Random Question Thread

[Boyiee]

Won't work in cataclysm, but until then I'm trying to steal as much leather as I can from underproducing rogues in pugs.

[Falaras]

A question for the Protadins on this board: How are you getting your Hit/Expertise caps?

I've been having quite a bit of a problem getting 8% hit and 24 Expertise. I'm thinking of going Heroic Facelifter to solve my expertise problems, and possibly 264 Tier hands + 264 LDW Helm for Hit. I've heard that going Chest+Head was the ideal set of T10 pieces for a protadin but I'm now leaning towards some combination with Hands and possibly Shoulders.

[Khelek]

I have a hard time getting rid of my hit rating atm lol. it's above cap.
http://wow-heroes.com/index.php?zone...ge&name=khelek

[Tajin]

A question for the Protadins on this board: How are you getting your Hit/Expertise caps?

I've been having quite a bit of a problem getting 8% hit and 24 Expertise. I'm thinking of going Heroic Facelifter to solve my expertise problems, and possibly 264 Tier hands + 264 LDW Helm for Hit. I've heard that going Chest+Head was the ideal set of T10 pieces for a protadin but I'm now leaning towards some combination with Hands and possibly Shoulders.

Glyph and... talents lol. And Hit, think im over cap now but if not, I use some hit + stam gems and whatever goes in the weapon as BS enchant, titanium weapon chain iirc.

[Falaras]

Glyph and... talents lol. And Hit, think im over cap now but if not, I use some hit + stam gems and whatever goes in the weapon as BS enchant, titanium weapon chain iirc.

I'm just not so sure about Accuracy to weapon (I dunno why you would ever use the weapon chain). +25 Hit +25 Crit is nice to get to the hit cap but your sacrificing Mongoose/Blade Warding/Blood Draining.

I have a hard time getting rid of my hit rating atm lol. it's above cap.
http://wow-heroes.com/index.php?zone...ge&name=khelek

It looks like your using Sanc Hands, thinking of doing that now.

http://wow-heroes.com/index.php?zone...&name=Failaras is my character right now, I guess having a Hit/Expertise weapon like Facelifter and Bonebreaker Scepter makes a world of difference at this point (kind of like Judgement helm in T9 content). Seems to be pretty hard to find good Hit/Expertise pieces in ICC though now that everything is flooded with additional armor. As you can see the only expertise I have is from two purple gems and the hit comes from inferior pieces I badly need to replace...

[Oreth]

Hey all question time.

Recently quit playing FFXI after many many years. Im looking to get into WoW just to play with some friends in the US. I guess it will be sorta casual but i figure it be best to just level a character up instead of buying one and not having a clue how to play it.

I had PLD,RDM,RNG,WAR,DRG,DRK leveld in FFXI and i guess the core of my play time was spent on PLD. Just curious what class would be the best transition for me to go into playing so i pick up the roles fast and actually understand what im doing etc. I know most answers would be go with one that you enjoy playing but the simple answer is i dont know.

I have had some WoW experience before but was completely overwhelmed (was handed a decked out rogue account) with the different abilities / dps / meters etc. I guess at a hunch id like to do WAR or PLD but are these easy to play correctly?

How quick can one level to 80 these days? Say 2/3 hours playing each night?

Thanks

[Tajin]

I'm just not so sure about Accuracy to weapon (I dunno why you would ever use the weapon chain). +25 Hit +25 Crit is nice to get to the hit cap but your sacrificing Mongoose/Blade Warding/Blood Draining.

Well I don't do heroic content and getting a 25m pug that decently kills rot/fest is rare, not to mention ICC buff, missing those on weapon is barely noticeable.

[The Stig]

Hey all question time.

Recently quit playing FFXI after many many years. Im looking to get into WoW just to play with some friends in the US. I guess it will be sorta casual but i figure it be best to just level a character up instead of buying one and not having a clue how to play it.

I had PLD,RDM,RNG,WAR,DRG,DRK leveld in FFXI and i guess the core of my play time was spent on PLD. Just curious what class would be the best transition for me to go into playing so i pick up the roles fast and actually understand what im doing etc. I know most answers would be go with one that you enjoy playing but the simple answer is i dont know.

I have had some WoW experience before but was completely overwhelmed (was handed a decked out rogue account) with the different abilities / dps / meters etc. I guess at a hunch id like to do WAR or PLD but are these easy to play correctly?

How quick can one level to 80 these days? Say 2/3 hours playing each night?

Thanks

I can address this as I kinda stopped playing FFXI last year (September ish) and gave my account to my cousin, although I had access to it I occasonally logged on for lulz.

First things first, at something like level 10 you can get talent points which is more or less a merit system but a bit enhanced, so you can go down a specific tree/path for your class.

I started up Paladin because I liked how I can tank, heal or damage. But then I got to 55 and got bored.... actually, very bored. With Paladin (in damage "merits") I felt bored in parties/groups/solo, there was a lack of abilities/moves. So I looked over to Death Knight which combines a mixture of "magic" (but not many), different abilities, tank/DD and a pet! And took that up, and because I don't like to heal/buff anyway, which Death Knights can't do, added to the bonus. But you need to be 55 to start a Death Knight, but my experience as a Paladin 1-55 allowed me to learn some basics of the game which carried over.

Levelling is really easy. I got to 80 in about 5 weeks, 3~ hours a night and about 10~ hours weekends. You basically get fed EXP for nearly everything you do, and quests hand them out by the chunk load. Money is also not an issue, 9/10 kills drop something, and can be Auctioned/NPCed for quick cash. I never really used the auction house until 80 either, except for some minor things. All your gear can come from drops/quests/dungeons.

I too am only sticking with Death Knight for now, I do not wish to level multiple characters.

From what I noticed, if you decide to go hunter, it is basically a RNG but with a BST sub! You can have a very powerful pet, very easy to solo class, and guns/crossbows/arrows!

EDIT: yes it's very easy to be overwhelmed if handed a high level char, because unlike FFXI where you only have 3-4 abilities you'd actually use, WoW has several of them for each job. Also, the interface is incredibly customisable, adding to the overwhelmness you experienced.

And I'm not sure what the big deal is, but... you can JUMP! :D -- strangely addicting.

[Oreth]

I can address this as I kinda stopped playing FFXI last year (September ish) and gave my account to my cousin, although I had access to it I occasonally logged on for lulz.

First things first, at something like level 10 you can get talent points which is more or less a merit system but a bit enhanced, so you can go down a specific tree/path for your class.


I started up Paladin because I liked how I can tank, heal or damage. But then I got to 55 and got bored.... actually, very bored. With Paladin (in damage "merits") I felt bored in parties/groups/solo, there was a lack of abilities/moves. So I looked over to Death Knight which combines a mixture of "magic" (but not many), different abilities, tank/DD and a pet! And took that up, and because I don't like to heal/buff anyway, which Death Knights can't do, added to the bonus. But you need to be 55 to start a Death Knight, but my experience as a Paladin 1-55 allowed me to learn some basics of the game which carried over.

Levelling is really easy. I got to 80 in about 5 weeks, 3~ hours a night and about 10~ hours weekends. You basically get fed EXP for nearly everything you do, and quests hand them out by the chunk load. Money is also not an issue, 9/10 kills drop something, and can be Auctioned/NPCed for quick cash. I never really used the auction house until 80 either, except for some minor things. All your gear can come from drops/quests/dungeons.

I too am only sticking with Death Knight for now, I do not wish to level multiple characters.

From what I noticed, if you decide to go hunter, it is basically a RNG but with a BST sub! You can have a very powerful pet, very easy to solo class, and guns/crossbows/arrows!

EDIT: yes it's very easy to be overwhelmed if handed a high level char, because unlike FFXI where you only have 3-4 abilities you'd actually use, WoW has several of them for each job. Also, the interface is incredibly customisable, adding to the overwhelmness you experienced.

And I'm not sure what the big deal is, but... you can JUMP! :D -- strangely addicting.

Thanks for the reply and info! I like the idea of PLD but when you mentioned getting bored it completely turned me off.

The only main concern i have is having to account for different builds and play styles etc. I guess thats where the core confusion comes from in relation to FFXI. I dont want to get to lvl 55 on PLD and find myself bored or not interested in the game anymore.

When you mention tree / paths obviously the idea is to do it to your liking but lets be honest there must be a set layout or reccomended layout that offers you the best optimization, i think its referred too as cookie cutting? I mean i like the idea of being able to pick what i want etc but at the end fo the day i guess you want to be the best etc. Is there a mould or layouts that are suggested?

What class would be WAR or SAM of FFXI? Where the is a complete abundance of the class and less likely to get invited to raids or events for gear etc. From what i understand a Priest = WHM but the huge amount of HP how effectively can one cure people? Is it anything like FFXI? From what i remember isnt alot of scripts used?

I guess ill roll with WAR? That can be a tank or a DD right just no ability to cure yourself?

[Boyiee]

You can pretty much level any class to 80 in anywhere from 1-4weeks. Because you haven't played before, and coming from ffxi where you could switch jobs, playing a class that can do multiple rolls would benefit you the most.

Warrior - Tank/dmg
DeathKnight - Tank/dmg
Paladin - Tank/dmg/heals
Shaman - Heals/dmg/caster dmg
Druid - Tank/Heals/dmg/Caster dmg
Priest - Heals/Caster dps

etc


The problem with some of those is that they might not level as fast or fluidly as other classes, with the exception of druid in cat form. Some pure damage dealers level really fast with little to know gear or experience. You get to endgame pretty quickly in wow, so make sure you consider that. It's not hard to find groups as any class, it just takes longer as some and there is more competition. Especially as a melee. 5man dungeons can que instantly for tanks and healers, but you may wait 10-18min as a dps. Currently raiding is 10 or 25mans, group composistion is usually 5-6healers, 2tanks (3 on some fights), and the other 15ish is dps, and it's almost always preferred to be caster heavy over melee heavy. 10mans are typically 2 tanks, 2-3healers, 5-6dps. Again, casters are favored usually.

[Boyiee]

Does anyone know where I can find the druid shapeshift sound effects?

I got this program called mywarcraftstudio and I can't find it in any mpq. Specifically, I'm looking for one of the tree druid sound effects. I have no idea where it is or how to go about extracting it and whatnot.

[Baha]

When you mention tree / paths obviously the idea is to do it to your liking but lets be honest there must be a set layout or reccomended layout that offers you the best optimization, i think its referred too as cookie cutting? I mean i like the idea of being able to pick what i want etc but at the end fo the day i guess you want to be the best etc. Is there a mould or layouts that are suggested?

Most definitively. Most of it is pretty self-explanatory though. "Hmm, do I want a 5% bonus on my bread and butter damage ability, or have crowd control effects last half duration..." Sometimes you can get doubts, but it's pretty easy to find the cookie cutter talent distributions. Wowhead forum stickies usually explain stuff well enough when you're starting out. Elitistjerks and so is only really relevant when you hit cap.

What class would be WAR or SAM of FFXI? Where the is a complete abundance of the class and less likely to get invited to raids or events for gear etc.

There are of course the flavour of the week periods where tank/healer/dps class x is the best, but it's always shifting, and hardly ever to the extent of SAM's in AH-gear facerolling their way over everything. If a class is too dominant (or even perceived to be), other classes will bitch and whine until something is done to shift the balance.

From what i understand a Priest = WHM but the huge amount of HP how effectively can one cure people? Is it anything like FFXI? From what i remember isnt alot of scripts used?

Not sure what you mean about the huge amount of HP being a problem, your heals are bigger too. All healers have their own quirks to the way they heal. In general, I thought wow healing was more fun, more active and more stuff to do.
Oversimplifying but:

Spoiler: show

Holy pala : great singletarget healer, fast casts, relies on crits, great tank healer, limited for healing a raid (think alliance) in AoE situations.
Priest: Great for healing both singletarget and raid situations, but more of a middle ground
Shaman: Good for raid healing (has a heal that jumps from target to target, healing for less each jump), brings great buffs to the raid (totems)
Druid: relies mostly on heals over time (like regen but much better), great for raidhealing

Addons are used for all classes really, but yeah, healers do get a lot of mileage out of theirs. It consolidates a lot of information into a small area and it makes
Normal raid healing: select target (hotkey or clicking their portrait/bars onscreen), press button to cast healing spell
Grid/clique healing: leftclick target's square to cast healing spell. rightclick to cast another spell (eg. removing poison) Can also show debuffs, even configurable to show only the kinds you can remove.
http://s.wowinterface.com/preview/pvw34010.jpg

I guess ill roll with WAR? That can be a tank or a DD right just no ability to cure yourself?

Would probably work fine, but if you wanna try paladin, just give it a go. Personally warrior got me bored faster than paladin when I was dicking around with them. Never brought them to cap, but everyone likes different things.

[Khelek]

Warrior tanking is definitely more fun than paladin. at least to me. for dps however, paladin beats warrior in that sense. warrior tank offers a lot more buttons and doesn't have the restriction of needing to use aoe attacks even on single targets (really annoying VS saurfang). Paladin dps however has more buttons and utility than fury warrior.

[Tajin]

Warrior used to be the hardest class to level before random dungeon finder though.

[The Stig]

Oreth: I like to quickly address one thing, unless you intend to level multiple chars, FFXI's issues was the fact that it was possible to switch jobs on the fly (although nice) but that burned me out as I tried to acquire every single piece of gear, against like minded people.

Whereas here, as a Death Knight only, I only need the damage and tank gear. Likewise, I believe the only trickier classes to gear for is Druid (they can tank heal and DPS - Physical and Magical) they'll potentially need the most gear, unless you're bent on only doing one thing.

I'm actually loving the fact up til now I still have no desire to level another character. As a result, this takes a massive strain of stress off my mind as I don't need to worry about gearing for something completely different.

To address the cure issue, heals can "critical" too and I've seen my friend heal me for as much as up to 30k HP with one spell, and still sits on full mana. Although your HP pools are in the 25k region, so is their MP pool in their 30-50k regions, plus crazy refresh (called MP5 in this game). From my tiny experience as healing on Paladin when I levelled it up, as I was not talented (merited) or geared to do so, I only had 2 heals and ran out of MP too quick, but you definitely need to do it a lot more.

I guess ill roll with WAR? That can be a tank or a DD right just no ability to cure yourself?

You can't cure yourself really midfight. But however if you're not in combat you get a truckload of a variety of food items which will top you up easy within 30 seconds (they drop freely off most mobs), and also you can learn "First Aid" which is classied as a secondary profession and does not take up one of your 2 "Primary" Profession "credits" (profession = crafting really) which relies on turnng a variety of cloth into "consumables" which can be applied to yourself once every minute, usually enough to top yourself 50%. You can use it midfight, but if you get interrupted it won't top you up to its potential, and you're stuck until the minute is up (you get a "recently bandaged debuff).

Another thing, I'm not saying this or that sucks, but as a migrating player like you:

Gearswaps! Whereas FFXI required (somewhat) you to have swapped out every single piece of your gear via macros for maximising whatever you're doing, you're restricted from swapping gear in WoW during combat.

To address Boyiee's comment:

You can pretty much level any class to 80 in anywhere from 1-4weeks. Because you haven't played before, and coming from ffxi where you could switch jobs, playing a class that can do multiple rolls would benefit you the most.

is why I went Paladin, but as I went with the damage spec, and maybe I wasn't high enough, my battle tactics is usually fire some banish like spell off, and then use one of my 3 judgement spells which will grant me HP, or MP, or not allow the mob to run away, and that was pretty much it. I'm sure it would've changed at 80, but just from the damage tree I didn't find it fun at that time.

It's not purely a waste to level to 55 and then "quit" since it's simple to get to 55, all cash you built up there can be transferred. My Paladin is 58 at the moment on the same server, I occasionally use it to quickly check the auction house or transfer some items from/to it. It can be used as a crafting mule or something too. Also at 55 you unlock Death Knight creation rights. So if you're bent on a Death Knight, like I was, then 1-55 can be used to pick up some feel/experience of the game.

Also, no cost for having multiple characters too, you can have 10 per server and 50 overall across all servers I believe. So it's no problem to start a new one, dick around, and then conclude.

[Oreth]

Thanks for all the info guys! Im leaning towards Paladin now i didnt realise it could be a Damage dealer too. I figure there would be a spot as Paladin or one would always be needed so i guess thats a good route to go.

Im not having a good start though and im about to give up. My friend sent me an invite for the 10 day trial so we get triple XP bonuses which is all good. I just downloaded the TryWoW.exe and ran it, it downloaded about 35mb worth of details and when i try to launch the launcher now im met with this error.

"Launcher requires write permission to C:\Program Files\World Of Warcraft Trial\ directory"

Its Windows XP SP3. The account is an administrator account. It isnt Windows 7 / Vista so it isnt UAC or permission issues for the folder. Iv even tried to run the launcher as administrator in XP and still nothing.

Quick google seems to result in lots of people having the same problem, any Blizzard responces have been directed at Windows 7 / Vista soltuions only because the help they provided doesnt apply to Windows XP.

Anyone have this problem? Very frustrating.

[Zeh]

Try running it as an administrator, even though you are one

[Oreth]

Its Windows XP SP3. The account is an administrator account. It isnt Windows 7 / Vista so it isnt UAC or permission issues for the folder. Iv even tried to run the launcher as administrator in XP and still nothing.

Iv already tried that

[Correction]

In the absence of a lot of ArPen gear, what do fury warriors gem for? Strength? AP? If a socket bonus is +6 Str do you match yellow/blue gems?

[Norellicus]

Use landsoul's spreadsheet to find out for sure, but yeah it would be Strength gems.