Jul 25
After a long stretch I finally got my druid up to 80. For a while there I thought I was going to be leveling him just through the daily fishing quests, but I ended up doing a good chunk of Northrend after all. I finished off in Sholazar Basin which I had never completed before, so that was a nice change.
Now, to decide if I want to level my hunter, warlock, or death knight next.
Feb 23
I was reading Matticus’ post, What GMs Want to See on Your Guild App, and I stared thinking about some of my accomplishments in WoW. Since many of these were pre-3.0, I don’t have the achievements for them which makes me a little sad.
Healing
Tanking
DPS
Raid Leading
PvP
That’s all that comes to mind right now. It’s fun to look back on the stuff I managed to get done. I would say that raid leading is probably the most challenging part of the game – not the fights themselves but all the dealing with people and their issues, balancing things so that it all works out.
Jan 13
If ever I decide to transfer and level my priest, I may go this route and Level a Priest / Warlock / Mage in style. Here’s a list of heirloom items.
I would probably get the cloth set first as it can be used by any class. It might not be optimal, but it would probably be better than a lot of the early level gear even for leather/mail/plate wearers. I’d have to play with the numbers to confirm this. It would also push all classes with mana to a caster style of play which might defeat the point of rolling a new class.
Dec 28
Here are the Pawn scales I’m using for my toons in Wrath of the Lich King. As always, Pawn is for quick comparisons, not for squeezing every last point out of your gear. Read Skeleton Jack’s post on Pawn for some of the things to watch out for. I have tweaked some of these scales and I have no strong theorycrafting proof behind their effectiveness.
A few more points to note:
1. Each rating is relative only to itself.
Some pawn users assume that if they have two strings, that the rating that has the higher value is what the gear is better for. This is NOT the case. You should only use a rating to compare two items together, rather than using ratings to determine what an item is better for. (Note: This rule can be counterfeit, but that requires balancing points)
2. A rating that gives you numbers in the 100’s is no better or worse than one that gives you points in the 10,000’s
Remember, this is a relative comparison tool. So 900 – 1000 may be better than 90,000 to 95,000.
3. Pawn doesn’t account for everything
Raid buffs, gear changing, and Talents factor in here as well. These are static values to help determine relative value, but raid buffs, talent changes, and changes from blizzard will affect the relative value of these statistics, so these strings will more than likely be dynamic.
Balanced
(Pawn: v1: “Balanced”: CritRating=0.89, Agility=8.47, ExpertiseRating=9.22, DefenseRating=11.13, BlockValue=4.86, ArmorPenetration=1, Dps=3.56, Strength=3.84, ParryRating=8.24, BlockRating=8.42, DodgeRating=9.61, HitRating=1.98, Stamina=14.29, Armor=1, HasteRating=0.62, Ap=0.43 )
Survival
( Pawn: v1: “Survival”: BlockRating=8.49, Strength=2.91, ParryRating=8.56, Agility=8.02, ExpertiseRating=7.22, DefenseRating=11.61, Stamina=14.25, Armor=1, DodgeRating=10.09, BlockValue=4.98 )
Threat
( Pawn: v1: “Threat”: ArmorPenetration=4.54, CritRating=4.03, Dps=16.15, Strength=4.66, ParryRating=0.41, Agility=3.26, HitRating=9.56, HasteRating=3.02, ExpertiseRating=9.56, Ap=2 )
Based roughly on Elitist Jerks Tanking Spreadsheet. Needs to be edited for sockets.
( Pawn: v1: “Heavy”: RedSocket=16, CritRating=0.8, Strength=1, MetaSocket=8, ExpertiseRating=0.7, BlueSocket=16, YellowSocket=16, ColorlessSocket=16, HitRating=0.7, BlockValue=0.9 )
Based roughly on Matthew Rossi’s post,The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Heavy. This is for leveling as a Prot Warrior. Vene has a good post for Raid DPS as a Prot Warrior.
See this post for Fury Warriors.
Mostly from this thread on Elitist Jerks.
Mitigation
( Pawn: v1: “ProtMit”: DodgeRating=18, BlockRating=1, Ap=1.2, CritRating=0.6, Strength=9.5, ParryRating=14.5, ExpertiseRating=1.5, Agility=14.5, HitRating=1.1, Stamina=19.1, Armor=1.2, SpellPower=0.8, DefenseRating=16.5, BlockValue=16.5 )
Threat
( Pawn: v1: “ProtThr”: Intellect=0.2, DodgeRating=15.1, BlockRating=0.9, Ap=4.7, CritRating=2.4, Strength=18.8, ParryRating=12.8, ExpertiseRating=6.1, Agility=12.2, HitRating=4.2, Stamina=16.8, Armor=1.1, SpellPower=3.1, DefenseRating=13.9, BlockValue=17.4 )
( Pawn: v1: “Holy”: Intellect=2.25, RedSocket=24, CritRating=1.1, MetaSocket=75, HasteRating=1, BlueSocket=14, Stamina=0.1, SpellPower=1.2, Mp5=2.5, YellowSocket=30 )
Based on a run of EnhSim, DPS simulator
( Pawn: v1: “AEP Calc”: Intellect=1.14, CritRating=0.64, Agility=1.39, ExpertiseRating=0.67, OffHandDps=4.33, YellowSocket=32, ArmorPenetration=0.52, RedSocket=32, Strength=1, MetaSocket=16, HitRating=0.68, BlueSocket=32, MainHandDps=8.82, HasteRating=0.81, ColorlessSocket=32, Ap=1 )
Based on this post.
( Pawn: v1: “Resto (EJ)”: Intellect=7, RedSocket=105, HasteRating=3, BlueSocket=86, YellowSocket=112, SpellPower=5, Mp5=10, CritRating=3 )
EDIT: There is something broken about these scales for weapons. Do not use them to decide which weapon to use.
( Pawn: v1: “Beast Mastery”: Intellect=7, RedSocket=128, CritRating=5, MetaSocket=168, HitRating=10, Agility=7, HasteRating=2, BlueSocket=128, YellowSocket=128, ArmorPenetration=6, Mp5=8, Ap=4 )
From this thread
( Pawn: v1: “Cat (Toskk)”: ArmorPenetration=1.0161, RedSocket=37.312, Strength=2.332, CritRating=0.83, ColorlessSocket=37.312, MetaSocket=103.21, FeralAp=1, Agility=1.6992, ExpertiseRating=1.0362, BlueSocket=18.66, YellowSocket=26.92, HitRating=1.0334, HasteRating=0.7236, Ap=1 )
From Flyv
( Pawn: v1: “Bear (Toskk)”: RedSocket=113.7, YellowSocket=101.3, ColorlessSocket=172.4, MetaSocket=329, Stamina=7.185, Agility=3.429, Health=0.411, BlueSocket=172.4, Armor=1.066, DefenseRating=1.885, DodgeRating=2.685, ExpertiseRating=1.306 )
From Flyv
( Pawn: v1: “Resto”: Intellect=5.79, HasteRating=2.87, CritRating=2.05, SpellPower=9.4, Spirit=5.13, Mp5=10 )
From this Elitist Jerks Post
( Pawn: v1: “Unholy”: ArmorPenetration=0.544, RedSocket=39.7552, CritRating=1.12, Strength=2.4847, ColorlessSocket=39.7552, HasteRating=0.621, Agility=0.7336, HitRating=2.474, BlueSocket=17.3929, YellowSocket=25.2329, TwoHandDps=7.567, ExpertiseRating=1.391, Ap=1 )
Other specs, Warlocks, Priests, Mages, and Rogues are out of luck here. I suggest Elitist Jerks as a starting point. Good luck in your search!
NOTE: No warranties, either express or implied, are hereby given. All software is supplied as is, without guarantee. The user assumes all responsibility for damages resulting from the use of these features, including, but not limited to, frustration, disgust, system abends, disk head-crashes, general malfeasance, floods, fires, shark attack, nerve gas, locust infestation, cyclones, hurricanes, tsunamis, local electromagnetic disruptions, hydraulic brake system failure, invasion, hashing collisions, normal wear and tear of friction surfaces, comic radiation, inadvertent destruction of sensitive electronic components, windstorms, the Riders of Nazgul, infuriated chickens, malfunctioning mechanical or electrical sexual devices, premature activation of the distant early warning system, peasant uprisings, halitosis, artillery bombardment, explosions, cave-ins, and/or frogs falling from the sky.
Dec 27
I was talking with Jaimie yesterday about our Warcraft characters in a roleplaying sense. I don’t have much of a backstory for any of them, but I do have a decent idea of their personalities. It’s conversations such as these that have me considering an RP server if I reroll again.
Despite being a warrior that uses rage, Tristam is very calm. Solid and reliable are words that come to mind when I’m thinking about him. He doesn’t get angry and is very relaxed. He sees himself as the shield for the group. “Is a shield false and only a sword true?”
Merddyn is a warlock because it’s convenient and easy. He’s very self-centered and barely recognizes the existence of an outside world. He’s not looking to rule the world (far too much bother), he just wants what he wants and sees no reason why he shouldn’t just take it. “I’ve divided the world into two types of thing: The ones I can kill with impunity, and those I have to be more circumspect about.“
Anzu is a very angry shaman. I have no idea what he’s angry about. He quests so that he has a socially acceptable way to kill things. Merddyn will kill you if you get in his way, but otherwise doesn’t care about you. Anzu wants to kill you but won’t unless it’s acceptable to the Horde. “In the beginning, the Universe was created. This had made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.“
Early on, Andromache would have preferred to be an alliance paladin working with the Naaru rather than stealing the Light’s power. She wants to do what’s right. After having gone through Outlands, she has retained her strong moral and ethical sense, but no longer trusts the Naaru. “Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties – but right through every heart – and through all hearts.“
Arthemis wants to take things apart to see how they work. She’s chosen to be a hunter because people in cities tend to get upset when you take apart magical or mechanical things and you can’t quite put them back together. She’s happiest out on her own thinking. “Most things run on smoke. If it leaks out, they don’t work.”
As a druid, Emerys feels a deep connection with nature. He fits the stereotype of the hippie druid. He’s calm and quests because he wants to help maintain nature’s balance. “In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments – there are consequences.“
I don’t know why but I like having some idea of who the characters I play are.
Matthew Rossi asks, Do you care about PvP anymore? He describes how he went from doing some PvP in classic WoW, less in Burning Crusade to not doing any in Wrath. I’ve found that as I played Warcraft more I PvPed less. The last time I PvPed was when my warlock hit 60 and I tried to do the AV quests for XP. My kids will occasionally take one of my toons and go to a battleground but that’s the only time you’d have seen my toons there in the last few months.
I don’t know what could be done to make PvP more interesting. A standard set of PvP gear so that it’s skill that matters, not twinking, might help. I’d still get owned, but at least I’d feel as though I had the possibility of doing something. Alternately, I like the idea of gear brackets of some kind – let those with full arena gear beat on each other instead of my PvE geared toons.
There may not be any point in try to get me interested in PvP again though. My preference is for PvE play. The changes Blizzard has made in PvP may simply be catering to those who prefer PvP. I can live with the fact that a portion of the game has no appeal to me. I’ll play the parts I enjoy and ignore the bits I don’t.
I finally decided to get an epic flying mount for my shaman. As a miner, it makes sense for him to skill up mining in Outlands before going heading up to Northrend. The pain of flying around Outlands on a normal flying mount got to me and since I have plenty of money on server (despite screwing up trying to sell gems from prospecting), I decided to get him an epic flyer.
Now my poor little warlock is my only 70+ toon without an epic flying mount. Since he spends his time milling herbs in Dalaran, he probably won’t be getting one until until he hits 77. With the no flying in Northrend before 77 restriction, there’s really no point to getting one before then.
Nov 18
Greedy goblin tells A warlock’s story, showing the complex interactions of WoW and the world that is. I would love to speak with a psychiatrist as wise as the one in the story. Mind you, I’d have to be willing to act on that wisdom as well.
Nov 10
I finally got a warlock up to the level cap! For some reason I like warlocks up to about 60, at which point I lose interest. It’s almost pitifully easy to level a warlock. Dot, fear, win over and over and over. I was running with Jaimie’s shadow priest so we really destroyed mobs.
I don’t think I’ll be playing my warlock into the expansion. I may well level him to 80 at some point, but it won’t be anytime soon. Maybe somewhere out there is a warlock spec for me, but so far I haven’t found it.
Oct 18
My feral druid, Emerys, finally hit 70. I almost entirely followed Jame’s Leveling Guides. Near the end of my leveling I consistently found people to do elite quests, so I ended up doing a lot more of those and dinging shortly after hitting the Blade’s Edge portion of the guides. Now to get my shaman up those last 4 levels and my warlock up those last 7…
Oct 16
I didn’t have much time to play, so I had my warlock drop mining to take up inscription last night. Mostly I used Kaliope’s Inscription Power Leveling Guide (1-350). There are a lot of fun glyphs out there. There will doubtless be fodder for theorycrafters for quite some time to come, but for now it looks like a lot of fun. I’m not quite sure what glyphs I have in my bank but I plan to dig through them and send them off to various toons to play with.
My mail addon of choice, Bulkmail2, is currently broken so so I didn’t get much sent off. I’m considering Auto Mail Director and CT_MailMod to replicate its functionality. I want to be able to open all my mail with one click and I want to automatically mail certain classes of items to certain toons (e.g. non-soulbound weapons/armor go to my disenchanter). I’m sure I’ll get something working eventually.
Oct 9
We’re getting awfully close to 3.0x’s release – no official date yet though. Here are the builds I’m looking at for my toons. I expect that I’ll have made some silly mistakes in picking out talents, but I can live with that. 
Tristam is going to be tanking for any raids we get going between now and Wrath and for our static group after Wrath’s release. I need to track down more build information, but for now I’m thinking Warrior 5/0/54. (I should also look at this build from TankingTips.com.
Andromache is going to stick to protection as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if she ends up doing 5 mans for most of her leveling. I’m leaning toward Paladin 0/56/5.
Arthemis is definitely going for a primarily beast mastery spec. Exotic pets look like fun, but I suspect I’ll stick with my kitty pet for actual leveling. One of my favorite things about hunters is chain trapping. Thus I’m aiming for resourcefulness down the survival tree with Hunter 41/0/20. I know it’s sub-optimal for MQoSRDPS but this is not a grouping toon, it’s a fun toon so BRK can bite me.
The following toons are not 70 yet, so here’s where I think I’ll head given their current levels.
Emerys is likely going to stay feral. I’m leaning towards Druid 0/51/6 at the moment. (An alternate spec from ThinkTank is Druid 0/50/11)
Anzu is going to stay enhancement. I’m leaning towards Shaman 0/51/6. EDIT: Apparently resto is no longer as useful, so I’m thinking Shaman 6/51/0 instead.
I think I’d like to give demonology a shot on Merddyn, so I’ll try Warlock 0/54/0.
Flint is staying in retirement for now, so I’m not even thinking about priest builds.
I have a lot of alts either at 70 or approaching it quickly – warrior, paladin, hunter, warlock, shaman, druid plus my retired alliance priest. When the expansion comes out I’m going to have to choose which one(s) to level first and which will have to wait.
What will our static group do? We originally rolled on Quel’dorei to play with three of our friends. If they’re still interested in playing together as a group the characters we designate as our group characters will be used for group play. Assuming my warrior stays as the tank for the group, I am willing to take six months to get to 80 on him if that what it takes for us to play together. Ditto for any of my other toons if we decide to shuffle our roles around.
Jaimie and I have characters that we’ve leveled up in pairs (or mostly in pairs). Our two hunters will probably level together (dual core hounds ftw!). My paladin and her mage will probably level together (though paladin/shadow priest is tempting too). Our warlock/shadow priest combo was made to play together. That leave me with a druid and shaman to level on my own. There’s always the possibility of mixing and matching the pairings. If we don’t do that early on, we wind up with one of us running the other through quests the first toon has already completed. It’s not nearly so fun that way.
What do I want to do in Wrath? I’ve healed endgame. I’ve tanked endgame. I’ve even DPSed endgame a bit. I really don’t feel a pull to fill any particular role. My preferred endgame role isn’t going to be a major factor in my decision.
My first toon to 80 will probably be the one that’s most fun to play. Thus, I expect my hunter to be the first to hit 80 with my other toons trickling in over the next few weeks or months. My next pick would probably my paladin if I end up playing in groups a lot from 70 to 80. I’ll probably switch back and forth between my remaining toons and level them up more or less equally.
(inspired by this Voodoo Ventures post)
Aug 19
On one of the blogs I read someone posed the question "What would your ideal WoW party consist of?" Here’s my answer as of late in Burning Crusade World of Warcraft. I am assuming you are forming up a group of level 1 people who are going to be instancing together from now to the expansion (and you are all reclusive millionaires so you can play as much as you want to before Wrath comes out and completely invalidates this).
Tank: Either a protection warrior or a protection paladin. The warrior for their numerous "oh crap" buttons and sheer survivability and the paladin for their amazing AOE tanking abilities. A bear druid would be a strong second place – the main reason I wouldn’t put them in first is that all those lovely plate and shield drops would get sharded.
Healer: I would go with a holy priest. From what I’ve seen there are no situations where a priest is a bad choice for healing 5 mans. In cases where the group is taking a lot of AOE damage, a paladin healer may not be able to keep up. A restoration druid or shaman would also be a strong choice, but they’re not as versatile as a priest. A discipline priest would probably work as a main healer as well, but I don’t know enough about them to say for certain.
DPS/off-heal: I would pick either a elemental shaman, a balance druid, or a shadow priest. All three should have a good sized mana pool and their gear should allow them to do a decent job of picking up heals if needed. I would lean slightly toward the shaman for utility and so that mail caster gear doesn’t get sharded. The shaman’s hourly self-resurrection would also be useful on rough runs. Retribution paladins and enhancement shaman are less likely to have the mana pool and gear to pick up on healing.
DPS/utility: Mages take this hands down. A warlock or rogue will probably pump out similar or slightly greater DPS but they’re nowhere near as useful. Mages offer the best CC in the game for humanoids and beasts, portals to capital cities, food, and water.
DPS/support: I would lean toward a hunter for this role, particularly a hunter with improved traps. A hunter’s traps provide CC for almost every mob in the game. Hunters can pump out some very strong DPS. A hunter with jumper cables can help with wipe protection. That being said, it’s easy to argue for just picking another one from the DPS/off heal category. An elemental shaman can bring totems for strong group buffs. A shadow priest provides a steady stream of mana and health while DPSing. A balance druid brings Gift of the Wild and a battle rez.
Here’s the party I’d make for running 5 person instances: protection paladin, holy priest, mage, elemental shaman, and shadow priest. The shadow priest could be replaced by a balance druid giving stronger off-tanking possibilities traded for weaker off heals/mana regeneration.
Classes/Specs I would not bring: Fury warriors,arms warriors, retribution paladins, rogues, warlocks, and enhancement shaman all bring DPS and utility to the group but their contributions pale when compared to those of the classes I’ve listed. These classes all have strong places in raids or in PvP but they just aren’t useful enough for 5 player instances.
Aug 7
I’m not doing a heck of a lot of preparation for Wrath of the Lich King. That being said, I am doing two things to prepare.
I’m buying cheap herbs so that my warlock can level inscription as quickly as possible. Right now he’s one of my three miners, so it won’t be hard to drop mining for inscription. It looks as though there will be a lot of neat abilities opened up with inscription, so I want to level that as quickly as possible.
The other thing I’m doing is leveling alts. I have a druid, shaman, and warlock around level 50. I’d like to get them all to max level before the expansion – that’ll give me 6 toons to level to 80 (7 if I decide to level Flint). If Wrath takes too long to come out, I’ll probably level another priest. I’m hoping that Wrath will allow some kind of insta-leveling so that I can run a priest with Jaimie’s death knight.
One big thing that I’m not doing is stocking up on gold. With 3 level 70s, I could theoretically be pulling in 600ish gold per day by doing daily quests. I just don’t want to do dailies – at this point the only reward for doing them is gold. If there were a way of doing 5-10 dailies for a badge of justice, I would do them, but as it stands it’s just not worth it. I have epic flying mounts on all three of my max-level characters, so what am I going to do with more gold? I’m playing the auction house conservatively which takes me about 15 concentration-free minutes a day and makes me a decent trickle of gold. For now, that’s enough.
Regular runs have lost their luster lately so I’ve been leveling alts. Team dot-fear-win (my warlock and Jaimie’s shadow priest) is up to level 52 and tearing through the zones. My shaman is up to 47 and aiming for 50 so that he can get past 300 jewelcrafting. My druid is only at 46 – he fell behind my shaman because the shaman got into a ZF run. He’s likely to stay behind for a bit as I really want to get my shaman up to 50 fast. I’ve gotten fishing up to 283 on my paladin by doing the daily quests. My hunter is up around 200 fishing so she’s almost ready for the Nat Pagle quest. We’re still doing Karazhan and Zul’Aman raidwise – my paladin and my hunter haven’t been needed so I’m down to 2 nights a week.
Basic guide to Affliction DPS is a good guide both to reading WoW Web Stats as an affliction warlock and to how to DPS effectively in a raid as an affliction warlock. My affliction warlock is leveling with Jaimie’s shadow priest so it’s rare that a mob lives long enough for both of us to get all our DOTs onto it.
Larisa’s post on Why Do I WoW? struck a lot of chords with me.
Like her, I really wasn’t that into team play growing up. I still find myself repelled by most group activities. Doing things with a team and enjoying it gives me some perspective on those who love doing things with other people.
The way WoW makes self-improvement fun is also a critical part of my enjoyment of the game. The Ferrett had a post way back when about wishing that leveling skills in real life were as quantifiable as leveling skills in an RPG. (Sorry I can’t find the specific post.) In WoW it’s easy to see when your character has gotten better at something – a number scrolls across your screen. Once you reach max levels and you’re not getting those number you can start setting specific goals pretty easily, e.g. "I will not let the warlock pull off of me this evening." The goals are achievable and concrete.
Having a world to explore is a lot of fun. That was one of my favorite things about moving to a new area in real life – finding all the neat new places that are out there. I’m not likely to move soon so WoW gives a bit of an outlet to my wanderlust.
I wouldn’t identify the kicks as a big reason for me to play WoW. A big crit can be fun and it’s exhilarating to down a new boss, but I don’t think that’s enough to keep pulling me back.
Socializing is another of the big reasons I play WoW. Many eons ago I told a college friend that I would love to do my socializing via typing on a computer network. Now I can! As a bonus, I get to play games while socializing and games have always been one of my favorite ways of connecting with people.
I’ve identified other reasons that I play WoW in previous posts, but I’d have to say that I strongly empathize with four out of Larisa’s five.
Jul 15
It’s strange but I think if I were to resume playing my priest, Flint, I could do a better job than I did when he was my main character. It would take me a bit to get back into the swing of healing and my first few runs would doubtless be scary things. However, I think I have a better grasp of how to play than I did back then.
Flint was my first max level character (twice). It’s not surprising that I would make some really noobish mistakes, such as the time I mind controlled a Dark Iron dwarf in Gnomergon, ran him over the nearest ledge, and watched in horror as he pulled most of the rest of the instance. The simple fact that I’ve had more practice means that I play better.
There are a lot of resources out there that I didn’t know about on Flint. Heck, there are a lot of resources out there that didn’t exist when I was playing Flint. Loot lists, message boards, theorycrafting, rotations, macros, and strategy guides have all helped tremendously. Now I know why I shouldn’t be rolling on that spell crit mace against a paladin. I did a decent amount of research while playing Flint, but nothing compared to the research I’m doing now.
Having leveled a warrior, paladin, and hunter to max level and getting a warlock, shaman, and druid a decent chunk of the way there means that I have a better idea how the different classes are played. There was one warrior that annoyed the crap out of me because he wouldn’t watch mana bars at all. Now I know why he loved to chain pull and I am aware that I don’t NEED to have full mana for every trash mob pull in an instance.
Raid leading has taught me even more about the different classes and how to get people to work together. I was good at healing my group, but terrible at carrying out any other heal assignment. I would get nervous whenever someone’s health would drop and would toss out heals to unassigned targets. That’s fine every once in a while, but not as a general practice. I’ve learned to trust my teammates to do their jobs while I focus on doing mine.
Now I want to roll up a priest to apply the lessons that I’ve learned. Maybe I’ll do that once my other toons make it up to 70 (or next time I want another alt).
Jul 12
We have a couple of people in our guild alliance who are interested in raid leading. I thought I’d give them a hand by pointing out some useful posts and tips.
Strategies
As a raid leader, your key task is to provide a strategy for raids. I find that Bosskillers generally provides solid guides. The nicest thing about his site is the links to other guides, including video guides. I’ve found that Pillage has a lot of very detailed guides. What makes Pillage’s guides so useful is that they cover trash mobs as well. When you don’t need a full guide – just something to refresh your memory – WoWWiki is the place to go.
Addons
There are a number of addons out there that make life easier for a raid leader. Here are a few that I’ve found particularly useful.
ORA2 provides information about the raid’s status, cooldowns, main tanks, main assists, and so on. A lot of the functionality has been rolled into the default UI, but ORA2 provides a better interface and some enhanced functionality.
RaidBuffStatus gives a complete overview of the Raid’s Buff Status. Does the hunter have an aspect up? Did that freshly resurrected warlock get a new int buff? Is someone ignoring your pleas for full raid buffs before a tough boss? Did people "forget" consumables again? A quick Ctrl-Click and you can whisper the buffer to remind them. If you feel like being less discreet about it, you can let the raid know who’s slacking off. About the only things this doesn’t seem to track are weapon buffs (oils/blacksmith stones), healthstones, and soulstones.
Deadly Boss Mods and BigWigs provide critical information for boss fights. As raid leader you need to know when a boss is about to use their special abilities and these addons help you keep track of that.
GuildRaidSnapShot in combination with our guild site lets you do two very useful things. First it keeps track of who was at a raid. Second, it tracks the epics that drop. If you install this addon, it will prompt you for a DKP value, just leave the field blank and hit enter. After a raid, you will have to go to our site and upload the snapshot. Once you have uploaded the snapshot, you can click on the "Purge" button the pops up next time you log in.
There are addons to help you with marking targets – I personally find it just as easy to keybind the symbols and use that.
Loot Systems
Now we start to get into the really messy stuff. What makes loot systems messy is that we try to make them fair.
Is it fair that the priest who’s been there for every raid, supplied consumables and enchants to everyone, and has played with great skill loses a roll for a cloth belt to a PUGed shaman who happens to be resto for this week’s raid but is going back to enhancement next week?
Is it fair when a new rogue loses a str/agi/attack power dagger to a priest who likes the way it looks but who has been around long enough to have the points needed to bid on it? These are the types of situations that loot systems are intended to regulate.
Thus far, we’ve been using need/greed rolls for loot. It’s the simplest system to implement, but as in the priest example above, it can lead to gross unfairness.
Here are some overviews of loot systems.
DKP Loot Systems
Other Loot Systems
Saraid Article on DKP
We’re going to stick with rolls for now, but this is something we really need to think about particularly as we move into 25 person raids.
WoW Web Stats
WoW Web Stats is a very useful tool. I don’t place a lot of faith in Damage/Healing meters. (How to top the healing meters ) However, they can provide some feedback. If you’re DPS and you’re not staying ahead of the holy priest, there’s a problem. If you’re a prot warrior and you have 3 times as many shield slams as revenges, there’s a problem (hangs head in shame). Big Red Kitty has a guide to an earlier version of WoW Web Stats – just jump down to step 10 as a lot has changed for the previous 9 steps.
I will post a detailed guide for anyone who needs to upload a WoW Web Stats Report.
Player Gear/Spec Evaluation
We haven’t made a big deal out of spec, all we ask is that raiders be specced for their role. Don’t show up in a resto spec and plan to DPS. Don’t show up looking to tank as a paladin without Holy Shield. Do a search on WoW Wiki for [class] builds to see some of the standard builds. Go to Elitist Jerks to see what are key talents for a given class/spec. If someone wants to fill a role while not having speced for it, they can expect to be greeted with skepticism and will have to work harder to prove themselves. (Off specs can work, I knew a holy paladin who was an amazing tank in the pre-BC days when paladins were only supposed to be cleansebots.)
Some quick evaluations tools are be.imba and WoW Heroes. These are very valuable to raid leaders. These tools will let you know that Raider X is geared up enough to run Black Temple while Raider Y isn’t geared up enough for Karazhan. Note that these tools depend on what is visible in the armory and that they are only estimates. If your prot warrior logs out in his DPS gear, he’s going to have a terrible score. As Warshrike demonstrated last week, a DPS that’s undergeared for Kara can still rock the damage charts in Zul’Aman when played by a skilled player.
THE END
There’s more to be said, but this should give you a good start. I have a lot of fun raid leading and I hope you do too!