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Its Time Has Come

2009-04-22T14:36:00.002+01:00

22Apr09 08:39 CST

The WoWpod

The New Spec

2009-04-18T12:53:00.002+01:00

18Apr09 07:05 CST

After having the better part of a week to test it, I've settled on the above spec.

Even after all the nerfs, this is a DPS increase from my pre 3.1 build. I can't complain.

Currently, I have a Glyph of Immolation Trap instead of a Glyph of Explosive Shot. I intend to make the change, just as soon as a scribe on our server discovers the glyph.

It might be a while.

Of Parting, and Family

2009-03-31T16:14:00.003+01:00

31Mar09 10:15 CST
Goodbye BRK.

/cry

Every family man with enough kid in him to play the craft has run into the WoW vs. Family dilemma. Having a 'Redheaded Maelstrom' of a wife myself, I think I identify with BRK's situation more than most.

I missed two days of raiding this last weekend, to do things for my family, missing a chance to loot the Envoy of Mortality from KT, and be in on the guild first kill of Maly 25.

Did it bother me? Oh hell yes. But you take a deep breath, and move on.

When in doubt, I try to err on the side of the family. I may not get to raid as much as I'd like, or have all the best gear.

But I have balance.

Gaming is my hobby, and the truth is, someday there will be a bigger better game than World of Warcraft.

But there will never be a greater challenge, or adventure, than loving the woman I do and raising my son into a good man.

Malygos Down!

2009-03-31T16:01:00.003+01:00

31Mar09 10:02 CST

Last Sunday Primal downed Heroic Malygos, becoming the only guild on the server with less than 50 members, to do so.

This places us somewhere around 14th on the server going into patch 3.1.

Look to see us break into the top 10 when Ulduar hits.

The times, they are a changing

2009-03-27T21:50:00.003Z

27Mar09 16:55 CST
While some are decrying the launch of OnLive as the death of the console game, and wheeping softly in the fetal position as they cradle their PS3 in their arms, I for one am stoked.

Not that I can be bothered to care about the inevitable GTA4 clone, or crappy first person shooters. No, I'm excited because OnLive is proof of concept in the application of the Cloud Rendering paradigm to high performance gaming, and the inevitable impact on my favorite genre; the MMORPG.

Imagine raiding Ulduar 25 at full resolution and 100+ FPS, over a normal 1.5MBPS on the $400 Netbox you bought at Wal-Mart. It's possible.

By rendering graphics server side, then streaming the images as a standard video feed, you remove the obsolescence problem and necesity for high end client side hardware. Every tired old Dell becomes a monster gaming rig.

It's coming.

Luck? Please be a lady.

2009-03-25T15:19:00.003Z

25Mar09 10:21 CST

I jumped in toward the end of last night's naxx run to find Primal blowing through bosses, and setting kill time records along the way.

I came in for Thaddius, and we one shotted him. That's never happened before. People usually spend the first attempt worrying too much about the polarity changes, and never find their DPS groove. We've had a lot of 1% enrage wipes.

The Cover of Silence dropped. None of the rogues needed it, but by the time I remembered that hunters can indeed wear leather, it was already looted for DE. We'll see if the GM's are feeling generous.

Of course, I'm saving all of my loot karma up in hope Envoy of Mortality will be in Kel'Thuzad's pocket when we smash his face tonight.

End in Sight

2009-03-17T18:39:00.002Z

17Mar2009 13:50 CST

For those of you looking for Part 4 of EC to DC, I know it's late.

It's coming, soon.

I picked the Grotesque Handgrips and Valorous Cryptstalker Leggaurds in last Saturday's raid. I decided to swap the new hands in for my Valorous Crypstalker Handguards, and let my 4 piece set bonus go, because I never need go viper in raid.

Primal has several full clears of Heroic Naxxramas behind us, but the death of Malygos is illusive. We're the only guild on Shu'Halo as geared as we are, that has not downed him. I'm not sure what that says about us.

For one thing, we've not attempted it very many times. We've had an attendance problem of late. I'll admit that real life obligations prevent me from raiding near as often as I'd like. But it's not from a lack of interest or motivation. People show up like clockwork for Naxx and a fistful of badges, but seem pretty blasé about learning the Eye of Eternity encounter.

I wonder, would they stop at mile 25 of a marathon and because they were bored?

Racing Against 3.1

2009-03-10T14:56:00.004Z

After downing Kel'Thuzad last night, we made several attempts at Heroic EoE.

Our final pull put us well into the second phase, but by that time healers were going Out of Mana. Raid DPS was lagging, causing phase one to last through four or five cycles of vortex.

Myself and two death knights were focused on chasing down Power Sparks and getting
them stacked up in the middle,which just exacerbated that lack of DPS.

But people were listening well, and learning the coordination fast. I feel like another week's worth of gear out of OS and Naxx, and a day set aside for just Malygos, and we'd have him down.

We're also working hard to drop 10 man Sarth 3-D this week or next, to be the first Alliance guild on Shu'Halo to get the achievement.

Of course, I'd be happy just to upgrade the Swiftarrow Helm I haven't been able to get rid of since 78.

Darkness Looms

2009-03-04T19:15:00.002Z

04Mar09 13:17 CST
Another useful PVE ability, being broken in the name of PVP balance.

If racials are really such an issue, then remove them from the game, and let the player base suffer as one.

Otherwise? Hands off.

To quote one much honored among my people:

"Nobody tosses a dwarf!" - Gimli, son of Glóin

The Fall of Kel'Thuzad

2009-03-03T15:31:00.004Z

03Mar09 09:35 CST
Primal took down Kel'Thuzad last night for a guild first full clear.

I'm proud of how far my guild has come, and wish that I could have been there.

I am taking Mrs. Gringott to Las Vegas for her birthday, and we spent the evening locking down the travel arrangements.

Vegas + Gorgeous Wife > Kel'Thuzad

Builds from the PTR

2009-03-03T14:17:00.003Z

03Mar09 08:27 CST
I've been playing with the PTR talents a bit over at WoW Head.

With all the changes to Survival, it's 54 points deep in the tree to get all of the goodies. That gives us something like 03/14/54.

It's difficult to assess the viability yet, as I'd expect a few more changes before we see 3.1 on the live realms. It's clear that SV will be 3-500 DPS below its previous benchmark.

The new pet talents make Beastmastery look pretty un-nerfed, and ready to make a return from exile.

Those already running a 53/18/0 build are in good shape.

Marksmen should be happy. Once they straighten out a few bugs with Piercing Shots, the 11/53/7 build is rock solid.

There will always be a top damage spec. Still, each of the three trees should be viable and competitive.

Which two will you choose for dual spec?

Thaddius / Saphiron Down

2009-03-02T20:59:00.003Z

02Mar09 15:05 CST
After a couple of weeks of speed clearing to Thaddius, only to fall just short of beating the enrage timer, yesterday Primal tasted victory.

Somehow all those who'd been dying try after try got the positive/negative transitions down, suddenly had it click, and we had more than enough DPS to put him down. We would have had the Shocking! achievement too, had a boomkin not become excited run in to loot before letting his polarity fade. He killed several raid members.

We carried on to Saph who seemed easy by comparison. Kel'Thuzad and Malygos are on notice.

More 3.1 Notes from the PTR

2009-02-28T03:37:00.004Z

27Feb2009 21:43 CST

More changes in the full 3.1 patch notes that have come out, but only two things I'm concerned with right now.

• Ammunition: All types of gun and bow ammunition now stack to 1000. All quivers and ammo pouches no longer provide haste. 15% ranged haste is now built in to Hunter Autoshot.

At first glance, this seems dandy. But if the haste only applies to one's autoshots, then the haste cost of pushing Steady Shot back to the global cooldown just went up.

• Explosive Shot: Base damage lowered by 10%. Attack power scaling reduced by 12.5%.

I can't say that I didn't see this coming. Blizzard seems to be placing more emphasis on survival's damage over time effects with the addition of Black Arrow, and utilizing Immolation Trap for Lock and Load procs.

If I'd wanted to play a damage over time class, I'd have rolled warlock.

We'll hold the outcry, until we see if these changes go live.

Hunter Tier 8

2009-02-27T17:43:00.003Z

27Feb08 11:43 CST

Really Blizz?

We're still doing the whole spikey S&M getup thing?

Yeah, I'll be able to sneak up on Arthas in that.

PTR Build 9626

2009-02-26T14:15:00.003Z

26Feb09 08:16 CST

All tenacity pets can now AOE tank, and my Gorilladin has himself a shiny new PVP attack.

Too bad I don't PVP.

/facepalm

Two New Leatherworking Patterns

2009-02-24T16:36:00.004Z

24Feb09 10:38 CST

Continuing in the vein of 3.1 PTR changes, are a couple of new leather patterns for the fashion conscious hunter.

Both patterns use considerable amounts of standard skinning drops, and something called 'Runed Orbs', that I would to be trash drops from mobs in Ulduar.

Did you look close? Bind on Equip. Leatherworkers will again have money making pattern now that every last person seems to have their Giantmaim Set.

The stats are decent, and the gem slots welcome. As with most crafted items, I don't expect the stats on these will be on par with Tier 8 gear. But there's bound to be plenty of casuals, still struggling along through Naxx pugs, who will be more than happy to pay for the upgrade.

With the price of Dual specialization, I'll be only too happy to provide for them.

We haz buffs...for now.

2009-02-24T14:46:00.006Z

24Feb09 08:48 CST
Alright folks, there's a lot to the 3.1 patch notes from the PTR.

This write up is not all inclusive, but covers the high points. Since I have yet to see all the changes to Beastmastery and the new pet talents, and I'm currently playing as Survival, that's what I'll be covering. Unfortunately, despite multiple tries I could not get Gringott copied to the PTR. So for now, this is all theory on my part.

Save your coin, you're going to need it. Dual spec currently costs 1000g.

* Call Stabled Pet - A pet of your choice busts out of its stable and joins you no matter where you are, replacing your current pet. Cannot be used in combat. Instant. 30 min cooldown. Requires Level 80.

Oh hells yes. We've been asking for this almost as long as we have extra stable slots, now we have both. You can now tailor the pet you're running based on the fight, sans travel time.

* Kill Shot no longer has a minimum range. It can now be used in melee range.

Good for PVE or PVP, removes a severe annoyance from the game, and allows you to put down those bosses execution style.

* Hunting Party (Tier 10) is now a 3 point talent, increasing agility by 1/2/3% and your Arcane Shot, Explosive Shot and Steady Shot critical strikes have a 33/66/100% chance to grant up to 10 party or raid members mana regeneration equal to 0.25% of the maximum mana per second. Lasts for 15 sec.

This is a nice change. The proc rate for replenishment was frequent enough that most hunters took only one or two points in Hunting Party anyway. The reduction in points, and additional agility make going 3/3 into this a no brainer.

The remainder of the Survival changes are in one way or another centered around trap dancing, and the Lock and Load mechanic.

* Frost Trap: If the target who triggers Frost Trap is immune to its effect, the Frost Trap area effect will no longer be triggered.

Translation? It's back to Immolation Trap for PVE trap dancing, since bosses are immune to Frost Trap's slowing effect, and thus won't trigger the trap. But Blizz made the change worth our while. Also, Trap Mastery moved.

*Trap Mastery moved from Tier 9 to Tier 2 and is now a 3 point talent. Increases the duration of Frost and Freezing trap by 10/20/30%, Periodic damage of Immolation and Explosive trap by 10/20/30%, and number of snakes summoned by Snake Trap by 30%. (Previously was just 1 point).

I plan to drop Hawk Eye, and spec 3/3 into trap mastery for those points.

*T.N.T. (Tier 4) now increases the damage done by your Explosive Shot, Explosive Trap and Immolation Trap by 2%.

Combine the 2% additional damage to Immolation Trap from this talent, with the 30% increase from Trap Mastery, and the Glyph of Immolation Trap? Your puny trap just became the hunter DoT from hell. Add to that the Explosive Shot buff, and this baby is all win.

* New Talent: Trap Launcher: When activated, your next Trap will be launched instantly at the enemy target. 1 minute cooldown.

This will allow you to apply your traps from range, and trap dance without ever entering melee.

*Sniper Training (Tier 9) has been changed to increase the critical strike chance of your Kill Shot ability by 5/10/15%, and while standing still for 6 sec., you gain Sniper Training increasing the damage done by your Steady Shot, Aimed Shot, Black Arrow and Explosive Shot by 2/4/6% Lasts 15 sec.

A nice reward for doing what we hunters like to anyway, holding very still.

*Lock and Load (Tier 4) now has a 33/66/100% chance to proc off Freezing Shot, Freezing Trap, and Frost Trap, and a 3/7/10% chance to proc off the periodic damage of Immolation Trap and Black Arrow.

Since those ice based traps don't work on bosses, you'll only be working that 100% chance to proc from traps in PVP. Serpent Sting no longer procs Lock n Load, it's only purpose will be to buff Steady Shot via the Glyph, and it will be less dire should you let it fall off for a second or two.

Also, I hear you now; 'Black Arrow, WTF is that?'. It's a dead spell that never made it from Beta to live.

*Black Arrow (Tier 9) - Fires a Black Arrow at the target, increasing all damage done by you to the target by 6% and dealing [ 10% of RAP + 785 ] Shadow damage over 15 sec. Costs 6% base mana. 5-35 yard range. Instant Cast. 30 sec cooldown.

One more DoT to add to our bag of tricks. Frankly I've never thought this talent was very in keeping with the hunter concept, I'd rather see them go back to Serpent Sting to mesh better in the rotation. But we'll see.

So, what do you think hunters? Are you feeling it?

I know I am.

EC to DC: Part 3 - Don't Innovate, Replicate

2009-02-22T15:45:00.003Z

22Feb09 10:14 CST
So, you've figured out what you want from this game, and you've been focused on being the best you can at it. You've played with your gear, glyphs, and spent hours playing with the talent calculators. But you're still not sure that you're doing everything right. What do you do?

Stop re-inventing the wheel.

Innovation is for those with the time to spend hitting a target dummy ten thousand times, or the gold to respecc 10 times on the live realm to squeak out 50 more DPS. You only have 10 or 12 hours a week, and you need to make them count. So what do you do?

Go to the source.

I often find people in my guild seeking spec or rotation advice from me, even though I don't play their class. It's because I know how to research. You want to be an awesome PVE mage? Look up a top ranked raiding guild, such as Method or Ensidia, and see how their mages are specced. While the build may differ by one or two points because of gear scaling and raid composition, it's usually a very solid jumping off point.

The same applies to Arena, find a top ranked player to emulate. While you won't have their level of skill to begin with, their team composition and builds will help you get a jump on the ladder. Your build may be rock solid, but your rotation is stepping all over itself. You don't have time to spend on three days of target dummy testing to figure out the perfect rotation. Luckily, someone over at the Elitist Jerks forums probably did. So go look at their work and adapt it to your needs.

The resources are endless. Needs suggestions for gear upgrades? You can find that right on your official Armory profile. Wondering if your gear is gemmed and enchanted right? Look yourself up on Be.Imba.hu and you'll know in a hurry.

The point is to spend your time focusing on the business of playing, and outsource the logistics.

Next time, in the final part of this series, I'll be discussing Guilds, and how to choose the right one for you.

Issues

2009-02-18T14:26:00.003Z

18Feb09 08:29 CST

Rolling restarts today.

Hopefully this will correct the awful zone lag that caused me to DC as we were about to pull Loatheb last night, then not be able to log back on to the server.

/Fail

And then, Wisdom.

2009-02-17T22:07:00.003Z

17Feb09 16:08 CST

Win.

Blizzard is actually learning from the Wrath beta, and limiting access to Ulduar on the PTR.

Hopefully this strikes the sweet spot between encounter tuning, and and preserving the challenge.

The Road Ahead

2009-02-17T18:41:00.002Z

17Feb09 12:45 CST
Check out the devs Ulduar preview over at EU WoW.

I find the idea of laying siege to the gates of Ulduar ala Wintergrasp, and fighting your way in simply to enter the zone, both interesting and a likely source of extreme annoyance.

Also, unfortunately, the article confirms that Ulduar will be made available in the test build of 3.1 on the PTR. So those of us who want to stay competitive are going to have to sacrifice actual raid time, to learn the encounters, or be left behind when the patch goes live.

Grobbulus, Gluth Down

2009-02-17T13:57:00.002Z

17Feb09 08:28 CST
Been a couple of days without a post.

In honor of Valentine's day, Primal took the day off from raiding on Saturday, to spend some time with our respective sweethearts. I had a nice lie about to start my day. Mrs. Gringott was somewhat more ambitious, choosing to go out and run a 5K race in the snow and slush, rather than stay in a warm bed.

She's a hard ass like that.

Sunday Primal came back to Naxx, and popped Grobbulus and Gluth with relative ease before calling it a night after a couple of wipes on Thadius. Don't fear, a screenshot is forthcoming, just as soon as I get the person who took it to upload it to the guild archive.

We're 12 of 15 in Heroic, and hard focused on downing Saphiron this week, to unlock 25 man Malygos. Our realm rank is still very much in flux, but it's looking like we'll be top 20 around the time Ulduar drops.

Here's hoping.

GC on Dual Specs

2009-02-12T20:52:00.004Z

12Feb09 14:56 CST
Gold Sink anyone? I guess there's just too many people running around on Mekgineer's choppers. I hope to see it somewhere less than the 1000g they milked out of us for cold weather flying.
/puzzled

You mean I can change pets, possibly even pet specs, based on the boss I'm fighting
without leaving the instance?

That sounds awesome...it must be a trick.

Patch Down

2009-02-12T18:35:00.003Z

12Feb09 12:38 CST
Last night's raid went alright.

We started off by downing Heigan, who was so kind as to drop an Aged Winter Cloak for me, before pounding Loatheb. Honestly, heroic Loatheb has to be on of the easiest fights in the instance, provided your healers aren't fail.

Instructor Rasuvious on the other hand? He was kind of a pain. For starters, one of our priests had no hit gear, which meant missed mind controls and the boss running amok one shotting a few people before the other understudy managed to get aggro. To say nothing of the transitions...*shudder*. A few wipes later, we were ready to try something else.

Some quick arithemtic showed we were pulling around 40K raid DPS, so we bounced over to try our hand at Patchwerk. We one shotted him in under 4 minutes, for a guild first kill.

EC to DC: Part 2 - Focus, Play Less and Get More Done

2009-02-11T16:54:00.003Z

11Feb09 11:17 CST
You've had a week to think about it now. You should have a pretty good idea of what you want to do in game, and some of the steps needed to get you there.

What next? Focus.

It's a proven fact that multi-tasking lowers efficiency, and games are not excempt from that reality. If you're tracking too many goals at once, you will compromise them all. Look at where you want to be, identify the next correct action to get you there, then work on that and only that.

Once you complete a step, or obtain a piece of gear, identify the next step and continue.

You want to ding 80? Pick a good leveling guide, and quest your butt off. No instances, no PVP, no professions. They will only slow you down.

Want to be a hard core raider? You should be spending 90% of your in game time in instances, gearing up and honing your skills. Even if you can only play 8 hours a week, that's two nights of raiding, or a good six dungeons cleared.

DO let others know what your goals are, they may be able to help.

Don't play alts.

Don't use your limited play time to socialize.

Give this strategy a week, and you'll see how well it works. Next week, will talk about how to play you best game, without reinventing the wheel.

Horsemen Down

2009-02-10T18:16:00.001Z

10Feb09 12:16 CST
Primal managed to down Loatheb to finish the Plague Quarter, and push though the entire Military Quarter this weekend. That puts us at 9 of 15 as a guild on heroic.

Proggression has been slower than I'd have hoped. There's been a few growing pains in integrating the old Khaos United members into Primal, and getting them up to speed on fights for heroic that many of them never participated in on normal difficulty.

With the time left until Patch 3.1 and Ulduar uncertain, it's important that we work this content like the patch was coming next week, but that sense of urgency doesn't seem to extend beyond the core of the guild. In short, it's frustrating.

With today's reset, and Patch 3.09, I don't expect big things tonight. But tomorrow, it's go hard, or get the hell out of my raid.

Ammunition Still Changing

2009-02-10T17:35:00.004Z

10Feb09 11:35 CST

With any luck the Ultrasafe Bullet Machines I've been holding on to will start pumping out stacks of 1000.

Also, I'm guessing the intent is to preserve quiver haste, by placing haste on the ammunition itself. I could be wrong.

Patch 3.09

2009-02-10T16:41:00.003Z

10Feb09 10:49 CST
A previously un-announced patch 3.09 is going live in today's maintenance.

This is good news.

While the changes to Serpent's Swiftness and Kindred Spirits won't bring BM back to pre 3.08 DPS levels, I would expect to see a 51 point Beastmasters with an exotic pet and the 2 piece tier 7 bonus, have numbers in line with what MM is currently seeing.

Since raids will again be seeing Ferocious Inspiration buffs, it's really a twofold buff to raid DPS. I'll be looking to have a couple of volunteers respec.

EU PTR UP

2009-02-06T16:25:00.002Z

06Feb09 10:36

The EU PTR is up, hinting that 3.1 may come sooner than previously thought.

Incoming Hunter Love

2009-02-06T14:26:00.005Z

06Feb09 08:33 CST
I've had enough time to mull this over, and am hard pressed to find fault with any of these changes.

The ammunition change is long overdue. Hunters are the only range class in the game with an ongoing expense simply to do damage, I think it will be interesting to see what mechanic they use to compensate for quiver haste. Could hunters finally have that extra bag space?

A new tier of pet talents you say? Talents likely to only be reachable with the extra points attained with the 51 point BM talent? I like it on the surface. I think the true test is if non exotic pets will be competitive DPS, or if we'll all still need to pick up a Spirit Beast.

The hunting party change only makes sense. Nobody takes 5 points in it, so why should it be a 5 point talent? Coupled with the changes to make Sniper Training more friendly to trap dancers, this is a nice little buff to compensate for the recent stealth nerf to explosive shot.

The change to piercing shots is also good, as once a warrior put 5 stacks of sunder armor up on a boss, the points in Piercing Shots didn't seem a very good buy. Besides, who doesn't love having another DoT effect up?

"Additional Trapping functionality for survival hunters". I'd like to see some sort of ranged trapping functionality beyond that of freezing arrow, to be able to proc lock and load from outside of melee range.

I like these changes overall, but I'm not going to get too excited. It's pretty likely that Bliz will monkey with these further before 3.1 hits the PTR.

Skullduggery

2009-02-04T22:53:00.003Z

04Feb09 16:57 CST
When every time you respec, you get some kind of nerf, you start to feel singled out.

EC to DC: Part 1 - Gamer, Know Thyself

2009-02-04T21:27:00.004Z

04Feb09 15:28 CST
Alright, it's time to finally get what you want from World of Warcraft.

So what is that? Do you want to raid for progression? Have a top ranked arena team? Max out achievements, or just hit level 80?

I'll assume that you already know.

The next step is to identify what's holding you back. The most commom complaint I see from people is that they're short on time. Which is valid, if true. I find a lot of the people who voice that complaint to me, when pinned down, actually spend more time in game than I do.

I'd invite you to pay closer attention. Take note of what days, times, and for how long you play. Maybe you have a good number of hours to play, but are never on for more than an hour at a time. Try and get on fewer times per week, but block out a period of time when you do. If you're on late nights, or other low population times, consider moving to an oceanic server to take advantage of the time difference.

The other complaint I see most from casuals, is about other people in game. "I have the worst (guild, pug, arena partner)". One has to stop think about the common element in all of those situations. It's your presence. Now stop and ask yourself the question:

Do I suck?

If you're always wiping in instances or getting owned in arenas, either you have make awful choices regarding who to play the game with, or you suck yourself. Are you undergeared, messing up pulls, doing less DPS than everyone else, or going out of mana every pull?

There's a huge percentage of WoW's player base that simply never learned to play the game. They never learned their class mechanics, worked on a proper rotation, or learned how not to stand in the fire. If you're one of them then do some research, for goodness sake practice, and stop being terrible!

If not, then you can move on to next week's segment: Focus.

Archavon

2009-02-04T20:49:00.003Z

04Feb09 14:51 CST

Mrs. Gringott had to work last night. So I jumped online to farm some consumables, and a little leather to throw on the AH.

I ended up jumping into Naxx for Maexxna when a couple of people had to leave when the raid ran over time. This isn't the hardest fight from a DPS perspective, but also not the easiest for a hunter to top the DPS meter on. Between running spiderlings to the tanks and shooting people out of web wraps, there's a good amount of time spent not putting out damage. She still fell easily enough.

After that Wintergrasp was up, so we bounced to Archavon's Vault to knock that out for the week. It was a guilt first, as it was the first time we did it without any PUG members. Nothing but plate drops.

Its been a few week's since I've seen a gear upgrade. I'm trying not to be all QQ about it. Now that we're raiding heroics exclusively, it is a pain to go from being one of the better geared players in the guild, to seeing people inch away from you because of luck. I love to see the guild improving, I just want to improve as well. Oh well, that's just part of raiding.

WoW Jutsu has Primal at 24th on the server, and climbing. Since there's 6 guilds on Shu'Halo to have cleared Heroic Malygos, and several more who have finished Naxx, we can only make it as high as the top ten.

At least until Ulduar.

Noth / Heigan Down

2009-02-03T16:40:00.001Z

03Feb09 10:41 CST

To say the learning curve for Heroic Heigan the Unclean is sharp, is like saying hunters like a tank and spank boss fight. A gross understatement.

It took several attempts by the guild to down Heigan last night, finally succeeding despite having only 10 people up for the last 50% of his health. But man could those 10 dance.

Primal is 5 of 15 in Heroic going into this week's reset.

Hell Hath No Fury Like A Dwarf Scorned

2009-02-02T18:09:00.003Z

02Feb09 12:09 CST

Apparently BRK is having difficulties with his host again.

/BRKautocasttoggleoff blog;
/BRKautocasttoggleon epic rant;

Grand Widow / Maexxna Down

2009-02-02T15:49:00.002Z

02Feb09 09:50 CST

Sunday's run saw Grand Widow and Maexxna fall, to finish out the the Arachnid Wing. Way to go all.

As you'll see from the screenshot, I was not present.

I was enjoying Sunday dinner with the family, and getting my butt handed to me by my mother in Wii bowling. Of course, my five year old son regularly trounces me as well. Further prove that gaming skill is not universally applicable.

Also, you're mid way through the first quarter of the Superbowl when you realize the only beer you have in the house is Michelob Ultra, and as if by magic your wife walks through the door with a sixer of Guinness? That's when you know you married the right person.

Sartharion / Anub'rekhan Down

2009-02-01T14:15:00.004Z

01Feb09 08:25 CST

Primal did its first 25 man raids yesterday, downing Sartharion in Obsidian Sanctum, and Anub'rekhan in Naxxramas.

All three drakes went down easily in OS. We elected so simply burn Vesperon, rather than taking the add inside the portal, and one of the raid leaders clocked me at over 5000 DPS on him. That gives me a fair idea of what my current gear, spec, and rotation are capable of under ideal conditions.

Sartharion proved a challenge. Our main tank had never tanked Sartharion, and less than half of the DPS had even done the fight, so it took several attempts to down him. This includes a stupid wipe when one of the locks reached over to turn down Sport Center, bumped his auto run key, and aggroed Sarth who promptly ran amok.

We one shotted Anub'rekhan with just 20 people. He proved far easier in heroic, than in his 10 man incarnation. With in the neighborhood of 24K raid DPS, the adds were going down in a little over 20 seconds, which left plenty of time for Anub's pounding.

No loot for me this time out, but several of the new people got nice pieces that should keep them coming back.

Merger

2009-01-30T19:38:00.005Z

30Jan09 14:05 CST

Anyone involved in guild leadership knows how hard it is to recruit quality players these days.

Primal has always been a small but dedicated guild. That has been the secret to, and the limiter of our success.

We entered talks this week with a couple of other guilds to discuss the posibilities of a merger that would enable us to push 25 man progression, and I am happy to say they were successful.

Primal is absorbing 23 of the 45 level 80 players from Khaos United; a fairly new and unranked guild on Shu'Halo.

I have 3 5 more hunters to keep tabs on, but that's a good thing. A quick peak at their Armory profiles is encouraging, and I won't be asking anyone to respec right off the bat.

Heroic Naxx this weekend.

/dance

Unsolved Mysteries

2009-01-29T17:52:00.004Z

29Jan08 11:57 CST

What ever happened with that uber wide curved DLP display Alienware was showing off at CEC '08?

EC to DC: Everything you ever wanted out of World of Warcraft, in 12 hours a week

2009-01-28T22:10:00.008Z

28Jan09 16:18 CST

En·ti·tled - To furnish with proper grounds for seeking or claiming something

Ca·su·al - Feeling or showing little concern : nonchalant, lacking a high degree of interest or devotion, done without serious intent or commitment.

En·ti·tled Ca·su·al - Person(s) under the impression that an MMO company owes them something more for their subscription fee than keeping the servers up,and creating new content: Expects to get what they want in game without working for it, at the expense of difficulty, without regard to game balance or the wishes of other players.

The EC. We all know one. The kind of person who uses a strategy manual on their first play through of a console game. Who knows more cheat codes than Kristin Holt. Who is the 'leetest' Counterstrike player they know, despite having to upgrade their ram to run all the aimbots and maphacks without killing their frame rate.

You know that guy in your guild who spends hours online but never runs anything, gets all his upgrades from the guild bank, then bitches when he doesn't get a raid spot?

This is not a post about how casual players are ruining the game. You can get plenty of that on other blogs, or the official forums. This is for the Entitled Casual themselves. You feel justified. You pay the same as everyone else, why shouldn't you get to have the same experience, just because you can't spend your life online?

You should, and you can. I've had good success as a raider in Wrath of the Lich King, despite limited play time. You can drop your sense of entitlement and push your game to the next level, without compromising your real life commitments, or seriously increasing your play time. I will show you how. You can become what I call the 'Dedicated Casual'.

Every week in February I'll be publishing a part of a 4 part series "EC to DC: Everything you ever wanted out of World of Warcraft, in 12 hours a week".

Hunter "Balance"

2009-01-28T14:58:00.004Z

28Jan09 08:57 CST

Overnerfed BM? Ya Think?

Don't get me wrong, I understood the Steady Shot nerf. Blizzard wanted more diverse shot rotations, and the Steady Shot change forced that. It didn't nerf damage overall. It just separated the truly skilled hunter from the button masher.

I understood the Scorpid changes. A tenacity pet should not be the top DPS pet in the game. I was glad to see Logu'Nahak's Spirit Strike fixed to work with longevity, and the limit on her spawn time removed.

But to have nerfed Steady Shot, Unleashed Fury, Serpent Swiftness, Kindred Spirits, AND Readiness all in one patch? While this may not have been a knee jerk reaction on the part of the devs, it didn't feel like a skillful rebalancing either. If you didn't have a big enough test sample on the PTR that's on us, as players.

But you can't tell me your internal testers told you this was balance? Any idiot with Recount, a couple hundred gold for respecs, and an hour to hit practice dummies could have told you that BM was broken. The changes essentially forced raiders out of the tree. I don't care how much you love your exotic pet, try to justify doing 500 less DPS than you could be, and you're going to stop getting raid invites.

Stop fiddling.

Even with Survival tuned high, we're currently putting out number that are in line with other DPS classes. You will never be able to achieve a perfect balance between the trees. In any given class, at a given level of itemization, there is always going to be a top DPS spec. In Vanilla WoW in was a Marksmanship and Survival Hybrid, Burning Crusade was the cookie cutter Beastmaster spec, and as things stand now Survival is on top. But MM and BM are still viable.

No bad thing.

Patch 3.0.8.9506

2009-01-27T19:30:00.001Z

27Jan09 13:31 CST

A small patch today, from the notes:

All Hunter aspects are no longer on the global cooldown that is shared with other Hunter abilities. All hunter aspects are now on a separate 1 second cooldown.

This is a bug fix for the Aspect changes that went in in 3.08. You'll stop getting cooldown errors should you try to switch into Viper during, say, a Steady Shot cast. That wasn't really the most important bug on my mind.

Did someone say Cower?

Sniper Training

2009-01-27T17:03:00.003Z

27Jan09 11:04 CST

Lately I've been playing around with a range display addon to assess the potential value of Sniper Training in PVE for myself. There's several available, but I think TargetRange is one of the best. It displays the range to target in increments; 0-7 yards, 7-28 yards, 28 to 41 yards, and beyond 41 yards.

Honestly, it could use some work. The 6% increased damage to Steady Shot and Explosive Shot is all win, but when you're a SV hunter sporting 45% crit buffed, the 15% increased critical chance to your kill shot isn't much of a DPS increase. Even with the reduction in cooldown that came with 3.08, I'm still only getting off maybe 2 Kill Shots per boss.

The biggest problem is that you have to get beyond 30 yards to use it. Sure,it's easy enough to get the range on a target dummy. But I found that in my last couple of Naxx runs, in 75% of the fights it was either not possible to get beyond 30 yards from the boss (chamber size and line of sight issues), or undesirable due to encounter mechanics.

So, though Sniper Training should be higher theoretical DPS, it doesn't live up to expectation. Another case where what looks good on the spreadsheet, doesn't always hold true in game.

I'll keep on (trap)dancing.

Raiding Survival

2009-01-22T19:37:00.002Z

So, to say that my initial impression of raiding as Survival is positive, might be a little bit of an understatement.

I am a trap dancing, explosive shot spamming, mana replenishing, agility stacking DPS machine.

I find my SV build to be less effective for trash pulls. But as good or better than my BM build in boss fights. I pushed a personal best 3400 DPS on 10 Man Patchwerk, and I feel like it can only go up from there. The next step will be changing some gems and enchants around to optimize stats.

Last night we cleared out the Plague and Construct Quarters in one shot, except for Grobbulus when someone lagged out and released a poison cloud in the center, wiping the raid. Gluth dropped both the Bands of Anxiety and the Tier 7 Leg token. My heart started to race before I realized the Resto Shaman didn't have his 2 piece bonus yet. Legs shammy, wrists Gringott.

The Bands are really a sidegrade from the Interwoven Scale Bracers, but after spending half the raid missing 1% of my shots from not getting either Draenei's Heroic Presense buff, the extra hit and crit made them feel like an upgrade.

More Naxx this weekend, and I hope to have WoWwebstats up and running for some hard data.

Test Driving Survival

2009-01-21T19:49:00.010Z

21Jan09 15:58 CST
I am officially 7/13/51 until the mess that is the Beast Mastery tree, and the whole exotic pet situation, sort themselves out.

It feels a bit like new clothes, nice, but unfamiliar. After some theorycrafting with Shandara's DPS Spreadsheet, I used a training dummy session as proof of concept. Initial numbers were a little dissapointing. I found myself clocking about 1750 DPS sustained (only 250 or so from my cat), and pushing 2000 if I started burning cooldowns.

Decent, but not what I'm used to. Two main factors were really throwing off the test. One, random latency spikes of 3 - 500 ms make getting into a rhythm with the rotation difficult. Two, a target dummy is mechanical, and therfore untrackable. So Improved Tracking does not function in the test environment. I can compensate in my calculations, but it's not as easy as applying a 5% increase across the board.

Improved Tracking increases all Non-Periodic damage done to the target by 5%. The means it does not apply to stings, traps, explosive shots, or pet Damage over Time effects. What does that leave? If your a survival hunter Auto Shot, Steady Shot, and in my case my Cat's claw ability. Recount tells me these three things account for about 57% of my total DPS, after applying the 5% damage buff to these abilities from Improved Tracking, it seems it's about a 2.85% buff to total DPS or 57 at 2000 DPS.

I'll be running with Glyphs of Steady Shot, Serpent Sting, and Immolation Trap for trap dancing. Between the trap mastery talent, and the glyph, immolation trap hits like a truck for 4700 damage over 9 seconds. Granted, you can only trap the target and trigger Lock 'n Load (LnL) once per 30 seconds, but averaged out this is another 156 DPS. Add the extra Explosive shots chance from LnL, and trap dancing should be a good 2 - 300 DPS ahead.

The rotation is simple, it looks something like this. When one reaches the end it starts over, rinse and repeat. This refreshes Serpent Sting at slightly less than the 21 seconds, to ensure it doesn't fall off, and blast Explosive Shot every time it's up.

LnL rotation is equally simple, just popping Explosive Shots and slipping a Steady Shot in between each one, to avoid clipping the last tick of the damage over time effect off the previous Explosive Shot. The Final Shot in the LnL rotation becomes the first shot in the normal damage rotation, and the cycle continues.

Survival scaled remarkably well with raid buffs, and I'm hoping to see what kind of numbers I put up in Naxxramas tonight.

This is not a drill

2009-01-20T14:24:00.005Z

20Jan09 08:26 CST

Patch 3.08 is going live in today's extended maintenance.

If you haven't done it yet, now is the time to spend some time with the talent calculators and get your respec sorted. I'll be picking up Survival.

Kel'Thuzad Down

2009-01-18T22:07:00.004Z

18Jan09 16:18 CST

After yesterday's downing of Saphiron, Primal came back for a one shot of Kel'Thuzad.

Malygos, you might want to put your affairs in order.

We Haz 2 Piece

2009-01-18T13:37:00.003Z

18Jan09 08:02 CST
Primal did manage to get a raid off yesterday afternoon, despite Blizz taking the realm down for an hour to perform "emergancy maintenance"(sic).

With only the Construct quarter left to clear, we downed Patchwerk in a guild record time of about 4 minutes, which my trusty calculator tells me is around 18,000 raid DPS.

Grobbulus was his usual disgusting self, but went down nicely. Gluth had a couple of hiccups, but dropped my T7 shoulder token, so I forgave him. Thadius, however, stubbornly refused to drop the Arc Scorched Helmet, so he's on my list.

The Cryptstalker 2 piece bonus will provide a nice little damage buff, at least until Patch 3.08 hits. But I've already managed to stack a nice little bit of haste into my gear, for a respec after it drops. Let's hope it's a while yet.

QQ

2009-01-17T18:42:00.004Z

17Jan09 12:59 CST
It should go without saying that guild leadership involves dealing with all sorts of people.

Some need an extra pat on the back, others like to have their egos catered to, and still others need the firm hand of the micro manager. But as in real life, sometimes you run into someone who just cannot be pleased.

Myself, and the other officers of Primal have been dealing with just such a person in the past few weeks. Passive aggressive with a persecution complex, every time someone else was selected for a raid it would be seen as a personal affront against him, rather than a question of raid composition. Then today we tried to explain to him that since he needed no drops from 10 man, we'd be taking other DPS that needed things from the construct quarter, namely me (I didn't mention that I crush his whiney mage butt on DPS). Another officer pointed out that he has gotten more drops than pretty much anyone, and should think about the good of the guild.

So he /gquit. I guess he really was thinking about the good of the guild.

3.08 PTR Build 9464

2009-01-15T22:25:00.006Z

15JAN09 16:57 CST

More changes to 3.08 on the test realm.

The increased chance of lock 'n load to proc from periodic damage, along with the previous addition of the 30 sec cooldown to the talent, seem to be Blizzard's way of taking the payoff out of trap dancing.

In it's current form, Lock 'n Load only has about a 45% chance to proc from Serpent Sting over the course of 30 sec. This change makes the chance closer to about 68%, and thus much more reliable. Current estimates are that trap dancing survival hunters would be about 4-500 DPS ahead, of non trap dancing survivalists. This change would narrow that gap to less than 300 DPS.

Tranquilizing shot is mostly a PVP talent, as I have yet to find a boss mob's enrage effect that I could dispel with this (damn you Grand Widow). Longer cooldown, but less mana.

My veridct? I like the lock 'n load change, because trap dancing just feels too clunky to play to me. Expect more changes in this vein.

1 of 5

2009-01-15T15:33:00.001Z

I came into Naxx last night on a couple of bosses to fill in for our other hunter, who had the flu, and had to keep leaving the keyboard to throw up.

Despite massive zone latency, it was a productive evening of raiding. The guild did Heigan and Loatheb to finish off the Plague Wing for the week, before moving on to a full clear of the Military Wing.

We were hesitant to try the Four Horsemen, because our resto druid was having lag spikes of 1200ms, but we reasoned that his heal over time spells would continue to tick through his lag. Then he started to disconnect. After a couple of wipes, he DC'd again on the third attempt, and we were saved the wipe by our priest who ran back and forth between the two tanks keeping them up for 40 seconds until the druid could log back on.

It was a great effort by all, and I was lucky enough to grab my Tier 7 Chest token out of it. But I couldn't equip it because my mouse went dead.

/facepalm

There Is No Secret Ingredient

2009-01-14T19:48:00.003Z

By now all but the most casual hunters have heard about the changes coming in Patch 3.08, and anyone who reads my blog will know that I've spent my share of time thinking about it.

It seems like there's a new test build almost weekly, and the state of the class is still very much in flux. Half the hunter community is scouring the EJ forums looking for the next "perfect" build, and the other half took one look at the patch notes and decided to reroll as a Death Knight. But the longer I look at 3.08, the less I see nerf, and the more I see opportunity.

I've spent some time on the PTR, and fiddled with the DPS spreadsheets, even made my own recommendations for spec changes. But it's mostly to get a sense of where the class is heading. What I don't think is that I'll stumble upon the perfect spec, because I don't think there is one.

There is no perfect talent spec.

The BC days of the cookie cutter 41/20/0 and spamming the Auto/Steady macro to dominate every encounter are gone. You will see people raiding in all three trees. It's going to be about inventiveness, more diverse shot rotations, synergy with your raid's composition, and *gasp* personal preference.

We will not be at the bottom of the damage meters, and with newly buffed classes gunning for us, we will have to work again to get to the top. No bad thing.

Mmm...that's good podcast

2009-01-13T20:41:00.003Z

Podcast: a series of audio or video digital-media files which is distributed over the Internet by syndicated download, through Web feeds, to portable media players and personal computers.

I loves me some podcasts. From the well edited and professional, to the incomprehensible, if you want to hear about it someone is talking about it. Even your hobby and mine, World of Warcraft. I'd love to have one of my own on the site someday, but until you can hear my opinions, check out a few of my favorites.

Casually Hardcore brought to you by the good folks at WoW Radio.

The WoW Insider Show offers commentary on the articles posted over at WoW Insider.

The BigRedKitty Podcast from BigRedKitty.net.

3.08's Latest

2009-01-10T20:01:00.005Z

A few notes from the latest PTR test build:

Beast Mastery

* Ferocious Inspiration now also increase the damage of Arcane Shot by 3/6/9%

With the word being that the mana cost of Arcane Shot will be identical to that of Steady Shot when the patch goes live, it's clear that Arcane Shot will be part of the BM Rotation.

Now if it's worth taking Improved Arcane Shot remains to be seen.

Survival

* Lock and Load now has a 30 seconds cooldown.

* Explosive shot damage has been slightly decreased and now deal {RAP*0.16+428}-{RAP*0.16+428} Fire damage at level 80. (Down from {RAP*0.18+476}-{RAP*0.18+476})

We all knew this was coming. Explosive shot had just gotten too good. Survival is still looking like a serious contender for top DPS after 3.08.

Marksmanship

* Improved Stings now reduces the chance your Sting damage over time effects will be dispelled by 10/20/30%. (Old - Affected all stings)

More PVP changes? Gee, thanks.

Pet

* Spirit Strike (Spirit Beast) damage has been decreased and now Burns the enemy for 49 to 65 Arcane damage and an additional 49 to 65 damage over 6 sec at max rank. (Down from 85 to 115)

* Rake (Cat) damage has been increased, now deals 47-67 (Up from 24-34) bleed damage and an additional 19-25 (up from 10-24) damage over 9 seconds at max rank.

* Scorpid Poison damage has been increased. (From 45 to 100 Nature damage over 10 sec for the last rank)

This was very nice to see. Unlike Ghostcrawler previous statement, my Cat will still be inflicting bleed damage. Unfortunately, Scorpid Poison still does not have the stacking mechanic.

Another mixed bag.

I spell fail P-U-G

2009-01-09T15:06:00.002Z

Last night's issues with logging into Dalaran were in fact a bug with Questhelper, as soon as I uninstalled it, I logged right in.

Now first, let it be known that as a rule, I do not do Pick Up Groups. Not even 5 mans. I'd usually just rather wait for a guild run. So when one of our guild's tanks whispered me about a quick Culling of Stratholme run, I assumed he meant a guild run and said "Sure". Enter the PUG.

The warrior tank of our guild really wanted to beat the timer and get his Bronze Drake, and since he seemed to know the other three pretty well, so I gave it the benefit of the doubt. Things went suprisingly well. I wasn't topping DPS because I kept stopping to drop explosive traps next to the healer, but the tank never stopped running, and we were blowing through the pulls.

When we hit the town hall with 11 minutes left I thought "We might actually do this". 8 minutes later, after doing the gauntlet in one long chain pull, I saw it. 2 minutes on the timer. Elation! I popped on Aspect of the Pack as the tank, the boomkin, and I turned left to take on the optional boss.

Then it happened.The Ret Pally, and the Healer, turned right. To Mal'Ganis.

/WIPE

Wait for the rez. Swear alot over Ventrillo, summon my Sinister Squashling just so I can kick it, then take the bulk of my frustration out on Mal'Ganis.

Just say no to PUGs.

Did it fall?

2009-01-09T02:21:00.002Z

Dalaran seems to be down on Shu'Halo.

Every time I try to log onto Gringott, I disconnect from the server. But my bank toon in Ironforge is just fine.

A Dark Family Secret

2009-01-08T19:55:00.005Z

It's a little known fact in the WoW community that I have a brother, Falstann,that plays a dwarven hunter as well.

I don't mention him a lot around my guild. It's just too painful. You see, my brother is a recovering huntard.

It's hard to talk about. When I think back, it still makes me shudder. The rare strength gems socketed into his Season 1 chest piece. Watching him try to melee everything in sight as soon as he got his Season 3 axe. The spirit gear from the auction house, and the BC welfare epics worn long after he should have upgraded to Wrath Blues.

I know what you're thinking. "But Gringott, you're an officer in a nicely progressing guild. You are admired for your DPS, and distinguished in game looks. How could your brother have ever been a huntard?" But it's true. Recent MMO research reveals almost no hereditary basis for leetness, instead consisting of a complex array of acquired characteristics. But therein lay hope. Great hunters are made, not born.

I've offered advice here and there to point him in the right direction. He's learning to use google, and talent calculators (his spec could use some work). He's crafted himself some starter gear. I still catch him hanging around the BG queues late at night, and trying to put Heavy Borean Armor Kits on everything in sight. But he's taken the first steps out of darkness, toward the light.

/cheer

Success!

2009-01-08T17:55:00.002Z

Comments are now working correctly, a big thanks to Chain Trap for pointing out the problem.

Now if I could just get the date stamp script to work correctly...

Kel'Thuzad on Notice

2009-01-06T21:39:00.001Z

Primal downed Saphiron last night, for a guild first.

That unlocks The Eye of Eternity, and the next level of raid content. Regrettably, I couldn't make raid start time, so was on stand by during the fight. But I really couldn't be happier for my guildies.

We still have Kel'Thuzad yet to down, and most of us need items out of Naxx yet. So we'll be working toward farm status, as well as recruiting a few more raiders with their heads on straight to fill out our 25 man roster.

Interested parties on the Shu'Halo - US server are encouraged to visit our website at Primal-WoW.com for more information, and contact a Primal member in game if interested.

3.08, the Sequel

2009-01-06T18:15:00.003Z

When the 3.08 patch notes first dropped, one statement was largely ignored because of the enormity of the hunter changes to take in:

"The coefficient of Rake (Cat) and Scorpid Venom (Scorpid) has been lowered."

Along with the planned changes for Readiness to no longer reset the cooldown of Bestial Wrath, these changes seem intended to make the 50/21/0 spec a thing of the past. But the changes weren't implemented on the PTR with the 3.08 test candidate. So until a post from Ghostcrawler today, we had no hard data on the Cat and Scorpid changes.

"Here are the cat and scorpid numbers for anyone who wants to theorycraft them. These will be in the next patch (3.0.8) even though they were not on the PTR."

Now currently Scorpid Venom Stings an enemy for 45 to 55 Nature damage over 10 sec with a .043 coefficient. The effect can stack up to 5 times on a single target.

"Rank 6 Scorpid Poison - 20 base Nature damage per tick, ticks every 2 sec for 10 sec, 0.04 coefficient, 1 stack max"

This buffs the DoT nicely, but removes the stacking mechanic of the poison. This equates to a 62% reduction in damage, before the coefficient change is even taken into account.

Blizzard is sending a pretty clear message with this; the Scorpid thing was not forseen, we never meant for Tenacity pets to see the inside of raid instances.

Rake now damages the target for 24 to 34 bleed damage and an additional 22 to 28 damage over 9 sec with a .07 Coefficient.

"Rank 6 Rake - 29 base physical damage, plus 21 base damage per tick, ticks every 3 sec for 9 sec, 0.06 coefficient"

While at first this might look like a wash, a buff to the DoT effect with a lowering of the coefficient. It's not. You have to read closely to see the nerf. Physical damage.

Now Ghostcrawler could have made a mistake, but I think not. While the bleed damage inflicted by the current Rake is not mitigated by armor, physical damage is. Given that all Wrath raid bosses have 13,083 armor, 46.2% of the new Rake's damage will be mitigated.

This equates to an 8.5% reduction in damage from the current Rake, before calculating for the coefficient reduction. Throw that in, and we're pretty close to the magic 10% damage gap that Blizzard has stated should exist between normal and exotic pets.

Message? There's value in the 51 point Beast Mastery talent. Blizzard wants you to dump that cat that's been with you since since level 10, and go tame Barney the Dinosaur or spend weeks camping Loque'nahak when you could be raiding.

More to come when the patch goes live.

Home Again

2009-01-04T17:32:00.003Z

I've gone back to Beast Mastery.

For the past week or so, I'd been using my Enhanced Marksman spec, after the Hybrid spec didn't put out the sort of numbers one would expect. But as interesting as the MM spec is to play, it just didn't feel right.

There's just something about the bond between a hunter and their pet that makes them special as a class. Sure, Warlocks have their minions, but they sacrifice them any time the whim strikes them. A hunter, regardless of spec, takes it personally when their pet falls in combat. But none like the BM hunter. I know Marksmen who don't even send their pets into melee, instead regarding them as a walking +2% damage trinket with Focused Fire.

Not me. I love to see my pet charge into combat, unleashing it's fury on a boss. I love the pets, so much so that I named my Black Lion Skin Cat after Nala my real life cat. I figure as long as the 50/21/0 spec is working, I am going to use it.

Yesterday' raid landed me the Rusted-Link Spiked Gauntlets I've been wanting off of Grand Widow Faerlina. I'll be holding on to these for a while. Running the numbers says that the Polished Regimental Hauberk and Rusted-Link Spiked Gauntlets are better damage wise that their Tier 7 counterparts. I'd rather Keep my current chest and gloves, then pick up my T7 2 piece bonus from the shoulders and legs.

Here's hoping I'll see those pieces soon.

Getting There

2009-01-02T17:14:00.005Z

I took a little time to play yesterday morning before the boy came home, and picked up some upgrades.

I finally crafted my Ice Striker's Cloak, which only takes about an hour of eternal farming if we have Wintergrasp. Though a ridiculously longer amount of time to skin up the two Arctic Fur required because of the abysmal drop rate (thanks again Blizz).

Then I jumped into a pick up group for a quick Heroic CoT Stratholme run, primarily to finish my grind to Argent Crusade - Exalted. But I was pleasantly surprised to get the Mobius Band I've been wanting from Chrono Lord Epoch. Then I flew out to Icecrown to grab my Polished Regimental Hauberk for a big step up from the Hauberk of the Arcane Wraith I've been sporting the last month or so.

I'll be tweaking my gems and enchants a little bit over the next week, but I'm comfortable with my current gear level for the latter half of Naxx 10, and for moving on to the first part of Naxx 25 and Obisidian Sanctum / Vault of Archavon 25 versions.

My Guild > Your Guild

2008-12-31T16:55:00.000Z

Gringott is now toting a shiny new Nesingwary 4000 thanks to our guild engineer Papy and the awesome folks in Primal.

I've been drooling to have one of these ever since I found out it existed, but after reaching 80 and going through the process of gemming and enchanting a steady stream of upgrades, couldn't put together the coin to drop 3 or 4 thousand gold on the Auction House to buy one. So when I found out Papy had the pattern, I saw my chance to get one for just the cost of materials.

Of course, titanium is running 70 and 80 gold per bar on our server, so I asked in guild chat if anyone had some to spare thinking they'd cut me a decent guild discount. But as soon as people found out what I wanted the material for, I found them volunteering all sorts of things. Which lead to me feeling like a bit of a beggar as I asked about and accepted items from guildies and the guild bank. But I saw people happy to give, and stoked for me at the idea of the upgrade and the chance to increase our raid DPS. In the end I bought or farmed less than half the materials.

Needless to say I am grateful and humbled, reassured in the fact that I am in the best guild that I have ever known. I'll be farming a whole mess of leather over the coming weeks, to pay it forward by helping guildies level up their professions.

The Bright Side

2008-12-28T16:35:00.003Z

Yesterday's raid did not come off. With everyone scattered to the four winds for the holidays, there were too few signed up, and nobody on to fill in with.

So five of us split off, and tore through Heroic Utgarde Keep and Pinnacle back to back, which proved very fruitful for me.

I was hoping for the Plunderer's Helm off of Ingvar, so that I could start rocking a Meta socket and it's 3% increased crit damage again. But he only saw fit to drop the Drake Mounted Crossbow for me. I haven't upgraded from my Zombie Sweeper Shotgun just yet, because I like my racial bonus and I think one of our guild's engineers may soon be cranking out a shiny new Nessingwary 4000 for me. I'd prefer not to drop 300g each to scope two weapons if I don't have to.

We nicely outgeared Utgarde Pinnacle, which was essentially a big loot pinata for me, and picked up a couple of the boss achievements along the way for giggles. I've been through this place quite a few times, as our guild's main tank has been trying to get the Red Sword of Courage off Ymiron ever since dinging 80, but I've never had anything drop. Then yesterday I manage to grab the Massive Spaulders of the Jormungar, the Meteorite Whetstone, and the Sovereign's Belt all in one run. I don't think I'll be swapping out my Spectral Rider's Girdle for the Sovereign's, but I like to have lots of options in Hit gear for when I need to drop some hit to upgrade another slot.

That and several thousand rep toward getting exalted with the Argent Crusade, and getting my Polished Regimental Hauberk made the lack of a Naxx run feel alright.

5 Steps to Increase your Damage, without Upgrades

2008-12-27T21:51:00.004Z

There's more to topping the damage meters than just class, spec, and gear. It's also about developing good play habits to increase you effectiveness and in doing so your DPS.

1) Stay Alive

It should go without saying that if you're dead, you can't do damage. What seems to be missed by most DPS is that it is not the healer's job to keep you alive, it is yours. The tank is always the first priority for healing, if it comes down to a tough choice btween who to heal, you will lose every time. So you should minimize the damage you take.

That means watch you threat, if you pull, the tank should rightfully let you die. On fghts with an AOE damage component you should know that strategy and exactly where to position yourself to avoid the AOE. If you end up taking a signifigant amount of damage, bandage yourself up. In dire circumstances use your healthstone, and a health potion as a last resort.

2) Never be OOM

Never run out of mana. The dreaded 1% boss enrage/wipe is usually a result of not having the final burst of damage to burn the boss as the secnds tick down.

You should always have a final reserve of mana, energy, ror rage for this scenario. You should be shifting from your DPS phase to regeneration phase at 20%. This will keep your regen phase short, and ensure you're never OOM.

3) Get the right buffs

Know the right buffs for your class and spec, and don't be afraid to ask for them. Unless you outgear your tank by a full tier, you should not be concerned with pulling threat. For hunter's this is especially true as you should be misdirecting at the start of fights and feigning death every time you reach 95% of the tank's threat. So why would you want blessing of salvation?

Ask for what you want. Bring flasks, scrolls and consumables to the raid. People who complain about the cost fail to understand that the price you pay is for the priveledge of rolling on drops. You may have spent 100g the last three raids in a row, and only now gotten some loot. But would you have batted an eye at paying 300g to get that epic piece of the Auction House?

4) Optimize your rotations

Take the time to stop over at the Elitist Jerks forums and look up some of the most effective damage rotations. There's no need to re-invent the wheel. But that's only half of it.

Now you have to practice them in a safe and scientific environment. Enter the target dummy. You should be practising your rotation until it's second nature. Include regen phases so you know how to transition smoothly, and without gimping your DPS.

5) Maintain a high % of DPS-out time

This is the biggest secret. Start hitting the boss as soon as you can, and keep it up for as long as you can. This means using tageting macros to switch from boss to adds and back again without having to tabs through all targets.

Most DPS need to hold still in order to do the maximum damage possible. This means staying in range at all times, only moving to avoid AOE effects at the last second, and rushing back to the fight as soon as it's safe.

Keep these things in mind, and know that you're doing your part to down bosses and get the gear you need to push your game to the limit.

Your Changing Raid Spec

2008-12-23T19:41:00.006Z

This post is a reprint of an post I wrote over at the Primal Forum

It's that time. As the shadow of 3.08 looms over us, it's time to start thinking ahead to how we'll be throwing the lead after the patch.

No amount of theory crafting will make up for actually trying the spec out. On that note, I spent some time over at the PTR this weekend beating on target dummies and trying out some of my spec ideas. I won't be discussing hard DPS numbers today, as I don't trust Blizz not to change things between now and patch day. Once 3.08 drops, I'll have a full write up including Recount data.

The following are my recommendations:

Exotic Beastmaster

This build is centered around the soon to be king of pet DPS, the Devilsaur. While it's true that a Scorpid in the highest sustained DPS on simple boss fights (Patchwerk), and that a Cats can situationally exceed the Devilsaur's DPS, the hinted changes to Rake and Scorpid Venom in 3.08 point to the Devilsaur being top damage. This build offers good sustained DPS when Serpent Sting is kept up, combined with the Steady Shot Glyph, and popping Arcane Shot every time it comes up.

Enhanced Marksman

This build makes full use of the Marksman tree, while dipping into the other two trees for a couple of nice damage enhancing talents. This is very similar to the spec already being used by Xxskillzz, and offers very high burst damage, at the cost of a more complex shot rotation.

Besides Steady shot, you'll be refreshing Serpent Sting every ten seconds with Chimaera Shot, and firing Arcane Shot every six seconds.

Survival with Hawk

Explosive shot is getting a nice little damage buff in 3.08, combined with the periodic haste buff of IAoTH and suddenly Survival is blowing past other DPS classes (if not the other two hunter specs).

You'll be spamming Steady Shot, maintaining Serpent Sting, firing Arcane Shot each time it's up (which is pretty often with Lock and Load), and using your Explosive Shot every six seconds. Because your Serpent Sting needs to be manually refreshed and Explosive Shot is each six seconds to Chimaera Shot's ten seconds, yours is the most complex shot rotation.

But your good crit, combined with the nearly 50% crit chance of Explosive Shot means you'll be doing nice damage and that the raid will be getting your replenishment buff nearly 100% of the time.

Notice that none of these builds incorporates the Efficiency talent. Instead they count on good regen technique with Rapid Fire and Aspect of the Viper, as well as external regen in the form of the Replenishment buff from Paladins, Shadow Priests, and Survival Hunters.

It's time to start thinking about your play style, as well as the needs of the guild, and find which build you'll be using after 3.08.

9 of 15

2008-12-23T18:39:00.002Z

I logged on last night to do my cooking daily, and grab a quick respec to the Hybrid spec I've been wanting to try.

The guild was just finishing off Loatheb, and asked me to come in for Gothik the Harvester. We did wipe the first attempt. I was on the living side and we were trying to down the mobs slowly so as not to overwhelm the dead side. But our Pally tank was too far away from one of the Unrelenting Riders to pick it up, and my MD was on cooldown, so the healer was one shotted.

The second attempt we gathered all the DPS in one corner so the waves would have to run through consecrate to get to us, and suddenly this fight became easy mode. As Phase Two rolled around I was still at 60% mana and ready to open up.

Primal > Gothik

We're using Loot Counsel for as long as we're still doing 10 mans, and the guild was kind enough to bestow upon me the Spectral Rider's Girdle for a nice bit of haste and crit to go with my new spec.

Thank goodness for that cooking daily.

Patch Down

2008-12-21T17:24:00.012Z

Yesterday's raid saw Patchwerk and Maexxna fall in Naxxramas, before bouncing over to Wintergrasp to down Archavon.

Of the three, we had the most trouble with Patchwerk by far. As DPS Patch is both the easiest fight in Naxxramas, and one of the hardest. Strategically he's more like beating on a target dummy than a bossfight. On the other hand, in 10 man he has 4,320,000 health and a 6 minute enrage timer. If, as a raid, you cannot output 12,000 sustained DPS you cannot defeat Patchwerk. Period.

I found myself running our numbers in my head as we completed trash pulls, knowing that it would go up a bit for the boss fight. But each time the numbers looked low. Wait, 500 DPS from the new mage? /confused

Check guild. Nobody on to switch him with. So much coaching and three 1% wipes later, he's putting out a whopping 950 DPS. We give him a flask, explain that he needs to be using Mirror Image and Ice Veins every time they're up.

Finally, mercifully, on attempt number 5 Patch goes down. Cheers over Vent. Resto Shammy signs on. We replace the mage and ask him to hit up Elitist Jerks and get his spell rotation down. Priest Respecs shadow and comes in to DPS, and Maexxna is down soon after.

I get the Wraith Spear I want.

Day Salvaged.

Another Hunter Blog?

2008-12-21T13:40:00.008Z

I am a level 80 hunter on Shu'Halo-US.

I am the hunter class lead for the raiding guild Primal.

We're a small but tightly knit guild, pushing progression on a server known as a raiding dead zone at the end of The Burning Crusade. We like it that way.

As a raider, and a player with limited time, I make it my business to know the hunter class and how to get the most out of it in 8 to 10 hours a week.

Welcome to Send Pet.