World of Warcraft:Tips

Chatty's Guide to Looting and Plunder!

So you've butchered yourself a trogg, and perhaps feasted upon its innards. But LO! What's this? A fine dagger of unparalleled sharpness? One dagger, five soldiers... What to do, what to do? Well, fleshies, there are two main categories of loot of which we need to be aware. When you have a look at an item, pay attention to its binding properties: Bind on Pickup, or Bind on Equip.

Items that Bind on Equip (BOE) are quite desirable! They can be sold at a profit in the auction house, or - preferably - traded amongst each other to keep our power within the family!

What should you do when faced with a BOE item?

Simple. If you can equip it, and it's better than what you have already, roll Need. Don't be shy! Otherwise, roll Greed or Pass, depending on how you feel and how full your bags are. Remember, these items will not bind to you immediately, so if it turns out that somebody in the group needs it more than you do - and we should always be mindful of each other, oh yes! - you can always discuss that and hand it to them afterward, perhaps after exacting all manner of disquieting concessions for your magnanimity!

If you win a greed roll for an item you don't need, you can sell it, disenchant it, or send it to Xaan - the choice is yours. However, there are some items that are definitely worth keeping in the guild - occasionally, a powerful BOE Blue item will drop. These are worth a great deal of money if you don't need them, but talk things out with the guild first. It could be that somebody within the guild could make great use of your new find, and is willing to compensate you for it.

But wait, what's this BOP thing I keep hearing?

Some items are bind-on-pickup. Pay very special attention to these, as they cannot be traded to anyone once they're picked up. If an item drops that is BOP (and they tend to be held by dangerous instance bosses), everybody in the group should pass! Even if you need it, pass! Thereupon, the group will discuss what to do, and who needs that item most. Don't pick it up off the boss monster's tasty, steaming corpse until you're satisfied that anybody else who can make use of it has cleared you to do just that!

If nobody in the group needs the dropped BOP item, there are two things you can do. You can always roll greed and sell the item to a vendor if you win(remember, it can't be traded, and therefore cannot be auctioned). If there is an enchanter in the party, however, the item could be used much better. Nobody needs it, after all! Better to disenchant the item for a shard or some essence. Shards can be tricky to come by, and the guild's enchanters will thank you!

So, to reiterate:

BOE

Better than what you've got? Roll need! Don't be shy.

Do be mindful that someone in the group might make better use of it than you. Some items are of use to everyone, but of MORE use to certain someones. Warriors can use agility, for instance, but be mindful of any rogues or hunters in your party. You should still roll need if it's better than what you have - if another person wants it, they'll pipe up and ask you for it, and you can discuss amongst yourselves how to resolve the issue. Do also be mindful of the attributes you need an item to have. Strength is as useless to a mage as a bonus to arcane damage is to a rogue.

BOP

Pass, and discuss. If several of your companions desire the item, show off what you have on in its place. It may be that someone in the group has a substandard item on, and that should be kept in mind. If multiple players still want the item after discussing, you can /roll on it, and trust in fate.

It's especially important with BOP items to keep in mind your party makeup. Many, many classes can use daggers, but some - like, say, mages - will not be meleeing with them anywhere near as much as a rogue, and some. That doesn't necessarily mean rogues should get every blue dagger that drops (after all, shamans, warriors and hunters can often make good use of them as well). But it does mean that they should be allowed a bit of priority.

Preferred items by class:

Warrior: Shields and all weapons. Mail before 40, Plate afterward. You want: Strength, Stamina, DPS, some Agility, proc effects.

Rogues: Daggers, sometimes maces and swords. Leather. You want: Agility, Stamina. Strength is tertiary. DPS, proc effects.

Hunter: Bows and guns, almost all weapons (but melee weapons are more of a priority for all other classes - you only fight up close when things go badly; likewise, melee classes that can make use of bows and guns should cede them to you if they're better than what you have). Leather before 40, mail afterwards. You want: Agility, Stamina. Strength and Intellect in smaller amounts. Procs on melee weapons are not as useful as stats, as you shouldn't be meleeing much.

Shaman: Shields, some weapons. Leather before 40, Mail afterwards. You want: Statistics are dependent on build, but usually a goodly mix of all of them. +Nature and +Healing are handy.

Druid: Some weapons. Leather. You want: Statistics dependent on build, but you don't need to mix it up as much as shamans. Caster druids will want caster stats and possibly some strength, feral druids will want warrior stats. Weapon procs and dps are meaningless for ferals, as they won't factor into your animal-form attacks. Attribute bonuses carry over. +Healing, +Nature and +Arcane can come in handy.

Mage: Staves, some 1-h weapons, off-hand items. Cloth. You want: Intellect, Stamina, Spirit tertiary. +fire, +ice and +arcane and +mana regen can be handy, but are of more use at higher levels than low.

Warlocks: Itemization as per mage. You want: Stamina first, THEN intellect. Spirit's just about useless, as you can Tap your health for mana. +shadow and +fire are handy. +mana regen... meh.

Priests: Itemization as per mage. You want: Intellect/Spirit, Stamina. +Shadow and +Healing are handy as well.

Tips, Tricks and Quirks: Advice for the Fledgling Adventurer

Have some knowledge to share? Do it! Edit the stubs as you like

For general information, visit www.wowwiki.com. All the content of the official forums, none of the aggravating 12-year olds!

Class Advice

Hunter

Hunters are probably the best class for soloing in the game. However, when you're in a group, you need to make some changes to your style of play.

The following tips will go a long way to solidifying your place in a group, and keep other playerse from yelling at you.

Marking Targets

Your Hunter's Mark is quite useful for guiding other players to a target. Use it to mark a target, so everyone can focus on the same mob and bring it down quickly. If there is a Mage in the party who can sheep, quickly discuss whether or not he thinks that target should be sheeped first instead. In some cases, Mages may be marking sheep targets with Detect Magic (a spell that causes no aggre, and creates a brief white swirl of light around a mob), so watch for those. Attacking a sheepmarked target is not a good way to make friends with the Mage, let alone the rest of the group!

Consider that a Mage's role in a group is crowd control as well as DPS, and they often have a better idea than you as how to go about their role; a good Mage isn't watching the target he's throwing spells at, he's watching for adds, or he's watching the sheep to make sure it isn't broken early, or both at the same time. If a Mage feels a target should be sheeped, it may be wise to defer to him or her and select a different target for pulling.

Pet Management

Part in qutes below is copied from here because it's expressed better than i can do it.

"DO NOT lose control of your pet. Perhaps the greatest source of peoples' trepidation about inviting Hunters to their groups is past experiences they had in which a Hunter's pet wiped them. Regardless of your talent choices, you are a master of wild beasts! Always know where your pet is. Always know what he's attacking and what he's going to attack when his current target dies. ALWAYS keep a firm leash on him and make sure you don't let him go anywhere that he'll aggro mobs you don't want to aggro. ALWAYS leave your pet on Passive mode in instances. If he is on Defensive mode, he will often react to things you don't want him to. Aggressive mode is right out of the question! Manually choose your pet's target and hit Ctrl-1 to make him attack. Pets also travel using the same system as NPCs, meaning that if you jump off a cliff, your pet may not. He could aggro a lot of mobs by taking the long way. If you have any doubt that your pet will follow you as you want him to, you can despawn him or use Eyes of the Beast to manually make him jump off a cliff ahead of you. If your pet ever does get away from you and aggro mobs, do whatever you can to make him stay away from you. You might be able to stay out of combat and let your pet die rather than train half an instance to you."

Nothing gets your groupmates more angry at you than a pet running wild, who then do thing like break sheeped mobs who automatically aggro on the mage, or running loose in an area with three, four or more mobs, who then aggro onto your group.

If you can't manage your pet, then perhaps you should consider a different class, or consider that you shouldn't be grouping until you can.

Shaman

Mana Efficiency and You

You may have noticed by now that your a couple of big spells will drain your mana pool dry so quickly it will leave your head spinning. Even elemental-specced shamans with lots of +int gear will find their mana pool does not allow for prolonged battle... and a shaman without mana is very often a dead shaman.

Analyze your spells to see how much damage (or healing) they do per mana point spent. The ratios can change over time (lightning shield, for instance, starts off inefficient compared to everything else, but that changes quickly).

On the whole, you should find that efficiency scales like so: Searing totem, given enough time ---> healing ---> lightning shield ---> lightning bolt / chain lightning, given enough targets ---> flame shock, given enough time ---> other shocks. Earth Shock and Frost Shock are your big damage, but even fully synergized, they barely do more than 1 damage per mana. That's a shame, because the spell interrupt of ES, or the snare effect of FS are quite handy. It's a good thing the 30ish-mana Earth Shock 1 still interrupts spells then, innit?

So what does this all mean?

Well, if you don't want to drink every two minutes - and I say that without a hint of hyperbole - learn to use your mana efficiently. Spamming your shocks leads to big damage, but drains you dry. Unless you really need to put something down fast, stick to Lightning Bolts, Lightning Shield, Searing Totem and melee.

And never, ever leave home without water.

Weapon Buffs

I don't want to go into the mathematical analysis of it all, but here's the gist.

You have two weapon buffs. Rockbiter, and Windfury. But wait! What about Frost Brand? What about the fire buff?

Forget them. Frost rarely procs, and you can FS at will (cooldown permitting) to snare, or drop an Earthbind Totem. Flame? Well, it has its uses in the early game, but Rockbiter will always do more or equal damage.

Rockbiter grants you a lot of extra attack power, and it causes extra threat. That's great if you're (off-)tanking or soloing, but a liability otherwise. The fire buff should replace this in situations where you don't want aggro, until you get Windfury.

Windfury has a 20% chance of granting you two extra attacks with more attack power than the norm (although your base attack is not improved at all), and doesn't cause additional aggro. When it procs, you get a HUGE damage spike. When it doesn't, it's the equivalent of tapping your opponent on the shoulder. It's handier in PVP than Rockbiter, due to the bursty nature.

Over time, the damage improvement of Windfury and Rockbiter are more or less equal. Mathematically, Windfury can appear to come out a little bit ahead on the damage curve, especially with slow weapons. That doesn't take into account the fact that it's extremely unreliable, and - perhaps more importantly - it doesn't take into account the fact that Windfury can proc when you don't need it. Most shamans joke that it only ever goes off when your opponent is down to 3% of his hp and fleeing. Maybe it's selection bias, but I've noticed that too. Rockbiter is always the more dependable choice.

-TS

Dealing with Crowds

One-on-one, shamans are a match for almost any foe. But when the numbers are stacked against you, things get a little bit uglier. Shamans have more trouble with multiple foes than most classes, but with a bit of creativity, you can win or - at worst - get away.

Your main crowd-control option is Stoneclaw Totem (Earth), which is similar to an engineer's Dummies, but not as hardy or long-lived. Stoneclaw will "growl" at nearby enemies, and inspire them to attack it. It has a reasonable-ish amount of hit points, and will last until those are depleted or its 15 seconds of fame are up. Here's where you stop worrying about efficiency. Let Stoneclaw distract your adds, and nuke the bejeezus out of your attacker.

Apart from Stoneclaw, your only CC option is creative kiting, with Earthbind and Frost Shock. If you have the space, and are not likely to run into more aggro, you can keep one mob off you by Frost Shocking it and dragging the other around at full speed. Earthbind Totem (Earth) is less selective, but allows you to keep both mobs at range (it's an AOE snare and one of your most important tools - keep it easily accessible). It's the superior option if you're fond of doing damage with your spells. Do keep in mind that Earthbind and Stoneclaw are both earth totems. Dropping one will destroy the other.

If you can't divide-and-conquer, you can slug it out. I hope, first of all, that you're carrying a shield. Two-handed weapons are handy against spellcasters with poor melee skills, but shamans are a tad squishy themselves; a good shield will offset that nicely. Remember that you can heal yourself, and always keep some mana around for Lesser Healing Wave.

AOE damage is an option, but it's not a GOOD option until level 32 and Chain Lightning. Magma Totem (Fire) and Fire Nova Totem (Fire) are extremely expensive, and painfully inefficient. What's more, they draw aggro themselves, so if you haven't done something to attract the attention of every mob that's attacking you, one's bound to break off and kill the totem. There's nothing quite like spending a third of your mana to drop a Fire Nova totem, only to have it killed before it even goes off.

Tauren have a significant advantage in this area. Warstomp will stun mobs attacking you for 2 seconds. That may not sound significant, but consider this: Lesser Healing Wave casts in 1.5 seconds. So does a fully talented Chain Lightning.

Finally, know when to run. You may not be a druid, but you're no slouch when it comes to getting away. Drop an Earthbind or a Stoneclaw, or toss around some Frost Shocks, and run like hell. If you put enough distance between yourself and your attackers, you can cast Ghost Wolf (with 2 talent points, it casts in one second; if you have Nature's Swiftness from the Restoration tree, it can be cast instantly).

-TS

Warrior

Murglor's Guide to Tanking

(Or, 'Ow to Make Monsters Kick Yer Ass Even If Ya Can't Do Damage Worth Squat)

Now, I know Murglor doesn't do too much standin' in front of things gettin' hit fer the good o' the unit these days, but the ol' brain hasn't lost a beat. Listen well, and you'll get all the battle scars an' broken bones yer heart could possibly want.

So what, ya might be askin', is this Tankin' thing I'm chatterin' about? Well, it's a fine an' ancient art, which we call Tankin' on account of it's hard and t'ankless work, except when certain young Orc lasses 'ear about yer bravery and give ya a special kind o' thanks, like this one time in Redridge when - ah, well, ya won't be needin' to hear the details on that one. Anyway, Tankin' is all about makin' a enemies waste their time an' energy chewin' through yer thick armor rather'n just chompin' up the Mage lightin' 'em on fire or the priest keepin' ya alive.

The bad news is, ya gotta work at it. Unlike the sissies runnin' around in their dresses (and certain good-lookin' ol' Orcs what learned they like givin' more than takin', and got an 'ost of dirty ol' tricks to get it done), ya ain't exactly gonna strike terror into the 'earts o' monsters with yer fearsome attacks. All things bein' equal, the monster's gonna go straight after the person 'urtin' it most.

The good news is, all that pricy warrior trainin' isn't a complete waste. Ya got a lotta skills that'll piss a monster right off, no matter 'ow much actual 'arm ya do with 'em.

Let's go over the basics, eh?

Sunder Armor: think ya paid a lot fer that shiny suit o' plate or mail? Just imagine ya gotta grow it back whenever it gets busted. Monsters don't much like it when ya tear up their defenses, and makin' yer friends kill the bugger faster ain't exactly a bad thing neither. If ya ain't done this to a mob yet, do it - and a few more times fer good measure. Sunder armor is the meat an' potatoes o' the noble Tankin' profession.

Revenge: there ain't nothin' a monster 'ates more than bein' denied a tasty snack and then slapped upside the snout fer 'is trouble. Revenge ain't gonna be available all the time, but ya'd better use it when it is so ya don't miss the chance. It's got a damn big effect for 'ow little Rage it costs.

Shield Block: let's face it, shields ain't what they used to be. They're all well an' good for the pansies o' the monster world, but real enemies'll laugh 'em off and go straight through 'em. Still, this nifty little trick is the best way to make sure ya get a chance to fire off Revenge - no sense usin' it early in a fight, when ya still gotta use Sunder Armor to get the bugger's attention and Rage is 'ard to come by, but it's not bad later on.

Heroic Strike: it ain't very good. Oh, yeah, a warrior what thinks 'e's some sort o' rogue'll use it a lot, but that's not tankin'. Rage doesn't do no good at all if ya ain't usin' it, and this is one way to use up extra rage, but that's about it.

Taunt: now we're talkin'. This skill will get ya a monster's attention for a bit, but ya gotta smack 'im a few times if ya want it to stick once the stuff ya said about 'is mother starts to fade from memory. Great for lockin' down an enemy that's nearly dead so ya can start poundin' 'is friend, too.

Bloodrage: ya might not think this is a skill for tankin', but trust Ol' Murglor on it. Every point o' free rage ya get is good for about 5 points o' actually smackin' an enemy around, and then ya get to use the rage to piss off the enemy some more.

Last Stand: not every warrior is gonna have this skill, but it's a good one. Ya see, the first part o' tankin' is makin' sure the monster's attackin' ya instead o' yer friends. But the other part - and it's an important part - is stayin' alive. Last Stand gives ya a quick 'eal, good for 1/3 of yer life, but it's the sort o' first aid that isn't wasted if one of yer priest friends does get a spell in at the same time. It generates a fair bit o' fury from the monsters, and for a little bit, you're even tougher than ya were before usin' the skill.

Now, let's talk about puttin' it all into practice. First, I'm gonna talk about keepin' just one monster on you an' not lads in fine dresses.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

Macros and Interface Tricks

Languages

You may have noticed that some of us like to assault the guild chat with various languages! If you've ever wanted to discuss the succulence of a party member's braaaains with your fellow undead in privacy, click on the speech bubble in your chat tab. You should see a set of headings pop up; one of them is language. Just pick the language in which you'd like to speak, and chat normally.

Orcish is the common language of the Horde, and the only one we all can understand. It's also the only language orcs can speak, making you green lot subpar conspirators. Trolls, Undead and Tauren all have the option of speaking Orcish and their racial language.

Currently, there is no way to learn languages other than the ones available to your race by default.

Macros

Scripting macros is easy. To access your macro menu, type /macro. You should see a screen with (now) two divisions. General macros apply to all your characters, character-specific ones only to the toon in question. Hit New Macro, choose an icon, and type in a name. Then, in the box at the bottom of your macro screen, type in the commands you wish to script. You now have an icon that can be dragged to your quickbar!

Text Macros

Need a macro to tell your party that you're in trouble? Perhaps a battlecry to strike fear into the hearts of quillboars? Easy as pie. Just type in a regular chat script.

For instance, if you're a squishy priest whose healing has aggravated beasties, macro something like this to warn your party:

/p Healer has aggro!

Or, if you're the bloodthirsty type, you can broadcast a battlecry for all around you to hear. The %t below is a switch that will return the name of your target:

/s Prepare to die, %t!

It's possible to combine a text macro with a skill to warn your party and do what you need to, like so:

/s I'm sheeping %t
/Cast Polymorph

Trash Sales

Activate this macro while talking to a vendor, and it will search your bags and sell all grey items in your possession. A god-send.

/script for bag = 0,4,1 do for slot = 1, GetContainerNumSlots(bag), 1 do local name =
GetContainerItemLink(bag,slot); if name and string.find(name,"ff9d9d9d") then
DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("Selling "..name); UseContainerItem(bag,slot) end; end; end

Useful Mods

www.curse-gaming.com is your best source of interface mods for WoW. If you have favourites, list them here:

Auctioneer allows you to database the auction house, and then see average buyouts, vendor sell prices and the like in the tooltip when you mouse over an item. HIGHLY recommended.

Cosmos/Khaos is a very popular user interface package that includes a vast array of neat features including auction tracking, mob health tracking etc. However, Cosmos makes extensive custom modifications to the user interface and frequently gets broken by patches.

CTMod is one of the more popular user interface packages and includes a number of useful but not necessary features such as tracking your HP/MP regeneration, chat time stamps, tracking locations of herbs and minerals, etc.

CTRaid from the makers of CTMod is a raid tracking program that helps you keep track of large raids. It's unecessary for lower levels where raiding is rare but higher end and end-game raid groups may encourage you to use it.

FlagRSP flags you as a roleplayer, and allows you to enter a description, a surname, and other such RP stuff.

Gatherer marks nodes you've visited (herbs, ore and chests) on your map, and remembers where they are.

Scrolling Combat Text shows damage and effects with floating text that appears above your character, allowing you to track damage done/taken and the casting of special effects such as buffs or debuffs. Useful for warriors for the "Overpower" text that appears when enemies dodge, so you don't have to stare at your Overpower button all day.

Totem Timer Shaman-specific; allows you to see how much time is left before your dropped totems disappear.

WeaponSwap Best for warriors, but anybody can use it. Allows you to make macros to switch between multiple weapon loadouts at a single click. For instance, for a warrior to switch from a 2-hander to a 1-h and shield.

Related Software

Teamspeak or TS is a stand-alone software that works with multiple games to allow voice chat. Like CTRaid, it isn't needed at lower levels but well organized high-end instances and Battlegrounds groups will frequently use it.

Ventrillo, also known as Vent, is similar to TS but apparently less popular.