*** Tired of being poor? Try this proven WoW Gold Guide and make over 300 Gold an hour, legally! ***

Although calling it a rotation could be misleading as there is no set rotation to use, but rather an order of priority. Here it is in order of priority :

Or at least that’s the one I use (usually.) So what does this mean ? First make sure Savage Roar never ever drops. Try to keep Mangle up all the time. Refresh Rip as soon as it comes off with 5 combo points. Use Shred to generate combo points and whenever you have an Omen of Clarity proc. Refresh Rake as soon as possible, but make sure you let it run all the way through before you reapply (clipping Rake = bad.) When you have more than 10 seconds left on both Savage Roar and Rip and have 5 combo points you may choose to Ferocious Bite. I rarely do except when I will have to switch targets or the target will die or disappear in the next 15 secs. I usually just Shred some more before refreshing Savage Roar or Rip.

Now the other important abilities to use are Beserk and Tiger’s Fury.

Since Beserk has a 3 min CD, make sure to use it as early as possible on boss fights to get a chance to use again during the same fight at least once. Usually a good idea to use about 10-15 secs into a boss encounter if you won’t be changing target for its entire duration. I usually don’t use Tiger’s Fury right before Beserk as it cancels the damage bonus of Tiger’s Fury if you do. Shred as much as possible during Beserk, making sure to keep everything else up. If you can, finish Beserk with a Ferocious Bite, but only if Rip and Savage Roar have 8-10 secs left. If you have Tiger’s Fury you can get away with 8 secs.

I start the fight with a Mangle and Rip to generate my first Savage Roar and then Shred once before using Tiger’s Fury to generate enough energy to get 5 combo points to get Rip up (only if I’m not going to use Beserk right away.)

Remember that all these actions should be bound to keys so that you can hit them quickly and in sequence. If you’re mouse-clicking them, old school, you’ll lose a TON of DPS.

Hope that helps someone, and if I’m doing it wrong let me know !

=== About The Author ===

Etienne Brodeur is an IT professional. A Renaissance Man, his many areas of expertise include world politics, medieval history and World of Warcraft.
He currently resides in Montreal, Quebec.

Bookmark and Share

More »

Powered by Bookmarkify™

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I have built Allanona using almost exclusively the Feral Talent tree, with some notable exceptions.

But having Feral talents does not a DPS Monster make! You have to know how to use them. For this purpose, I have written a short article on the abilities rotation you must use to truly be unstoppable!

Scenario One: Starting the Fight from Stealth Mode (Prowl)

1. Pounce – stuns and causes damage over time
2. Mangle – not only does this do damage, but also enhances the damage from your Bleed Effect abilities (Rake, Rip, Pounce)
3. Mangle – again, until you have 5 pips on the mob
4. Ferocious Bite – finishing move

If the mob is not yet dead, Mangle it again until it is.

Scenario Two: Starting the Fight in full view:

1. Mangle – Damage and Bleed Effect Enhancement
2. Rake – Bleed Effect, Damage over time
3. Mangle – again until you have 5 pips
4. Ferocious Bite – Finishing Move

Once again, Mangle if the mob is not yet dead. It will soon be.

These rotations should be used when fighting regular mobs, not Elites. When fighting Elites, you should replace Ferocious Bite by Rip, as combined with the enhancement effect of Mangle, Rip will do more damage over time than Ferocious Bite.

A note on Faerie Fire: I don’t always use it, as in Cat Form it does no damage, only slightly reduces the armor of your opponent. If you are going to use it, I would stick it at the very beginning or immediately before your finishing move.

Faerie Fire is also useful, both in Dire Bear and Cat Form, to pull enemies that may be further than you care to venture. Using this technique will likely save you from annoying adds.

And by the way, if you were asking yourself “Hey Renei! How come you don’t use claw? I use it all the time and it works great!”, well, it is because Mangle costs the same amount of Energy Point, does twice the damage (at least) and to top it off, enhances your Bleed Effects, of which you have many. So that’s why.

Merry Christmas!

Bookmark and Share

More »

Powered by Bookmarkify™

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Her DPS is good enough that she can take down single-handledly everything that Howling Fjord has put in her way so far, and with quests awarding over 20,000 experience points apiece, she’ll be at 70 soon.

One thing that bothered me playing with Mandorall, my oh-so-powerful Paladin, was that he’d be killing all these beasts and could never skin one of them, leaving behing all that valuable Borean Leather, not to mention the Leather Scraps and possibly even the very Blue [Arctic Fur].

Well, with Allanona, the problem is solved. She is exclusively a gatherer, having the skinning and herbalism skills.

I have not had the chance to play very much with her, as I only got to Westgarde yesterday. I’ve started doing all the Embler Cluth quests, and last night I was rewarded with an [Arctic Fur]! Of course, I don’t have a Leatherworker of a high enough level to use it, but I will soon enough.

Either that or I’ll browbeat a guildie into crafting stuff for me!

Incidentally, I’ve discovered that anyone – not only Leatherworkers – can transform 5 Borean Leather Scraps into one Borean Leather. That is quite handy, as it will help considerably in keeping my ever-more-crowded bags just a little neater!

Bookmark and Share

More »

Powered by Bookmarkify™

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I was up to the quest where you have to shrink down some Bloodmaul Wolves, and lo and behold, one big-*** Ogre shows up. He’s got two heads, but that’s not entirely abnormal (“Hey! How about some love for shoulder guy?!”) but he’s dressed in absolutely garish orange robes.

Turns out it is Speaker Mar’Grom, out for his afternoon constitutional. Of course, I did not give him the chance to proceed, and ripped him to shreds in about 10 seconds.

Hey I know it’s no great feat, as I was level 67. Turns out that Speaker Mar’Grom was not so tough, and he dropped some nice blue gloves, [Nethersteel-Lined Handwraps of the Prophet].

Now those gloves are probably not worth that much – 70g according to Allakhazam – but I figure that I’ll be lucky if I get 25g for them.

So anyways, I found Speaker Mar’Grom immediately in front of the cave at the very bottom of the map, in the middle. He is supposed to drop blue gear pretty much 100% of the time.

I also achieved the [Medium Rare] achievement for killing him, which was a nice bonus.

Bookmark and Share

More »

Powered by Bookmarkify™

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Let’s say you’ve leveled a Druid, all the way to level 50, and you’re wondering where you should put that talent point… If you are a Feral Druid, and you should be, then you know the answer to this question!

Mangle!

You probably have been using the less-than-stellar “Claw” until now; fear not, Mangle to the rescue! You can safely remove “Claw” from your toolbars, and consign it to the dustbin of leveling: you will never use it again.

See, not only does Mangle cause a whole lot more damage that Claw ever did (160% of normal damage, plus a bonus amount that goes up to 264 at level 68, Rank 3), it also causes all your Bleed effects to inflict 30% more damage, so you can’t lose.

Putting the extra points in Improved Mangle is also recommended, as it will reduce its energy costof Mangle in Cat form, and shorten the cooldown in Bear form.

Bookmark and Share

More »

Powered by Bookmarkify™

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

If you are looking to build yourself a Feral Druid – the BEST kind of Druid for leveling, by the way – then a talent that is an absolute MUST HAVE is Leader of the Pack, and its powerful upgrade, Improved Leader of the Pack.

Leader of the Pack is a Feral talent that is available with 30 points in the Feral Talent tree, at level 41. Here is the talent description:

While in Cat, Bear or Dire Bear form, the Leader of the Pack increases range and melee critical chance of all party members within 45 yards by 5%

I don’t think that there is another single talent point, for any class and for any tree, that grants so much critical strike chance. 5% in a single point is HUGE. It would be awesome if it were only for the caster, but no, its for the whole party, the whole RAID even. Tough to beat.

But wait, there’s more!

Yes kids, once you have Leader of the Pack, for another measly 2 talent points in the Druid Feral talent tree, you can get Improved Leader of the Pack. I believe the talent description speaks for itself:

Your Leader of the Pack ability also causes affected targets to heal themselves for 4% of their total health when they critically hit with a melee or ranged attack.  The healing effect cannot occur more than once every 6 sec.  In addition, you gain 8% of your maximum mana when you benefit from this heal.

What’s not to like? Everyone in the party (or RAID!!!) gets healed 4% of their total health when they crit. Of course, it can’t proc more than once every six seconds, but depending on your attack speed, weapon and critical hit chance, it should proc EVERY six seconds.

On top of that, your mana – which you use to occasionally heal yourself and others – will ALWAYS be topped of when you change out of Cat Form or Dire Bear Form.

If the thought has crossed your mind to skip this talent and take something else, DON’T. Leader of the Pack and Improved Leader of the Pack are an absolute must for any self-respecting Feral Druid, DPS or Tank. Don’t miss out!

If that wasn’t enough, Leader of the Pack is a prerequisite for Mangle, another great and unavoidable talent in the powerful Druid Feral talent tree. Mangle causes crazy damage and buffs by 30% all bleed effects on the affected target. Read more on that tomorrow!

Bookmark and Share

More »

Powered by Bookmarkify™

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I’ve been playing World of Warcraft for close to two years now, and at today’s count, here is the list of my characters:

• 72nd Level Human Paladin
• 70th Level Gnome Mage
• 70th Level Tauren Shaman
• 65th Level Night Elf Hunter
• 64th Level Night Elf Druid
• 58th Level Human Death Knight
• 46th Level Human Warlock
• 42nd Level Human Priest
• 18th Level Blood Elf Mage
• 7th Level Dwarf Warrior

As you can no doubt see, with your keen powers of observation, is that I’ve been busy. Also, I have a girlfriend, G*d bless her, that is tolerant of what can only be called my World of Warcraft habit, in the unpleasant sense of the word.

My point, by reciting my list of characters, is to show that I’ve played a relatively wide variety of classes. The only exception being Rogue, which for some reason I never got into.

What I’ve discovered, out of all these classes and all these races, is that the Druid is BY FAR the smoothest, easiest and fastest leveler that I’ve played. I know that professionals swear by either the Hunter or the Warlock, because of the pets that keep aggro.

Nonetheless, the ability of the Feral Druid to either absord or deal incredible amounts of damage, all the while having the possibility of buffs – mainly Mark or Gift of the Wild, and powerful one-shot or over-time healing, make the Druid an enemy to be feared.

As you can see from the list above, my Druid is only level 64, and does not yet have access to the most powerful versions of all the healing and damaging abilities yet. That being said, she can EASILY take down mobs up to 5 levels above her own, a feat that I have not achieved with my other toons.

I understand that when at maximum level, Druids often spec to restoration in order to be used as healers in parties and raids. I don’t know yet, but I’ll be able to write about it soon. All I can say is that for leveling, my Feral Druid is hard to beat. Even at a relatively high level – 50+ – I can gain 2-3 levels over a weekend of relatively mild play.

In tomorrow’s article, I will go over in details over my Feral talent build, as well as equipment used.

Bookmark and Share

More »

Powered by Bookmarkify™

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Once again I have broken the first commandment of making WoW gold: I have equipped one of my very own Blue Drops. I did not even think about it, just -bam! – equipped and ruined for everyone else but me!

But boy was it worth it. I use the [Gloves of Ferocity] on my Druid, who is Feral specced. It has everything that a Rogue or Feral druid could want, except extra attack power, but that’s ok. Here are the stats:

• Hands, Leather
• Binds when Equipped
• 141 Armor
• +23 Strength
• +20 Agility
• +21 Stamina
• Requires Level 60

This beautiful, class and level appropriate item – my Druid was level 60 when she got it – dropped of one of those Starving Hellboars near Honor Hold in Hellfire Peninsula. My Auctioneer Addon had it pegged at 39g or so, but it took my about 5 secondes of pondering before equipping it, and I’ve not looked back.

My Druid, Allanona, is now level 64 and nothing even remotely close to being as good came up in the Quest Rewards, so I’m very happy with my decision to equip the [Gloves of Ferocity].

By the way, if there are Fantasy literature fans out there (I’m sure there are), can you recognize the root of the name of my Druid? Think extremely “classic” fantasy!

Bookmark and Share

More »

Powered by Bookmarkify™

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

For those not familiar with Quentin Tarantino’s fantastic “Kill Bill” movies, the Hanzo sword is a special, super-duper sword crafted for the main character (played by Uma Thurman) for the specific purpose of, well, killing Bill.

After Lord of the Rings and Dune, it seems that the good people at Blizzard have blessed us with yet another little wink at a movie  or TV show.

But back to World of Warcraft. The Hanzo Sword is a ‘blue’ weapon that dropped for me from my favorite mobs in all the World (of Warcraft), the Ice Thistle Yetis of Winterspring.

I was just grinding and minding my own business, looking for Pristine Yeti Horns for the “Are We There, Yeti?” quests when this dropped for me.

The sword looks really cool, black with a matte finish, and is extremely quick — 1.50. It would look awesome on a Rogue wearing the ShadowCraft set. Although my Druid wears the Shadowcraft set — only 6 of 8 pieces, mind you — she cannot equip the Hanzo Sword, so I figure it will be sold. My auctioneer add-on says 75g or so, but I’m going to hype it up a little and go for more.

Despite looking really good, in a plain sort of way, and being a wicked-fast one-handed weapon, the Hanzo Sword does not do very much damage. Its speed would be good for a warrior to build rage very quickly, but the fact that they offer no bonuses besides the chance to Wound for 75 damage is depressing.

All in all, a good Blue Drop for my Druid.

Bookmark and Share

More »

Powered by Bookmarkify™

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.