Monk heirloom pieces

Question

With MoP coming out soon enough, I was wondering if it's too early to prepare and have all of the required heirloom pieces for leveling a monk? I have justice points waiting to be spent and I'm not entirely sure which ones would best fit a monk in the upcoming release. Is this information known yet? Are we dealing with an unknown? If this data is available, what heirlooms should I pick up to prepare for a monk that I'd like to level in MoP?

Asked by imaginative

Answer

The data you request are indeed available, since the beta is already alive and kicking.

The monk will be a Leather wearing class, and in terms of Heirlooms it's going to share the gear with Rogues and Druids. Since you can be a DPS, a tank or even a healer, you have the following choiches (I've divided them in "healer/others"):

• Head: Preened Tribal War Feathers/Stained Shadowcraft Cap
• Shoulders: Preened Ironfeather Shoulders/Stained Shadowcraft Shoulders
• Chest: Preened Ironfeather Chestplate/Stained Shadowcraft Tunic
• Cloak: Ancient Bloodmoon Cloak/Inherited Cape of the Black Baron

For the weapons you can choose what you prefer. Monks will be able to use fist weapons, polearms, staves, 1h swords, 1h maces and 1h axes, with the ability to dual wield. As the Druids and Death Knights before them, they're going to be shieldless tanks.

• Healer Weapons: Dignified Headmaster's Charge or 2xDevout Aurastone Hammer (with the staff you'll get more survivability, with the maces more healing power)
• Tank or DPS Weapons: 2xVenerable Mass of McGowan or 2xVenerable Dal'Rend's Sacred Charge (with the maces you'll sacrifice a little crit rating to gain a little haste). Sadly, no 2h maces, so no Repurposed Lava Dredger for Monk Tank twinks.

Answered by Kappei

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Ways to make most gold as a jewel crafter or leather worker

Question

I have 525 in JC and 525 in leather working on my character. I'm interested in trying to churn some profit from the costs it took for me to get here. Is there currently a strategy or particular recipe(s) that are most profitable in the auction house? Would you other crafters be able to suggest the cheapest gems to perhaps cut or leather based gear to make that will return the most profit for least amount of work?

Asked by imaginative

Answer

This is something you'd have to do research on for your particular realm. Every server is different, although there are some things that are static. Red gem cuts (Brilliant, Bold, Delicate) tend to always sell very well, as they are used by anyone who knows what they're doing when it comes to picking gems. There are a few others that are widely used, but that depends on how active your server is and how many JC's are targeting the same gem. The red gems tend to sell the best since they are so widely used that it doesn't matter if there are multiple JC's selling them. If you want to go for larger profits per item, look into investing in a popular cut for epic gems. Jewelcrafting is one of the most lucrative professions in the game, but it doesn't turn large profits per item sold. You're going to have to do a lot of buying, prospecting, researching, cutting, and selling to establish a solid career.

As for Leatherworking, it's a little harder to pinpoint demand, but people are always in need of leg armor, and gathering the mats as a LW isn't that difficult. It should be noted that buying the raw mats on the AH are sometimes cheaper than the asking price of leg armor.

For further research based on your realm, learn to use the Auctioneer add-on and/or browse server AH stats on The Undermine Journal.

Answered by Ben

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How do I get Ocean Sapphire without mining as a profession

Question

I'm in need of Ocean Sapphires to get from jewel crafting 520-525. I've bought what's left of them in the Auction House. I do not have mining as a profession and am not sure if it's possible to get them any other way.

Asked by imaginative

Answer

If you have an alchemist, you can get them through transmutation of 3 zephyrite and 3 Azshara's Veil. Other than that, you are pretty much stuck with buying ore and prospecting it, which you can do yourself as a jewelcrafter.

Answered by Matthew Scharley

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How does “saving” work in WoW raids

Question

I'm a bit confused with how saving to an instance works in WoW. For instance, say on Tuesday I clear 5 out of 8 bosses in Dragon Soul. The next day, my group isn't around and I'd like to finish the last 3 with another group. The other group hasn't cleaned any of the content up for the week. Will it screw them up if I join them? I understand I won't be able to loot the first 5 boss drops that I already dropped that week, but can I still join them to get the last 3 if they're going for all 8?

How exactly does "saving to an instance" work?

Asked by imaginative

Answer

I think you're confusing two different systems.

One system if the way being saved to a boss works for LFR groups. If you join a LFR group that is yet to defeat bosses that you have already defeated that week, you will not be able to roll on loot from those bosses. Once you reach bosses that you have not defeated, you will be able to roll on loot once more. These restrictions only applies to LFR bosses.

The second system is how lock outs work on Normal raids. If you defeat five bosses on Normal, you can then only enter instances for raids that have reached up to that point or later. You can join raids that are on a later boss than you reach up to, i.e. the seventh or eighth boss, but if you are there for a successful kill of that boss you will also be locked for all the bosses leading up to that boss.

Answered by dlanod

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Max number of Illustrious Jewelcrafter's Token's in a day

Question

Is it currently only possible to receive 1x Illustrious Jewelcrafter's Token per day? Is there any other quests outside of the trainer in Orgrimmar where I can get more dailies?

Asked by imaginative

Answer

Unfortunately it is only possible to get one per day, from the daily quest each day.

http://www.wowhead.com/currency=361/illustrious-jewelcrafters-token#reward-from-q confirms this as well.

Answered by dlanod

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Tool for knowing what to set auction prices to

Question

Economies differ and if you're new to the auction house, it can be overwhelming. Lately when I want to sell something, I have to see if anyone else is selling it also and figure out what the average price is so I can put up an item with a reasonable price. If no one has the item up, I have to resort to googling and other tactics.

Is there a tool which just tells you when you're creating auctions what it sells best at or something similar? Any kind of add-on that is easy to use and not cumbersome?

Asked by imaginative

Answer

Check out Auctioneer. This fancy add-on has a full array of fancy options to customize your desired profit, current market prices, averages, etc. This helped me a lot over time achieve maximum profit while still producing a sale.

Answered by Foxtrot

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How do you cut a gem

Question

I have a Nightstone and a simple grinder, but can't for the life of me figure out how to cut a gem in WoW. What's the right way to do it once you have jewel crafting 300+?

Asked by imaginative

Answer

To cut gems, you open your Skills UI and choose the Professions tab.

Click on the Jewelcrafting icon and it will open a UI containing a list of the gems you can cut. Select one and click on the Create button.

However as Jared says, you can't cut Nightstones until you've reached a skill level of 425.

Answered by dlanod

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Does the Blizzard downloader download cross platform files?

Question

The downloader downloads both Mac and Windows setup programs, which are both very small (< 3MB) and a lot of generic binary files.

Are these binary files cross platform? Can I use my Mac and the Mac downloader to get the setup files, and then install on my Windows PC?

I understand the need for two "installers" from the battle.net website as the downloading process needs to be platform dependant, but if the downloader downloads both .app and .exe files then it seems to be cross platform from then on.

Can anyone confirm this?

Asked by Simon Walker

Answer

Yes, Blizzard includes both the Mac and Windows versions of the installer when you download it. The "Mac/Win" link you click on Battle.net is for which version of the downloader to use.

You can use the downloaded files to install your game on either platform, regardless of which platform you downloaded them with.

Blizzard likely structured things this way so that their peer-to-peer distribution system would benefit from a larger pool of people downloading the installer, instead of splitting the swarm into separate Mac and Windows groups.

Answered by Brant

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Managing multiple specs in World of Warcraft

Question

I am currently using Subtlety on my rogue for PvP and combat for most PvE (depending on the fight).

My difficulty is I have different key bindings for both specs and constantly rebinding when I'm switching is becoming a real hassle. In addition to that, I have power auras such as Shadowdance which aren't available for Combat showing up when I'm in PvP mode, etc, which become a management hassle.

Also, some gear is better to reforged with stats slightly different depending on what what spec you're on.

What are some ways to actively manage two different specs without losing your sanity? Right now it seems like a giant pain.

Asked by imaginative

Answer

On the gear and reforging issue, there's not much you can do about have to reforge each time other than obtain multiple copies of gears and reforge each individually. For spec-specific gear you should look into Outfitter (an addon) to handle the gear swapping automatically (it can trigger off what your activated spec is). Given you're talking about separate PvP and PvE specs, that should be largely separate gear anyway.

The key bindings for the two specs should be being kept by Blizzard, and each time you switch specs you get the key bindings you'd previously set up for that spec. So once you've got them set up how you want them, they should remain as such.

Managing the key bindings instead of just saving them is a bit trickier. I can only often advice and not a definite solution to those - my personal solution is to organize the key bindings by priority basis from 1 across. In PvE, that means my rotation is usually on keys 1 through to 4 or 5, with cooldowns on Shift/Ctrl+1, etc. In PvP, I do similar, with the skills I plan on using a lot (main damage skill, interrupts, CC, etc) on those same keys so that I'm hitting roughly the same keys in both specs.

Power Auras can have their UI triggers edited so that they only appear in certain circumstances. I thought it was triggerable by spec, as I use them for my Paladin to notify me when debuffs drop off my target... which is then pointless for Holy. Unfortunately I'm not 100% on that addon.

Answered by dlanod

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Priest healing or shammy healing?

Question

I have a priest and a shammy in World of Warcraft. My shammy is 85, but my priest is only 80. Thus far I've only used my shammy for dps and I've tried to stay away from making him a healer. My priest - although he is only level 80 - has always primarily been a healer (mostly just heroics with the occasional raid).

However, I've been throwing around the notion of dual spec'ing my shammy and making him a healer, which leads me to my question. Should I spend the time and gold on setting my shammy up as a healer, or should I work on leveling my priest up and just use him to heal. What is driving this question is a concern that I have as to whether shammy healing is really worth the effort or not. I've seen chat in the trade channel where player's specifically say that they need heals for a raid but not shammy heals. If I'd just seen this once then I wouldn't worry over it, but I've seen it multiple times.

Also, I was in a 5 man heroic last week and someone in the group asked which is the best healing class. The healer (who was a priest) responded that pallies and priests have it the best for healing right now. It's just little things like this that make me doubt it's worth my time to set up a healing spec on my shammy. Oh, and I did peruse the shammy forum with this in mind, and I saw a lot of posts from shammies griping that healing sucks as well.

EDIT: This question was posed on Jan. 12, 2011. It should be noted that any input given by board members upon this question might have been made obsolete due to patches, class changes, etc, or in other words, the accuracy of this question and its answer(s) is highly subjective to the passing of time.

Asked by Jagd

Answer

First off: I would warn against basing any decision like this on month to month balance considerations. Things change so often in WoW that you should really decide based on how much you enjoy a particular classes playstyle, toolbox, and yes, even aesthetics. Healing Balance is Pretty Good right now. All five healing specs have a role to play, and a (25 man) raid which doesn't have the flexibility to see them all represented is a 25 man raid that is going to run into trouble. At the five man level, all five specs are more than capable of handling any content you'll see, though Discipline Priests in particular may find Heroics somewhat more challenging than most due to increased gear dependency.

That said, the current state of PvE healer balance at the high end is this: Priests are somewhat above average at Group and Raid healing - this is reflected by the nerfs to Prayer of Healing in the upcoming 4.0.6 patch, but those nerfs don't really change the overall state of things. Additionally, Priests bring extremely powerful cooldowns to a group such as Pain Suppression, Guardian Spirit, Leap of Faith, Divine Hymn, and Power Word: Barrier, all of which are defining abilities that have had entire strategies built around them. If you see raids specifically looking for Priests to heal, this is why.

Shaman by contrast, are currently the kings of PvP healing because they are extremely durable, mobile thanks to the new Spiritwalker's Grace ability, and bring substantially more offensive utility than other healers thanks to Heroism/Bloodlust, Wind Shear, Totems and Purge. In PvE, every 25 man raid wants at least one Resto Shaman for Mana Tide - and 10 mans love to have it as well. Mana Tide is the single most powerful mana regen ability in the game, and it is absolutely essential for success for many groups in many encounters. Additionally, you may find it easier to gear up a Shaman for healing because there will be less competition on mail pieces with intellect than you will find on similar cloth pieces - and because if you already have decent DPS gear, you always have the option of DPSing your way to a healing set.

My advice to you? Try out healing on the shaman. Chain Heal, Spiritwalkers Grace, Riptide and Healing Rain are all enormously fun abilities, and the Shaman healing style is unique among healers in WoW. Unless you're pushing bleeding edge content the class balance issues seen there are going to be largely moot for you - what matters much more is your own competence and gear.

As an aside, checking the WoW forums will always find you nothing but gripes. A saying I'm fond of is that the forums are as much an indicator of players happiness as a hospital is an indicator of public health.

Answered by LessPop_MoreFizz

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How can I quickly level up in World of Warcraft?

Question

I've been playing for months and I'm barely at level 40, while my classmates play less than I do and have multiple lvl 80 characters.

Is there a better way to level fast in World of Warcraft than just completing quests?

Asked by Matthew Paul Chapdelaine

Answer

There are a few things you can do to accelerate levelling:

Dungeons Use the Looking for Group tool to queue for dungeons. There are often quests within dungeons with good experience rewards (the first time at least). Dungeons also have high level mobs which will have a good rate of experience on them. Loot from dungeons will also make your character more powerful, making questing easier/faster.

Quest wisely Move out of areas once you out level them - don't feel compelled to stay and finish the story lines if your priority is levelling.

PVP Some people get a good rate of experience/hour by winning in battlegrounds.

Have a max-level character Your colleagues will have advantages over you if they have access to Heirlooms. As well has having excellent stats some heirlooms have bonus experience for both killing mobs and turning in quests.

Rest bonus Make sure you are in an Inn or a capital city when you log out to accrue rest bonus.

Gathering professions Nowadays you gain experience when you gather herbs and mine ore. You can then sell the herbs/ore on the Auction House and buy better items to level faster.

Guild Perks Probably the easiest action for a new player is to join a guild and take advantage of the levelling perks, especially Fast Track (lvl 6 guild). Other useful perks for levelling are Mount Up (lvl 3), hasty hearth (lvl 8) and working overtime (lvl 14). wth thanks to @Jereone for the the reminder

Answered by Antony

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Do all races in WoW have same strength maximums?

Question

Say I choose to be a gnome, the race with the least starting strength points... And say I want to be a warrior.

Will I be able to max out the strength later on, so it matches the one of a Tauren? Or will Taurens always have more strength than me?

Basically, I'm asking if the starting stats matter only for the start of the game, and normalize later on...

Asked by Bane

Answer

There will always be the base difference, but since the difference is so low (10 stats with 4000+ str at 85) it will not matter much, what is of more importance is the racial abilities that come with each race. For example if you choose to play a tank the Tauren gets 5% health increase, at high levels this will make a bigger difference compared to base stam.

Answered by Blem

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What happens if I add the starter edition to my Battle.net account once I already have a frozen WoW account?

Question

I played WoW a year or so ago, and I still have it as "frozen" on my Battle.net account. I'd like to get back to playing, but I'd like to try the free version of it before actually buying game time, it might not be as good as before... So, I've added the starter version to my account, and I'm downloading it now, but will I be able to see my old characters? I know I probably wont be able to play them, because they're mostly level 80 or 85, but I'd like to have my new character (created on the starter addition) on that account as well, after I buy the actual game time.

Will he be on the same list as my older characters (given that I create him on the same realm)?

Asked by Bane

Answer

No your old account will be the same. This is gonna be a complete new account, where you have limits (of the starter account).

I have tried this a while ago, For the same purpose. Didn't work as I wish =/

Answered by Michel Ayres

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WOW quick leveling

Question

Is there a better way to level fast in WOW than just completing quests? I've been playing for months and I'm barely at level 40, while my classmates play less than I do and have multiple lvl 80 characters.

Asked by Matthew Paul Chapdelaine

Answer

There are a few things you can do to accelerate levelling:

Dungeons Use the Looking for Group tool to queue for dungeons. There are often quests within dungeons with good experience rewards (the first time at least). Dungeons also have high level mobs which will have a good rate of experience on them. Loot from dungeons will also make your character more powerful, making questing easier/faster.

Quest wisely Move out of areas once you out level them - don't feel compelled to stay and finish the story lines if your priority is levelling.

PVP Some people get a good rate of experience/hour by winning in battlegrounds.

Have a max-level character Your colleagues will have advantages over you if they have access to Heirlooms. As well has having excellent stats some heirlooms have bonus experience for both killing mobs and turning in quests.

Rest bonus Make sure you are in an Inn or a capital city when you log out to accrue rest bonus.

Gathering professions Nowadays you gain experience when you gather herbs and mine ore. You can then sell the herbs/ore on the Auction House and buy better items to level faster.

Answered by Antony

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Spec to use for leveling a rogue and spec to use for PvP?

Question

Question is rather straight forward. There are three specs one can use while playing a rogue. I'd like to know which spec will make leveling the easiest vs which one should I switch to in the open world in the event of PvP.

Asked by imaginative

Answer

For PvP, Subtlety is the current king of specs. For Shadowstep, Shadow Dance, Preparation, Premeditation (Gets combo points to get Recuperate rolling after a Vanish), massive Ambush damage, and faster Stealth movement. All three are decent for PvE leveling, with combat being the best for multiple enemy encounters. There really isn't a "wrong" spec for leveling. If you are on a PvP server and want to have the best PvP abilities all the time, I would level Subtlety spec.

Answered by Adanion

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What heirlooms to get for a DPS Death Knight?

Question

I am slightly confused with what heirlooms to get if I want to play a DPS based death knight. I'd like to equip first for full exp gain followed by whatever will help me produce the most DPS. I plan on getting as many heirloom (delta the ring as it's really a pain to win) before I start playing the DK.

Asked by imaginative

Answer

Since you're a DPS you should get these:

Polished Spaulders of Valor
Polished Breastplate of valor
Worn Stoneskin Gargoyle Cape
Polished Helm of Valor

You can get the first two with Justice Points in Orgrimmar/Stormwind from the Justice Heirloom vendor or in Dalaran from the Heirloom vendors.

The cape and the helm are available from the Guild vendor once your guild has reached a high enough level (10 for the cape, 20 for the helm)

Adding a Bloodied Arcanite Reaper to the mix may be a good idea: it may lack the experience bonus, but you get a good weapon that scales with your level.

All of the above would provide you a nice 35% bonus experience (until level 80, at which point spaulders and chestplate stop to work) and a good boost to your stats, scaling gracefully while you level.

If you still have Justice points in excess you can also get the Swift Hand of Justice: not a great improvement when compared to the other heirlooms, but a little haste and a self heal can help from time to time.

As Adanion pointed out in the comments an alternative way to get your Heirlooms is from Dame Evniki Kapsalis at the Argent Tournament.

You'll need Champion's Seals to buy items from her, which are a reward from the dailies in the zone.

This area is not current content anymore, since it's been released in Wrath of the Lich King, and it takes days of work to unlock all of the dailies available.

It can be anyway a good source if you have nothing to do except waiting for the next Heroic to pop up. In the event you already unlocked the Tournament and you have many 80+ character it can even become quite profitable, since Heirlooms are bound to account and you can move them between your toons.

Answered by Kappei

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How do I put raid target icons in chat?

Question

In World Of Warcraft, I see people using raid target icons in chat. How can I do this?

Asked by Brant

Answer

Although extremely annoying when people use them to spam trade, inserting icons into chat can be very useful for certain situations, especially for party/raid leaders (even tanks leading groups who want a macro that says "skull first, then x, sheep moon")

The easiest method for me is to put the name of the symbol in curly braces as such: {skull} You can also reference them by number, which can save space in macros but is less clear what each icon is: {rt8}

The full list of icons are:

• {Skull} / {rt8}
• {Cross} / {X} / {rt7}
• {Circle} / {Coin} {rt2}
• {Star} / {rt1}
• {Square} / {rt6}
• {Triangle} / {rt4}
• {Diamond} / {rt3}
• {Moon} / {rt5}

Answered by Peter Leppert

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Top DPS charts on trash in 5 man instances as Fire Mage

Question

On a single target, I have the rotation down to become an effective DPS caster on my Fire Mage. When it comes to instances though and trash mobs, I have a very difficult time and am usually in last place as per recount in DPS. Between Blizzard, Dragon's Breath, Flamestrike and Impact, I can't figure out the best method to top dps charts for trash in 5 man instances.

What's the current best rotation/method for doing it as a fire mage?

Asked by imaginative

Answer

Fire mages generate AoE DPS through propagating DoTs. Avoid using Dragon's Breath and even Blizzard.

Blast Wave (with attached Flamestrike) is a good opener. Then you want to focus on the largest target in the trash pack and hit it with Living Bomb and a good Fireball. You're hoping to quickly build the "magic triad" of DoTs: Ignite, Pyroblast and Living Bomb and then use an Impact proc'd Fire Blast. For longer trash packs, also use Combustion and then Fire Blast.

For smaller trash packs, simply spamming Blast Wave and Flame Strike is the way to go.

Elitist Jerks Thread for more Fire Mage goodness.

Answered by Resorath

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How long is 1 yard in World of Warcraft?

Question

In WoW, there are plenty of abilities such as blood boil that have area of effect. This area is usually measured and denoted by yards. A yard is easy to estimate in real life, but how is it estimated in the game? If a spell has a radius of 10 yards, how far does it really stretch in respect to my character?

Asked by James Jiao

Answer

In general the easiest way of finding a giving range is to see what spells you can cast on your target and moving back and forth to see them be available or not, just remember that the target needs to be targetable by the spell you look at (hostile target for damage/debuff and friendly for heal/buff), I don't remember if the default skillbar supports this but some skillbars will grey out abilities when you are out of range of your target to make it easier to spot.

Another easy way of determining range for some ranges is using abilities where you have to place a casting circle. A Death Knight can use Death and Decay to spot a 10/20 yard range(10 yard from center to outer circle or 20 yard from one side to the other), for your example you can start the DnD move the courser over your char and the placement circle now shows you a 10yard range that you know your Blood Boil will hit.

The last thing I know you can do is get an add on like Range Display that will try and guess the range to your target.

Answered by Blem

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At what level does the experience bonus from heirloom equipment stop working?

Question

After googling around and reading various forums, there is no quorum on when exp gaining experience from heirloom stops working.

I just hit level 80 on my alt, and some forums report it is level 80 - others say some work until 85, others until 81.

What's the correct answer for this since I can't find an official response from Blizzard?

Asked by imaginative

Answer

Experience bonus and stat scaling stops upon reaching:

Level 80

• Shoulders
• Chest
• Ring
• Weapons*
• Trinkets*

Level 85

• Head
• Back

^{*These heirlooms do not provide an experience bonus, but the stats stop scaling.}

---

This will still be true when Mists of Pandaria releases, so your Cataclysm heirlooms will not be worth using while leveling 85-90.

Answered by dpatchery

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