Spell Hit and Spell Penetration -- what's the difference? On the surface, they both seem to decrease the chance for your spells to be resisted. So what makes them different?
The fact that they do the same thing (more or less) in different ways.
Let's take a look at Spell Hit (SH) first. The more SH you have, the less your spells are likely to be resisted. Unfortunately, this is capped at 99% (according to WoWWiki), which means that there is always a 1% chance that your spell will be resisted. We're not going to go into the actual mechanics of SH here -- this post is just about the difference between SH and SP (Spell Penetration).
Now let's look at SP. Spell Penetration reduces the target's resistance to your spells. Sounds an awful lot like SH, no? Maybe. But it's not reducing the target's chance to resist your spells, it's reducing your target's resistance. You know, that stat that can be buffed with various types of resist gear, Paladin auras, Mark of the Wild, etc. This is where SP differs from SH -- it only works on targets that have resistances, and won't reduce resistance below zero (again, according to WoWWiki).
This means that if you're a Frost Mage with 70 spell penetration facing off against a Paladin with Frost Resist Aura up, you're essentially negating his Aura when using your frost spells.
You can get your SP stat up with gear, enchants and gems. It's important to note that if your target's resistance is zero, your SP stat is wasted, so make sure you don't neglect your other stats in favor of Spell Penetration!
http://wow-addicts-anonymous.blogspot.com/2007/09/spell-hit-vs-spell-penetration.html
Spell hit vs. spell penetration
Honored rep required for heroics
As anyone who’s actually reading this probably knows, one of the upcoming changes in patch 2.3 is that heroic keys will require Honored reputation rather than Revered. This change has been on my mind a bit, mostly because I’ve heard friends and guildmates express varying opinions on it. Some people think it’s a great change, and some people are going, “OMG why do they have any rep requirement at all, then? Isn’t that just part of the ongoing leveling that’s occurring as Blizzard makes it easier for Joe Pubbie to get ‘teh phat lewtz’?”
I confess that, in the past, I have been pretty elitist about the aforesaid “ongoing leveling.” I scoffed when they removed the attunement requirements for SSC and TK, and my guildies and I gloated that we had been there before just any old ragtag bunch of 25 losers could waltz in there. And yeah, when 2.3 comes out I may actually use my “Champion of the Naaru” title.
Regarding this heroic rep change, though, I feel differently. Maybe it’s because I’m now in the process of leveling Alt #3 to 70, and the thought of grinding up a whole slew of reps just gives me a sinking feeling in my stomach. Honored is pretty easy to attain just through questing and a modicum of instancing, however. Yeah, having the rep requirement at Revered definitely separated the hardcore (or at least “the persistent”) from the rep-slackers, but now that many people have more than one 70, it makes sense to reduce the requirements.
To be honest, I’ve even moderated my views on instance attunement a bit. Slight digression: if anything, I think that the current 25-man raid scene is too difficult. On my realm, there are only four guilds that have even set foot in Hyjal or BT. Blizzard’s ongoing trend is to design encounters that require more and more coordination, leadership, and execution, and it’s gotten to the point where only the most “hardcore” groups have even the slightest chance of succeeding. Case in point: my guild, which raids 4 nights a week and considers its goal to be “progression raiding,” has only now begun to scratch the surface of Hyjal/BT. These are people who in some cases have hundreds of days of /played on their characters, who probably spend as much or more time in WoW as they do in their jobs, and the Kael’thas fight was so hard that it took us 2 months to master it.
In making the endgame content so challenging, in tuning the raid environment to a level that presents a challenge for world-renowned guilds like Nihilum and other “world first” groups, Blizzard is essentially making whole swathes of content “unavailable” for the vast majority of the WoW population. That’s why I think that the heroic rep change is a small step in the right direction.
http://whitewhisker.com/?p=13
Grouping with a Rogue
Do you group with a rogue regularly?
Do you have rage generation problems when grouping with one?
I am sure at some point you did, especially when the rouge your grouped with is stunlocking your target. Usually stunning the mob to death (happens alot on high dps groups) .... leaving you with no rage to attack the 2nd target and generate initial threat.
http://thepositivewarrior.blogspot.com/2007/10/grouping-with-rogue.html
