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Totem Talk this week is about beating your enemies to death, or hacking them up. It's time for our Shamans to call the wind down upon their weapons and deliver death up close and personal, with the help of some theorycrafting and a smile. Matthew Rossi plays resto a lot, but he's always down with a few well-placed Stormstrikes.
Before I even start talking this week, I figured I'd link this excellent compilation of theorycrafting for Enhancement Shamans from Elitist Jerks. I significantly improved my currently level 62 Draenei's DPS by making use of it and went through several group quests solo by dint of the damage increase. The shaman's combination of DPS and emergency heals (especially a Draenei's Gift of the Naaru) makes these quests a lot easier for my Shammy than they were for my warriors coming up. What also helps is an addon in the WoWAce suite called Enhancer that keeps track of the hidden Windfury cooldown that's at the heart of why my DPS was lower before I read that thread.
Basically, the issue is that Windfury weapon has a cooldown that, if you don't compensate for it by selecting the proper main and off hand weapons, will end up lowering your DPS considerably.
Entering into the world of raiding, eh? Now that you'vegottenready, it's time to get you familiar with some of the concepts you might encounter during the raid. You may remember some of these terms from the instance runs you have participated in, and some may be new to you.
Personally I like to live my life by the words of Sir Francis Bacon: Knowledge is Power. In raiding, knowing what people are talking about can mean the difference between looking like a newbie or looking like a quick learner. For this reason we've but together a lexicon of raiding lingo for those of you who are looking to get into raiding.
First let's go over a couple basic abbreviations you'll encounter in raid chat.Each of these stands for an important raiding concept, so it's essential that you familiarize yourself with them.
Blizzard has introduced the first part of their new Macro Guide. This guide includes a basic description of what Macros are as well as how to create them.
They have also included some really good Macro references, such as the numbers that correspond to bag slots as well as the numeric values of inventory slots.
Though it is mostly a wall of text, they do list some helpful examples to illustrate the basic concepts. Here is their example for chaining together instant spells:
Do all of those "/stopcasting lines" seem a bit redundant considering they separate spells and items that are cast instantly? Well, Blizzard thinks so too and they will be unnecessary as of Patch 2.3. Not that /stopcasting will be defunct at that point -- it is still good to put at the beginning of a macro, so that you can cast a spell without getting an error if you are already casting another one.
While this guide won't replace more in-depth guides until they publish Part 2 with details on higher-level macro functions, it is still nice to have an official macro guide to turn to for basic macro creation.
I promised that I'd cover pre-Karazhan Restoration gear in this week's column, but I've since discovered that WoW Wiki has already done it! Their list includes all Burning Crusade gear, so just look at the pre-raid items. These lists come in two flavors at WoW Wiki: leather only and cloth only, depending on your style.
And while you're there, check out the different Restoration builds are available to healing druids on their Druid Build page. There's also an excellent sticky post on the US Druid Forums Gearing up For BC Endgame Healing.
This leads me to the topic of today's column: online resources for Druids. Today, I'm going to highlight gear guides, build guides, play guides, and wikis that provides useful information for the Warcraft Druid.
I'm not a PvP guy. People on the staff think I'm a PvP guy but I'm not. Why do people always assume rogues are PvP freaks? I don't know. Anyway. It's not to say I don't like a little bit of world PvP once in a while, but compared to some of the peeps who have more arena points than they have Air Miles, I am for all intents and purposes, a PvP noob.
Having said that though, I've been clutching my stomach for a good ten minutes and wiping away the tears of laughter after reading this epic post from Relmstein entitled Lessons Learned From Levelling On A PvP Server. While some of it is side-splittingly funny (yes I know I just invented a word), like all good comedy, it's funny because it's true!
If you're considering rolling on a PvP server (something I've tried and failed many times), you may want to print out this article and stick it on your wall. It could save your life!
The patch hit on Tuesday morning, and Tuesday afternoon, I began my usual cycle of addon laziness-- instead of actually updating my addons, I just checked "load out-of-date addons" setting myself up for trouble down the road, I'm sure.
But while I'll be having addon problems for a while (at least until the next patch-- I'll probably finally fix everything right before 2.3 breaks them all again), you don't need to. Kaydeethree has put together a terrific guide to fixing your addons after 2.2, with links to addons that have updated, addons that haven't updated, and a few great tips on how to update your macros as well.
It seems like KD3 is keeping an eye on addons as they update as well, so the thread will probably be updated accordingly. If, unlike me, you're motivated enough to keep your addons as up to date as possible (so that they all, y'know, actually work instead of throwing error messages at you every few seconds), then KD3's guide should help.
Learn2raid is here again, offering those fledgling raiders a peek into the world of end game loot and 25-man encounters. We're rounding up the first section of our series in which we talked about the three steps required when you are getting into raiding: Introspection came first, followed by Preparation. Today we will flush out that triptych with the final step: Application. For those of you already in a raiding guild, or in a guild that is moving into the raiding scene, I still suggest you read on. Perhaps this information will prove useful to you in the future, even if it is not immediately applicable. Either way fear not: we still have a few topics up our sleeves that might be of more use to you.
Getting Ready to Raid
Step Three: Application
If I haven't scared you off yet, then you're obviously dedicated enough to be able to raid.The next step therefore is application.Applying to a guild is both exhilarating and frightening as hell.If you don't want to get booted out on your behind before you ever see your first loot drop, take my advice and do the following:
Write up an application beforehand:Taking a moment to write up an application without a guild attached to it will save you all kinds of time.Just about every guild application will have the same information on it:name/class/level/spec (with a link to your armory)/guild history and why you left/professions/why you are looking to raid/a paragraph about you and why a guild would be crazy not to accept you.
Amanna posted a link to this extremely in-depth guide to the Eye of Shartuul event in Blade's Edge. If you've never done it (or heard of it-- seems like a majority of players might not actually know it exists), it's pretty cool. With the Ogri'la reputation chain, Blizzard introduced a solo quest series in Blade's Edge that can actually grant Epic gear.
First things first, you've got to get Honored with Ogri'la, and then do the Banish the Demons quest, which allows you to get the items necessary to start the event itself. After that, you can pretty much follow Sadiki's guide-- he walks you through setting up the event, and all the different phases. The event itself is fun, too-- you abandon your own body, and instead fight through the even by controlling the demons. The final demon (which is actually pretty close in mechanics to C'thun in AQ) will actually drop Epic gear... kind of.
What he'll drop is "Depleted" gear, which you then have to activate with Apexis Shards. The Epic gear created isn't completely great, but there is one amazing piece-- the Depleted Badge drop turns into the Badge of Tenacity, which is so phat for tanking druids we'll have to feature it in an upcoming Phat Loot Phriday.
So yes, the event is some good solo fun, and though there's quite a bit of questing you have to do to set it up, getting Epic loot from a solo quest is always awesome, and following the great guide should make it easy.
So you want to be a raider, eh? Plenty of people will argue against it, tell you it's not worth the time, but in the end, in your heart of hearts you know you want to see that end game content and wield those ungodly weapons. Not sure how to go about it? Well, that's what this guide is for. Learn2raid first took you through the questions you should ask yourself to make sure you are the sort of person that can be a good raider. But knowing you are a raider at heart isn't enough. If you remember from part 1 of this beginner's guide we said we were first looking at the three steps needed to get ready to raid: Introspection, Preparation, and Application. There is a lot that goes into getting into raiding, and without prep work your most valiant attempts may fall flat.
Getting Ready to Raid
Step Two: Preparation
Now that you've answered some questions about yourself, you're ready to prepare to raid.Preparation for getting into raiding requires more than just making the decision and applying to 45 guilds in the hopes that one will accept you.Take the time and do your homework.It will save you a lot of trouble – and the anguish of possible rejection - in the long run.
Gear: First, make sure you research your gear.Do you have the best possible gear for a casual player in your class?If you don't do you know where you can get it?There are a couple great resources on gear for your class and spec out there on the net.I have bookmarks to WoW-loot.com and WoW Wiki listed on my bar, but honestly, I found that the best way to research gear was looking at players I knew.
Recently as you know, I made the decision to get into raiding. I looked at what I wanted to do with my time in the game and realized that in order to see everything Blizzard has laid out on the Azerothian buffet table I would have to raid. I admit I was skeptical that this sort of playstyle would be for me, but I found out that I enjoy this as much, if not more than the unfocused casual pace I originally took with the game. I don't play any more than I used to, I just have an ultimate goal now: to kick Illidan's booty.
If you too are looking to step into the raiding arena, here's a how-to guide to give you some idea as to what you should do. This is by no means definitive, and if you have any input, feel free to comment. I am just putting down some thoughts on the subject based on my recent experience.
Getting Ready to Raid
You can think of your entry into the raiding world in three steps: introspection, preparation, and application. Skipping any one of these steps means that you will have a rocky start as you set into the world of hardcore (and yet still PG rated) gaming.In this first part of this guide of ours, we'll look at Introspection.
Basically, to gain a loyalty level, your pet needs to, no matter what, gain at least 5% of the XP you, the Hunter, needs for your next level. This is required even if your pet is your level (which means they aren't actually gaining the XP). But there's also a time component on every loyalty level past Unruly. For example, to get to level 4 from level 5, you not only need the experience gain, but an hour must pass. This, as Mania says, is why sometimes your pet will ding loyalty while you're standing around in town-- you've gained the experience, but the time has to pass as well.
She's not done yet-- she needs (or someone with some time on their hands could do it as well-- Mania's going through a move lately) to check out if the experience stays the same all the way to 70, or if it increases at the higher levels. She also didn't try this keeping the pet anything other than happy, so the numbers may change if the pet isn't at full happiness. And she didn't explore, at all, what happens when the pet loses loyalty-- if your pet has dropped a level of loyalty, it may be a completely different formula to regain it.
But great work so far, and this is more than enough to give any Hunter a clear idea of how loyalty works in most cases.
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them, brought to you by David Bowers and Dan O'Halloran.
Last week, I covered easy to get Moonkin gear for chest, legs, head, shoulders, wrist and hands slot. Today, I will finish by examining non-raid TBC options for waist, feet and back. In two weeks, when I return to the column, I will finish with neck, fingers, trinkets, weapons and relic slots plus enchants for all slots. In the weeks following, I'll start covering gear options for Restoration druids.
I want to define "easy to get". I mean non-raid. Either outdoor questing, 5 man grouping or crafting. Every item listed that drops from a quest will have an Alliance and/or Horde quest link. If you don't see an A or H after the stats, then your faction can't get the item.
Player Zoa of the European server Vek'nilash is concerned that not every Hunter is using their pet to full potential on raids. She has created a guide to help her fellow beast masters pick the right kind of raid pet and talent spec for maximum usefulness. She also goes boss by boss and rates each one according to how much danger your pet will be in for each fight. Plus she lists tactics for your pet for each encounter.
I don't have a raid level hunter, but this guide for raiding with your Hunter pet looks well done to me. What do our more experienced readers think? Is Zoa dishing out good advice to your class? Can you add any more insight to her boss encounters to keep your pet alive and contributing to the raid? Any great tips she missed?
New to WoW Insider and want to know what's in our back catalogue? Looking for our more reference-oriented posts? We know stories and features drop off the front page all too quickly and search isn't always the best way to find something, so we're always looking for ways to give you access to some of our older content that's still informative. We've started a new WoW Insider directory page to help you find some of our best guides, resources and original features. Is there a guide we haven't done yet that you'd like to see? Let us know what you want to know in the comments!
Once a week, WoW Rookie attempts to bring new players useful tips and tricks on improving their game.
My first character rarely managed to keep more than a gold to her name until after she hit level 60, and I imagine the story is similar for most new players. There are plenty of skills to buy, so many professions to learn about, and always the lure of the auction house attempting to part you from your hard-earned coin. If I only knew then what I know now, mount money at 40 wouldn't have given me such grief -- instead of being frustrated over my lack of funding, I could have been frolicking through Azeroth on a brand new pony. But for new players struggling with money right now, I'm going to offer a few reasonable financial suggestions to help you on the road to your first big purchase.
Blizzard has introduced the first part of their new 
The 
Amanna posted
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them, brought to you by 
