1 High pitched kid
2  Splinter butt
3 The quite ones
4 Drama queen/prima Donna
6 The leveling nut
7 Reverend
8 LOADS OF MONEY
8 Tactician
9Mr fix it// or leave it to…

These are some there will be others I have only mentioned the types that stay in a guild. And, yes, I will do articles for all the above I hope you enjoy them and take them in good heart.

Some of the above are essential for running a well honed long term guild. Now when I say long term I mean long term not 6 months I mean years! I will go into these in more depth and in a far more serious style in a article about how to run a guild at an ulterior time. Ok, that’s far too long being sensible so let’s see who can we pick on next.

Oh! Yes! A personal favorite of mine. You see I’m a Brit I play only in U.S. servers, I’ve played many different game formats and I’ve been playing with some of these guys/gals for nearly 10 years (That’s a long term guild) and for the last 4 years we have been in wow.

Now we are in DOMINATE so, I digress, as I said I’m English! I stick out in vent like a zit on a preacher’s nose as he asks you for your vows…

The Diva

The Diva

You instantly know when the DIVA enters the game or vent they seem to ghost across the channel or screen. Their voice is very deep and very seductive and they hang onto the end of words just so…

Now without meaning any offense, so please don’t lynch me (oh cow boy thing going there). They are, normally, shall we say, gentlemen. They are perhaps more in touch with their feminine side, not that there’s anything wrong with that, more chicks for me.

Although there are some ladies I could mention as well who melt at the sound of my English voice in Vent. You can hear them melting into a puddle every time I speak and everyone just falls about laughing (including them might I add)

Or I’ll be explaining something in vent and they will ask me: “Can you repeat that?”
Someone else will say: “What don’t you understand about it?”
And the DIVA (male or female) will say: “Oh, I understand, I just wanted to hear Ani say it. I love the way he says [whatever]”

Now, it’s not just how they react to me and my voice, it’s how they carry that whole persona to their toon. You can always tell a DIVA by the way they act and talk in chat and vent. They are always sweet and considerate, always immaculately turned out toons.

And always a good player their manners and grace in vent and chat are a pleasure to behold and for me they’re as funny as hell. They’re not just great they DOMINATE but they do it in style darling.

The Dudes.

So one by one they join vent and you know its them because like a thief in the night they come in and drop to the pad (their channel in vent) without a word and leave the same way: it’s The Dudes.

The Dudes

They are so cool that they’re red hot,
I mean they have the lot, the hair, the talk, and swaggering walk.
Like a scene from west side story.
They’re in it for the glory with a flick of their comb,
Some poor n00b just got pwned.
Yet it if you meet one on one in vent,
Their vileness is spent.
Till the Fonz joins in,
Then the house is rocking.

Let’s face it they’re COOL with a capital C
And it’s no secret that their leader is Z.

I mean when these guys are jumping some suckers in for thumping [so cool that they’re]
Ice ice baby [ding dada ding dada ding ding] ice ice baby

In BGs it’s a tactical take down,
The other teams having a nervous breakdown.
The opposite team gets the flag to make it turn red,
But before they know it: they are all dead.
Ice ice baby [ding dada ding dada ding ding] ice ice baby

On the prowl high up in ice crown
They see a victim fighting on the ground.
From that moment his chances diminish
He’s in for a bloody finish.
Ice ice baby [ding dada ding dada ding ding] ice ice baby

Yes! They’re cool and they’re good,
But they’re no Robin Hood.
They aren’t in it for fun,
They just wanna nuke someone.
Ice ice baby[ ding dada ding dada ding ding ] ice ice baby

Now it sounds like they’re just parading,
But they’re the best at hard core raiding.
Ice ice baby [ding dada ding dada ding ding] ice ice baby

Don’t get me wrong, don’t think these guys are twats,
Just take a look at the stats!
I mean these guys aren’t just great,
They really DOMINATE !!
Ice ice baby [ding dada ding dada ding ding] ice ice baby

Just because the guys turned alliance,
They ain’t lost their taste for violence.
In case I didn’t mention
These guys are now DYSSENTION!!
Ice ice baby [ding dada ding dada ding ding] ice ice baby…….

Whether you’re starting your first toon or your 20th, you have one of two goals in mind. One is to get to 80 as fast as possible, and in that light we tend to tell folks to not even mess with professions until 80. But if you are making a toon to end up being a gathering profession alt in the first place, then you certainly want to maximize your time and effort. It is entirely possible to keep skinning, mining and herbalism completely maxed out as you quest.

Not all zones are created equal when it comes to the gathering professions. In case you didn’t notice, Teldrassil is a giant tree, so there isn’t a single copper node on the whole thing. Your new Night Elf warrior is going to be completely out of luck until you hit Darkshore if you choose to do the Nefl starting area. There are way around this, however. You don’t HAVE to use the Orc starting area just because you’re an Orc. In other words, once you decide which profession you want to level, go level in an area that lets you gain levels and skill-ups in both.

With that introduction, here is a list of all the starting areas and what gathering professions they support better than other professions or zones. It’s not unreasonable to hit level 20 or so with a couple hundred extra gold just for picking a few flowers or swinging your pick along the way.

Alliance

• Dun Murogh – Dwarf/Gnome:  This is probably the best gathering profession zone in the entire game.  No matter what you choose, there are plenty of mines, herbs and almost everything is skinable.  It just doesn’t get any better than this.
• Teldrassil – Night Elf:  Teldrassil is good for both Herbalism and Skinning, but there isn’t a single mining node.
• Azuremyst/Bloodmyst Isles - Dranei:  The Dranei starting areas are bigger and more spread out than Dun Murogh.  Although there is a bit of everything, it’s the worst of the areas for gathering overall.
• Elwynn Forest – Human:  You won’t do much skinning in Elwynn, and it’s better for mining than herbalism.

Horde

• Durotar – Orc/Troll:  Durotar isn’t terrific for any of the professions, you’ll have to wait until you get to the Barrens to start cleaning up on Mines and Herbs.  It is, however, far better for mining. Both areas are OK for skinning as well, but the place is so huge that you can spend a great deal of time running from node to node.
• Silverpine – Undead:  This is by far the best place for Horde toons for both Mining and Herbalism.  There isn’t a better Herbalism location anywhere else, actually, as it beats Dun Murogh and is very close to UC.  Not terrific in the skinning category.
• Eversong Woods – Blood Elf:  Decent all-around for gathering professions, but nothing like Silverpine.
• Mulgore – Tauren:  Not bad for herbalism, and just ok for mining and skinning.

The best overall choices for each faction run toward Silverpine for Horde and Dun Murogh for Alliance.  The proximity to both IF and Undercity make these two zones perfect for getting training without having to run very far, and the zones are packed full of almost every type of node or skinable mob.

If you like to run instances at level – SFK is also a really good option for Horde, although there really isn’t a great choice for Alliance.  Well, maybe Balckfathom deeps, but as a general rule we skip instances unless we’re just leveling for the heck of it.  Getting to 80 faster is our typical advice, but breaking up the monotony of a speed leveling grind with an instance here and there for gear isn’t all that bad.

This information will probably be the biggest help to those of you who are firing up a new toon on a new server.  Getting that first toon grabbing some sellable stuff right off the bat to begin your banking life can be important.  DK’s are the best for this sort of thing of course, but if a DK is not going to be your main (and please tell us it’s not) then you’ll be leveling up something else anyway.  Might as well earn some decent gold along the way by using gathering professions while you level, and then switching to your end game professions at 80.

But at the very least, you now know the best zones for each gathering profession, and in a small way it can help you be more efficient and earn more money on your next new toon.  It might not win you any awards, but it’s at least a little Dominating.

Click Here To Order Yours!

We’re a big fan of nifty peripherals here at DYS, just in case you hadn’t noticed, but every now and then even we get blown away.  Every month or two we test a new product in the market to see if it offers something more for our readers.  In order to get a review at this site, the thing really has to add something to the wow experience for the novice and pro alike.  Not making our cut doesn’t mean it’s a bad product, just that it doesn’t meet our Dominating and demanding flavor.

But every now and again we come across something that actually changes the way we play.  The Sennheiser headphones are great, but won’t really make you a terrific player.  The G13 game pad will – I still use both of them every single time I play.  But the Razer Naga blows away everything we’ve ever reviewed by such a huge margin that it’s a little hard to know where to start saying just how good it really is.

First things first, then.  It’s a standard size mouse (even though the button field looks pretty intimidating in the pic above) with 12 extra keys on the thumb side (for righties anyway).  That is the big difference between the Naga and every other mouse on the planet.  It has the standard left, right, scroll, scroll click, four and five buttons as most gaming mice – but adds twelve more keys for your thumb.  One look and we KNEW we had to give it a spin.

How Does It Feel?

In just ten seconds it was apparent it was the most comfortable mouse ever.  It’s like holding hands with your sweetheart.  The texture is just smooth enough to be soft, just matte enough to be completely slip free.  Not only do your index and middle finger glide into the perfect rest position, but there is a little shelf for your ring finger and a cup for your pinky that actually make it more relaxing to have your hand on your mouse than anywhere else.  You hate to let go of the thing to type.  So in the tactile area the Naga gets a 10+ out of 10.

Cursor Response

The drivers are super easy to install both on Mac and PC.  The interface is clean and offers a degree of movement control that is nothing short of outstanding.  It supports Dpi ranges from 100 to 5600 – which is a range from nearly dead turtle to fighter jet speed.  You can also adjust the acceleration factor and frequency response over broad ranges.  But the really slick part is that you can set it to control the X and Y axis Dpi independently.  That is a real WoW factor.  If you use a wide screen setup it is so nice to have the cursor move faster from left to right than up and down.  Cursor response and setup = 10 of 10

Movement and Function

Most mice have a few little slip pads on the bottom and a big bright lazer or whatever.  This beauty has a slip ring around the entire perimeter of the bottom, which makes it glide like butter.  It even has an extra slip ring that completely surrounds the invisible lazer orifice.  One thing is for certain, if your mousing surface isn’t completely clean, you’ll know it in about half a second. (we also prefer the Lazer exact mat for all our mice, but it’s especially nice with the Naga).  I prefer a free-wheeling mouse, but since very few have that option I can’t deduct too much for the incremental scroll.  The four and five buttons are right up at the very front and absolutely WILL give your a hand cramp if you try to use them very often, but we’ll get to why this makes almost no difference later.  And, finally the button clicks are easy enough to make without much force, but firm enough to avoid lots of accidental clicks – pretty much perfect.  Movement and function = 9 of 10

Extra Juice

Now we get to the good stuff.  Those 12 extra buttons are so good it’s not even fair to rate this thing against other mice.  It turns all those other mice into meece.  There’s everything else – and then there’s the Naga.  I pitched my G3 in a drawer for good and didn’t have a qualm in the world about doing so – and I loved that mouse.  Even apart from the extended functionality, the Naga is just a much better overall mouse, but those extra keys are WAY past incredible.  And then I played with them.

I fully intended to try to use as little hyperbole as possible, but that’s completely impossible in this situation.  Compared to every other mouse I’ve ever used – and I go through mice like a tomcat, the Naga would have no peer, leaving even the G3 completely in the dust.  But those extra buttons make it so different that it becomes completely unfair to all the other mice in the world.  If the G3 (a really good mouse) rated a 45 out of 50, the Naga (even without the buttons) would have raised the bar to 60, and that’s no kidding.  Those 12 new buttons put the bar at 100, and we’ll put the Naga right there 95 out of 100, which means there really isn’t any way to compare apples to apples.  everything else just got pwned.

That extra button pad automatically binds to either the: 1 through = keys on your keyboard or the number pad keys, whichever you prefer.  I already had bar one and two in Bartender assigned to those suckers as it is, so with the flip of a switch I can use my one mouse to toggle 24 keys – it’s so slick you have to use it to believe it.  And then comes Vuhdo – yikes.

Plug this thing into Vuhdo and you are one little macro command away from complete and total healing Domination.  And, in reality, it could almost make the choice between Healbot, Grid/Clique and Vuhdo closer to meaningless than ever before.  We’ll discuss that macro in the next article since it’s so slick and useful for so many other situations, but just know that you probably would never use it nearly as much without the Naga.

You’re Wasting Time Here!

All there is left to say is get one.  Get one right this minute.  Do not pass go, do not argue, just get it and Dominate.  Ask for it for Thanksgiving, your birthday, Christmas and New Years.  Beg, borrow, cheat, lie, steal or work like a fiend until you can get one.  Get up from your chair right now and go to the store – yes, it’s THAT good.  Once you plug this dude in, you’ll find 50 new ways it can improve your WoW life in about 5 minutes.  I am seriously excited about this thing, as if you couldn’t tell, but it really is the single best gaming peripheral I have ever seen.

If you can’t stand it, and we’ve done our job, you can click on the pic at the top of this article (or below) to go directly to Amazon and get one for yourself.  You don’t have to use our link, of course, but honestly, once you use the Naga you’ll never know how you played with anything else.   Go get one, and bring your Domination to a whole new level of pwn.

Order The Razer Naga Now

Mods We Love – Skada Vs. Recount And Omen

These days healers never worry much about threat.  As a matter of fact, besides the odd mage or lock aggro pig, it rarely comes into play.  But since I recently began playing a mage just to fiddle with, I began to have to pay more attention to aggro.  Remember, we never level alone, so I’m running the mage with an Arms warrior.  It’s a lot more fun to just stand back and nuke mobs til they glow, and without all the prot aggro abilities, a young mage has to watch themselves.

So as a result, I decided to go ahead and download Omen, since I was familiar with using it from back in the BC days.  Opened up Wowmatrix and typed in aggro to the search frame and there was no Omen in sight.  Apparently only Curse carries Omen. So, for one of the few times, however, I did no real research and decided to try out another mod in the list.  I’m just not a huge fan of curse, but that’s a personal thing.

The reason I chose the mod I did was because it claimed to replace both Omen and Recount.  I like consolidation, it cleans things up and keeps you from having to manage too many different things.  I run a lot of little mods for things like moving frames and gear comparisons and mailing tons of crud to bankers and other minor tasks – but when it comes to UI mods I stick with DBM, Bartender, Xperl and Recount.  I don’t want 500 things running in a big raid to kill my frame rates.  But a threat meter was in order, and so I thought I would give this new one a try.

And I love it.  The mod is Skada, and it was perhaps the best accidental mod find ever.  Like any mod interface and configuration, it takes a  little fiddling with and getting used to, but it does everything the other two do all in one package and you can configure it to suit yourself better than either Recount or Omen.

The one thing I really like is the ability to open multiple windows and name them for what they are tracking.  So now I keep three little windows up all the time.  There is one for DPS which shows overall damage plus DPS.  The next one shows healing, since I’m always interested in that sort of thing.  And the last – threat.

Now, when I’m healing, the threat window doesn’t help all that much, except to know who is messing up and nuking too hard at the start of a fight.  You actually can use it to tell who is about to get one-shot and maybe wind up a life saving heal.  Having DPS open let’s you know how you are doing against enrage timers and if you need to call out on vent for “MORE DOTS!”  And the healing window tells me who needs to step up their game or if we’re just fine and I can throw out a few dots myself during the fight just for grins.

Another nice thing about Skada is that the configuration is saved on the Interface level, so it spans across all accounts and realms.  Set it up once and you’re done.  You can have it do character specific windows as well, though – so whatever floats your boat it will do.  Fonts, window sizes, number of rows, number of fights to save – you can set it all with Skada and report any window to chat or whisper just like Recount.

Recount does a nice little graph, but I don’t necessarily need more visuals, I can make my own pie charts in my head.  With Skada, all you have to do is mouseover a bar in the chart and it will tooltip all the stats for that particular player without a single click.  It’s the same information with instant access for your entire raid.

All of this might be most helpful to those of you who regularly lead raids or have at least a leadership role.  Or maybe you’re just interested in winning, and more information about what happened can get you much closer to what you want to happen.  If you don’t know what is happening you have no idea how to fix what is wrong.  You might just tweak something that is working and get worse if you are just guessing.

Skada makes it easy to have all the combat data right in front of you in whatever way makes sense to you.  You can get too many mods and end up suffering from information overload, but for the raid leader who is used to watching what is going on Skada is a great way to take your Domination to a whole new, and easier level.

Some people never join any guild, others change every other week, so what makes people change? Here’s what our reporter “in the field” has come up with:

Time to Switch Guilds or Guild Hopping

We all know someone or we are someone that looks for that perfect guild to fit our personal definition of the perfect guild. For me, it has been a long road to where I am now in DYS. This is a sore topic for some and a joke to others, but, finding where you want to be is very important to your gaming fun.

This is a topic that I just had to write about. It is one that many players either struggle with at some emotional level or take far too casually.  While not getting teary over the changing of guilds, it is something that I take very seriously and do not enter into lightly.

Your guild is your in game family and deserves some respect because of it. In general guilds help each other and jointly progress through the game.  If you’re like me, you want to spend more time questing, adventuring and gearing up with these players than anyone else. If they are so important, why would you want to change?

To me there are a few very solid reasons to change, although I still don’t recommend doing so without considering it fully.  The main reasons are:

Behavioral or Political Differences – This is a big one for me, I have joined a few guilds with characters only to find out that guild chat is full of swearing, trash talking, degrading people because of where they live, religion, politics or some other crazy thing.  To me, I play the game to get away from real life concerns and childish behavior, not to put up with it in yet another location.  So if the guild won’t address these players, its time to leave for a new guild. I can only put up with this for so long before leaving.

Difference in Play Times or Play Styles – Sometimes it happens that you join a guild and it or you evolve to a different play-style.  You could join a guild to level and quest and then the guild decides to do mainly PvP.  Or you could be online from 5-9 Pacific Time and everyone else in the guild is on at 5-9 eastern, so you never see each other. Some people change their lifestyle to play at times when everyone else is playing but some people can’t do that.

Guild Rules – Some guilds run very loose, some very tight and militaristic.  If the style of the guild you’re in does not suit your style, switch.  I have been in a high level raiding guild that dictated builds, gear, and play times to a strict degree (this guild folded after only 3 months).  If it’s all about progression for you that may be ok.  If you want to have some fun and choices, then it’s probably not your cup of tea.

Level Differences – If you join a guild of like level players and then they all zoom to 80 while you’re still at 25 and can never find a group, it may be time to switch guilds.  This happens all the time, and some guilds are very cool about helping out their low level players, while in others you may as well not exist.

Size / Progression – This is the weakest of the reasons to leave, but still valid.  Sometimes guilds just get stuck at a point where they will not get any further in the game.  It could be due to not enough players, not the right classes, or any other number of things.  If you have done everything in the game to progress, and have nothing left to do without switching to a larger guild, it can be valid.

There are also some lame reasons to change guilds that I see way to often:

I don’t like player X – Personality conflicts happen all the time.  You’re an adult either fix it or ignore them.  If it’s one person out of 100 in a guild, don’t let them spoil your fun and leave the guild.

Loot arguments –Sometimes arguments happen over loot.  I see many players run from a guild over one argument.  Sure, we all want that shiny new item, but look at it objectively.  Why did someone else get it? Was it fair (even though you didn’t like it)? Was there a reason that makes sense for the guild (if it was not purely fair)?  If the leaders are all friends and everything goes to them it may be a real issue, but my experience is that that is rarely the case, and its generally greed getting in peoples eyes.

X Guild is further in Y Raid – So? Work at it.  If the guild is further it’s because they have more experience and time into the event.  You will get there if everyone sticks with it and doesn’t bail.  The other guild was at the same point you where at one point in time.

I switched my current favorite toon due to the Size / Progression issue. While I loved playing with the few people in the guild that were level 80, we never had enough on to do normal instance runs, and they really didn’t want to progress further into the game like I did. I waited a long time since Dominate mentioned starting an Alliance guild, and the guild I left fully knew about it long before it happened.

In conclusion, find where you want to be, and stay there as long as you can because a guild you fit in is rare. I am where I want to be and have no plans on leaving for any of the above reasons.

Last time we looked at the Ele Shaman in T8 gear, and this time we are turning up the heat all the way to true end game gear.  Shaman itemization gets better in T9 gear, which means Blizz did a little better job at balancing things out a bit.  T9 Shaman in Elemental spec with BiS gear still will not match the very best geared mages and rogues, but this spec will do just 300 DPS shy of even the most ridiculous cookie-cutter mage.  And no, AoE on big gobs of trash doesn’t count – we’re talking single target boss fights, since they are the only things that count.

Profile

This time you’ll see all the epic gems and the Meta activated.  We’re not sure about the glyph choice for the T8 set either, that’s just what the Simcraft engine says does the most DPS.  You can expect about 9,500 DPS in an extended boss fight in perfect stand still and cast conditions.  Since that hardly ever happens, at least you can expect to do a good, solid 5-7k depending on how much moving you have to do.  For instance, you’ll do a lot more DPS on the Twin Valkyr than Beasts just because you move so much less in that fight and can just sit there and blast away.  The toon in the sim also uses enchanting, but you could definitely get more mileage out of JC/BS, but that is just common knowledge right?

http://profiler.wowhead.com/?profile=14636542

Glyphs

• flame shock
• Lava
• lightning bolt

Priorities

As always, throw the idea of rotations out the window and look at priorities. You’ll return to more of a traditional cycle in T9 and use Chain Lightning, but you need to stick with Thunderstorm when it’s up (which means getting in range and can get tricky, but you’ll figure it out) as well as stay on top of searing totem drops.

• flask type = frost wyrm
• food type = fish feast
• flametongue weapon
• water shield
• mana spring totem
• wrath of air totem
• speed potion
• elemental mastery
• flame shock
• lava burst (only when flame shock is active)
• searing totem
• chain lightning
• lightning bolt
• thunderstorm

Damage Sources

Here you can see the graphs for how all of this works over the course of a fight.  You’ll notice that although Searing Totem doesn’t do a huge percentage of overall damage, it does the most damage per execute time.  This means that it does more damage for the time it takes to cast  – you spend one global cooldown for 60 seconds of damage output.  Pretty efficient if you ask me.  Those two trinkets are seriously potent as well, but good luck getting your hands on even one of them since every PD spell-caster in the game would sell  their mother to get them.

Pawn Scale

( Pawn: v1: "Shaman_T9_57_14_00_258": HitRating=3.94, SpellDamage=1.78, CritRating=1.42, HasteRating=1.28, Intellect=0.50, RedSocket=45.71, YellowSocket=62.97, BlueSocket=31.48 )

Since we’ve had so little overall information about the Shaman class, we thought it would make a perfect beginning for our DPS profiling series.  Even if you don’t have a Shaman, you’ll probably end up being surprised at a couple of the points you’ll find here, and it will make you foam at the mouth to get the post for your class and favorite build.

The elemental Shaman has been a little low on the DPS charts for a while, and is showing no signs of making a serious run at rogues and mages anytime soon.  However, that doesn’t mean you won’t want one in the raid.  An ele shammy will buff the locks and mages another 500 dps or so from totems, so they get part of their DPS from the buffs they give to other classes.  The more casters you have, the more you need an Elemental Shaman in the raid.

It turns out that the real key to best DPS in T8 gear for the Elemental Shaman is to skip the T8 legs and one spell completely.  It will make a huge difference in your DPS overall, although this will certainly apply to single target pulls such as Boss fights and not trash quite so much.  So let’s take a look at the build and show you how to begin using these guides.

First, take a look at the build profile from Wowhead:

http://profiler.wowhead.com/?profile=13000116

When the page loads, you’ll see the doll slots all filled up with best in slot gear, so you can know what you’re looking for from all those dungeon runs.  We will post the T9 current version next, but for those of you without a bagillion Emblems of Triumph and no Trophies the T8 version of BiS is a great place to start.  At the bottom you will also see all the enchants and gems you will want to use (or epic versions of course where available).

In the tab at the top you will see the talent tab where you can check out the full build along with glyphs choices, although the glyphs are also listed here:

Glyphs:

• flame shock
• lava
• lightning bolt

The next thing you need to do is know what to use and when.  Don’t think of things in terms of rotions any more, but rather in terms of priorities.  In the following list, use things in the order of the list from top to bottom, refreshing as things higher up in the priority list become available.

Priorities:

• flask type = frost wyrm
• food type = fish feast
• flametongue weapon
• water shield
• mana spring totem
• wrath of air totem
• speed potion
• flame shock
• lava burst (only if flame shock is active on the target)
• searing totem
• lightning bolt
• thunderstorm

Now, of course you’re going to drop all of your totems at once, but you will need to refresh searing totem every minute.  The other thing you will notice is that you will not be using chain lightening at all in this spec.  Rather, you will just cycle through and hot flame shock every time the cool-down is up and fill in the spaces with LB, and oddly enough, Thunderstorm.  Thunderstorm will require you to be almost in melee range, and as you can see in the charts below it actually barely registers when it comes to damage.  In other words, TS will only come into play in a few fights but can fill up a cool-down in the rotation from time to time.  You can see the damage graphs from the Simulationcraft Wiki for all of this below.

And, finally, you can always make gear choices a whole lot easier with Pawn.  You can download pawn from either WowMatrix or Curse and keep it updated easily enough.  Pawn will give every piece of potential gear a score while you work toward best in slot so that you can keep the same build and priority list while you collect gear that matches the best in slot stats closely enough.  This will keep you from having to tweak and test your rotation and gear choices and get used to what you are doing.

Pawn Scale:

( Pawn: v1: “Shaman T8 57-14-00″: HitRating=3.02, SpellDamage=1.59, HasteRating=1.39, CritRating=1.13, Intellect=0.38, RedSocket=36.85, YellowSocket=48.32, BlueSocket=24.16 )

So there you have the Max DPS build for the Elemental shaman in T8 equivalent best in slot gear.  Next time we’ll bring the Shaman up to T9 level and then move on to the other classes one at a time.  As always, you can leave your requests for which class we do next in this thread and we’ll post the most requested in order to help you Dominate.

I thought I’d give our fellow readers a break from the monotony of gearing guides, tanking and numbers to throw a little perspective your way. Over the years of playing on-line games, you come to realize that there are some people who are always there; their voice, name and appearance may change but they are always there. Here is a look at two of these types of people that you have certainly come across if you’ve played video games for any length of time.

The Gear Hog:

The Gear Hog

You know how when you’re in vent and someone has a question about the best way to set their video settings, and you’re trying to walk them though the process in detail, when suddenly a voice cuts across your Vent with some inane chatter that has absolutely nothing to do with your conversation?

It’s always the same person.  Mostly likely, the first thing they say when they come online is: “Guess what gear I got from my last run?” or “You should have run this instance last night that weapon you need dropped” or if you’re in vent and they are in a group/raid that you are not in they will happily tell you everything that drops, as it drops. And if you are in a group/raid that they aren’t in, as soon as they know you have finished they will ask what dropped… And even when you are in the same group/raid, they will always announce what has dropped even before the loot master has had a chance to see it.

They always want to roll on every item and always want to NEED on every item they CAN use, even if their current gear is better. Their own gear is never good enough for them, yet they are always one of the best geared members of the guild. This goes for everything from weapons to armor, trinkets to rings, pets and mounts. They say their age is 24ish but sound and act more like 14ish [and that’s most likely their real age].

They annoy the hell out of everyone in the guild, but to be fair 97% of the guild doesn’t mind, 1% hates them and 2% loves them. Let’s face it: every guild needs one, they always know where to get that trinket you need or the best way to spend your marks or emblems and are a great source of knowledge. Love them or hate them, let’s face facts: their insight to getting gear will help you DOMINATE. The Gear Hog: what would we do without them?
{on a personal note if you recognize yourself above and you know me, take solace in the fact I am of the 2% that loves you}

The Fonz:

The Fonz

So you join a guild and get into vent and everyone is cool. There’s the normal mix: the Gear Hog, the High Pitched Kid, the Fence Man, the Dudes, the Quiet Ones, Loads-o-Money, the Drama Queen, the Diva, Mr. Fix it and others. They all get on well, the banter is flying, there’s the odd cuss word but nobody moans and everyone is jolly.

That’s when the Fonz (leader of the Dudes) comes in vent. Everyone can recognize the Fonz: every other word is a cuss word, it’s all about how this [expletive] n00b got pwnd and that [expletive] ninja took this. All of a sudden the Dudes, that up until now have been well behaved, suddenly follow suit and vent is racing with cussing and badmouthing every other player on the realm. It really makes you wonder why the others put up with this? In 2 seconds flat the whole ambiance of vent has gone from being fun and at ease to being in a hooligans’ bar on the wrong side of town.

Finally, someone decides to get a Raid Group together and you are tossed an invite to a 25 man Ulduar raid with all the above mentioned players. Now you really want in on this raid – it’s the reason you joined the guild in the first place. So you decide to go, after all if they’re raiding, they will be too busy to talk their garbage. So you set off in anticipation of getting a chance to show you’re worthy of your guild invite.

You step into Ulduar, the buffs go up, the fish feast goes down and the Tactician starts to tell everyone how the fight goes, who’s tanking what and where, off tank, heals, DPS. He describes the fight in depth for those that don’t know the fight, warns what attacks and debuffs to look for. Just then, the Fonz adds his words of wisdom along the lines of: “Just f……… tank and spank, if you die, you’re a [expletive] n00b, come on lets go, can we pull now?”

The Tactician interjects with something along the lines of: “Yes, it’s alright for those of us that have done this, but let’s give everyone a chance” Kindly reminding the Fonz that not everyone has been here a million times yet.

Fonz says: “Screw that lets go, if you die don’t release, watch the fight and if you die again your a [expletive] n00b”

All the time you’re thinking: “Jeez, why do they put up with this Jerk?!?” You don’t want to say anything because you’re new to the guild, so you suffer in silence and hope that you at least get some emblems to make it worthwhile. This sounds like a wipe in the making.

Well, the raid finally gets underway and the gutter talk is still going on but the raid is going surprisingly well. You settle into your stride, working your rotation, avoiding the fire and stepping out of void zones, you check your DPS and Yeah! You’re doing your average looking good, then you notice the Fonz’s DPS is almost twice what you’re putting out and the dudes are way up there too. So you pay attention to the Fonz on screen and you finally get why everyone puts up with him: yes, he portrays himself as a bad ass dude in vent, but when you see him in game: WOW! This guy must be cheating he can’t be that l33t can he? I mean he’s obnoxious, self centered, rude, opinionated, all in all a right royal pain in the backside. Yet he is a one man army and at the end of the run, your ears are bleeding and your head is throbbing but you don’t care: your bags are full of new gear, you got emblems, you got some gold and you can’t wait for the next run.

It’s funny because 6 months down the line, he still annoys the hell out of you, but you find when it’s just the two of you in vent, he is a polite, helpful person but the second anyone else joins vent, he turns back into the Fonz.

So, despite all his bad points with him on your side, you will always Dominate

The Above article’s credit goes mostly to Anibow for original script and to Agorg/Dindrane for editing and applying structure, punctuation, grammar, syntax, the space bar and the return key to the original text. What can I say folks he’s a fighter, not a writer.

If you want to come check us out in-game you can see the necessary information to reach us here: DYS.com Guild Info.

Until next time, keep on DOMINATING.

Cooking is good, Fishing is better:

Paladins are the only class that truly double dip when it comes to food: they benefit from both Attack Power AND Spell Power simultaneously (DKs get spellpower from their Str and AP mostly and not from gear). If you haven’t caught on yet, I’m talking about every Raider’s favorite: Fish Feast. Alternately when questing and getting up to 80 or if you’re feeling selfish and want to save your feasts (or can’t make them yet) you can go for the Dalaran Clam Chowder.

Seriously however, you really should consider leveling Fishing and Cooking. You will often be asked to lead groups and if you want your group to perform at its best, how can you ask them that if you’re too cheap to do it yourself? At the very least Clam Chowder for a regular buff food. The best place to “fish up a feast” is, of course, WintersGrasp. Where asides from risking a ganking at all times the three ingredients you need for fish feast are the only thing that you get out of there along with Giant Clams that contain Succulent Clam Meat for the Chowder.  In no other fishing spot will you get the chance to fish up all 3: Glacial Salmon, Muscleback Sculpin and Nettlefish. Anywhere else in Northrend, you can only find 2 out of 3 of those at the same place at best. There is both a Cooking and Fishing guide of you look through the DYS.com archives, you have no excuses.

Flasks:

There are really only 2 flasks for the Tank: depending on the situation: Flask of StooneBlood and Flask of Endless Rage. The first (Stone Blood) is THE tanking flask since you can never have enough health. I only mention the second one because that’s what I use when I’m bored in a 5-man (and have gold to burn) and want to show off my 2500DPS … as a Tank.

I wouldn’t recommend using those for 5-mans since they can be a little pricey but in a raid the Stone Blood is not really an option.

Starter gear: Crafted/purchasable items:

If money isn’t an issue for you because you’ve Mastered the AH, it should make gearing up significantly easier. There are 3 crafted (from Black Smithing) items that are perfect to start you on the road to tanking:

The real Starter set can be found here (Tempered Saronite set) All level 78 Crafted gear. When it comes to Epic items however, you’ll want:

• Helm
• Boots
• Titansteel Shield Wall

Again if money isn’t an issue for you I highly recommend getting a Darkmoon Card: Greatness (Strength) It can be considered a DPS trinket but I still use it in Ulduar and ToC just because of the 99+330 Strength (Augmented by BoK and/or BoS), especially now (since 3.2) that your Spell Power is directly tied to that stat (60%): 66+220 SP is really not negligible thanks to Talents.

Later on, or right now if you are inclined and have even more money to spend on your Tanking set, there are a few BoE items from Naxx, Ulduar and ToC that may be of particular interest to you if they are available on the AH and if the price is right:

• Cloak of the iron Council (lvl 219)
• Bracers of Dalaran’s Parapets (lvl 213)
• Inexorable Sabatons (lvl 213)
• Spiked DeathDealers (vl 226)
• Band/Signet of the Traitor King (lvl 245)
• Signet of the Earthshaker (lvl 226)
• Northern Barrier (lvl 226)

Should you want to splurge even more there are the new Craftable items that require Runed Orbs and or Crusader Orbs:

• Breastplate of the White Knight (Horde and Alliance each have their own version)
• Saronite Swordbreakers (Horde and Alliance version differ in look only)
• Indestructible Plate Girdle

For a more complete overview: check out the Quick Gearing Guide for the want-to-be Raider.

Gemming and Enchanting:

You really should check out WoW-Heroes.com to get a complete overview of your character (must be 70) and see what’s missing. This site generates a gear score that most people will be referring to, it allows you to see at a glance someone’s gear and although gear doesn’t tell the whole story (Experience and Ability) seeing a Tank with a lower gear score and all of his gems slots socketed and all his gear enchanted tells me that he at least knows enough to gear up, and that more then most want-to-be tanks will bother with.

You gemming priorities should be:

• Blue: Stamina
• Red: Strength or combine with Blue or Yellow to activate Socket Bonus
• Yellow: Defense > Hit rating (after Def cap) > Crit Rating but only after both Def and Hit are maxed.
• Feel free to mix the above stats if you want to activate the socket bonus of your gear or ignore it if you have a specific goal in mind (540 Def ?)

Enchanting has already been covered in a previous article.

Gearing up to Raid:

We just published a Quick Gearing guide for the want-to-be Raider. All the information in there applies as much to Paladins as it does to any other class. This is the fastest (as of 3.2) way to gear up for Raiding. If you want more information then this guide provides we encourage you to head over to:

• TankSpot.com
• ElitistJerks.com (Must create an account to see the forums)

Both of those sites are a Fantastic source of information from Videos to every boss encounter in Azeroth to Theory Crafting like you’ve never seen it. Tank Spot has Cider’s Easy 540 Defense Gear Guide

Champion’s seals

There will eventualy be a whole article on champion’s seals, but for the purpose of Tanking as a Paladin the only item that is of value here is Axe of the Sen’Jin Protector (for the Horde) and the Teldrasill Protector (for you Alliance folks) if you are having a hard time getting the Bread Cutter (look at the animation) or the Red Sword of Courage from Utgarde Pinnacle.

Any of those 3 weapons will do but only the * Protector weapon can be purchased, where as the others depend on Blizzard’s Random Number Generator.

That prety much rounds out this section of the Paladin Guide to tanking. I’m sure that there are things I missed but this is meant as a “starter” guide for those new to Paladins or Tanking or even being 80 and less for the experienced hard core raider who already knows all this. Of course comments and feed back is greatly appreciated.

Also you can check us out in-game if you’re curious or have questions: DominateYourServer.com Guild info

Part 1 – The Basics

Part 2 – Combat Ratings

Part 3 – Armor: Mitigation vs. Avoidance

Part 4 – Hit Table and Threat Generation

Part 5  – Abilities and Rotation

Part 6 – Professions and Upgrades

Part 7 – Buffs and Starter Gear (you are Here)

(We’ve had some reports that this article didn’t come up properly so I had to update it)
“So i made it to 80 now what do i do?? I  am lost: HELP!!”

We hear it or read it in chat every day and once again it came up in the replies to Law’s wonderful article on Lore. Now I must admit: if it wasn’t for my fellow guildies at DOMINATE I would still be totally lost apart from all the new reputations to work for and daily quest for professions and the factions, you have all the other dailies for rep and the heroic dailies and all the new instances. And you can’t even get a group to do any of them.

You see in trade: “LFM HTOC” or “LF2M Heals+ DPS for H CoS (Daily)” or what ever and you whisper said person only to receive a whisper back 4 to 5 mins later: “Sorry, full” and you sit there thinking how do these others get their whisper in 1st? Don’t I type quick enough? Then you find out it is down to your gear score “Sorry your gear score is too low” and you don’t want to ask because you already feel as useful as a chocolate tea pot.

Whether you’re new to the game or it’s your 17th 80 these steps are a must for anyone that even remotely wants to raid.  Since patch 3.2 gear has become more and more easily available so we thought we’d publish a quick reference guide to Raid gearing. None of these steps require you to enter a single 10-man raid.

There are 5 things you should focus on:

Reputation with the right Faction for your Head Enchant:

This is one of those things that nobody can do for you, yet will be using for every single spec and every single head slot piece of gear you will ever wear.  Depending on what you choose to do,  you will need to raise your reputation for a different Faction: You need only hit Revered for the best Enchant. Go pick up the tabard of the appropriate faction and wear it in every heroic you do.

Kirin’Tor: Caster DPS

Argent Crusade: Tank

Knights of the Ebon Blade: Melee DPS

Wyrmrest Accord: Healing

Reputation with Sons of Hodir for your Shoulder Enchant:

Again this is another one of those things that nobody can do for you but are worth it since they will be applicable to every piece of gear you ever equip on that character regardless of talent choices.

It used to be that you had to complete the entire quest chain and do the dailies for a whole month to get to Exalted, then Blizzard saw fit to simplify the process and allow you to trade in the (Back then BoP) Relics of Ulduar for some Rep with Sons of Hodir. Next they made the relics BoE so you now could theoreticaly buy your way to exalted .

Recelty Blizzard has introduced yet another way to get faction rep with the only faction in the game that gives lvl 80 Shoulder enchant: Comendation Badge: Sons of Hodir. They can be obtained from doing the REGULAR Daily. This is fantastic since you can complete the quest while doing it on Heroic as well and pick up the Emblems of Conquest that every boss will be happy to drop for you.
(Note: Scribes (Character that level the Inscription trade skill) can do a much upgraded, self-only version to shoulder enchant but that’s another matter all together)

Crusader’s Coluseum: Trial of the Champion: Reg + Heroic

This new instance (since 3.2) is your easiest stop for level 200-219 gear. Regular ToC will drop level 200 gear from every boss. You can clear it on Regular, step out, reset the instance and do it all over again. In fact you should do your best to run through that place as many times as you possibly can and pick up all the drops that you can. If you run it often enough it’s also a great place to gear up your second spec.

Running the Heroic give you Ulduar-level gear from every boss, including weapons and shoulders. By far the easiest place to pick up 219 starter gear.

Doing the Daily Heroic for the Emblems of Triumph:

Every time you turn in the Heroic Daily quest you will be rewarded with gold as well as 2  Emblems of Triumph. These are your all access pass to Tier 9 and level 245 gear. They can be obtained at a rate of 2/day this way. Emblems of Conquest are the fringe benefit that doubles your payout for these runs along with the actual gear that may or may not drop for you. You can also obtain them from the fire bosses in VoA and Onyxia.

Running Heroics for the Emblems of Conquest:

At this point there is nothing stopping you from doing more Heroics and picking up Emblems of Conquest. Emblems of Conquest: Pick up ~250 of them to obtain 2-piece T-8 (Head and Chest), Neck, Waist, Hands, Pants and Ranged. All of the Conquest gear is level 226 and will contribute greatly to your cause (Gearing up)

Knowing where you stand:

With that being said, you should also have tools to tell you where you stand and what you still need to work on. For both of the web sites below: enter your time zone, your realm(server) and your character’s name and look yourself up.

www.WoW-Heroes.com for a very good overall picture of your current situation gear-wise (My personal favorite).

www.WoWHead.com/?Profiles For the same thing (slightly different) from WoWHead.

Do those 5 things and it really won’t talk long to get a 2250 gear score and more. Gear score is what quite a few people will judge you by when you ask to get into a raid. It is not a complete picture however since it doesn’t account for experience or knowledge of the game but it is here for you and you should take full advantage of resources at your disposal.

There are far too many items in each category to list them all: That’s what WoWHead.com is there for you. Hopefully this will give you a sense of direction to get geared up.

Now get out there and DOMINATE.