Noobish Questions (updated frequently)

[hiryuu1115]

1. No idea, I would guess it expires ...

2. For Alliance, there are 2 quests for the Scarlet Monastary.

The first is called "Mythology of the Titans," and it is found in the Explorer's League in Ironforge, the museum part of town. It's shareable if you wind up getting out there and realize you don't have it. You need to recover a book from the Library wing.

The second is called "In the Name of the Light." This quest has a prerequisite quest in Desolace. There's an optional quest in the Stormwind Cathedral that tells you to go over there. In the Nigel's Point inn, there is a member of the Scarlet Crusade who asks you to go kill 30 of the skeleton things in the SW of Desolace. Kill them, head back, and he will tell you to messenger a letter over to the Southshore Inn in Hillsbrad. Do so, and you will recieve the quest. This quest has you go to the Library, Armory, and Cathedral wings of the Scarlet Monastary to kill 4 named mobs. This gets you a choice between an excellent 1h sword, dagger, 2h axe, and offhand orb. A great quest, especially since there is so much good loot in the ScarletMon.

[GenericKen]

Can you overwrite old enchants with new enchants? Do I have to worry about getting a weapon enchanted with a lower buff before enchanting it with a higher one?

[teske]

Can you overwrite old enchants with new enchants?
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Yes

[GenericKen]

1) Do effects that reduce damage from falling increase the distance you can fall without taking any damage at all? I'm sorry to say that on more than one occasion I've broken my own stealth falling off a small cliff (into a pit of very nasty things). :blush:

2) At what point do you stop soloing? I've found instancing to make a great deal less money than soloing.

3) Do DoT procs interupt spellcasting? If so, less or more than normal damage? Are different DoTs different in this regard? (phyical, fire, shadow, curse, poison, etc.)?

[MongoJerry]

2) At what point do you stop soloing? I've found instancing to make a great deal less money than soloing.

The higher your level, the more you instance. Money isn't all that important. What's more important is getting the best items for your character and the best items are typically bind-on-pickup items that drop off boss mobs in instances.

3) Do DoT procs interupt spellcasting? If so, less or more than normal damage? Are different DoTs different in this regard? (phyical, fire, shadow, curse, poison, etc.)?

No, DoT's don't interrupt spellcasting. They also don't stop flag taps in battlegrounds -- a concept that some paladins who continually spam their aoe dot's around flags just don't seem to comprehend.

[Kevin]

No, DoT's don't interrupt spellcasting.  They also don't stop flag taps in battlegrounds -- a concept that a some paladins who continually spam their aoe dot's around flags just don't seem to comprehend.
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Rank 1 Consecrate will pop the rogue or druid out of stealth though. That is why I spam it in WSG since it is free with a blessing of wisdom running on me. Now if they are using it to stop a cap that is different but I'm using to see the enemy approach so I can target them before they pick the flag up in WSG.

[MongoJerry]

Rank 1 Consecrate will pop the rogue or druid out of stealth though.  That is why I spam it in WSG since it is free with a blessing of wisdom running on me.  Now if they are using it to stop a cap that is different but I'm using to see the enemy approach so I can target them before they pick the flag up in WSG.

Oh, absolutely. It's great for that, and I'm enjoying using rank 1 Holy Nova to do the same thing. But yeah, I still see the occational paladin who runs over to a flag in AB or AV that's being tapped by our side and then spams Consecrate with the obvious intention to break the flag tap. Silly Paladin. Get some EZ-Thro Dynamite or pick up engineering!

[Kevin]

Oh, absolutely.  It's great for that, and I'm enjoying using rank 1 Holy Nova to do the same thing.  But yeah, I still see the occational paladin who runs over to a flag in AB or AV that's being tapped by our side and then spams Consecrate with the obvious intention to break the flag tap.  Silly Paladin.  Get some EZ-Thro Dynamite or pick up engineering!
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Yar I'll agree with you there. :)

[GenericKen]

1) Anyone know the answer to "Do effects that reduce damage from falling increase the distance you can fall without taking any damage at all?"

2) I'm making a Mage alt dedicated to lvl 29 PvP in the gulch. I'm planning on speccing fire with:
5 impact
5 improved fire blast
2 flamethrowing
3 burning soul

This gives me 5 points to work with, and I'm not sure where I should put them.
-I can dump 5 into improved scorch, but that doesn't seem particularly useful in pvp.
-Incinerate/Improved flamestrike would really emphasize the damage point.
-I could put 5 into fireball and 1 into pyroblast, shaving one off of maybe flame throwing or burning soul, but I don't see the 6 second cast being useful in pvp.
-I could put the 5 into improved chill in the ice tree.
-I could also put the 5 into faster icebolt for a 1 second rank 1 cast (MY flag!).
-Points could be shaved off of burning soul for winter's chill or improved frost nova if I do split fire/ice.

Thoughts? Any suggestions for twink quipment for a pvp mage?

[Quark]

1) Anyone know the answer to "Do effects that reduce damage from falling increase the distance you can fall without taking any damage at all?"

Yes. As a Rogue with Safe Fall, you can constantly jump at a spot, hear the sound made when you take fall damage, and not take any. Duskbat Drape makes the safe distance larger.

[Skandranon]

2) I'm making a Mage alt dedicated to lvl 29 PvP in the gulch. I'm planning on speccing fire with:
5 impact
5 improved fire blast
2 flamethrowing
3 burning soul

This gives me 5 points to work with, and I'm not sure where I should put them.
-I can dump 5 into improved scorch, but that doesn't seem particularly useful in pvp.
-Incinerate/Improved flamestrike would really emphasize the damage point.
-I could put 5 into fireball and 1 into pyroblast, shaving one off of maybe flame throwing or burning soul, but I don't see the 6 second cast being useful in pvp.
-I could put the 5 into improved chill in the ice tree.
-I could also put the 5 into faster icebolt for a 1 second rank 1 cast (MY flag!).
-Points could be shaved off of burning soul for winter's chill or improved frost nova if I do split fire/ice.

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If you desperately want to spec fire, put five points in Ignite and move the five Improved Fire Blast points to Improved Arcane Missiles. Improved Fire Blast just isn't enough return for five talent points and skipping Ignite misses out on the largest PvP damage enhancer in the tree. Yes, you will crit - you'll find it hard to kill people without them, actually - and you need to get the most out of them.

In my opinion, however, you get more out of a primarily Arcane build in PvP. Level 29 isn't high enough to get Presence of Mind, but you can get Improved Arcane Missiles and Improved Arcane Explosion along with Improved Counterspell. If I were to PvP in the 29 bracket, I'd spec like this:

5 Improved Arcane Missiles
5 Arcane Focus
5 Improved Arcane Explosion
2 Improved Counterspell
2 Improved Mana Shield

and one throwaway point that might as well go to Evocation: it's not as directly useful in PvP as it is in PvE, but there's really no other useful place to drop that point.

[GenericKen]

5 Improved Arcane Missiles
5 Arcane Focus
5 Improved Arcane Explosion
2 Improved Counterspell
2 Improved Mana Shield
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Well, the idea was kind of to make a fire mage and play with impact and a 1.5s spell timer. You really think 40% more critical damage is better than a +15% chance to critical on flamestrike?

If my build winds up being terrible, I can always respec.

[Bob the Beholder]

Well, the idea was kind of to make a fire mage and play with impact and a 1.5s spell timer. You really think 40% more critical damage is better than a +15% chance to critical on flamestrike?

If my build winds up being terrible, I can always respec.
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Definitely. Flamestrike is situational, and hard to use. Ignite is useful to every fire spell, pretty much all the time. It stacks--if you crit twice or more it turns into quite a hefty DoT. If your intention is using Scorch, and you have Incinerate, then you will be making pretty heavy use out of it. Scorch's fast cast lends itself to critting more than slow big-damage spells.

[GenericKen]

Definitely.  Flamestrike is situational, and hard to use.  Ignite is useful to every fire spell, pretty much all the time.  It stacks--if you crit twice or more it turns into quite a hefty DoT.  If your intention is using Scorch, and you have Incinerate, then you will be making pretty heavy use out of it.  Scorch's fast cast lends itself to critting more than slow big-damage spells.
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So should I drop burning soul altogether?

5 Impact
2 Flamethrowing
5 Ignite
5 Improved fire blast?
2 Incinerate
1 Permafrost? / Improved scorch?

[Bob the Beholder]

So should I drop burning soul altogether?

5 Impact
2 Flamethrowing
5 Ignite
5 Improved fire blast?
2 Incinerate
1 Permafrost? / Improved scorch?
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In my opinion, drop Improved Fireblast, or at least three points of it. Considering you won't have access to Improved Arcane Explosion as a last ditch, up-close instant damage source, being able to take a hit or two while making your enemies die (especially in group pvp, where killing one target may be much more important than fleeing from another) will be very useful. And Improved Fireblast, while nice, just doesn't make a huge difference, especially with how little it reduces the cooldown past the first point.

[Skandranon]

In my opinion, drop Improved Fireblast, or at least three points of it.  Considering you won't have access to Improved Arcane Explosion as a last ditch, up-close instant damage source, being able to take a hit or two while making your enemies die (especially in group pvp, where killing one target may be much more important than fleeing from another) will be very useful.  And Improved Fireblast, while nice, just doesn't make a huge difference, especially with how little it reduces the cooldown past the first point.
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Bob has posted everything I would have posted. Fact is, you can count the number of times you'll land a flamestrike in WSG on one hand, and Improved Fire Blast's impact is simply marginal.

[GenericKen]

Bob has posted everything I would have posted.  Fact is, you can count the number of times you'll land a flamestrike in WSG on one hand, and Improved Fire Blast's impact is simply marginal.
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At lvl 29, the highest arcane explosion does 60 damage. I'm not sure that's worthwhile.

The case for improved flamestrike is that there are very few talents in the game that reduce cooldown, and that the lower you reduce the cooldown, the more each fraction of cooldown reduction counts. In fact, the more points you put into improved fire blast, the greater the % cooldown reduction with each point. It's not quite as dramatic as having NO chance of getting arcane missles interupted, but I was somewhat under the impression that at least 30% of my damage in WSG would be coming from fire blast on the run. 5 points in fireblast reduces the total cooldown by 18.75%, upping the DPS of the spell respectively. That's better than the % improvement 5 points in improved fireball gives (14.29%).


What's the avg HP of an enemy at 29, anyway?

[Bob the Beholder]

At lvl 29, the highest arcane explosion does 60 damage. I'm not sure that's worthwhile.

The case for improved flamestrike is that there are very few talents in the game that reduce cooldown, and that the lower you reduce the cooldown, the more each fraction of cooldown reduction counts. In fact, the more points you put into improved fire blast, the greater the % cooldown reduction with each point. It's not quite as dramatic as having NO chance of getting arcane missles interupted, but I was somewhat under the impression that at least 30% of my damage in WSG would be coming from fire blast on the run. 5 points in fireblast reduces the total cooldown by 18.75%, upping the DPS of the spell respectively. That's better than the % improvement 5 points in improved fireball gives (14.29%).
What's the avg HP of an enemy at 29, anyway?
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Dunno about 29, specifically... but I remember I do have a 35 warrior with, at most, 1500 hp, un-twinked. Don't have much experience with the realm of uber-twinked level 29 WSG battles, but I doubt they'd be able to get much higher than that.

The problem with improved fireblast is that the situations in which you'd just chain-cast it tend to be pretty few and far between. And unless you're just throwing a fireblast and standing around waiting for it to come back up again, then you are quite likely to be casting/channeling another spell right as it comes up, or frost novaing, or blinking, or just not in a situation that would need another fireblast. Dropping whatever you're doing to make use of your shorter fireblast cooldown may not exactly be conducive to victory--maybe the longer range scorch or fireball on the distant target is more important, or maybe sheeping that healer would be more important, or just up and leaving to help your flag runner, or intercept an enemy flag runner. And if you don't fireblast within that 1.5 second bonus cooldown, then you might as well be wasting the talent.

With a few points in Burning Soul instead, you could be more effective with all of your other fire spells while under fire--and you will be under fire; mages can be top of the kill first list, part for dying so fast, and part for killing so fast--and you could just throw in another hard to interrupt scorch, or a cone of cold, before fireblasting again.

[Skandranon]

At lvl 29, the highest arcane explosion does 60 damage. I'm not sure that's worthwhile.

It's better than nothing, which is precisely how much damage you'll be doing at close range otherwise. After you pop CoC and Fireblast, you can choose either doing nothing until they come back up, or having a no-cooldown, instant option to keep doing damage with. Proportionately, it'll inflict about half the damage of your fireblast, which is quite good.

The case for improved flamestrike is that there are very few talents in the game that reduce cooldown, and that the lower you reduce the cooldown, the more each fraction of cooldown reduction counts. In fact, the more points you put into improved fire blast, the greater the % cooldown reduction with each point. It's not quite as dramatic as having NO chance of getting arcane missles interupted, but I was somewhat under the impression that at least 30% of my damage in WSG would be coming from fire blast on the run. 5 points in fireblast reduces the total cooldown by 18.75%, upping the DPS of the spell respectively. That's better than the % improvement 5 points in improved fireball gives (14.29%).
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Theorycrafting. As Bob has said, you don't chaincast fireblasts in PvP. Fireblast's use comes in windows of opportunity between other stuff, and they are rarely exactly 6.5 seconds apart. Either the engagement is lightning-fast and finished in one blast, or demands of mobility will ensure that they're each separated by enough time for talented or non-talented fireblast to cool down.

Also, while DPS is more of a PvE statistic (burst damage is what matters in PvP) your percentages are misleading. Yes, Improved Fireblast is a bigger percentage-wise DPS increase, but that's +18.75% on a base of 14.3 DPS at 29, whereas improved fireball is +14.29% on a base of 46.5 DPS at the same level.

[GenericKen]

So, what're the best places to farm for gold? Specifically, for AU bait?

I knew that linen and other cloths sell well, as well as most all gathering profession stuff. I knew that hunters paid a gold for stacks of boar meat. I did NOT know that stacks of fire elemental escences sold for 15 gold on the AU.

So is there anything else I should know?