World of Warcraft

[The_Rev]

How the hell do you kill Nightelfs?

I'm a level 34 Blood Elf Mage, and I keep getting killed by level 30 Night Elfs. They're invisible, fast, and can regen health during battle. It's doing my head in, any tips?

never ask anything there, for its a horrible place.

[Juju]

Rev, I just rolled a lock on Deathwing.

Its a fantastic class to play, probably the most inteesting of the lot. At l28 so far. But largely my game plan is corruption, curse of agony and immolate, with voidwalker out. With all those spells and curses, I', sure theres some subtlety I'm missing out on. A lot seems to hinge on the mana/health management during a fight, but I can take on a couple of creeps 2 levels or so above me at a time with voidwalker, using fear and dots. Its all the fun of a casting class but with the fun of a pet too.

So how should I spec, I'm using a 2h stave atm + wand, which is my main weapon of choice. I've spent most of my talent points in affliction, with improved imp which I regret as the Voidwalker seems to the the pet for solo play.

any handy hints and tips?

[The_Rev]

Link your armory.

Ill say learn tailoring. Its very useful in the 40's, its very very useful at 70.

Affliction is the way to go. Soon you will be able to so more damage than your Voidwalker can tank. Its best not to worry about that and tank stuff yourself using your pet (imp) as a source of damage.

I would go with something like this at level 30. Finish Nightfall, take Grim Reach and Improved Lifetap at 35. 5/5 Shadow mastery towards 40, then Dark Pact at 41 leaving you with something like this .

Corruption, Siphon Life and Drain Life should do the trick if you leave the Imp on defensive. Throw in Curse of Agony if you need more damage. You shouldnt need Immolate, its a mana dump. Use fear if you want, but drain the feared mob. Always hit Drain Soul (rank 1. No need for any other) as the mob dies. You get 15% of your mana back when that happens, its a key feature of the playstyle. As you get to 40 you should make the green shadoweave set which is raw spellpower. Improved Drain soul and Dark Pact will take care of your mana issues, drain life, siphon life and blood pact will take care of your stamina issues leaving you to focus on nothing but damage. The more damage you have, the less mana you need to kill stuff and the more efficient you will be. If you feel brave you can dot up multiple mobs with the instants and run like ****. This is a lot easier when you have 2/2 improved howl of terror.

[Juju]

Actually, I did go with engineering just for exploding sheep. But since I discovered engineers can make the deadly blunderbuss needed for that blue item q in Ashenvale, I'm knocking them out for 3g apiece, a few per day...

Already up to over 50g and only l28 and been playing really a few days!

[The_Rev]

Exploding Sheep?

Get the tailoring stuff though. Most level 70 tailors will be able to make the green shadoweave set. Have an ask around, the whole lot is cheap to make. It will last you from when you equip it until Outland. When you get to Outland all you need to worry about is spellpower if you stay Affliction. If you go Demonology for the Skillguard, stats (intellect & stamina) are more important. Demonology is safer. Affliction is more powerful. Destruction is for shit and giggles in battlegrounds or end game raiding.

[The_Randy_Villan]

LOL Rev at that link. Geeky little ****.

I'm doing tailoring with my Mage. Hopefully it'll be more useful later on, I'm 39 now. My tailoring skill is 195 and mining is 166, is this about right for a level 39 or am I ahead/behind of schedule?

[The_Rev]

Max tailoring, it will help at 70. Max first aid. Personally i never cared for other professions. Waste of time in my opinion. You needed them to make money when 60 was the level cap, now there are daily quests at 70 its fairly pointless.

[The_Randy_Villan]

Why does it help at 70 though? Purple items?

I've got 300/300 first aid, can't get it up to 375 until Outlands I believe.

[The_Rev]

The epic tailoring sets are at least Tier 5 raid content (thats Magtharidon, Serpentshrine Cavern, The Eye) for PvE. You get so much bang for your buck as a tailor its insane. Blizzard realised this and they actually tried to nerf the sets but they met so much resistance from the players they couldn't do it.

Sure, there is better badge gear now but its farm farm farm. You can knock out the best part of an Epic set in next to no time with tailoring. If you get badges then you can spend them on other things you cant make with tailoring too.

There are ways to get your first aid past 300 before you hit level 58 if you want, but its fairly pointless. Just hang fire until you go through the portal.

Whats your Mage's name by the way? And what server do you play on. I want to check his armory.

[Juju]

Well. levelling seems much quicker. Warlocks seem tremendously powerful as a class - and with more points for quests, I am close to being exalted with Og and Darkspear, and only level 46. And then thats only after about 3 weeks or so of play!

[Designer1]

^^^Still in INM Juju?

[Juju]

The druid is, my unattended alts were withdrawn to prune the list of inactive players, and I resigned as an officeras I frankly wasn't doing anyhting to help. But yep - they're doing wuite well in raiding now, but it isn't the same without the old faces and hands.

The lock I rolled on Deathwing - to play wiht my sister and nephew, and a couple of the realy old members from my first proper guild back there.

Oh, and dinged 47 this am. not bad for 3 weeks work!

[The_Randy_Villan]

I'm a bit like you Juju, I'm nearly 47 after my month expired.

I'm currently ahead of schedule due to doing a few dungeons, and I'm in Tanaris at the moment. Do you all use Quest Helper? I really couldn't get into the game until I started using it, the description for each quest the game gives you is piss poor.

Also, anyone recommend any other addons?

[Juju]

Lol Rev was the add on freak. I think he tried Titan, Bongos Ace and god knows what else.

I have used Quest helper, but I would't use it if I had not played the game before as the fun is in exploring to me. The descriptnios tend to be ok, providing you actually read them. Many a time I've been grinding the wrong mob for a drop that wouldnt come before realising my error. Quest helper isnt infalible either, it doesnt always know about all quests or multiple spawnpoints forsomething specific.

When I reinstalled wow recently, I forgot or ignored my revious set up. I now use gatherer, for my mining nodes, grimoire keeper to keep tabs on what my minnions have already learned, quest helper, and auctioneer. I might load up a kos utility, and I need something to give me map coordinates soon.

I know I used to use CT and CT raid but Ct always seemed broken after TBC.

[The_Randy_Villan]

Yeah I use Gatherer aswell, it's never actually worked for me though...

[The_Rev]

-I'm Sessel on the Sunstrider server, so what do you think of his armory? Not sure if it will come up at the moment as my Subs run out for the time being.

-I dont know a huge amount about Mages. I have a level 70 one, i played as fire while leveling but went Frost at 70.

Id pick some holes in the talent build. Improved Flamestrike (shit) and Improved Fireblast (PvP) are not very good talent points.

Combustion on the other hand is awesome. You didnt take that? Blazing Speed, Fire Power, even Improve Scorch are very nice too.

-I've never actually used Scorch... What does it do? I'll look into Combustion when I get the game back tomorrow.

Scorch is just a small fireball.

1.5 second cast, i think its the most mana efficient fire spell a mage has (Pyroblast is arguably better in terms of pure efficiency, but its not a great spell) and you can get the critical strike chance of Scorch very high meaning Ignite is up more often. Its not as good as it used to be, because they nerfed Ignite. Rightly so it has to be said, the level 60 version of Ignite was stupidly overpowered.

Anyway, im going off track. Scorch is good because it doesnt use a lot of mana, the cast time is short so you dont get interrupted like you will with a fireball (and you can free up 5 talent points by not taking improved fireball if you dont want to) and of course you are casting more often so you have more chance to stun the target with impact.

The 15% bonus from improved scorch is a must have on boss fights when you group and do raids. Its not that important when you are questing, as stuff doesnt tend to live that long.

[The_Rev]

I'm a bit like you Juju, I'm nearly 47 after my month expired.

I'm currently ahead of schedule due to doing a few dungeons, and I'm in Tanaris at the moment. Do you all use Quest Helper? I really couldn't get into the game until I started using it, the description for each quest the game gives you is piss poor.

Also, anyone recommend any other addons?

This was pretty much what my UI looked like last time i had a subscription.

It was basically a version of the Photek UI package with a few bits and pieces added. I think the most obvious one (even though its not in that screenshot) would be Mik's scrolling battle text which was just lovely. Then i used Grid for raid decursing on my Mage, and Cryolysis 2 which i couldnt play Mage without.

[The_Randy_Villan]

Another thing Rev, my critical strike is 5.58% at level 46, is this good or bad? My highest damage is also 728 of a fireball, that isn't good is it?

[The_Rev]

According to your Armory your critical strike chance is 12.3% with fire spells.

I just went for all out crit with my Mage when i levelled it. I think i was reaching 40% crit with Scorch/35% with Fireball by the time i was level 65. I did just go for the pure glass cannon approach though. Every bit of gear was picked for Spell Crit, Intellect and Spell Power (in that order) i didnt bother with stamina, its a PvP stat for Mages. You shouldnt get hit. I wasnt arsed about a huge mana pool, id just drink. Just blow stuff up before it reaches you was the plan.

Id take this build as a fire mage of your level. You dont need Improved Flamestrike (its shit), you dont need Improved Fireblast (its a PvP talent) you dont need Master of Elements (your critical strike chance is too low to get anything out of it, and arguably its a raiding talent) You dont really need Pyroblast. Its crap unless you have 31+ points in Arcane, but Blast Wave is awesome as a means of escape if you bite off more than you can chew. I love it. You cant not have combustion. Its ridiculously good fun. Just blow it every cooldown to get the most out of it. But keep in mind that it might be an idea to save it if you have got a big fight coming up (an elite, or a boss in a dungeon)

From that point id take Blazing Speed (its fun), Dragons Breath (nice AOE with a great interrupt component) Molten Fury will be handy when you get to Outland and the health of everything increases dramatically, as will Empowered Fireball when gear with Spellpower on it comes flooding in, as it will in Outland. From then on in its Elemental Precision (Frost, but it benefits Fire spells) and Arcane Sublety (40% less theat on Arcane Spells. Its good if you have a shit tank in instances so you can use Arcane Missiles at the start of a boss fight, and it will save your ass when you are expected to spam Arcane Explosion in groups.) The build will look something like this

From then on if you are staying Fire, you have two choices. Go for Clearcasting (stick 3 points in Arcane Focus, then five points in Arcane Concentration) in Arcane, which will save you a **** ton of Mana or you can go for Icy Veins which is a nice raiding talent. Generally the best way to go is for Clearcasting until you get fantastic gear.

[Designer1]

Clearcasting is FTW.