Tactics #3: Dispels

This tactics post will probably be shorter than the first two, since dispelling isn't something that's particularly difficult; it's more something to be aware is crucial on some fights, and what your character can (if anything) dispel.

Wowpedia has a good table for who can dispel what; if your class and/or specialization can dispel, and you aren't already running a healing addon that tells you about it, a nice non-healer-specific addon for tracking friendly/defensive dispels is Decursive.  An addon isn't necessary for dispelling if you're good at watching buffs/debuffs on health bars, but if you just can't seem to keep track of them, Decursive has its own little tiny health bars that you can plop somewhere you can keep an eye on them.  I switched over to Decursive during Cataclysm after three expansions of healing as a priest without an addon, simply because I got tired of juggling Dispel Magic targets.

So what's the deal with dispelling?  Some fights you'll run into have bosses or other monsters that will put a debuff on some or all of the characters in your group.  These debuffs may do massive damage to their targets, or if they may have a debilitating effect if left on too long.  Some debuffs can just be healed through, but if your group is dying repeatedly to them, focusing more on dispelling than keeping everyone's health topped off may prove to be more effective.

Dispelable debuffs come in four flavors: magic, poison, diseases, and curses.  Different classes can dispel different debuffs, but most healing classes can dispel at least two.  If you're not sure what you can dispel (if anything), check out that Wowpedia table or just browse through your spellbook.  If you're coming back to the game after a relatively long break, dispels underwent a major overhaul in Mists of Pandaria, so they may have changed since you last played.

Some points to remember:

• Healers have the most dispel options, but caster classes in general often can do at least one, even if it's only to dispel offensively (for example, if the boss puts a heal-over-time spell on itself).  If your healers are getting overwhelmed, see what your options for spreading out the load are.
• If you're in a group that has multiple healers, divide up the work.  Most dispel abilities have an 8-second cooldown, and frequently two or three targets will need dispelling at the same time.  All the healers should probably be watching for them.
• Priests have a mass-dispel ability on a longer cooldown; this can be helpful when everyone is grouped up, but it doesn't work on all effects.  It's also mana-intensive when used repeatedly, so it's not really effective as a crutch in a large group if the other healers aren't helping.
• Dispelling is similar to shield effects in that it frequently prevents damage rather than heals damage taken.  A healer with a lot of dispels in a dispel-heavy fight may have a lower healing throughput on a meter than the other healers in the group, but similar to shielding, they may be making up for that with the dispels.
• Some fights may require a diverse healing roster due to the variety of debuffs involved; if you're missing a dispel type, it may be harder for your group to kill that particular boss.

Hearthstone

Once upon a time, I played M:TG.  Back when, you know, I still lived around other people I knew who play.  So getting into Hearthstone hasn't been terribly hard.  I have a hunter deck I like, a rogue/murloc deck that works for the quests (and murloc swarming is always hilarious), a warlock deck that's fun (and not just because getting screwed over by your own demons is awesome), and a priest deck I made for the daily quest to summon something like 30 minions that cost 5 or more... that turned out to be fairly decent for casual play, as well.  And of course the mage deck with Archmage Antonidas and his endless fireballs never fails to disappoint for the "deal 100 damage to enemy characters" daily quest.

So why am I playing Garrosh, damn it?

I set the deck up thus, with a Gorehowl at the bottom that's below the scroll:

I wanted to make a deck that would play off the Knife Juggler, Violet Teacher, and Imp Master, which meant also pulling in the Frothing Berserker, Cult Master, and Flesheating Ghoul to play off the deaths of all those little minions you're hopefully summoning.  Questing Adventurer got thrown in because, well, why not?  It's a fairly light deck mana-wise, and it's easy to bump him up fast.

Warrior decks seem okay for buffing minions if they can survive a little damage.  And a Frothing Berserker hitting for 20 points in round 5 is just... impressive.  A bad draft means you lose pretty fast, but if a couple cards come out in combo and your opponent doesn't or can't knock off the dangerous ones (mainly the Berserker, Ghoul, and Adventurer) in a timely manner, they can quickly become overwhelming.  The Warsong Commander to give them charge when they first come out, the Cruel Taskmaster and Rampage to quickly ramp them up even more...

It's not a perfect deck, but it's making the non-class-specific dailies go pretty fast.

Alt Leveling Plans

So I've got nine toons at 90 right now, one hovering at 88, one at 85, and a slew of lower ones.  Someone linked this (plans for no flying at all in Draenor) today on an alt guild's Facebook page, and my gut reaction to it is that my druid is going to be abandoned.

I love flight form.  Seriously, it was my impetus for rolling a druid at all.  If you've seen the most recent Captain America movie, the scenes with the Falcon pretty much epitomize why I love it for my druid.  (Sitting in the theater, going, "That! That is what I love about my druid!")

But she's 90, and, well, high level alts get leveled.  It just happens.  Some of them will be through questing, some through dungeons, some through... other means.  But not being to to use flight form in post-90 content, basically ever?  Druid's probably getting leveled through dungeons and then probably parked unless I like the new druid healing enough to do raid finder on her.  Sure, all my characters will be grounded, but travel form isn't as fast as ground mounts.  Cat stealth is weak compared to rogues'.  Since soloing content isn't what I like about her, it's not what I'm going to do on her.

This train of thought led to other alt leveling thoughts.  My main had all the pre-Wrath Loremaster pieces done before Wrath (and achievements) hit, and she got Seeker before hitting 80; it's kind of obvious she's going to be questing out all the zones.  But my alts get narrower subsets of content.

(In the order they're on my character screen):

Alliance (Original) Hunter:  Will get leveled through the Alliance quest content, to see what's different

This was taken before I know about alt+z

Rogue:  I may see what I can do with leveling her through archaeology again, probably combined with herbalism.  I used to stealth through Azshara picking herbs for hours on her in vanilla.  There's a reason she's Subtlety.  (I maxed her herbalism at 85 long before I started actually leveling her to 90.)

This is how I leveled 85-90

Warrior:  Mix of questing and probably trying dungeon tanking again.  The warrior is usually the 3rd or 4th I level.  She's a swordsmith.

Questing as Prot

(Main)

It's not like I don't have ground mount options

Priest:  More dungeons (healing), some questing, because I always like seeing how well Disc solos in the questing environment.  Plus disenchanting quest rewards helps for enchanting materials.  The priest is usually the 2nd leveled.  (Although 4th in Mists.)

I swapped her offspec back to Shadow, alas

Baby Hunter 1:  This is my jewelcrafter & scribe, and she tends to get leveled in parallel with the warrior.  Because of how well hunters solo, I frequently quest again on her.

She does have the coolest cat

Shaman:  Probably mostly dungeons as Elemental and some questing to open up phasing/zones.  Since she's a leatherworker, I'll likely open up content I need for skinning, too - I went back and did Vashj'ir on her at 85 because I needed the skinning there.

She has the best orc hair!

Warlock:  I did all of the Lorewalker discoveries on her pre-90 (which means yes, on a ground mount), then found out I couldn't get the quests from the scrolls until 90.  This is the character that got taken on the road trip to Dalaran at 43 (to be parked there to summon people there until I got around to leveling her).  She tends to get leveled around 5th or 6th, in parallel with the shaman, so I'll probably do more map discovery/herbalism/some question/some dungeons with her.  She's my transmuter.

Apparently goblins have problems with Pandaren furniture

Baby Hunter 2: This is my flask alchemist; I'll probably level her alchemy long before she's leveled.  She's 88 right now.  I'll finish getting her to 90 probably in the next couple months.

I took ALL my 85+ through Karazhan for the pets

Paladin (bank):  My bank is 76; I've hardly touched her in terms of leveling since Mists started, partly because she's not in my main guild, and partly because I haven't gotten around to learning the paladin changes.  One day!

Stalled out bank toon? You get the BEST ride

Druid:  Like I said before: probably mostly through dungeons.  She was leveled mostly through mining, herbalism, and pet battles from the 60s on, with some dungeons thrown in.

In the Zangarmarsh

Death Knight (on a connected realm):  My death knight is 85, my second transmuter, and I've leveled her mostly through dungeons, with a smattering of herbalism and pet battles.  I really like tanking on her; I just have to get back into it for Mists content, which is a bit intimidating despite doing it on my warrior.

They took my scourgestone :(

I have a lot of baby alts (Catnome, goblin & troll hunters, orc mage) that I want to level, and have started slowly doing so, but I don't know where they're going to fit into the mix.  I also want to make an orc hunter after the new models come out.  Then I'll have one of all of them Horde-side except Pandaren, because I'm not doing the Pandaren starting zone again.

I really wish all my alts were on connected servers, because I've got about 15 others I want to level, but just am not as likely to get to without my guild.  Maybe one day.

I was promised a pony!

... and I got like 36 gazillion.  My tauren (not the paladin, and obviously not the warlock) now has access to:

• Argent Warhorse
• Black Skeletal Horse
• Blue Skeletal Horse
• Brown Skeletal Horse
• Celestial Steed
• Fiery Warhorse
• Forsaken Warhorse
• Green Skeletal Warhorse
• Headless Horseman's Mount
• Hearthsteed
• Ochre Skeletal Warhorse
• Purple Skeletal Warhorse
• Red Skeletal Horse
• Red Skeletal Warhorse
• Swift Zhevra
• Tyrael's Charger
• White Skeletal Warhorse

Yes, ten of those are technically undead forsaken ponies, but they're still ponies.  That still leaves me seven pony models on a tauren.  Back when WoW first launched, all she could use was kodos and wolves, and for the PVP mounts she could also use the raptor (which I ground for for ages so I could buy it the day it went live).

Not counted:

• Camels
• Hippogryphs ("hippo" being for horse... even if they gave them deer features)
• Talbuks (their horns and skeletal warhorses' horns were confusing me)
• Windsteed (because... um... I'm really not sure what it is, taxonomically)
• All the Alliance pony mounts my night elf has access too

There are still ponies I don't have - Invincible, Rivendare's - but I don't think I'm hurting too badly for pony options.

Timeless Armor

The Timeless Isle was an interesting addition to the Siege of Orgrimmar raid patch - non-raid content (mostly) that included parts of the legendary cloak quest, some world bosses with current tier for both PVE and PVP, and a reputation grind for another Pandarian dragon mount.

It also brought us Timeless armor tokens, account-bound tokens that we could use to gear up alts and fill in gaps until we got something better.  Lots and lots of Timeless armor tokens.

And you know what?  That's okay.  Timeless armor tokens have some uses beyond just vendoring once you've kitted out your alts.

New character on a new server?  No cash?  Send them a couple tokens!  Five gold a pop.

Short on sha crystals?  Send your extra tokens of the appropriate armor type to your enchanter, make a piece of gear, crush.

Now I'm working on the Bigger Bag achievement, so I'm getting tokens more again.  I should be able to restock my sha crystals, and I can gear up my death knight when she finally hits 90.  It's going to take a while - I got Huolon's mount on the wrong character.

6.0 Alpha Patch Notes!!

Rather than just repeat everything that's been said already, I'm just gonna link you the patch notes (in case you somehow haven't seen them), and then link you over to all of WoWhead's stuff (and their talent/perks calculator), because Carpnado. There's a lot of cool stuff popping up in the datamining (Glyph of Play Dead!), but since it's thus far contextless, I'm going to look mostly at the patch notes stuff right now.

Since these are alpha patch notes, all of this is subject to (and likely to in some way) change, but here's what affects Marksmanship out of that (gloriously long) patch notes post:

Removed abilities:

• Aspect of the Hawk
• Distracting Shot
• Hunter’s Mark
• Lynx Rush
• Rapid Fire
• Rapid Recuperation
• Serpent Sting and Improved Serpent Sting
• Widow Venom
• Scatter Shot
• Silencing Shot (but not Counter Shot)

Removed for Marksmanship:

• Arcane Shot

Moved to talents:

• Stampede (replaces Lynx Rush)

Changed abilities/talents:

• Thrill of the Hunt affects Aimed Shot
• Aspect of the Iron Hawk will just reduce damage (not increase attack power)
• Revive Pet and Mend Pet are one button and switch function based on whether you have a live pet (basically replacing my revive/mend macro)
• Traps won't need to arm - they can go off as soon as you drop them
• Traps won't be disarmable (they're taking Disarm Traps away from rogues, anyway)
• Scare Beast PVP duration will be 6 seconds
• The aspect bar is being removed and the remaining aspects will be toggles on the GCD:
• Aspect of the Pack
• Aspect of the Cheetah
• Glyph of Aspect of the Beast
• Glyph of Aspect of the Cheetah won't trigger cooldowns on aspects
• Aimed Shot damage is being buffed and will once again not interrupt Autoshot
• Dismiss Pet won't need line-of-site
• Pets will have a 1 second GCD
• Explosive Trap will put a DOT on anything in range when it goes off, rather than be a fire puddle

Pet abilities removed:

• Cower
• Rabid
• Specific pet abilities:
• Basilisk: Petrifying Gaze; Bat: Sonic Blast; Bear: Demoralizing Roar; Bird of Prey: Snatch; Carrion Bird: Demoralizing Screech; Core Hound: Lava Breath; Crab: Pin; Crane: Lullaby; Crocolisk: Ankle Crack; Dog: Lock Jaw; Fox: Tailspin; Goat: Trample; Gorilla: Pummel; Hyena: Cackling Howl; Monkey: Bad Manners; Moth: Serenity Dust; Nether Ray: Nether Shock; Porcupine: Paralyzing Quill; Raptor: Tear Armor; Rhino:  Horn Toss; Scorpid: Clench; Serpent: Serpent's Swiftness; Shale Spider: Web Wrap; Silithid: Venom Web Spray; Spider: Web; Sporebat: Spore Cloud; Tallstrider: Dust  Cloud; Wasp: Sting

Changed pet abilities:

• Sporebat: Energizing Spores now affects both melee and spell haste

Draenor Perks:

• Enhanced Kill Shot: Bigger Kill Shot window
• Enhanced Camouflage: Heal while camouflaged
• Enhanced Chimera Shot: Costs less focus
• Enhanced Aimed Shot: Crits generate focus
• Improved Focus: Larger focus pool
• Improved Aimed Shot: Increased damage
• Improved Steady Shot: Increased damage
• Enhanced Shots: Increased range
• Enhanced Piercing Shots: Multishot crits apply bleeds

Level 100 Talents:

• Flaming Shots: Autoshot BURNINATES
• Focusing Shot: Replace Steady Shot with one longer shot that generates focus, but can't be used on the move
• Lone Wolf: Play without a pet

Okay, so that's the consolidated bits of the infodump that directly affect Marksman specifically (rather than all of us players as a whole, like the stat squishes and whatnot).  What does all of this mean thus far?

Well, I can get rid of my Mend Pet/Revive Pet macro that I've had since... I dunno, 2005?

Toolbar changes (not shown: Hunter's Mark, Widow Venom)

I'm looking at the level 100 talents and thinking, well, I want to play with my pet.  I don't mind pet management, and I like the added flavor and variety.   There may be fights where it's worth it to swap into it, though.  Between Flaming Shots and Focusing Shot, I have a feeling I may change that one frequently for soloing and trash versus boss fights.  Stuff tends to die fast enough on trash and while soloing that a 3-second cast to regenerate focus for Aimed, Chimera, and Multi may be prohibitive.

The Draenor Perks are also a nice addition; they further define the specialization and INCREASED SHOT RANGE I'VE MISSED YOU.  Ahem.  I used to consistently specialize into it when it was in the old talent trees.  Healing while Camouflaged will give us a nice alternative to eating that may not be possible if stuck in combat or if in an area where the odds of getting attacked again are high.

Since the Aspect bar is down to three buttons, and losing one, I'm not going to miss it.  Once upon a time we got as high as what, six buttons?  Aspects are a neat idea, but one that apparently hasn't worked out for the hunter class the way they once thought they would.  This will also move the pet bar back over on top of my active bars and make it faster for me to call my pet off, since it will be less distance for the mouse to travel.

With Murder of Crows and Stampede moving into the same row of talents, they may become situational: Crows for single-target fights since they're a DOT; Stampede for multi-target fights since they can move around.  I'm likely to favor Crows, though, despite the joys of the Army of Sporebats.  I just really enjoy swarming someone with a flock of birds.

I'm expecting haste is still going to be a fairly desirable stat for Marksman, to bring down both the Aimed Shot cast time and that of whichever focus-generator you're using at the time.  Right now Focusing Shot looks like it will generate about double the focus of a pair of Steady Shots, and it might work better for an expensive-shot rotation like Aimed and Chimera.

All in all this just makes me more impatient to be able to get in and play around with all the new stuff!

5 Favorite Engineering Gadgets

I've been an engineer since I made my second hunter - the first is a leatherworker, and by the time I got to the second I knew I wanted to be able to make my own ammunition.  Ammunition is, of course, gone now, but that's still left me with a wealth of interesting gadgets.

I'm carrying a 36-slot engineering bag around me for all the ones I'm still toting around with me; after whittling down the list, these are my top five favorite:

5.  MOLL-E:  I looked high and low for a screenshot of my MOLL-E in action, but it's one of the more mundane gadgets I carry, so none immediately jumped out at me.  I'm sure it's in a boss-kill shot somewhere; I just haven't found it yet.  My favorite engineering gadgets fall into one of two categories:  Insanely practical (MOLL-E barely beat out the Thermal Anvil for #5) or randomly deadly.  MOLL-E hasn't killed me... yet.

4.  Zapthrottle Mote Extractor:  The mote extractor was the source of much random glee and obsessive zapping in the Burning Crusade:  it lets you suck elemental motes out of random balls of gas in various zones.  Water (originally life) in Zangarmarsh, mana in Netherstorm, air in Nagrand, shadow in Shadowmoon Valley.  And it puts them on your map now.

3.  Dimensional Ripper - Everlook: This is my favorite of the many transport items available to engineering, because one of the possible mishaps sets you on fire.  I was unprepared the first time this happened and quickly burnt to death; after that I learned to pay attention and eat immediately - percentage-based food was especially helpful.

I... actually have a lot of screenshots very similar to this one.

2.  Parachute Cloak (and its descendant, the Flexweave Underlay):  I love parachuting into places.  It's great now that I can do damage while doing so now - for Galakras I volunteer for the tower groups, and do one of the guns, because I can parachute down and hit stuff en route.  Way back when, I would use this as a shortcut into the Un'Goro Crater from Tanaris.

1. Loot-A-Rang:  This is the gadget I want on all my other toons.  Loot-A-Rang, Fetch, it's all good.  I have both on several hunters.  An excellent follow-up to the Booterang.


So, when I was making this list, I decided to thin out the explosives, since they're not really gadgets, per se, but they were quickly bloating the list.  So here's a bonus list of my favorite explosives:

5.  Explosive Sheep:  Sheep, that explode.  This should not be difficult to understand, especially if you're familiar with Worms Armageddon.

4.  Goblin Mortar (and the Mortar: Reloaded):  Because:

This isn't the only screenshot I have in this approximate position.

3.  Seaforium:  If you ever went through Dire Maul on a tribute run and couldn't get the key to drop...  Also allowed you to bypass that annoying slime tunnel in the Shattered Halls.  And open locked chests.  Handy when rogues are on the decline.  (Or when they hadn't leveled lockpicking, aeons ago.)

2.  Global Thermal Sapper Charge:  Just insert cackling here.  I used to use these in Wintergrasp.  I still have a couple, but the cooldown on them puts all your explosives on a five minute cooldown.

1.  Goblin Rocket Launcher:  We used to use this for the first pull in the Botanica, for the stun.  One of my favorite PVP deaths was getting sheeped by a gnome mage (I was on my priest), and then she follows it up by immediately pulling out this rocket launcher.  It was just awesome.