The Secrets of Backpedaling

If I could pick any hot topic to get people into a kerfuffle over, the debate about how to set up your keybindings may be my favorite.

Now, everyone has their opinion about this - you kind of have to. You can't really play WoW without being confronted at some point by the facts that 1. you can manually adjust your keybindings however you want and 2. someone will always vehemently disagree with you about how you've chosen to do so.

Whether you move with your mouse or keyboard, whether you click or use keybindings - regardless of your methods or results, someone out there will always decide that your opinions are questionable.

ft. - your opinions

You have two main extremes to this debate - the steadfast clicker who swears up and down that clicking on spells and abilities, even as a healer, is just as effective as using keybindings or mouseover macros - and the keybinding activist who unbinds their turn and backward keys on their keyboard and considers non-mouse-movers to be lesser beings.

Well, this post isn't about my opinion and how it's totally, definitely the correct opinion, but it's just here to shed a little light on a behavior that completely boggles me - completely unbinding your backward key.

Tips and Tricks of Successful DPS Pt. 3 - Focus

get dem numbers

Welcome to the third and final tips and tricks! Visit part one and part two where we talked about the importance of uptime and not dying.

I've written a guide before on how to learn how to learn how to play. If you aren't already doing well, you should start there. This is less 'how to play' and more advanced tactics on upping your game. 

I primarily play ranged, though I have had experience as melee DPS. If you're already a superstar, you probably won't need much of this advice, but if you don't already know your class' rotation, you might not get as much out of these as you could. I really can't go through and tell you on a class to class basis which abilities you should be using to accomplish these goals. You have to already know that. I've been a balance druid for six years - if, like most people, you are literally any of the other twenty two damage dealing specs, I won't have much detailed advice about your class to give you.

To recap, there is one ultimate truth to successful DPS:

Perform mechanics correctly while avoiding taking damage or dying and simultaneously continuing to perform your rotation efficiently and effectively.

Uptime is the most important aspect of this truth, which is the subject of the first post. Following uptime is not dying - arguably the most important aspect, but more widely known and understood than uptime. To tie everything together today, we have our last overarching theme, focus.

Tips and Tricks of Successful DPS Pt. 2 - Don't Die

Welcome to part two of my tips and tricks! Visit part one where we talked about the importance of uptime.

I've written a guide before on how to learn how to learn how to play. If you aren't already doing well, you should start there. This is less 'how to play' and more advanced tactics on upping your game. 

I primarily play ranged, though I have had experience as melee DPS. If you're already a superstar, you probably won't need any of this advice, but if you don't already know your class' rotation, you might not get as much out of these as you could. I really can't go through and tell you on a class to class basis which abilities you should be using to accomplish these goals. You have to already know that. I've been a balance druid for six years - if, like most people, you are literally any of the other twenty two damage dealing specs, I won't have much detailed advice about your class to give you.

Tips and Tricks of Successful DPS Pt. 1 - Uptime

goals

It always feels weird to me to talk about how I perform well. Maybe I feel like I'll jinx myself, or maybe it's my low self esteem or just a desire to present myself with some level of humility. Well, I'm throwing all that out of the window because I'll be writing a few posts with some detailed tips on how to DPS like you know what you're doing.

I primarily play ranged, though I have had experience as melee DPS. If you're already a superstar, or a hunter, you probably won't need any of this advice, but in the wake of my recent guild merger, I feel like I've been asked "How did you pull off that much damage?" more often than usual lately.

I've written a guide before, it was actually my first, on how to learn how to learn how to play. If you aren't already doing well, you should start there. This is less 'how to play' and more advanced tactics on upping your game. 

If you don't already know your class' rotation, you might not get as much out of these as you could. I really can't go through and tell you on a class to class basis which abilities you should be using to accomplish these goals. You have to already know that. I've been a balance druid for six years - if, like most people, you are literally any of the other twenty two damage dealing specs, I won't have much detailed advice about your class to give you.

First, the most important secret to successful DPS:

For-Everbloom

Everbloom is one of the new dungeons in Warlords of Draenor. It's an outpost where the Kirin Tor attempted to make a magical link between Azeroth and Draenor, which failed horribly because it was right in the middle of a sacred botani land. Because of that, it became overrun with plant monsters and vines that mind controlled the Kirin Tor and also a lot of other creatures, which we now kill for loot.

I think Everbloom is a pretty cool dungeon in concept. It tricks you because it's very pretty, while under the surface it's actually full of horrifying plant monsters that subjugate unwilling animals and people. The thing is, Everbloom is one dungeon where I never seem to get a group who knows anything about it. Think of this guide as a public service announcement...

UPDATE: With 6.1, the shortcuts in Everbloom have been patched to be unusable. I'm leaving the details on how these shortcuts were utilized in the post for posterity to retain the history of the instance for future generations to enjoy.

Pascal's Gold Making Guide for the Economically Challenged

for ACTUAL gold making advice, visit actual gold maker's sites

So, you want to make gold. You've read professional gold maker guides by wealthy individuals who are probably way smarter than you, but you're still poor. My friend, I am here for you. I, too, was once a common peasant scrounging under the bridges of Undercity looking for a way to make gold. Now, I'm at least upper middle class.

If you're anything like me, you've read dozens of guides on how to play the auction house and make gold. They tell you "Anyone can make tons of gold, easily!" Well sign me up, you say. Then you read the guide and you're like, what even is this?

are these even words?

How to Learn How to Learn to Play

World of Warcraft is remarkably popular. It's actually pretty surprising sometimes when I search for something without using any warcraft terms and I find exactly what I'm looking for. I mean, searching "auctioneer" brings up the Warcraft mod before it brings up anything about actual auctions.

So many people use Google to find answers to their Warcraft questions that sometimes it knows what I'm looking for and puts it in an information box at the top of the screen. Heck, there are more results for "World of Warcraft" than there are for "kittens".

combine searches for best results

Among all the websites, news articles, and forum posts, you'll find a lot of websites that just aren't that great. There are sites that try to tell you what gear you should get, how you should gem and enchant, or how to play your class - but can be incomplete, outdated, or just plain incorrect. There are guides and resources available that are very useful, while there are other websites that are entirely unreliable.