation 1 hour a few hundred gold. I do not play the AH game, I want that instant reward for my labor, so I have Foo now taking a cut, and selling everything for me.

Time management is not something I can do with an 80 two near 80 toons, and up and coming tanks etc, so I need to work out one thing per day to focus on, make a gold day a pvp day a this toon that toon day and so on. But..... I do not, I play for what I feel like, Killing horde on my rogue (the cooldown class, please head to wow.com to see what I mean) or freezing them to oblivion as my mage, Farming just is not on the books for the few hours a night I get. The weekend however after 3 hours of morning raiding, farming is just the ticket, still get to satisfy that craving to play feed the addiction if you will, and yet its not something that will make me so mad or stressed I want to uninstall. So I raid, I farm, and then when I get over farming, I PVP or quest, or move on to something else.

Managing your time on wow around goals, and real life can be more stress than its worth, playing for what you want helps yourself, but not the in game world. Even though you are there to hide from politics, money, religion and all of life's other BS, you actually just move from one active society to another. So if your not like me and can actually farm on queue that is great, however if you log on to PVP and then wonder what idiot has his headlights shining through the window at OH S**T IT'S MORNING!.... you are probably like me.

I Farm I have enough gold (if there is such a thing) but it never goes up for long, and never goes down for long. So like all my posts there centered around me and nothing.... that is right I do not help much with these ramblings.... or do I.... Think about it.

Egamad that anti gold farmer.

Stats, stats, swimming in stats.

I've been healing so long the that the only real DPS I do is on low level alts or my fire elemental.

Having decided to go for a Healing/Melee dual spec as apposed to the easier Ranged/Healer dual spec, I'm finding I don't understand anything about my melee brethren. Now I'm not poorly geared I can pull upwards of 4k DPS once I get into my rotations, and remember every little maelstorm proc and totem refresh. But I feel I've done something wrong and could do more.

I have ridiculous amounts of hit, I'm 19% on spell hit (yes I'm fixing it, changing out hit gems/chants that I used to need) and 15% or so on the melee, I'm not even sure what the expertise I require is (I'm at 9 or 2.5%) and everything I read is so much more confusing than helpful. I have seen sites saying to gem Attack power its worth more DPS, others say Agility is worth more to me, I really do not know what to gem. So I have done what anyone would do, and had a guess. 4K DPS dual wielding Nighttime seems good to me, I am yet to raid with this and that DPS value is just on heroic bosses that die before I actually get into the swing of the battle.

Now I've gemmed 40 attack power In a few slots, I would say it is my most used, other than that I have some Agility gems, some haste/crit, haste/hit etc. My main spec of healing is mostly 10 haste + 5 mana per 5, with around 3 20 intellect gems and a pure 20 haste.

I have found Healing easier to understand stat wise than DPS. DPS is a balance of all these tiny little stats that seem meaning less. Hit rating for example I need to have capped for spells as well as melee, expertise is not worth the materials to chant/gem for it, and the difference Between Attack power and Agility seems to be crit, which also has a cap and to me is not useful past around 30-35% crit chance.

So what do I need to get the highest DPS I can?
Should I even try to get the highest DPS I can?
Should I aim to have mid level DPS In my raids and use my shaman utility to help out?

There is so much thought involved in DPS as apposed to a tank or healer, where Def cap/dodge etc and spell power/haste are your respective priorities, As DPS I have to worry about Hit rating on spells as well as melee, on expertise, on Agi level to generate crit/armor, Attack power to hold my DPS constant between cooldowns and procs, and then my weapon enchants including self chants from shaman.

Stats apon stats, that either provide the same or similar results and there is still no really good site I have found to explain the difference between them on any significant level. Now I need to finish my addon Downloads and get back to the Target dummy and any heroic boss I can sink my axe into.

Egamad of Caelestrasz, Still a better Healer than DPS.

Gearing up in Dungeon finder

Gear in the dungeon finder is a great way to be "set for life".

You will find as you progress as a healer you will be able to get a large amount of virtually un-beatable gear. As you can (hopefully) see from the above I have gear that is 1 to 2 levels above me for my head, neck, off hand (including a shield) a cloak and after this was taken I got new legs.