SV Respec Kit for Dummies, Part 3 of 3

In our previous posts, we learned how to respec and build a spell rotation. But, the hardest part of SV isn't trap dancing or getting to range or managing your pet.

The absolute worst part about it is that none of your CDs match up. None of your procs match up. Everything, and I mean everything, is asynchronous. So, you're constantly facing shifting spell priorities -- not so much on a tank-and-spank -- but in any "real" fight, because certain phases and movements and buffs and debuffs will always be throwing off your spell rotation. The spell rotations worked out in previous discussion are fragile things, and it's an easy thing to get flustered when all of a sudden your carefully practiced rotations are boogered up by Web Spray or a polarity shift.

Three simple add-ons can give you a minimal proc-and-CD tracking setup that will let you do the very-respectable DPS that SV can bring, even as a beginner. If you are a master of DoT timers and other add-ons, by all means, go ahead and figure out a simple setup. 

GOAL 1: To know when Lock and Load procs and how long you have to get your extra Explosive Shots out (ie... can you drop a full GCD between each one, or do you have to count two seconds and fire?)

GOAL 2: To know when Lock and Load is on internal CD, so that you don't waste a 30 second trap cooldown trying to proc it with 0% chance of success

Proculas: The single most difficult thing about SV and the default WoW UI is knowing where Lock and Load is on its internal CD (the 2nd goal above). You can see when LnL procs on the default UI, but you can't see the CD. Proculas is an add-on that "discovers" your procs and their associated cooldowns for you. More recent releases allow you to set a specific CD time (30 seconds for LnL) to a discovered proc. You only need a minute at a target dummy and it will discover Master Tactician, Expose Weakness, Lock and Load, etc.

Once you have it installed and all your procs discovered, go into the interface and DISABLE everything except Lock and Load. For Lock and Load, you want to find the option that lets you set a manual CD time, and change this to 30 seconds. Now you won't have to do the dumb thing I did, which was to drop a trap on a target even when Serpent Sting had just proc'ed LnL on the target 10 seconds previously. You can move the Proculas bar around to a place on your screen that you find convenient, and use whatever signaling or colors or whatever work for you. 

Power Auras: Technically, not a simple add-on. I use Power Auras to do two things. The first is to track when LnL procs and to display an icon over my character while LnL is active. The second is to pop up another icon when Serpent Sting is NOT active on the target. I have it set up to make a sound AND shake the screen when LnL procs. It's hard to miss that. I also have recently added two more auras that pop up "Explosive Shot" in text when Explosive Shot is ready, and "Aimed Shot" in text when Aimed Shot is ready, as a sort of poor man's spell priority list. (I recently specced into Aimed Shot for high movement fights, but it makes for a fairly complicated spell priority list, so I'm not going into any detail on this.)

NeedToKnow (optional): I use this lightweight and very simple add-on to track the Serpent Sting DoT. A simple green bar shows up below my LnL cooldown bar and counts down. Easy to install and configure. Theoretically, I could move this functionality into Power Auras, but I like having two cooldowns of similar length counting down side by side. You could easily expand this to add your trinket cooldown.

Please note: You probably don't need to track the CD of the Explosive Shot DoT itself. It's two seconds. Say "One one-thousand, two one-thousand" aaaaand you're done. You also don't need to lick your finger, put it up, test for wind shear, and then try to account for shot travel time. If you are 30 yards from the target, yes, it will take a half second for the shot to get there and start ticking. No, that doesn't add a half-second extra, because the shot after it will ALSO take a half second to get there. You'd be surprised at how this question comes up with LnL discussions. Fire, count out two seconds, and fire again. 

Because these add-ons have changed in their configuration options a couple of times, I'm not going to post specific detailed configuration instructions -- they'll likely change again, and the main thing is that you know where you can go to get the add-ons that you need.

That's it! Don't hesitate to email me if you have any questions (neshura@gmail.com), and that's it for this series of guest posts on SV hunting.

-neshura

SV Respec Kit for Dummies, Part 2 of 3

In our previous post, we discovered just how easy it was to accomplish steps one through four in our quest to become an effective end-game raiding SV hunter with minimal fuss.

The next step is, necessarily, a little more complicated, but I am going to break it down for you with some exercises that you can try out at a training dummy. Normally I wouldn't stoop to a dummy...but I decided to get a non-exotic pet and respec SV only hours before a raid, and so I was forced to practice in Ironforge just to avoid being laughed out of the raid. Ever since then, I've taken to practicing regularly on dummies to refine my rotation and keep my skills sharp.

STEP 5: LRN2PLAY

If you've been Beastmaster from the start, understand that you'll need to learn some shots beyond Steady Shot. (I know, I know. Gone are the days of putting a drinking duck to work mashing the steady shot key. I miss those days...)

Your goal as a SV hunter is to use Explosive Shot as often as possible, while keeping your DPS presence high. That is, you should always be casting something, but you want to be casting the right thing at the right time.

Exercise 1: Building Your Basic Shot Rotation

We start simple. You will fire Explosive Shot, then you will fire three Steady Shots. Then you will fire Explosive Shot again, followed by three Steady Shots. But wait! You're glyphed so that Steady Shot is buffed by having Serpent Sting up, right? Indeed. Interweave Serpent Sting, but use it to replace a Steady Shot, NOT an Explosive Shot.

Opening Rotation: ES / SSting / SS / SS / ES / SS / SS / SS / ES / SS / etc.

Go practice this rotation on the heroic training dummy in one of the major cities. Don't worry about your pet spells or buffs or Hunter's Mark, you're just trying to get comfortable with this rotation. What happens if you screw up your rotation? Well, it's true, there is a cut-off point where it is better to delay a Steady Shot and just do nothing until ES comes off of CD. BUT!!! That delay is relatively small. A rotation of ESx1+SSx2+(wait) is lower DPS than ESx1+SSx3, despite the fact that ES comes off of CD partway through firing the third Steady Shot. If ES is not off CD and you are suddenly brain-fogged as to what key to hit next, when in doubt, just hit Steady Shot again, even if there is only half a second left til ES comes off of CD. Don't ever stand around doing nothing. I do this sometimes, but I'm a terrible role model.

Your goal: Maximize your DPS with 100% uptime on Serpent Sting. If Lock and Load procs while you are doing this exercise, don't panic! Ignore it! Bring up your damage meters, fire til you go out of mana, and check your dps. Then do it again. Compare your uptime and the percentage of damage on your different shots. Once you feel comfortable with this rotation, move on to Exercise 2.

Exercise 2: Switching Shot Rotations on the Fly

Lock and Load will not proc unless you have Serpent Sting up on the target OR if the target gets a trap put on it. (This is going to change in 3.1, but you may as well learn how to use the trap trick now.) When Lock and Load procs, it gives you 10 seconds to use 2 mana-free cooldown-free Explosive shots. When Lock and Load procs, I will give you two choices for spell rotation, and you pick the one that is more comfortable for your play style.

Option 1: ES / .5 sec wait / ES / .5 sec wait / ES / (back to basic rotation with SS x 3)

Option 2: ES / Multi-shot / ES / SS / ES / (back to basic rotation with SS x 3)

Don't be a dummy like me and just spam ES as it comes off the GCD. I did this for at least a week. Here's why: ES is a DoT that ticks for 2 full seconds. The GCD is 1.5 seconds. If you spam all your free Explosive Shots in a row when LnL procs, you overwrite the final ticks of your ES DoTs and ruin your DPS.

Here's how to practice your alternate rotation:

1. When Lock and Load procs, it will show up as a personal buff. Figure out where your buffs show up, and watch that area.
   
2. Now, leave the heroic training dummy and find a lowbie dummy.
   
3. Take up a position roughly 15 yards away and use your freezing arrow to put a freezing trap smack dab on top of that dummy.
   
4. When that trap goes off, you'll see Lock and Load proc.
   
5. Immediately start one of the two rotation options I just gave you. (For now, don't put Serpent Sting on the target. It has a chance of proc'ing LnL when you aren't ready for it!)
   
6. Once you've finished the LnL shot rotation, move smoothly back into your basic shot rotation of ESx1+SSx3.
   
7. Run through your basic rotation a couple times, then leave combat

Your goal: To practice doing the LNL shot rotation and then to slide OUT of it back into the basic rotation without getting befuddled. If you have to count shots to yourself, do it.

Try this exercise a few times. Don't hurry it. When you're ready to move on to the bonus round, start the exercise again, but once the trap comes off of cooldown, use Freezing Arrow to drop another trap on the target and re-proc LnL. Conveniently, the LnL internal CD is 30 seconds, same as your trap CD. Stay in combat and try to move smoothly INTO your LNL shot rotation as well as out of it. But don't practice this too much, because you won't be using Freezing Arrow to proc LnL on raid bosses.

Exercise 3: Sniper Training

Guess what? If you are at a boss that has an AOE debuff, you are in luck! You might not know this, but if you look at your spec closely, you probably have some points in Sniper Training. This means, simply by staying at range, you do extra damage. How far away is 30 yards? Well, one way to tell is to simply run out of range (you can tell by the fact that your ES button should look "disabled" when you are far enough away). Then, step in a yard at a time til your ES button re-enables. Congratulations! You're now a sniper.

First try this: Run out til you are at Sniper Training range as described above, then stand still and fire at the boss with your basic rotation, keeping Serpent Sting up. Keep a damage meter up and keep an eye on your dps.

Next, run halfway back to the training dummy, which will put you at about 15 yards. Stand still and fire at the boss with your basic rotation. Notice any different? Hey, you might not. Crits are random, remember. Just be assured, standing 30+ yards away = free DPS!

Exercise 4: Trap Dancing

Better seen than described, but if you've done exercise 2, you won't be too surprised.

With this exercise, you're going to use a trap that DOES proc LnL on a boss most of the time. This means that, if you are lucky and don't get any trap resists, you get 2 free Explosive Shots every 30 seconds. 10 free ESshots on a five minute boss fight? Outstanding!

Here is what you do -- try this on a lower level dummy so you can guarantee the proc for now.

1. Before starting combat, step into melee range of the dummy.
2. Drop your Immolation Trap and immediately strafe sideways or step backwards to get out of melee range. Not too far, you're just trying to get to where you can shoot.
3. As soon as the trap goes off, watch your buff area -- LnL should proc immediately.
4. Begin your alternate LnL shot rotation, then transition smoothly into your normal shot rotation.
5. As you notice your trap coming off the 30 second CD, make your way towards melee range without losing too much DPS time -- a few steps during a GCD here and there should do it.
6. When the trap comes off CD, drop it again on top of the target dummy. I usually wait half a heartbeat after the CD is up just to guarantee that LnL is off CD as well. (Keep an eye on your ES CD, but don't worry if it's less than halfway through CD when LnL procs. You have 10 seconds once LnL procs to get those 2 extra shots in.)
7. Step quickly out of melee range, either by strafing or moving backwards, and continue with your LnL shot rotation
8. Rinse and repeat til you are out of mana.

Your goal: To keep LnL proc'ing every 30 seconds, while keeping Serpent Sting up 100% of the time and filling in with Steady Shots every time Explosive Shot is on CD.

Congratulations! You're trap-dancing.

You may be able to combine this with Sniper Training, but I've never had any luck with that. I just use the strategy that's best for the boss at hand. If I need to be at range, I stay at range, and if I can get within melee, I trap-dance.

Just don't take a Hateful Strike from Patchwerk while dropping your trap...

Exercise 5: All Those Cherries on Top

What about Kill Shot? What about Kill Command? What about Rapid Fire? Heart of the Wild? Trinkets?? Oooh there's so much to manage, and Lock and Load procs are already making our head hurt! The short answer is, try to stack them intelligently, and macro the ones you don't need to think about.

Rapid Fire: This is actually your opening spell on a boss most of the time. But, if the Raid Leader says, "Save your cooldowns for 30%", yes, that includes Rapid Fire, so for that boss, you save it. With an unmodified 5 minute CD, you're best off just popping this manually.
Heart of the Wild: Same situation as with Rapid Fire -- and stacking them is a great burst of DPS.
Kill Shot: Doesn't use a GCD. Macro it in front of every spell in your rotation. That way it always goes off when it comes off CD.

Kill Command: 1 minute CD, and you don't want to bother thinking about this one either. Combine it with one (or all) of your shots in a macro.

#showtooltip Explosive Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
/cast Kill Command
/cast Kill Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:RegisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
/cast Explosive Shot

I combine KC and KS with both ES and SS in two separate macros. Do what you feel comfortable with.

Trinkets: Depends on the trinket, you'll just need to use your best judgment as to how to best weave it in to your rotation. If your trinket increases speed, try to stack it with an effect that increases AP or crit. If your trinket increases agility or armor Pen, stack it with, for example, Rapid Fire, or a Lock and Load proc.

To be continued...

SV Respec Kit for Dummies, Part 1 of 3

PVE and end-game raiding as a SV hunter is not hard. It's a little tougher than BM, with more movement, but if you want to do some respectable DPS, AND have fun doing it, survival's a great way to go. Many people have told me they find it intimidating, particularly if they've been BM or MM all the way. Why is this for dummies? First, because I did all the research before I respecced, checked out every talent, planned my gear, practiced, modified my macros, and STILL made a ton of mistakes along the way (yes, I'm still making them even now). Second, because you will be using not just dummies like me to learn, but the training dummies in capital cities.

I'm going to summarize what I learned, slough off all the unnecessary stuff, and give you some exercises -- yes, homework -- that you can use to practice and get better very quickly. You can vary the directions below with excellent results if you are willing to take the time to understand what you are doing, as with anything. The best way to learn however, is to simply jump right in and start exploding things with DoTs. Still intimidated? Fear not, hunter friend, the barrier to entry on SV is lower than you might think.

Here's a quick plan to get you going right away on SV. I have simplified many of the SV concepts; most of them are more complicated under the hood, but I don't want to scare you off, so here you go.

STEP 1: RESPEC

Pick 1-18-52 or 6-14-51 . If your haste is above 10%, pick the former, below 10%, pick the latter. Don't agonize, you can always respec again for refinements.

Once you've respecced, retrain your skills. I can't emphasize this enough. I raided with Explosive Shot rank 1 for many weeks, maybe even for months. You'll prefer to have Explosive Shot Rank 4.

STEP 2: REGLYPH

Your majors for the majority of raid situations: Glyph of Steady Shot, Glyph of Serpent Sting, Glyph of Improved Aspect of the Hawk. Your minors stay the same.

STEP 3: CHECK YOUR GEAR

Hey, awesome! You're wearing hunter gear! Congratulations, you don't need to change anything.

More extended discussion: all the same things that were important as MM and BM are important as SV. Hit rating and getting to the hit cap is the most important thing. Do you read BRK? Did you know that your pet's hit rating rounds DOWN to the nearest whole number? Yeah... that means, if you have 262 hit rating and no points in Focused Aim, you may have 7.99% hit, but your pet has 7.0% hit.

Your gear will transfer smoothly between specs, but the difference is the stats that you will come to see as "frosting". That is, you should be stacking Hit and Agi, and don't forget Int. Regardless of your spec, 3/3 Careful Aim means you skip the rogue gear and put on hunter gear! The "frosting" on your hit/agi/int cake for SV contains a delicious creamy mixture of haste and crit. Sure, I still equip the Incisor Fragment because I haven't gotten anything better for my second trinket slot. Armor Pen is good frosting, but it's the lesser imitation vanilla kind.

Most people get why crit is important, but why stack haste? The short answer is, Explosive Shot and Steady Shot are like oil and water -- they don't mix, they don't play well together. When you stack enough haste to bring the speed of Steady Shot down to the GCD, you get a perfect emulsion, a mouthwatering vinaigrette of ESx1+SSx3 that dresses a boss salad like nobody's business.

In summary, you don't have to make any changes immediately, especially if you've taken 5/5 Improved Aspect of the Hawk. But as you go, consider a haste gem here, an Agi-instead-of-AP enchant there, a sidegrade piece of gear that gets extra haste or crit.

STEP 4: CONSUMABLES

Your flask stays the same for a raid. You might prefer to switch your food buff from a Feast (or other AP) to Agi food. Your pet food buff stays the same.

To be continued....

Warcraft Classes for Dummies

I'm going to be starting a new series over here in the next couple of days. I'll focus on each class individually and covering the following topics:

• The class' role - for classes that can have multiple classes, each will be covered
  
• The possible trees for the class - the trees from the talent tree with signature skills for that tree highlighted
• The class defining skills - the hallmarks of this, especially skills that only this class can use
• Abilities that make you a good member of that class - for instance, crowd controlling and removing debuffs
• Infrequently Used Skills to be mastered - the skills, that while not often used, are critical to certain encounters
• Class skills that should always be used - the "core competencies" of the class and what can increase the effectiveness of the class
• Emergency Skills - the skills that can quickly save your hide when things go horribly wrong
• Advanced Skills - the skills, either core or emergency, which if mastered show a truly good player
• Stereotypes - the general misconceptions tied to the class
• Profession considerations - professions that marry particularly well with the class

This will be a primer for all levels of players. I hope to present information for players new to the game, coming back after a hiatus, players switching from a known class to another, and perhaps even experienced players of the class.

I expect the class discussions to begin on Thursday.

Raiding as a Caster - Spell Hit and DPS

Today we're talking only to the offensive casters in the raid group. So listen up mages, warlocks, shadow priests, elemental shamans, and boomkin. This post is for you. Hunters, rogues, warriors, elemental shamans and healers can have the day off.

In the world of raiding, you're going to have a set of "goal" numbers to get into Karazhan which is probably about +600 spell damage, 9000 Mana, 7500 Health. These benchmarks are set up this way because it's what you need to succeed at Karazhan. Luckily, as you are busy succeeding, you're getting gear drops. Each of those drops is hopefully making you a little better at turning mana into dead bosses.

At some point, you'll be heading off to the 25 man content. Your raid leader now may expect some things out of you that you're unused to dealing with. I think most raid leaders want to see consistent DPS out from all damage dealers at around 800-850 DPS. Damage meters will run and data will be collected. If for some reason you don't measure up, you'll have to work out why. Here is a list of potential pit-falls arranged in the order of easiest to hardest to correct.

1. Did I do everything in my power to self-buff? Did you eat your +spell damage food? Did you have one flask or two elixirs? Did you put Wizard Oil on your weapon? Is everything enchanted with suitable enchants? Did I ensure I had all buffs? (The number of Paladin buffs you have should be equal to the number of paladins in your raid. Unless you are running in some bizarro world with 15 paladins.) Did I use my self-only buffs as needed? These questions all address one 0f the best ways to get yourself ready for a raid. Eat appropriate food, use appropriate elixirs or flasks, and ensure you have buffs. However, after doing just that you may still be falling short of your goals.
   
2. Was I in the appropriate raid group? This is completely beyond your control. However, being in a group with a Draenei caster is always appropriate. Their racial increases your spell hit rating by 1%. While it's nice to have healers in groups with elemental shamans, it's often more appropriate to split them up amongst your casting groups. Totem of Wrath gives a +3% spell hit to group members. Alliance really lucks out here in that all of elemental shamans give +4% (racial + totem) to their groups. Warlocks may lose out here in that their imps often provide stamina buff to primarily tank/melee groups. If so, try to make sure those warlocks are affliction locks. (See Question #3)
3. Is my spec built for end-game raiding? We all like to do some grinding, daily questing and PVPing. However, depending on your class there are some talents you must absolutely have to avoid misses.
   • Druids - Balance of Power (Balance Tier 6) increases spell hit by 4%
   • Mages - Elemental Precision (tier 1 Frost) increases fire and frost spell hit by 3%. Arcane Focus (tier 1 Arcane) increases arcane spell hit by 10%.
   • Priests - Shadow Focus (tier 2 Shadow) increases shadow spell hit by 10%. There is also a talent buried deep in the discipline tree that affects spell hit for some spells. I haven't listed it because I don't think there is a reliable spec that hits both of these. If there is, I'm sure an astute reader will find it.
   • Shamans - Three separate talents increase spell hit:
   • Elemental Precision (Elemental Tier 6) Increases spell hit by 6%.
   • Nature's Guidance (Restoration Tier 3) Increases spell hit by 3%
   • Totem of Wrath (Restoration Tier 9) increases entire party spell hit by 3%.
   • Warlocks - Suppression (Affliction Tier 1) increases affliction spells only by 10%.
   It is definitely worth a respec to check it out and see if you can't up your DPS just by not missing.
4. Do I need spell hit gear? While your gear may have been perfectly fine for Karazhan, if you're missing on spells, you're sacrificing DPS. There is some very nice spell hit gear for casters in Karazhan. Also, consider giving up a spell damage enchant (you do have one of those, don't you) on your gloves for Spell Strike for the +15 spell hit rating. The amount of gear with +spell hit you need can be as much as 202 (for no talent/no buffs). Consider also Great Dawnstone (yellow) or Veiled Noble Topaz (yellow/red) to give yourself a +spell hit rating buff.

After you've worked your way through this list of items, you should be seeing a significant boost to the DPS you're doing as a caster. Don't get complacent though, you still need to keep your +spell damage as high as possible, keep enough stamina to not die to environmental effects, manage your threat and do everything else you've learned.

As we progress WoW becomes more and more of a thinking person's game. I hope you brought your thinking cap.

How Not to Spec

Every time I look at someone's spec and see 0/0/61 (or 0/61/0 or 61/0/0) I cringe. I'm just afraid that by putting the whole kit and kaboodle into a tree, you're really gimping yourself elsewhere. As I started the research for this topic, I found out that not all classes have the same number of talent points to work with. In fact, let's look at a picture.


This graph shows the total number of choices for the 61 skill points available to you (at level 70). It's pretty easy to see that rogues far outweigh other classes with a startling 208 possible talent point allocations. Coming in last place on the total number of choices are druids and warlocks with just over 180 points each.

I'd like to tell you how many possible rogue specs there are but the mathematics deals with absolutely HUGE numbers and the non-equal distribution of the trees makes this non-trivial. Let's just say there are a lot.

Something else that I didn't know is that for some class-tree combinations, it is not possible to have all 61 points into one tree. Let's look at another graph that shows the number of talents (per tree) for the various classes.

It's pretty clear that the following class-tree combinations can never spend all 61 points in that tree because there are fewer than 61 total points in the tree:

• Balance Druids
• Beastmastery Hunters
• Affliction Warlocks
• Feral Druids

The rest of you however CAN spend all points in one tree, but why would you? I can think of very few examples of when skills in low tiers of other trees would not affect your performance as your chosen spec.

I don't believe there are any true "winners" in the low tiers of either the balance or feral tree for retoration druids. So, if you're a 0/0/61 restoration druid, you can ignore this article. For the rest of you, look at the numbers, look at the trees. Take a good hard look at the tier 1 and 2 talents outside your chosen spec. Is there something in those tiers that could take the place of one of the less effective talents in your chosen tree?

Of my five 70s, I've spent 61 points in one tree on exactly none of them. My priest is discipline/holy, my hunter is beastmaster/marksman, my warlock is affliction/demonology, my rogue is subtlety/combat. Even my tank warrior doesn't have all points in protection. There are skills in the first two tiers of the other trees that are just too good.

With respec costs low (considering the cash flow available at 70) it might not hurt to try out a slightly different spec. I know I've spent plenty of gold on moving one or two (or five) points around until I found the exact spec I wanted. Take a look and see if you can't get some slightly better performance as well.

Saving My Cool Downs

Everything I know about managing resources really came from me playing Magic: The Gathering. Back in the day, I was a big fan of saving my bombs for exactly the right moment. Unfortunately, I found that sometimes I was stuck at the end of the game with a handful of cards that could’ve come in useful when I was still alive.

To some degree the same principles apply in WoW. We’re all used to resource usage. You have a finite amount of mana, rage or energy. There are only so many reagents, bullets and potions you can carry. There are whole discussions in the blogoverse about it’s better for healers to have a larger mana pool or a greater rate of mana regeneration. And warlocks are constantly faced with the decision about conversion of one resource type (life) to another (mana).

But we all have at our disposal another resource type – time. I’m used to time as a resource as far as potion timer goes. If I drink a mana pot early, I’m likely to be able to drink another in the later stages of a fight. At first it was counter-intuitive to drink a potion when I didn’t really, really need it. But it turns out that this is quite often the best solution.

Of course, this article isn’t really about potion timers either. It is really more about abilities we all have that have a longish cool-down. I’m talking things in the 3-6 minute range rather than the cool downs that are more easily measured in fractions of hours.

I’ve always been a big saver of cool downs. For instance, I only tend to pop my Rapid Fire on bosses. However, I think I’m playing wrong. I should be popping that skill each time it comes up as long as it’ll also be available for the upcoming boss.

I think the thing that needs to be kept in mind is that these abilities have a cool down because they are very powerful. More powerful abilities tend to have longer cool downs. So as long as you can use the cool down and still have it available for key fights, you should. You’ll have better luck knowing when you can use cool downs on bosses that you’ve cleared before, but for the most part it’s never “Surprise! Here we are at a boss!”

I tried to follow my own advice on the guild Karazhan run and I noticed some improvement in my overall performance. Of course, I don’t recommend this for key abilities that more appropriately belong to your raid leader than you (battle resurrection, enervate, and the like). Good luck out there!

Baking and Speccing

My good friend Owaru has said to me (and anyone else that would listen) that WoW has become a thinking person's game since the advent of Burning Crusade. What he means by this I think are that there are a number of things that you must consider when making choices about gear, spec, rotations and other things. Thankfully just at the same time we were required to start weighing different things that we were used to looking at, Blizzard handed us another way (through jewelcrafting) to customize our gear choices. We already had enchanting, but now we have two ways.

Today I'm going to look at Building a Mage (a class I don't run, so therefore I may be wrong) and baking bread.

Making a mage	Baking bread
The two main ingredients for making a mage are some increased spell damage (mages are all about DPS you know) and some way to make it run. Mana is the power source used for every mage.	The two main ingredients in bread are some flour and some way to make dough. Water turns particulate into fluid and in this case it will make a dough.
Run your mage with only these two aspects for a while	Bake.
Did you find your mage lacked something? Some staying power or something else?	How did you enjoy the cement slab that you baked? Not very satisfying? Need something more? I think what we’ve made here is a tortilla?
Let’s give the mage some staying power. Basically, playing a mage is a resource utilization problem. You have your mana which must power spells. Your life total is also a resource. If you haven’t spent all your mana, but are dead you’ll never get to spend that mana. “A dead mage does no DPS.:" But do we need as much stamina as spell damage? Probably not. The primary goal of the mage is to stay alive long enough for their massive DPS to have an effect. A little stamina (for a mage) goes a long way.	Let’s give the bread some volume. But we don’t need the same amount of yeast as flour and/or water. We’ll use a little yeast and that’ll go a long way. You see, yeast is actually tiny organisms that give off bubbles as a by product. Those bubbles get caught in the dough and make it more voluminous. Bake.
The mage is getting better. But there are still some things missing. Sure, when the firebolts start flying (and actually connecting) they do massive sustained DPS. Awesome. But we’re missing way too often. Let’s add some spell hit rating.	Well, the bread isn’t as flat as last time but it’s still not quite there. Let’s take the extra step of dissolving the yeast in the water and maybe giving the yeast a little food to work with. We’ll add some sugar (or honey) to feed the yeast. Well fed yeast, produces more bubbles and that’ll give us more lift.
Wow. We’re really getting there. But we’re still missing that something. It must be the big number syndrome from when we land a critical strike. We could make that go up by increasing our spell hit just a bit.	Wow. Really close. But it’s missing that certain something. Let’s add just a pinch of salt. It’ll be so subtle you probably won’t be able to identify it, but if it’s missing you’ll know something is.
So very close. Now, it’s a matter of pushing the buttons and doing things in the right order.	Let’s do things in the right order. Yes, follow the recipe. Do all the right things in the right order. Let your dough rest at the appropriate times.
Congratulations. You did it.	Congratulations. You did it.

Now. If you really want to make some bread, I recommend getting this recipe. It makes good stuff.