Warlock’s motto: “We’ve been to Hell and back. While we were there, we stole their cookies.”

Warlocks are a pure Damage per Second class. We can’t heal anybody but ourselves, and we only do that by hurting others. Makes me chuckle every time I think about it. In fact, as an Affliction Lock I’m sometimes near the top of the charts on over-healing, and its all healing I do to myself by killing mobs. (I run with good healers…and its always good to give props to the guys watching your back.)

Some folks don’t like Affliction, often citing it as having a more complex rotation than other specs. To that let me say, “pffft”! An affliction Lock does have different tools at his disposal than Destruction Warlocks, Mages, and Hunters, for example. While these DPS classes generally rely on big hitting spells for burst damage, Affliction Warlocks kill mobs in a more insidious manner, by putting up a series of Damage Over Time spells (DOTs). However, this is far from death-by-inches. A well-geared Affliction Lock can often lead the DPS ratings in boss fights and buff the entire raid in several ways at the same time.

Think Affliction if complicated? Well here’s all the highlights in two columns written with the assumption you’ve never played a Warlock before. Hopefully, there’s plenty in here for the nooby and maybe a nugget or two for experienced Locks who haven’t tried Affliction yet. This is meant as a primer…there’s always more to learn. In the remainder of this one, we’ll take a look at a common Affliction talent assignment (“spec”), picking gear, and what glyphs to use. In the next column, I’ll make fun of people that think Affliction is complicated some more and discuss the rotation.

Talents and Pets - PvE Affliction Spec

After hitting level 80, here is a fairly standard looking Affliction spec as of the 3.1 patch. There is some amount of play in the talent tree now for Affliction that allows you to put points where you like without seriously nerfing your DPS.

Before I go through the tree, here are the abilities we’ll be buffing and a brief description. Virtually all of the Affliction Lock abilities do Shadow damage now (since in patch 3.1 they took immolate away. Another nerf…sigh). Cast times are with no Haste figured in, but I’ll show you how to calculate them with the Haste included a little later. In parentheses are abbreviations I’ll use occasionally below.

• Corruption (Corr)- This spell should always be up on the bad guys. It is instant cast and ticks every 3 seconds.

• Curse of Agony (CoA) – Important DOT that is instant cast and ticks every 2 seconds.

• Unstable Affliction (UA) – Another DOT that has a 1.5 sec cast time and ticks every 3 seconds.

• Haunt (H) – This one has a base 1.5 sec cast time and does some damage when it hits the target. Then, more importantly, it buffs your DOTs 20% or more (the more coming with Glyph of Haunt) for 12 sec. As a result, you always want this one up as well.

• Life Tap (LT) – This is instant cast and trades Health for Mana. On the surface, that may sound like a bad trade. However, if you go Out-of-Mana (OOM) while fighting mobs you’re probably good as dead anyway. In addition, you have a lot of ways of healing yourself as I mentioned above.

• Shadow Bolt (SB) – This is basically a big nuke with a relatively long cast time of 3 sec. It is also shadow damage, but you buff it in the Destruction tree.

• Drain Soul (DS) – This a major damage spell when the mob goes below 25% with a 3 sec tick time. Soul Shards get generated as a by-product.

Here are where the points are assigned and why in the spec above.

Affliction Tree

• Improved Curse of Agony (2/2)– Increases damage by this DOT by 10%.

• Suppression (3/3 or less depending on gear and raid make-up) – Increases hit chance on spells by 3%.

• Improved Corruption (5/5) – 10% more damage by one of your most important DOTs. This also buffs Seed of Corr, which we’ll talk about a little in the next article.

• Improved Life Tap (2/2) – Makes regenerating mana easier. Depending on your play you could pull 1 or even 2 points out of this one. It just depends on how likely you are to go OOM with your play on long boss fights.

• Soul Siphon (2/2) – Buffs an import spell for regenerating health (Drain Life) and knocking down mobs (DS). Its based on number of DOTs on the mob.

• Amplify Curse (1/1) – Lowers the global cooldown on curses. This ones debatable, but I think its worth its point.

• Nightfall (1/1) – Corr and Drain Life occasionally give you an instant cast SB. Not a huge boost in DPS, but it’s a boost.

• Empowered Corruption (3/3) – Another buff to Corr. This one’s based on your Bonus Spell Damage (Spell Power) directly.

• Shadow Embrace (5/5) – Add a debuff to the target increasing damage and decrease its ability to be healed. Automatically placed on target with SB and H…this ones a no-brainer even at 5 talent points.

• Siphon Life (1/1) – Another increase for Corr and also for UA. Also heals the caster a little. Definitely worth its 1 point.

• Shadow Mastery (5/5) – Another 15% on all shadow damage…oh yeah.

• Eradication (3/3) – Corruption has a chance to increase your cast speed.

• Contagion (5/5) – Increases damage by CoA and Corruption again.

• Malediction (3/3) – Increases your spell damage slightly and increases the crit chance of Corr and UA.

• Death’s Embrace (3/3) – Increases your Siphon Life effectiveness when you need it most and increases your damage to the target when their low on life. Like I said, insidious.

• Unstable Affliction (1/1) – Gives you this DOT.

• Pandemic (1/1) – Lets Corr and UA crit for 100% more damage…sweet

• Everlasting Affliction (5/5) – Increases Corr and UA scaling with your Spell Damage. It also resets Corr automatically when you cast H simplifying the rotation. Even at 5 talent points it a bargain in my opinion.

• Haunt (1/1) – The must have spell for an Affliction lock. It does it all. It does a little damage directly, heals you, and it makes your DOTs tick a lot harder.

Destruction Tree

• Improved Shadow Bolt (5/5) – Increases damage by Shadow Bolt and also increases Spell critical strike chance on the target. It also adds a debuff to the target increasing the crit chance of every caster in the raid. Mages will /love you for it.

• Bane (5/5) – Decreases the cast time of Shadow Bolt by 0.5 to 2.5 seconds base cast time.

• Ruin (5/5) – Doubles your critical strike bonus damage on Shadow bolt.

In this spec there are 3 points left. Personally, I would put 2 of them in Demonic Power and run with the Succubus as a pet (tier 3 of Destruction tree). Succubus does slightly more damage than the Felhunter. I also find her annoying, but my game sound is usually pretty low anyway.

The last point could go in Fel Synergy to increase your pet’s survivability, Demonic Embrace or Improved Healthstone to increase your survivability (your raid-mates get better cookies too), Fel Concentration to reduce cast times when your being hit, Grim Reach to increase the range of your Affliction spells, or other places really depending on your preference. None of these will increase your DPS directly but may improve your game play depending on your play style and the situation.

Glyphs

Glyphs for the Affliction Lock are pretty obvious. To maximize DPS there are at most four realistic choices for major Glyphs. In order of importance they are Glyph of Life Tap, Glyph of Haunt, Glyph of Curse of Agony, and Glyph of Corruption. In fact Glyph of Life Tap and Glyph of Haunt are so obvious for the Affliction Lock you should wonder about the sanity of any Aff Lock using anything else. Glyph of Curse of Agony increases the duration of this DOT. If you usually use CoA, this is the glyph you should have. If you are usually the one putting up Curse of Elements (discussed in Part 2) on your runs, Glyph of Corruption is the best choice for you, which gives the extra occasional instant cast SB.

Picking Gear

There are great websites, forums, articles, etc. for this. My favorite at the moment, which is also a great general Affliction Warlock thread, is at elitistjerks.com by Namnalia. The short version is:

Hit Rating > Spell Power > Haste Rating > Crit Rating ~ Spirit > Intellect

The numbers below are approximate, especially in ‘real’ raid fights, but they give you a point of reference for choosing gear. These are the numbers from Namnalia, and they are pretty consistent with what I’ve seen since the last major patch. They may come out a bit high for you due to his assumptions (perfect execution and zero lag). In a 25 man raid, in other words with the buffs assumed in the calculation, my DPS is pretty much the calculated ±5%, okay mostly minus, in a tank-and-spank fight involving few interruptions and moves, e.g., Patchwerk. Neither my lag nor probably my execution is ever “perfect”, so being somewhat lower is to be expected. Again, the main point is you can use these to decide which gear and enchants are for you.

Also, Spirit may be overestimated in importance a bit. You get additional Spell Power from LT based on Spirit with Glyph of LT. This buff lasts for 20 seconds currently. However, unless you need the mana, it isn’t an overall DPS boost to LT every 20 seconds. As a result, I just LT when I’m replacing nothing but part of a SB and need the mana boost, and the Glyph buff is not always up. Spirit is devalued somewhat as a consequence, I suspect because the usually assumption in the calculations is that the Glyph buff is always up. (However, the rumor is that in the next patch the Glyph buff will increase to 40 seconds, which will likely make Spirit scale as below and probably as intended.)

• 1 Hit rating point = 1.6 DPS

• 1 Spell Power = 1.4 DPS

• 1 Haste rating point = 0.9 DPS

• 1 Crit Rating point = 0.7 DPS

• 1 Spirit = 0.7 DPS

• 1 Intellect = 0.2 DPS

Hit rating is the most important stat on gear up until your character is “hit capped”. No matter how much you may want to or how much your gym teacher tells you to give 110%, you can’t hit something 110% of the time, so don’t go over 100% anymore than you have to. In Burning Crusade days, you could only get to 99%, but the great and powerful Blizz changed that so that you can make sure you hit with every cast. If at all possible you should.

On bosses, which are considered to be 3 levels higher than you are, you need 17% hit to reach the cap. A Gear Hit Rating of 26.23 is equal to 1% additional chance to hit a target. So, for bosses you need a hit rating of 445.91 from somewhere.

You get 3% from the talent tree listed through the tier 1 Affliction talent Suppression. So, you need 14% more, a rating of 367.22, not counting any of the various buffs/debuffs that may or may not be flying around in a particular raid that affect spell hit.

The most common Hit buff, if you’re alliance, is a 1% additional hit from having a Draenai within 30 yards, Heroic Presence. Consequently, as alliance you’ll only ever really need 13%, a rating of 340.99, with 3/3 in Suppression…there are plenty of Draenei around.

If you have choices in gear on the spot with respect to hit, you can ask your raid what hit related debuffs they are casting. If you have a Battle Chicken (Balance Druid) in the group, they will likely be putting up Improved Faerie Fire, which will give an additional 3% Hit on the target. As a result, you could swap out +hit gear for more Spell Power, Spirit, etc. gear if you have it. Just keep the priorities above in mind. After you get to the “hit cap”, whatever you decide that is for your situation, gear for as much Spell Power, then Haste, then Crit, etc. as possible.

Haste increases the speed that your spells cast. A Haste Rating of 32.78 decreases your cast time by 1%, and it makes your DOTs tick faster by the same 1%. To calculate your cast times with added Haste Rating, the formula is below.

In other words, if your Haste Rating = 500 from your gear, then a Haunt cast (base cast time = 1.5 sec) will take the time as shown below.

A Critical Strike (Crit) dramatically increases the damage done by a spell. With the spec above, many of your spells have a chance to Crit, including SB, Corr, UA, and Haunt. These DOTs have a chance to Crit on every tick. A Critical Chance Rating of 45.91 is equal to an additional 1% chance to Crit. Intellect also increases your Crit Chance slightly.

When choosing between Haste Rating and Crit Rating, Haste is slightly better, but Crit Rating is definitely a good thing for an Affliction Lock as well.

The easiest time, from personal experience, to identify yourself as a noob is during the loot handout. If it doesn’t say “Cloth” at the top right and has stats in white other than Stamina, Intellect, and Spirit its not for you. The secondary stats like spell power, hit rating, haste, etc. are generally near the bottom on the item.

One secondary stat that really doesn’t help Warlocks much is Mana Per 5 Seconds (MP5). There is no best-in-slot gear for Warlocks with MP5 on it, and since Ulduar was released there may not be many top 20 items for Locks with MP5. Personally if a Lock with a green or blue item in that slot wants to roll on the epic with a bunch more Spell Power but also some MP5, I have no problem with it. The item would be a big upgrade for them. If you already have an iLevel 200 or more item in that slot, let the healers fight over it. Naturally, that’s up to the leaders for your raid.

Follow the above and you’ll be dressed and specced for Dominating success as an Affliction Lock. Next time we’ll talk about killing stuff.

The Domination Podcast Episode 16

This week on the podcast the fellas cover the rumor mill and the real facts and figures about the upcoming major patch - 3.2.  To read all the patch notes yourself you can use this link.  Transcript of the complete podcast below.

The Domination Podcast Episode 16 Transcript

How To Solo Stabilize A Price Push By Raising A Price Cap

Just a note before we get started on this one.  This tip is for seriously anal-retentive, ah hawking, accountant style people who have the patience for investing in things like hedge funds.

People (even those using the AH Mastery Guide) will ask me from time to time some questions that seem odd to me.  “Hey you just got undercut, what are you going to do about it?”  UM . . .nothing?  Some folks watch every auction they post; that’s not for me.  I prefer to list thousands of auctions based on tried and true numbers and then go to bed.  We developed the AH Mastery Guide to teach people exactly how to do this.

When you’re running that many auctions and trying to level toons and raid and do WG and run a guild and and and - you just don’t have time to watch things.  Besides, I’m not real big on sitting around staring at the competition; its like watching paint dry.  No, I would much rather have fun and make gold while I’m doing other things.

But the questions finally got me thinking.  I wonder if there really IS a way to make sure the undercuts don’t kill you?  Up until now I’ve just lived with the fact that the markets cycle.  Undercuts happen for a while until there is no profit in it for the stupid farmers, then they all leave and the price points return to normal.  I break even half the time and make a big profit the other 50%.  Since I was already averaging over 750g a day in the process I didn’t feel the need to take drastic measures.

But while I was working to refine certain aspects of the gold guide on a new server I noticed something odd in the wool market.  We have said from the beginning that mats are maybe the second best play in the market.  We even resurrected one of those tips from 2006 and updated it in the post “Making Gold With Mats” to show just how timeless this advice can be.

So as we went to work to completely Dominate every part of the mats market on this new server (I’m not saying which one yet) I noticed that when I set the new price for wool it stayed up - way up.  But it wasn’t my banker keeping the price high.  As a matter of fact a random toon gave me this technique and I’ve spread it to lots of other mats as well.

Here’s what happened; there was this one dude who just keeps about 20 full stacks of wool on the AH at about 3 times market price.  He probably sells a few from time to time, but everyone is undercutting him.  I love the fact that he exists because he is keeping the 100% price artificially high.  It makes my price push point look cheap in comparison.  His price represents something we don’t have a name for - so we’ll call it the price cap.

Price Cap = the highest price in the market

So I thought - what if I just did this myself?  Since I have several accounts, I have to have a toon doing auction house scans on each one.  So there are already 3 “banker” toons just sitting at the AH doing nothing.  So my main banker (let’s call him A) send a few stacks of all the best mats to banker “B.”  B then posts those mats (or anything else for that matter) at a sort of silly price and just keeps rolling those auctions forever.

Now instead of my price push (buying out most or all of an item and re-listing it at a higher price) representing the price cap, I can raise a new cap over my push to protect the push.  The push will actually look reasonable against the cap. (confused yet)?

Now everyone who scans the AH using AADV will scan the inflated price cap items along with everything else (such as the price push items) and AADV will return a higher normal market price for them to post their items.  In just two weeks I’ve been able to stabilize price points for more than 2 dozen items at more than 100% above their previous market level doing this very thing.

And it’s painfully simple to boot.  I just log on every couple of days to B and roll the auctions back onto the house.  I sell just enough from those piles to cover the listing fees.  Breaking even in one place to ensure a much higher profit in another is a Dominating win.

Now, if you’ve EVER written in the threads something along the lines of “I’ve tried this for 23 minutes and haven’t made a single copper yet!”  Or, “I spent 176 silver and so far I’ve lost money using your techniques!”  Then please, PLEASE, PLEASE ignore this post and go back to your farming.  This takes a mountain of patience and expertise and thousands and thousands of gold invested on a daily basis.  If you’re not working with more than about 10k gold and it wouldn’t hurt your feelings to lose every copper of it then don’t do this.

There isn’t really that much risk involved - so much for the disclaimers.  But  keep in mind that this is not an easy play.  You’ll have to concentrate for a while to keep it straight in your head since AADV doesn’t have a module to track it for you.

So (those of you who know what you’re doing) grab yourself another anonymous banker and park a few stacks of the more profitable mats on the guy.  Have him roll the auctions for those on 48 hours for 300-500% of market value.  (Short stacks might also be a good idea).

It’s also a good idea when you end up stuck with a whole lot of something that isn’t selling well.  Instead of undercutting the market price and losing profit; push the perceived value of the item higher by price capping on one toon to make the regular price look more appealing to people.  In other words - if the demand isn’t there, then manipulate your pricing to give the appearance of value.  Your regular items will look cheaper next to your higher priced auctions.

For instance: I have about 100 stacks of medium leather on banker A.  Apparently someone went nuts and farmed their butts off for some silly reason and then dumped it all onto the AH at once.  It killed the price but I’m never going to pass on a good deal.  I can get that price back up there faster than it dropped.

So I sent 15 stacks to B and posted it at 500% of market price in stacks of 5 to set the price cap.  The rest I put back on the AH in stacks of 20 at 125% of past market value as a price push. The price cap protects the price push and the overall market price as well.  Since I bought the leather at 40% of past market value, and now have a way of raising the past market value even when flooding the market it’s only a matter of time before the cash box is full.

Before I did this I had sold maybe 2-3 stacks out of the original lot of 100.  Once I put the cap price above my own new push price they sell much better; along the lines of 5-10 stacks a day.

So you will use this whenever you have a glut or whenever you’re doing a price push.  If you have way too much of something anyway, make sure that if you’re going to flood the market (which depresses prices as supply goes above demand) that you protect the price by putting the artificial cap over it.  The very same method works even when you have limited supply items if you will raise a cap over your new price push.

People will assume there is just some idiot out there who thinks that his stuff is worth more just because it’s his stuff.  No one will ever suspect that it is a purposeful ploy to protect you own price push.  Who would ever think that undercutting yourself could be worth so much gold?

It seems like forever ago that we originally posted this series.   We did a whole big thing about the artisan fishing and cooking quests along with where to get the books you need for training - and with 3.1 it all went poof.  So we thought that an update was in order.

It also turns out that leveling fishing just got a WHOLE lot easier now that fishermen (and women) of any skill level can fish in any body of water.  You’re only going to catch vendor trash if your skill isn’t high enough, but that’s better than nothing.  Besides that, with the fishing timer getting cut in half, the whole process just got a big time reduction.  Now you’ve got next to no excuse for leveling fishing, especially if you have plans to level cooking.

And we’ve always recommended exactly that.  Some of the best raid buffs come from cooked foods, and even more specifically, cooked fish.  We don’t want you to have to always buy everything from the AH, so here’s how to put those two secondary profession skills together to make leveling cooking a breeze.

And just like fishing got a lot easier in 3.1, cooking also no longer has an artisan quest or any book learnin’ involved, so you can do it all at the trainers.  You’ll still have to buy most of the fish recipes, but we’ve got that covered for you as well.

To make this as easy as possible, we’ve include links to each recipe you will need as well as the page showing the very best fishing locations for each fish type.  So here is the complete guide to leveling both at the same time.  It’s short, sweet, to the point and very Dominating!

1 – 50: Brilliant Smallfish = 80. Mats (1 Raw Brilliant Smallfish)

• 80 Raw Brilliant Smallfish
• Fishing Holes
  

51 – 100: Longjaw Mudsnapper = 80. Mats (1 Raw Longjaw Mudsnapper)

• 80 Raw Longjaw Mudsnapper
• Fishing Holes
  

101 – 175: Bristle Whisker Catfish = 120. Mats (1 Raw Bristle Whisker Catfish)

• 120 Raw Bristle Whisker Catfish
• Fishing Holes
  

175 – 225: Rockscale Cod = 80. Mats (1 Raw Rockscale Cod)

• 80 Raw Rockscale Cod
• Fishing Holes
  

226 – 275: Spotted Yellowtail = 80. Mats (1 Raw Spotted Yellowtail)

• 80 Raw Spotted Yellowtail
• Fishing Holes
  

276 – 325: Your Choice – or combination of the following = 80.

• Mightfish Steak. Mats (1 Large Raw Mightfish, 1 Hot Spices, 1 Soothing Spices)
• Mightfish Fishing Holes
  
• Baked Salmon. Mats (1 Raw Whitescale Salmon, 1 Soothing Spices)
• Salmon Fishing Holes
  

326 – 350: Golden Fish Sticks = 40. Mats (1 Golden Darter)

• 40 Golden Darter
• Fishing Holes

At this point the recipes come from the trainer directly or from purchases with Dalaran Cooking Awards from doing the cooking dailies.  As with any profession, it is much easier to do all of this at level 80.  You’ll have to do the cooking dailies regularly to complete the rest of this guide, but that’s not the fault of the guide, the game just requires it.

351 – 375: Baked Manta Ray = 60. Mats (1 Imperial Manta Ray)

• 60 Imperial Manta Ray
• Fishing Holes

Here’s where you’ll actually have to use some beast meat for a little while.  The mats are normally to be had on the AH, so you don’t have to go farm all of it yourself, but if you’re cheap you can look each one up and go get them yourself.

376 – 400: Great Feast = 40. Mats (1 Chunk o’ Mammoth, 1 Shoveltusk Flank, 1 Worm Meat, 2 Chilled Meat)

• 20 Chunk o’ Mammoth
• 20 Shoveltusk Flank
• 20 Worm Meat
• 40 Chilled Meat

401 – 420: Anything else, although Spicy Blue Nettlefish sells fairly well.

421 – 450: At level 420 you can cook all of the other recipes in the game except for fish feast.  We recommend Dragonfin Filet using Dragonfin Angelfish as we cover in this post: Fishing For Gold.  Dragonfin Filet and any of the other recipes you buy with the cooking awards will take you all the way to 450, where you can make the premier buff food in the game - Fish Feast.

It’s then that all your Dominating work will make you the most popular cook around.  Everyone loves a fish feast, and you can make serious coin cooking up any of the foods you grab the recipes for.  We highly recommend doing the cooking daily every day.  It will maximize your buffs, and your gold earnings - especially if you can dominate it with more than one toon.

Now, even though leveling fishing doesn’t require running all over the place any more, it’s still a pain in the tookus.  It might actually take longer.  It’s easier, but a larger time sink.  After about level 225 it’s 10 casts per skill-up and that means it will take you around 4-6 hours if you did nothing but fish.

We’ve also got a great little tip for how to get those last few skill points in cooking in the Leveling Cooking Tip post, as well as a nifty mod that makes getting all your recipes for cooking or any other skill a whole lot easier in the post Finding Recipes Made Easy.

This little guide should make the prospect of getting to those dailies on alts a bit less daunting.  So grab a pole and a pan and get to work!  Soon you’ll be cashing in, just like we do.

This has been a long time coming and I wish it was there when I started - but due to popular demand, Here it is.

It’s not that complicated really … but it can be tricky if you’re new to tanking or to the paladin class in general.

Things you should know about the Paladin Tank:

This time it’s all basics, boring but fundamental; and fundamentals are rather important. If you have never played a paladin, or if you just got to 80, just know that tanking as a paladin is like discovering a whole new character, it’s unlike anything you have ever done before. While leveling your goal was to kill things as fast as possible. Now your sole mission in life is to put yourself in harm’s way and hope your healers are on the ball and the DPS is high enough. (Although any well played tank can make a healer’s job a lot easier).

This series of articles is intended for the Protection Paladin who tanks in PvE content, and wants to clear 5-Man dungeons and/or 10-25 man Raids. Also note that the writer is of the opinion that Tanking is more of an art form rather than hard science and common sense and personal opinion weigh in as much as mathematical calculations.

Much of the content that will follow here and over the next few articles in the series,  is drawn in part from the following sources:
ElitistJerks.com for the most explicit and detailed WoW theory-crafting available on the net
TankSpot.com for the guides, videos and examples.
Aemaeth/Zmack for screaming at me until I got it right.
All the healers in the guild for bearing with me until I got the fights down.
The rest of the guild for suffering through my learning curve and still accepting to raid with me in the process…

Let’s get down to brass tacks: the approach to playing a level 80 Protection Paladin is a complete 180 from the Retribution spec that you used to get there. Here are some “No D’uh” basics that may seem obvious but still worth mentioning.  As a matter of fact, these basic rules apply to every tank, not just the paladin. Since I came from the ranged DPS world (lock if you must know), I won’t take it for granted that you know any more than I did when I started to tank.

Also, since there are so many people who just know this stuff already (and who like to scream NOOOOB) we figured it would be the best place to start for anyone who hasn’t tanked at all.  If you’ve never tanked, do a few runs in some regular Northrend dungeons with these things in mind.  And it sure wouldn’t hurt to take along someone who is an experienced tank to give you even more pointers (Zmack for instance).

• The Paladin is the Master of AoE Tanking since most of your abilities hit multiple targets.

• As a rule, you (The Tank) control the positioning of the mobs/bosses: always face mobs away from the raid - DPS goes UP when attacks come from behind mobs.  Don’t make the whole raid run around the mob, YOU turn the mob so that the raid is always behind what you’re tanking.  DPS will rise dramatically the less time they have to spend getting into position.  The joust move is the best way to get to the right spot.  Strafe through the mob(s) and then spin to face the raid.  You will be in front of the mob and the raid will be behind them - with as little wasted time as possible.  This is tanking 101.  Good tanks always turn mobs, stupid tanks don’t.  Don’t be a doofus.

• Since you control the positioning of the boss (and mobs): Move as little as possible unless the situation demands it.  You’ll get more out of the entire raid’s DPS if they can just sit there and face roll their rotation, (especially true for melee … think Patchwerk).  Again, don’t move if you do not absolutely have to.  It can make the melee DPS guys absolutely hate your guts if they are constantly having to get behind/closer/overthere/overhere/closer/behind - statue tanking is best, make the mobs come to you (There is an ability commonly referred to as “Taunt” for such situations).

• Try to keep your back to a wall and avoid knock-backs if necessary. Strafe through mob groups and then back up to a wall.  Mobs are programmed to try to get behind you.  Standing against a wall cuts that sort of nonsense out.

• When positioning, NEVER turn your back to mobs, you cannot Dodge, Parry or Block from behind. Instead Strafe, so that the boss or mob is never “behind” you.  If you need to move, always move backwards or strafe.  This is one of the most subtle differences between a good tank and a crummy one.  Once you learn to do this properly you will be able to tell who is a good tank in one or two pulls.

• It may look like I’ve already said this, but Strafe, Strafe, Strafe.  Once you engage mobs keep your face (or cheek ; ) to them, and if you must move, do NOT turn and run, learn to strafe in flat arcs (see figures below).  Good tanks will actually look a little drunk most of the time.  Running sideways and banging into walls all the time.  But what  a luscious sight for the rest of the raid - especially the healers.

• This may seem silly but Oh so important: Don’t get out of range of your healers … or Line of Sight for that matter.  This is easier for a paladin than a warrior.  Warriors like to charge and it can be a real pain for a healer to have to run to get in range.  Try to pull mobs so that you pull them into range instead of running headlong away from healers.

• Don’t engage the Boss until your healers have full Mana … you’ll live longer :)  A tank’s first priority is to make sure that he is behaving responsibly toward those responsible for him.  Annoy healers at your own risk.  It’s common courtesy to take a glance at your healer’s mana pool before you make some gigantic pull.

• It’s best if everyone is ALIVE when you start a pull, wait for the healers to rez your dead friends (who probably dies because you missed a mob on that last trash pull). Pulling early is the cause of more wipes on trash than any other single thing.  Overly aggressive chain pulls put too much pressure on healers trying to rez AND catch back up to the heals they could have been making if you weren’t being a knucklehead.

• Once you choose your talents in the Protection tree for the first time, remember to train them up … level 1 spells/abilities aren’t all that useful in Heroics, or anywhere else for that matter.  This seems stupid, but a brand new spec often can include a touch of forgetfulness when it comes to skills you’ve never trained before.

All kidding aside, Tanking is a High Stress job, if you wipe or people die, it’s usually your fault (usually).

Here’s a little graphical depiction of what we’ve been talking about:

This is a pretty typical pull in most 5 man dungeons.  This is a 5 man group with a Paladin (P/T), Rogue (R), Warrior (W), Warlock (L), and Healer (H).  We have a pull of 3 mobs coming up where the (P) is a patrol and there is also a Caster (C) and Mele (M).

At the pull the rogue is stealthed out in front near the patrol.  Wait until the patrol is moving away from the group.  As the patrol crosses the face of the caster, that paladin tank runs right up to the group and begins to generate aggro (more on this in another article).  The warrior follows along with the rogue - but since our tank knows exactly where to put the group of mobs, the healer and lock can just stand still and begin to DPS the caster (or heal, of course).

As soon as the tank pulls (where the straight line becomes a curve), he turns to his left and strafes left up against the wall and drops his Consecration.  This will pin the mobs to his face with their backs to the group in perfect position.  His back is to a wall so that the mobs cannot get behind him, and his melee buddies can stand in one place and hit all three mobs from behind without moving an inch.  Plus, the Lock and healer haven’t moved an inch since the pull began.  They can just noggin roll their keyboards or even AOE with no worries.

If something does go wrong and it becomes necessary to move, the tank can just make the flat strafe arc to the far wall.  (Let’s say the mobs drop a void zone or some other nasty thing).  Strafe left while turning right a bit will actually keep the rogue and warrior from having to move more than a few steps - keep the tank’s face to the mobs, and the ranged won’t have to move at all.  You run the long way around so that everyone else moves as little as possible and are always attacking from behind.  Plus, you get your back against another wall and keep the mobs in a nice tight little cluster.  Just remember to strafe in circles around mobs.

Now that you have the bare essentials in mind let’s move on to: Tanking Mechanics, Basic Stats, Combat Ratings, Gearing choices (Mitigation vs. Avoidance), Threat Generation, Professions, Enchantments and Gems, but I have a feeling that most of you want to see the Talent Build first.

So we’ll start with that and build the rest of these articles around this since it’s the core of the character.

My preferred Tanking Build as of patch 3.1.3

I’ll highlight the important ones and give a brief reasoning behind my choice, let you mull it over for a while and answer questions next time when we cover the next topic:

Divinity - Rank 5/5
Increases all healing done by you and all healing effects on you by 5%. (Makes you easier to heal.)

Improved Righteous Fury - Rank 3/3
While Righteous Fury is active, all damage taken is reduced by 6%. (Single largest threat generation tool available, you WILL lose aggro without it.)

Blessing of Sanctuary - Rank 1/1
Places a Blessing on the friendly target, reducing damage taken from all sources by 3% for 10 min. In addition, when the target blocks, parries, or dodges a melee attack the target will gain 2% of maximum displayed mana. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time. (Big mana boost and damage reduction.)

Spiritual Attunement - Rank 2/2
A passive ability that gives the Paladin mana when healed by other friendly targets’ spells. The amount of mana gained is equal to 10% of the amount healed. (OOM tank usually = wipe … )

Ardent Defender - Rank 3/3
When you have less than 35% health, all damage taken is reduced by 30%. (Gives your healers a chance to catch up, it has saved our raids more times then I can count.)

Redoubt - Rank 3/3
Increases your block value by 30% and damaging melee and ranged attacks against you have a 10% chance to increase your chance to block by 30%. Lasts 10 sec or 5 blocks. (Block Value = DPS=  Threat=  Good!)

Guarded by the Light - Rank 2/2
Reduces spell damage taken by 6% and gives a 100% chance to refresh the duration of your Divine Plea when you hit an enemy. In addition, your Divine Plea spell is 100% less likely to be dispelled. (Divine Plea should be up on every fight that will last longer then 30 seconds, this makes it almost permanent and is more then 50% of your Mana regen)

Pursuit of Justice - Rank 2/2
Reduces the duration of all Disarm effects by 50% and increases movement and mounted movement speed by 15%. This does not stack with other movement speed increasing effects. (This ability is Crucial for movement intensive fights, Heigan the unclean, Anub’Rekhan, Malygos, Ignis, Razorscale etc.

These are the more important talents and/or the ones that need an explanation.

Next time: Combat Ratings (Hit, Defense, Block value, Dodge, Parry etc). Start with the basic build and the fundamental tanking tactics covered above and before we’re through you might be able to say you DOMINATE!

A few days back I wrote an article about Getting a Low Level character to Booty Bay.  Well the endeavor in question was Arbitrage.   I have been using almost every other trick in the AH Mastery Guide, so I figured why not maximize my efforts?

I work ~60 hrs/week; and when I get home the last thing I want to do is work some more. I would much rather get to PLAY WoW instead of “working” (Farming and such non-sense) again. If I can buy something for 100g and turn around and sell it for 200, that’s 100g PROFIT in 5 minutes, that’s 1 whole night of raid repair bills (Ok, not quite … but you get the picture).

Arbitrage is Buying something from one faction and selling it for a profit to the other faction on the same server. To do that you need to use the Neutral Auction houses (Booty Bay: StrangleThorn Vale; Everlook: WinterSpring; Gadgetzan: Tanaris).  Booty Bay in Stranglethorn Vale is the quickest, hands down.  Especially since we’ve already covered how to get a level 1 Alliance toon down there with no sweat.

The most important thing to know about Neutral Auction House: They will take a 20% cut on your sale. So … you’ll want to list the item for 1 silver (or less) and buy it right away.

On Fenris, there are far more Alliance players then Horde, and that is the case with most servers.  One faction will almost always have a much larger auction house than the other. Plus, prices for most items will vary between factions which means lots of opportunities for killer profits (you’ll have to use Auctioneer to get your server’s prices for both sides).

For Instance: Book of Glyph Mastery sells for 50-100g on Horde but on the Alliance side they list for 150-200g each.  When I see things like this here’s what I do:

• Buy the Item with your Horde Bank toon and send it to your Horde Mule, sitting at the auction house in BB.
• Have the Mule List the item for 1 silver.
• Buy out that auction with your Alliance Mule in BB. Once the Alliance character has picked up the item out of the mailbox he can then …
• Send it to your Alliance Banker (sitting in Exodar of course) post that sucker for sale at the AH and voila … instant profit!

The way we set up Auctioneer you can find out what items are profitable for Arbitrage with one click of a button.  That’s the true power of Gavin’s system.  You can also turn right around and repeat the process with the Alliance toon selling things on the Horde side.  In a matter of a few weeks you can have an enormous bankroll on both factions.

Now that you know - get out there and DOMINATE both sides of your server.

P.S. if you haven’t purchased the AH Mastery Guide for whatever reason, this is just one of many neat little tricks that it explains in far greater detail. Learn to EARN your money the smart way.  Farming is for Farmers … I’d rather  be a PLAYER not a Farmer.

The Domination Podcast Episode 15

This week it’s the Midsummer Festival edition of the Domination podcast.  The guys cover everything you need to know about completing the meta achievement for the flame keeper title.  As always, we had a little trouble getting them calmed down, but it’s great information and maybe a little fun.  Download the full transcript below and see if you can unravel Bonehammer’s rant.

Episode 15 The Domination Podcast

When it comes to leveling fast there is no doubt that Gavin Garrett is the undisputed king of the solo speed run.  And even though his methods are no secret, they can be hard to duplicate if you don’t know exactly where to go and what to do, and what NOT to do.

The methods are no secret since anyone can duplicate them, and thousands have done just that using the Horde Leveling Guide.  Gavin’s in-game mod guides you every step of the way from 1 all the way to 80 using exactly the same formula I’ve developed to break world records.  We’ve also given out dozens of my very best leveling tips here at Dominate Your Server over the last three years.

The real key to leveling fast: waste less time and you’ll hit 80 faster than you can imagine.

Before you all start yelling we need to cover a couple of things.  There is NO substitute for the Refer a Friend program if you need a level 80 right now, today.  RaF and a decent level 80 toon can have your alt to 60 in just a few hours, but since not every single person (and that’s 12 million+ folks) can, or will, do an RaF uber powerleveling run, that means there are millions of you stuck doing it the old fashioned way, and that’s where this tip comes in.

The comment above may not sound earth shattering in any way.  But it really is the key to my world record for solo leveling.  Think about it; if you spend an extra 5 minutes running the wrong direction just once during each level, you’ll add an extra 6 hours to your time from 1-80.  Just a few extra seconds at the vendor a couple of times each level and there’s another 4 or 5 hours.  Every single second you waste messing around can end up adding up to an entire day to your time.

I don’t know about you, but cutting out 10-20 hours of the time it takes to get to 80 is time I can spend doing other thing that are a lot more fun.  So here is one thing I always do to make sure I never waste a single minute on travel time, getting my mounts, or finding certain quest items on every single run I ever do.  It’s also the very best way for a pure melee toon to ensure you don’t ever have to make a time killing corpse run.

Two Ways To Cut More Than 10 Hours Off Your Leveling Time From 1-80

• Herbalism

Herbalism does several things for you while you level.  First, it makes it incredibly easy to find certain quest items on your mini map.  It seems that there are dozens of quests where someone is asking you to get 10 Tiger Lilies or something of the sort.  Herbalism makes these quest items far easier to grab.  Time saved: 1 hour.

Herbalism is also a nifty way to make some extra cash while you level.  I only pick the herbs that are close to my mob kills, but they can add up really fast.  Just mail them to a banker and sell them at the AH and your mount costs should easily be in the bank before you ever need them.  Running around when you could be on an epic mount is a killer.  Time Saved: push.

But the best part of using herbalism to level is the herbalism only skill Lifeblood.  Lifeblood gives any class or race a heal that can keep you alive when things go wonky.  As a general rule, Lifeblood will heal you for about 25% of your health bar, and that’s probably as good as whatever bandages you could be using, but requires no mats.  Lifeblood and a bandage and you can reduce the time you spend eating to regain health by a ton.  Do your pulls right and you can cut out the number of times you stop to eat.  Time Saved: 4 hours.

• Inscription

Inscription is a beast.  It takes a load of mats and is very tough to get a decent return at level 80 using it as a gold making profession. (Remember, I never spend gold on a profession, or anything else for that matter, where I don’t get a decent dividend on the investment, and I wrote the Guide to making gold with Inscription).  But the return for Inscription when leveling can mean the difference between a world record and a very pedestrian time.

The key here is in the Scroll of Recall.  Ever since Blizz lowered the time on the hearthstone cooldown to 30 minutes, my leveling times have been better.  But when you use your regular hearthstone AND the scrolls of recall, you can get back to your primary quest hub 6 times every hour!

Since my leveling method is to take maximum advantage of multiple quest turn-ins, it means Inscription is a serious time saver.  Since I am always using Herbalism anyway, I also have the mats for the scrolls, so the synergy is there.  I can just go pick up a round of quests, head out and complete them all and then hearth or recall right back to the quest hub no matter how far the quests took me.  By not having to run back to the quest hub you can save gargantuan amounts of time on your way to 80.  Time saved: 6+ hours.

So What Are You Waiting For?

For a warrior, rogue or mage with no self healing capacity, the herbalism is a huge benefit in the form of Lifeblood.  And every class can see their very best leveling times drop by a huge amount using the scrolls of recall any time they are up and you’ve got quests to turn in.

I don’t normally keep Inscription beyond level 80, but it is undoubtedly the single greatest tool you can have when it comes to leveling faster than you ever have before.  So the next time you decide to run a toon, make sure you have the tools the masters use to really Dominate!

How To Get A Level 1 Alliance Toon To Booty Bay In 15 Minutes Or Less

So there I was 53 minutes and 17 corpse runs into my attempts to get an Alliance character to Booty Bay, just about to give up the whole idea when a guildie heard my plea on Vent and mentioned this tiny tidbit … It was so good that I can’t help but share it with you folks.  Ok, I exaggerate a bit.  But if you’ve ever tried to get all the way to Booty Bay before level 20 you know it can be a bear - or at least a monkey.

There is a really good reason why I wanted a low level toon in Booty Bay, but you’re going to have to wait for that part.  But this tip is so good it couldn’t wait at all and I didn’t want it getting buried in the reason I was trying to get to Stranglethorn in the first place.

You can use this technique to get just about anywhere between Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms at even level 1 with absolutely no worries whatsoever, and you’ll be moving faster to boot - so here is the killer low level travel tip from the folks in the Dominate guild.

(This is certified to be working as of Patch 3.1.3)

As a side note - it’s not that we forgot about the horde (they can use this too)it’s just that when it comes to getting to Booty Bay, the Horde have it easy: Orgrimmar to Ratchet and on to Booty Bay.  But for the Alliance … Good Grief! … until now. . .

So here’s how this goes:

• Create a Human (shortest distance to run from start zone)

• Die (Yes …  get killed, anywhere will do)

• In spirit form (50% speed increase)  Walk/Run south, out of Elwynn Forest, across Duskwood (you can even run on the river between Westfall and Duskwood if you want) and down to Stranglethorn Vale.

• Stand next to the Spirit Healer outside of Booty Bay (if you follow the road you can’t miss her)

• Log out and exit the game while still dead

• Log back in and accept the rez (No sickness because you’re level 1  ) It seems that exiting the game resets the location of your body to the closest Spirit Healer

Now you can get your new level 1 character almost anywhere in Azeroth in record time. This is just as valid for the Horde as it is for Alliance. You can get your level 1 Tauren to Orgrimmar if you like, or your Night Elf to Ironforge faster then you ever could before. No more begging for a portal, or trying to buy an escort.

Here is why this particular trick comes in handy in one word: Arbitrage

Now that you know, Get out there and DOMINATE.

Over the next 12 days you have a unique opportunity. If you’ve been thinking about starting a new toon or cruising one of your current alts up to level 80 don’t waste another minute!

The midsummer festival is in full swing right now all over the WoW landscape. While there are events associated with the festival that we covered yesterday (such as some serious gold to be made) today we wanted to let you in on how the festival can really buff your leveling runs.

In each zone there are bonfires burning. The bonfires are lit every midsummer to symbolize the hottest part of the year with flames. This all seems a little silly to me, but hey, people do silly stuff all the time when they are making up excuses to have a party! Wouldn’t ice cream be better for this time of year? Oh well, I guess fires when it’s already hot outside is fine.

When you visit a bonfire controlled by your faction (Alliance or Horde) there are several things you can do that will give you rewards or buffs. You can also earn some nice change by visiting bonfires controlled by the other faction and snuffing them out! Here’s how this festival is a once a year opportunity to level those alts.

When you complete midsummer festival quests you will receive an item called Burning Blossoms. These blossoms can be used at the bonfires to light them or you can collect a lot of them and turn them in for some fairly decent rewards. The quests are easy and mostly involve running to talk to various NPC’s so it’s pretty easy to collect the blossoms.

As you are out questing be sure to keep a few blossoms in your bag and be aware of the locations for all the bonfires in the zone as well as nearby zones. Whenever someone lights the bonfire (of your faction) for the zone you are in you will get a buff that adds a 30% chance to add fire damage to each attack you make. The amount of fire damage is pretty big and scales with the level of your character. At lower levels it normally results in a one-shot kill when it procs. At level 70 this buff adds a chance to do 700 fire dmg. But the fire damage buff is only the beginning!

You’ll want to stock up on burning blossoms for this next buff. If you use a burning blossom near a bonfire that is already lit you will also gain +3% to your critical hit rating. This buff also adds fire damage to each attack! You can actually gain this buff as well as the bonfire buff every time you light the fire yourself using a Burning Blossom. With both of the fire damage buffs and increased crit chance you will be blowing mobs up like an elite.

At each bonfire there is also a pole. Dancing around the pole gives you an experience per kill reward of +10%! To dance all you have to do is toggle the gear cursor when standing near the pole. Your toon will go into a frenzied spinning dance and you can watch the experience buff increase as you spin.

Be sure to dance for about 60 seconds every time you visit the pole. This buff has a sort of “slow fill” on the countdown timer. The longer you dance, the longer the buff lasts - up to 60 minutes.

You can see how stacking these three buffs can really speed up your leveling times. Don’t waste this chance to scoot through about 50 levels over the next 11 days. You won’t get an opportunity like this for another year. Get out there now and Dominate with those alts!