After doing 70-71 on beta as combat with Merciless swords and then picking up a blue quest dagger and another blue dagger from The Nexus i swapped to mutilate. I started with something like this Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft , I figured i didn't need the stealth talents and Crit was more valuable for leveling so i put the rest of my points into that as i leveled.
CTTC didn't seem appealing to me as i thought it would just be more of a hassle, not to mention things like Riposte are much better for leveling now. Every mob i fought died within a [cs>mut>ks/env/evis>muti>ks/env/evis] i found i mostly used Envenom but Evis with the new glyph is really nice for squishier mobs and for when inevitably you have 1 stack of deadly after 5 seconds of combat.
The thing i found the most after respeccing from combat was mutilate was a hell of allot more fun and with perks of 20% more efficient bandages/pots and the run speed if you change your boots/helm. With the gear i have now i think it will be even stronger for leveling.
I just reread the CTTC talent and realised the error of my ways. Anyway, whats the damage comparison of Eviscerate and Envenom at 71?
Minor nit, but CTTC doesn't quite give you "free" SnDs in a leveling context, since you still have to cast it the one time. If the mob drops before you need to refresh it, it wouldn't be different from not having CTTC.
Trying to decide between:
Rogue - 42/3/7
and
Rogue - 0/51/0
for my Rogue, Alcaria of Mal'Ganis
If i remember correctly the daggers you get through Outland are fairly bad. Just stick with the weapons you have and spec combat or some weird Hemo variant if you get bored. In my opinion if your just going to be using quested greens then all specs are going to be relatively similar in leveling pace, just depends what you enjoy more.
I just reread the CTTC talent and realised the error of my ways. Anyway, whats the damage comparison of Eviscerate and Envenom at 71?
Fairly similar, the 10% crit from the Evis glyph is nice though.
I just reread the CTTC talent and realised the error of my ways. Anyway, whats the damage comparison of Eviscerate and Envenom at 71?
Envenom tends to do more damage than Eviscerate, but it's fairly even with glyphs and talents really determining which does more damage. However, the opportunity cost for Envenom while soloing is quite large. Granted, this is with solely quest gear and in the mid 60s, but Instant Poison has been around 20% of my damage ever since I switched to Mutilate at 58. Damage from Deadly Poison on non-elites is basically negligible, so switching to Envenom would be a huge loss of damage.
While Mutilate is certainly a different play style than Combat, I'm starting to get sick of it. I tend to run out of gas when things live past CS + KS which means fighting more than one thing at once requires using cooldowns. As Combat I was intentionally pulling multiple mobs to maximize Blade Flurry. It just seemed much more consistent and seemed to fare far better against Elites as well.
I'm starting to think about how to level my priest in wrath. Given the nature of the replenishment changes I'm not going to be able to look foward to pulling multi mobs as shadow and keeping my mana well and truely up with multiple VTs. What I'm trying to figure out now is will I be able to kill more mobs until I need to drink as deep shadow or disc/holy picking up spirit tap and all the spirit synergy talents. I hate the idea of using dots on single mob pulls and losing efficiency due to them dying before the dots run their course. In that sense a disc/holy Holy Fire/MB/Smite rotation seems a lot more appealing. Would disc/holy be viable given that multi mob shadow just won't be that great this time around?
In the past I have leveled as shadow on my priest, but after 3.0 Changes I am starting to consider leveling disc/holy from 70-80. After leveling as shadow I personally have no desire to go back, too much wanding, or too much drinking. I have tried countless spec's recently while doing dailies and healing instances, and that is a 23/35/3 spec for leveling.
This spec would give improve divine spirit which is an additional 50 spell power at 70 and you could obtain spirit tap in the shadow tree. Now depending on current gear, in my case high end raiding holy set, I would have roughly 1550 spell power with divine spirit, and about 700 spirit give or take. My smite currently hits for about 1950-2000, and holy fires for roughly 2100, and after killing a mob i get a significant spell power increase do to spirit tap and spiritual guidance, and my mana regen increases to about 1300mp5 for the duration of spirit tap.
Choosing this spec you would have all the basic healing talents in the holy tree, which would allow fairly easy healing in 5 mans, and the ability to solo with little or no mana issues due to spirit tap and divine spirit. Picking up skills in the holy tree like holy specialization, surge of light, and searing light would also make solo grinding less painful.
This is a link to the current spec I plan on using. The only things I might consider changing within it is removing surge of light, because with my current gear I have a significantly low amount of spell crit.
If you're looking to level FAST then look elsewhere.
That said, while it may be slower than demo or affliction, it does tend to be quite a bit more fun. Even with the downtime.
Talent notes: quite a few talents, like in the other two trees, that are mandatory for raiding are next to useless for leveling and a number of awesome leveling talents are pointless after you hit the level cap unless you like to PvP.
Talents of note:
Bane: Get it. Don't think just pop 5 points into it.
Improved Shadow Bolt: Skip it. Anything less than a boss doesn't live long enough for the 10% to matter.
Molten Core: Skip. Same issue as ISB.
Aftermath: Leveling and PvP are the only two places this talent is useful and the PvP applications are debatable.
Cataclysm: Better than molten core for leveling, especially as destruction and ESPECIALLY if you've been abusing your hit rating. Nothing spells "DOWNTIME" more than missing with your nukes.
Demonic Power: Yes.
Shadowburn: Get it. Same reason you would pick it up for demo except it's going to hit a bit harder.
Ruin: Why ask a stupid question? 5 points. Go!
Intensity: Less useful now that they nerfed pushback, and after you get access to conflagurate and shadowburn it's almost pointless to be honest. Until you pick up an add or two. Then you will love it.
Destructive Reach: Moderately useful while leveling. The added 3-4 yard range won't buy you much time considering how fast level 80 mobs run.
Improved Searing Pain: Skip it unless you plan to raid-tank.
Pyroclasm: Like Aftermath, this one is extremely useful. Basically once you sink 2 points into this you'll pop conflagrate just before a mob gets within swinging range and a quarter of the time he won't get to deal damage to you. Just follow up the stun with a shadowbolt and shadowburn, loot, rinse, repeat.
Improved Immolate: With the HP levels of non-raid mobs this talent is actually worth the investment.
Devastation: Yes. Just get it.
Nether Protection: Debatable usefulness in solo PvE. Grab it if you intend to run instances while you level.
Emberstorm: Put points into it if you've got nothing better to grab. While you'll be maxing it out in raiding builds it's not that useful in solo PvE with all the burst you'll be bringing regardless through conflag and shadowburn.
Conglagrate: One of your defining spells. Grab it and don't look back.
Soul Leech: Debatable returns in solo PvE because you get hit by mobs so much. Completely skippable. For raid builds, not so skippable.
Backlash: Yes. 100% yes. Moar brst plz!
Shadow and Flame: Great talent in any build. Take it.
Improved Soul Leech: See Soul Leech. Improved mediocre is still mediocre.
Backdraft: Debatable value in solo PvE because by the time you get around to casting conflagrate the mob should already be almost dead and you should be hip deep in your instant cast rotation.
Shadowfury: Awesome in solo PvE. Just grab it and put it on your bar.
Empowered Imp: If you're destro you're running with an imp now, so yes. Grab it.
Fire and Brimstone: Debatable value in solo PvE. How often are mobs going to last more than 10 seconds against a destro lock?
Chaos Bolt: Yes. Even with the CD this spell will, more often than not, be your rotational bridge between immolate and conflagrate along with an incinerate post-64 (shadowbolt before you get incinerate).
Spell Rotations and tactics:
Spell rotations for solo PvE are, as always, up to taste but I find that if I open with immolate and tie it to a corruption I'll have time for one or two nukes before the mob gets close enough to me I want to burn it down with instant spells. If you've got any gear at all mobs should die in 3-4 spells. Less if you crit with 5/5 ruin (low 70 mobs have 6k HP just like in outland and Quel'danas for example). Even if you have crap gear when you get to northrend (say...you're only 68 when you go) you'll get decent enough gear just questing between 68 and 74 or so.
The difficult part of soloing as destruction is gathering soulshards because aggro management as destruction is impossible without an actual tank. Even with the VW buffs. Combine that with Empowered Imp and yeah. Shards are painful. However...
Gathering Soul Shards: Just grind till you get low and whip out a void walker. Killing a few mobs with DoTs and Drain Soul is a lot less painful than trying to channel that damn spell with something beating on you IMO.
Destruction's big advantage over affliction and demo on the level grind is the big numbers. They're better at keeping you awake. Other than that...pack a lot of water.
Cross Tree Synergy: For grinding you should be looking at demo. Dots in general will be of minimal value with the exception of immolate as it's a requirement for conflagrate. Improved Imp is a given for both the health buff, his fire shield, and his pewpew (which DOES add up even against normal mobs).
The crown jewl of the demo-destro synergy is Demonic Aegis. The goal of destruction leveling is to kill things before they get a chance to hurt you, and buffing Fel Armor is a great way to accomplish that.
Gearing: Once you hit Northrend the rules of gearing change because caster gear is stated differently. Unless you're geared you should be eyeing anything that drops that has spellpower and spirit. Just like pre-BC and BC int for warlocks is of honest minimal value. While leveling that goes double because spirit is counted in your lifetaps AND fel armor's effects making your desired stats stam, spellpower, and spirit. As destro, you should be looking for crit as well, although there are also a silly number of quest rewards that give haste rating. While of debatable value while leveling, if you're running instances for gear/quests a haste set will come in handy.
With the xpac coming up, I've been looking for the best rogue leveling spec for me. I quite enjoyed the utility and survivability of a deep Subtlety build while leveling 60-70 before switching to the cookie-cutter Combat Swords for raiding. I'm not a fan of daggers, so the choice was between a Combat leveling build and a Hemo leveling build. I ran some tests on level 70 mobs to see how big the dps difference was:
All tests were made using the same mobs for roughly 15-20 minutes each. I did not change my glyphs (SS and SnD) at any point. My weapons were the badge fist mainhand (Falcooon Punchhh!), akil'zon's talon blade offhand.
------------
First, I made a more leveling-focused version of my Combat spec: 5/51/5. This spec would eventually continue deeper into assassination.
The playstyle for this build was to run from mob to mob without stealthing. Upon reaching the target, I would hit Sinister Strike once, then activate Slice and Dice. Then I would either SS them to death, or use an Eviscerate if the time seemed right (the evis would kill them and I had 3 or more combo points). If evis was not worth it, I might use the CPs for SnD instead, so I wouldn't have to reactivate it for a while. I used most of my cooldowns, except I forgot to use Adrenaline Rush. I had Wound Poison on both hands (as it beats IP for Combat builds currently).
905 DPS is pretty respectable while solo and unbuffed. You'll notice none of my SSs were dodged or parried, due to the expertise bonus for Combat spec supplementing my expertise gear.
Caveats: I did not use cooldowns to the maximum effectiveness. I neglected Adrenaline Rush and also neglected to gather up 2 or more foes on every Blade Flurry cooldown to take advantage of the double damage. A better-played session would probably have yielded higher DPS. So let's assume this one actually does around 1000 dps while grinding solo.
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Next I tested out a Subtlety/Assassination build (20/0/41) using the same technique: I run from mob to mob unstealthed, spamming Hemo and eviscerate when appropriate. However, I don't use SnD with this build. I'm relying on yellow damage rather than white. This build would pick up fleet footed, then some combination of DW spec and honor among thieves (depending on how much I was grouping) as it leveled.
Hm. 782. Only about 100 less, but still a significant decrease in DPS. I was disappointed, so I gave it more though. Even with the Eviscerate Glyph (10% more crit), I wouldn't make up the difference. But I really want the utility of this build. While leveling I'll be competing for the tag on a lot of mobs, and Shadowstep is really my only good tagging tool.
So I thought on it some more, and looking over the talents I realized that I wasn't playing to my strengths. This build had many buffs to stealth, and I could increase my damage coming out of stealth. Cheap Shot was an extremely good investment with it's reduced cost and extra combo point return. If I stealthed, I'd also be safer more of the time from unexpected ambushes, be able to pickpocket, and be able to use premeditiation. I devised a new strategy, which intended to kill all targets during the 6-second window of increased damage provided by Master of Subtlety.
I got back to killing the same mobs, stealthing between each kill. Premed only has a 20 second cooldown, so it was up at least every other mob, if not more often. I could mitigate the slowdown of stealth via shadowstep every other mob, and Cheap Shot kept me from taking much damage at all. Premed followed by CS gave me 5 CPs for an immediate Evis, with energy left for a Hemo. If any of that crit, the mob would die immediately. I found my DPS varied wildly from fight to fight: I'd either do 1100 dps and drop the target within the CS, or I'd do about 850 dps because I had to wait for another Hemo or two. I ended up with a 940 average, which compares favorably to Combat. Keep in mind this was without the Glyph of Evis.
So I did a little bit less average damage than Combat probably would. But I found myself running out of spawns with this new technique...I was moving between mobs so much faster, never having to pause to bandage, that they weren't respawning fast enough to keep up with me now. On top of that, I took almost no damage, could tag more easily, could pickpocket naturally, and piles of survivability via prep.
So happily, with a playstyle adjustment, Hemo comes out the clear winner for me. I know that my tests weren't executed perfectly or extensively enough to be conclusive for everyone, but I hope anyone who was debating between these two paths might find this info interesting.
This is partly copied over from my blog, where you can read a bit more in depth about why I wanted to go with this spec in the first place, and why I chose the talents I did.
In the past I have leveled as shadow on my priest, but after 3.0 Changes I am starting to consider leveling disc/holy from 70-80. After leveling as shadow I personally have no desire to go back, too much wanding, or too much drinking. I have tried countless spec's recently while doing dailies and healing instances, and that is a 23/35/3 spec for leveling.
This spec would give improve divine spirit which is an additional 50 spell power at 70 and you could obtain spirit tap in the shadow tree. Now depending on current gear, in my case high end raiding holy set, I would have roughly 1550 spell power with divine spirit, and about 700 spirit give or take. My smite currently hits for about 1950-2000, and holy fires for roughly 2100, and after killing a mob i get a significant spell power increase do to spirit tap and spiritual guidance, and my mana regen increases to about 1300mp5 for the duration of spirit tap.
Choosing this spec you would have all the basic healing talents in the holy tree, which would allow fairly easy healing in 5 mans, and the ability to solo with little or no mana issues due to spirit tap and divine spirit. Picking up skills in the holy tree like holy specialization, surge of light, and searing light would also make solo grinding less painful.
This is a link to the current spec I plan on using. The only things I might consider changing within it is removing surge of light, because with my current gear I have a significantly low amount of spell crit.
Let me know what you think.
That has more healing talents than I'd want in a grinding build, though it's certainly a good compromise between grinding and healing. However, with the gear level that you have, you can easily heal a leveling instance even completely ignoring healing-exclusive talents. I plan to level like this to maximum smite dps. I'll be picking up power infusion and then enlightenment and reflective shield as I level.
Riposte allows you to kill mobs faster and reduces the damage you take. Killing Spree in conjunction with Blade Flurry on a short cooldown allow for killing large groups of mobs quickly and efficiently. I levelled on Beta as this spec after Killing Spree was finally implemented and had a great deal of fun with it. As you get more points I would pick up ruthlessness and endurance.
While Mutilate is certainly a different play style than Combat, I'm starting to get sick of it. I tend to run out of gas when things live past CS + KS which means fighting more than one thing at once requires using cooldowns. As Combat I was intentionally pulling multiple mobs to maximize Blade Flurry. It just seemed much more consistent and seemed to fare far better against Elites as well.
And so I did go back to combat....and found it lackluster compared to how I was doing pre-Outland. I then went back to Mutilate to try out CTTC and HFB and enjoyed it, doing much more damage than I was doing with Combat against the same mobs. Stuff was dying so fast that that I needed to stop and bandage far less. Of course, I still believe that Combat would be superior if I wanted to solo elites - extra parry, Riposte, Unfair Advantage, more DPS cooldowns, and better long-term Energy regen definitely favors Combat in fights you're more worried about whether you actually will win compared to how fast it will be when most of Assassination is about killing stuff fast and moving on.
As to the strategy of running up to mobs unstealthed, its a playstyle I've never used despite reading about it quite a bit. While it's "faster", I've found that I spend a rather significant amount of time bandaging if I don't kill a mob within a few seconds of it being unstunned. Additionally, I'm a huge fan of Pickpocketing. It provides a small bit of money, some extra potions, but most importantly junkboxes; I can't stand having max LPing and it takes a significant amoutn of time to do it later. And not stealthing only really makes sense in Combat: as Mutilate you get a ton of energy savings by stealthing from Overkill, and lots of Subtlety talents focus on stealthing and openers,
First, I made a more leveling-focused version of my Combat spec: 5/51/5. This spec would eventually continue deeper into assassination.
The playstyle for this build was to run from mob to mob without stealthing. Upon reaching the target, I would hit Sinister Strike once, then activate Slice and Dice. Then I would either SS them to death, or use an Eviscerate if the time seemed right
Hmm, apart from not using BF, AR to the fullest, it should be noted that opening with CS instead of an in-your-face SS has two benefits: you have 2 CP to SnD already, and the mob is stunned. Using the CP from your following SS (about two or three) you can go into an Evi to finish a mob off, or a KS to further bash the mob without taking damage. The initial CS stun and the likely following KS stun means you are reducing downtime by taking less damage, something you can't really measure with Recount. Of course, if the mob is not stunned, unfair advantage procs more, but it's not something you want to base your DPS on.
And it's a good thing you realised you weren't playing to your strengths as Hemo. Your second Hemo test is probably a lot more accurate and representative.
However, IMO your test also showed that Combat and Hemo are fairly equal, and players can safely choose what playstyle they prefer (Hemo having the additional benefit of having some PvP tricks up the sleeve) when hitting the new content.
From there maybe pick up 2/2 Unfair Advantage then start working my down the Assassination tree to pickup the usual stuff.
I was about to complain about relying on a proc like Unfair advantage when I much prefer the steady, reliable nature of savage combat, until I realized how brutal that probably is in evasion/BF AoE. Nice one.
I was about to complain about relying on a proc like Unfair advantage when I much prefer the steady, reliable nature of savage combat, until I realized how brutal that probably is in evasion/BF AoE. Nice one.
Indeed, in Azeroth I was generally able to take out a group of three extremely fast every two minutes with BF/Evasion (having the Combat talent to reduce the latters' CD to 2 min). Unfair advantage was amounting to around 6% of my total DPS, a quite large amount for 2 talent points. This was mainly against the Satyrs in northern Felwood where there were 4 different groups of 3 (and a group of two very close to another mob) such that there as one always available. Now, if you weren't pure grinding like I was - and I was grinding merely as a test of its speed initially (I started the character well before TBC but continued to solely grind when i came back to him in 3.0) whereas the increased quest XP would surely make questing faster these days - the opportunities would be far less frequent.
The reason I decided to switch to Mutilate for Outland, and while I'll continue as such, is there just aren't groups of three in Outland. Every once in a while you'll have a group of two, some mobs that path near each other or multiple low-hp mobs like the scavengers in Sunspring village, but blowing BF for the latter is a huge waste. When you can sap one (or one is non-aggro yellow) there's no problem at all for Mutilate. Trying to drag mobs on top of each other to BF is a waste of time considering the damage you'll take moving them and the fact you could just have killed one as Mutilate in the time it took to move it. And you probably have Blade Twisting as combat for the 10% increase in SS damage so you'll often have to wait for it to catch up to you due to unintentionally dazing it. Thus while Combat is very useful in Azeroth, I recommend switching to Mutilate once you get the two early quest reward daggers in Outland.
Before Overkill and other changes to the the Assassination tree, I was not impressed with it as a method of killing mobs fast and moving on compared to Combat's steady and long-term damage. Now that I've tried it with CTTC and HFB, it's been absolutely amazing. I don't see Combat getting access to talents so much better than those Mutilate will from 70-80 to make a difference. The remaining issues are whether mobs have so much more health that you can't kill them in 5-10 seconds after an opener and whether there are enough groups of 2 or 3 mobs that make Combat's cooldowns useful; not having been in Beta I can't answer these myself.
As a rogue I plan to use 41-5-XX and put all remaining points up to 41-5-23 into Sublety. The reason is the combination of Dirty Deeds, Vigor, Vigor Glyph and Amok, which should give heavy amounts of burst. 115% run speed combined with Camouflage are very nice to get fast from mob to mob. Any yes - I want stealth. How many times is there one mob to kill at the end of a cave. The build reaches high effectiveness with level 77, when 2/2 Dirty Deeds is possible. As poisons I will use dual wound poison.
Hildegard Sprigglespruxx - Wissenschaftlerin am Institut für Pfuschkunde
That has more healing talents than I'd want in a grinding build, though it's certainly a good compromise between grinding and healing. However, with the gear level that you have, you can easily heal a leveling instance even completely ignoring healing-exclusive talents. I plan to level like this to maximum smite dps. I'll be picking up power infusion and then enlightenment and reflective shield as I level.
That's basically what I'll be running, skipping healing focus of course. I'll probably grab Imp ST 71-72 (so I actually won't be missing that talent), PI 73, Enlightenment 74-78, Aspiration as filler at 79 then respec 80.
Shadow does have some efficiency talents but I still feel dots are inefficient if you can't maintain multimob pulls for a very long time. That's going to be a lot harder with the dimishing returns on VT thanks to replenishment. IMO as a non lock caster nukes are always going to be more efficient then dots and the obvious tradeoff between the specs is Mind Flay for Holy Fire/Smite/SoL procs. I know which set of nukes I'd rather have. I did forget to take Dispersion into account; the 36% mana return is great, the 3 min cooldown isn't.
Regardless, it's encouraging to see others having sucess with disc/holy for high end levelling over shadow and I'm comfortable with levelling that way come wrath.
I was considering respeccing Mutilate at 60 but wasn't sure if it was worth it until 70 (Hopefully I will get my new rogue to 70 before WotLK, some power levelling inc lol).
Looking at something like this at 60, would respec once I actually get some decent daggers so perhaps not until 61 or 62, but for the purpose of this post I will only do the talents to 60.
From there I'm looking at just going down the subt tree - or would I be better off going down Combat to get the 5% crit with daggers + 5% hit chance?
EDIT: This would be me as I hit 70 if I went down subt after 60. I couldn't decide whether to get Dirty Tricks or Camo - I hardly sapped at all last time I levelled a rogue to 70 - although that was as Combat with the HWL swords just as tbc came out.
EDIT2: And glyphs, I think at 15 I'll just pick up a Glyph of Sinister Strike just for that nice little extra kick. Come to think of it the current rogue glyphs all kind of suck compared to Glyph of SS.
Could someone that played a DK in beta for a good long while post some thoughts on the 3 trees in regards to levelling?
For example, what talents are must-haves for levelling, what talents may seem like a good idea but are actually poor and so on.
What I would really like was if I could get some description with comparisons to current, known classes. For example something like "X build is similar to fury", "Y build is similar to affliction", etc.
I assume the hit rating is the same as for a warrior? 5% on specials/2H and 24% (I think) when dual wielding?
How much AP do DKs get from STR? Do they get any from AGI?
If this is explained elsewhere, please be so kind as to point it out for me.
Blood: If you hate downtime but don't mind demolishing mobs only one or two at a time then this is the tree for you. It's self heals are second to none for melee. I know more than a few fury warriors that are going to try blood and have to change their shorts.
Frost: If you love control and simply screwing mobs over during the grind, look no further. Once you hit 60 it will feel like godmode for control freaks. Nothing hits you without permissions. I'm serious. Hunters who love their frost trap will feel at home here.
Unholy: If you love watching things die en mass and in unison, I present your Mecca. If you hate caster mobs and so much as look at another tree Unholy will set you on fire (I'm serious...the Unholy tree is hardcore like that). Paladins will find a lot of familiarity here.
In the past I have leveled as shadow on my priest, but after 3.0 Changes I am starting to consider leveling disc/holy from 70-80. After leveling as shadow I personally have no desire to go back, too much wanding, or too much drinking. I have tried countless spec's recently while doing dailies and healing instances, and that is a 23/35/3 spec for leveling.
What is your spec like pre 3.0? With good spirit, spirit tab and meditation you should never run out of mana doing quests. I simply do SW:P, MF and SW:D. (Only VE and VT if I want variation). Drop out of shadow and heal myself when I'm low on health. I don't wand. I suspect you might be using "warlock" gear while levelling, resulting in a dip in your sustainability. Look at the shadow priest tier gear and you'll see the spirit in there. (iirc, around 250 mp5 on paper doll with no buff/aura was the norm).
In 3.0, you'll lose meditation if you take dispersion at level 70. You can use dispersion like a mage uses evocation. Or you can take inner focus and meditation first, and go down to dispersion on the way to 80. (Level 70 raiding builds have dispersion, but I don't see why you can't go discipline first when levelling).
Now, if you weren't pure grinding like I was - and I was grinding merely as a test of its speed initially (I started the character well before TBC but continued to solely grind when i came back to him in 3.0) whereas the increased quest XP would surely make questing faster these days - the opportunities would be far less frequent.
The reason I decided to switch to Mutilate for Outland, and while I'll continue as such, is there just aren't groups of three in Outland. Every once in a while you'll have a group of two, some mobs that path near each other or multiple low-hp mobs like the scavengers in Sunspring village, but blowing BF for the latter is a huge waste. When you can sap one (or one is non-aggro yellow) there's no problem at all for Mutilate. Trying to drag mobs on top of each other to BF is a waste of time considering the damage you'll take moving them and the fact you could just have killed one as Mutilate in the time it took to move it.
(extensively snipped to just keep the important bits)
The reason why I prefer combat to assassination for leveling is that, while the kill speed for the two is about even (favoring assassination slightly, perhaps), and even though you need to pack mobs up to get the full benefits of AR and BF, you have those abilities.
Sure, you can focus on making every individual kill faster, and that works quite well for grinding. But, for questing, you'll sometimes need to kill something a bit out of your league to optimize your questing routes. Maybe it's an orange quest, or a 2/3-man group quest, or something. Much of that is reliably soloable by busting those cooldowns, whereas they're not necessarily doable with assassination.
Last edited by pdpi : 11/06/08 at 5:55 AM.
Reason: grammar
I didn’t spend much time in the beta but FWIW, I leveled to 72 with this spec and BT level healing gear (see Armory), had no downtime whatsoever and plenty of DPS for questing, and was very easily able to heal the first few instances as well. Not entirely sure if Penance is really worth it, took it more for the novelty factor tbh and since I was going far down in the Disc tree anyway just trying stuff since I’m usually CoH spec. In any event, you certainly don’t need Spirit Tap or anything else in the Shadow tree to reduce downtime.
I did feel that you need to take quite a bit of “useless” (your definition may vary ) talents in the lower tiers of the Holy tree to get to the good leveling talents in there.
Last edited by Okimi : 11/06/08 at 8:13 AM.
Reason: Clarity
11/02/08, 9:26 AM
) talents in the lower tiers of the Holy tree to get to the good leveling talents in there.
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