Roxanne Flowers

The only difference is caster (don't want) versus non-caster (do want) Pets. The only problem with taming Elites is that they hit harder while you're trying to Tame them, meaning they're more likely to kill you before you finish channeling (and if it fails, you're already hurting). After they're Tamed, they're no longer Elite.

From where I sit at my keyboard, it seems that Balance Druids in general (and Moonkins in particular) are "lacking" in some of the synergies available to other damage dealing spellcasters. The big ones are reduced mana regeneration while casting relative to the alternatives (Mage in particular), which seriously affects the longevity of their continuous spellcasting in endurance terms. In a lot of ways, Balance Druids are kinda sorta "gimped Arcane Mages" who blend schools with Nature (typically resisted less as cited above) instead of Fire (extra DoT) or Frost (slow/root). The Balance talents also defy easy analysis since Nature's Grace is not something that is happening consistently (critical hit dependency) and makes the spreadsheet analysis go all wonky. Because of this, the ... variance ... in performance for a Balance Druid is much wider, in the granular short term sense, than that of a Mage or Warlock (or even a Priest). Nature's Grace raises your DPS, by shortening casting times, while also increasing your mana burn rate (your MPS), because you're casting spells faster than you otherwise would have. All of which makes me wonder, much like Keftenk, if there is some potential combination of factors that would make Balance Druids "efficient enough" to at least be ON PAR with the alternatives, understanding going in that being On Par wasn't the Design Intent™ since Druids are a "hybrid" class that can do more than one thing (even though raiding parties optimize for each character doing ONLY one thing to the maximum extent possible). As oddball as it sounds, I keep wondering if we've been "doing Balance wrong" all these years by trying to spec our Balance Druids for maximum Intelligence (and thus crit chance and mana pool) rather than angling for maximum Spirit and gearing up with items that increase mana regeneration while spellcasting. Unfortunately, the only place I was able to find increased mana regeneration while casting for Druids was the Stormrage Set (3 piece bonus), so that's probably a No Go option there. Still, it would be interesting to see a Balance Druid specced for Spirit rather than Intelligence. Unfortunately, that would almost certainly fall into the Try Hard™ category, rather than into a Viable Strategy one. In short, the deck is somewhat stacked against Balance Druids (and Moonkins) in ways that make it more difficult than necessary to play to their strengths due to a lack of synergies both internal and external, which includes gear itermization.

What, set Lupos on Aggressive and have him clear the entire zone for you? I'm joking, of course, but that is the direction of the mentality being advocated for here. It's a grind to level up a Pet, plain and simple. You have to feed them food while their loyalty increases, and that's a Time Logged In consideration, since the Happiness needs to accrue over time for it to take effect. I got in the habit of staying logged in on my Hunter while parked at Inns and Cities simply in order to Let Time Pass while my Pet was Happy in order to accrue the necessary Loyalty level ups. After that, it's just a matter of "feeding" them enough XP to get their actual Level to go up, and that's going to be a grind no matter what you do ... even if you're leveling up yourself right alongside your Pet. There are no "easy" AFK solutions to doing all of that without Player Input. Sure, you can AFK while letting Happiness accrue to raise Loyalty, but that isn't earning your Pet any XP. The Blizz-like answer to all of this is that it's supposed to take WORK to do, rather than being something quick/cheap/easy. Doesn't stop Players (those crafty little buggers) from doing all they can to find the Path Of Least Resistance so as to maximize Returns On Effort (by reducing the amount of Effort needed to near zero).

Sounds like doing WORK in order to be LAZY. What's that thing people keep accusing Hunters of being, again?

When you cue melee attack at a target (even if you're not in range), your pet will engage/attack that same target if the pet is on Defend instead of Passive status. Same for using a Wand or a Spell to attack the target.

A solo Paladin just can't output enough damage to take down those Elites in there while surviving the damage the Elites can output without being +10 to +15 Levels above the mobs (if not more). Most spawn groups come in pairs in there, with the occasional triple, and the Elites have so much Health that it takes a while to burn them down, all while they're clawing at your face. Sustainability and endurance becomes a serious enough issue that hoping to solo SFK at your Level is pretty much a pipe dream. I tried to solo it at Level 26 and learned my lesson after the first pull right by the door. TL;DR ... bring friends/hired muscle to help. You don't have to go all that far into SFK to get the Hammer item you're after. Think barely past the first boss in Deadmines if it helps for comparison, but you need to be able to defeat that first boss in SFK to unlock the door that gives you access to the stables where the Hammer item is. Once the door is unlocked, it's down the stairs and straight ahead along the left wall to the stables where the Hammer is found. Trouble is, at your Level, the aggro radius of the mobs is going to be ... large ... so you'll not be able to sneak along the side wall without drawing aggro too terribly effectively, and there are patrols in that courtyard between you and the stables where the Hammer is found. TL;DR ... don't go to SFK alone. Get help.

The only other AoE that Paladins can get, besides Consecrate Ground, are Bombs from Engineering. Naturally, Bombs don't do Holy damage. ^_~ But yes, you have to go at least 11 talent points into Holy to get the only AoE spell available to Paladins.

2017/10 To be confirmed Zul'Gurub & Patch 1.7 https://elysium-project.org/timeline Your Search Fu needs SERIOUS help.

Wow, when even self-deprecating humor goes over people's heads, you KNOW there's Brain Damage involved!

And here I was hoping you were going to say, "I play a Rogue in vanilla, so the source of the Brain Damage ought to be obvious..."

I'm wondering where the Brain Damage comes from ...

Bonus levels to Stealth from sources like Master of Deception (for Rogues) and Feral Instinct (for Druids) give every appearance of not applying properly. Improved Ambush however does seem to be working properly, in that my Ambush attacks typically crit around ~50% of the time (or so) as expected. YMMV of course.

Near as my 27 Rogue can tell it's working "fine" in that Ambush will crit about half the time I use it, as expected/intended with 3/3 Improved Ambush.

The grass herbs are always greener on the other side. If you're going to pick gathering professions, pick ones that will be useful at serving your needs ... even if that usefulness is limited to vendoring everything you get.

I was able to get online and do some extremely brief (versus Rabbit and Chicken) testing of Starshards after the patch. Before today, with all the meager +Arcane damage gear I could muster, my Starshards would hit for 50 damage every tick. Testing just a few minutes ago on Darrowshire, the first damage tick would hit for 33 damage against Level 1 Critters. As far as I'm concerned, that pretty much conclusively proves that Starshards has had its damage output per tick adjusted in the manner described above. Next thing to worry about with this spell ... is +Arcane damage from gear being applied "correctly" or did the spell coefficient get messed up in some form or fashion?

Butthurt script kiddies are attacking the servers.

The spell is supposed to have 6 damage ticks that ramp up in damage. 2 Ticks of 2/3rds of 1/6th of total damage 2 Ticks of 3/3rds of 1/6th of total damage 2 Ticks of 4/3rds of 1/6th of total damage It's probably easiest (conceptually) to break the total damage dealt down into chunks of 1/18th of the total spell damage and then apportion them out like so: 2/18ths ... 2/18ths ... 3/18ths ... 3/18ths ... 4/18ths ... 4/18ths = (2+2+3+3+4+4) = 18/18ths = 100% of spell damage So, for the sake of easy illustration of math, if the spell did 900 damage over 6 seconds (total) the individual damage ticks would progress like this: 100 ... 100 ... 150 ... 150 ... 200 ... 200 = 900 total damage over 6 seconds in 6 damage ticks As I'd noted in my Elune's Spirit Guide thread on what is currently the last post, prior to today's patch that was NOT the case. I could channel 288 damage for 6 seconds and do exactly 48 damage per tick on all 6 ticks of damage without any variation, meaning there was no ramp up in damage output towards the end of channeling the spell. As for spell power coefficients, 100% of Spell Damage is supposed to be applied to the TOTAL Damage dealt by the spell, which then gets "chopped up" into the individual damage ticks that actually hit the target, or (roughly) 1/6th of Spell Damage gets applied to each damage tick (kinda sorta). Just take the Total Damage, divide by 18 and then follow a rule of 2/2/3/3/4/4=18 to calculate the actual damage per tick. I believe that is what the patch note is talking about. Now, if Darrowshire could manage to stay online, I might even be able to verify that.

No idea, I haven't done it myself on Darrowshire yet. I just know that the strategy "works" although I'm sure that someone else will come along and tell you that there's a far more lucrative one somewhere else. Pickpocketing Andorhal and Western Plaguelands generally is something that isn't reliant upon resetting instances, and depending on server population is something that doesn't even require fighting anything to do successfully. In fact, letting other people clear the mobs while you clean out their pockets can be a rather successful cash flow strategy. Best of all, if your Rogue is 60, you should have no trouble getting close enough to mobs in Andorhal to pick their pockets in a way that is relatively risk free.

Race choice isn't a determining factor. Player skill and availability to play are far more important factors. Play whatever race you prefer.

Rogue goes someplace with plenty of Undead (Western/Eastern Plaguelands is fine). Pickpocket everything you can. Go back to Ravenholdt Manor and sell off the junk you get. Turn in the repeatable quest items for the stuff you can sell for gold down in the basement at Ravenholdt. Gain faction with Ravenholdt. Just wear your Argent Dawn Emblem while doing this in case you have to fight something (damn Resist on Pickpocket attempts). Wash, rinse, repeat. Andorhal is obviously one of the closer places to pull off this trick, and obviously if you're doing this in a place that other PCs are "clearing" all the time that's even better, since respawns will have refilled pockets for you to pick all over again. It's all low risk, decent reward stuff. I did the "Andorhal Full Loot" rounds lots of times back in the day in order to finance mounts for multiple other characters.

Very likely not. Has to be opened in order to get action.

Been wondering that myself. It used to be (back in vanilla) that using the Ornate Spyglass would cause "distant" nodes/mobs within the field of view to appear (since you could "see" far enough) and thus show up on the minimap. Needless to say, this was extremely useful when scouting for the presence of resource nodes over a very wide area.

Judging from your response, you seem to be ... pleased ... and that's really all that matters. As for picking up Opportunity ... rather than Lethality, it's really a judgement call. Lethality is really only affecting crit bonus damage on: Sinister Strike (not using, because Hemorrhage is better and cheaper) Gouge (don't use with Garrote, Rupture or other bleed damage attacks or DoTs) Backstab (not using, because you "front stab" with Hemorrhage instead) Ghostly Strike (not purchased in that build) Hemorrhage (using a LOT, multiple times per Finisher on average) Opportunity is really only increasing the damage on: Backstab (not using, because you "front stab" with Hemorrhage instead) Garrote (used occasionally on high armor targets) Ambush (used a LOT in an Ambush build, but have to be in Stealth to use it at all) It's a bit of a toss up as to which will be better for you in the really long run, but there is of course something to be said for One Hit Kills using Ambush, or at least hitting so hard that a quick 5 CP Eviscerate chaser makes for a nasty Three Hit Kill when doing a Premeditation/Ambush/Hemo/Eviscerate/thankyouforplaying combo. And that's not even including being able to Vanish 2-4 times per 10 minutes thanks to Preparation. It really is one of those cases where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. There's just SO MUCH happening in that build to conserve Energy and generate Combo Points (for "free" even!) that it'll have you almost constantly building up and burning down your combos and finishers that it'll feel like you can take on almost anything and win. It does what a lot of other builds won't ... it builds on a cornerstone of OPTIONS rather than riding a One Trick Pony. And yes, the whole idea of using Sharpening/Weight stones instead of Poisons really runs counter to the conventional wisdom for Rogues, especially with the whole "slow main hand/fast off hand" conventional wisdom that a lot of people hold to because they like to see BIG NUMBERS when attacking from Stealth to open combat ... but the simple fact of the matter is that you'll get more benefit out of Sharpening/Weight stones on fast weapons hitting more often than you would on slow weapons hitting less often. So you want to think of an Ambush/Hemo spec as being more like a Physical Damage Fighter than something that is optimized for poisons or other magical effects, like everyone else goes for. Oh and ... You're Welcome ... *^_^*

More like it's one that makes use of Daggers rather than being one that HAS to use Daggers. If you want to use Swords or Maces or Fist Weapons instead, you just drop the 3 points from Improved Ambush and invest them anywhere else that strikes your fancy. You could easily put those 3 points into Improved Gouge if you want to go for more of a stunlocking build, or Improved Sap if that's your preference, or even Improved Slice and Dice, or ... lots of different places, really. Remove 5 points from Lethality too, since like you said that's only boosting crits on Hemo attacks, and you've got a pool of 8 points to play around with to spend in lots of different places. http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#fhe0oZZxMe0hhRqo The reason to go with Ambush and Daggers is to have a huge alpha strike that stands a decent chance of One Shot Kill on opening if you crit the hit. If you can do that against foes, that's often good enough, either in PvE or in PvP. I played a build similar to the combat/subtlety one I posted back in vanilla and TBC and was quite happy with it. The combo points generated quickly, I could get "free" CPs from dodging incoming attacks, which with enough Dodge chance meant that a good Defense also made for a good Offense (strangely enough), and because it didn't take "forever" to build up the CPs I was always looking ahead towards what Finisher I wanted to burn 5 CPs on. With Premeditation it was a snap to get to 5 CPs in "no time" after opening. Premeditation (2 CP) + Ambush (1 CP) + Initiative proc (75% chance for 1 CP) + Hemorrhage (1 CP) = 5 CP = Finisher ... either Eviscerate or Rupture usually. Sometimes when Initiative didn't proc, Setup would on a Dodge, and there I'd have 5 CPs for a Finisher. I built my spec with as much Agility as I could muster for higher Dodge chances to get more mileage out of Setup for "free" Combo Points when Dodging incoming attacks, which is why I also went with Lightning Reflexes in the Combat tree for even more Dodge. Once I got to the Plaguelands, I actually went out and bought a pair of Julie's Daggers and put Lifestealing enchants on both of them. Yeah, hardly BiS by any means, but DAMN if those daggers and those enchants didn't make a world of difference in the amount of punishment my Rogue could take! It basically made for FOUR "heal procs" coupled with "damage procs" from the Lifesteal enchants, and because they're Fast Daggers (1.30 speed) they'd be proccing A LOT and extending my Health bar just by attacking. In fact, more than once, it was the smarter play to stand and stick rather than cut and run because the healing from my daggers stood a better chance of keeping me alive to the end of the fight than turning and fleeing would have. And yes, I was doing this on a Hemo spec build going deep into Subtlety. It was SO Off The Wall that it completely jumped the wall and found a stable platform on the other side. Yeah, my individual hits were smaller per hit because my Daggers were fast rather than slow, but once I got a Slice and Dice up, weapon speed went from 1.30 to 1.00 and basically delivered physical damage at DoT speed while proccing heals on me. It was just nuts. Whole thing played more like a "pressure" build than a "spike" build, where all I had to do was maintain contact in order to have ... options ... including a 5 CP Kidney Shot to get a head start on making an escape if things went sideways. The thing that I always liked about the Ambush/Hemo spec build was that rather than defining you down into riding a One Trick Pony, instead the spec opened things up to where you could pick and choose how you wanted to engage in a really wide variety of situations. Because it made building CPs both cheap and fast, it meant that you had a lot more options for how to handle different circumstances and bring your "A game" of max combo finishers to bear in a much more timely fashion.

Here's something that's a bit ironic for you to consider. With a Hemo build, you don't want to be using Poisons on your weapons (I know, heresy, right?) ... you want to be using Sharpening/Weight stones, depending on whether your weapons are edged or blunt. The extra damage from sharpening doesn't rely on a chance to affect, it consistently happens on every single hit. Furthermore, Hemo increases physical damage dealt, and Sharpening/Weight stones increase physical damage dealt. Also, the Sharp/Weight stones don't have charges on them, they just have a duration, so you don't have to keep reapplying them faster than the duration. And if you "know" a Miner/Blacksmith they're dirt cheap to obtain. So long as you're in a situation where you don't need to be using specialty poisons (anything besides the damaging ones), if you're using Hemo you might as well be using Daggers and Sharpening stone(s), and the Sharpening bonus isn't normalized by weapon speed, because it's bonus damage on every hit, meaning you'll get "more" out of sharpening fast Daggers than you will out of sharpening slow ones measured over the same span of time (in which presumably you're making more hits). That means there's a curious edge case with Hemo where you're wanting to create the highest possible amount of physical damage at ALL times, rather than intermittently applying poison damage some of the time (chance to take effect). And by increasing the amount of physical damage you're doing with your Dagger(s), you also bump up the amount of damage throughput you can achieve from Ambush, just by sharpening your main hand Dagger. That then reduces the "need" for Vile and/or Improved Poisons. Furthermore, if you've got a Hemo spec, you're honestly better off using Hemo twice (35+35 Energy) than you are using Backstab once (60 Energy). You can also "stab them in the face" rather than needing to Gouge and maneuver for a back shot all the time. In fact, when including the Energy cost of Gouge into the equation (never mind the talent points!), you need 105 Energy to Gouge+Backstab (45+60) ... while for the same 105 Energy you could have used Hemo THREE TIMES (35+35+35) and likely gotten more damage out of the latter than the former (even with a Backstab crit). There's also the fact that the former nets you only a single Combo Point, while the latter nets you THREE Combo Points(!) without needing any kind of positioning setup or cooldowns, making the Hemo/Hemo/Hemo usage of 105 Energy much less circumstances/situation dependent. Combine those factors together ... Hemo, Ambush, Sharpening versus Poisons ... and suddenly the advantages of going to Tier 5 in Assassination diminish rather dramatically. Indeed, with Deadliness from Subtlety increasing your Attack Power and Serrated Blades increasing your Rupture damage (which as a Bleed effect isn't reduced by Armor) and Hemo increasing that even further, you reach a point where in some situations it's better to Rupture than it is to Eviscerate as your 5 CP Finisher, for that "you're already dead, you just haven't gotten the memo yet" effect. Still, if you're raiding, the debuff cap will change the calculus of all this. For me, the logic of Hemo x3 versus Gouge+Backstab and the consideration of 3 CP vs 1 CP for that 105 Energy spent is pretty much inescapable. You open with Ambush on low armor targets, or open with either Garrote or Cheap Shot on higher armor targets. Hemo your way to 5 CP as fast as you can and then either Rupture or Eviscerate depending on how fast you need to end the fight. Spend your next CP(s) on a Slice and Dice and then simply lay into your target with more Hemo and fast white damage that amounts to a consistent physical DoT instead of relying on poison procs to apply Nature damage. Gives you the flexibility for either Instant Kill (Ambush to Eviscerate) or Overkill (Garrote to Rupture to Slice and Dice). Pick which of these two options exploiting all that you'd prefer. The Assassination one is a CP/Finisher monster that is just insanely efficient on Energy consumption/demand to repeatedly reach 5 CPs for max power Finishers. The Combat build is a more "defensive" type designed to leverage Setup for greater "free" generation of CPs, more hit chance with both hands (so more consistent damage generation), and the Disarm power of Riposte, which can act as a "neutralizer" in a lot of situations. 17/0/34: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#fhe0oxZZxMechhRqo 0/16/35: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#fZ0xEzZxMeshhRqo