Stormchops to Flares - The Winning Edge - Page 2

Kungfoo · 05/07/08, 1:43 PM

Originally Posted by PsyBomb

A cute resto shaman trick I found: Healing Wave rank one costs 23 mana and takes one second to cast. What is interesting to note here is that the [Totem of the Maelstrom] reduces this to 0, making it free to cast and as such it won't place you within the 5SR. This doesn't seem like much of an advantage, given that you can pump out all of 90 HPS with it in Sunwell gear, but look again.

Evil tricks include using it to stack up Healing Way and trigger Ancestral Fortitude. It counts as a nature-school spell, so it can trigger [Fathom-Brooch of the Tidewalker] for +335 mana (again, no investment other than 1 second to cast), and as a heal it can be used to charge up a [Vial of the Sunwell] (despite the fact that its normal heal at +2k healing is around 85). In ZA it can trigger the [Amani Charm of the Witch Doctor] (and since THAT heal takes place over the course of 9 seconds, I've had it help soak a nasty Saber Lash before... for nothing). I know for fact that I've missed several and I didn't write some of the less-useful ones here, but you get the drift.

Sum of it is that whenever I find myself with some breathing room, I'll equip the totem and spam HW(r1) on the tanks until such time as I need to start actually healing again, at which point I cast a main-rank healing wave and swap out mid-cast so that no time is wasted. I also do this in the few seconds before a pull to prep them for healing (and maybe get the armor bonus on the pull)

This little trick has been useful for a long time, especially when combined with [Pendant of the Violet Eye], as you gain the charges while staying out of the FSR. If you get a lull, it's easy to make back 2k+ mana during the on-use buff. Can also be used in RoS p2 if you get to zero mana for very small heals on your interrupters/tank.

This was talked about tons in the Healing Trinket Selection thread, and probably a few others.

Rasputin · 05/07/08, 1:45 PM

Originally Posted by clavarnway

[Demonic Rune] and [Dark Rune] are also in this vein. Share cooldown with HS. Not unique though.

And 10% more useful for paladins, since you get the mana return as well as an additional 10% of the health lost as mana returned when that damage is healed(assuming you don't heal yourself).

Flamingcloud · 05/07/08, 2:11 PM

Originally Posted by Prinsesa

I recall this being posted before, but in the interest of REALLY maximizing DPS on Brutallus, wear your [Commander's Badge], activate it, then replace with your normal trinket before the pull.

The Dragonling lasts for a couple of minutes, and his Arcane Bolts add a non-trivial amount of damage, especially if your whole raid does it.

I tired this before and didn't see any evidence of it working.. I called it on pull it did nothing and despawned after about 45 seconds(hardly a couple minutes). Do you need to be in the first soak group(ie get hit by the boss) or in absurdly close range to the boss (ie melee range) for the pet to actually do something?

PSGarak · 05/07/08, 3:34 PM

I suppose the Infernal trick should be mentioned here for the sake of completeness, although it's probably getting more well-known. It's kinda similar to trinket summons.

Your average warlock is speced 0/21/40 for demonic sacrifice, allowing him to trade his pet for +15% damage. Summoning another pet will remove the buff. However, enslaving a demon and using it as a pet will not. The recomended pet for doing this trick is the Infernal, because it starts off with an enslave guaranteed to last five minutes without breaking (unless the warlock dies). It doesn't do anything except damage, but the damage is non-trivial and "free," and he's fire-immune which can be useful. Only use it when you're sure you're going to win, it has a one-hour cooldown.

On the spirit of Demonic Runes... are there any other cheesy ways for a paladin to damage themselves and soak free mana from stray CH/CoH/healing stream totems? Engineering would seem a likely source of such items, such as[Goblin Sapper Charge].

Moogul · 05/07/08, 4:16 PM

Originally Posted by PSGarak

On the spirit of Demonic Runes... are there any other cheesy ways for a paladin to damage themselves and soak free mana from stray CH/CoH/healing stream totems? Engineering would seem a likely source of such items, such as[Goblin Sapper Charge].

I guess they could BoSac someone if they have a spare blessing slot, but I don't know how much mana that costs and ergo if it would be worth it or not.

Along this line of thought, it's interesting watching a Paladin get fel-raged on Bloodboil, as they enjoy their free 'innervate'.

jasura · 05/07/08, 4:29 PM

Originally Posted by aerwyth

I would not recommend actually doing this. We had a player end up outside the fire barrier by virtue of tornado knockback during phase 3. He was then promptly targeted by the claw rage ability at the start of phase 4, causing to boss to go past the fire barrier and reset.

Our shaman just stood right at the entrance and if he got claw raged he died. Occupational hazard

flyingtoastr · 05/07/08, 4:43 PM

Originally Posted by Moogul

I guess they could BoSac someone if they have a spare blessing slot, but I don't know how much mana that costs and ergo if it would be worth it or not.

Actually, if you're running with 3 or more pallys its pretty common for ret pallys to put Blessing of Sacrifice on a tank. It helps mitigate damage and gives free mana, a nice Win-Win situation.

EDIT: To clarify, BoSac casts 135 mana, so if the tank takes more than 13 attacks in the 30 seconds you will have a net mana gain. Prot pallys with their awesome 2-piece T6 bonus only need their target to take 7 attacks to break even.

• frmorrison · 05/07/08, 5:15 PM

Originally Posted by flyingtoastr

Actually, if you're running with 3 or more pallys its pretty common for ret pallys to put Blessing of Sacrifice on a tank. It helps mitigate damage and gives free mana, a nice Win-Win situation.

Isn't keeping up Might, Kings, Light better than losing one for Sacrifice?

Another edge is if you are a Blood Elf, there are Mana Thistles (10 dmg/healing) that you can pickup in the starter zone. Lasts for 10 minutes.

Teez · 05/07/08, 5:39 PM

Originally Posted by Aker

Did a badge run last night in Kara. Right before Nightbane, I used my [Mr. Pinchy] and brave Mr. Pinchy fought alongside us for a bit.

Sadly, Mr. Pinchy isn't smart enough to not stand in the fire.

Back when we were learning SSC, we actually got our first kill of Tidewalker while one of our paladins popped a Mr. Pinchy - our DPS was *considerably* higher that attempt, because it turns out that Mr. Pinchy actually sunders his target too ... and that Sunder Armor stacks with that of Warriors. (You'll end up with two 5-stacks of Sunder Armor on the mob. This may have been fixed since, but it was absolutely awesome back then.)

Shadewalk · 05/07/08, 5:39 PM

An item I found running maraudon for no particular reason was the [Razorlash Root], again on the HS cooldown, but I guess is something on that cooldown for mana.

Also another cute one is the [Bogling Root], something like 3 boglings spawn while doing some very early quest in the NE area, dropping one root each.

I also remeber hearing reports that [Bag of Marbles] was a rather powerful item for some fights, think the context was reguarding maexxna during the stuns as an easy way to help the tank survive. Don't know if these still work on everything, but at the time there was nothing that resisted them at all.

Almost out... also some magic dust from the elementals in westfall, [Magic Dust] never tried it in PvP or anything, but I suspect that may work nicely depending on its resist mechanics (caster vs item level being used).

Elani · 05/07/08, 6:45 PM

Originally Posted by Shadewalk

I also remeber hearing reports that [Bag of Marbles] was a rather powerful item for some fights, think the context was reguarding maexxna during the stuns as an easy way to help the tank survive. Don't know if these still work on everything, but at the time there was nothing that resisted them at all.

Bag of Marbles was extremely powerful for the original version of Broodlord Lashlayer since he had a rather nasty habit of one shotting a fully geared T1 tank. By version, I'm talking about the one that dropped 100% of a tank's threat rather than 50%. Blizzard quickly after made them BoP, but going into Naxxramas I still had like 30 of them on my mage.

Howard Roark · 05/07/08, 8:21 PM

When Karazahn was important I used to bring about a dozen [Stratholme Holy Water] for the groups in the dance hall.

vorda · 05/07/08, 8:47 PM

Originally Posted by Howard Roark

When Karazahn was important I used to bring about a dozen [Stratholme Holy Water] for the groups in the dance hall.

I still use those on felmyst for some extra dps (I like beating spriests there as prot) and TPS (which isnt needed though).

flyingtoastr · 05/07/08, 9:32 PM

Originally Posted by frmorrison

Isn't keeping up Might, Kings, Light better than losing one for Sacrifice?

Not to get off track, but when you only run with 1 holy pally (our typical is 1 prot, 1 holy, 1 ret) Light really isn't very important, especially in farm content.

ArethorCM · 05/08/08, 2:05 AM

Having been one of the people lucky enough to have cleared Naxx pre-TBC, I have found that [Mark of the Champion] has been quite useful in place of my Dark Moon card on sunwell boss fights. Obviously if I had a Skull I would much rather use that, but I've found the Mark to be a suitable alternative as almost all the bosses are either Demons or Undead.

Cranberry · 05/08/08, 4:02 AM

Keep em coming, guys. This is good stuff.

Does anyone know if the Commander's Badge trinket trick works with other "minion" trinkets? I.e., Gnomish Battle Chicken?

dreadloc · 05/08/08, 4:30 AM

Super Sticky Glue from the Troll village (Senjin) is an amazingly useful tool, pretty sure it will work on striders for Vashj etc. It used to be great in pvp as well as a rogue at XR pre-bg's.

Saraya · 05/08/08, 4:38 AM

Commander's Badge is basically on its own cooldown(only shares it with the lesser versions). The rest of the minion trinkets are on a shared cooldown. Having a few friends in BGs activating [Tiny Voodoo Mask] and [Commander's Badge] at the same time kind of borderlines on broken because there's so many targets that even the AEs that would have 1 shotted them don't because of the damage split. and they all do respectable damage. As a moonkin I even get 3 extra trees to join the party too.

While using this trick for bosses is decent for some free damage, the overall damage is pretty small that the 30 second wait for the trinket to become available kind of lessens the worth. However, it is VERY useful for any random target spells, as each individual pet can soak a spell. This is incredibly effective on bosses like Aran and Dorothy who only use random target spells. They always kill all of my trinket pets before they despawn(I used the Barov Peasants since ZA wasn't around back when I was doing Kara). I never used the Commander's Badge since it used to require you to be outdoors to use it, but I believe they changed it to be usable anywhere, so that's 1 extra soak target.

zheng · 05/08/08, 5:10 AM

Originally Posted by clavarnway

[Demonic Rune] and [Dark Rune] are also in this vein. Share cooldown with HS. Not unique though.

Watch out, it can crit :^)

I killed my mage once because of those things.

@++

xiaoxin21 · 05/08/08, 5:11 AM

[Skull of Impending Doom] is a fun item back in pre-TBC.

Now it is good for saving some repairs on bosses that take eons to wipe your raid.

And I am still saving [Light of Elune] for the day Arthas is a 1% and I am the only one standing.

Taled · 05/08/08, 7:14 AM

Originally Posted by xiaoxin21

And I am still saving [Light of Elune] for the day Arthas is a 1% and I am the only one standing.

oh....so I'm not the only one? I kept mine for a diffrent reason, though. I'm kind of a pack rat

@topic: even today I regulary go back to the Blasted Lands to get a Lung Juice Cocktail because as a bear with Kings that's more hp than a Elixier of Major Fortitude. Shame it's unique

Saphya · 05/08/08, 8:21 AM

If you can benefit from Manareg via Spirit this might be usefull for you: [Kreeg's Stout Beatdown]
You can get it from the drunken Ogre after running Dire Maul North for 15s per piece (unlimited supply) and i think it stacks with pretty much everything.

Ja7us · 05/08/08, 12:01 PM

Originally Posted by PSGarak

On the spirit of Demonic Runes... are there any other cheesy ways for a paladin to damage themselves and soak free mana from stray CH/CoH/healing stream totems? Engineering would seem a likely source of such items, such as[Goblin Sapper Charge].

Isn't there some alliance quest item that deals 300 DPS to you if you're "unworthy?" I think you have to equip it, which might make it impractical for paladin regen, but you could use it to break gouges on Moroes or somesuch.