Ding

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Chidoro
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Ding

Post by Chidoro »

I haven't been level capped since 65 in PoP. Yes, I know it's easy to level in WoW, but my free time is nearly non-existent, so it's pretty cool for me. And it was done in about 18 days played. Chid had over 45 days and only got to level 42 (my shammy Bordan and war Gorjah had about 50 and 80 days played, respectively, at level 65).

On a side note, how is the overall equipment number calc'd. People state they have 4k, 5k, etc. Is it something that only shows up in group dungeon search? I solo nearly the entire time, so I'm a newb in many ways.
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Re: Ding

Post by Funkmasterr »

Chidoro wrote:I haven't been level capped since 65 in PoP. Yes, I know it's easy to level in WoW, but my free time is nearly non-existent, so it's pretty cool for me. And it was done in about 18 days played. Chid had over 45 days and only got to level 42 (my shammy Bordan and war Gorjah had about 50 and 80 days played, respectively, at level 65).

On a side note, how is the overall equipment number calc'd. People state they have 4k, 5k, etc. Is it something that only shows up in group dungeon search? I solo nearly the entire time, so I'm a newb in many ways.
Grats!

The number they are talking about is their Gear Score. It's a add on, you can search for it online or find it using Curse if you use that to manage your add ons. I would suggest downloading curse, personally. Gear Score is pretty much required if for no other reason than you're going to have people judging you on it for grouping constantly so you might as well know what the hell they are talking about. I also use atlas loot, it mainly serves the function of being a in game loot database, you can look at any instance and see what each boss drops in heroic and normal mode, so it makes figuring out what you want to run for upgrades a lot easier.

There are also a couple of add ons that will show you the dps you are doing, if you care to know that at all, again it at least gives you a benchmark of what other people are doing and if you could potentially improve. The one I use is Recount, but there are plenty of others.
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Re: Ding

Post by Psyloche »

If you're solo queuing dungeons you really don't need crap for addons, however...

Deadly Boss mod is nice if you want to be told to not stand in something that is a different color than the rest of the floor, or if the boss is charging up an ability as the entire air around him is already flashing. Some people use Big wigs or whatever else there is, I don't know.

If you're healing, sometimes some kind of health bars are helpful, I personally used Pitbull but there's so many options that setting it up can be very overwhelming, it's a resource hog and pretty much unnecessary for most people. Also Grid is another unit frame people use sometimes, I switched to this but kept using Pitbull to display Player, Target, Target's Target and Focus Target windows for some reason.

If you're solo queuing in dungeons casually I really don't think there's a huge reason to "need" addons at all. Just don't do assinine shit like queue up as a healer while wearing 4-5 DPS pieces. I use that example because last night a Paladin was wearing 4 Str pieces and an AP trinket while being our healer and several of us died multiple times to a relatively easy Heroic.

Edit: After looking at your profile, swap the Str or Spell Damage gear for Agi Mail pieces I think. I don't play a Shaman but I'm fairly certain you don't want those stats.

Don't forget to buy tabards, faction items are pretty decent gearing up. Have fun and congrats.
Last edited by Psyloche on February 17, 2010, 5:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Ding

Post by Aslanna »

Current level cap in EQ is only 85. You could easily reach that!
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Re: Ding

Post by miir »

EQ2 is clearly superior with the highest level cap of 90!
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Re: Ding

Post by Funkmasterr »

Psyloche wrote:If you're solo queuing dungeons you really don't need crap for addons, however...

Deadly Boss mod is nice if you want to be told to not stand in something that is a different color than the rest of the floor, or if the boss is charging up an ability as the entire air around him is already flashing. Some people use Big wigs or whatever else there is, I don't know.

If you're healing, sometimes some kind of health bars are helpful, I personally used Pitbull but there's so many options that setting it up can be very overwhelming, it's a resource hog and pretty much unnecessary for most people. Also Grid is another unit frame people use sometimes, I switched to this but kept using Pitbull to display Player, Target, Target's Target and Focus Target windows for some reason.

If you're solo queuing in dungeons casually I really don't think there's a huge reason to "need" addons at all. Just don't do assinine shit like queue up as a healer while wearing 4-5 DPS pieces. I use that example because last night a Paladin was wearing 4 Str pieces and an AP trinket while being our healer and several of us died multiple times to a relatively easy Heroic.

Edit: After looking at your profile, swap the Str or Spell Damage gear for Agi Mail pieces I think. I don't play a Shaman but I'm fairly certain you don't want those stats.

Don't forget to buy tabards, faction items are pretty decent gearing up. Have fun and congrats.
I disagree, I think that some of the add ons may not be necessary, but will at least make dealing with the toolbags that play this game easier.

The stats that matter for a shaman are going to be dependent on spec. They get probably half their damage from spells and half from melee, so going straight for AGI gear wouldn't be good. You will probably want a mix n match of gear and gems for both melee and caster stats.

I would suggest reading the stickies in the official forums for your spec, and take whatever you can away from them as far as how you should spec/gear/gem etc. While I know that stuff isn't as important to you necessarily if you are really casual, it's not fair to expect groups to carry you through instances as a result of this (not saying that's the case with you).
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Re: Ding

Post by Psyloche »

I didn't think Enhance used anything but Hunter-like gear (Stacking AGI, and other melee stats, not caster). I don't play one, so ignore me on the gear advice I guess. I didn't look at his spec but I saw it was mostly Enhance, I have no idea what you're going for in that spec though, because it had some talents in Resto for healing and didn't even finish the Enhance tree.
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Re: Ding

Post by Zaelath »

Funkmasterr wrote: The stats that matter for a shaman are going to be dependent on spec. They get probably half their damage from spells and half from melee, so going straight for AGI gear wouldn't be good. You will probably want a mix n match of gear and gems for both melee and caster stats.

I would suggest reading the stickies in the official forums for your spec, and take whatever you can away from them as far as how you should spec/gear/gem etc. While I know that stuff isn't as important to you necessarily if you are really casual, it's not fair to expect groups to carry you through instances as a result of this (not saying that's the case with you).
You stack AGI gear, then gem for AP and haste. Spellpower is a function of your melee stats or something, same as a loladin.
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Chidoro
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Re: Ding

Post by Chidoro »

I should probably look more for agi than str gear but to be honest, I really just pick up what I can from faction items and even quests. My guy seems pretty strong to me soloing but shaman seem to be pretty good at that from my experience. I rarely even throw totems down, have below average equip, and can still usually get out of most trouble.
Appreciate the comments for sure.
I didn't realize the equip numbers were a third party thingy, I'm probably going to pass on that. I want the new computer to be as pristine as possible for at least a year or two.
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Re: Ding

Post by masteen »

They're not programs you install on your computer, they're addons for WoW. You just unzip them into the folder and then WoW loads them when it runs.

TomTom and Lightheaded are nice for getting help finding quest mobs, but aren't geared for retards like QuestHelper.

PerfectRaid is was more useful than the standard party interface. You have to customize it a little, but it's not that complicated.

fnord allows you to bind things like dispels (or poison/disease tot) to a combo of key/clicks. I use alt+right click to cure magic and alt+left click to cure disease. It's awesome because it works weather you're hovering over their bar in your group frame or over the toon.
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Re: Ding

Post by Funkmasterr »

Questhelper is geared for retards? Seems to me like it is also served pretty well for people who have played the game before and aren't interested in the first 79 levels, or any of the quests involved in gearing up once at 80.

Also, I was thinking about trying to get into arenas until I started reading how absurdly in depth people go, including the hover hotkeys.. That's honestly more effort than I want to put in, it's just a extra layer of bullshit that is making people feel like they are using more strategy..
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Re: Ding

Post by Bagar- »

There's nothing wrong with questhelper. After you level a character to 80, leveling alts just becomes about efficiency and speed. I haven't used questhelper since they added the in-game version (which is considerably worse, but I also haven't been leveling alts lately either) but when I did use it I found it to be thoroughly useful, even for someone with 4 level 80s, I can't remember all of the random bullshit and locations for every quest in vanilla / outlands / northrend, and it's a lot faster to look at QH then read the quest lore / info text.


re: Arenas

It's entirely possible to arena on a casual basis without having a strong comp or a lot of skill, especially with the current rating system being geared (the system they used in early wrath and BC was EXTREMELY punishing, losing one game was equivalent to winning 5 at even modest ratings).

That being said, if you want to be competitive at arena, just like raiding, it requires a lot more effort, coordination, and skill. Part of that is "hover hotkeys" (I have no idea what you're referring to, but I'll assume mouseover macros, which is something that I use as my standard method of healing, and is really quite common). I don't think it's because people want to delude themselves into thinking they're being strategic, so much as people wanting to do what it takes to be competitive. The same applies to high-end raiding, like guilds creating separate 25-man alt raids to test limited attempt hardmodes before using attempts on their mains.


Anyhow, sorry for the derail.


Scrolling through the rest of this thread, I'll assume that you're an enhancement shaman.

You want to socket for Attack Power (NOT agility) and take whatever mail gear you can, preferably without armor penetration. At high gear levels you would socket for Haste, but that's TOGC+ level gear, I'll assume you won't be falling into that anytime soon, so stick with AP for now.

Your stat priority on gear is as follows : Haste > Hit (up to ~13%) > Crit > Armor Pen (which is completely useless)... those are the only variable stats as attack power, agility, and stam are all base stats on all melee-based mail gear modified by iLevel. It's important to note that your hitcap as an enhancement shaman is higher than other melee classes because you want for your spells to be hitcapped, which is higher than most melee special attacks. The spell hitcap is 17% (the melee-special hitcap is like 8%) without any buffs or debuffs, and 13% with the proper buffs and debuffs. I do not know if the dual wield specialization talent affects spells.

The reason that armor penetration is useless is that roughly 65% of your damage is spell-based. Despite that, you NEVER want to use spellpower gear, due to the fact that you will derive spellpower from attack power through talents, and more physical-oriented gear = more attack power which = more spellpower.

Your optimal attack priority (at least last time I checked, I do not play an enhancement shaman, but I do try to stay knowledgeable) was 5 stack maelstrom weapon; lightning bolt > stormstrike > 4 stack maelstrom weapon; lightning bolt > 3 stack maelstrom weapon; chain lightning > earthshock > lava lash... in multi-mob situations, chain lightning > lightning bolt all of the time. It might seem counter-intuitive to use lightning bolt or chain lightning at less than 5 stacks, as it will cause them to have a cast time - this is still more beneficial than lava lash or earthshock, however. The reason you would chain-lightning on 3 stacks is because it does less damage, but has a shorter cast time and will be less affected by the small amount of haste.

There are numerous mods that can keep track of maelstrom procs and stacks, I'd recomend Power Auras, which is a configurable combat-log scanner that tracks just about anything you tell it to with either words or symbols displayed where and how you want them on your screen. the downside is that it's a real bitch to configure, and I'm sure there are simpler and more specific mods out there.

You almost always want to drop Magma totem instead of Flametongue or Searing. It has a high mana cost, but even on a single-target mod from a personal-dps standpoint it supersedes the other options. In a raid with NO other shaman, you may be asked to drop flametongue though. Obviously other totems are windfury, strength of earth, and healing or mana stream (mana stream if no other shaman, healing if resto or elemental present or if paladins are doing blessing of wisdom which is fucking rare)

Good luck with enhancement. It's undoubtedly the most complex and challenging spec to play in the entire game.

If this was too much information I apologize, but perhaps some of it will be useful :).
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Re: Ding

Post by Bagar- »

Also, if you need any information or have any questions just PM me or post, I know way too much about this game, and can probably help :D.
Going out to play pool now with my fellow klan members. Have a nice night. - Midnyte
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