Raid Synergy Vol.1

Background:
This guide was created to assist raid leaders and players in determining which specs provide which specific benefits to other players, as nearly EVERY last one has something unique to provide others with. All too often player's overlook a simple buff which can improve Raid DPS, Tank mitigation or MP/5 returns and it is the goal of this guide for that to never happen again.The guide is broken down class by class, spec by spec with special notes for nearly every single Talent and Ability.Read On and please enjoy. . .

Druids:
All Specs:
-Gift of the Wild Rank 3: Increases armor by 340, all attributes by 14 and all resistances by 25.
- Faerie Fire Rank 6: Decrease the armor of the target by 610 for 40 sec. While affected, the target cannot stealth or turn invisible.

Moonkin/Balance:
-Insect Swarm Rank 6: The enemy target is swarmed by insects, decreasing their chance to hit by 2% and causing 792 Nature damage over 12 sec.
-Improved Faerie Fire Rank 3: Your Faerie Fire spell also increases the chance the target will be hit by melee and ranged attacks by 3% (47.2 hit rating). This is one of the best buffs available in high end raiding as it will affect every single physical damage dealer in your raid. Using a Moonkin allows all Physical DPS to drop their effective hit cap to a reduced level. Hunters (BM and Survival), Protection Warriors (single wield) and 2H wielders (Ret paladins and MS Warriors) will now be capped at 95 hit rating while Rogues (5/5 Precision) will be capped at 316 hit rating. Ret Paladins with Precision will be capped at 48 hit rating, which is extremely low and usually covered by gear alone. Dual wielding enhancement Shamans with Nature’s Guidance and Dual Wield Specialization will be capped at 243 hit while dual wielding fury Warriors with 3 points in Precision will be capped at 348 hit.
-Moonkin: Shapeshift into Moonkin Form. While in this form the armor contribution from items is increased by 400%, attack power is increased by 150% of your level and all party members within 30 yards have their spell critical chance increased by 5%. Melee attacks in this form have a chance on hit to regenerate mana based on attack power. The Moonkin can only cast Balance and Remove Curse spells while shapeshifted. An enormous DPS buff for any Caster based DPS.

Feral:
-Mangle Rank 3: Mangle the target for 160% normal damage plus 264 and causes the target to take 30% additional damage from Shred and bleed effects for 12 sec. This is a beneficial buff for rogues which increases a 5 point Rupture from 62.5 DPS to 81.5 DPS. Overall, a very weak buff.
Leader of The Pack” While in Cat, Bear or Dire Bear Form, the Leader of the Pack increases ranged and melee critical chance of all party members within 45 yards by 5%. A very nice Physical DPS buff for any group using a Feral Druid.

Restoration:
Tree of Life: Shapeshift into the Tree of Life. While in this form you increase healing received by 25% of your total Spirit for all party members within 45 yards, your movement speed is reduced by 20%, and you can only cast Swiftmend, Innervate, Nature's Swiftness, Rebirth, Barkskin, poison removing and healing over time spells, but the mana cost of these spells is reduced by 20%. Useful for improving healing on key players, namely tanks.;

Hunters:
All Specs:
-Aspect of the Wild Rank 3: The hunter and group members within 30 yards take on the aspect of the wild, increasing Nature resistance by 70. Only one Aspect can be active at a time. Good for fights which require Nature Resistance.
-Aspect of the Pack: The hunter and group members within 30 yards take on the aspects of a pack of cheetahs, increasing movement speed by 30%. If a pack member is struck, they will be dazed for 4 sec. Only one Aspect can be active at a time. Serves virtually no raid utility aside from running back from a wipe.

Beast Mastery Hunter:
- Ferocious Inspiration Rank 3: When your pet scores a critical hit, all party members have all damage increased by 3% for 10 sec.

Survival:
-Expose Weakness Rank 3: Your ranged criticals have a 100% chance to apply an Expose Weakness effect to the target. Expose Weakness increases the attack power of all attackers against that target by 25% of your Agility for 7 sec. One of the very best buffs in the game. This will typically add ~200-250 AP for all physical DPS dealers in the raid.
-Improved Hunter’s Mark Rank 5: Causes 100% of your Hunter's Mark ability's base attack power to apply to melee attack power as well. This adds 110 AP to all physical DPS dealers and 440 Ranged Attack Power fully stacked for hunters. As well, this talent is located in the Marksman talent tree line, although the only spec which WOULD use this ability in PvE is Survival.

Marksman:
-True Shot Aura Rank 4: Increases the attack power of party members within 45 yards by 125. Lasts until cancelled. Generally, a very tiny buff with little PvE implications. PvE hunters are almost NEVER specced for Marksmanship.

Mages:
All Specs:
-Arcane Brilliance Rank 2: Infuses the target's party with brilliance, increasing their Intellect by 40 for 1.00 hrs.
-Amplify Magic Rank 6: Amplifies magic used against the targeted party member, increasing damage taken from spells by up to 120 and healing spells by up to 240. Lasts 10 min. Useful for many fights with intensive raid healing or without raid wide damage.
-Dampen Magic Rank 6: Dampens magic used against the targeted party member, decreasing damage taken from spells by up to 120 and healing spells by up to 240. Lasts 10 min. Generally, has no use as the healing benefits are outweighed heavily.

Fire Mage:
-Improved Scorch Rank 3: Your Scorch spells have a 100% chance to cause your target to be vulnerable to Fire damage. This vulnerability increases the Fire damage dealt to your target by 3% and lasts 30 sec. Stacks up to 5 times. This spell will only affect other fire damage dealers, of which, only Fire Specced Destruction Warlocks are eligible.

Ice Mage:
-Winter’s Chill rank 5: Gives your Frost damage spells a 100% chance to apply the Winter's Chill effect, which increases the chance a Frost spell will critically hit the target by 2% for 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times. Provides a slight amount of synergy between mages and an even slighter degree with Shamans who may occasionally Frost Shock for some odd reason (it isn’t an effective DPS spell). No other class currently uses frost damage.

Arcane Mage
-Magic Attunement Rank 2: Increases the effect of your Amplify Magic and Dampen Magic spells by 50%. Generally not a very useful talent.

Paladins:
All Specs:
Judgments:
-Judgment of the Crusader: Increases Holy damage taken by up to 23. Useless on it’s own, very beneficial in it’s improved form (3% critical chance) found in the retribution tree.
-Judgment of Wisdom: From Seal of Wisdom: Unleashing this Seal's energy will judge an enemy for 20 sec, granting attacks and spells used against the judged enemy a chance to restore 74 mana to the attacker. Your melee strikes will refresh the spell's duration. Only one Judgment per Paladin can be active at any one time. Refreshes via Crusader Strike. An extremely beneficial buff for returning mana to hunters and mages.
-Judgment of Light: From Seal of Light: Unleashing this Seal's energy will judge an enemy for 20 sec, granting melee attacks made against the judged enemy a chance of healing the attacker for 95. Your melee strikes will refresh the spell's duration. Only one Judgement per Paladin can be active at any one time. Refreshes via Crusader Strike.

Auras:
-Devotion Aura Rank 8: Gives 861 additional armor to party members within 30 yards. A very useful tanking buff.
-Retribution Aura Rank 6: Causes 26 Holy damage to any creature that strikes a party member within 30 yards.
-Fire Resistance Aura Rank 4: Gives 70 additional Fire resistance to all party members within 30 yards.
-Frost Resistance Aura Rank 4: Gives 70 additional Frost resistance to all party members within 30 yards.
-Shadow Resistance Aura rank 4: Gives 70 additional Shadow resistance to all party members within 30 yards.
-Concentration Aura: Gives a 35% chance of ignoring spell interruption when damaged to all party members within 30 yards. The improved form of this aura gives 45% spell knock back prevention and is extremely important for encounters with raid wide damage.


Blessings:
-Blessing of Wisdom: Restores 41 mana every 5 seconds at top rank.
-Blessing of Light: Places a Blessing on the friendly target, increasing the effects of Holy Light spells used on the target by up to 580 and the effects of Flash of Light spells used on the target by up to 185. This is an extremely important buff for tanks as it will increase Paladin and Priest healing done to them enormously.
-Blessing of Might: Places a Blessing on the friendly target, increasing attack power by 220. This is an extremely important Physical DPS buff.
Blessing of Salvation: Reduces threat generated by 30%. Raiding in WoW is formulated around this Blessing for all DPS classes. The amount of damage output produced at top end levels is not tankable without this buff.
-Blessing of Kings: Increases stats by 10%. One of the single best buffs in the game for most classes. Kings works retroactively on all buffs placed after the fact such as totems, procs, enchants, potions, flasks and elixirs. Thus, any base statistic buff will in turn receive an additional 10% of its’ benefit from Blessing of Kings.
-Blessing of Sacrifice: Transfers 104 damage taken per hit to the paladin. Situational at best, this can be a useful buff under the right conditions. This buff typically is only used in arenas or bizarre instances where a tank cannot be healed and needs his incoming damage reduced i.e. Reliquary of Souls Phase 1.

Holy:
-Improved Blessing of Wisdom: Increases the effect of your Blessing of Wisdom spell by 20%. Very beneficial for all mana users.
-Blessing of Kings: (11 points in Protection Tier, all Paladins typically spec into it). Increases stats by 10%.

Retribution:
-Sanctity Aura/Improved Sanctity Aura: Increases Holy damage done by party members within 30 yards by 10%. Improved: The amount of damage caused by targets affected by Sanctity Aura is increased by 2%. Sanctity aura itself is good for Paladin tanking threat while the improved form is used as a group damage buff in PvE.
-Improved Blessing of Might Rank 5(first tier, available to all specs): Increases the attack power bonus of your Blessing of Might by 20%. It is important to have at least 1 Paladin in your raid with this buff as it can amount to a substantial DPS increase for your raid.
-Improved Seal of the Crusader: In addition to the normal effect, your Judgment of the Crusader spell will also increase the critical strike chance of all attacks made against that target by an additional 3%. This is one of the best DPS raid buffs available in the game and as such, makes a Retribution Paladin a very useful class to have inside of your raid. Given that seals must be refreshed and that healers are generally too busy to renew them, A Ret Paladin will keep all seals fresh via Crusader Strike. Otherwise, it is unrealistic to expect seals/judgments to stay active throughout an encounter.

Protection:
-Blessing of Kings: (11 points in Protection Tier, all Paladins typically spec into it). Increases stats by 10%.
-Blessing of Sanctuary: Damage taken reduced by up to 80 and blocked melee attacks cause 46 Holy damage to the attacker. Good for holding multiple mobs on very select situations.
-Improved Devotion Aura: Increases the armor bonus of your Devotion Aura by 40%. A minor buff for tanks only.
-Improved Concentration Aura Rank 3 (easily obtainable by all specs) Increases the effect of your Concentration Aura by an additional 15% and reduces the duration of any Silence or Interrupt effect used against an affected group member by 30%. Usually, this is a talent reserved for holy Paladins and is considered a near must-have

Priests:
All Specs:
-Divine Spirit: Holy power infuses the target, increasing their Spirit by 50 for 30 min.
-Power Word Fortitude: Increases Stamina by 79. A staple buff of raiding. No raid is complete without fort on the raid.
- Prayer of Shadow Protection: Increases Shadow Resistance by 70. Great for any fights with Shadow Based damage occurs against the raid.

Discipline:
-Improved Divine Spirit: Your Divine Spirit and Prayer of Spirit spells also increase the target's spell damage and healing by an amount equal to 10% of their total Spirit. This buff is extremely difficult to obtain for end game healers as you cannot get this with CoH. Speccing an alt into this buff and using them to buff the raid on the hardest DPS fights can be very beneficial though as this buff can add upwards of 45 Spell Damage to select caster classes.
-Power Infusion:Infuses the target with power, increasing spell casting speed by 20% and reducing the mana cost of all spells by 20%. A minor buff available to all out Discipline priests which can be cast on any player within a raid and which will also increase their DPS output enormously for 15 seconds.
-Pain Suppression: Instantly reduces a friendly target's threat by 5%, reduces all damage taken by 40% and increases resistance to Dispel mechanics by 65% for 8 sec. Potentially, a very beneficial buff, used mostly for PvP. This ability does have select PvE implications as it can severely reduce boss damage at key moments. Rarely used in PvE regardless as Discipline is not a PvE spec.
-Improved Power Word Fortitude (all specs get this): Increases the effect of your Power Word: Fortitude and Prayer of Fortitude spells by 30%. Specced into by virtually all priest builds due to its importance. THIS IS A MUST HAVE.

Holy:
-Inspiration: Increases your target's armor by 25% for 15 sec after getting a critical effect from your Flash Heal, Heal, Greater Heal, Binding Heal, Prayer of Healing, or Circle of Healing spell. Usually specced into by both Discipline and Holy Priests. One of the best tank healing buffs in the game, hands down.

Shadow:
-Vampiric Embrace/Improved Vampiric Embrace: Afflicts your target with Shadow energy that causes all party members to be healed for 15% of any Shadow spell damage you deal for 1 min. A staple of Shadow Priest raiding. Can be extremely beneficial on many fights where raid wide damage occurs. Improved Vampiric Embrace rank 2 grants an additional 10% healing.
-Vampiric Touch: Priest's party gains mana equal to 5% of Shadow spell damage caused by the priest. The quintessential mana battery talent and a very big reason why you keep Shadow Priests around. This ability is near necessary on certain fights where time runs long and mana runs thin.
-Shadow Weaving: Your Shadow damage spells have a 100% chance to cause your target to be vulnerable to Shadow damage. This vulnerability increases the Shadow damage dealt to your target by 2% and lasts 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times for 10% improved Shadow Damage. This is an incredible buff for Warlocks and truly increases their DPS output enormously.
-Misery: Your Shadow Word: Pain, Mind Flay and Vampiric Touch spells also cause the target to take an additional 5% spell damage. This buff more than validates a Shadow Priest’s purpose in a raid as it will increase the damage of all other magic DPS dealers by 5%, period.

lync wrote:Background:
Retribution:
-Sanctity Aura/Improved Sanctity Aura: Increases Holy damage done by party members within 30 yards by 10%. Improved: The amount of damage caused by targets affected by Sanctity Aura is increased by 2%. Sanctity aura itself is good for Paladin tanking threat while the improved form is used as a group damage buff in PvE.
-Improved Blessing of Might Rank 5(first tier, available to all specs): Increases the attack power bonus of your Blessing of Might by 20%. It is important to have at least 1 Paladin in your raid with this buff as it can amount to a substantial DPS increase for your raid.
-Improved Seal of the Crusader: In addition to the normal effect, your Judgment of the Crusader spell will also increase the critical strike chance of all attacks made against that target by an additional 3%. This is one of the best DPS raid buffs available in the game and as such, makes a Retribution Paladin a very useful class to have inside of your raid. Given that seals must be refreshed and that healers are generally too busy to renew them, A Ret Paladin will keep all seals fresh via Crusader Strike. Otherwise, it is unrealistic to expect seals/judgments to stay active throughout an encounter.

Where is our Fav Bonk-man?

There are alot of interesting bits from this post like moonkin's improve Faerie Fire, and the one that got me thinking - "Pain Suppresion".

Pain Suppression:
- Reduce Treat by 5%
- Reduce damage by 40%
Last 8 secs.

Looking at last night's Bloodboil - this would be pretty handy...cast it towards the end of Phase 2 on Fel Raged and better chance to keep the bugger up with 40% damage reduction.

Don't know what's the CD though...too bad it's in the wrong tree >.<

- Divine Spirit

This is 21pts disc talent spell, impossible to have both DS and CoH.


- Pain Suppression

This is 41pts disc talent spell, 2min CD

For a moment I thought these post will say which class should group with which class for more benefit

Etc.
Shadow Priest with Arcane mages
Hunters together for stackable debuff
MT with restoration druid for 25% healing Aura

DIM SIM SAYS ARMS WARRIOR GOOD FOR RAIDS!!!

Napier wrote:DIM SIM SAYS ARMS WARRIOR GOOD FOR RAIDS!!!

Arms Warrior:
-Blood Frenzy: Your Rend and Deep Wounds abilities also increase all physical damage caused to that target by 4%. An extremely important PvE physical DPS buff. Despite the fact that 33/28 MS warriors cannot do nearly as much DPS as fury warriors, this 4% extra physical DPS will usually outweigh the losses over an entire raid and will improve tank TPS slightly.

Elemental Shaman:
- Totem of Wrath: (stacks) (Elemental Only) Summons a Totem of Wrath with 5 health at the feet of the caster. The totem increases the chance to hit and critically strike with spells by 3% for all party members within 20 yards. This totem provides an amazing amount of DPS for caster DPS and does in fact stack if you are lucky enough to have 2 highly consistent Elemental Shamans.

Just like having a moonkin, a ret pally and a elemental shaman in the raid.. this is a unique debuff ability on Boss that arms warrior can provide
(spec above r under appreciated by most raiders but they have very good unique ability, I will recommend bring one of each to raid)

But DPS wise, fury is higher.. we have to see how many physical DPS classes we have in raid to benefit from Blood Frenzy

If physical DPS class is too little, fury warrior is a better choice

y no shamans!!!

OH wait.... Did u miss out locks? Lock seems to have nothing to work or help with mage....

zomg noobs....THIS IS VOL 1...look at VOL 2 for shammies and locks

rodimus wrote:OH wait.... Did u miss out locks? Lock seems to have nothing to work or help with mage....

Haiz... locks always get thrown into rubbish groups with zero synergy. I call it "red-headed stepchildren group".

SK Gaming interview:
http://nihilum.mousesports.com/en/news/807,burning_crusade_interview_with_skgaming/

5. What is, in your opinion, the least useful class in The Burning Crusade?
It's changed A LOT and we're sure it will continue to change, but right now it must be mages. No real raid buff and they need to have good group support to push out top damage. The Warlock vs Mage situation right now is just not fair and we're really hoping for it to change in WotLK.

Nerf Mage. LOCK IS NOW TOO WEAK!!!!!!