I'm leveling a warrior right now, specced fury all the way so far.
20-30 you obviously want to DW, something of note for alliance - do the Stalvan quest line in Duskwood, it's a lot of running around and you kill one mob in the end. [Crescent of Forlorn Spirits] is a ridiculously overpowered weapon at level 20. You pick up cruelty, UW, piercing howl, blood craze. I put the leftover point in imp cleave as I tend to use that instead of HS anyway. I picked enrage over dw spec after that so that I won't have to respec for WW axe. My offhand was a dagger from deadmines - not spectacular, I'd rather have had the axe from the same deadmines or cruel barb, but the only time I cared to run it I wasn't lucky enough.
At 30 you get slam, WW axe, and open imp slam, this can't be too much of a coincidence can it? With WW axe you'll be in a far different situation rage wise compared to DW, you'll get large chunks on white swings so cleave/HS spam really takes a lot longer than slamming. It's pretty good improved, but tedious with watching the swing timer. 3.0 will resolve this tediousness though, you'll just be able to spam it whenever you feel like it.
Generally I stay in zerker, only go to battle for charge. I wasn't bothered with overpowers even before I got WW, however it's influenced by my questing choice - I mostly quest on green mobs, dodge is not very common. I just got BT so now I'm not concerned at all about that. However the WW axe is getting long in the tooth at this point I was looking at which way to go next. Bonebiter is a very marginal upgrade, it would be pretty cool to go back to DW, probably going to pick up sword of serenity and dust off the stalvan axe for offhand until vanquisher's sword. I couldn't be bothered with spending zillions on AH blues. I searched on wowhead for other BoP possibilities for my near future, those two seem like the only choice.
When is a good time to go for TM? I kept with fury all the way - going with imp zerker rage, precision, and looking to fill out imp zerker stance for rampage - 165 AP feels like a lot to me; but at the same time with the way my macros are set up I lose a lot of rage on charge when I'm grinding a lot of mobs and besides playing on a pvp server I like my intercept up.
With my current warrior, I leveled right down the fury tree for 44 points, then moved over to arms for the final 17, foregoing TM. While leveling, I would start in battle stance and charge, but would be in beserker before I arrived at the mob, therefore minimizing rage loss. Being you're on a pvp server, though...you'd lose out on Impale and perhaps a point in Deflection, but they may be worth swapping into. My first warrior (and last character on a pvp server) leveled as arms; it wasn't terribly slow, but I was able to sustain top notch gear almost the entire way through leveling to 60 (this was pre-BC). During that leveling, though, TM was quite handy (it didn't hurt that it was in the arms tree at that time) for stance dancing to disarm/whirlwind/etc. for all those world pvp encounters (and being I was on Mal'Ganis at that time as Alliance, there were plenty of such opportunities).
Your DW weapon progression is very much like like that of mine; I managed to obtain [Thrash Blade] and [Gryphon Rider's Stormhammer], which carried me to Outland (previously I was using the Serenity/Vanquisher combo you'd mentioned). By the time I was level 61, I picked up a pair of [Fist of Reckoning], which at that level are insanely good...I used them all the way to 70. I did use a pair of [Footman's Longsword] before I bought the Fists...forgot about those. I recall the Fists being a big upgrade, though.
I recently returned to the game, inspired by WotLK. Too bad I had decided to quit the game completely back in March and proceeded to get myself banned. Oh well, another Warlock, up up and away! First off, I'd like to state that this is the fourth Warlock I've come to level, and eventually raid with when the time comes since WoW launch, so I dare to claim that I've experimented enough to figure the EASIEST levelling spec. With warlocks it's not really rocket science anyway.
The beauty of the class is it's capability to attack multiple opponents at a time, and come out with 75%+ mana and health, leading to very little downtime.
Talents
First off, when you start getting talent points, 5/5 corruption is necessary. The utility it adds, especially when Fear becomes available, is beyond any other 1st tier talent.
The following 2 points should go to improved life tap, since mana can become an issue pre-dark pact.
Next, 2/2 soul siphon for future use. This is when you have a choice; either put the next point into Suppression like I do to unlock the next tier, or get Improved Drain Soul for some tiny mana feed. It works "ok'ish" combined with an addon that destroys excess shards as you create them. I prefer Suppression because it allows a little diversity with the places I level in, and most of all, makes landing Fear on high level elite rares that drop pretty greens easier.
The next 5 are a no brainer again, Fel Concentration for drain tanking goodness. This is a defining skill, since from this point on you just dot an appropriate amount of mobs, Fear one if need be, and drain until they die.
2/2 Grim Reach, Amplify Curse, and 2/2 Nightfall in that order. One could argue getting Improved CoA instead of Nightfall, but the damage that CoA delivers during the mobs lifespan is rather pathetic at this point, so the occasional instabolt is better if you ask me.
Next up, more leeching. Yay. Siphon Life followed by CoeX and 1 point Shadow Embrace to help with your draining. Now would be the time to grab Improved CoA 2/2, or if you're investing into shadow spell damage gear, perhaps consider Empowered Corruption 2/3. Since I level mostly in green / white / gray stuff, I went for the CoA. Follow with the mandatory 5/5 Shadow Mastery.
Dark Pact time <3 The bread and butter of affliction. After this you have a few choices, if you're not that intrested in gaining UA asap, you could divert the next 5 points into Demonic Embrace for 15% extra stamina, but I advise against this. You can gain the same effect by shopping a stamina staff from the AH for a few gold. So I'd smash the next 4 points into Contagion for a wee bit of extra bang.
The next 4 you said? Yeah, 2/2 Improved Howl of Terror is priceless to have, it's a great oh-shit-button for the moments when you've pulled too many mobs and aren't capable of draining back the life you're losing from the pummeling you're getting. After maxing Imp. Howl, finish up with Contagion.
A few choices here again, since you need 2 points to unlock UA, you can either (depending on your gear really) slap the 2 into Empowered Corruption or Suppression. I'm presuming your average player has some 30-50 spell damage at this point, so the 2 points in Empowered Corruption might be better spent. I went with Suppression due to my crappy gear, but had I run any instances on my way to gain some gear, I'd gone with Emp. Corruption.
Unstable Affliction is up, your new opener dot and ganking tool against priests ^_^ Thou shall taketh it.
After this it's really up to you to decide what route to follow. If you find yourself pulling just one or two mobs, or doing a lot of instances, speccing the following 10 points into destruction to get Improved SB and Bane is propably a good idea. This would also grant you access to Shadowburn to aid with the final levels.
Or you can go for the ultimate solo grinding build, and grab 5/5 Demonic Embrace, Imp. HS 2/2, Fel Intellect 3/3, Demonic Aegis 3/3 and Fel Stamina 3/3. The few final points are irrelevant as far as levelling is concerned.
PS. When you gain access to Siphon life, stop using Immolate as an opener. It's not worth standing still to cast it, just use the 3 instants you have from that point on until you get UA to add into the cycle.
I realize that this is kinda useless at this point, with the new talents behind the corner, but I guess someone could still take advantage and level up before them ^_^
Ok, now my paladin has reached 60 and is enjoying Outland with all the lovely new gear. I have leveled her as protection spec since level 10 and enjoying it a lot. Mostly in duo with an aggro happy affliction/destro warlock (god I hate imp. searing pain!).
The current spec is 0/46/5 (armory: Heartfang). This has served me well so far (except when I pulled several of the disarming/stunning mobs in EPL, doh) and I was planning to spent the coming talent points in retribution.
Now my question is if that's a good way to continue all the way to 70 (and 80 in 2 months time). Most time will be spent questing (and grinding Sporregar rep for their shield), with some instances thrown in from time to time.
Also, regarding gear: since I have access to TBC gear now, is it better go grab some "of the Sorcerer" plate instead of "of the Champion"? Or is spell-damage not a major concern while leveling (it certainly wasn't until now)?
[10:05:49] <Nat> how do u know if a unicorn is a virgin?
here's all the plate items obtained through questing in outlands till lvl 62:
Plate Armor - Items - World of Warcraft
My advice is don't buy AH greens, with the quest rewards you can easily aim for +50-75 spell bonus and then gear for stam/int.
Since I can't find one in this thread, here is a complete list of what I reccommend from 1-70:
10-14 Wand Specialization
15-19 Spirit Tap
20-21 Improved Shadow WordPain
22-24 Shadow Focus 3/5
At this point, you can pick up Mind Flay. After this, the two choices are to continue further into Discipline, since the Shadow tree does not actually have a huge amount to offer. The advantage of this is that you gain Inner Focus, Imp PW:S and PW:F, Meditation and your pick of any other talents you may choose until level 40. The downside to this is that your damage will be a little lower, and Meditation doesn't do a huge amount at lower levels anyway, especially with Spirit Taps already available. Therefore, I think the better option is to continue down the Shadow tree, like this:
At 50-54, you have a choice. You can either spec for Vampiric Touch immediately, which is what I would reccommend doing, and put points back into Wand Specialization afterwardsd, or you can get 5/5 Misery and Vampiric Touch later on. Following my reccommended path, respec to Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft at level 50. Then proceed:
51-55 Wand Specialization
56-58 Improved Power Word Shield
59-60 Improved Power Word Fortitude
61 Inner Focus
62-64 Meditation
When you get here, your build should look something like Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft . What you do from then on is up to you, since I would say that it is all much of a muchness. You can go deeper into Shadow or Discipline, pick up a few basic healing talents from Holy, or do absolutely nothing as your preference dictates. However, probably your best option is to take 5 in Shadow Weaving as you advance to 70, purely to increase your damage output by at least something.
I'm unsure at why you're choosing to delay getting Mindflay until 25, Shadowform until 45 and Vampiric Embrace until 38.
If you gear properly with some easy to get craftables and high +spi pieces you will have almost no issue with mana, focused mind isn't especially useful until 41+ because of the regen avaliable with the proper use of Spirit Tap - the only issue is keeping your health ticking over. The longer you stay in Shadowform killing the better. I found imp. VE crucial since you can avoid using relatively expensive renew/shield and just rely on speedy killing to keep you alive.
Also, taking Imp. Psychic Scream over Shadow Weaving seems to be an odd choice; I found myself rarely fearing anything more than once (if you want to use scream as an interrupt for healers, at lower levels with some +shadow you can just burn straight through them - at higher levels alternating between melee mobs, silence and scream is adequate), this will be especially true now that you have no elites to kill on your trek through Azeroth.
Regarding Inner Focus, Imp. Fort and Imp. PW:S.. in my opinion they're unnecessary. I only remember using Inner Focus in combination with the vastly expensive Devouring Plague on my Undead Shadowpriest, other than that it just doesn't provide enough functionality - the strength of Inner Focus is that it allows you to get OOFSR, for shadow this isn't likely to give you much actual benefit.
I understand your build works for you, but I'd rather pick up talents to boost spells you should use often on the vast majority of quests you do to get yourself to Outland - I don't see imp. fort, imp. shield, inner focus & imp. scream being talents which add to spells you use on nearly every mob you encounter.
I say what I do on various talents for a few reasons, namely:
Shadow Weaving, while fantastic in groups, isn't going to be stacked high enough for soloing. Therefore, I don't really bother with it.
Focussed Mind is a wonderful mana conservation talent, Vampiric Embrace is something you're not going to use very much. Unless you screw up a pull and take a truckload of damage, you don't need to heal with it at all.
I take Improved Psychic Scream because, while it won't be useful much, the times it is will save your life. The less you're dead, the more you're grinding.
Things in general (Mind Flay, Shadowform, VE) are pushed back because they're not worth speccing out of wand spec for. Wand spec is, in general, a fantastically useful talent. If you're doing it right, you're going to be wanding things a lot, so it makes sense to prioritise wand damage over most other things.
To summarise, my basic argument is that the Shadow tree in general has a lot of unnecessary talents in it when you're levelling (I would argue that a lot of the talents you argue for over expansion down the Discipline tree simply aren't worthwile when levelling, no matter their group utility.
P.S. Looking at what you said, you don't seem to advocate PW:S whilst levelling. I, on the other hand, do. If you're not using it, then I accept that taking the talents for it is pretty pointless, and you can drop the points for a few more in Shadow.
I'll start with this at 70 for speed leveling to 80. Bane not requiring ISB is too attractive to pass up for the DPS boost in instances. With the imp's mana regen increased by 200%, the imp is still the pet of choice for Dark Pact. Since we'll still be using the imp, Soul Link is less attractive, and for this concept I favor Death's Embrace and Bane.
The idea is multiple-mob drain tanking that opens with Haunt instead of UA, with average DPS for instances. For further optimization, one might consider losing UA and placing that point into Eradication, as there has been some discussion about the merits of a single point, but not 2 or 3, in Eradication.
On the way to 80, 71-75 should go into 5/5 Demonic Embrace, 76-78: 3/3 Fel Vitality, 79: 1/2 Improved Healthstone. At 80, respec to a raiding/pvp build, or go 2/2 Improved healthstone to continue farming.
I'll start with this at 70 for speed leveling to 80. Bane not requiring ISB is too attractive to pass up for the DPS boost in instances. With the imp's mana regen increased by 200%, the imp is still the pet of choice for Dark Pact. Since we'll still be using the imp, Soul Link is less attractive, and for this concept I favor Death's Embrace and Bane.
The idea is multiple-mob drain tanking that opens with Haunt instead of UA, with average DPS for instances. For further optimization, one might consider losing UA and placing that point into Eradication, as there has been some discussion about the merits of a single point, but not 2 or 3, in Eradication.
On the way to 80, 71-75 should go into 5/5 Demonic Embrace, 76-78: 3/3 Fel Vitality, 79: 1/2 Improved Healthstone. At 80, respec to a raiding/pvp build, or go 2/2 Improved healthstone to continue farming.
My plan is to stick with the build I mentioned some posts above until Felguard is available with having 21 points affliction for siphon life. That grants the ability to use 3 instant dots on mobs, draintank them, and have the FG rampage around. Pre-testing in beta provided intresting information; killing 4 or 5 mobs at a time is actually easier and relatively a lot faster than 1, mainly because of the new changes to spell pushback. Ergo, it should be an awesome spec for levelling. In instances it'll be dead weight for the others, but that's the price one has to pay for it.
Ok, now my paladin has reached 60 and is enjoying Outland with all the lovely new gear. I have leveled her as protection spec since level 10 and enjoying it a lot. Mostly in duo with an aggro happy affliction/destro warlock (god I hate imp. searing pain!).
Prot paladin is a decent leveling spec if you have a companion. You don't do a lot of damage but you are very durable and can generate plenty of threat, which means your buddy can just go nuts with DPS in perfect safety, letting you accomplish a lot more together than either could handle separately. I was routinely two-manning group quests and orange stuff without much more effort than doing green stuff.
My companion was priest (shadow to 52, disc/holy after that) and the priest was called up on to DPS rather a lot after level 45 or so, because the prot pally just didn't generate the boom to kill things quickly. Mind flay is the bomb when doing packs of humanoids...the priest rotated to whomever was weakest and most likey to run and burned them down, while the pally held the attention and ground away with consecrate and reactive stuff. The reflective bubble with disc priest gives the pally time to cast non-instant dps spells while surrounded while still taking advantage of all the focus on the paladin, and holy nova is a threat-free dps+heal spell, also a great complement to pally AOE grinding. It helps if the pally loots while the priest drinks after using it though, it is a mana hog to use it like arcane-explosion.
So most of this thread is now moot, as 3.0 changes talent trees drastically for every class. Does anyone have suggestions for leveling specs (or at least, which trees to focus on) in the 3.0 world? The individual class threads are much more focused on raiding and level 80.
So most of this thread is now moot, as 3.0 changes talent trees drastically for every class. Does anyone have suggestions for leveling specs (or at least, which trees to focus on) in the 3.0 world? The individual class threads are much more focused on raiding and level 80.
This would get you blade flurry and adrenaline rush, plus a sinister strike that hits like a truck and very strong energy regeneration. When raiding you can (more or less) count on the Random Number God to even things out. When leveling, the capacity to do an orange quest reliably depends on... reliable abilities, and not procs (surprising eh?). A deep combat build has very few procs and two strong cooldowns to mow through packs or elites with.
I'm unsure how well the rest of the combat tree works for leveling -- at least PotW shouldn't be too strong without end game itemization and high amounts of crit. I'd probably go towards 0/41/5, 0/43/5, 5/41/5 after that and progress towards the cookie cutter 5/51/5 to 70. Either that or respec mutilate 44/5/2 at 60, 44/5/7 at 65 (CttC and HFB don't strike me as leveling talents).
When I leveled my shaman, I went elemental 'til the late 20s, then switched to enhancement, but that's what worked "back then". With the 3.0.2 talents, I'd beeline to shamanistic focus and insta-GW:
Feral spirit will provide some added ability to deal with packs and big mobs. Mental Quickness is a damned good talent to take, gives your spells a much appreciated oomph, and, together with maelstrom weapon, provides some in-combat healing that shouldn't be disregarded. My choice back then was to twink my shaman with a Flurry Axe at the mid 40s, and with the changes to flametongue I'd most decidedly do it again. (Also, blademaster's handguards are still freaking awesome). Branching out to elemental at 60+ seems like a good plan.
With the changes to Priests, namely the removal of wand spec (boo!) and the buff to spirit tap, the early leveling build is pretty straightforward:
The only thing I would do different for leveling as a shaman from what you've said is get DW first. You'd be surprised at how much better DW is without SS than vice versa. Yes, your stormstrikes would hit like a truck with a 2h, but with 2 1h weapons dual-wielded you get many more windfury procs and your damage becomes much more consistent.
As a rogue, deep combat is definitely the way to go until level 50. However, after level 50, a deep assassination build is viable now because of the removal of the positional requirement from mutilate. Thus, mutilate's burst damage can be utilized without the requirement of stealth.
My logic for going SS first is that it gives you a very reliable SS > ES combo earlier for close calls, and I rather dislike the erratic, bursty nature of early DW/WF without some decent +hit. Once you have full DW spec, at least Stormstrike and Windfury are hit capped for yellow mobs, which removes some of the randomness. Plus, it gives you one more button to push, which is really a Good Thing. Shocking every 6 seconds as enhancement isn't much more fun than leveling a paladin...
I don't really think it matters too much which one you get first. It is one level, even if one is better than the other it is at most going to save you 10 minutes time.
Well, for me anyway, the real trick to levelling a DW shaman is finding suitable weapons. You'll run across a plethora of 2h and 1h swords but decent 1h maces & axes are difficult to find. At 48 [Bonesnapper] is available on the AH and you can try for [The Hand of Antu'sul] in ZF but good luck on that drop.
Things are more like they are now than they ever were before. - Dwight Eisenhower
I got lucky with the mini-thunderfury drop . But I'll stick to my guns: if you can afford it, twinking with a flurry axe (with flametongue of course) offhand is a great return on investment.
I have a level 38 warlock whom I'm thinking of leveling up. What is the current best leveling spec in 3.0? Is Affliction still strong for that?
With Shadow Embrace and Haunt, the majority of Affliction's improvement is against single targets, not multi-DoTing. However, nothing in affliction actually got nerfed from TBC so it's still as good as it used to be. The real question is if the other specs caught up, which for grinding I don't think they did. Destro got improved soul leach and a useable imp, and demonology got some AP on the felguard when you finally get it, but overall all three specs are pretty similar for grinding. Affliction may even have gotten the best improvement, with improved corruption and improved felhunter.
With Shadow Embrace and Haunt, the majority of Affliction's improvement is against single targets, not multi-DoTing. However, nothing in affliction actually got nerfed from TBC so it's still as good as it used to be. The real question is if the other specs caught up, which for grinding I don't think they did. Destro got improved soul leach and a useable imp, and demonology got some AP on the felguard when you finally get it, but overall all three specs are pretty similar for grinding. Affliction may even have gotten the best improvement, with improved corruption and improved felhunter.
I totally agree, warlock was the first character i created when i started playing WoW (past level 10 anyhow). Unfortunately that was back in the day when dot's did no damage and Void walkers generated no aggro. I still remember dying to level 25 mobs at level 24 starting with full health and a VW, then just logging out dead in Ashenvale and leaving her to rot until the patch that gave us Death Coil.
After that I was affliction the whole way, there is just something about being able to be in combat almost 100% of the time and never having to sit down and drink. Bring a full stack of bandages and you're set. Maybe one stack of food/water for the times when you get a crazy pull and end up with low mana and hp. Fighting two or three mobs in a constant rotation. Demo is boring and you're constantly repairing your pet even with the Felgaurd. Destro is good damage but then you're a mage, kill a few things, sit and drink, or tap and eat. Hopefully affliction is and always be the awesome grind machine of the lock builds.
Well, for me anyway, the real trick to levelling a DW shaman is finding suitable weapons. You'll run across a plethora of 2h and 1h swords but decent 1h maces & axes are difficult to find. At 48 [Bonesnapper] is available on the AH and you can try for [The Hand of Antu'sul] in ZF but good luck on that drop.
Another suggestion for a semi-decent one-hander for DW enchancement could be [The Shatterer]. You can get it not long after 40 as well. The good thing about it is the fact that it's craftable by blacksmiths, so you don't need to nag friends for a group to do ZH, or to try and catch Bonesnapper in the AH when it's not insanely overpriced.
Also don't forget about this this quest chain, which gives some decent weapons to tide you over through the 40s and 50s.
09/12/08, 5:11 PM
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