When I leveled my Death Knight I trained a new ability called Soul reaper and I put it on my bar but I didn't give it much toughts. That was until I learned that it was an essential part of the DK rotation while browsing the Icy Veins website
Anyway, Soul reaper does major damage and should be part of your rotation against bosses but you have to apply it to the target when they are under 35% health. So it's kind of the DK version of Execute. That ability was previously used by the Lich king, that's cool, we can always use more tricks from the best.
The default UI of World Warcraft doesn't help since there is is no procs flashing in the screen that tells us to use it. So I browsed around the web and found out a addon called Weak Aura that will alert you when the health of the targets is below 35%.
I just made a quick guideline on how to configure it for Soul Reaper so you will be up and running in less then a minute. I downloaded this addon using Curse client, wich make installing way easier. After this, log into World of warcraft with your DK to get started:
- Type /wa.
- Make sure New is selected so you can create a new custom proc.
- Choose a new Texture and name it in a meaningful way, like Soul Reaper.
- On the Display tab, press Choose to select an alert, I use the first PowerAura Heads-Up called Runed text but it's up to you.
- Select the Trigger tab to customize Trigger 1.
- Select status for Type, it will be health.
- Select target for Unit
- Check Health (%), with Health (%) < 35.
- On the Load tab, just check In Combat and Player class, that would be Death Knight.
So what are you waiting for? Go reap some souls!
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Monday, October 22, 2012
How to get into raid finder
So you've probably ventured into the Raid finder, if not just log into world of warcraft, press Ctrl-I and come read this post after. A full month after the release of Mogushan Vault, the sixth november, two new raids will be released for LFR, Heart of fear and the Terrace of Endless Springs. Except the item level requirement is a little tighter this time: 470. So you might be thinking something like how I am gonna pull that off if I dont raid on normal mode and that the gear that drops from heroics is only ilvl 463?
First, let's just summarize how ilvl is calculated. It's simply the mean of all the item you have equiped, so if you have a 2-hander it's the sum of all your slots divided by 15. Except it's the highest ilvl item you have or had equiped in each particular slot. That allows you to cheese the ilvl requirement, like if I got the Coren's Cold Chromium Coaster (ilvl 470) in my first trinket slot and a heroic piece in my second trinket slot (ilvl 463). If I just switch the two trinkets (rings or 1-hander), then the ilvl of both slots will be 470.
The raid finder ilvl requirement for Mogushan Palace is 460 and is kinda easy to get. If you haven't yet, now would be a good time to replace your Dragon soul gear from last expansion with leveling gear, particularly the one from the last zone, Dread Waste. Next, you will have to do a gearing list. I have one but it's boring so instead I will refer you to WoW insider warrior column who did an excellent article of where to obtain heroic pieces into each slot for dps and tank. Even if I don't have a level capped warrior, it helped me make my list for my death knight (for non plate class, you'll probably find a gear list in another colums of WoW insider). Before you hope in heroics, do yourself a favor and grab a decent weapon from the Arena of annhilation scenario. So if you just chain runs heroics until your eyes bleed you'll replace every single piece of your equipment with heroic pieces and you'll have the required ilvl requirement. But I'm way too lazy to do this and instead I just tried to fill the slots with some easy to get epic pieces. So I'll tell you where to look for them and it can help you get the required ilvl for the two upcoming raids. While I've linked pieces that has strength, you will always be offered or have the choice to pick a piece appropriate for your class.
One easy piece to get is the ring from the Headless Horseman, just queue for him until you get it. And if you do him once a day, you have the chance to get the Headless Horseman helm or his agility sword. That weapon could also be of use for dual wielding death knight because it has higher damage per second then a heroic 1-handed weapon.
Since you want to raid, you should sharpen your teeth with some entry level bosses that doesn't require gear. In the previous expansion, your faction had to control Tol Barad before you could join a group to go in Baradin hold. In Pandaria, you can beat world bosses just by joinning a pug (or with your guild if you can muster fourty or so people). The first world boss is the Sha of anger, this loot pinata drops tier 14 and pvp pieces. But don't forget to loot him because he will also give a quest wich rewards a nice pair of epic boots. The other world boss is called Salyis's Warband, I haven't tried yet but drops higher level piece so he might be a little bit tougher.
After this, make a stop at the quartermaster in the Niuzao temple. You can spend all your justice points as a stop gap measure for a slot you didn't had any luck filling. Then you can spend your valor points, the only problem is that you'll need to acquire some reputation with the different faction. The easiest to get is the neck piece since if you do all the quest in dread waste you will already be honored with the Klaxxi.
You will also need to grind the Golden Lotus faction, not only because of faction reward, but also because they unlock two other faction that have epic rewards, August Celestial and Shadopan.
Keep working for the Klaxxi faction, because at revered they have some nice reward and a quest chain that rewards an epic ring. Plus if you have a blacksmith, you will be able to get some epic crafting recipe for the chest and gloves. If not you could buy those on the AH or ask a guildies to craft it, but those are expensive so it would probably require some money. Try to make use of your profession, like engineering, if you can.
But more importantly, you need to run raid finder every week, eventually you'll get some drops. Get some Elder charms of good fortune and spend them, that's how I got lucky. And you got to start collecting those sigils, a chance to get legendaries!
First, let's just summarize how ilvl is calculated. It's simply the mean of all the item you have equiped, so if you have a 2-hander it's the sum of all your slots divided by 15. Except it's the highest ilvl item you have or had equiped in each particular slot. That allows you to cheese the ilvl requirement, like if I got the Coren's Cold Chromium Coaster (ilvl 470) in my first trinket slot and a heroic piece in my second trinket slot (ilvl 463). If I just switch the two trinkets (rings or 1-hander), then the ilvl of both slots will be 470.
The raid finder ilvl requirement for Mogushan Palace is 460 and is kinda easy to get. If you haven't yet, now would be a good time to replace your Dragon soul gear from last expansion with leveling gear, particularly the one from the last zone, Dread Waste. Next, you will have to do a gearing list. I have one but it's boring so instead I will refer you to WoW insider warrior column who did an excellent article of where to obtain heroic pieces into each slot for dps and tank. Even if I don't have a level capped warrior, it helped me make my list for my death knight (for non plate class, you'll probably find a gear list in another colums of WoW insider). Before you hope in heroics, do yourself a favor and grab a decent weapon from the Arena of annhilation scenario. So if you just chain runs heroics until your eyes bleed you'll replace every single piece of your equipment with heroic pieces and you'll have the required ilvl requirement. But I'm way too lazy to do this and instead I just tried to fill the slots with some easy to get epic pieces. So I'll tell you where to look for them and it can help you get the required ilvl for the two upcoming raids. While I've linked pieces that has strength, you will always be offered or have the choice to pick a piece appropriate for your class.
One easy piece to get is the ring from the Headless Horseman, just queue for him until you get it. And if you do him once a day, you have the chance to get the Headless Horseman helm or his agility sword. That weapon could also be of use for dual wielding death knight because it has higher damage per second then a heroic 1-handed weapon.
Since you want to raid, you should sharpen your teeth with some entry level bosses that doesn't require gear. In the previous expansion, your faction had to control Tol Barad before you could join a group to go in Baradin hold. In Pandaria, you can beat world bosses just by joinning a pug (or with your guild if you can muster fourty or so people). The first world boss is the Sha of anger, this loot pinata drops tier 14 and pvp pieces. But don't forget to loot him because he will also give a quest wich rewards a nice pair of epic boots. The other world boss is called Salyis's Warband, I haven't tried yet but drops higher level piece so he might be a little bit tougher.
After this, make a stop at the quartermaster in the Niuzao temple. You can spend all your justice points as a stop gap measure for a slot you didn't had any luck filling. Then you can spend your valor points, the only problem is that you'll need to acquire some reputation with the different faction. The easiest to get is the neck piece since if you do all the quest in dread waste you will already be honored with the Klaxxi.
You will also need to grind the Golden Lotus faction, not only because of faction reward, but also because they unlock two other faction that have epic rewards, August Celestial and Shadopan.
Keep working for the Klaxxi faction, because at revered they have some nice reward and a quest chain that rewards an epic ring. Plus if you have a blacksmith, you will be able to get some epic crafting recipe for the chest and gloves. If not you could buy those on the AH or ask a guildies to craft it, but those are expensive so it would probably require some money. Try to make use of your profession, like engineering, if you can.
But more importantly, you need to run raid finder every week, eventually you'll get some drops. Get some Elder charms of good fortune and spend them, that's how I got lucky. And you got to start collecting those sigils, a chance to get legendaries!
Friday, October 19, 2012
Darkmoon faire rabbit
Last saturday, one guildie told us in chat that he had spotted the killer rabbit world boss in the Darkmoon faire. The rabbit is an obvious reference to the movie Monthy Python and the
quest for the holy grail where king Arthur managed to kill the infamous rabbit with a holy grenade after losing
several knights.
My death knight headed at the entrance of the cave with a couple of guildies. It was exciting because the guild didn't want other people from the server to steal our kills. So no spamming general or trade chat to get more people. Hopefully it was saturday night and darkmoon faire was pretty quiet. We were only a dozen, so we whispered peoples from another friendly guild to get some help. Thanks to one of our warlock guildie, everybody was soon at the entrance and ready to give it a shot.
The general strategy was to zerg the rabbit and run back to the cave if we died. I had offered to tank and I managed to survived the whole encounter. The rabbit is immune to taunt and randomly jump on people to eat their face while the person is screaming in chat and running around. It's a pretty hectic fight and after a couple of minutes I started laughing, realising how that fight was just silly.
We actually did it with 25 or so people but it took about 10 minutes. The loot was a mini killer rabbit pet. I'm not a huge pet collector so I didn't mind losing the roll to the guildie who actually spotted the rabbit at the beginning. I know one of the first kill of that world boss on our server was done by 40 level 85 (just before the expansion) so I was impressed that my guild actually managed to down him since were not actually a raiding guild (but level 90 and gears helps I guess).
My death knight headed at the entrance of the cave with a couple of guildies. It was exciting because the guild didn't want other people from the server to steal our kills. So no spamming general or trade chat to get more people. Hopefully it was saturday night and darkmoon faire was pretty quiet. We were only a dozen, so we whispered peoples from another friendly guild to get some help. Thanks to one of our warlock guildie, everybody was soon at the entrance and ready to give it a shot.
The general strategy was to zerg the rabbit and run back to the cave if we died. I had offered to tank and I managed to survived the whole encounter. The rabbit is immune to taunt and randomly jump on people to eat their face while the person is screaming in chat and running around. It's a pretty hectic fight and after a couple of minutes I started laughing, realising how that fight was just silly.
We actually did it with 25 or so people but it took about 10 minutes. The loot was a mini killer rabbit pet. I'm not a huge pet collector so I didn't mind losing the roll to the guildie who actually spotted the rabbit at the beginning. I know one of the first kill of that world boss on our server was done by 40 level 85 (just before the expansion) so I was impressed that my guild actually managed to down him since were not actually a raiding guild (but level 90 and gears helps I guess).
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Serious skills to pay the bills
Fabad managed to get the achievement Serious skills to pay the bills by finishing archeology.
Archeology is a lot easier to level this time and when maxed you can exchange research crate that you craft for artifacts of other races like the Tolvir. I got Vial of the sands wich is a pretty lucky drop. I still have to gather the mats, something I will do later on. But I'm done with archeology and fishing for a while.
Leveling fishing and cooking isn't so bad if you are doing the dailies, there is some with the Tillers and the Anglers, plus those in Stormwind. And now Fabad farm has grown now and he can gather different mats instead of vegetables, like motes of harmony, herbs, enchanting stuff and such.
What now? My Death knight was getting tired of petty skirmishes between the Alliance and the Horde. Fortunately he met a new employer: Wrathion, the Black Prince, son of Deathwing. What could have convinced him to obey such a shady individual? Legendaries, of course! So he is back into grinding LFR and dailies, Golden Lotus and the Klaxxis.
Protip: Use your newly leveled professions to craft some high level stuff that will appeal to raiders. Everybody is trying to gear up, so the beginning of an expansion is a good time to make a profit. For example: meta gems, shoulder inscriptions, weapon enchants and belt buckle. Another thing is darkmoon cards that are used to make epic trinkets but you gotta hurry because the faire is almost over.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
On profession
Remember when I told you that my death knight wanted to have a farm? Well, he now has one. But there is still much to do for him as he expand his farm by doing dailies with the Tillers. He also paid a visit to Nat Pagle in Karasang Wild who now has his own faction. Grinding those two factions is a fun way to level cooking and fishing and the pandarian Way of cooking yield plenty of buff foods.
I find that professions are easier and more fun to level in this expansion. Like for alchemy, there is only a couple of recipe that are trainable, the others are discovered while crafting potions and such. My specialisation is transmute and I've made some money by selling my cooldown and procs of Living steel and Primal diamond.
My inscriptionnist alt didnt had to leave Stormwind to level his profession and that's a good thing because he was also acting as my banker. Like I told you I didn't leave pandaria until I was level capped but I needed someone in Stormwind to sell extra stuff because I didn't found auction house on pandaria (except the black market AH).
Gathering profession like herbalism and mining were super easy to level since there is plenty of nodes everywhere and they respawn fast. A good item for gatherers is the Mist-piercing googles that can be crafted by engineers. Also other item like Thermal anvil is a nice utility. The good old Gnomish army knife, skinning knife or mining pick are now optionnal but gives a nice +10 boost to gathering.
I've also leveled first aid fairly easily since there is got plenty of cloth while questing. Next professions that I will level will be blacksmithing and enchanting. And after this maybe I'll give archeology a shot. From what I understand, it will be possible to trade relics from pandaria for relics of other races. The Lorewalkers faction will also give you two items that will speed up your digging. One of there newest member, Brann Bronzebeard, will exchange relics of Pandaria for relics from the other races. So archeology might be a little more fun this time around.
Still not convinced? If your guild level all the profession to 600, you got heirloom pants as perk!
I find that professions are easier and more fun to level in this expansion. Like for alchemy, there is only a couple of recipe that are trainable, the others are discovered while crafting potions and such. My specialisation is transmute and I've made some money by selling my cooldown and procs of Living steel and Primal diamond.
My inscriptionnist alt didnt had to leave Stormwind to level his profession and that's a good thing because he was also acting as my banker. Like I told you I didn't leave pandaria until I was level capped but I needed someone in Stormwind to sell extra stuff because I didn't found auction house on pandaria (except the black market AH).
Gathering profession like herbalism and mining were super easy to level since there is plenty of nodes everywhere and they respawn fast. A good item for gatherers is the Mist-piercing googles that can be crafted by engineers. Also other item like Thermal anvil is a nice utility. The good old Gnomish army knife, skinning knife or mining pick are now optionnal but gives a nice +10 boost to gathering.
I've also leveled first aid fairly easily since there is got plenty of cloth while questing. Next professions that I will level will be blacksmithing and enchanting. And after this maybe I'll give archeology a shot. From what I understand, it will be possible to trade relics from pandaria for relics of other races. The Lorewalkers faction will also give you two items that will speed up your digging. One of there newest member, Brann Bronzebeard, will exchange relics of Pandaria for relics from the other races. So archeology might be a little more fun this time around.
Still not convinced? If your guild level all the profession to 600, you got heirloom pants as perk!
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