AoE-grinding
Latest
The Light and How to Swing It: Less AoE
With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and soon an entire flight of black dragons. Paladins have changed a lot over the course of the game. Originally, we were intended to just be healers with some additional specs for leveling. Then we were suddenly able to tank and everything was about reflective damage with a dozen or more things hitting you at once with a DPS spec that was usually relegated to the PvP scene instead of in raids. Finally, we've reached a point where all three specs are pretty viable in both PvE and PvP content. That isn't to say that they're the most phenomenal things to ever appear for those particular parts of the game but that we can still be competitive no matter which spec we choose. The problem with our class is a lack of tools. While our melee components were slowly built out of what was intended to be a healing support class, we've still got a lot of vestiges of the old days tacked to us. Sure, we had a fairly large overhaul in how a lot of our mechanics worked at the start of Wrath of the Lich King, but that isn't to say we're perfect yet. In fact, we need a few more tools in order to make it in Cataclysm.
Arcane Brilliance: Leveling your Mage through Northrend
Each week, Arcane Brilliance rounds up all of the quest mobs in an area, gathers them all up into a giant, tagged, frozen gaggle, then AoEs them to death while everybody else has to watch and wait for the respawn. Just kidding, Arcane Brilliance doesn't actually do that at all. Why? Because that would make Arcane Brilliance a selfish jerk. I'm not even making a joke here. I'm saying in thinly veiled code to that Gnome Frost Mage in Gjalerbron yesterday, "you, sir, are a selfish jerk." Ok, so maybe the code isn't even thinly veiled. Maybe it isn't even a code, exactly. All I know is that one of these days, I hope you forget how much mana you have, and run out right when you've gathered an extremely large group of quest mobs, and that those quest mobs then surround you and tear you limb from Gnomish limb while you mash your Ice Block button in vain. Jerk.So, apparently an expansion came out, or something? Seriously, what are you doing here, reading this? I'm going to assume that you're trapped at work or something. Don't despair! There's still time for you to cultivate a nice, wet, contagious-sounding cough, something that can only be cured by a bit of time off, spent nursing yourself back to health in front of your computer, killing zombified murlocs and getting sea-lions to mate with each other. Not that we don't want you here, of course. We here at WoW Insider appreciate every second you choose to spend here. But holy crap, Wrath of the Lich King is awesome.Follow me after the break, and we'll discuss the process of leveling in this strange new continent, list a few leveling builds, and just generally blabber on about how awesome everything is.
Lichborne: PvP, grinding, the Unholy tree, and you
Every weekend in Lichborne, Daniel Whitcomb will take you through the ever-changing (Beta) world of World of Warcraft's first hero class, the Death Knight. With a new Beta Build on the test servers, Death Knights have received a massive amount of talent changes. Many of them have been hinted at on the test servers for eons, and I've covered much of them in last week's Lichborne. The new disease changes are in, as is the changing of Chains of Ice's Snare component to an undispellable physical effect. You can check out the full list of changes here. Among the new changes is a very extensive revamp of the Unholy tree, which features quite a bit of talent consolidation and quite a few new and interesting mechanics and abilities. In fact, I'd have to say that the current build may very well mark the rise of the Unholy Tree, with the changes making it an amazing tree for grinding and PvP. As a disclaimer, there's still lot of bugs in this build. Many abilities don't seem to be working quite right, especially Blood Caked Blade (which only hits for 1-4 damage based on the number of diseases instead of 60% weapon damage per disease), Raise Dead, and Night of the Dead. Because of that, it's often hard to say how or if an ability would be better or worse if it actually worked. Therefore, I'll be discussing the abilities based on if they actually did work, backed with some feel for them from Death Knight play on the Beta Servers.
Arcane Brilliance: Why we Mage
Hi there! Yes, after a long hiatus, Arcane Brilliance is back. Snack tables all around! Anybody ninjas the biscuits, they get a Fireball in the face. Nah, just kidding. Even ninjas are welcome here. As long as they're mage-ninjas. I've been a Mage since day one with WoW, and until a few weeks ago I had never really questioned my class choice. I liked the idea of being a caster, a back row fireballer with robes and a pointy hat. When I came over from FFXI I asked my WoW-playing buddy (the aforementioned shammie) which class I should be. He asked what I was into, and I said something like "I want to be a huge caster-tastic wizard in a dress who sets things on fire with his mind. Is there a mage-type class?" He said. "Yes. It's called...Mage." And that was it. I rolled my undead Mage and began conjuring flaming death and croissants. I happily leveled my Mage to 70. And then...the bubbling, Healthstone-critting warlock happened. After the jump: Shameful self doubt, soul searching, and finally...sweet redemption! And more Mage-talk.
Arcane Brilliance: Speccing for AoE
Last week in the leveling 1-20 guide I promised that we would spend some time today talking about the specifics of the AoE spec here on Arcane Brilliance. AoE grinding is a skill that I have only recently put to good use, namely in my desire to raise some cash for an epic flying mount. A mage friend of mine spent some time sifting through Bangy's guide on the European Forums, and built a spec that maximizes talents for AoE grindage. He pointed me to the core talents required for the build, and explained that he routinely is able to gather large crowds and burn them down with ease. Intrigued, I tried it myself, and was surprised and happy with the results. We've been told that mages are supposed to be the kings (and queens) of AoE damage, so why not take advantage of our strengths to maximize our potential for destruction? There are several talents that are very important in this particular spec, but more interesting are those talents that can completely ruin your build. First, let's look at the talents that will help you own with AoE:
The Light and How to Swing It: The sadist's guide to PalAOEadins
"Paladins are for masochists," say the wise elders on pally boards and blogs. "You either spec healbot and can never farm, spec ret and can never find a group, or spec prot and spend half your time trying to convince people that prot pallies can actually tank. You're either being ordered around by your raid leader and tank or wandering in the wilderness soloing stuff." As I was leveling my paladin, I began to feel that this statement had some truth to it. Ret had nice, big numbers, but I couldn't take on many mobs, had to heal a lot, and found myself constantly out of mana. Holy ... well, I didn't have enough talent points yet to take Holy Shock, and I didn't even want to know how tough leveling would be with a spec mostly invested in healing. Then one day, while talking to some other belfadins, I discovered the wonders of protection AOE, the most sadistic spec in paladindom.
