Best of WoW 27ish: SHUT UP that damn login-dragon.

CB06 Plug: http://www.filefront.com/15711541/CB06-Waterfalls-Exploration-2200a.mp4/

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=M8LBBW13

HTF2 plug (and a much better movie): http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=142717

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Actual post (sick of me plugging stuff yet?):

1. Shut up that damn login-screen dragon roar. http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info11123-SilentLoginScreen.html

2. A worthy successor to Dopefish. http://www.youtube.com/user/EnhacementReznik Do NOT miss his top of Karazhan and Emerald Dream exploration videos.

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DPS Guide: Synchronizing Berserk + Trinket procs

Plug: http://www.filefront.com/15711541/CB06-Waterfalls-Exploration-2200a.mp4/

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=M8LBBW13

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http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/internal-cooldowns.aspx (My choice.)

http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/cooldowns.aspx (My choice.)

Basically the idea is that you’ll get tons of procs early in the fight, and want to line up Berserk with that, plus Shattering Throw. Then DBW is on a 105sec internal iirc – which may or may not be worth lining up with your 2nd and 3rd Berserk DEPENDING ON THE LENGTH OF THE FIGHT. Losing a Berserk at the tail end of the fight is no good. Using three Berserks, the first at 00:10, the second at 03:10-03:15 and the third at 06:20-06:30 in a fight that ends at 08:00-08:30ish with you having 1ish minutes left on your Berserk timer, with X number of DBW procs in the fight, but only 1 Berserk synchronized – is a bad thing, unless the fight mechanics play havoc with your plans (run in/run out – type stuff). DeathBringer’s Will. Educate yourself. Realize that each bossfight demands a different approach. Situation dictates tactics. Heroism/Bloodlust is another key – usually you’ll have a Shattering Throw during this. Also keep in mind that you have a Potion of Speed cooldown available – and the option to burn one right before going into combat – the double pot trick.

Before the progression fight:

What’s the Shattering Throw schedule?

Who’s getting Vigilance?

When will Bloodlust/Heroism go off? – Mr. Raid Leader, I need to know this so I can line up my burst dps cooldowns. It’s okay if you can’t tell me to the second, just a general idea/phase of the fight is perfect.

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I’m a very visual person. I have cooldown numbers on my hotkeys, and the DBW internal cooldown countdown conveniently right next to my Berserk cooldown. When I see the Ovale Berserk thing start to become un-greyed-out I quickly glance at my DBW/Berserk cooldowns and make a snap judgement based on what I know is gonna happen in the fight, how long it’s gonna last and whether or not it’s worth delaying Berserk for however long is left on the DBW proc + 1-5 seconds. Understand that DBW won’t proc immediately always – and run in/run out will mess with this. Enjoy that little extra boost if you get it right. Also enjoy Saronite Bombs. It’s a dps increase, free AOE dps every minute. Not a lot but a little and it’s fun, kinda like popping NG and seeing a OOC proc every 3rd/4th time you do.

Other options:

http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info16047-InternalCooldownMonitor.html

Procula

Proc Watch?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=wow+proc+addon

FBN has a trinket-proc-watching thing, but it’s out of date in general and bloated as all hell and Gucci.

Level I:

Oh hai guise wassup ok less kill tha boss yeah dead woot. Dps dps dps woot ouch ok kill dps woot we won!

Level II:

Hmmm. What’s the guides say about this fight. Ok, average successful fight lenght on WOL says Xmin YY seconds. That means my Berserk schedule will be THIS. And the Shattering Throw will be a bit off but hopefully I can adjust my timeline on the fly and catch at least one if not two, depending on how many warriors show. Others are saying the double-pot trick will/won’t work. Most guilds seem to Heroism/Bloodlust in THAT phase, which means there’ll be a Shattering Throw there.

Level III:

All that stuff is just second nature. I’ll just dig it while moving and concentrate on making up for others’ mistakes, making my in/out moves so smooth that people don’t have a chance to catch up, get my trinkets and stuff sync’d and then see about whacky cool stuff like maximizing the payoff on my grenades and mid-fight GOTW/NG etc. Might even sneak in a Moonfire or instant-cast Wrath since I have to have a margin of error/safety while running around, which means there’ll be a tiny tiny bit of dead time that I can use for funky stuff.

Level IV:

Don’t ask me. I’m barely halfway to level III.

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BigWigs and How CB Stopped Sucking On Putricide.

• Plug – Director’s Cut Music Video Version of last film: http://www.filefront.com/15356503/CB05.5%20Director%27s%20Music%20Video%20Cut.mp4

• PRO Prof. Put. TIP (try saying that fast and out loud ten times): Use the double-pot trick if you know your tank is good and will use it, too, or if you’ll get Vigilance or w/e. Idea is to pop a Potion of Speed a second or two (easy if he gives you a countdown) before you all go into combat. The timer starts and you’ll be able to use a second potion later in the fight. How much extra dps? I dunno, dude. I just work here. Get off my back. Go talk to a manager or something.

Maybe you do, but I personally don’t particularly enjoy fiddling with raid timer addons. I don’t like addons. I don’t like BigWigs. Yes, I’m grumpy. I much prefer DBM (resource hog?), and would like to try out Deus Vox Encounters. Or just go no-addon if Blizz ever gets around to making things so obvious and so unpredictable that raid timer addons go out of business as far as being useful goes. Yeah, I’d like a pony, too – but I sure as hell ain’t getting a pony or a chance to raid without timer bar addons anytime soon. You’d be either ridiculously stupid to try, or ridiculously skilled to succeed.

I’m not ridiculously skilled as I’m sure you noticed if you read my last post.

Professor Putricide kinda puts this **** on the spot since it’s so bloody dynamic and complicated and there’s crap on top of the crap on top of the crap on the floor.

1. Abomination blocking your view.
2. Boss facing changes every second.
3. Tank dragging boss around.
4. Mob pathing bug introduced in 3.3 that makes them behave badly and sometimes go off to the side of the tank a bit when he moves – or even behind him.
5. Two sets of adds that require wildly different responses from you and the raid.
6. Choking Gas Bomb vials on the ground.
7. Ground covered in green stuff.

But yeah, I finally figured out how to not suck at this. I will from now on not be anywhere near the top of the list of people who got hit the most by Malleable Goo or Choking Gas Bomb.

Here’s how to set it up in BigWigs, right-click and select “View Image” to see the settings since I haven’t figured out how to do thumbnails yet bloody hell:

Audio file on how to set up BigWigs for this fight that may or may not help you and/or your guildies:

• http://www.filefront.com/15433475/bigwigsputricide.mp3/

Why does my guild use BigWigs? I guess it’s a bit of a left-over from previous guild leaders, plus on this fight it does actually seem to have an edge on DBM in that it can output chatbubbles in /say over the top of the heads of people targeted by Malleable Goo. I’m sure your guild is much more skilled than mine. And I don’t really care. I raid to see cool stuff and hang out with friends.

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Best of WoW 16. Explore before Cataclysm.

• Plug – Director’s Cut Music Video Version of last film: http://www.filefront.com/15356503/CB05.5%20Director%27s%20Music%20Video%20Cut.mp4

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Best of WoW addition:

1. Explorer http://www.youtube.com/user/EnhacementReznik

You’ve got from now until the next expansion to see a bunch of cool stuff that they never wanted you to see. This guy is about as complete and dedicated as they come. Yes, he spelled his youtube name kinda funny.

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Feral Dps Guide Video UPDATED!

• Director’s Cut Music Video Version: http://www.filefront.com/15356503/CB05.5%20Director%27s%20Music%20Video%20Cut.mp4

Released late last night. Plugged it on a bunch of forums and websites this morning. Now to sit back and let the Oscars committee come to me. Oooooor NOT. This isn’t exactly high-brow art – but there’s some cool visuals and good music and some fun stuff and I like it.

The music video version turned out OK and I can actually stand watching it a few times – not that there aren’t as usual fifteen different little things I’d like to fix now after the fact. A movie is never really finished – it’s just in different stages of being almost ready for release – so at some point you just gotta say “**** it – time to drop this *****”.

• ORIGINAL Guide: How To Feral DPS

http://www.filefront.com/14885557/Guide How To Feral DPS.mp4
http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=130705
http://www.viddler.com/explore/parl2001/videos/2/ (Full Movie)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nuc5MhpekM (part 1 of 2)
http://www.wegame.com/watch/guide-how-to-feral-dps-part-one-of-two/ (part 1 of 2)

• Things I got wrong (update):

http://www.filefront.com/15359235/CB05.5%20Things%20I%20got%20wrong%203000.mp4

http://www.noobflicks.com/watch/8744/cb055_things_i_got_wrong
http://www.wegame.com/watch/cb05-5-things-i-got-wrong-2/

• Written Guide:

http://www.wowwiki.com/Feral_DPS_guide (hopefully to be updated by community)

…OF COURSE, THAT’S JUST MY OPINION. I COULD BE WRONG.

The original video is up to about 160,000 views now (not counting re-uploads on overseas sites), the update isn’t that big of a deal but I figured I should at least address the common complaints (like “TOO FAST OMG HEAD EXPLODE”) and fix my mistakes.

Ghostcrawler: If you want to do the best damage possible, you need to be able to master a complex rotation. This is one of the features that attracts players to the Feral spec. However, it’s also pretty forgiving. If you just Shred, you’re going to do decent damage. If you Shred and try to keep up Savage Roar, it’s going to be better. If you can also manage your Mangles and Rips and Rakes, then you have the potential to do very high damage (assuming you don’t have to move around much and can reach the target’s back).

Now – here’s the crux: I worked my butt off to make these things. I did my research. I talked to Allev, Murna, Kalon, Aranor, Astrylian, Vallen and a bunch of other smart/good ferals about this. Ok, so my opinions might be wrong about a lot of things – but there is no way in hell I can make a guide and start off with a straight face saying you don’t need addons to play this spec well – or even remotely effectively. All dps specs face this issue to some extent – but the JOHN ****ING MADDEN design of this spec more or less makes average players like myself disproportionately dependent on the addons to get the job done to an approximate level of the people I’ve leveled with, geared with and raided with for a good two years now. Yep, I’m saying it’s unfair.

The way to show your mastery of a class and skill at performing should be evident in your play – not dependent on what addons you download or how you design your UI to get short-term buffs, threat meter, debuffs, energy, combo pts, your hp, target hp, cooldowns, boss timer bars, raid frame addons all fit someplace on the screen where you can easily monitor it all quickly while getting your much-harder-than-anyone-else’s positioning requirement right as well.

Sum up:
1. tons of stuff all over the screen
+
2. one of the more complex priority lists in the game, if not THE most complex
+
3. only dps spec with positioning requirement for main attack

equals:
You simply have to have addons to be nearly as effective as other specs using no addons given approximately same skill/gear etc.

EDIT: Just found a funny little cool thing. If you go to 3:47 in the video you’ll see a FC Cat from a front camera angle – apparently the front paws get a green glow during the jump. Looks kinda cool.

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new UI

Simple, low resource Addon Memory cost, easy to fix on patch day, easy to understand, few addons, easy to update via “Favourites” list on Curse _and_ Wowinterface.

Minimalist – hides the two eagles at the bottom of the screen and does a few other things that are VERY useful – easily one of the most brilliant addons ever written

UI

Incidentally – Brödrost is the Swedish word for “Bread Toaster”. I’m Swedish. Moonie’s funny macro is thus a bit funnier than intended. Lol.

Grid  – purple dot on < 40% mana, curse and poison icons

Chaos Frame Modifier to move things around – kinda want to rotate/move the action bars on the right too, but too much trouble, hide a few frames, supersize target & focustarget castbar and ComboFrame.

EventHorizon – won out over BadKitty, Cat’s Eye and FbN, NeedToKnow, TellMeWhen, Classtimer, Dot Timer and a few others I’ve tried

EventHorizon Lines to put a line at 10 seconds for FB decisions re: Savage Roar and Rip. MAKE THAT 11 BECAUSE I SUCK AT FB MANAGEMENT. 1.5s past, 18s future, width 250, scale 1.3, bar height 20

EventHorizon Druid

EventHorizon Vitals – Hey, just realized I don’t need this, away it goes! (tracks CPs, proc uptimes, energy all in ways I already do better elsewhere)

Afflicted – still messing with settings

Ovale – custom script updated daily (damn near) on EJ forum, with a mod to give Mangle recommendation priority with < 1 second to go, icon to right is bigger than default and shows TF or Berserk if available – this won out over FbN which was always bloated and is now seriously out-dated

Combuctor – very basic, very awesome bag addon that uses ten times less Memory than my old TBag

Omen – I don’t need the bells and whistles and number. I need to have a simple, very visual way to check my aggro – AGGRO CAT! – so a few big thick bars with me in red, everyone else black/grey

Paranoia – THE world pvp mod

SilverDragon – I like Rare mobs.

DBM – superior to BigWigs imo

Q: Why is everything like this?

A: Gotta keep the vital info centralized, gotta keep positioning for raid bossfights, gotta have everything so close to the center that I can either see it with my peripheral vision or only have to move my eyes very little and then back. TOTAL SITUATIONAL AWARENESS. All Damn Day.

Here’s a fun little exercise: do ten seconds of dps on a heroic dummy and count how many mistakes you make – I’m usually at 3-5. Ugh.

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Feral Addons & Resources

Just finished creating:

http://www.wowwiki.com/Feral_druid_resources

We have common problems. Pool information to find simple solutions that someone else has already come up with. No need to invent a wheel when there’s a free BMW around the corner that you just don’t know about.

EDIT: Speaking of re-inventing the wheel. These are all the different-sourced, different web-page, different-author Feral DPS guides I know about:

Tun @ Ensidia

Murna’s Cat DPS for Dummies thread on EJ

TankSpot has two (?) guides?

MMO-Champion druid forum

Nightcrowler’s FbN thread on EJ – inactive

Wouldn’t it be just awesome if we could pool all this information in a place where it could be edited by knowledgeable people in a place that allows free and open exchange of ideas and information? Wouldn’t it be awesome if different people could work on their strengths and benefit from others’ expertise in other areas? I’m smelling a Feral DPS wow wiki guide page that YOU can help edit.

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Things I got wrong

• Download at: http://www.filefront.com/user/parl2001
• Director’s Cut Music Video Version: http://www.filefront.com/15356503/CB05.5%20Director%27s%20Music%20Video%20Cut.mp4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhllfOA7ZJE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LMg-moY8WQ

Funny how me controlling whose comments are shown on Youtube drastically cuts down on the amount of hate and internet idiocy there. I approve 99.9% of all comments I get – (feel free to test me by posting “it sucks” or similar on one of my videos), and it’s a vast improvement over the rest of the Youtube or WarcraftMovies (WCM) comments you read.

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