Roleplaying an Engineer

It’s par for the course to take the race and class of your character into consideration when you’re roleplaying. After all, playing a troll shaman should be different than playing a human rogue. All races have their own unique history, and each class approaches combat differently. But while race and class are obvious influences on character development, other factors can also contribute to your choices.

Perhaps more than any other profession, engineering helps define who a character is, from the gear they wear to the items they use to the mounts they choose to ride. And unlike most professions, the items created through engineering are flashy, loud, and designed to attract attention, even when they’re working properly. And when your creations explode in your face, it’s a sure bet that everyone around you is going to notice. Given the rich variety of items you can create while engineering, why not use some of them to further develop your roleplaying character?

The Basics: Engineering 101 Everyone knows engineers create things like mechano-hogs, dynamite, and guns, but what most don’t realize is that engineering is a complex and multi-faceted profession ripe for plunder when it comes to roleplaying. So the first questions you should ask yourself when bellying up to your first RP session are:

• Why is your character an engineer?
• What type of engineer are you?

Certain races have a cultural inclination toward engineering. In the technocratic society of modern Gnomes nearly every family has an engineer or two, and most Gnomes have a passing understanding of mechanics. Among the Tauren, however, engineers are a rarity. Take one look around Mulgore and you’ll see a society which thrives on keeping in touch with the earth. There aren’t any whirring gears or steam engines hidden somewhere among all of the natural hide buildings and wind-powered grain mills in Thunder Bluff, and most Tauren you meet are more likely to have taken up skinning or herbalism than engineering. It might be easy to work engineering into your character’s magical upbringing as a Blood Elf, but harder to incorporate into the reclusive, naturalistic, druidic life you’ve probably led as a Night Elf.

Whatever your race, the very fact that you’re an engineer can help add spice and flavor to your back story. Are you a hunter who took up engineering for the excellent firearms and ranged weapon scopes? Are you a mage, shadow priest or warlock tinkerer who wanted to make the perfect spell-casting goggles? Are you a non-healing class who wanted a chance to resurrect your allies? Does your character dream of exploring the skyways of Outland and Northrend in her very own flying machine? How do your relatives/friends/significant others view your character’s profession? Do they accept you as an engineer, label you a black sheep, or actively disagree with your choices? Whatever your approach, as a profession engineering can have a significant impact on your character’s identity, her goals and plans, and where she’s headed.

Gnomish Engineering or Goblin Engineering? Most non-engineers don’t know the difference between Gnomish and Goblin engineering, so at some point in your roleplaying career you’ll have to explain the difference between the two, and why your character chose the specialization they did. The shorthand differences are: Gnomish engineering modifies the engineer or and manipulates the reality around her, and Goblin engineering blows stuff up.

Extra points if you’re a Gnome specializing in Goblin engineering – the cultural wars between Goblins and Gnomes are intense, deeply-rooted, sometimes bloody affairs, and most Gnomes wouldn’t be caught dead learning Goblin engineering. You could open up a rich furrow for character development by making such an unusual choice.

Creating Your Technical Vocabulary. If you like inventing weird terms and creating unusual-sounding inventions on the fly, take the plunge and try augmenting your roleplaying with descriptions of being an engineer. What happens when you place that Exploding Sheep down on the battlefield? What strange mechanical objects linger in the recesses of your character’s backpack? What obscure tomes does she read during her off hours? Nearly everyone who roleplays uses custom-made emotes to describe the actions their character is taking, and as an engineer, you can certainly do the same.

If you’re less comfortable creating plausible-sounding explanations for your engineering abilities on the fly, try watching an episode or two of any sci-fi TV show. How do the characters describe what happens to their time machine/stargate/spaceship when it gets damaged? What passes for standard technology on the show? Get a sense of how these shows use techno-babble, and then create a list of terms you like. Keep the list near your computer, and add to it as you continue exploring your character.

Inventing Your Own Projects. Even if you never have an in-game item to show for it, creating your own unique projects for your character to work on is a great way to define who they are. Is your engineer working on a super cannon? A time machine? A better mousetrap? As time passes, determine what progress your character is making on their project. What mishaps have they had? How have they redefined their goals?

Since traditional WoW roleplaying avoids discussion of character levels, at some point everyone has to find some way of explaining to their friends that they are now more powerful at level 71 than they were at level 67. Personalized engineering projects are a great way to do this. The more levels your character gains, the more progress they make on their special machine. You may have just completed the basic motor on your Noggenfogger Elixir Vending Machine and Personal Hairdresser when you were level 10, but now, at level 50 you’ve finished the Automatic Hair Curlers and fine-tuned the motors on the Beverage Shaking System.

Roleplaying Through Technical Difficulties. Perhaps one of the greatest things about role-playing an engineer is that your character can even come up with a reason behind lag and getting disconnected from your server. For the Scribe down the street or the Tailor next door, technical problems can’t be explained in RP terms. But for you – that rolling restart was your engineer resetting the button to her Quantum Mega Flux Cannon. And that nasty bout of lag right before Prince Keleseth in Utgarde Keep was the unfortunate result of your Tranquil Mechanical Yeti chewing on the wires of your Automatic Evil-Detecting Capacitor Engine with built-in Planar Rendering Machine.

Been away for awhile and have to explain an absence to your guild mates? No problem! Your engineer was testing the Multiple-Phase Portal on her Inter-Realm Gyroscopic Transportation Device, but the Transverse Ethereal Cobalt Couplings fell off, leaving her stuck in the Twisting Nether for a few days. Fortunately, she remembered to pack an extra Arclight Spanner and some spare Fel Iron Bolts, so she was able to patch up the Turbo-Powered Arcane Battery Pack and make her way back home.

A "Good" Feat of Strength

Feats of Strength come in many sizes and flavors. Some, like the Yellow Brewfest Stein achievement correspond to how long a player has had their character. Some, like the Big Blizzard Bear require a player to have either gone to BlizzCon or watched it via Direct TV. Still others require sheer luck, like The Horseman’s Reins. And others, like the realm first level 80 achievements, require massive amounts of sleep deprivation.

Last weekend a new Feat of Strength was introduced, and in many ways this particular breed has become my favorite. It doesn’t require a wild stroke of luck, or that you miss work to level your fishing to 450, or that you’ve had your character for years (my oldest character is a year old this month, so that certainly wouldn’t work for me). All you needed to claim the WoW’s 4^th Anniversary Feat of Strength was to log your character(s) in on November 23^rd, 2008. That’s it.

Now, I know that Feats of Strength raise the hackles of some players. They are the one category of achievement which does not confer any points to the bearer, making their very existence questionable in and of itself – if the whole goal of achievements is to rack up points and compare your total with others, how does having any Feat help? And if you’re comparing line-by-line achievements, what exactly do Feats of Strength say about a character? Have they just been around since WoW’s inception? Did they pay to go to BlizzCon? Were they incredibly lucky in obtaining an obscure mount or item? Feats of Strength are also the only category whose achievements are almost entirely retroactive, meaning new players will never see most of them.

And many Feats seem completely arbitrary. Sure, I’m thrilled that my mage got her Horseman’s Reins, but is that really a “feat” of any kind? As I remember it, she just got wildly lucky on a loot roll and spent the next five minutes doing a happy dance on the Horseman’s corpse to celebrate. As someone who loves achievements, and feels a real sense of accomplishment from even the most basic achievement out there, I have to admit that Feats of Strength seem to be the very odd, twisted little black sheep of the family.

But truth be told, I really like this Feat, not because it’s flashy or denotes anything special about your character, but because for once, it was an achievement made available to absolutely everyone, no matter how long they’d been around, how successful they had been at looting or what titles they had. And because it was obtainable by everyone (or at least everyone who logged in that day), this achievement represents a new breed – a communal Feat of Strength. For one day everyone could celebrate WoW’s birthday together. Then we could all pull out our Baby Blizzard Bears and enjoy the fruits of just doing something basic in the game – logging in.

Getting Ready for Winter Veil

The feast of Winter Veil is almost upon us, filled with fun things for players of any level to do - egg nog to drink, reindeer to save, snowballs to throw, and, most importantly, presents to open. Like Hallow's End, Winter Veil comes with its own list of achievements to complete, and also has a number of quests which will keep players busy for awhile. Ready to get in the holiday spirit early? The following are tips for preparing your character for Winter Veil.

Small Egg farming – A number of holiday-specific recipes require the Small Eggs harvested from the birds and wildkin of low-level areas, including:

• Azuremyst Isle
• Elwynn
• Eversong Woods
• Loch Modan
• Mulgore
• Redridge Mountains
• Teldrassil
• Westfall

Getting started on collecting eggs before the main rush on December 15th may save you time and a headache in the long run.

Get ready for Hot Apple Cider - Ringing in with a cooking requirement of 325, Hot Apple Cider is a bind on pickup recipe available during Winter Veil. If your cooking isn't quite up to snuff, either head to the auction house to buy some meat, or grab your fishing pole and fish up some grub!

Get ready to bomb for Ogri’la - if you haven't saved up for your flying mount, you've got three weeks to get it in order to be eligible for the Fa-la-la-la-Ogri'la achievement (complete the Bomb Them Again! quest while your flying mount is transformed into a reindeer). Save that gold!

Make sure you can get those kills for the With a Little Helper From My Friends achievement (gain 50 honorable kills while transformed as the Little Helper from the Winter Wondervolt Machine). After level 10, anyone can join a PvP battleground, but players stand the best chance of getting kills when they are in the topmost level for their battleground (19, 29, 39, and so on). Still worried about staying alive? Level your First Aid skill to produce good bandages, or invest in some of the PvP trinkets available from the Hall of Legends in Orgrimmar or the Champions' Hall in Stormwind.

Get to level 40 to save Metzen the Reindeer. Not only does this quest give you the much-coveted Preserved Holly (which you can then use for the Ogri'la bombing achievement), it also gives its own achievement, which is necessary for the Winter Veil holiday title - The Merrymaker.

Arcane Advice: A Mage’s Perspective on Dungeon Running, Part Four

Part Four – Loot!

For some, loot is the single greatest reason to run a dungeon. Unlike the more intangible rewards of downing a boss or “unlocking” content, loot is the single component of a dungeon which your character gets to take away with them after the instance is over. Loot is a permanent reminder of where your character has been and how far they’ve come. In some cases, the loot a character wears is a better indication of their accomplishments than their level, professions, or spec.

However, perhaps because of these factors, loot can be a major source of disagreement among party members. What follows are some tips to help keep dividing the plunder a civil and successful occasion for your party.

Determine your rules before any loot drops. Check with all party members before you’ve even downed a mob, and make sure everyone’s on the same page. If you’re using Need before Greed, determine when Need rolls are acceptable. If you’re employing the services of a master looter, make sure they are trustworthy and capable of carrying out their duties. If you’re on a guild run using specific loot rules, make sure everyone is familiar with your policies. Whatever loot system you’re using, make sure all group members agree to abide by it.

Bind-on-Equip Items. Make sure you establish ground rules regarding BoE items. Are players allowed to roll on them for alts? What if they're going to sell the item on the auction house? If you're doing a guild run, will the item go to the guild bank, or will it be sold, with the profits going into the guild coffers?

Check your quest rewards. Sometimes, the quest reward gives better loot than what drops in the dungeon itself. Before you make your loot roll, take a quick look at your quest rewards, and make sure there’s nothing better waiting for you when you get out of the dungeon. It makes little sense to make a Need roll, for instance, on the Attuned Crystalline Boots which drop from the boss Keristrasza when my mage can pick up the far superior Sandals of Mystical Evolution for completing one of the quests inside the Nexus.

Off-spec Looting. There’s a fair amount of controversy surrounding this subject. These days, what with the new consolidation of spell power stats, as well as critical strike, chances are at some point during your dungeon run you’ll encounter an item which is a “must-have” for multiple classes within your party. Here’s where communication is of utmost importance. Some questions to ask when considering hitting that Need button:

• Is this item something I will equip and use right away? If not, is there anyone else in the party who could use it right now?
• Is this a main-spec or an off-spec item? If it’s an off-spec item for me, is there anyone who might need it more than I do?
• If the item is main-spec for me, what armor class is it – cloth, leather, mail, plate? Is there anyone in the group who is restricted to a particular armor type for whom this might be a better fit?
• How well do I know my group members? If I am new to the guild I’m running with, what are their loot policies?

These questions are not designed to force anyone into being a loot martyr, but they are included here to facilitate a group discussion about loot. Usually there is no reason to be rushed or arbitrary in your Greed or Need selection – loot timers are long for a reason. Even if you’re the only person in the party who appears to have a claim on a particular item, it never hurts to ask before hitting that Need button.

Regardless of your party's approach to pulling, combat, wiping, or loot, remember that above all else, good communication is the best way to facilitate smooth dungeon runs. Whether you're a seasoned guild farming Illidan, or a new PUG just gearing up for Wailing Caverns, talking with your party members, determining strategies, and setting ground rules can save time, energy, and help to improve group performance.

Good luck in your dungeon runs! May your wipes be few, your kills be many, and all your loot be epic.

Achievement Round-Up

I'll admit it - I'm a huge fan of Achievements. Whether I've just downed the bosses of the Nexus with my main, or fished my first 25 fish with an alt, seeing that Achievement pop up on my screen can be very fulfilling.

I discussed some mage-friendly achievements last month, but I've listed some more here which should be pretty approachable for mages and non-mages alike, hopefully without breaking your bank or taking a lot of time.

Dalaran is the right place for completing It's Happy Hour Somewhere. Check with the bartenders in the Legerdemain Lounge, or the saleswoman outside One More Drink for unusual beverages, but stay away from the pricier bottles or casks of wine sold inside - they won't contribute to your drinking total.

All members of the Horde with their eyes on Tastes Like Chicken should check out the vending machines on the zeppelins which connect Orgrimmar with Undercity and Stranglethorn Vale. Odds are, you haven't eaten half of the foods these machines sell, and if you're working on this achievement with multiple characters, all the food is sold in stacks of five, making it easy to eat one and pass it on.

Gaining the Represent achievement is even easier now that Northrend factions offer tabards at the Friendly reputation level rather than Exalted. I got my first new tabard from the Kirin Tor in Dalaran after one run through the Nexus.

Hate fishing? Still want an easy achievement? Simple enough: buy a cheap fishing pole and a Shiny Bauble. Head to the Barrens, Darkshire, or an equivalent zone. Find any school of fish. Fish one fish from that school to get the Old Gnome and the Sea achievement, and you're done.

Most exploration achievements require a fair amount of time. But one should be easily accessible to anyone level 70 or higher. Go to Shattrath, and head through the portal to Quel'Danas. The instant you arrive on the isle, you'll get the Explore Isle of Quel'Danas achievement. And while you're there, why not complete a few dailies and get the 5 Daily Quests Complete achievement?

Of course, there are some achievements out there which offer excellent rewards but require a substantial investment to achieve. If you're working toward your very own Albino Drake, don't forget to purchase all of the different versions of your faction's level 30 mount. Ringing in at 10 gold apiece before reputation discount, these are an affordable way to get that much closer to your goal. And don't forget - turning in stacks of cloth or even running Alterac Valley every once in a while can be easy ways of reaching exalted with the capital cities of your faction.

Yes, that's right. It seems not everyone knows the happy little secret of Alterac Valley. Every time your turn in armor scraps, Storm Crystals, Soldier's Blood, medals or flesh to their respective NPCs in AV, your reputation with Orgrimmar or Stormwind goes up. Once you've maxed reputation with either of these, the bonuses then go to the next-highest capital city faction which whom you still need reputation. Max that one out, and the process continues. Plus, you're almost sure to pick up a few Alterac Valley achievements during your reputation grind.

There are plenty of easy achievements out there, and over the coming weeks I'll be sure to list more which the casual or jack-of-all-trades player can accomplish with a minimum of time.

Arcane Advice: A Mage’s Perspective on Dungeon Running, Part Three

Yesterday we continued our in-depth analysis of running instances by taking a look at some tips and strategies for combat. Today, we explore what to do when all your well-laid plans go up in smoke, and you and your party have become puddles of sticky goo lying on the dungeon floor.

Part Three – Wiping.

Wiping happens. Simple as that. In all likelihood, wiping is more common in PUGs and with people you don’t know as well, but seasoned groups can wipe also, especially now with all the new content available in Northrend, and the fact that most people are still learning the redesigned capabilities of their class. I have noticed three major phases of wiping, each featuring different things you can do to make your wipe recovery as painless and efficient as possible.

Phase One: “We’re Wiping!” This phase could also be renamed “Damage Control,” because in essence that’s what a pro-active group needs to do to minimize the impact of the wipe and get everyone back on their feet as fast as possible. The first phase of wiping is to actually notice the wipe and either take action against it, or determine what needs to be done to make wipe recovery as fast as possible.

Fighting the Wipe: This can involve an off-spec tank jumping into the fray as the main tank goes down, or an off-healer switching up their DPS for healing. Use any consumables you have at this stage, pull out all the stops on your special abilities, throwing your caution, like your mana, to the winds. There is usually no excuse for not going down fighting: any extra mob you can kill during a wipe is one less mob you’ll have to deal with when your party is ready to take on the fight again.

Fast Resurrect: If dropping a few mobs on your way to oblivion is not a possibility, at least make sure you’ve positioned your corpse-to-be in a location which is easily seen by your party’s healer. Dying under slain mobs or in hard-to-reach corners make it all the harder for your character to be resurrected, and sometimes even endanger the healer, who may inadvertently gain aggro as they attempt to reach you. If you do wind up dying in a bad location, a corpse run may be your best option.

As for the resurrection itself, soulstones, goblin jumper cables and shaman self-res abilities are a huge help here, but to make things even better, the last party member standing during the wipe can attempt to lose the interest of the aggroed mob (usually through Invisibility or Stealth) and then resurrect the party. Regardless of how you do it, if there’s one person still alive in your group after a partial wipe, no one should release their spirit until the “all clear” is given. Certain resurrection abilities require the spirit to still be connected to the body to work.

Phase Two: “The Zen of Corpse Running” The last thing anyone should do is lose their temper when wiping. Don’t fall into the trap of blaming someone for the wipe, though that can be very easy to do, especially on a repeat wipe when repair bills, and sometimes emotions, are running high. As you’re running your character back from the spirit world, take some deep breaths and consider how you can approach the problem constructively.

If you experienced a full-party wipe and you are not the healer, you should still make a good-faith effort towards corpse retrieval by releasing and running back to the instance. This is especially true after multiple wipes, when dungeon respawns may make it difficult, if not impossible for solitary party members to make it back to the wipe point unscathed. Perhaps the biggest faux pas of wiping is going AFK while your party-mates run back to their corpses.

Phase Three: “So What Happened, Exactly?” Before you reengage the fateful foe that sent your group on a quick trip to the spirit healer, analyze the situation: what made you wipe?

Unforeseen Difficulties

• Were there unanticipated adds?
• Magical resistances?
• Did the boss suddenly reveal new abilities?

Technical Difficulties

• Was there a problem maintaining tank aggro?
• Was party healing unable to compensate for damage taken?
• Was your DPS insufficient to burn the mob down?
• Were there line of sight issues?

Take the time to answer questions like these before you restart the fight. Your party’s probably not going to get anywhere if you just resurrect and hurl yourself back at the mob that wiped you without taking the time to rethink your strategy.

Stick with us for the final episode of our dungeoneering special – Part Four – Loot!

Arcane Advice: A Mage’s Perspective on Dungeon Running, Part Two

In yesterday's episode of Arcane Advice, we kicked off a four-part series on the celebrated art of dungeon running by taking a look at the finer points of opening a mob fight, or pulling. Join us now as we enter...

Part Two – Combat

Ok, you’ve marked targets, assigned CC, determined an off-tank and off-healer and made your pull. Now, if things go well, you are going to lay waste to the mob(s) before you, claim their loot, and celebrate a well-earned victory. But sometimes it isn’t as easy as tanking and spanking your way to glory. In this edition of Arcane Advice, we take a closer look at some important things to consider when entering the world of dungeon combat.

What’s Your Threat? It’s easier than ever to monitor your aggro production now that patch 3.0.x comes with a built-in threat meter. There are even built-in text warnings when your threat gets too high. To set your threat meter, go into your user interface, select the Combat menu, and take a look at your options. You can choose to have your threat meter display when in a party group, a raid group, or only in dungeons.

Talk. Whether you’re using voice chat or typing on your keyboard, communicating while in combat is a very difficult but critical skill to master. Among the communications issues which may crop up during combat are the following:

• Fight strategy changes, identifying phases of boss fights, or determining if someone needs to jump in on a different role.
• Letting the group know when it’s safe to jump in after the pull without drawing aggro, or if the group should use certain spells or abilities to help make the tank's job easier.
• Keeping each other informed when a player needs help escaping adds, if they notice adds joining the fight, or when CC abilities break or run out of time.
• Figuring out what happens when there's a wipe coming on.

Know When to AoE. Nearly every class has access to one or more “area of effect” (AoE) spells, many of which are indispensable in dungeons, if used properly. But as you might expect, the proper use of AoE spells varies from instance to instance. Generally, if you’re using AoE abilities during a fight, you shouldn’t be using CC abilities, and understandably so. Most crowd control breaks on damage, and some crowd control, like Polymorph, actually forces the mob to wander aimlessly, which can accidentally bring your sheep into the path of an incoming AoE spell. However, some fights are virtually impossible without AoE abilities. Just make sure all members of your party know when to CC, when to AoE, and when, on rare occasions, to do both at the same time.

Everyone’s a Hybrid. Druids, Shaman, Paladins, and Priests are famous for their abilities to fulfill multiple roles in combat. For years now, the so-called hybrid classes have strengthened the groups they join by acting as jacks-of-all-trades, characters who can easily shift between tanking, DPS, or healing, and pick up the slack when things start to go foul in combat.

While these classes are more likely to be successful at jumping in to save the day at a critical juncture, the new talent trees have given every single class more nifty tricks to play with and new ways of approaching combat. What this means, however, is that from now on every class, not just the so-called hybrids, needs to approach combat with a flexible mindset. For example:

• Devote one hotbar to “off-spec” abilities. Sure, you may not use it much, but in the case of unforeseen enemy magical resistances or the sudden death of your tank or healer, having all of your rarely-used abilities available at a glance can save the day.
• Use your professions and possessions to their utmost. Many items have some application in battle. Obscure potions, sticks of dynamite, fighting pets, trinkets, stones, and elixirs can all turn the tide in your favor.
• Don’t let your armor class dictate your role. We’ll be talking more about wiping in the next episode, but for now, consider this: when the bits hit the fan, you’re better off if you approach your role as something malleable, than if you fit yourself into just one of the tight little boxes of DPS, healing, or tanking. As a mage, I have even used a rough-shod combination of my Water Elemental ability, my Ice Barrier, my Mana Shield, and copious amounts of Cold Snap and Ice Floes to tank a boss when all hell breaks loose. Sure, sometimes it doesn’t work, and we wipe anyway, but I’ll happily charge into close range with a boss, spells blazing if the tank is down and we’re trying to avoid a wipe.

Join us next time for a discussion of what to do when everything goes pear-shaped. Part Three – Wiping is coming up!

Bring Out the Big Guns!

So the new expansion is out, with a whole new continent to explore, dungeons to delve, professions to level, and spells to learn. But what are any of those things, really, compared to the grand, shiny, and let's not forget unbelievably HUGE new battleground, Strand of the Ancients? If there is any reason, besides having to go to work and, well, eat and stuff, why my mage is still at level 71, this battleground is it.

Strand of the Ancients is unlike anything we've seen before in WoW PvP. It is a fast-paced, dynamic timed battle set on the massive backdrop of an abandoned Titan fortress. It's also a place where the innate abilities of mages can serve to help both you and your team a great deal.

The basic premise of the Strand is this: one faction uses bombs and siege vehicles to break their way into the enemy keep and steal the Titan relic there, while the other faction uses guns to hold them off. Each faction gets a chance at attacking and defending, but game time is dynamic: however long it takes for the first attackers to break into the keep in the first round is how long the second attackers have to break in during the second round. At most, games take 20 minutes.

Destroying Demolishers: Demolishers, as they are apparently called (they look like goblin tanks to me) can move out of range of most channeled or long-cast spells. They are also immune to slowing or shackling, so instant-cast abilities are key to disabling them. Ice Lance and Fireblast will help bring one of these engines down. Just make sure you have an Arcane Explosion or Blizzard prepared when the pilot and passengers leap out of their smoldering vehicle.

Defending with the Big Guns: If you fancy yourself a crack shot with a rocket launcher, you can take a stab at defending the gates. Take the Defender's Portals, located to the side of each gate, run into the gatehouse, and hop aboard one of the Antipersonnel Guns inside. From here, you can launch missiles which do a massive amount of damage to both incoming enemy tanks and players themselves. While there isn't anything mage-specific about these guns, they are very fun to use.

Attacking with Demolishers: In the sessions of Strand of the Ancients I've run so far, the generally-accepted rule is that melee players drive the demolishers, while ranged attackers ride as passengers. As a mage, this allows you to use your offensive spells to pick off any enemy attackers trying to destroy your tank. My favorite tactic is to cast Blizzard directly behind the tank's path, therefore slowing anyone traveling behind us. Once near a gate, I target the turret guns. While the guns themselves are hard to destroy, defending players tend to stand on these turrets as well.

Stealth Bombing: Invisibility is an excellent way of sneaking past enemies who might be guarding the machine shops. Stealth, grab one of the seaforium charges held in the barrels outside the machine shop, jump on your mount, and make for the nearest gate. Once there, plant your bomb and head back for more.

Arcane Advice: A Mage’s Perspective on Dungeon Running, Part One

DPS classes don’t always get asked their opinions on running dungeons. As a priest, I was commonly asked about such things as pull numbers, mind control, boss resistances, and the need for a secondary healer, but as a mage I’ve generally just rolled up to the instance, blasted my way through some enemies and gone home. In fact, I usually wind up asking the groups I’m in for feedback, such as when to AoE, how much time the tank needs to build aggro, whether I am sheeping before or after the pull, and which adds need to be DPSed down first.

Nevertheless, running any dungeon, unless you’re decked out in level 70 gear running Ragefire Chasm, is a team effort. With the recent talent tree changes, new options have opened up for all classes. And with ten new levels to explore in Northrend, many dungeon groups are featuring “off-spec” healers and tanks, or DPSers spec’d more for leveling than they are for raiding. It’s a new game for all of us, and many of us are using this new time to “re-learn” our classes. Now, more than ever, we all need to be informed, flexible and strategic about working with others in a dungeon environment. To that end, this guide attempts to provide “food for thought” for all dungeon-goers out there. Good luck!

Part One – The Pull

The basis of any successful pull is communication. Who is killing what? In what order? What happens if the boss suddenly polymorphs the healer? What if the boss can duplicate herself? These and many other questions can and should be asked before the pull happens, because the pull, its engineering and strategy, may be the single most important part of any dungeon run.

Marking. Marking is usually taken to be par for the course in guild groups and among people who know each other, but it isn’t always used in PUGs and it should be. While marking can be hard in a new dungeon where no one knows their way, and is often assumed to be “elementary” in groups where most members have run it before, it never hurts the party, can often prevent a wipe, and ensures that every party member, no matter who they are, knows what they should be doing at all times. Tips for marking:

• Mark Kill Order. This prevents “mis-targeting” for those party members who are inferring what they should be killing by targeting what the tank is currently fighting, and helps to prevent “down time” for DPSers who are wondering what their next target should be.
• Mark Crowd Control. Each class capable of CC should have their own, pre-agreed symbol during combat. All classes capable of continuing CC through subsequent casts should set their CC target as their focus and work pro-actively to ensure that their target stays out of commission until the tank has deemed it ready to be killed.
• Stick to Your Marking. We’ve all seen it before. The warlock DoTs the mage’s sheep, the mage casts frost nova and breaks the hunter’s freeze trap, the priest MCs the secondary DPS target and the warrior uses their AoE ability on the priest’s shackled undead. The bottom line: target the mob to which you’ve been assigned!

Order and Direction. Every pull is different. Some pulls require a break in line of sight. Some pulls should be started via a Polymorph or Mind Control spell. Sometimes the hunter pulls the mob back to the party. Sometimes the tank charges ahead and takes the fight to the mob.

With all of these different factors, party members need to be flexible when tackling the pull. But all pulls should have the following things in common: a pre-determined person executing the pull, and a designated spot where the mob is being tanked. Some questions your party will need to answer in determining the order and direction of your pull:

• Is CC happening before or after the pull? And on a related note, if your mage or priest is opening the pull with their CC, how are you going to get aggro off of them and back to where it should be?
• If the puller is leading the mob back to the group, where does the group need to stand so they won’t get hit by any secondary damage abilities? This is extremely important in boss fights, where a single AoE from a boss can down cloth-wearing healers and crowd-controllers.
• Is the fight going to involve movement on the part of any of the players involved? If the tank is moving, how can healers maintain line of sight? And if everyone needs to move, how can the party maintain DPS and healing efficiency while running around the room?

Know Your Crowd Control. Not only is marking targets an important part of crowd control, so is knowing which targets can be CC’d by which classes:

• Druids can Hibernate beasts and dragonkin.
• Hunters can Freeze Trap just about anything.
• Mages can Polymorph humanoids and beasts.
• Paladins can use Repentance on humanoids, demons, dragonkin, giants and undead.
• Priests can Mind Control humanoids, and can Shackle undead.
• Rogues can Sap humanoids.
• Warlocks can Banish elementals and demons.

For a more complete listing of who can CC what, visit wowwiki.com.

Contingency Plan. While this may seem like over-thinking the pull, figuring out what everyone is going to do when things go southward can save time after a wipe, or even avoid a wipe altogether. Contingency plans vary depending on class, on dungeon, even depending on profession. Some general tips on creating a contingency plan:

• Assign players responsible for CCing or for DPSing adds. In boss fights, incoming monsters can wipe the heartiest of parties unless someone is ready to get rid of them quickly.
• Who helps the healer? If the healer pulls aggro, who can step in and get mobs off the healer efficiently? If the healer goes down, who can act as back-up?
  
• Determine the off-tank. In the event of the tank going down, who’s going to jump in and attempt to keep the boss occupied?
• Use resurrect abilities proactively. This includes all class abilities (soulstones, self-resurrection, etc.) and also the Goblin Jumper Cables made by engineers.

Stay tuned for next edition of Arcane Advice, when we take a look at: Part Two – Combat.

Arcane Advice: Gaaaahh!

I'd like to focus this issue of Arcane Advice on taking a look at one of the most obnoxious features of the new patch, a development which has haunted me in every dungeon and battleground I've been in since 3.0.2's launch, and which has left me confused, frustrated and wanting to send a little bill to Blizzard asking for my 10 silver back.

Yes, fellow mages, I am talking about none other than the evil, nefarious, hell-twisted monstrosity of Fel Intelligence over-writing Arcane Brilliance.

This new issue reared its ugly head when I got on my level 69 mage, entered my first post-3.0.2 BG, buffed everyone with Arcane Brilliance and was just getting on my mount to go kick some butt, when some level 70 warlock sauntered into the BG, pulled out their felhunter, and replaced my happy little buff with one of their own.

This surprised me. Mages, perhaps more than any other class rely on intelligence. It therefore makes sense to me that in a group setting, we'd be providing the intelligence buffs. But I knew that Fel Intelligence was, like Paranoia before it, an aura ability, so I assumed that as I moved away from this warlock to target greener pastures his buff would fade from me and my own buff would replace it again.

I was completely wrong. His buff had not just replaced my own while I was near his felhunter, Fel Intelligence had completely erased my own Arcane Brilliance buff, leaving me without any intelligence buff of any kind when I went off on my own. Worse yet, by targeting other players in our BG, who I was sure I had buffed with Arcane Brilliance, I saw that they too were bereft of any intelligence buff, unless of course they happened to be fighting in the same area as the warlock.

When I took a little time to work out why this was happening, I discovered this: mages gain new ranks of Arcane Brilliance at levels 56, 70, and 80, while warlocks gain comparable ranks of Fel Intelligence at levels 52, 62, and 72. This means that for 8 levels before level 70, and 8 levels before level 80 Fel Intelligence eats Arcane Brilliance for lunch. And let's not forget that at 62 and 72 Fel Intelligence not only tops mage intelligence bonuses, it also gives all party members increased spirit. So this is really my biggest beef with Fel Intelligence, that for a total of 16 levels it is so much better than Arcane Brilliance it basically makes mage buffs obsolete.

Now, there's a ray of hope at level 80, when Arcane Brilliance gives +60 intelligence, while the new Fel Intelligence, learned at level 72, only grants +48 to intelligence. But until then, when we mages try to do anything in Northrend, we are in constant risk of having some gluttonous felhunter eating our buff the moment a warlock walks into the room.

So really, this column is a piece of advice, nay, a downright plea to Blizzard. Give us back Arcane Brilliance. Don't feed it to the warlocks.

Mage Macros, Part Two

This edition of Mage Macros takes a look at PvP, and some simple ways to streamline your combat.

Silence!
This macro will stop casting your current spell and immediately cast Counterspell.

/stopcasting
/cast Counterspell

PoM/Sheep
Sure, PoM/Pyro was what made the Arcane tree famous, but in PvP having an instant-cast sheep can not only save your own life, it can confuse your opponents, too. This macro will turn your Polymorph spell into an instant-cast once every three minutes.

/cast Presence of Mind
/cast Polymorph

Double Shield
As I am currently spec'd in Frost, I usually use Ice Barrier instead of Mana Shield. However, if I'm carrying a flag in WSG or EotS, or being attacked by fury warriors, rogues, and retadins, I sometimes find myself wanting both shields up. This macro will, on a left click or number key, cast Ice Barrier. On a right-button click, it will cast Mana Shield.

/cast [button:1] Ice Barrier
/cast [button:2] Mana Shield

Combustion/Scorch
If you aren't cross-spec'd fire/arcane but still want to have an "I Win" button, try combining Combustion with Scorch, or indeed any fire spell of your choice.

/cast Combustion
/cast Scorch

If you have trinkets which help boost your spell power, add them in like so:

/cast Combustion
/use Oshu'gun Relic
/cast Scorch