War-Crafting

Game mechanics, add-ons, play styles, guides, explanations and how-to’s.

Caster Weapon Swapper: An Essential Addon for Spellsurge Users

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Spellsurge or 81 Healing? It’s a common question that many healers have asked themselves.

Why not use both?

Here’s a description about CasterWeaponSwapper from Curse:

This AddOn swaps weapons based on your current amount of mana, to maximize mana efficiency. With this mod, you can start fights with a high intellect staff equipped, then switch to a +damage/healing weapon for most of the fight, and then switch to a spirit-heavy staff when your mana is low.

This AddOn is unique because is does all this automatically, and without interrupting you with a weapon-swap cooldown. Normally when you equip weapons in combat, you get a 1.5-second global cooldown. CasterWeaponSwapper gets around this by swapping weapons only when you start to cast a spell. This means the cooldowns overlap and you don’t experience any interruption. When out of combat, there is an option to swap weapons whenever necessary, since there is no swap cooldown.

The AddOn supports 1- and 2-handed weapons, off hand items, and wands/librams/idols/totems. You can set up weapon sets for high mana, casting, low mana, and sets for Druid forms. The casting set will only be used when in combat. The Druid sets will be used while you are shapeshifted into a bear or cat. There is also an option to use the low-mana set while you have spirit boosting buffs (Spirit Tap, Evocation, Innervate, and Aura of the Blue Dragon), and an option to swap between a secondary casting set to proc the Spellsurge enchant each time it is available.

Using CWS

Once you’ve downloaded and unzipped CWS to your Addons folder, you can start using it right away. Make sure you’ve enabled it.

To bring up the main CWS window, type in /cws

CasterWeaponSwapper window in action

Weapon Categories

You’ll notice each set has 3 slots. From left to right, it’s your main hand, off hand, and ranged slot (Wand, Libram, Totem, Relic).

High Mana Set

Weapon you have equipped coming into an encounter of some sort. If you want to seriously push yourself and excel, this is a kind of weapon which has a ton of intellect on it. Higher intellect means larger initial mana pool.

Casting Set

This is reserved for a weapon that you will use most of the time while casting in combat. Most of the time, it will have high MP5.

Low Mana Set

When you get low on mana, CWS will automatically equip this. Now, there’s 2 ways you go about it here. You can equip a high Spirit weapon and sit still for a few seconds while your slowly regen your mana or equip another high MP5 weapon so you can continue to cast while having low mana. I’d say 9 times out of 10, if you’re running low on mana during a raid, it’s at a critical point where you have to keep pumping out heals and you can’t remain idle for too long.

Spellsurge Set

This is reserved for your weapon that has Spellsurge on it. The addon keeps track of Spellsurge’s internal cooldown and swaps accordingly when it’s up.

Sliders

You can use the sliders below to change the threshold to swap weapons. These are the default settings. For example, when my mana reaches 80%, it will switch from my High Mana set to my Casting set. When I get to 25% mana, it will switch from my Casting set to my Low Mana set. Use the sliders to control when you want that to happen.

Checkboxes

Enable swaps: Self explanatory. Either turns on or disables the entire swap mechanic.

Print swaps: It notifies you in your chatbox whether or not it’s switching weapons.

Post-fight reports: Here’s an example:

CasterWeaponSwapper stats

It tells me a few important things like how many times Spellsurge procced and the amount of time I was in the 5SR.

Swap Whenever Needed…: Also self explanatory. It can handle swapping operations outside of combat. My guess is that it defaults to high mana or low mana depending on your current mana pool.

Conclusions and Observations

It’s a top notch addon and one that I’d heartily recommend to any healer who wants to excel at their game and ensure they have the mana they need to heal their tanks. It allows me to focus on healing instead of manually switching to my Spellsurge staff to activate it and back again.

Don’t think so?

I can tell you I’m not the only blogger who feels this way (Speaking of which, it’s been a week and a half, where have you been?).

4 Reasons Why I Rushed to 70 and Didn’t Look Back

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I’ve been meaning to write a different perspective after reading these well written posts from Pike, Faeldray, and Nina. With the exception of Pike who has recently discovered endgame, the latter are happily taking their time getting to 70 and enjoying their experiences in the process.

I by no means agree nor disagree. The beautiful thing about WoW is that it can be enjoyed by a wide spectrum of players. They can be casual or hardcore. Male or female. Student or teacher. The waiter at that classy Italian restaurant or the bartender at that shady bar. Blizzard gave us a world. The game is how we interact with it and enjoy it.

One of my first characters was my Paladin. She’s the first healer I had to hit level 60. I never raided with her and it took me nearly 6 months to get her to 60 (not played timed, mind you). Like many of you players who went through WoW the first time, I was soaking the fun and experience. I’m a huge Blizzard fan. I played Warcraft 2 back in the day, tried Warcraft 1, and enjoyed Warcraft 3. I poured over game manuals repeatedly because I wanted to learn more about this world. When WoW was released, I now had the chance to experience Azeroth first hand instead of directing and commanding units from a top down interface.

When I rerolled Mallet and Saphfira later on, there were some things that made me want to max my level out.

Been there done that: Every peninsula, explored. Every crack, investigated. Every instance, run. Every battle, won.

I’ve gone to Silithus, to Darnassus, to EPL and back again. I felt like I had accomplished everything there was to do. I completed every quest.

When I created my new characters, I had no desire to do all of that again. I wanted to hit end game and hit Molten Core and see Blackwing Lair. It seemed pointless to me and a waste of my time. Especially when you have more than 1 character.

Social ability: I enjoy playing with friends and meeting new players. In fact, if my friends stopped playing WoW and switched to Age of Conan or something, I would most likely do the same. That being said, my friends would level at a super human pace. I didn’t want to be left behind. It’s no fun being level 45 while the rest of your friends are already level 70 and raiding Karazhan. They offer to help you if you’re under attack by opposite faction members, but rarely do they come out. Why?

Because they’re raiding.

I didn’t want to get left behind. So I rushed to catch up to them.

The Holy-Crap-He’s-70-Don’t-Mess-With-Him Factor: You’re in Hillsbrad foothills and you run into a level 21. You squish him. Then a Warrior comes out of nowhere who is level 33 and he stomps you.

And so the chain ganking continues, but there is a limit.

Level 70. While you can still step on lower levels with ease, there IS no bigger fish that can kill you while you’re doing your thing (questing, herbing, etc). There’s no level 75 to gank you in front of Karazhan. There’s no level 80 holding down the fort in front of Tempest Keep. When you get to 70, the playing field is declared even. Victory is decided by skill and gear instead of huge level differences.

Achievement: Perhaps the only instance I will never step foot inside and conquer is Ahn’Qiraj. I’ve been in there a few times and got a feel for the first boss. But I will never know what it’s like to beat the rest of the instance.

That cannot be said the same of the 25 man’s in Outlands. I joined a progression Guild for a reason: Because we all want to progress. We embrace the PvE challenges that Blizzard has thrown at us. Mountains are made to be climbed.

What irritates me a lot is the fact that casual players wave their whole “well u hv no lyfe bt prple epicz” (Don’t worry Nina, not aimed at you =)). I tend to get thrown into that category because people see the items I wear and somehow come to that conclusion that I don’t have a life. Just because I spend my time wiping and working on instances instead of doing 5 mans and daily quests doesn’t mean I’m that much worse of an individual.

I like to have fun and play WoW, too. But just because my idea of fun is different then your idea of fun doesn’t make me any worse. I relish killing bosses with 24 other players. I like figuring out the technical aspects of boss fights and beating them within the rules. I like to make up my own kind of challenges (like time trials on bosses). My Guild comprises of a lot of players from the west coast to the east coast. We can’t devote 5 hours an evening to work on bosses because it’s not possible with our players.

Take an example from GMW. A while ago she made a post writing about the individuals within her Guild. Carnage has some high school students, university students, masters students and so on. We also have adults who are working full time. I don’t know what kind of occupations they have (although that’s a good future blog post, so I’m going to write that one down) but I know someone who works at Amazon.com. Another works at a corporate IT firm.

I apologize for my mini rant, but I’m just tired of hearing it from players in greens and blues who call us with purple wearing players with having no life.

I put in the effort, I dedicated my time, and I play hard every raid. I work hard, I study hard, and I party hard. Why should WoW deserve any less? Our raiding atmosphere is light and relaxed. My one wish is for casual players to experience at least one raid in their entire WoW career to understand what it’s like. You may not enjoy it, you may even detest it. But at least you can say that you’ve tried it.

Minimum Class Stat Requirements for Zul’Aman

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Here it is. This is the long anticipated list of the minimum stat requirements you need to do the early bosses of Zul’Aman successfully. Having stats like these should carry you through Bear boss with a little luck.

Guilds attempting to go through raiding should understand the principle of progression. When you’re going through it for the first time, you should have no blues and not need more than 1 or 2 items from Karazhan. You will have acquired all the badge gear that you need and you’ve done Gruul’s or Mag a few times so that you’ve developed some ingame smarts.

As always, this list is subject to change at any time and without notice with your help and feedback.

Remember, I’m only a Priest and a Shaman. I don’t know the other classes as well. Any corrections and suggestions will be valued. All figures are after any kind of raid buffs or consumables and should be used as a guideline rather than a rule. These numbers are based off of observations and conversations with Guildmates and other colleagues who have made progress in ZA.

In Zul’Aman, there is a certain threshold of stats you need in order to survive and be productive. If you can meet them unbuffed, then you’re fine. There’s a variety of consumables and buffs to configure your character to surpass the mark that you need. It doesn’t matter what buffs they are as long as they exceed it. But if you go in there raid buffed and you DO NOT match the stats you need, you will be ineffective.

Let’s use my Priest as an example. I strongly advise anything over 8500 health. I’ve got a Priest that’s 6500 without buffs. Raid buffs he would top out at about 8000 health. That’s not enough. You never know what kind of class make up you will have going in there. You may not have Kings. You may not have fort. Maybe you don’t have a certain flask or something. This isn’t a 25 man raid where you can expect to get every buff known to man. That’s why I created the list with raid buffs in mind.

Do not take Zul’Aman lightly. It drops loot that is on par with Tier 5. The difficulty is about the same as SSC and TK.

Updates and modifications at the bottom of the page

Suggested Composition

2 Well geared tanks, ideally different classes (Pally/Druid, Pally/Warrior, etc).
3 Healers (Ideally 1 Priest for Imp. Fort and Imp. DS)
3 Caster DPS (Warlock, Mage, Shadow Priest, or feel free to toss in a Moonkin and an Elemental Shaman instead)
2 Physical DPS (Hunter, rogue, enhancement shaman, DPS Warrior or any combination thereof)

The DPS part isn’t as crucial. You can mix and match however you like. Zul’Jin has a phase where you have to have some physical damage going in there and when you read about it, you will understand why (phase 3). Bring 3 healers. I seriously recommend bringing 3 healers. You can disregard everything else on this page if you want, but please listen to me when I say to bring 3 healers.

If any player’s health is below 8000 after all buffs are cast, you may want to consider someone else instead.

Tanks

Note: I shouldn’t have to mention it, but as a tank you should be uncrushable and uncrittable at this point.

Warrior

Health: ~17000
Block/Parry/Dodge: A very high number combined. Hoping to find a Warrior to give me an exact figure.

Paladin

Health: ~17000
Mana: ~5000+
Block/Parry/Dodge: ~100% combined
Spell damage: 200+

Druid

Health: ~17000
Dodge: ~40%
Armor: ~30000+ (Thanks Karthis, Argonaut)

Healers

Note: The combined healing output of your healers should be approximately 5000. For example, you could have a Paladin with 1500, a Priest with 1800, and a Druid with 1500. But don’t go too far in the wrong direction. I strongly suggest bringing in 3 healers.

Holy Priest

Health: ~8500+
Mana: ~9500+
+Healing: ~1600
MP5: ~140 while casting

Resto Druid

Health: ~8500 (Tree druids move slow)
Mana: ~9500
+Healing: ~1600
MP5: ~140 while casting

Holy Paladin

Health: ~8500
Mana: ~9500+
+Healing: ~1600 (Flash of Light spam)
MP5: ~140 while casting
Spell crit: 20%+

Resto Shaman

Health: ~9000
Mana: ~8500
+Healing: ~1600 (Rank 2 or Rank 5 Chain Heals)
MP5: ~150 while casting (Achievable with recent Water Shield improvements)

DPS Classes

Note: Caster DPS should be hitcapped (Thanks Trollin’).

Rogues

Health: ~9000+
Attack Power: 1800
Hit: 200 rating+
Crit: 25%+

Shaman

Elemental

Heath: ~9000
Mana: ~8000
Spell damage: ~850+
MP5: ~130 while casting

Enhancement

Health: ~9000+
Mana: ~6000
Attack Power: 1600
Hit: 9%
Crit: 27%

Mage

Health: ~9000+
Mana: 9000
Spell damage: 900+
Crit: 30%

Warlock

Affliction
Health: 10000+
Mana: 8500+
Spell damage: +900

Destruction

See above. Warlocks, comment if it should be different.

Hunters

BM/MM

Health: ~9500+
Mana: 6500+
AP: 2200+
Hit: Capped
Crit: 20%+

Survival

Health: ~9500+
Mana: 6500 mana
AP: 2200+
Hit: Capped
Crit: 40%
Agility: 950+

Druid

Moonkin

Health: 9000+
Mana: 9000
Crit: 18%
MP5: 120 MP5
Spell damage: 900

Shadow Priest

Health: 9500
Mana: 8500
Spell damage: 900

Fury Warrior

Health: ~9500+
Attack power: 1800+
Crit: 40% (That too much to ask?)

Retribution Paladins

Health: 9000+
Mana: 7000+
Crit: 26%
AP: 1700

There you have it folks! Those’re are my suggested stats to get into Zul’Aman. Use it as a guide as opposed to a rule. I’m expecting a flood of comments saying that I went too high here or too low there. Keep it coming! Any updates to this, I will post on the bottom.

Updates:

12/01: Lowered +hit requirements for melee. Equalized mana regen among healers. Lowered health requirements among melee. Equalized tank health. Thanks Mera!

15/01: Added armor figures for Druids (Thanks Karthis). Raised mana pool and healing for Paladins slightly (Thanks Arduanne).

16/01: Split up the Hunters into three different specs. Posted one for survival. MM and BM I’m unsure of, so I’m using existing numbers. Hoping another Hunter can confirm.

14/03: Added fury warriors, Ret Paladins, several stats adjusted for hunters, shamans, etc.

Tip for Shadow Priests on Kael’Thas

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Sasstar told me about this yesterday when we were busy heroically wiping on Kael. If you have Shadow Priests in your Guild, what you can do is have them cast rank 1 Shadow Word Pain repeatedly on all the weapons during Phase 2. This will stack the Shadow Weaving debuff (which increases shadow damage by a lot). Just cast Shadow Word Pain back and forth on the weapons.

Your Warlocks will love you.

By utilizing this, we’ve managed to kill the weapons quicker and get into positions for Phase 3 when all of his advisors are back up. Our best has been Phase 4. Sunday we’re going to spend the entire evening from 1630 – 2100 on Kael. Hopefully we can take him down early, go back to SSC and clear out Vashj.

New Poll: What’s Your Main?

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The old poll is closed. Ventrilo, by far, is the most dominant 3rd party voice client in use today.

With that being said, there is now a new poll up! I’m a little curious as to what class you consider your ‘main’ character.

Which class do you consider your main?

  • Priest (28%, 92 Votes)
  • Druid (15%, 48 Votes)
  • Hunter (10%, 33 Votes)
  • Paladin (9%, 30 Votes)
  • Shaman (8%, 25 Votes)
  • Warrior (8%, 25 Votes)
  • Warlock (7%, 24 Votes)
  • Mage (7%, 23 Votes)
  • Rogue (7%, 23 Votes)

Total Voters: 323

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Several days ago, Exanimo (or the Full time WoW Addict) posed a question: What makes your main “your main”? No doubt there are now several of you with more than one level 70. I myself have 3! Even though nowadays I devote more time to playing my Shaman and my Paladin, I still consider my Priest my main character.

Why?

Here’s what I think.

I consider your main character as the toon that you use to help your Guild progress through whatever it is that they do. Your Guild could be a PvP Guild or a PvE one. But the character you choose to play with when they’re going through content is what I think is the main. Of course, you could always base your main on time played (/played). But then you just might ditch a character that you have invested a lot of time into for an alt which is better suited for the Guild that you’re in.

For example, one of the Priests in my Guild converted to a Resto Shaman because we had 4 Priests at the time. We had no Resto Shamans. It only made sense that he switch to Resto to take advantage of gear drops and further help progress the Guild gearwise instead of having our Priests dogfight over gear.

What if you’re not in a Guild? The answer’s still the same. It’s the toon that you want to progress the most with.

In any case, the reason I ask is for a little demographic reasons. I’m interested in knowing what kind of classes read my blog. Maybe I can tailor some of my content accordingly. *shrug*

Minimum Zul’Aman requirements will be coming up later on tonight or tomorrow morning. Definitely will be a work in progress and it’s based off of my observations.

Addition:

Phaelia mentioned that some players might have a PvE main and a PvP main. She suggests going with the one that’s your primary focus. I couldn’t have said it any better myself.