Shot and Awe

Blackout

2012-01-17T15:16:00.002-05:00

In solidarity with Reddit and other sites, this site is blacked out today (January 18th) in protest against SOPA and PROTECT IP laws. These laws are a threat to free speech and to the freedom of the Internet. Please contact your congressional representative and tell them to vote 'No' on this law.

#SOPA Protest

Diablo 3

2011-10-22T18:27:00.001-04:00

I probably should have used my time better. I pushed all the lore stuff. I look forward to playing a chick that can run in heals and dual wield crossbows

Panda monk

2011-10-22T17:43:00.001-04:00

Got my 10 mind of playtime. The class is fun. The race is....meh

A Noob at Blizzcon

2011-10-22T12:14:00.001-04:00

I had originally intended to do much of this via cell phone, but in true Droid form my battery died because I tried to do more than one thing.

I admit it. I giggled a little when we got close. For the most part everyone looked about as I expected, like everyone I ever see inside a Game Stop. There were a few families there which I though was pretty cool.

I have to give the logistics team serious kudos, all the lines moved with serious speed from the check in, to the contest booths to the Blizzard store.

Speaking of lines, Blizzcon is officially the only place on earth with no line for the woman's bathroom!

Most of the convention is very dark. The lighting is designed around the many video and computer screens. Plus I am convinced they think we all really do play in the dark in our parents basement and that the light makes us confused.

Hey 34064 I'm looking for you! Lets win us some nvidia stuff.

Chris Metzen is just as cool up close as he is from afar. We saw him with his little girl. No I wasn't stalking him, was just random. I'll be stalking him later I'm sure.

You could hear a pin drop when they started to play the Mists of Panderia movie preview. When the new race and class were announced the building shook from the cheers. You would have thought they offered us free play time and beta keys...oh wait they did that earlier.

Pet battles? Really? Worst.timesinkidea.ever.

I still find it a little unsettling to look at someone who is telling me how they are having trouble with their dps because they don't have a decent off hand. Its just so odd. But if I close my eyes I can pretend I'm having the conversation over vent eh?

The costume contest was very cool in person. You could really see the work people put into it.

And lastly and most importantly.....NO MORE DEAD ZONE!!

I'm off to get ready to stand in line and play new Blizzard games!

Blizzcon

2011-10-21T13:43:00.001-04:00

Arrived in mostly in one piece and sitting at the main stage waiting for the opening ceremony to start

4.2 Hunter Gear

2011-06-08T13:55:00.000-04:00

I'm hearing rumors that the patch is about two weeks away so I did a little Wowhead digging and work slacking and here's my look at the coming hunter gear.

Easiest place to start is the T12 gear. Please note that unlike the past history of XXStalker gear this is not Walker gear is Waker. Flamewaker's Battlegear. The two piece bonus is very sexy yes. The four piece bonus is really only lighting up your life if you are MM.

Head

The T12 set piece has the the +30 agility bonus that Bandit Prince does not. Plus no ew factor.

Neck

Necklace of Smoke Signals

Shoulders

Both shoulder options are near identical. While some hunters may prefer the Flickering Shoulders crit to the haste provided by the Flamewaker's many will probably just end up with the set piece.

Back

The Sleek Flamewrath Cloak comes from friendly rep with the new Avengers of Hyjal faction and is really just a placeholder. The Dreadfire Drape with its two red sockets is clearly far superior.

Chest

In the chest slot, the non-set item offers us a large hit number along with crit but our set piece chest has an agility socket bonus. Its up to you but you can reforge for hit.

Wrist

The choice between these two bracers pretty much comes down to whether or not you'll want the hit rating of the Hide-Bound Chains.

Hands

The new Dragonfire Gloves will be craftable with leatherworking but they have no gem slot. The Grips of Unerring Precision come out on top of the gloves DPS race with a red socket.
Waist

Firearrow Belt

Legs

Both of our leg options have hit rating identical sockets and socket bonuses. The Flamewaker's Legguards are going to be the better option for most hunters, offering haste instead of mastery.

Feet

Earthen Scale Sabatons

Fingers

Trinkets

The Ancient Petrified Seed is a rep reward for being revered with the Avengers of Hyjal faction, and it is the least appealing trinkets.

From what I have read, Fluid Death has held its own against these trinkets until you hit the heroic versions. Then it falls far behind.

Melee weapon

On the stat hanger front, the Ranseur of Hatred is a better option since crit/haste is usually a better combination than crit/mastery.

Ranged weapon

Arathar is a half an ilevel higher. My guess is that Rag drops that bow.

Scope

Flinklocke's Woodchucker

For the love of all that is good and decent please let this have an animation worthy of its name.

EZ Mode

2011-06-07T17:01:00.000-04:00

So my guild is level 25 and I went up to winterspring to peek at maybe, sort of, kind of looking at the frostsaber reputation grind. How was I to know it was now a 20 day daily quest. Okay so it was 20 days and not a horrific grind of blood and tears. I've done enough stuff in this game the hard way, I feel the appropriate amount of guilt. Really. I swear.

By fire be....tamed?

2011-06-01T11:49:00.000-04:00

As per the updated 4.2 patch notes

8 new rare tamable beasts have been added, each of which provides a unique taming challenge. Will you be the first hunter to tame Deth'tilac, the rarest and most powerful of them all? Players will need to progress through the Hyjal Regrowth and Molten Front daily questing areas in order to unlock access to the full gamut of taming challenges.

I am officially going BM for my off spec now.

I may never be prepared

2011-05-31T12:16:00.000-04:00

I know the patch is coming, I just can not bring myself to get excited enough to be prepared for it this time. But do I really need to worry this time?

Is that a sigh of relief or was that a meh?

As hunters there really is not a whole lot we have to do to get ready for 4.2. There are no huge talent or ability overhauls. There are no sweeping nerfs or balance shifting buffs. Hunters will basically be the same class when the servers come back up as they were when they went down. This unusual calm in the recent patch-to-patch roller coaster ride for classes is a bit of a welcome relief for some of us who have to help fix the error of our raid companion's ways.

Don’t Stockpile Valor Points

Unless you want a 4k Justice Points. All Valor Points currently in possession are becoming Justice Points. So any Valor you have when the patch goes live will not get you a head start on ilvl 378 Valor purchases. The extra Valor isn't converting past the normal 4k cap on the PTR, so anyone whose Valor and Justice Points sum to a total over 4k will simply lose the excess points.

If previous patches are any indication this new patch will be a great time for gearing into ilvl 359 and quickly getting alts to fill in holes in raid teams.

Do Stockpile Crafting Materials

If you are looking to have the new agility BoEs made quickly. The new crafting recipes for the ilvl 365 gun and the ilvl 365 agi two-hander will require expensive materials and they will only go up in price once the patch hits. So start gathering up any mats that you will require now. The demand for materials will force existing crafted items up in price as well so you might be able to save some gold by buying your new leg armor pre patch as well.

The role of Chaos Orbs (the gun and polearm both require five) remains uncertain. Blizzard has merely said that they plan to make the orbs BoE in “a future patch” and not 4.2 specifically.

Tenacity Pet Intervenes as a Viable Raid Tactic

In 4.2 Tenacity pets will only take up to 50% of the their health as damage resulting from the use of Intervene. Why does this matter? It means that tenacity pets can successfully and repeatedly be used to soak spike tank damage, such as Chimaeron’s Double Attacks. Previously our pets would just die, but with the 50% cap, Intervenes can possibly save lives in encounters where spike melee damage on tanks is a greater concern than hunter dps. Turtle is very excited about this change. He never gets to raid.

Reason # 56735137 Why hunters are better than everyone else

2011-05-18T12:44:00.000-04:00

Data mined on the 4.2 PTR

Pft with your silly little poison sticks and balls o' fire. That's right. Rabid critters.

Best Race, For the DPS

2011-05-11T00:53:00.000-04:00

When people ask "what is the best race for a " they are really asking about racials; the bonuses each race gets and how these work with the hunter class.

It's important to note that racials are not balanced, and have never been balanced. This is not a QQ entry, its just a basic listing of the racial as they exist in the game. Keep in mind that at best these racials add maybe 1% to a dps total. Play the race you like the best for whatever reason you have. Both my hunters are at the bottom of their factions for racials and I'm always one of the top dps in my raids.

Alliance racials

Worgen have two awesome racials that make them the clear winner for Alliance hunter racials:Viciousness and Darkflight.

The 1% crit gained from Viciousness is a really nice dps gain across the board for hunters, and unlike the dwarf ability, worgen gain this regardless of what weapon they're using. Added to this killer dps gain is Darkflight, a highly handy raiding ability.

Draenei Space goats come up next on the Alliance end, with Heroic Presence and Gift of the Naaru. The heal is nice but the extra 1% hit is almost as good as the worgen's 1% crit. Plus if you end up over on hit rating you can reforge a bunch of that away.

Dwarf Gun Specialization is starting out this xpac worse than ever with a serious lack of epic PvE guns. Stoneform has the occasional use for survival but doesn't really add too much to the bottom line.

Humans have nothing really great for hunters. Every Man for Himself can be useful at times, but meh

Gnomes cannot be hunters. Thank god for small miracles.

The Night elf racial Shadowmeld doesn't really help your raid kill bosses, so about all elves have going for them is Wisp Spirit. Considering the number of night elf Legloas' out there in the game it seems somehow appropriate that elves' racial should only work after you kill them.

Horde racials

Orcs lead the horde pack brining both Blood Fury and Command to the table, a brutal combination of pure dps racials.

The 5% pet damage from Command is obviously amazing for BM hunters, since it applies to Kill Command, but keep in mind that even SV and MM pets are doing thousands of DPS these days. Add to that over a thousand attack power usable twice a fight (in conjunction with Rapid Fire) and the fact that none of their racials are dependent on a specific weapon, and orcs lead the Horde in hunter racials.

Troll Trolls, once the laughing stock of warcraft racials, now sport Berserking and Bow Specialization making them a strong choice for a horde hunter.

Goblin Both Time is Money and Rocket Jump are valuable and desirable PvE racial abilities.

The benefit of 1% haste is a bit variable; it's always good, but since the value of haste fluctuates heavily based on spec, gear and the Moon in Aries, sometimes it's great and sometimes it's just okay. Rocket Jump, like any movement-boosting ability, can be life-saving in a progression raid. Not to mention it's just cool.

And so ends the dps portion of our discusion on Horde racials.

Blood elf Blood elves have Arcane Torrent, which nets them an itsy bitsy bit of focus that technically adds an itsy bitsy bit of dps. That's about all they bring to the party.

Tauren The base health increase from Endurance can be far more useful then War Stomp stunning mobs for a boss fight.

Undead Will of the Forsaken and they just look cool.

T12 Armor

2011-05-04T11:14:00.000-04:00

Circumstances beyond my control have prevented me from having too much T11 gear but the T12 set seems to be a huge step up from day-glo murloc

It does seem to continue the grand tradition of "wtf is that coming out of your head" hunter helms. This is oddly comforting.

4.1 Hunter View

2011-05-02T10:31:00.000-04:00

I'm a little slow getting back to the party but a new patch is a good place to start

Deterrence no longer requires a melee weapon to be equipped

Explosive Trap now has a new spell effect

Master's Call now has a new spell effect

I'm always in favor of PvP survivability and shiny particle effects. But I'm an easily distracted female

Multi-Shot damage has been increased by 250%.

After seeing this perform in raids I am officially going back to a Marks spec. Decent AE damage with higher single target damage, oh I'm so there.

Tame Beast now tames pets to match the hunter's level, rather than 3 levels below.

I was fine with things before. I was also fine with how pets were when the game released so its probably best to not go by me.

Pets

The Happiness/Pet Loyalty System has been removed. Hunters will no longer have to manage Happiness for their pets, and the previous damage bonus for pets being happy will now be baseline for all tamed pets.

Bloodthirsty no longer generates Happiness.
Carrion Feeder no longer restores Happiness.
The Feed Pet ability now instantly heals 50% of the pet's health. Cannot be used in combat. Requires diet-appropriate food.
Guard Dog no longer causes Growl to generate additional Happiness

See above

Glyphs

Glyph of Mend Pet is now Glyph of Lesser Proportion, which decreases the size of the pet slightly.

Hunter Bug Fixes

Hunters will no longer automatically acquire a new target if the current target dies in the middle of a cast.

Aimed Shot and Steady Shot should no longer start casting Auto Shot on a new target when the "Stop Auto Attack" option enabled.

Auto Shot now automatically turns off until reactivated once Freezing Trap is cast on an enemy player

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Oh and thank you. I admit it I can be a bit of a button masher towards the end of some bigger trash. I've had to come up with all manner of ways of stopping auto shot.

Deterrence: The area damage of the paladin ability Hammer of the Righteous will no longer hit hunters with Deterrence active.
Distracting Shot and Multi-Shot are now properly 40-yard range.
Intervene (Tenacity pet ability) range has been increased so that the pet will properly intercept attacks.
Multi-Shot now properly has a 1-second global cooldown.
The pet action bar should no longer sometimes become locked on its own.
Scatter Shot's disorient effect should no longer sometimes be broken by the hunter's Auto Shot.
Summoned pets now start with 100 focus, up from 0

Hunter Known Issues

The exotic pet ability Burrow Attack does not have an animation for certain types of worm pets.
Pets do not initially spawn in with the correct amount of health.

Last and certainly not least; the Corded Viper Belt has had a red socket added with a +10 agility socket bonus. This catapults this leatherworker crafted item to the hunter best in slot ilvl 359 item.

Cataclysm, Tanks and You

2011-04-22T18:01:00.000-04:00

While it’s true that healers have the toughest job in Cataclysm, tanking still ranks above DPS in terms of difficulty. Tanks are expected to know new fights inside and out, and a lot more hangs on their actions than on a hunter’s. They have to balance three stat goals (mitigation, damage absorption and threat) as opposed to say just "agility 4tw" They usually coordinate CC, positioning and kill orders themselves. They have to compensate for the abundance of facerolling and ”it’s not my fault” attitudes that will always exist in the game. It’s not an easy job, tanking, so what can we do to help?

First, remember the basics:

Keep your pet under control.
Assist the tank or your designated Main Assist
MD to the tank at the beginning of every pull
Feign Death before you steal agro.
If you steal agro, it’s your fault

Working With Tanks

Establish a basis for communication with the tank. Unlike with healers, hunters and tanks actually have a lot to say to one-another and so it helps for us to be on the same page. We have to know what each other’s abilities do; for example, it really helps if a tank knows that traps can be broken, that they work on almost anything, that they can be chained, that Ice Trap is actually not the same thing as Freezing Trap, etc. Because of all this, it can be good to make sure at the start of a dungeon or raid that you and the tank understand one another.

Offer your services. A lot of tanks don’t have a full sense of what hunters can do in terms of crowd control, kiting, threat management and dispels. Instead of the huge asset that we can be, we’re more likely to be viewed as generic dps who hopefully won’t wipe the group due to incompetence.

Use Misdirect is it was intended, to give tanks an opening boost on threat. While that threat gain is nice for any pull it is particularly helpful for multi-target pulls. The less work a tank has to do hunting down stray mobs with taunts, the more threat he generates overall and the less likely he is to lose mobs later in the fight. A tank’s attention and time spent on taunts, Intervenes, Hand of Salv and the like cost him threat and mitigation. The more we can do to help tanks focus on their optimal threat/mitigation rotations and positioning, the smoother things will go for the whole group or raid.

Wait a couple seconds before you start doing damage. It’s not going to hurt your dps and it’s going to help the tank establish a solid threat lead. A decent threat lead for your tank lets you go all out when you do start dps and gives the tank enough breathing room to focus on mitigation. Waiting a couple seconds also helps the tanks overcome rng. Unlike the always hit capped hunter the tank is most likely not hitting with all their swings. If the tank and they misses all of their opening attacks any dps who did start blasting straight away will find a boss bearing down on them.

Feign before you steal agro and stay feigned until you see your threat disappear. Pulling a boss out of position is bad. Getting up and resuming dps only to discover that FD did not actually have enough time to wipe your threat is very very bad. Omen does a nice job of displaying how much threat is buffed threat and so you can predict whether the thread fading will put you ahead of the tank.

Once the tank has a solid threat lead they are not very likely to lose it. You may need to watch the threat meters closely at the start of the fight you can probably stop worrying about boss threat by the middle of the fight. This really turns out to be a big DPS boots because you no longer have to waste a precious global cool down past mid fight.

Scrubbing Bubbles

Taking the time to work with the tanks will make you raid much more successful in the long run. After all, Tanks work hard so we don't have to. Yeah okay its been a while if I want to end corny I'll end corny.

Uphill, with no shoes

2011-03-29T17:56:00.002-04:00

I’ve been playing World of Warcraft since closed beta in 2004. Many can say it but I have proof in pictures and the fact that I think it was just me and all of SoK in that push. I've purchased all versions of the games as collectors editions because I'm that much of a geek for the game. I've leveled many characters and played one of them at the hard core progression end game level. I've had many a 2s team in the arena, one season gaining the Challenger title somehow.

WoW has changed over the years. Newer players have no idea what its like to raid Blackrock Depths with 40 people. Not many remember having to to farm Scholomance over and over for that Tier 0 helm. Even fewer remember the original Tarren Mill/Southshore PvP wars. Sometimes we'd go kill the Alliance leaders just for something to do. It’s stuff people love to talk about but few who were actually there remain.

Alterac Valley matches often lasted days. You could join, fight for a while, go to work or school, come home and rejoin the same match. Before cross-server dungeons and battlegrounds your server was a community. You knew people from fighting them and competing with them. The hunter I play now was rolled to get to hang with the people I was killing in AV.

Questing has been streamlined. There are shiny arrows, turn-ins mid-quest chain and sparkly objects. It’s easy to get in a new zone and quest everywhere. Gone are the jokes of “Where is Mankrik’s wife?” Now she would have had a gigantic arrow floating over her poor lifeless body. Secret quest hubs don’t exist. When you finish a zone, you know it’s finished because the quest chains end. There is no secret Pirate Cove any longer.

The guesswork is out of the game now. Calculations are precise and accurate. There is a mathmatical “best spec” no matter how Blizzard wishes it wasn’t so.

Ranks of spells are gone. The game has a pop-up notification when you have new spells to train and new talent points to spend. You can teleport to dungeons without ever knowing where they are actually located and the dungeons have maps!

I miss some of the magic and feel of the original game. There's no real sense of server community, my dog can level to 85 in a week and there are no more surprises.

I know, I know. QQ Moar

Hunter Webcomic

2011-03-17T15:20:00.000-04:00

Finally some good webcomics! I've added The Lyiar Archives to my blog roll

Tax Season and Blogging

2011-03-12T09:44:00.000-05:00

It seems they don't mix very well. It turns out I wrote more often at the office then at home and I hadn't realized how much time had gone past since I had much to say.

Everything that could be said about the latest patch has been said by others so I'll not be going there. My guild has been raiding and I have thoughts on that. This is probably where I'll head when I can get the time to have a clear thought.

WTF? Learning from death in raids

2011-02-25T14:37:00.000-05:00

Causes of raid death are less obvious and more complex in this particular expansion. Health pools are so large that it’s usually multiple things that kill us over a longer period of time. Heals are so hyper conservative and small relative to health pools that it can sometimes be hard to say whether or not you asked too much of the healers. Wrath’s spike damage often made causes of death obvious, we didn’t have to think much about what went wrong and what we could do instead. How can we understand why we die and what we can do better in the future? How can we figure out what went wrong so that we can learn from it?

You really only need three tools to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it: a standard UI with Recount, a helpful guild and basic raid awareness. So there you are shooting, casting or poking at a boss with sticks and you die. First thing to do is check your raid frames. Why? Well you may have been out of range of any healers, or the healers near you may have been out of mana Did anyone else in your range die? Checking the usual things first leads to the quick and easy answer as to why you are kissing the floor.

If you're still clueless as to cause of death check your Combat Log. Filter the log to self to keep the details specific. The log will tell you in chronological order what hit you, what healed you and what you resisted immediately preceding your demise. The problem with the combat log is that its straight forward data. It doesn't really provide the big picture. For that you'll need Recount.

Recount has more uses then just tracking your l33t dps. It also records cc breakers, dispells, interupts, over healing, damage taken and by what. Checking recount will provide you with some perspective on what happened over the course of the fight and from that you can usually see where things went wrong. When used with simple observation (where) and your combat log (when), Recount can help fill in the who and how in cause of death.

Raw data without context lacks meaning. You must know the fight not only from your perspective but that of the other 10 or 24 people in your raid. Did the tanks swap aggro and in that same moment did you generate enough threat to have the boss spit fire at you? Did you take avoidable damage?

Death in a raid is not so much a matter of just damage but of the deficit between heals and damage. Check your healing count. It will show you how much healing you received and from who or what. (Touch the $#%%$@# Lightwell). If it appears you received no healing or sporadic healing its okay to ask why. Just don't be an ass about it or you will not have to wonder why you received no healing in the future. Asking others for insight can yield answers you may not have been able to come up with on your own.

Using careful and thoughtful elimination of possibilities to figure out why you died shoud help both you and possibly the raid avoid the problem again in the future by shedding light on it. This sould be the goal of post-death analysis: not figuring out what went wrong to place blame, but to learn about how to avoid death in the future and increase the raid’s chances for success. It’s important to make deaths instructive; it is important to not die in vain.

What have I personally learned from my many deaths and subsequent analysis?

Take some healing into your own hands. Optimized healing these days relies on all players using healthstones, lightwells, aoe ‘circle’ heals and, yes, even bandages to heal themselves.
Watch your positioning relative to healers. It’s not as simple as merely being in range of the raid healers. Most multi-target heals spread relative to their target, not the caster. You can be within range of a raid healer but if the central target of a multi-target heal is 40 yards to the other side of the healer, you’ll take no piece of it. Because of this, it helps to be within 40 yards of as many ranged raid members as possible. Also know that healers will put lightwells and healing circles where they’ll do the most good.
Avoiding damage is more important than doing damage. There aren’t many situations in Cata raids where it’s better stay in the fire one more second to finish a cast than step out of it. Requirements for avoiding damage and not over stressing healers are not forgiving in Cata. Healing is much different in and it’s hard to overstate how important avoiding damage is. All that said, you of course still want to optimize dps given that you’re getting out of fire first
Mitigating damage is more important than doing damage. Mitigation is no joke for the same reason that avoidance it is no joke. Use the damage avoidance tools your class has. Check talents, glyphs and what others in your class are doing to learn more.

Of course, these new emphases don’t change the old ones. Know the fight inside and out. Watch your threat levels. Keep your healers safe. Use CC and kiting when appropriate, etc. Some things just don’t change.

Postcards Needs You!

2011-02-15T09:17:00.000-05:00

Any budding game photographers out there? Postcards from Azeroth is taking submissions. Hope its okay that I swiped your ad Rio :)

The Dragons are l33t hunters

2011-02-15T09:01:00.000-05:00

We have the best pet...for the dps

First time out raiding

2011-02-03T15:23:00.000-05:00

My guild has finally started raiding. We've got a group of 25 people who've put in some time and effort into being ready for raids. Raiding now has 2 enrage timers, the boss timer and the healer timer. What this means is that as hunters we must:

1) know the mechanics of the fight
2) avoid taking damage
3) do as much DPS as possible within the mechanics of the fight and not taking damage.

What I learned from our first night of attempts on Magmaw is that I had to respec to Survival. The extra 2K dps helps the raid more than my pride at being a unique MM snowflake.

Magmaw is a huge AOE fight. Survival, even with the upcoming nerfs, is the king spec for AOE fights. Therfore Cheres sucked it up and has a spiffy SV spec. To help defeat Magmaw's little parasite pals I dropped two points into Point of No Escape and used Glyph of Ice Trap We also tried some pet tanking and that helped manage the parasites but we seemed to lose hunter dps on the pets.

We did not get Magmaw down but I feel comfortable enough to say it wasn't because of me. I had eventually gotten a hang of the pillars of flame, I found a way to avoid being slapped by parasites and I became a bit more comfortable with my new spec.

This week I'll have a better handle on the fight and I'll reforge my gear to better suit a SV spec. I'll be in Darnassus on Friday working on my rotation while moving and aspect swapping. and I'll work on my aspect swapping. I'm pretty sure this week I'll just bring a Sporebat pet to top the charts. Hopefully I'll be a much more efficient and productive member of the raid.

Best Hunter Pet

2011-02-03T14:32:00.000-05:00

Newest video from Warcraft Hunters Union

Wait so now you want me to stand in the what?

2011-01-27T11:49:00.001-05:00

For a long time the standard rule of raiding was "if the ground changes color MOVE". It was a nice rule, simple, easy to remember. However in the time honored tradition of tweaking the player base for their own amusement, the Blizzard developers have thrown us a loop in Cataclysm. Suddenly there are good circles, things you should be standing in.

Take a look and learn your new happy places.

Effloresence, Resto Druid

When you heal with your Swiftmend spell you also sprout a bed of healing flora underneath the target, healing all nearby friendly targets within 8 yards for 30% of the amount healed by your Swiftmend over 7 sec. Healing effectiveness diminishes for each player beyond 6 within the area.

Holy Word:Sanctuary, Holy Priest

Blesses the ground with divine light, healing all within it for 298 to 355 every 2 sec for 18 sec. Only one Sanctuary can be active at a one time.

Power Word:Barrier, Disc Priest

Summons a holy barrier on the target location that reduces all damage done to friendly targets by 30%. While within the barrier, spellcasting will not be interrupted by damage.

Healing Rain, Resto Shaman

Calls forth healing rains to blanket the area targeted by the Shaman, restoring 690 to 820health to allies in the area every 2 sec for 10 sec. Healing effectiveness diminishes for each player beyond 6 within the area.

Avoidable Damage:Its more than just fire

2011-01-26T11:20:00.000-05:00

I've had about a week or so of wicked long heroic dungeons on my priest and I'll be honest its starting to affect my confidence as a healer.

The DPS classes have to do more in this xpac to make the encounters successful, they have to be aware of what's going on. They have to avoid taking damage. If the heroics fail its really our fault, not the healer, not the tank. So what should we be doing?

Don't Stand In The Fire.

Okay, I'm done.

You think so eh?

Is this your sole definition of avoidable damage? Yes is a recurring joke but sadly many players in the game seem to think that if they do not stand in the fire/void zone/freezing circle that they are doing all they can possibly do to avoiding damage.

Its more than just moving out of fire. There are other forms of avoidable damage that people seem to think does not apply to them.

Don't stand in the fire.
This should go without being said. It is the cardinal rule of avoidable damage. If it is under you and it is doing damage move.

Avoiding Damage > Mechanics
I'm looking at you Altarius. Being upwind, good thing. Taking 100k damage to get upwind, not a good thing. Sometimes lower DPS is okay. A dead mob > damage meter epeen waggle.

Aggro is not your friend.
Pulling aggro from the tank is avoidable damage. Get Omen and actually use it. As ranged dps I won't pull aggro from a tank until I'm up over 130% of their threat. I have omen set to a100-110% warning, depending on my experience with the tank, to keep me honest. If you have an aggro dump, use it BEFORE you pull aggro.

Move before the fire is under your feet.
There are many things you can see coming such as the spikes from Earthrager Ptah and the fire spout from the Flame Warden in Halls of Origination. If you can see the damage coming before it gets to you there is no excuse for waiting until its under your feet to move.

Avoid Debuffs
Not all damage is, well, damage. Forgemaster Throngus in Grim Batol has a casting speed debuff, Asaad in Vortex Pinnacle has a root, the Crystalspawn Giant casts Quake. Pay attention to those things and avoid them by jumping or simply moving.

Move, Move, Move
Sometimes you just need to run. During the Dragha encounter in Grim Batol, if an elemental fixates on you run away. Its gets no easier to avoid damage. Do not try to get in one more shot, just move.

Encounter Mechanics
Just knowing what to expect is often enough to avoid damage. If you have never done a boss and don't want to admit it then fake a bio break and open a browser and take a quick look. Its not the same as practical experience but at least you'll have a good idea of what is about to be thrown at you.

Preventing avoidable damage in your raidtime.

Interrupts
Anything that can be interrupted is damage not taken.

Stuns
Something stunned can not do damage. It is very easy to avoid damage when something isn't doing damage.

Slows
Slowing down one of the mobs heading for the healer is a good thing. Buying the tank 10 seconds to grab aggro is a good thing.

Crowd Control
I said something wise...I should repeat it because it was wise. It is very easy to avoid damage when something isn't doing damage.

The biggest difference between good runs and bad runs is people avoiding, or not avoiding, the avoidable damage. I can tell you from my recent experiences healing that people that do not avoid damage make a healers life a living hell and basically doom a run to failure. So please, don't stand in the fire & stuff. Especially the stuff.

Attitude Problems

2011-01-25T13:18:00.003-05:00

I am sorry if this ruffles any guildie feathers but I am feeling a need to express myself and justify some of my actions. I will also be honest and up front about myself. I tend to tease some of my younger guild mates but they know I adore them and almost never refuse their requests. I would bend over backwards to help any of The Dragons, almost.

Recently someone within our guild made a statement towards another guild mate that brought out evil bitchy Cheres. I took offense to the statement and felt obligated to respond. I can be a bit, what's the word, harsh at times and despite my reputation I take no real joy in that.

What bothered me most was the elitist attitude displayed by this person. It was their nonchalant attitude about others that rubbed me all the wrong way. I know there are always outside the game issues but the problem is the fact that this persons head is a tad too large. To make things worse, this air of superiority is fueled more by association and class luck than skill.

We have all seen those elitist types who talk big but can play. They talk the talk and they walk the walk. We have a few of them in my guild. Hell I'm sure I'm perceived as one of them. But while many people might be turned off by the attitude they at least have the skills to back it up. This person is a decent player with a barley tolerable personality and is far from a must have raid member.

So where does the elitist attitude come from? They take ownership of the overall accomplishments of the team and the relative ease of the class they play and its spec. Outsiders would have no way of knowing what role this person plays or how much or little they contribute to the success of The Dragons. Being on the inside, I know exactly where this person stands and it is not nearly as high as they have fooled themselves into believing.

So why do I care? What bothers me most is how condescending this person is to their own guild mates. If this person is that forward in guild chat what are they like in tells or with pugs? What types of abuses has this person perpetrated outside of guild chat because they felt entitled and superior? The more I thought about it the more it aggravated me.

I may be an officer but I hold no real position of influence over this person. Nothing I say or do will have any major effect on that person. When I spoke up, it was because I wanted that person to realize that at least one person in the world recognized what was happening.

Sometimes in life we all need a cold splash of reality to wake us up. During this particular incident I felt an immediate reaction to hand out the attitude adjustment. It may not have been my place, but sometimes you just have to step up and say something.

If you are an asshat, I am going to call you and asshat. If you are not as good as you think you are and you are treating others like they are below you, I will call you on that too. No one messes with my guild mates, not even my guild mates.

Hunter Consumables for Cataclysm

2011-01-20T15:11:00.002-05:00

Cataclysm has brought with it some really nice changes for hunters when it comes to consumables. I used to bring elixirs to raids but those plus my pet's buff food and arrows and life as a raiding hunter got expensive

But that was then and this is now. And now is good for the raiding hunter.

Flasks!

Flask of the Winds (+300 Agility for 1 hr)
Scroll of Agility IX (+100 Agility for 30 min)

In Cataclysm all the flasks provide the base stats while elixirs provide secondary stats such as crit, haste, hit and mastery. For Hunters the agility flask means we can die like everyone else!

Scrolls count as elixirs now and won’t be overwritten by other buffs like they used to. Lets say you are on the last attempt of the night and your flask is down then using a scrolls is an inexpensive alternative to dropping a one hour flask.

Potions

Potion of the Tol’Vir (+1200 Agility for 25 sec)
Mythical Healing Potion (7.5k-12.5.k hp)

There's no need to worry about going over the haste-cap with Potion of Speed anymore! Potion of the Tol’Vir gives us a straight up agility boost for 25 seconds.

It’s always good idea to bring a health potion or two just in case. The healers are more strained in and it will be very rare to see everyone in the raid at 100% health. Its possible that during some encounters will die without some extra self-healing like a heal pot or a Healthstone.

Food

Skewered Eel (+90 Agility, +90 Stamina for 1 hr)
Fortune Cookie (+90 Useful stat, +90 Stamina for 1 hr)
Broiled Dragon Feast(+60 Useful stat, +60 Stamina for 1 hr)
Goblin Barbecue (+60 Useful stat, +60 Stamina for 1 hr)
Tender Baked Turtle (+60 Agility, +60 Stamina for 1 hr)

In Wrath of the Lich King it was not worth it for MM or SV to use the Fish Feast. In Cataclysm they decided that Fish Feasts should be the best possible thing for everyone to eat so now all the Fish Feast equivalents provide “+X of a useful stat”.

Seafood Magnifique Feast isn't on my list. For most guilds this is a rough one to get. To get the recipie your guild must complete the achivement That's A Lot of Bait. That's a lot of fishing.

Other buffs

The old scrolls & drums are not needed provided you have done your pet research and filled your stable with buffing pets.

Cataclysm, Healers and You

2011-01-10T13:42:00.000-05:00

I've been out playing my holy priest lately. I like to bring multiple choices to the table for whatever my guild might need. I have to tell you that even with a guild run that healing can be extremely difficult. I was discussing this in vent last night with some of my guild mates, one of which is a beast of a healer. Things have changed and the attitude of DPS towards healing needs to change. Here are things we as hunters need to know to make life easier for our selves, our healers and our raids.

Health Pools are Huge
Tanks are sporting 150-200k HP. Hunters are running around with 100k+ health. People are dying slower so they can be healed slower. Healers can use (re:must use) more mana-efficient spells instead of the most time-efficient ones.

What does this mean for you?

Don't expect to be at full health all of the time. The healer may just use aoe or proc heals to take care of us.
Slower heals means no heals for pets. Not that we got a ton before but now the druids aren't dropping HoTs on everything that moves. If you need your pet alive, you need to do it yourself.

Health Pool Increase ≠ Healing Output
Health Pools have increased upwards of 200%. Healers are seeing a HPS increase of about 60%. Healers are having to do more to achieve the same results than before.

What does this mean for you?

Try even harder to avoid taking damage. Being knocked down to 30k health because you were standing under a falling rock is harder to heal than it used to be. There's almost no excuse to be takin extreme damage, its easier to avoid taking damage now than in WOTLK. There are many dungeon bosses where it is possible for a hunter to take no damage at all.
Just because you may now be spending more time at reduced health it doesn’t mean that healers have become worse players. It just takes more time and often also effort to get your health up than it used to. Do not blame your healer for your inability to get out of the fire.

Efficient vs Emergency Heals

Blizzard loosened restrictions on heal timing (damage is now less spiky) but they kept healing difficult by making mana matter. The spells that heal the fastest also cost enough mana to not be sustainable for long periods of time. For example, Flash Heal, is a fast and sizable heal, but using it for all purposes will force a priest to go oom long before the fight is over. Emergency healing really is only for emergencies. The majority of a healer’s casts have to expend as little mana as possible in order for healing to be sustainable. Efficient, sustainable casting typically heals for small amounts and takes longer to perform (Heal as compared to Flash Heal). In other words, efficient healing costs in time what it gains in mana.

What does this mean for you?

Don’t expect fast heals. If a healer can heal you slowly, you should be happy because it means the healer is more likely to have enough mana to finish the fight.
Don’t expect blanket heals; the old tactic of HoTs and bubbles for everyone is no longer viable. Preemptive healing has to be cut down on because overhealing is a genuine concern.
If you’re needing and getting fast heals on a repeated basis, you’re jeopardizing the healer’s ability to finish the fight and you’re doing something wrong.
Healer mana is now a meaningful limit to fights. In most situations avoiding damage is more important than squeezing in an extra shot while in the fire. Higher dps ends the fight faster, so optimized dps given avoided damage is the goal.
Don’t always expect high hps from your healer. Considering the pressures for healing efficiency and mana conservation, hps can no longer be viewed as an accurate catch-all measure of a healer’s worth. In fact, if the members of the raid are good, the hps will be relatively low.

Healing the Unhealable: How can you help your healer?

Avoid the avoidable. This is huge and worth repeating over and over again. Any damage you don’t take is not only mana directly saved, it is also time saved in terms of cast bars and global cool downs.
Keep adds off the healer using those fancy hunter tools. Misdirect, Traps, Scatter Shot, Distracting Shot. This is all huge because of the increased amount of time that all healers have to stand still for long cast bars.
If your tank seems to be lost in some sort of AE pull haze offer to use crowd control. Crowd control dramatically reduces incoming tank and party damage per second, and it makes healing much easier. Feel free to be pushy about it.
Heal yourself when you can. This may be an alien concept to most hunters, but there are plenty of options for it: lightwells, health stones, bandages, health potions, etc., all make things easier on the healer and take very little effort to make use of.
Its okay to stand in the AE heal circle. Blue for shaman, gold for priests, green for druids. If it makes a happy sound and increases your health its a good place to stand.

Marks in Cataclysm....so far

2010-12-30T13:36:00.005-05:00

So the good news is that hunters are no longer fubar and suck massive wind. Things did get adjusted and evened out a bit at level 85.

I'm still playing a MM spec. Its not an easy spec to play and that's most of what I enjoy. It takes a certain type of insane to chose this spec, especially when SV is so far an away a dps powerhouse. BM is a more "melee" driven spec with the pet being the primary weapon and SV is a mostly magic based talent line. Marks hunters are the physical ranged dps class. We are the weapon driven class, we live and die by our bow or our gun.

Talents/Glyphs

My primary raiding/heroic MM talents are pretty much standard. I decided to stay away from the AE driven talents and focus more on increasing my single target dps. I really don't wish to have a raiding spec set designed around trash mobs.

After a bit of reading, research and testing I decided to try a little fun with my spec. I picked up silencing shot, which I think is still a must have even without the damage component. Our ability to crowd control and move casters from range sets us apart from the other physical dps classes and will come into major play in this xpac. I decided to take the suggestion of putting a point into Resistance is Futile and I have not been disappointed. Even with the low percentage rate it procs a fair amount in heroic boss fights and focus free dps is never a bad thing.

MM glyphs are pretty straight forward with just two things to consider when picking outside of the norm. If you find that you are using Silencing Shot to interrupt often, the Glyph of Silencing Shot is an outstanding choice. If you aren't going to be at the top of the list for interrupts then the glyph is worthless.

The Glyph of Chimera Shot is somewhat sticky. Its a larger and more consistent dps gain than you get with the Glyph of Kill Shot but only if you are able to use it properly. If you aren't consistently hitting your Chimera Shot a second earlier then you get no benefit at all from the glyph. I'll be honest, my rotation is nowhere near smooth enough yet that I can pick this glyph up and use it for myself. Eventually I'll get there but right now it just isn't working out for me.

Rotation

Here's where it starts getting fun. MM is a prioity rotation....with added thinking! Holy crap they're letting hunters think and make decisions for themselves, oh the humanity.

We start by putting up Hunter's Mark and be in Aspect of the Hawk, then get Serpent Sting up on the target for your first shot. This is not a rotation this is just every single boss set up. Every single time.

MM standard priority is this:

Chimera Shot

Kill Shot

Aimed Shot on procs

Arcane Shot

Steady Shot in twos

Chimera is our signature shot, our biggest damage shot. It refreshes Serpent Sting and takes priority over everything, even Kill Shot. Don't get so lost in your rotation that you don't have enough focus saved up by the time Chimera Shot is off cool down. Aimed Shot is used only when it procs as a free instant shot from Master Marksman. Arcane Shot is the focus dump shot.

I know what you're thinking. Pffft Cheres my grandmother can do this rotation who are you kidding. Well my friends this is where it gets fun.

Steady Shot is a two second cast shot that returns 9 focus. With the Improved Steady Shot when we fire two Steady Shots in a row it procs a 15 percent haste buff . You want that buff up as close to 100 percent of the time as possible. Improved Steady Shot does not proc if you have any other shot hit in between your two Steady Shots and missed shots do not count.

Break the pairs up only for Chimera Shot. If an Aimed Shot procs after firing a Steady Shot wait to fire it until you get off that second Steady Shot. Wiser minds than mine say to fire two steadies, an arcane, two more steadies, then another arcane. But there is no single set in stone rotation.

But wait. It gets better!

Marks has two talents that combine to bring buckets of damage to just the first 20 percent of its rotation. Careful Aim boosts the crit chance of Steady Shot by 60 percent while the boss is over 80 percent health.

While the boss is over 80 percent health remove Arcane Shot from your rotation. You'll be spamming tons of Steady Shots but a side bonus is that your free Aimed Shot will proc a bunch.

You should be aiming for at least four Rapid Fires every boss fight combining Readiness with Rapid Fire. Be sure to use those first two Rapid Fires in the very beginning of the fight when you're using almost nothing but Steady Shots. Rapid Fire makes your Steady Shot cast time very low so for that brief period when Steady Shot is boss you get off as many as possible.

Time your second round of Rapid Fires to coincide with Heroism / Bloodlust or a trinket proc, and hopefully for a period of the fight when you can stand still-ish. You can cast Steady Shot while moving but you get more dps if your feet are planted.

But Cheres, I could just use Aspect of the Fox! Yes you could. And I could fly to your house, punch you in the face, put you back on Hawk and fly home. You should know how to move and shoot without taking a dps loss. Don't use a crutch meant for lesser beings.

MM Stats and Gems

Agility is still our best stat. Here's a quick and dirty rundown of stat priority. It is not set in stone, its just a place for you to get started.

Agility

Hit

Crit

Mastery

Haste

Meta socket Chaotic Shadowspirit Diamond. We have been promised a fix to the gem requirements.

Red socket Delicate Inferno Ruby

Yellow socket if the bonus is 10 agility or 20 of another stat Deadly Ember Topaz

if the bonus sucks Delicate Inferno Ruby

Blue socket one for meta requirement Glinting Demonseye

if bonus is 20 agility or better Glinting Demonseye

if bonus sucks Delicate Inferno Ruby

If they don't fix that meta gem then of course fit the square pegs in the round holes as best as possible.

'Twas the Night Before Christmas

2010-12-22T23:14:00.000-05:00

Happy Holidays gamer types

Third time's the charm

2010-12-22T11:43:00.000-05:00

I've always known my guild was different. We read quest text and warcraft novels. I think we have a dozen Loremasters, myself included. The lore interests us, heck we're Metzen's personal fan club. And we like our achievements. Oh boy do we chase them down like dogs with a bone. We get nothing from them aside from our own sick, twisted, geeky need to have the boxes colored in.

This past week we took our geekdom to new and exiting heights. We are the number one guild on our server for achievement points! What does that mean? Absofrekinlutely nothing to most of the warcraft world. But to us it was some of the most silly fun we've had in the game and really great break and breather from the level cap/heroic gear dash. It was also a great indicator of those who are willing to give one for the team and those who are there only for themselves. I made mental notes if none of the other officers did.

It may not be the most important use of your game time but consider racing your other guildmates in LK heroic content. Make it a real challenge, no tanks no healers. Losers have to run The Oculus.

One Down

2010-12-16T09:51:00.001-05:00

Found and tamed Terrorpene this morning. I haven't quite found the right name for him.

No luck with the lion yet.

Ding

2010-12-14T12:24:00.000-05:00

I hit level 85 yesterday and have started the gear grind.

I am now actively ~~stalking~~, ~~camping~~, tracking two rare look pets for my stable. First is Terrorpene, a lava turtle who is joyfully immune to traps and spits fire from a distance. That should be a fun tame eh? The other is is Sambas, a stunning and badass lion. I don't actually need these pets, I just, hey I have the stable slots don't judge!

Newbie Hunter Guide, Cataclysm Style

2010-12-10T16:40:00.023-05:00

This expansion has brought more hunter races to the table. Many people are rolling new hunters to take advantage of the new combos. I've been getting quite a few questions about specs and leveling and glyphs so I figured now was as good a time as any to go down the list of things any new hunter will need.

The First Ten

You start off life with a pet and some weapons, each determined by your race. Don't get too excited about the pet, it’s more of a helper than a real partner. You have no control over it; it will hit what you hit period. Please learn now that fluffy has an aggro range like nothing you've seen before so pull safely until you are used to it. The starter pet should never be confused for a tank since it will not generate any threat until after you've started to attack. All you can do in these first few levels is get max distance and burn the mobs as fast as possible. Pull with Steady Shot and follow that up with Arcane Shot. You should be able to eek out 2 or 3 Arcane Shots before the mob is dead. Honestly if it’s not dead before it reaches you then you are not at max distance or you've pulled something far too high level to be efficient.

Leveling Specs & Glyphs

At level ten you get to start building your leveling spec. I really, really hate answering "Cheres what do you recommend I spec my hunter to level". Most hunter specs are personality driven (for good and for bad) and you really have to try them out and get a feel for what kind of hunter you are.

Here's the short answer. Beast Mastery is the fastest, easiest leveling spec by miles. Here is a lovely Spec/Glyph link for you to use.

7uyI will be honest, I have always disliked the BM spec. It just does not suit my play style or my personality. Next in ease would be a Survival Spec. This will give you really nice hunter generated DPS is still a nice learning curve spec. I spent a good deal of my hunter life as a Survival spec. I was Survival in vanilla when everyone was Marks. I think it has a good deal of fun in it and a nice survivability rate.

I went to MM full time in WOLTK and have never looked back. I love how it plays, it just suits me better. I have started an Undead Hunter (dontcha wish your hunter was hot like me) and I'm taking her down the Marks tree. I wouldn't use her spec, I've since changed my mind about how it should look, but I am here to tell you that it is highly viable to level, and level well, with a MM spec.

Your New Best Friend

Oh how we hunters love our pets! They are our defenders, our partners, our companions. They are the wind beneath our wings.

Rule #1 with a pet is feed it often. The happier it is the more damage it does. You can check what foods your pet eats on its paper doll or go to Petopia. Some pets are very picky eaters so keep that in mind when you go out to tame a new buddy.

Your pet will have one dps ability, one threat generator and one detaunt. When it gets high enough level it will also get a new special ability specific to its family. In general, you just want to your pet's dps abilities on auto-cast. Use growl (threat) when you solo and cower (detaunt) when you're in a group.

Your pet has three behaviors that affect how it attacks:

Passive Your pet will not attack anything under any circumstances. If you click on passive while your pet is attacking, it will stop attacking until it gets new orders from you.
Defensive Your pet will attack anything that you're attacking and will attack anything that damages you or the pet.
Aggressive Your pet will attack anything that gets near it. Just like a mob, it now has an aggro radius.

I play with my pet on passive and send it individually to the mobs I am attacking. I have a pet attack macro bound to my mouse button so it takes no real effort. To me defensive makes a bad tab target situation worse. Aggressive will very nicely and efficiently pull a zone, or a dungeon. Whether you both survive the pull is another matter.

One important note on pets: You will not get xp, rep or loot for anything your pet kills entirely on its own.

Pet Tanking

Your pet is your tank. Get used to that concept. When you're fighting, let your pet attack the target first! You will always want to lead off with Kill Command, which along with your pet's auto-cast Growl will help your pet establish firm aggro right off the bat. Thereafter, you assume your DPS and healing roles. Keep Mend Pet up while your fighting (it doesn't cost you anything), and take down your target with a mixture of Arcane Shot and Steady Shot.

Quest mobs rarely stay alive long enough for Serpent Sting to be worth your while; likewise, you don't want to blow the large focus cost of Kill Command on something that's almost dead -- save that focus for the next mob in line. If you're fighting an elite or a mob many levels higher than you, then Serpent Sting and reusing Kill Command are well worth your while.

Pet Threat

Your pet is your tank. Your pet is your tank. Your pet is your tank. Therefore treat it as you would treat a player tank. No wait, treat it nicer than that.

Your pet generates threat three ways: using Growl, which generates a set amount of threat; using Kill Command; and by the normal damage that the pet causes. Your pet's Growl is not a taunt. Pet growl is not a taunt. Once more with feeling. Hunter pet growl is not a taunt.

One of the keys to making sure your pet generates as much threat is possible is for you to be hit-capped. Yes, even while leveling, this is important. Your pet inherits your hit rating and through that hit rating it generates its own expertise rating. If you're at the hit cap for the mobs you're fighting, then your pet will not miss or bee dodged or parried. That can increase your pet's damage while tanking by 20% and as we just learned that increases our pet's threat by 20%

Just a suggestion from long term experience. If you are attempting a difficult mob, let the pet get off two growls and throw a kill command before you start to dps. Extra insurance never hurts.

What's the Best Pet

When it comes to leveling, you can really use any pet that you want. Since your relationship with your pet is so important, thought should go into things like, looks, animations and sounds. Wolves stop, scratch and howl. Cats stretch and roar. Worgs run funny. Warp stalkers are just, well, annoying.

All pets fall into one of three talent tree types.

Cunning pets talents and skills focus on utility and mobility making them exceptional PvP pets. But they're also a nice balance of dps and tanking which makes them lovely solo pets.
Ferocity pets talents and skills focus on increasing both pet and hunter DPS. They're highly popular raiding pets but handled properly can be very good solo pets.
Tenacity pets talents and skills focus on tanking. Tenacity pets have tanked 10 man ICC bosses. They are outstanding solo play companions

Do I need Haste?

Keep it simple for now. Agility, hit rating, stamina, attack power. Everything you are killing now should be dying in less than a minute so avoid haste. It just doesn't give you enough punch to give up another stat.

Follow me!

Real hunters are a scary bunch. We want to kill more, kill faster, kill harder. Where's the challenge, how far can I kite this mob. How many corpse runs till I can solo this raid dungeon...
We have the ability to handle big groups, slow things down, stop them and when things go horribly wrong, to fall down and play dead like a girl.

Push your hunter, I promise its fun! Kiting mobs is a blast. Before Blizzard decided our fun could be far too destructive hunters would compete to see who could kite boss mobs the longest. When an Alterac Valley match would take two days, I'd kite Korrak the Bloodrager around into enemy territory and feign death as soon as enemy mages started to AE.

Take the time to kick the tires and open it up on the highway. The hunter class will never disappoint. Have fun!

A lone hunter.....

2010-12-08T16:49:00.002-05:00

I wasn't one of those up before the sun playing the game, I wasn't even playing it at noon. I did get a few hours in and so far I'm having a good time. I decided to play my hunter solo just so I can get a feel for how things are at my own pace and not many people like to hang around while I read quest text.

So here's the deal with my thoughts on leveling my hunter. I don't enjoy leveling as BM and with the misdirection change I have no worries that my pets will have aggro issues. The healing component of Chimera Shot is just too nice for solo play to pass up. I changed my MM spec from a raid focus to a solo focus. The combo of Rapid Killing and Recuperation talents means less need to use Steady Shot for focus generation in a fast shooting environment. They should also give me the freedom to chain pull and attempt bigger pulls.

My rotation will also be different of course. So far I just use instant shots and send my pet in. Hell I don't even wait for the pet to get aggro all that often. Things die before they get to me so all is good. As the mobs get harder I will have to be a bit less lazy but that's why Blizzard invented Misdirection!

For pets I've broken out my cat again. I missed Maethor, he and I have leveled together since I tamed him way back when I was level 23 or 24. I never used another pet till I hit WOTLK and wolves became king.

Its comforting having him around. Hunters are so very odd about pets aren't we? I am bringing the turtle as backup for harder mobs and bigger pulls.

I started out leveling in Vashj'ir. The 3D aspect of the underwater zone took a bit of time to get used to but all those free, dead beasts lying around means I'm skinning capped! Booyah! I will probably stay down there and level since I'm enjoying the storyline and I have a pretty sea horse.

I'm not so worried about the gear. So far nothing's really been much of an upgrade and if this is anything like the xpacs of old my stuff should carry me easily to level 83 without any worry.

I have to say that I like leveling this version of the hunter more than my previous mana using incarnations. Its much more what I hopped the class would be like when the game first started. A lone hunter traveling Azeroth with her beloved companion taking down foes and ridding the world of evil and and stuff.

Welcome to the Machine

2010-11-28T12:23:00.004-05:00

I am not usually one to give away quests in detail but this is different. This quest just proves that Metzen and his staff are geniuses. I'll admit part of the reason to blog this is to preserve it for myself. I'm not giving it all away, just enough to give you the gist of how full of win this quest is!

It is not a follow up quest, anyone can go and pick it up at the border of Silverpine and Hillsbrad. You should go get it. Seriously. Your life will not be complete without it.

When you get there they put you straight to work. As a quest giver! This made my inner geek jump up and down inside and yell "THATS RIGHT!". You are asked to give out three quests. Your first quester arrives shortly...

Yep you read it right, its Dumbass.

Dumass says: HI! HI! HELP!

Dumass says: HI! HI! HELP!

Dumass says: HI! I'M NEW! BIG WHITE LIGHT CREATURE WITH WINGS MADE ME ALIVE! I SERVE THE BANSHEE QUEEN! YAY!
HELP!
HI!

Just admit it you know Dumass. This patch unearthed Dumbass. It turns out Dumbass is in all of our guilds.

Next on your list of quest seekers is Orkus.

Kingslayer Orkus says: I have seen the fall of the Lich King. Creations of the titans have fallen before my mighty axe. When called upon, I alone spearheaded a victory for the Argent Crusade against the beasts of Northrend. Now, I come for the ultimate challenge. What does Hillsbrad Foothills have to offer Kingslayer Orkus?

Um... Apparently there are bloodthirsty worgen running rampant in the south. Maybe you could help with them?

Kingslayer Orkus says: Bloodthirsty you say? Is there any risk of death or dismemberment to me?

None.

Kingslayer Orkus says: Then Orkus WILL DO IT! YES!

I know this guy. I used to be this guy :\

Last and by no means least, your third quest seeker....

That's right its Johnny Awesome.

Johnny Awesome says: That's all? One quest? Surely you jest. Are there not bear asses to collect? Perhaps a rare flower that I could pick from which you will make some mildly hallucinogenic tonic which you will then drink, resulting in visions of a great apocalypse? Perhaps the local populace of mildly annoying, ill-tempered gophers are acting up and need to be brought to justice? No? Nothing?

This guy and his follow up quests alone are worth the past 6 years subscription fees.

I will spoil it no further but honestly, stop whatever you are doing and take your horde character (min level 19) to the road where Hillsbrad meets Silverpine and do this quest. Now. Stop reading and go do it.

*FULL QUEST, TOTAL SPOILER*

Happy Holidays

2010-11-25T12:08:00.001-05:00

I am thankful for my expanded stable slots, scatter shot, focus over mana and my guild.

It is done

2010-11-23T13:09:00.000-05:00

So the world as we know it changed when the servers went down. I had fully intended to run around Azeroth and get some screen shots but I managed to pick up a flu bug so instead I went to sleep.

I'm more than a little sad thinking about logging into the game today. I've been playing/testing in Azeroth since the first phase of closed beta. Back then The Stockades was endgame content.

I developed altaholicism back in beta. Then I called it "testing"

Why two rogues you ask? Well because they locked down all phase one characters when they started phase two. Bastards! Why no hunters? They hadn't gone live yet.

My very first warcraft hunter and her pet. I always had a thing for the lions

But to do the old world its just tribute I leave you with these two videos.

Good night Mrs. Mankrik, wherever you are!

Turtle of Doom

2010-11-10T14:27:00.000-05:00

Now I have a tanking turtle, Bowser. He's lovely and sweet and takes a punch like no one's business. But he's not intimidating. In fact most people laugh at him. But in Cata all that will change. There is a new rare spawn turtle named Terropene who can be found in Hyjal. Oh yes, he will be mine.

Fire drips from his mouth and spouts from his smoking horn! How bad ass is that.

Have Pet, Will Travel

2010-11-04T13:12:00.006-04:00

So one of the more interesting changes to hunters has been the pet buff. For those of you that play the way less cool, non hunter classes, our pets can now provide a party/raid wide buff. Each family of pet provides a different type of buff.

Petopia has a really well done list of all the pets and all their special abilities.

Every hunter now gets to carry around 4 pets at any given time and the stable has been expanded to 25 slots. That means you can have a pet for nearly every situation plus a few just because they're pretty.

For now lets just concern ourselves with our pets in a raid situation. Here's a quick list of quality raiding buff pets that should be a part of a hunter's stable. As usual, exotic pets are only available to Beast Mastery hunters.

Ferocity Pet Buffs

Agility and Strength: Cat, spirit beast (exotic)
Burst Haste: Corehound (exotic)
5% crit: Wolf, Devilsaur (exotic)
12% armor debuff: Raptor
30% bleed damage: Hyena
Cast speed reduction: Corehound (exotic)
10% melee attack speed reduction: Tallstrider, Fox (Cata)

Cunning Pet Buffs

Health: Silithid (exotic)
12% armor debuff: Serpent
Cast speed reduction: Sporebat
4% physical damage taken: Ravager
8% spell damage taken: Dragonhawk, Wind serpent

Tenacity Pet Buffs

5% stats: Shale Spider (exotic & Cata)
12% physical damage: Bear
30% bleed damage: Rhino (exotic), Boar
4% physical damage taken: Worm (exotic)

Now its all well and good to say "okay Cheres I'll go tame a cat, a silithid and a wolf and I'll cover all the important things". Not so fast! Buffs by a pet are always inferior to buffs from a player. Why is that you ask? Because no one will heal your pet. Ever. Not even by mistake. Your pet is like a rogue, it refuses to see that its in the fire taking damage. Also like a rogue your pet will die more often than not. There is a better than good chance that the healers will heal the Druid who buffed the raid.

You need to have a working knowledge of what other classes bring to the table and work your pets in around that. Here is a list of every raid buff available to pets and the player classes that also bring them to the dance.

Agility and Strength cat, spirit beast (exotic), DK, Shaman, Warrior
Burst Haste corehound (exotic), Shaman, Mage
Health silithid (exotic); Warlock, Warrior, Priest
5% Crit wolf, devilsaur (exotic), Fury Warrior, Feral Druid, Sub Rogue, Ele shaman
5% Stats shale spider (exotic), Paladin, Druid
12% Armor Debuff serpent, raptor, Warrior, Rogue, Druid
10% Physical Damage Debuff bear, Warrior, Druid, Prot Paladin, Warlock, Blood DK
30% Bleed Damage Debuff rhino (exotic), boar, hyena, Arms Warrior, Feral Druid, Sub Rogue
30% Cast Speed Reduction sporebat, corehound (exotic), Warlock, Rogue, Arcane Mage
25% Healing Taken devilsaur (exotic), Arms & Fury Warriors Hunter, Rogue, Frost Mage, Shadow Priest
10% Melee Attack Speed Debuff tallstrider, fox, Warrior, DK, Feral Druid, Prot Paladin
4% Physical Vulnerability worm (exotic), ravager, Arms Warrior, Combat Rogue, Frost DK
8% Spell Damage Taken dragonhawk, wind serpent, Warlock, Unholy DK, Balance Druid, Assassination Rogue

Make sure you realize that three of these buffs buffs are provided only by exotic pets: burst haste (heroism/bloodlust), stamina (pw:fortitude), and 5% stats (kings/motw). To have them you will need a BM spec.

See now you say "but Cheres it takes so much work and time to go out, tame a pet, name a pet and then level it to 80!111ONE11!!." Not so much. If you are level 80 any pet you tame will become level 77 or its natural level if that is higher. Four random dungeons later your pet is level 80. There goes your excuse.

Here's a short list of pets to tame for raids so you're not out there all over the place taming everything.

Cat
Corehound
Silithid
Wolf
Shale Spider (cata)
Raptor
Bear
Hyena
Sporebat
Tallstrider or Fox
Ravager
Dragonhawk or Wind Serpent

I'm personally about halfway through the list. I'd be done but I got distracted by the need to run ZG as often as possible and the joy one can only find with an Ele shaman.

The best part of all these pets and buffs is now we're even more useful in a raid! Hot damn! Our utility is further expanded! We are even cooler than before! Take that mages and your stupid nutty crits! But you have to be in it to win it. You need to not only tame pets but prove that you know when to use them.

I'll be honest I've seen a few hunters that have not bothered to work on their pets. You can still see a raid with 3 wolves in it. Some use pets that bring absolutely nothing to the table by way of buffs. That's no different than not bringing any consumables or forgetting to gem some gear. They aren't bringing their A game to the raid. Simple as that.

Embrace more of the new you. Fill up those stable slots!

More changes in beta

2010-10-27T14:40:00.002-04:00

Courtesy of MMO Champion

Remember these are on the xpac beta, not PTR. As usual, I'm in blue italics.

Beast Mastery

Widow Venom now reduces healing by 10%, down from 25%. Its now in line with all the other healing reduction type abilities
Kill Command now deals 43% of Ranged AP + 848 damage. Up from 35% of RAP + 772 damage. That's a huge and needed buff to that shot. Its now on board with Steady and Cobra Shots.

Marksmanship

Steady Shot now scales from 2.1% of Ranged AP, down from 10 of Ranged AP. From what I understand this is how its working and the tool tip was wrong. So not a nerf but a tool tip fix.
Chimera Shot now deals 28.8% of Ranged AP + 973 damage. Up from 24% of Ranged AP + 401. Um, yay!

Survival

Explosive Shot now scales from 22% of Ranged Attack Power, up from 18%.
Black Arrow doesn't seem to scale from Ranged Attack Power anymore, or maybe Blizzard just removed the scaling value from the tooltip.

Pets

Demoralizing Screech no longer deals damage or reduces the attack power of enemies in range. Now reduces the physical damage caused by all enemies within 8 yards by 10% for 10 sec. No longer has a focus cost.
Froststorm Breath base damage reduced from 244 to 41.
Monstrous Bite now reduces healing by 10%, down from 25%.
Burrow Attack now scales from 76.8% of Ranged AP and deals 1432 damage, up from 9.6% RAP + 257. ← Hi2U sexy.

Oh come on, really?

2010-10-27T14:28:00.002-04:00

This is my Tier 11 set.

I don't even know where to start? The hat is just another in a long tradition of WTFISTHAT hunter helms. But oh my effing god it looks like a gorloc skull. Um, ew.

Lets not discuss the day-glo colors since everyone has essentially the same shades.

The rest of it is...I'm not sure what word I'm looking for to describe this. What the hell are the rocks on the shoulders supposed to represent? Uncut agility gems? I see the giant gem slot in the middle of the chest and on the boots too.

This is what I will be stuck wearing for months and months. I'm going to sit in this here corner and cry for a while.

Blizzcon and Hunters

2010-10-26T15:17:00.004-04:00

My name is Greg, I'm one of the lead designers of World of Warcraft. I'm a Libra. I like long walks on the beach, drinking gin, and nerfing paladins.

Ghostcrawler is my new hero. This is just the bit pulled out of the giant Q&A that relates only to hunters. My fabulous running commentary is in blue.

Q: When the death frost enchant first came out, I died a bit inside. We're seeing all these chance to proc on a melee attack or a spell, and I'm just wondering are hunters ever going to get a fun melee enchant, or are we going to be stuck with an upgraded version of an enchant that we've had since like patch 1.5?

A: So I have some bad news, unfortunately. For a while, you're going to be stuck. But one of the things that we're looking at going forward is sort of evaluating the scopes, because those are pretty boring right now to be frank, and we want to make the scopes cool and interesting. So if you do get one of those proc enchants coming along the line that's going to be where it comes into the game. And it will be just yours, nobody else can use it, and it'll be that cool thing.

A scope with a real use. Actually exciting

Q: OK, hunters, Aspect of the Cheetah and Aspect of the Pack -- it's been in the game for a long time now. This is somewhat of a credit to you guys, you've given all the other character classes wonderful tools where a lot of hunters now no longer feel it's necessary to have a gimp to a skill like this. We all feel it's antediluvian, you know; remove it from the game, please. That way it would add more dynamic to the hunter class. Aspect of the Pack would be used in other situations.

A:The reason why Aspect of the Cheetah and Aspect of the pack aren't like -- or that they have the daze I guess is what you're referencing -- is that if they didn't have the daze then you could just kite stuff all day long in PvE and it's also used like --

Q:you put mobs on leashes, you cannot kite stuff all day long. That is no longer true. And mobs you can kite, it's irrelevant; you could kill it anyway. Who cares?

A:I don't know, I think I'd be able to kite stuff and kill stuff solo as long as the boss doesn't hit me.

Okay first "we"? You and the mouse in your pocket? The rest of us aren't belligerent idiots. I mean good god we all know that there's good reason for the daze. Who the let this moron roll a hunter let alone ask a question?

Q: From a technical standpoint we seem to be the only ranged class in the game that has a minimum range. This seems to come into effect quite a bit in our raids where everybody in the raid -- ICC first couple of bosses -- everybody in the raid stacks up on the boss at max hit at the edge of the hitbox, except the hunter -- you stand about five feet back and die.

A: If your raid liked you more they'd save you.

You reading that guildies ! The devs blame you for my death on a spike inside cold flame because I can't get any closer to the boss and do damage.

Question: My question is just -- mages, warlocks, priests -- they're all ranged classes but they can stand directly in front of you and repeatedly use what would be a ranged attack. Why have hunters been singled out? Why are we not allowed to do the same thing with our bows or our guns? It makes no sense.

A: It's part of the overall flavor of the hunter class unfortunately, and it goes hand in hand with using ranged weapons. That said I'm very sympathetic to the reality on fights like Lord Marrowgar, and other bosses that have very large hit boxes -- which works to the advantage of melee because it lets you spread out -- but effectively it's subtracting from the viable range for hunters. That issue in particular is something that we've discussed addressing because it is intended to make life easier for you, not harder, and life would be easier for you on Marrowgar if you were smaller and that's just not how it's ideally going to work.

Q: Is there supposed to be any form of a balance for the fact that it is a negative to the way our class plays is that we must be at that range or our DPS goes to pretty much nothing once you get into melee. Is there going to be something that cancels that out and makes us a slightly more viable ranged class than somebody who doesn't have that negative.

A: At the same you can shoot while moving and a mage can't channel his spells while moving, so there's trade offs right? Or a rogue or a cat they can't do anything when they have to run around the room, and you can. So there's different classes have different strengths in different situations.

Hunters also have a lot of abilities to get our of melee range, that's why disengage was made as a jump away from your target kind of ability, to get away from the shadow priest standing on top of you. But pretty much any ranged class if a melee's on top of you, you know, you're not doing your highest damage, right.

Okay so how I read this is yes we know the hit box is HUGE. Yes we realize you get stuck way outside. No we prefer that the melee dps be happier. They didn't address situations where we have to be stacked tight inside a mob's hit box (the Lich King fight is a prime example). I mean I could melee but I'm pretty sure Arthas would wet his pants laughing at me.

Frostheim from WHU managed an interview with Ghostcrawler! Oddly its only hunter related, no dwarf questions at all. So very unlike him. But he did get some answers on a few major issues.

Postcards from Azeroth

2010-10-24T23:31:00.001-04:00

Not sure if many have seen this but this blog is pretty damn cool.

Postcards from Azeroth

They take screenshots from the game and post them up in postcard form. Take a trip over there are some really amazing ones.

I think its okay to hate me now

2010-10-21T12:06:00.000-04:00

I am now the Dinaer of the Horseman mounts. My druid got the drop her first run last night.

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful..

2010-10-19T20:46:00.000-04:00

Hate me because the Horseman dropped the reigns to his mount in my backpack!

Emo Hunter is Emo

2010-10-17T12:03:00.000-04:00

I started out this new patch very excited. I ran around taming, naming and leveling new pets. I took the pug ride on random dungeons and thought, hey this focus thing is sorta neat. I even did some of 25 man ToC and I was very happy to see that I could manage my focus bar very well. Oh it was going so well. And then it happened.

ICC 25, or the land where hunter dps goes to die. Some of it is my fault, I just cannot get past this priority shot mental block. I also seem to have lost the ability to notice when Serpent Sting is about to run out. But even more than that is the damage nerf to the class. I'd heard about it and I thought everyone was just over reacting. But damn. I cannot break 7k DPS and (no offense to my mage friends and loved ones) casters are face rolling their way to 15k.

The rational side of my brain knows that this will be adjusted. It knows that the damage meters aren't everything. It knows that I still have much to relearn about the class. But damn I wasn't even in the top 10.

Nothing to do but suck it up, retrain my brain on a priority list and wait for the changes. I guess I'll head out and listen to the Smiths while I shoot at a target dummy.

Meh. Wah. Meh

Aspect of the Hawk has landed

2010-10-12T13:55:00.000-04:00

So today is the day when the whole world changes for the Hunter class. New specs, new stables, new stats, new mechanics. Its like the first day of school without the "forgot my homework in my underwear" nightmares.

So what will I do when I get home? Probably play Starcraft II till the servers are stable. When I can log in what will I do first? That's right I will make sure my addons are up to date and functional. If Bartender is not up and running I will go back to Starcraft until it is. Yeah that's right I'm a big loser and can't play without my addons.

Okay so when my UI makes me happy I will aspect of the pack it to a hunter trainer.

Hm should probably avoid training in Stormwind or Ironforge.

Once at the trainer I will train all the new and shiny things. New stable! I'm actually highly geeked up about the new stable. I like pets and I always wished I could have more and now I can.

Next comes talents & glyphs. I think I'm mostly settled on what I will start with and then tweak it from there.

Cheres 4.0.1

I decided to take the new Silencing Shot for raid utility and I picked up Marked for Death because anything that will keep me from blowing a global cool down in a long boss fight is a good thing. My glyphs are mostly self explanatory, I'm still on the fence between the Arcane Shot and Chimera Shot glyphs and am going to punish myself accordingly for not testing it out more on the PTR when I had the chance.

I think this is a good time to take a moment to reflect on what we as hunters are losing. Ammo and Ammo bags will no longer be part of Warcraft.

I've sort of, kind of, maybe figured out what to do with my gear in a general "I have a gear stat issue" sort of way. I'm hoping to use the rest of my slacking off at work time to get a game plan for this. If I'm a good girl and get all my homework done I can go out and play with the beasts to fill up my stable!

But Cheres what about focus?!?! The whole world is different!! When do we spam Steady Shot?!?! I've heard many a comment that focus is a game breaker and "well I'll just go play my X instead". "Hunters are broken I'm going to light up the world and Recount with my other characters!"

Please do go play your X instead. You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting. Leave focus to those of us who have some.

4.0.1 Incoming

2010-10-11T09:14:00.000-04:00

Hopefully not tomorrow because

What's my spec going to be. No friggin idea for sure. I know its MM but I'm really having a hard time settling on anything specific. The target dummies are always at high health so getting a truly accurate test of DPS is only going to happen in a real raid situation.

BTW anyone wanting to go BM or SV for raiding, don't. Cobra Shot is not going to be in the game and your DPS will take a hit.

I know and am prepared for a massive drop in my DPS. Every reputable Hunter blog is mentioning this. My ego will get over it eventually, I've played the class when we were lolhunterdps. Its just sad that they felt it was important to hit us with the nerfbat to the tune of 1k dps when the other classes are seeing increases. I'm sure it will be adjusted by the time I'm raiding in the xpac.

No mana yay! But I'm still very meh about the learning curve with focus. I am bad and did not spend nearly enough time on the PTR and my raids will suffer as I try to figure out what goes where and when. I'll just find a way to blame the rogues.

No more Ammo! FRIGGIN YAY! To prepare for this I've stopped getting arrows. With no more ammo means no more quiver! YAY! I await with much excitement my shiny new 24 slot bag.

Pretty big gear change in store, no more intel, no more AP and no more ArP. I will be sporting a metric butt ton of haste since I have a butt ton of ArP and a higher crit rating. Gems change too. ArP gems will turn into crit rating gems and so I'll be way over crit cap when raid buffed. Reforging is coming so I'll be able to adjust some of my gear as well. I really should have started reworking this a while ago so now and I'll pay the price when I'm crying in my DPS spreadsheet.

I've tamed a raptor and I'll level him to 80 but otherwise I'm done with pets till the new stables arrive.

I really hope the patch isn't tomorrow.

Oh I found something funny so I'll wrap this posting up with a totally not related picture.

Pets and Raids

2010-10-09T20:36:00.001-04:00

I've managed to get quite dizzy thinking about all the pets and the raid buffs they bring. I think I may wind up spending the first week of the new patch taming and leveling a ton of pets.

Here's the short list I'm looking at:

Cat Str/Agil - Have
Wolf 5% Crit - Have
Bear - Debuffs physical damage caused
Raptor - Debuffs armor
Hyena - Increased bleed damage taken
Sporebat - Cast speed reduction
Tallstrider - Attack speed slow
Ravager - Physical damage vulnerability
Dragonhawk - Spell damage taken

I have 1 free slot and 1 yet to be purchased stable slot left. Not sure its worth it to spend the money to buy that last one or just wait.

In the meantime I guess I will take some time and pick out pets and think of their names. I mean that's just as important as anything else in 4.0.1 no?

Moments of Silence

2010-10-04T20:07:00.002-04:00

Have had a few things going on in my non gaming life that made me put gaming on the back burner. That's all ending and I'll be back to being annoyed that I never got into beta soon!

Shared Topic: The Best of Wrath

2010-09-18T14:17:00.006-04:00

The shared topic on Blog Azeroth is our favorite _____ in Wrath. I'm going to take a cue from my guild mate and expand it just a bit.

Gear:

I really do love my armor set, I think its amazingly cool and very hunterish.

There's just one small problem with it. The helm is a bird house with a horn. Why...just why.

But lets be honest, hunters don't play for the armor. We play for the weapon. I know everyone has it by now but I love my bow. Even down to the tooltip it oozes cool.

How can you not want to play the coolest class in the game after this?

Mount:

Now that San has his I can safely post my favorite. I've wanted a black drake from the moment I first saw one. Honestly when the xpac started I never expected to be in a position to get it. It did come with some guilt, I didn't realize at the time that some were going for the 100 mount achievement and that I should probably not have rolled on Bob. But destiny will not be denied and now we live happily ever after.

Dungeon:

Yes yes Gundrak is an odd choice. But seriously, Ice Trolls with god complexes what's better than that. Its a fast and flowing instance with in reach achievements. The fights require situational awareness and really for the first time in Northrend it requires some skill with your class.

Raid:

I need to say this and be highly unpopular. I really hate Ulduar, the raid and both five man instances. Don't get me wrong its all visually stunning and the lore is amazing. But the fights are so bloody hunter crappy I can hardly stand it. I just never found it to be any fun.

Naxxramas. The big daddy of "vanilla wow", the last of the 40 man raids. I didn't get far into it then and it was a disappointment. I was so pleased to see it resurected in WOTLK where it fit in perfectly. Its a nostalgia pick but hey I'm female and can pick stuff just because if I want.

Zone:

Oh I so love Grizzly Hills.

Don't get me wrong after about 10 minutes I turn the music off but the rest of it just rocks. The return of Harrison Jones, the Shade of Arugal, the bear god Ursoc and the poor, imprisoned troll Drakuru.

Its such a pretty zone, a forest in the winter. Big full pine trees, clean white snow, crisp cold waterfalls. Its like a vacation in Northrend.

Quest Chain:

Guru of Drakuru

I know its technically two chains but you just can't not do both.

Admit it, after you finish the Grizzly Hills portion you said "hey dude WTF?!?" It was so fulfilling to exact revenge in the second set of quests. Gotta love it.

This has been a really great expansion, its lived up to the hype. I could go on and on but I have a date with the PTR and some Cataclysm testing!

I now rock the Rhok (Now with Shiny Screenshots!)

2010-09-16T23:52:00.011-04:00

Tonight I rammed through the quest for Rhok'delar. Sort of anti climatic since I'm in no danger of dying to the demons. They should ramp those demons up a bit, be more fun.

But I'm happy to have it :)

In a strange added bonus, turning in my black sinew implies I somehow killed Ony at level 60...at 80...in a world where the level 60 Ony no longer exists.

The waiting is the hardest part

2010-09-16T12:09:00.000-04:00

So going on day two of the attempt to download the PTR client. Can't character copy yet but I can at least start a baby hunter and learn focus from the ground up. However the client is flipping HUGE. Hopefully it will download a buttload while I'm at work. Did I mention its huge?

PvP 101: Alterac Valley

2010-09-07T12:33:00.003-04:00

My little warlock just hit the 50s and finally aged into Alterac Valley. This is the one battleground that I find to be more fun prior to hitting 80.

The Alterac Valley battleground is physically located in the Hillsbrad Foothills at the foot of Alterac Mountains. The Frostwolf Clan is lead by the blind Shaman Drek'thar, who taught Thrall the ways of Shamanism and helped found Orgrimmar. The Stonepike Guard is lead by Vanndar Stormpike, a Mountain King. AV is the long time home of the Frostwolf Clan but also the sight of many thought to be lost dwarven artifacts. Both sides struggle to remove their opponents from the land entirely.

AV is a 40v40 battleground with level ranges 51-60, 61-70, 71-79, 80.

The game can be won in two ways: killing the enemy generals or whittling down enemy reinforcements to 0. Each side begins with 600 reinforcements, which can be reduced by achieving certain objectives.

The various reinforcement-affecting objectives are as follows:

Killing the enemy Captain takes away 100 reinforcements. Captain Balinda Stonehearth is the Alliance Captain, while Captain Galvangar serves the Horde.
Burning down an enemy bunker or tower takes away 75 reinforcements. There are four towers per side, for a total of 300 reinforcements. Additionally, burning down a bunker or tower eliminates an Alliance Marshal or Horde Warmaster respectively. These elite NPCs serve as the Generals' bodyguards and increase the Generals' total health by 25% each (for a total of 100% additional health if all four are up).
Killing an enemy player reduces enemy reinforcements on a 1:1 basis.

Capturing a mine will grant 1 reinforcement every 45 seconds per mine controlled.

AV has the most asymmetrical battleground map in the game. Both factions swear that the other has some sort of geographical advantage but I've played both sides, I see none.

Don't worry about being confused for your first few games. The map is large and can be very confusing for new players. Take some time and get to know the landscape, particularly the locations and names of key points such as graveyards and bunkers/towers. Don't worry too much if you lose your way going to a place, and it's generally a good idea to follow the crowd for the first few games just to get into the flow of things.

Most players already familiar with AV will abbreviate all objectives and tend to be massive tools when it comes to explaining what they mean. Here's a list of the more popular abbreviations.

Horde Related

Relief Hut - RH
Frostwolf Graveyard - FWGY
Tower Point - TP
Iceblood Tower - IBT or IB
Iceblood Graveyard - IBGY
Captain Galvangar - Galv
Drek'thar - Drek

Alliance Related

Stormpike Aid Station - Aid Station
Stormpike Graveyard - SPGY
Icewing Bunker - IWB
Stonehearth Graveyard - SHGY
Stonehearth Bunker - SHB
Captain Balinda Stonehearth - Bal
Vanndar Stormpike - Vann

Other abbreviations

Snowfall Graveyard - SFGY or SF
Starting points - The Cave (which spawned the term Cavedwellers)

It might seem overwhelming to have to learn so many terms and objectives, specially after the simple Warsong and Arathi maps, but it gets easy after a few games. There are many specific strategies to win Alterac Valley but there are a couple of important things to remember.

Defend what you tag
Players should never leave what they tag. Just as with Arathi Basin, where it's a bad move to leave a flag unguarded, graveyards or bunkers and towers should be defended until they are captured or destroyed. Careless defense of tagged objectives often spells the difference in close matches.

Be useful
This might seem like a no-brainer, but there are lazy players who tend to just 'soak' honor by entering Alterac Valley and not participating actively in the battle. Report players them by clicking on their 'dot' in the map and selecting 'Report Player AFK'. There are many ways for players to be useful in Alterac Valley, from defending nodes to capturing them, as well as good old-fashioned killing enemies. If you can, cap the mines.

There are many honor rewards in this battleground. The Alliance vendor for these items is Thanthaldis Snowgleam Alliance battleground entrance. The Horde vendor for these items is Jekyll Flandring outside the Horde entrance.

There are a number of quests for completing AV objectives. You can get all of these quests outside the battleground entrances, including inside the cave. These quests go a long way to helping leveling up a character.

Alterac Valley is a player's first taste of large scale PvP encounters. It takes a coordinated, concentrated effort to win efficiently but it's totally fine as a beginners to feel your way around the map as there are many opportunities to be useful. So queue up, get in there and contribute to the organized chaos!

Information Needed

2010-09-05T12:21:00.000-04:00

Putting this out there to the web at large. I am looking for a quality warlock blog, specifically one with an eye towards pvp. I'm trying clean up my lock's talent trees and I need an experienced hand.

Next WHU Event Scheduled

2010-09-01T13:21:00.006-04:00

Just when Meh was about to get the best of me!! I'll be starting up my little hunter tomorrow for sure.

WHU In-Game Event

Sat, Sept 11th — 6pm Server Time
Levels 1-30
Meet in Kharanos

If you are unfamiliar with the WHU guild, you can read how to join up on the WHU Guild Page.

Past WHU Events

Meh

2010-08-31T13:31:00.000-04:00

"So Cheres you've beaten the Lich King, what are you going to do now?" Meh I have no idea.

Usually around this time I get xpac fever. I've done all that I really wanted to do in the game, the expansion pack is far down the line and I'm semi bored. This time there are no new games that I'm really interested in visiting and outside of EQ2 I have no real interest in the old ones.

My usual playing partner has moved on to other things. My last real tie to most of my gaming life is gone. I have to figure things out by myself for the first time in a very long time.

I'm in a guild of players that I genuinely like as people. I haven't had that since Dark Age of Camelot and my guild Tuatha de Danann. Unless they all left to try something new I'd feel no need to stray to another game for the next few months.

My guildmates are going to work on the Glory of the Ulduar Raider achievement. I'm sadly not very interested in this. I don't like protodrakes and I don't really like Ulduar. To me its like AQ40 minus the useless trash, its big for the sake of being big. The fights are challenging but they're just not fun. I am a dime a dozen dps class so I don't think anyone will notice me hiding in the rafters much when the invites go out.

Some of my guild have stared Horde characters. I keep meaning to roll one over there but I'm having trouble picking a class and its not all exciting and new to me the way it is to most of them. I played horde from release through this expansion, I actually have a level 80 horde hunter. There's no real "new" feeling to it for me. But I'll wind up rolling something over there just for the social aspect.

I have started secret alts in the past, its actually how I got this hunter. I'd roll an unguided character just so that I can play at my own pace and in my own way. I like reading quests and I really like killing people. Instead of running around with no guild I'm leveling a warlock primarily through battlegrounds. It gives me the ability to play alone but still chat with everyone.

So I guess I'll just do many little projects instead of one major project and bide my time quietly till Cataclysm. Although if I get a beta invite that flash of light will be me heading to the test server.

Who needs tanks?

2010-08-20T14:07:00.000-04:00

I wish I had better jump shot skills

Gearscore is so yesterday

2010-08-18T13:04:00.001-04:00

Last night I was healing a guild ICC10 group. Someone asked about the Lich King encounter and what kind of gear score is required. I swear if it was possible I would have gone through vent and strangled him.(btw this person should be far more concerned with his dps, he was riding just above the tank)

Once more, with feeling.

The Gearscore mod is highly flawed. It doesn't track enchants, experience or the accuracy of stats on the player. All it measures is iLevel. And any Hunter who knows anything about gear knows that Darkmoon Card:Greatness is better than basically every trinket under ilvl 245, and things like Herkuml War Token are inferior to 245 and even most 226 trinkets.

Someone just pointed me to a bright and shiney new method of warcraft evaluation. Elitist Armory. Its a web based tool that is a hybrid of the Elitist Group mod and the WoW armory. Elitist Armory is everything Gearscore could be if it wasn't a lazy mod for lazy players.

For kicks, giggles and examples lets look at my Elitist Armory page. You can see a ton of information about my character. Both of my talent trees, my professions, the average item level of my gear not counting trinkets, and the accuracy of my gemming, enchants, and gear as it relates to my class and spec.

But beyond that, we get into the meat and potatoes of EA – the Raid Experience calculator. This is highly cool.

If you’ll look (at time of writing), I’m 100% experienced in ICC10 but only 89% experienced in Ruby Sanctum despite having 2 Halion kills. Why? Because EA’s Raid Experience index doesn’t just care about kills and achievements, it actually rewards repetition, rates harder encounters (LDW, PP, Sindy, etc) worth more points than lesser encounters (the whole Lower Spire on normal, etc.), and gives you a composite index as it relates to a value at which one should be expected to be 100% experienced with the instance.

Elitist Armory is unique in this experience is rewarded, not just “link achievement”. Running the instance weekly and gaining more and more intimate knowledge of the encounters builds my experience rating, until it caps at 100%, at which point I should be considered autonomous and able to work on my own in this instance.

It also has the usual “look at their gear/gems/enchants” stuff that you’d expect from an armory, experience ratings for 5-mans and older content, and a whole bevy of information to give you a REAL way to determine a raider’s aptitude, instead of just saying “oh that hunter has 5896 gs, take him”.

It’s a major step up in information analysis for current and aspiring raid leaders. Spread the word, there's a new sheriff in town.

Cata Call Pet

2010-08-16T23:56:00.000-04:00

Beta Hunter Movie Guide from BRK. Because I'm not in beta. Still.

Lich King for Dummies:Hunter Edition

2010-08-13T14:18:00.001-04:00

Okay I lied about that whole waiting to take a second shot at it. I've thought about it and with as many failed attempts as we had I figure dumb luck didn't kill the Lich King

First phase is pretty simple, at its core its just a tank and spank fight. Hunters have three jobs during this phase.

DPS the Lich King
Use both your Rapid Fires in this phase. If you have no Shaman blow them at the very start. The plan is to get out of this phase as quickly as possible so you have more time to take some care with the other messier phases.

Move to the trash when you get Necrotic Plague
Sort of self explanatory. Run to the off tank and disengage back. Do not try to squeak out another steady shot. Just move.

Tranq shot the Enraged Horrors.
Tranq shotting the Shambling Horror enrages is important. They only enrage for a short time but two enraged Shambling Horrors at once can be a bit taxing on the healers. It requires a fast reaction time doing it manually will just not work.

There are two macro options: the icky way and the mouseover way.

The icky tranq macro lets you just push a button to automatically target the Shambling Horror, fire your tranq shot and instantly pop back to the Lich King. But Cheres that's so easy peasy, we will use that! Um no. The danger is if there are multiple Shambling Horrors up, it may not target the one that's actually enraged, in which case the enrage doesn't get dispelled. Its a bad macro but here it is anyone if you don't quite believe me.

#showtooltip Tranquilizing Shot
/tar shambling
/cast Tranquilizing Shot
/targetlasttarget

The correct way is to use a mouseover macro. With a mouseover you just have to hover your mouse over the correct Shambling Horror and push your macro button. This will fire just the tranq at the correct horror and let you continue to dps the Lich King.

#showtooltip Tranquilizing Shot
/cast [target=mouseover, exists] Tranquilizing Shot

At 70% health you hit the second phase. Second phase is also pretty straight forward. Run to the edge of the platform very fast. Do not try to get in another steady shot. At the edge you will be dps'g down Enraged Spirits, copies of you or your raidmates bound and determined to kill everyone. (zomg angry trees!) You should be able to use Misdirection on every other Enraged Spirit to help out your tank. You don't want those things floating all over the place.

Since we have so many insta attacks, hunters are often assigned the job of killing the Ice Spheres. Its a mostly easy job they are squishy so they die quickly. You should be able to alternate dps between the Ice Spheres and the Enraged Spirits.

Very important tip
Don't disengage off the platform. Its just like Nexus, if you fall off you die. Don't roll your eyes at me. You know you've disengaged to your death at least once during that run. Just wait for a Mage to blink and fall off the side and feel superior.

After 60 seconds of this we hit Phase 3. Which is called Phase 2 by the mods. Why? I have no idea but its sort of stupid and someone should be fired.

This is the meat of the Lich King fight, where you get to meet Defile, the horrible darkness that spawned the Old Gods. Defile is the capo di tutti capi of void zones.

This is the most difficult phase of the encounter, and the most unforgiving. One person making the wrong mistake can easily kill the raid, so pay attention and react quickly. You'll start the phase by finishing off any remaining Enraged Raging Spirits and then position yourself for the Valkyr and Defiles.

Defile from a Hunter POV
We're a ranged class, which makes Defile a little easier for us since already out of the way of melee and probably most other ranged classes. If Defile is coming before the val'kyr, stay at range, don't run to the center when you're just going to have to run back out.

When you get those tight situations where Defile will happen just seconds after the valkyr, disengage out the instant the val'kyr pick their targets and before Defile goes off.

Once you are chosen as the target of Defile, do not use Disengage. The game does not track your movement when you're in the air. This means if you're targeted for Defile and you disengage out, there's a good chance the Defile will drop where you started your Disengage. Do not use Disengage to get out of a Defile dropped by the person next to you. You'll still be taking damage and buffing the Defile while you're in the air. I made this mistake once and managed to cover the entire platform with Defile. Its not pretty.

Val'kyr from a Hunter POV
As the only ranged class that cannot effectively attack from melee, hunters are pretty screwed with the val'kyr. Remember that you can stay just outside of melee range until the last second and then run in those last 5 yards. Also keep in mind that Volley will do more damage to the Lich King than your melee attacks.

Use your next couple of Rapid Fires for the Val'kyr.

If your raid is struggling on the Valkyr, you might want to grab two ranks of Concussive Barrage for an extra slow. It doesn't count as a stun so it won't affect diminishing returns on that front. Don't bother with Improved Concussive Shot, its not really worth any dps loss.

You can also bring a ravager pet to have the occasional extra stun for the Val'kyr. I didn't. Honestly if you have a rogue, some paladins and/or a feral druid you don't need to change out your pet.

Once the Lich King is brought down to about 40% health, he'll run to the center again and start channeling Remorseless Winter. Run to the edge of the platform at this and get ready to hop to the outer edge when it reforms.

This second transition phase is pretty much like the first. It lasts 60 seconds. You have to deal with the Ice Spheres and Enraged Spirits Set up your MD rotation, use your next set of Rapid Fires and get the spirits down as fast as possible.

The dps team is on the ball and you'll only be dragging one Enraged Spirit into the next phase, but it's very possible you'll have two of them. At the end of the 60 seconds you need to run in as, again, the outer edge of the platform falls away.

Next phase (phase 3, phase 2 3/4, second defile phase, stupid numbering system phase) is similar to the first defile phase sans the Val'kyr (yay...or no yay). Make sure all Enraged Spirits are dead.

Incoming we have Vile Spirits (very appropriately named). They have more health than you'd expect and hunters aren't great at burning them down as a big bunch since our Volley doesn't hit them way up in the air. However, kiting them around and killing them as single target is something we do very well. Do not Multi Shot, you will die.

The important thing here is to make sure that they never reach the melee cluster. If you see some heading that way, use Distracting Shot and any other shots possible to pull them away. A Vile Spirit exploding on the melee cluster is bad, but several of them exploding is a wipe. The sad reality is that your dying to keep them away from the melee might just save the raid from a wipe. Just hope there is a battle rez still left for you. Oh and Deterrence will not prevent Vile Spirit damage to you. That's right 100% chance to avoid bupkis.

Whether or not you're on Vile Spirit duty, you want to maintain as much dps on the Lich King as possible. Always dps him from range, so that when you get Defile it's easy to go dump it someplace safe. Do not use Disengage for anything to do with Defile.

It is possible that sometime during this phase you will get pulled into Frostmourne's room. If so, you have only two jobs:

DPS the Spirit Warden.
Interrupt the channeled Soul Rip.

Save a Rapid Fire in case you get pulled into the room , it just makes it all go faster. If you don't get pulled in, use it when the Lich King gets down to 15% to help push him over the edge.

They key to killing the Spirit Warden is to interrupt the Soul Rip. If you are MM use Silencing Shot. You will have to remove Silencing Shot from any of your macros that tie it in with other shots. If you are BM, you can use Intimidation to interrupt the channel. If you are SV, then you will need to bring along a pet that can do the interrupting for you.

Once you have pushed the Lich King down to 10%, the he kills you all. You and your little dog, too. This is the WTF panic phase. Don't be a noob and release.

The last phase is the IWin phase. Terenas Menethil brings you back from the dead (you but not your pet, stupid programmers) and you can dps the last 10% free of consequence.

There is some role play and a spiffy cinematic at the end of the fight. Don't be a dweeb and think you're too cool to watch some girlie lore stuff. You aren't.

This fight is not really about topping the meters (though you should always try to do so), it's about killing the boss. Despite the many aspects of this fight that are very unfriendly to hunters (shocking an unfriendly hunter encounter! /emo) we add fill many important roles: Tranq shot, Misdirects, Icy Sphere management, excellent movement tools that make the fight easier for the whole raid.

Hey there Arthas, all your base are belonging to us.

Dragons Scavenger Hunt Rules

2010-08-10T20:52:00.007-04:00

Quests must be done by the entire group. You may split up to collect items but you must all be present at both collection and turn in of your task at each checkpoint.

You may not communicate with other groups.

You may not use a 2nd account.

All quests must be completed to progress

Certain class abilities are banned as it is impossible to balance teams around them:
Mage Portals
Warlock Summons
Paladin Crusader Aura
Hunter Aspect of the Pack/Cheetah
Astral Recall or items of similar effect

Flying mounts can be used in zones that permit them.

You may use the internet to help complete quests

Hint - A pen and paper is probably a good idea to have handy and you will need some bag space, so come prepared

Once in your groups and away, please nominate a group leader to hand in any quest items/be vocal for the group

You must turn Cartographer, Carbonite and any other guild tracking map mods off for the duration of the event.

Last but not least

2010-08-10T12:36:00.001-04:00

Well the rest of my guildmates have blog entries on our Lich King kill in one way or another. I don't have much to say strat wise on the fight just yet. I'd rather get it done right twice before I spew out something that may have just been an accident on my part.

It is a fun fight to me, worthy of a foe of his stature. I look forward to getting a new shot at him again sometime. I'd actually love a chance to heal it.

Ending Huntardism in our lifetime

2010-08-10T00:50:00.001-04:00

The term "huntard" originated in vanilla WoW when all of the gold farmers were hunters. They leveled in instances and showed little to no real understanding of how to play the class in a group situation. Use of the term has died down a bit but it still exists. Sometimes these bad players are just teenagers with the attention span of a gnat. Other times they're lard eating, white trash, Legolas wannabes.

The classic huntard behaviors don't afflict only those with questionable intelligence. It often infects newer players who just honestly doesn't know any better. They've received some some crazy and foolish advice and not knowing any better have done their best to follow it. All is not lost, 90% of huntardism cases are curable.

A mistake here and there isn't an indication that someone is suffering from huntardism. That is part of what makes this disease so difficult to diagnose. It's only when we see a pattern of stupidity that we are able to diagnose the condition.

While there are a limited number of ways or styles of playing a hunter correctly, the huntard can find infinite ways to just plain do it wrong. The classic huntard warning signs include, but are not limited to, the following:

pet running off and pulling random groups of mobs
pet sitting by the hunter's side, unused
doesn't even have a pet
hunter insisting on pulling groups on his or her own, typically without consulting the tank
standing in void zones, usually followed by cursing the healer for his or her death
posting damage meters
jumping off ledges of all kinds while ignoring the pet pathing ramifications
untrained skills
at level 80 has not spent talents down to the bottom of any tree
bonus points for a tri-spec hybrid
gemmed for strength or spell power
name is a variant of Legolas

If you suspect a friend or loved one is a huntard you need to talk to him about his problem. It is not helping him, or anyone else, to let this disease run unchecked. But the way you go about telling him is very important. You must be non-confrontational and create a safe, loving atmosphere.

This is where so many people with good intentions miss the mark. They see someone exhibiting huntard symptoms and, in an awkward attempt to cure them, shout that they are a huntard, a dumbass, a noob, or that they suck. Huntardism is a disease of the mind, and it reacts negatively to these kinds of direct confrontational approaches. In extreme cases, it can even aggravate the huntard symptoms and cause an outbreak of dormant ones.

When doing a huntard intervention take the following steps:

Never confront a huntard by assuming that he's knowingly doing something stupid. Always ask him first why he is doing a certain thing. Every now and then, there will be a reason. Please note that I said a reason, not a good reason. Maybe those strength gems are because he lost a bet. His reason will give you'll get a unique peek at the crazy going on in his brain. By understanding the thought process you can better understand how to help get him back on track.

Once you know why the huntard is doing the strange things he does and you've confirmed that there is no good reason, explain to him the correct way to do whatever he's doing. It's important at this stage to keep things as simple as possible. Do not try to explain a lot of different alternatives and do not try to expand into other areas where he probably needs help. Stick to one problem at a time. Explain what's wrong with the way he is doing it, and explain how this other way works better. If there are multiple better ways, just pick the simplest one and get him started on that.

If you've done your job well you now have the trust of this young, impressionable huntard. He's probably experienced a lot of people yelling at him and calling him a noob, but you were different. You took the time to talk to him, you asked him questions and found out what he was doing and why, and then you patiently explained a better way. The final step here is to direct this player to your favorite hunter resource site on the web. This is the "teaching a man to fish" stage. Most likely you don't have time to teach him everything there is to know about being a hunter. Instead steer him to somewhere he can do his own reading and his own learning at his own pace. Just be sure you're directing him to someplace kind to the unlearned. Never ever send a newly recovering huntard to Elitist Jerks.

Not every intervention will work, and not every huntard is ready to change. But with time and patience we can look forward to the day when this disease has been wiped out and is nothing but a footnote in the medical journals.

If you're bored

2010-08-01T18:37:00.007-04:00

Courtesy of sorry caps

Post yours in a comment or in your own blog.

1. Raider, farmer, PvPer, or altoholic?
In order of love, PvPer, raider, altoholic

2. Favorite raid or dungeon?
Shadowfang Keep for dungeons. Ruby Sanctum for raid

3. Number one choice for a new playable race?
Murloc

4. Class you suck the most at?
I'm the worst mage ~~ever~~ evah

5. Original UI or modded UI?
Modded

6. Profession you've never levelled past 200?
Enchanting

7. Favorite flying mount?
Black Drake

8. Nozdormu -- friend or foe, you figure?
Foe

9. Useless item you have in your bank that you'll never get rid of?
Epic staff
Both priests

10. Most expensive thing you've ever bought?
Epic flying on my druid.

11. Favorite starting area?
Undead

12. Inane goal you worked hardest to achieve?
Exalted faction with the Stormpike Guard before crossrealm battlegrounds, when you had to loot bodies and turn items in for faction and the games lasted hours at a time. On 2 characters.

13. Darion Mograine VS Tirion Fordring, gloves off -- winner is?
Mograine. Fordring has proven himself to be useless

14. Game music or your own playlist?
Playlist

15. Particular option or setting that you always toggle on a new alt/server?
Turn off cloaks

16. Highest amount of levels gained in one play session?
10

17. Thing you'd most like to experience or see in-game?
Killing the Lich King

18. Worst PuG moment?
Fury warrior tanking.

19. Best dungeon/raid moment?
First kill of Nefarian

20. Worst quest ever that you totally hate doing?
Goretusk Liver Pie The pigs have no livers

21. First thing you do when you hit 80?
Fix my spec

22. Character (of yours) you would RP as if you had to?
Urf. My lock I guess

23. Keyboard, mouse, or both for using abilities?
Both

24. Thottbot or WoWhead?
WoWhead

25. Acronym you've seen in chat but don't understand?
Don't think I've seen one lately I didn't understand. That's sad.

26. Plot point you'd like to see resolved someday?
Where'd Mal'Ganis run off to? I mean Arthas was going to follow him to the ends of the earth and then....bupkis. And don't give me that "we dealt with him in WC3" nonsense either

27. Biggest thing you're looking forward to in Cataclysm?
Gilneas

28. Guild event you'd like to see?
I'd like to see my guild kill Helion in 25 man

29. Level range you hate being in?
58-62. Hellfire makes me sick

30. Favorite map to quest in?
Silverpine Forest

Its not about teh sword, part II

2010-07-29T15:13:00.034-04:00

We recently lost a player in our guild due to the concept that there is no gear check for our raids. Now my guild leader has shouted from the rooftops that gear shouldn't be a deciding factor in our raids. He's completely right about that. There is a mage on our server with a 6k gear score that can't find his ass with a map and a flashlight. The guild Undergeared is running ICC in blues. How is this at all possible? Can something besides gear really matter? Fire and brimstone coming down from the sky! Rivers and seas boiling! Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!

Most every time that someone is out dps'd by someone in the same class the response is, "But they have better gear!" When was the last time you heard "oh they must be a better player"? Lets face it we all think we're highly skilled players. No one likes to admit that maybe we could stand to learn a few things or fix a few things. We're uber damnit!

The Unimportance of Gear

How much better does dps get with each full tier of upgrades? The easiest way to answer this is to use Zeherah's DPS analyzer This is not about predicting actual dps numbers its just about analysis. Where it says that an upgrade will give you a 20% increase, you'll usually see that 20% increase.

DPS by item level (Raid buffed)

Item Level	DPS
Blues	6,013
213	6,813
226	8,334
245	9,268
264	10,869

This shows us that going from the worst level 80 gear to the best level 80 gear is not going to double your dps. Each full tier of gear is giving around a 12% - 20% upgrade. This means that if you're doing 6k dps in mostly ilvl 245 gear, you can expect to do around 7k in mostly ilvl 264 gear.

Now something to remember, the better your skill is, the more dps you'll get out of your gear. Two hunters will not necessarily see the same dps increase from getting Deathbringer's Will. The better player will get substantially more out of the same gear.

Average

Everything in WoW is an extreme You're either a skilled hunter or a useless huntard. There is a middle ground, the line that separates the two; competence. I think most people, hunters and non hunters alike, confuse hunter competence with hunter skill.

The majority of hunters are competent. They have a good build, good glyphs, the right epic gems & enchants, a good pet with a good spec, and know their shot priority. They have some basic macros and understand the mechanics of the game.

In other words these hunters spend a couple hours on the web, find a reliable source of hunter information, read and understand it, and then copied all that information onto their character. They can probably pull about 6-7k dps in the 25 man ICC Lower Spire bosses. Upgrading gear a full tier will net the competent hunter about 900ish dps.

All of this does not make a skilled hunter, just a competent one.

Everybody got to elevate from the norm

There are no stand still and shoot fights in ICC, or in RS. There are very few fights where you shoot at only one boss. For the competent hunter moving around and target swapping will lower their hunter's dps, especially with Marks.   Movement should never interrupt the timing of your shots -- every 1.5 seconds another should be going off.

Here are the key skills that separate a skilled hunter from a competent one:

Jump-Shot: The quintessential hunter skill that lets us shoot any instant shot on the move, regardless of our orientation. Jump shot lets you hit things in front of you, beside you or behind you.

Disengage: This is an under utilized hunter ability in raids. Disengage lets you cover a good distance fast, and you can shoot while disengaging. With a bit of practice, you can Disengage in the direction you're running with a jump-disengage. It's harder to learn but well worth the effort.

Shoot and Scoot: This has been a movement trick of hunters since vanilla. The concept is when you're moving you stop for a fraction of a second any time your auto shot is available so that you don't lose auto shots while moving. I use an add-on to track the auto-shot timer, some people can use the sound of their weapons.

Understanding Boss Fights: One of the most important aspects, along side movement management. Most boss fight elements are predictable and can be planned for, and understanding and thinking about how to maximize abilities on a boss fight is key to maximizing dps. This includes knowing the best time to burn cooldowns, knowing what abilities not to waste on adds, having shots ready on stand-by, and maximizing multi-target dps.

A skilled hunter is intimately familiar with the hunter class and has practiced skills like jump-shot, shoot & scoot, and disengage as well as truly studied the boss fights with an eye to dps optimization. They are probably pulling 8k+ on ICC Lower Spire bosses in the same gear as a competent hunter. Upgrading their gear a full tier will net a gain of about 1,200 dps.   More than that of the simply competent hunter.

Which am I? I'll toot my horn, I am an above average hunter. I think I could work harder to be better. There is one hunter in my guild who is far better than I am (his name rhymes with Worfin).    His skill is not held back by his gear. He doesn't play much these days and that's a pity because he makes me work harder at being better. I have a sneaking suspicion that I do the same for him

Skill vs. Gear

Gear is simply a measure of dps potential while skill is the ability to reach that potential. In a world of mediocrity we associate poor performance with a failing of gear, rather than a failing of ability. You can do ToC in all blues. You can beat Festergut's dps check in Ulduar gear. Skill is more important than gear. Concentration, situational awareness, and the condition of your lucky raid underoos will contribute more to your overall dps than a few pieces of upgraded gear.

So if you are having trouble killing Rotgut or Helion look in the mirror. Its about you and your skills, its not about your epix.

Icecrown Gunship Battle: Now In Real Life!

2010-07-28T21:13:00.000-04:00

Best.video.ever

On your marks...get set...Go!

2010-07-27T15:04:00.004-04:00

Many Marks Hunters don’t know how to properly engineer the first few moments of a raid encounter. I'll be honest I fall down on the job many times. Its a lot to remember, its a lot to execute. But the more you work it the easier it gets.

First thing is first, communication in your raid. You need to be aware of when your tank intends to pull. Its also important to know when they plan on burning Heroism/Bloodlust. Nothing is more depressing then hitting Rapid Fire and then hearing that sound...the sound of arggggggggghhhhhhhhhh I just wasted a cool down.

Before the pull begins, you should have your Hunter’s Mark up. Wait to put it up for as long as possible because in a short encounter you don't want to waste a global cool down throwing it back up. If it’s a longer encounter, you’ll need another – find a situation where you can sacrifice a Steady to renew it, or even better, find a situation where you can't DPS like right before Putricide’s Tear Gas and do it then. Also remember if someone in your raid has Imp Mark you no markie.

Okay back to the start of the fight discussion. You’ve marked your target and you’re ready to go. Fire off Misdirection on the tank who is pulling. This puts you on the clock and you must pull in the next 30 seconds or you’re gonna have insane aggro problems. I get very nervous about it and pop my MD after the tank has pulled. Not wise but I have timing issues. When your tank begins their usual count-in to a pull, get your Speed potion ready. You absolutely must make sure you pop this before combat starts. If done properly your potion cooldown will still be ticking even though combat is engaged. This is known as pre-potting. Remember that it is worth it to sacrifice a second or two of pre-potted time by using the potion early than lose your second potion by popping it too late. Learn your tanks styles and mannerisms and learn the encounters to know if there’s RP before the encounter that basically gives you a cue. The start of the Jaraxxus fight in ToC is a good example of pre fight RP

Combat has now engaged. The first damage action you take is to put Serpent Sting on the mob. All supporting buffs are will not be up yet, but do it anyway because you’ll be refreshing this sting. About a half-second before the GCD ends, blow your cooldowns. Call of the Wild, Rapid Fire, everything. Remember that these next 10 to 12 seconds are being buffed by your pre-pot so you want to maximize it.

With cooldowns running, your GCD has now come up so fire Chimera Shot. You've already started your Misdirection with your Auto that fired due to Serpent, but you’ll get this Chimera and the immediately-following Aimed in before MD expires. You’ve now been in combat for 4 or 5 seconds so on your next global cool down fire a new Serpent Sting. Why? Because your DKs, Moonkin, or Warlocks should have applied their 3% magical damage increase (Ebon Plaguebringer, Earth and Moon, or Curse of Elements). You need that 13% boost to Serpent Sting, and you want to fire it now while you’re still in your pre-pot.

The timer is at six seconds so go ahead and get off three Steady Shots. That puts us at 10.5 seconds. Wait for Chimera and Aimed Shot to come off of cool down, then fire them as they do. Do not try to squeeze in a fourth Steady it’s better to wait for a Chimera and Aimed pair than to push them back for a Steady Shot. Assuming you’re hitting your GCDs properly you’re going to be at around 14.5 seconds and Rapid Fire should be fading within the next second. The next GCD after your Aimed Shot all of your big damage abilities will be on cool down so hit Readiness.

16 seconds in the fight and everything you need is online again. Pop Rapid Fire as soon as you notice the buff fade. Then start your rotation again Chimera, Aimed, and 4 Steady Shots. Your pre-pot will end right about the time you hit Readiness and by then you’ve gotten its value – either a handful more Auto Shots, faster Steadies and ridiculously high crit-rate Serpent Sting ticking on the target that will be maintained with Chimera Shot through the end of the fight.

Three minutes later, your Rapid Fire and Readiness are going to come off cool down so rinse and repeat. No doubt this is a lot to remember but practicing on a target dummy and keeping a little note by your monitor helps. Marks is a tricky spec and it takes some attention and care to play it to its full potential. Do your raid a favor and put in the time to get it right.

Math Geeks Rhok

2010-07-23T02:03:00.013-04:00

Math is life for Marks Hunters and there is no getting away from that. People ask me "what gem should I use in this new pair of pants" and I can't possibly answer that on the fly. Its not as easy as it once was back in the days of SV. Now you have to take the time to figure out what is best for you based on your current spec, gear and rotation.

The be all end all hunter analyzer has always been Shandara's Spreadsheet. But what if you have a Mac or don’t have Excel 2007 or 2010. However will you handle your hunter math?

Well you will use Zeherah’s Hunter Calculator at http://www.femaledwarf.com. What is the Calculator and why use it? Because it is the Spreadsheet, in an online format. Zeherah and Shandara work closely together and any updates from the Spreadsheet are almost always on the Calculator the same day.

When you first visit, you’ll see a button in the upper left that says Armory Import. This will let you upload all your information – talents, glyphs, gear, enchants, gems, pet talents – from the WoW Armory.

Once that happens, all your information is loaded into the Calculator for tweaking. Your shot "rotation" is as important as your gear. So next set up your shot priority. Here’s mine:

Basically works how it says on the box – higher priority abilities are fired first, lower priority abilities are fired later if they’re not ready. Serpent Sting is always first if you’re Marks!

The next step is raid buffs and debuffs – remember that these can swing the tide of a Hunter’s DPS more than anything else! Things like Judgment of Wisdom or Mangle can be worth several hundred DPS on their own. Go to the Buffs and Debuffs tab and carefully fill in only the buffs and debuffs that you know are present in your normal raid composition.

I changed my latency to 90ms since that's in the ballpark of what I average in raids, use what works better for you. Make sure that Don’t Emulate Known Bugs is UNCHECKED so the the calculator will use things like +Crit or +Damage% buffs on Serpent Sting using Chimera. You can also turn on Display Debug Data , to get a more in-depth list of what happens in the simulated fight than normal. I like to use it, you don’t have to.

Now you're ready to hit Update DPS. Oh the excitement!!

There are a lot of things to see here – your DPS, your DPS-Stat equivalencies, your overall stats calculated mid-combat...admit it you're geeked out too.

Now, let’s say that you want to change some gear and gem it. Maybe you're like me and you're hoping to get the T10 chest if the stupid ever loving trophy would drop.

Make the change, scroll down and hit Update DPS. Oh I can hardly stand the wait!

Lookie there a 150dps increase by upgrading to the T10 chest piece and swapping Agil for ArP. I'm going to sit here in the corner and have an emo fest.

There you have it, the power of math through Zeherah’s Hunter Calculator. All the functionality of Shandara’s Spreadsheet, but in a usable form for Mac users, people without Excel, or people who can’t stand the spreadsheet’s layout.

Math is life for Marks Hunters. Embrace your geek.

PvP: 101 Arathi Basin

2010-07-20T14:41:00.011-04:00

The Arathi Basin battleground is physically located in the Arathi Highlands at Refugee Point for the Alliance and behind Hammerfall for the Horde. The Forsaken Defilers and the League of Arathor have set up camps to wage war over the natural resources contained in the basin.

AB is at its heart "he who has the most toys wins" game, its a resource accumulation battleground. The goal is to gather 1600 resource points with the first team to reach that number winning the match and ending the game. There are five resource nodes which can be controlled by capturing the associated, nearby flag. The nodes are, The farm, the Lumber Mill, The Blacksmith, The Mine and The Stables. The more nodes you control the faster you earn resources.

All nodes start out in a neutral state, with no owners. Once a flag is tagged, teams must protect it for one minute until it comes under their control.

After the flag at a node has been captured it will officially belong to that team. You must defend your node because the other team will try to activate the flag and throw the node into a conflict status. You then have one minute to reclaim your flag before the other team gains control.

A node in conflict will provide no resources to either team, and players will no longer be able to rez at that node’s graveyard.

AB is a 15v15 battleground with level ranges 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70-79, 80. Again communication is key.

This is an even larger map than WSG and will take longer for your teammates to come help you. Be sure to be clear about what node you are at, try to give a number of attackers and give your teammates enough notice to get there before the evildoers snag your node.

The skinny on those flags at the nodes.

The action for capturing a flag is identical to opening a chest
It is an 8 second channel to capture a flag
Like any channeled ability in PvP, you can be interrupted by just about anything.
Invulnerability buff effects prevent a player from capturing a flag.
Whenever anyone tags a flag it announces it to the whole battleground.
All captures, assaults and defenses are also announced to the whole battleground.

One of the best pieces of advice I can give to new players is to always fight near a flag, never on the road. Fighting on the road achieves nothing except to leave your flag unguarded. Making sure a flag is never left alone and is of primary importance. Blizzard has added an incentive to players to protect the flag with the Honorable Defender buff. This increases the honor gained from killing enemy players by 50% as long as you're within reasonable range of the flag.

It's always ill-advised to leave a node unguarded, resist the urge to go where the fighting is. Sometimes a player's worst enemy in Arathi Basin can be boredom, which can strike the defenders. Decide for yourself which matters most, winning or your honorable kill total.

Having more nodes is better. While controlling three nodes is a slow and steady way to win the game, there's always the danger of losing a node and having the tide turn. If its safe then go try to get another node. But take care of spreading your defenses too thin, especially if you are in a pug.

There are some spiffy honor awards to come from the AB quartermaster. The Alliance vendor for these items is Samuel Hawke Alliance battleground entrance. The Horde vendor for these items is Rutherford Twing outside the Horde entrance.

There are a number of quests involving fighting in Arathi Basin, some of which need reputation with the battleground faction. You can get them from one of the NPCs near the battleground entrances.
The first quest will usually be The Battle for Arathi Basin.

Arathi Basin is a fun, fast-paced game that, if you play it right, might even end up with very little PvP at all. Even at level 80 its a good starter battleground for the newbie to PvP.

Beta Hunter Talents - Yawn

2010-07-16T15:25:00.003-04:00

Well I've looked and I've peeked and I've whined that I'm still not in beta to test. So I guess its time to chime in on the new talent system. I'm not very inspired but its early in beta yet.

First the fun news...all Hunters will get Scatter Shot That's a nice little perk. Thanks Blizz.

So the thing that hit me smack in the face was that we've lost Mortal Shots and Lethal Shots. Almost every spec setup in the game now takes at least Mortal Shots most take both. This deserves a little QQ. These are talents we've had forever, we've been crit machines since way back when we were /autoshot /afk.. Since I can't shoot at a target dummy I have no idea how this affects our DPS.

Okay so at level 10 you pick a tree and you are stuck in this tree till you hit the bottom talent. Not a huge deal now that they ripped MS and LS. The other trees won't be bouncing into MM and then back again.

First off each tree gets its own special ability. Fancy stuff.

Marksmanship
A master archer or sharpshooter who excels in bringing down enemies from afar.
Aimed Shot

Survival
A rugged tracker who favors using animal venom, explosives and traps as deadly weapons.
Explosive Shot

Beast Mastery
A master of the wild who can tame a wide variety of beasts to assist him/her in combat.
Intimidation

In the land of PvE BM loses the most with MM coming in second in the land of Meh. I can hear you now..."But Cheres why do you Meh over Aimed Shot?!? It is a powerful PewPew!! The peoples they will cry for your nerf!" Yes it hits very hard but its a 2 second cast time with a cost of 50 focus. The defining ability of the MM tree is Chimera shot which also has a cost of 50 focus. There's just no way Aimed Shot will make it into the rotation of a MM hunter. It will get used more when you hit the bottom of the tree and can proc a free shot.

I'm a Marks hunter, it is my blog and really it is all about me so lets peek at that talent tree and see its ups and downs.

Go for the throat. It procs on auto shot crits not just any ranged critis. But losing MS and LS this may very well be a waste of time. Maybe just a typo on the tooltip? Since I'm not in beta I can't test this out. See a theme?

Careful Aim Only works on targets above 90% health? Really? Why?

Concussive Barrage / Dazzled Prey Combo. A One/Two punch of WTF I can't use this in PvE.

Resistance is Futile Nifty for PvP and for some PvE solo work but last I checks raid bosses don't run away.

Those talents are a huge amount of bloat in the tree. Need to take some of these raid useless talents to get down to the bottom. Why not let us keep something like Piercing Shots to use up some talent points?

So this is what I've come up with for a Marks spec it doesn't suck but I hate the wasted talent point burn.

I hope that Blizzard has given themselves enough time to rethink some of these talents and change them. Or at least I hope that they send out my beta invite so I can get in there to test this stuff for myself. Time to check the email again!

Pets, its a hunter thing, you wouldn't understand

2010-07-14T15:39:00.002-04:00

I'm not in beta and this gives me great pain. But the information is out there from people who are and today I'm just going to put it up for people to see. I'm just not quite there yet in my grasp on the hunter talent changes so instead its petspetspets.

The model shots come from MMO Champion. I'm only using one color per new class because otherwise its too big.

Spikey Crabs

These guys are kinda badass looking no? Still tenacity pets

Mastiff

I want one just to have it but unless I'm doing a remake of Hound of the Baskervilles then it will just be a stable pet. Its considered part of the wolf family which makes sense because it makes no sense at all.

Mistfox

Very cute and fluffy. So not the tough companion needed on the long hard road to defeating Deathwing. But very very cute. Also part of the wolf family.

Monkey

Yes that's right I said monkey. Part of the gorilla family, which is now I guess the primate family.

Here's a little video from Frostheim of WHU showing you his new monkey pet

Now the big change is that at level 1 all hunters start with pet. Here's a basic guide on baby hunter pets done by BRK. If you haven't seen a BRK video before or read his stuff then, um, yay he's nuts. But he really knows his stuff. This covers the abilities of the baby pets as well as the starter pet types for Dwarves, Tauren, Undead, Human

Video 2 of the baby pets. Covers pet trainng at 10, the new pet movement, focus issues, the Worgen dance and pets for Draenei, Blood Elves,Worgen

Video 3 of the baby pets. Covers goblins and their starting area as well as pets for Orcs, Night Elves, Trolls and Golbins plus a huge spoiler for the Goblin starting area.

Helion: Why? Because he's pink

2010-07-13T14:48:00.013-04:00

On Saturday 10 of my guild entered the Ruby Sanctum ready to go Dragons v Dragon with Halion and his Lieutenants.

This is the last raid dungeon before Cataclysm so I went in expecting some things to be a bit different and I was not disappointed. This is not your round up and volley instance. There is no 25% buff. There is actual thinking and threat management and ability knowledge required. I about wet myself from the thrill of it all.

Trash Mobs

Charscale Elites: Easy peasy tank and spank

Charscale Assaulter: These are the big guys that wander around on two legs and swing a glaive and look to be ready to mess up your night. They do a frontal aoe stun as well as a hard hitting cleave so it’s extremely important that you do not pull aggro. Misdirect, Feign Death before you pull aggro, stop, DPS, do not pull aggro. If you feign death after the boss faces you it is too late. The DPS standing behind this mob just died.

Charscale Invoker: Four legged casters. The biggest worry is Flame Wave which causes silly amounts of damage. If you are MM help the raid and interrupt the spells. Make sure you have a cast bar up for your target, it has a 2.5 second cast time so you have really no GCD issues. If its not interrupted all your melee will go flying back, possibly pulling an additional pack from way over there. Interrupt the Flame Wave at all costs.

Charscale Commander: They hit pretty hard, dish out a Mortal Strike which tanks and healers the world over just love and do a fun AE ability that increases damage dealt by all of their other dragon-y buddies within 8 yards.
Groups with the Commander will give you the most trouble. They were almost a mini boss of their own. Whatever the designated kill order, follow it. Do not AE, do not AE and do not AE.

Baltharus the Warborne

Your first boss will probably be Baltharus the Warborne, a huge dragon guardian that can pack a mean punch to raids that do not know the fight.

Blade Tempest - Rapidly twirling blades deal 70% of weapon damage to ~~enemies in front of the attacker every 0 sec~~ everyone within 15 yards every second for 4 sec.

Cleave - Inflicts 110% of normal melee damage to an enemy and its nearest allies, affecting up to 3 targets.

Enervating Brand - Brands an enemy target, siphoning power from the target and any allies within 12 yards of the target. This effect occurs every 2 sec, and reduces affected enemies' damage by 2% per application, while increasing the caster's damage accordingly.

Repelling Wave - Knocks all nearby enemies back a great distance, dealing 4163 to 4837 Fire damage and stunning them for 3 sec.

Not much for a Hunter to worry about as most of the abilities affect nearby enemies and enemies in his frontal cone. But as with trash you pull aggro you just killed the raid. Do you sense a pattern here?

When his health gets down to 50%, Baltharus will summon a clone of himself. His clone drops all marks, debuffs and stings. All DPS must focus fire on the main Baltharus so assist your main tank or your main assist. Don't make the decision on your own. Once the boss is out, his clones vanish as well.

Saviana Ragefire

Mostly a tank and spank fight. Her main attack involves breathing fire with a frontal cone and a conflag attack that hits 2 raid members that does AoE damage.

She can be tanked as usual and must be faced away from the raid. Saviana constantly casts Enrage on herself which allows her to AoE more effectively. It is the Hunter's job to dispel the buff with a Tranquilizing Shot immediately to avoid massive raid damage (A hunter that helps the raid asides from DPS? Shocking!).

From time to time she will mark 3-5 raid members as she flies over the nearby lake. This will be your signal that she's about to Conflag. Whether you have the mark or not, it is important to steer away from raid members to avoid AoE damage. Once you get used to her fight pattern, the encounter is a cakewalk.

General Zarithrian

The fight consists of only one phase, but raid awareness and ranged mobility will be more vital compared to the first two bosses as the General will constantly summon adds that casts AE damage.

Our raid handled the adds very specifically. I frost trapped one side, the dps took down the other side. The trash adds can be silenced which makes it easy to drag them over traps in case your frozen arrow misses. When your done locking down one add, go dps the snot out of the second add. Rinse and repeat. The adds have the potential to become a threat bigger than the boss itself so stay awake and burn those adds down.

Halion

Halion has a total of three phases, each having a different DPS strategy that a Hunter should understand. The first phase will be a tank and spank with avegage raid awareness. The second will be the Twilight phase where mobility and distance is more important than anything else and the third phase which involves balancing DPS between two realms, the physical and the twilight.

In the first phase, Halion displays all the abilities any self respecting dragon should: tail lash, cleave and fire breath. Stadning on its sides is once again a good plan. He also puts a debuff on random players called Mark of Combustion. When the debuff ends or when it is removed, a patch forms under the player's feet that deals damage to players in it and players will be pushed away from the patch. Players afflicted have to move to the edge of the stage then get the debuff removed, before running back to the raid. The size of the patch depends on how long it took to dispel it. Disengage to the back of the circle and wait to be dispelled. If you can't reach to shoot at the dragon get over it. Just wait till the healers get to you. Last little trick in this phase is the Meteor Strike. It targets the ground underneath a random raider and drops a meteor on that location after about 5-6 seconds. The meteor does quite a bit of damage and shoots out lines of fire that resemble an 'X'. Those should be easy to avoid - whenever one of them comes up, simply have the entire raid shift. You need to be aware of this hitting anywhere near you or near the tank. If the dragon is moved you may get hit with the tail. Can't just plant your feet and shoot.

Once you get Halion down to 75% he disappears into the twilight realm for phase two. Your follow him into the portal and its very similar to the physical realm fight. Halion will Dark Breath instead of its Flame counterpart; he will do Mark of Consumption, which sucks people in as opposed to knocking them back; he also has a Shadow raid-wide damaging aura, Dark Shroud. The second phase requires a huge amount of raid awareness and mobility. Two orbs on opposite sides of the ring slowly rotate around the boss and give off damage everytime you come into contact with them. A few minutes into the phase, these orbs will fire a line of shadow beam that connects them as they continue to rotate. This Twilight Cutter gives huge amounts of continuous damage if it is not avoided, so mobility is not an option, it’s a requirement. If you manage to survive and bring him down to 50%, congratulations, you’ve got one phase left!

In the third phase Halion exists in both realms, and the raid must split into two; one fights him in the twilight realm, and the other fights him in the physical realm. Those in the physical realm deal with his phase one abilities while those in the twilight realm deal with his phase two abilities. In this phase, Halion uses Corporeality, an ability where he gets stronger in one realm if he receives more damage from the other. The basic idea here is to keep DPS in balance in both realms. He deals normal damage when his Corporeality is about 40-50%, so someone will be staring at that bar making sure it stays in that range throughout the encounter. If your realm is told to slow down, that means you.

If you can shoot and move, if you watch omen as much as recount, if you have some situational awareness skills then you too can be looking at skinning a big pink dragon.

PvP 101: Warsong Gulch

2010-07-09T14:53:00.000-04:00

We've started to do a little PvPalooza in my guild one night a week. Its really just meant to be a fun group experience, no one goes out there thinking we're going to roll the Horde. Most of my guild breaks out in hives when you mention PvP but I was still a bit surprised that some knew nothing about the different battlegrounds. With Cataclysm bringing us rated Battlegrounds it seems as good a time as any for a little pee vee pee primer.

I'm going to do them one at a time because there really is some fun to be had with all of this so the information is best transmitted in BG by BG bites. So without further ado welcome to where it all starts, Warsong Gulch

The Warsong Gulch battleground is physically located between the zones of Ashenvale and The Barrens, although only a few vanilla players leveling a character will venture out to the old entrances. This battleground is located in the area where Grom Hellscream and his Orcs ravaged the forests in the third war for lumber.

WSG is essentially a game of capture the flag. Two flags, two bases, and your main objective is to bring the opponent's flag to your base three times. The first team to three wins.

You must protect your flag at all times, you will be unable to capture your opponent's flag while yours is out in play. Because this game had turned into an all night turtle fest a timer has been put in. The game will end after 25 minutes. In the event the game is tied, the last faction to cap wins.

WSG is a 10v10 battleground with level ranges 10-19, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70-79, 80. The game will close down if there are less than 4 players on any side.

Communication is key in battlegrounds. These are big maps and no one person can see everything at every moment. Be sure you have your battleground mini map open. (shift M) You will be able to track your team mates, your flag carry (fc) team and the enemy flag carry (efc) team.

There are many different sites out there with detailed strategies and tictacs. Here's my 2c on the matter. Send 3 people to get the flag, the best choice for a flag carrier is a druid. They can shapeshift till they puke making them near impossible to cc, and bear form makes them harder to kill. Leave 2 people in the base to stall the efc. Classes with slows and dps like mages, hunters, shaman, are best for this. Everyone else gets into the pool and cleans out the mid field. Don't let anyone tell you anything else, he who controls midfield wins.

There are 3 ways in and out of any flag room, up the tunnel, up the ramp up top, up the ramp bottom.

Scope them out a bit and know what is where. You will need to communicate where you are taking the flag (Ramp side, Graveyard side) or where the efc ran with the flag (Tunnel). I've carried the flag and I've defended the flag and I can tell you right now, don't use the tunnel. 99.99% of the time its bad idea genes.

The skinny on those flags.

If you right-click on the enemy's flag you will pick it up.
If you right-click on the enemy flag icon while you're carrying it you will drop it. Good for passing the flag to sturdier folk.
Invulnerability buff effects and stealth spells prevent a player from picking up a flag. Using these effects while holding a flag causes it to drop.
You cannot mount with the flag.
If you kill the efc the flag will fall in front of your face, right click it to return it to your base.

Last little thing is the power ups. There are three types in WSG.

Berserking - Increases all damage caused by 30%, all damage taken by 10% and increases your size by 10%. Lasts 1 min.

Speed - Increases movement speed by 100% for 10 seconds.

Restoration - Restores 10% of your health and mana every second for 10 seconds. Attacking or being attacked will cancel the effect.

You get honor for each cap your team makes as well as random kills in and around the battleground. There is honor at the end of the game with the winner getting more points than the loser. As of a few patches ago you can get experience as well as honor in battlegrounds. The experience and honor scale with level.

There are some pretty sexy sub 60 honor rewards to be had from wsg. For the alliance see Illiyana Moonblaze at the battleground entrance in Ashenvale. For the horde its Kelm Hargunth at the battleground entrance in the Barrens.

At 80 WSG is not for the faint of heart. The players there are at resilience cap, they've got all kinds of shiny armor, trinkets and weapons. They do not play games. If you heal they will bring the pain train. This is not a safe place for amateurs anymore. But for an organized team with a plan and some skill it is an amazing amount of fun.

Casually Hardcore

2010-07-08T15:45:00.027-04:00

I have played in a hardcore guild before and now I play in a casual guild. Here's the thing my playtime is casual, I only raid a few nights per week. But my attitude and effort in raids is decidedly hardcore. Casual does not mean "noob" or "terribad" or "fail".

There is no excuse for any guild, of any size or state, not to progress as far as any of the hardcore guilds out there. There's just a few things that need to be taught, emphasized and enforced for a casual playtime guild to see a higher level of success.

The good of the team is more important than the good of the individual

The raid team comes first. That's true for any effort where people get together to achieve a goal. The hunters in my guild are amazingly unselfish when it comes to our raid consumables and gear. We tend to think of ourselves as one entity rather than a few individuals in a raid. The Dragons are far better off because of our team effort, imagine if we were all trying to kill each other over a bow...oh wait.

It's just a flesh wound

The player with a hardcore heart does not fear the wipe. To wipe all night long, to wipe and wipe but learn from it, and improve each time. To keep going, keep learning and keep wiping. The ability to wipe many times without giving up, without tantrums, without drama, and without changing strats every two attempts is the heart of the raider.

Adapt, Overcome, Improvise!

This was the motto of the raid leader in my old hard core guild. Sometimes stuff happens. People get stuck in cracks of the walls, more trash pulled than expected, respawn happened on your head. The main tank just dc'd. Whatever happened just figure out what you need to do to keep going.

Screw you guys I'm goin home

With some casual guilds (and yes my own guild has succumbed to this at times) you wipe a few times and you give up and go do something easier. There is no learning in that. Giving up certainly happens nowhere in the process of paying your dues.

An A for effort

Sometimes, and not for lack of trying, you just don't have what it takes to beat that boss. Maybe its gear (often its not), maybe its focus (more than often it is) maybe its raid balance or maybe Mars is in retrograde. No one can fault you for fighting the good fight and just because the boss is alive does not mean you failed. It just means you need to retreat, regroup and come back out swinging stronger next time.

You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!

Sometimes you do crappy boring jobs in a raid. Sometimes you have to die so the raid can continue the encounter. If the boss dies then its all good.

Does it say doormat on my forehead?

The problem with treating 25 man raids as "casual" is that you will find that you have maybe 12-15 people who move heaven and earth, people who mean business. They have flasks, elixirs, food and potions They have run heroics till they puke to have at least some of gear needed to be effective. Its all enchanted, even if it sucks, and there's not one empty gem slot. They are there to chew gum and kick butt and they're all out of gum.

Sadly the rest of the people in the raid will have gum. They will have lots and lots of gum. They do precious little for themselves and expect to be carried. They're the first to roll on items and the last to pass on it for someone else. They have the focus of gnats and approach the raid like 5 year olds playing soccer. Listen people this may be only a few hours of a day but Go Big or Go Home. It may just be a game but please don't waste everyone's time.

Altaholics

I have five 80s now. Only two are raid worthy and they will be the only two that are raid worthy. My guild gains no real benefit from me having any more raiding 80s. I don't want to take gear from someone who needs it for their main. I don't force my priest on the guild, she's there if needed. I get not liking your class and wanting to try something new, but if this is your 4th something new please just pug raids for gear for a little while. If you just gear one or maybe two characters the guild will see more progress. We're all tired of ICC25 lower spire, bring your main and lets kick some blood prince booty.

I've never once mentioned gear score. This isn't about gear, its about effort and focus. I'm not expecting everyone in a raid to live, breathe and eat raiding, my guild is casual after all. But when raid time starts I expect that everyone on my guild's team be casually hardcore.

Ghostcrawler explains why

2010-07-07T08:58:00.000-04:00

Ghostcrawler posted in the Cata beta forums about some of the hunter changes and the thinking behind them.

Focus -- We'll be messing with ability costs for some time. Depending on your weapon, autoshot costs can be higher than "focus dump" abilities, which clearly won't work. We're working on a DPCT priority list that makes more sense. As far as regen goes though, we think the current rate is about right. We don't want the rotation to become erratic and we like the gameplay of building focus through shots. In situations where you just can't stand still, such as kiting, you can use the new Aspect of the Fox. We've tied the focus regen for using cast-time shots during Aspect of the Hawk, otherwise there would be no reason to be in anything but Fox. Focus is more of a combo between rage and energy, since you build it and use it up. The skill of playing a hunter involves keeping your focus high enough -- as it is somewhat random due to procs -- but use it before you overflow.

This will delay the number crunching quite a bit. I wonder what "some time" means. Will we be a nice and settled by the time the xpac goes gold? It does sound like they expect us to do far more aspect twisting than we are doing now. I smell new mods!

Shots -- Each hunter talent tree has a "signature" focus dump: Survival has Explosive Shot, Marks has Chimera Shot, and Beastmaster has Raccoon Shot... I mean Kill Command. These all have cooldowns, so if you are at 100 focus, use Kill Command and still have focus left over, you can use Arcane Shot next. This is why Explosive and Arcane no longer share cooldowns. Once you figure out which abilities to use for each spec, the number of abilities you need to manage should feel less daunting. For example, Marks would use Serpent Sting, Steady Shot, Arimed Shot, Chimera Shot and Arcane Shot on a boss fight, and Serpent Sting gets refreshed automatically. Think less in terms of shot rotations and more in terms of prioritizations.

Well we're not going to change too much, we'll still have a priority list and not a strict rotation. It should keep the faceroll DPS far below anyone putting in an effort. Its also nice to see BM getting some love. Its been the red headed step child for most of WOTLK and it looks like they are trying to make all 3 trees viable for raiding.

Pets -- We haven't done our design pass on them yet. The design is for them to no longer receive raid buff since they get complete scaling from the master (and we don't want them to double dip). Their abilities will be divided into 3 categories: basic focus dumps (e.g. Claw), specials (e.g. web), and exotic abilities for the BM exotic pets. Specials never cost focus and basics have short cooldowns but meaningful damage. All pets will do the same dps. We don't want "wolf or die" in Cataclysm (and before that it was cat). Each pet family will bring a unique raid buff, allowing hunters to be wildcards for when you are lacking something. The ease of swapping pets will facilitate this further.

Another unfinished hunter item. Makes me a little nervous but I'm hopeful we'll be able to get enough testing in before release. I say we in the hopes that the gaming gods send me a beta invite.

Pets sharing buffs with the Hunter means I no longer have to whine for kings on my pet. I will no longer have to ask for a rebuff on my pet. It sounds like my pet will no longer need its own food (hooray!)

The unique specials sounds interesting. Means maybe I can break my cat back out sometimes. The extra slots are going to come in handy for all of this. Some pets may be more beneficial to certain encounters than others. I'm very curious to see how it will all fall out (gaming gods, beta invite)

Cobra Shot -- We're not happy with the damage yet. We want BM to basically not use Steady ever again. Marks may use Cobra in PvP situations where spell damage trumps physical damage.

Its nice to see MM get a decent spell based shot for PvP. All the other kids laugh at us when we use Arcane Shot.

Kill Command -- We like the Frenzy / Focus Fire mechanic, but are likely to make it it's own clicky and not tied to Kill Command. Kill Command itself will be the signature focus dump for BM. For other specs, it will be more situational, such as dealing damage to a target out of your (but not your pet) LoS. Marks also has the Resistance is Futile talent to give it some more use.

Just admit it, you're jealous that we have a talent called Resistance is Futile.

Resistance is Futile: When your marked target attempts to run, flee or move, you have a [10%/20%/30%] chance to cause your next Steady Shot or Cobra Shot within 8 sec to critically hit on them.

Aimed Shot -- We are returning this ability to be an opener once again, like Ravage or Ambush. In longer fights, Master Marskman can proc instant Aimed Shots, to keep the ability relevant.

AE damage -- The design is that you use Multi-Shot on 2+ targets, and Explosive Trap and Volley on 4+ targets.

Venoms -- The focus cost may be too high. However, don't expect to have to use these on every target. Part of separating Serpent Sting from the Venoms so that they could be more situational. Even Serpent Sting isn't necessary on every target, especially those that will die quickly. Instead 2-3 Steadies with an Arcane or Kill Shot should do the job. Hunters are used to using every ability on every target because there is no real resource cost with mana. Now priority and efficiency become important.

Ultimately, we think these changes will solve some of the problems the hunter class has had as well as making them more fun to play, or we wouldn't be going through so much re-design. :)

Venoms and stings sound interesting. It will give hunters a bit more utility while not having a massive DPS loss.

I'm just glad to see them come out so quickly after the hunter info was made public to explain what's going on. Gives me more hope that the class will be something amazing come Cataclysm.

Hunter Starter Pets

2010-07-07T08:56:00.000-04:00

In Cataclysm every hunter will have a pet starting at level 1. From what I've read right now the hunter pet is in perma defensive mode, you won't have any "control" over a pet until level 10 when you tame one of your very own. The pets are race specific.

Alliance Level 1 Hunter Pets

Dwarf: Bear
Night Elf: Nightsaber
Draenei: Moth
Human: Wolf
Worgen: Mastiff

Someone better let me tame a Mastiff or things will get highly ugly.

Horde Level 1 Hunter Pets

Orc: Boar
Troll: Raptor
Tauren: Plainstrider
Blood Elves: Dragonhawk
Forsaken: Bat
Goblin: Crab

It's not about teh sword

2010-07-06T17:03:00.007-04:00

Gevlon, of the Greedy Goblin formed a guild on the EU servers called Undergeared. He had a theory that skill is far more important gear. He formed the guild with the thought that they'd blow through raid content in only blues, no epic enchants or gems and no vent (wtf no one call TELL me I'm in the fire?!?)

The goal of the Undergeared project was to prove:

"I don't have gear" is a lie, the normal content needs no gear (beyond readily available to any lvl 80).
"I have RL, I can't farm like Ensidia" is a lie since no farming is needed.
"I was unlucky with void zone" is a lie. While luck chooses who get void zone, but staying in one is not matter of luck.
"I have no time to raid 5 days a week" is no excuse for being useless. We play 1 day a week.

He's recently done an interview with Frostheim of WHU and its good reading for anyone who runs a raid. Undergeared is at 8/12 in ICC which is just plain nutty for a 10 man raid in blues. It's even more nuts if you consider they only raid one day a week. It makes you think about downgrading some gear and having a shot and seeing where your skills stand.

Undergeared vs. Blood Princes

Man that is a smooth and jiggly free hunter encounter with no outside UF mod at all.

Undergeared saves Valithria

Raiding Hunter Basics

2010-07-05T16:47:00.000-04:00

n my guild I raid with a few really skilled people running hunters as their mains. Then there are some people who just don't get it. They think of the class as point and shoot. Much of it is just a real lack of information. There are some things you really must know and understand to be a productive member of a raid.

Think this as a compilation of little things for raiding hunters. I'm going to be limiting this for the most part to MM or SV hunters, I've never really played a BM hunter so my knowledge of them is mostly second hand.

Spec and Glyphs

Spec what you want. If you're happy with your DPS then you're doing it right. In all honestly MM and specifically ArP specs will significantly out DPS any other spec but they are highly gear dependent specs. Glyphs vary based on spec and gear so take some time to research it all.

Raiding Pets

At level a 80 BM hunter gets about 40% of their DPS from their pet. MM and SV only get about 10% of their dps from the pets.

Get a wolf because as MM or SV Furious Howl will give you more personal DPS than a Cat or Raptor. People have run the numbers and proven that the the wolf is best but you're free beat on a target dummy and discover it for yourself.

Enchants and Gems

Agility is your friend. If its red, go +20, agility and if its yellow get the +10 agility +10 crit gem. If its blue use a Nightmare Tear, if that's used, use a red. If you are trying to gem for an ArP build then lets be honest a basics guide isn't for you. For the meta get the agil % chance to crit gem

Enchants are the same across the board

Head	Arcanum of Torment
Shoulders	Greater Inscription of the Axe
Back	Major Agility
Chest	Powerful Stats
Wrists	Greater Assault
Hands	Major Agility Precision
Belt	Eternal Belt Buckle
Legs	Icescale Leg Armor
Feet	Superior Agility Icewalker
Ranged	Heartseeker Scope
1 H Melee	Superior Potency Accuracy
2H Melee	Massacre

I am working on my ArP build. You can peek at me, my gear, my spec and my pet in the top left hand corner if you're curious how it all looks together.

Ammo

Go big or go home. Shatter Rounds or Iceblade Arrows. They are cheap to have made and the DPS difference between these and the store bought is massive.

Raid Consumables

No more fish feasts for you. Blackened Dragonfin for you and Mega Mammoth Meal for your pet. Elixir of Mighty Agility and the Elixir of Mighty Thoughts are best for your flask/elixir use but they can be expensive especially if you're in a progression situation. Flask of Endless Rage is fine to use

Rotations

Hunters don't have rotations, we have priority lists.

For SV its Kill Shot/Explosive Shot/Black Arrow/Serpent Sting/Aimed Shot/Steady Shot

For MM its Kill Shot/Serpent Sting/Chimera Shot/Aimed Shot/Arcane/Steady Shot/Silencing Shot

Starter Macros

Misdirection

#showtooltip
/cast [target=focus, help] Misdirection
/cast [target=focustarget, help] Misdirection
/cast [target=target, help] Misdirection
/cast [target=targettarget, help] Misdirection
/cast [target=pet, nodead, exists] Misdirection

Aspect Swapping

#showtooltip
/castsequence !Aspect of the Dragonhawk, !Aspect of the Viper

ICC Lower Spire Trash & Marrowgar's Bone Spike

/cleartarget
/tar Bone Spike
/tar [noexists,dead] Web Wrap
/assist [noexists,dead] focus

Covers it all macro for assorted ICC Encounters

/cleartarget
/tar Kinetic Bomb
/tar [noexists,dead] Blood Beast
/tar [noexists,dead] Volatile Ooze
/tar [noexists,dead] Gas Cloud
/assist [noexists,dead] focus

Add-ons

Recount

Use it to analzye your DPS. Dig deep into it, see what you did well, see what shots are doing what damage. See what your pet has been up to. Just use it to break yourself down and build back up again. But remember, us it as a tool, don't use it to be a Tool.

Omen

At the very basic level you need this to beep at you and let you know its time to dump aggro. I'd suggest setting it at about 85-90% of aggro to start beeping at you. Mine is higher but I DPS behind amazing tanks who seem to not worry too much that I'll pull the boss.

Deadly Boss Mobs
A heads up for bad things incoming is never a bad idea. A nice loud noise should shock you out of some fire. If you don't use it, get out of the raid.

Power Auras
I just got this, I am pretty sure I'm not taking advantage of all the bells and whistles of my spec.

ShotAndAwe
This will help you work with your priority list and has timer bars for specials. If you are going SV it helps to make sure you aren't wasting DPS in a LnL proc. I think much of its functionality may overlap with Power Auras. I'll find out quickly I'm sure.

I'll work up a more sophisticated list but for now I'll stick to learning how to function with my new keyboard and my new mod.

Cataclysm and Hunters. Focus This!

2010-07-01T14:11:00.001-04:00

Well everyone else with a bow and some arrows seems to be talking about this. I'm not sure what else I'll really add to the subject besides my own smart ass commentary and bias. Smart ass commentary in italics

Please keep in mind that its really early beta and there's still plenty of time for the nerf bats so don't get your self all attached or in a twist about any one thing.

General Hunter Changes

Ammo

Guns, bows and xbows will now do damage without consuming any ammo at all. The ammo slot on the hunter paper doll will be removed. Any ammo still in a hunter's inventory will become gray vendor trash and all quivers will become large bags. One large bag per hunter.
That sound you hear is me falling to my knees, crying and thanking the gaming gods for finally answering one of my prayers.

Pets
There will be two types of pet storage, active and stored. Your 3 active you can still swap out in the field using call stabled pet but to use a stored pet you have to visit a stable master.
This just isn't a BM shiny pet feature. There are some of us with 3 tank pets or 3 pvp pets or 2 dps pets or some odd combination of pets. Different pets fill different niche roles. Plus some of us become very attached to our beastly friends.

They are also giving hunters a pet at level 1 but you still can't tame anything until level 10. Pets will also get new buffs and debuffs. I have no specifics on this.

Melee v Ranged

Mongoose bite is gone. Hunters will start the game with a ranged ability besides Auto-shot. They want us to be ranged and are taking away melee toys. I'd expect more changes in that direction.

Hunter Ability Changes (no talents)

Stings and Venoms
Serpent Sting will be our only “sting” and it will work as it currently does. In addition to Serpent Sting, we’ll have various venoms but only one venom can be up at a time. So you can have Serpent Sting up and one venom of your choice.

Scorpid Venom Reduces the targets armor by 4% for 30 sec. Subsequent Steady Shot or Cobra Shots increase the effect by 4%, stacking up to 3 times. Only one Venom per Hunter can be active on any one target. 30 Focus 5-35 yd rng Instant
Sexy looking especially for ArP builds at first glance. Will probably not stack with Sunder Armor making it totally useless in a raid for most people. We haven't seen a warrior in a 25 man in my guild in at least a month and I can't tell you how long its been for 10 man raids.

Viper Venom Increases the casting time of all spells done by the enemy target by 30% for 30 sec. Only one Venom per Hunter can be active on any one target. 30 Focus 5-35 yd rng Instant
PvP ability for the most part

Widow Venom A venemous shot that reduces the effectiveness of any healing taken by 25% for 30 sec. Only one Venom per Hunter can be active on any one target. 30 Focus 5-35 yd rng Instant

Trap Launcher
The next trap can be shot to a location within 40 yards. This provides the current Freezing Arrow treatment to all traps and, as a result, we will be removing the current ability Freezing Arrow. 1-minute cooldown. No global cooldown.
Now I can shoot snakes at you, flapping your arms way in the back there Mister Healing Priest.

Camouflage
You camouflage, causing you and your Pet to blend into your surroundings. After 3 sec., you will enter a camouflaged state for 1 min, making you untargetable and providing stealth while stationary. While camouflaged, you and your pet’s movement speed is reduced by 30%, but the damage done by your next attack is increased by 15%. You can lay traps while under the effect, but any damage done by you or your pet will cancel the effect. Cannot be cast while in combat. 45 Focus, Instant, 1 min cooldown
Hi2u PvP cries for nerf. Other classes tears taste yummy.

Aspect of the Fox
The hunter takes on the aspects of a fox, increasing your focus regeneration by 20% and allows you to Auto-shot while moving. Instant, 1 sec cooldown
Focus regen was the one thing I was worried most about. It lowers DPS because we're out of Hawk but it feels no different then the aspect twisting we do now. Auto-shot while moving? Most of us can do this already. For me its a dumbing down of the class.

Aspect of the Monkey/Dragonhawk

Dragonhawk is gone and Monkey is a BM talent.

Cobra Shot
Deals weapon damage + (6% of RAP + 950) in the form of Nature damage and increases the duration of your Serpent Sting on the target by 3 sec. ( used Aspect of the Hawk : Generates 9 Focus. ) 5-35 yd rng 1.5 sec cast
Steady shot seems to not have been working properly in alpha so there are no hard numbers but my guess is that the plan is for MM hunters and their ArP build to use Steady Shot and SV and BM hunters will have this shot which more suited to their specs and gear needs.

I'm leaving the talents for another time. I want to digest them a little and not just knee jerk tantrum about them. Anyhoo this last bit is the part most people are curious about anyway.

Focus

Cobra Shot: 0 focus - 1.5 sec cast – no cooldown – generates 9 focus
Steady Shot: 0 focus - 1.5 sec cast – no cooldown – generates 9 focus
Arcane Shot: 50 focus – no cooldown
Chimera Shot: 50 focus – 10 sec cooldown
Silencing Shot: 0 focus – 20 sec cooldown
Explosive Shot: 50 focus – 6 sec cooldown
Kill Shot: 20 focus – 6 sec cooldown
Distracting Shot: 0 focus – 8 sec cooldown
Concussive Shot: 35 focus – no cooldown
Tranq Shot: 35 focus – no cooldown
Hunter’s Mark: no focus – no cooldown
Venoms: 30 focus – no cooldown
Serpent Sting - no one has any info that I can find
Aspects: 0 focus – 1 sec cooldown
Traps: 0 focus – 30 sec cooldown
Kill Command: 50 focus – no cooldown
Misdirection: 15 focus – 30 sec cooldown
Deterrence: 0 focus – 2 min cooldown
Feign Death: 0 focus – 30 sec cooldown
Multi-Shot: 60 focus – no cooldown – now instant
Aimed Shot: 50 focus – no cooldown – 2.5 sec cast was instant
Mend Pet: 25 focus – channeled...Again?!? WTF Blizz

So far seems like nothing drastic, nothing we all can't live with. Its for sure not the nerf people feared. Besides...