ScatTerEd Nightmares

My my, the time flies!

2009-03-27T15:36:00.000-07:00

I am so lazy and for this I am semi-apologetic... I have had so much to blog about and so much going on that...I didn't blog? Yeah, so...how about some updates?

- So, Nomakk is now Survival and Marksman dancing. I try both depending on my mood (god will dual specs make this cheaper!!). I like Survival for arena/pvp and Marksman for raiding. Something about the involved nature of Marksman just keeps me coming back.

- I recently did Refer-a-friend with Delos and we hit 60 last night! yay! So, he then proceeded to gift me 30 levels on my alt as well. What does this all mean? It means I have a level 60 mage and a level 60 shaman! Both horde! Mwuhahah? Yes! Big thanks to The Zilla for all of her help!

- Nomakk can do 3k dps in a 25 man raid! Yay!

- I only do 2 raids. Vault and the Sanctum. It will likely stay that way. I am so over the whole 5 hour raiding nights. I like short and sweet...period.

- Thank god for arena season 6 changes! I would go deeper, but you can just visit Delos' blog (linked above) for the details! Let's just say I am finally ready to take arena seriously again!

More to come, someone cleanse my laziness!

Oh Alanis, you are NOT the malapropism queen!!

2009-01-27T19:33:00.000-08:00

A malapropism is the substitution of an incorrect word for a word with a similar sound, usually to comic effect. Alanis has called herself the "Malapropism queen" (per wikipedia of course) because of the debate over her song "Ironic". Which, actually IS ironic. She says the song was meant to be light-hearted and not taken too serious. Which, I would say too if I made a song about sad stuff and dubbed it all ironic. I guess, that is the ironic part! She uses a definition that doesn't really define what she did, just like she made a song about something that it wasn't actually about. Isn't it Ironic? Don'cha think?

I mean, had she wrote a song actually about Irony but called it "Islamic", THEN she would be the Malapropism queen! Also, had she simply had some Irony expert come in she could have used their skills to alter some stuff. Such as "10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife", which is really annoying and sad, but not ironic. If you searched for a knife for years (thus, ruining your life and the life of those around you somehow) and then realized that the lucky spoon on your key chain (that you ALWAYS have with you) could cut anything as good as any knife...that would be ironic. Ok, it has a few holes, but it's far closer to truly ironic than simply having a crap ton of spoons when you need to cut a holiday ham.

You may be asking yourself "Holy crap Nomakk, how will you ever tie this into Warcraft!"

Easy, teh 133test of haXx! No, that doesn't mean simply building a bigger suit.

Also, no, you will never see a warrior able to carry two 2-handed weapons...trust me.

I really just wanted to talk about the Paradox we have right now. You know, the one
where all the BM hunters are now transitioning to survival! Who thought we would see the day. I admit, I really didn't (don't still) like the alteration of my beloved spec. I mean, not enough to not be survival. I talk a big game, but I never changed my specialization. I even spent 45g to re-build my survival spec (when it comes to leaving Survival, I'm all talk, so seriously Lienna, enough with the paper towels on my house, toilet paper was funny, but weighted paper towel rolls through the windows is crossing the line!)

I really do enjoy the life of a survival hunter. I also have a bond to my tree. One that has made me hybrid my build for arena, find ways to trap 2 or 3 things at a time and even write some crappy blog up!

I digress. The paradox! The paradox is this: Beast Master hunters are jumping ship to survival now. At first, I thought to myself: "Self, you are HOTT". After that I thought: "What traitors and fair weather hunters!". I suppose that second has some truth to it (the first one has enough truth to fill your soul with eternal joy, but that's for another blog entry) , but not as much as I initially thought.

To be honest, I had a few moment's where I forgot something vital to this whole Warcraft thing...it's a game. A game that should be enjoyed by any means you deem necessary! That being said, I do have to bring this Irony - paradox thing full circle, aye?

::deep breath::

Beast masters, I hope you enjoy survival, but let's all get one thing straight. You are indeed fair weather hunters. If you trade tree's to top the DPS chart, then you are saying "I am a hunter to top dps charts, that is my sole purpose." This is not necessarily a bad thing and I hope you enjoy it. The core issue is the talk of the BM community now. Saying:
"People won't let me raid as BM now!"
"Why would I be a spec that isn't the best"

So, BM hunters who played a build for it's glory and crazy raid DPS output (one I could beat in BC in most cases as full survival) are now saying they are switching to survival...to AVOID being the expected low dps hunter. Expected is the key word for one reason: Every build can be successful! If someone says otherwise, then they are a fool. Getting a 200 dps boost should not define what you do in the game (and neither should snooty a-holes for that matter).

So, let me get this straight; Survival is the build of choice for being the current flavor of the month. Therefore, the Survival population will flourish, but only because Beast Mastery isn't as good. BUT! It really is debatable (as opposed to proven fact), same as in BC. Think about how things were in BC. Survival was laughable, but if you were good at it and played it right, you could stand right next to a BM hunter in dps and probably do more for the raid overall. (i.e. BM good by default, survival good with dedication)

The flavor of the month may be sweet, but don't be fooled, it's not always the best flavor. I am fairly certain some people would say and believe that BM was HANDS DOWN BETTER for raiding in BC. As far as solo glory, maybe sometimes. As far as raid worth goes, Survival was just as good if not better.

So, the Irony is that Bm is jumping ship leaving their big red buddy behind to be survival, thus becoming who they were all along. So, as they look like they change and "sell-out" they in fact stayed the same. If they had stayed BM, they could have had the honor of really joining the Survival brotherhood. So, in jumping on the passing bandwagon, they really just stayed the same chart chasing hunter they have always been. It's not bad, it's just ironic that the flack is being passed on someone for not changing anything...by changing something to stay the same. Paradox circle completed!

/Dizzy

Ok, I think I'm going to hurt myself soon. I am just trying to say let's all enjoy our hunters for whatever reason. To be top dps by any means or because you feel a bond between you and your pet that no amount of dps can match. Me, I just like to scatter shot your face and then put you to sleep as I go back to picking flowers.

If I made grammatical errors...sue me, I'm tired!

Hunter...Gatherer?

2009-01-26T15:56:00.001-08:00

Oh, that's right! I have had this beauty for a while now and it is fan - tastic! Not only does it catch all the delicious fish I could ever want, but it actually looks like it means business. I am pretty sure I could catch touchdowns with this thing. I have also considered trying to catch him if I can!! (Note: This is Nomakk's first picture on my blog! Finally, blogging from da casa!)

Seriously though, that fishing pole has made me the Night Elf I am today. Is it just me, or does traveling in different area's with your fishing pole, natural herb insight (:wink:) and good ole fashioned kitty cat killin' machine...well, have the feeling of "this is what it is to be a hunter". Call me crazy, but I like filling my bags with tons of fish, herbs and things the old kitty brings back to me. Just the satisfaction of doing something outside of the straight grind to the next level. I feel like I am really playing the craft when I am gathering all kinds of goodies and just kind of wandering aimlessly in the wild.

Some of my favorite places currently are Grizzly Hills and Sholazar Basin. Nothing like beautiful surroundings and countless fish filled waters. Besides, Sadie would get sick of eating the same fish endlessly...she doesn't play that.

The Mastercraft Kalu'ak fishing pole is actually an easier grind than most factions. Grant it, it will take some time, it's not a hard time. The time is actually pretty simple (albeit repetitive). As always, wowhead has all you need to get this faction mastered! There are three daily quests that I repeated to get this Pole in my possession.

- Planning for the Future - Gather 12 Pup's for this one. Yes, you can grab them while in combat and yes, the horde will try to ninja these while you are getting constantly dazed. Be a hunter! Feign Death! Yay! Be cautious, a big nasty elite roams the area! (those feeling like a challenge, try this elite out! closer you are to 70 the bigger the challenge!)

- Preparing for the worst - Gather supplies from the crates nearby. They are on a very short re-spawn and I have never had an issue getting my crates in less than 5 minutes (usually less than 2). These require a gather cast time and there are big green jerks ready to attack to use good old huntery tricks if needed!

- The way to his heart - This one is interesting. You get a net for fish catchin'. Head southeast, find a school in the watery goodness. Now, it takes 6 or 7 fish to get a bull to the other side of the pass. Trick! Simply attack a bull without killing it and drag it to the other side without losing agro. Once you get to the other side, get near a cow and toss the fish to the bull! One fish, done.

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing epic!

Comments = blog post

2009-01-21T10:20:00.000-08:00

I was typing a response to Lienna and Kordwar and realized it was enough for a decent blog entry, so here it is!

@ Lienna - I have thought of using volley too, but when you do, your shot rotation stops and in my opinion you hurt your dps. Explosive shot allowed you to keep your shot rotation in full flow.

@ Kordwar (and Lienna really) - I agree that explosive shot breaking aoe can make it hard to use at times, but that is the beauty of being survival. If your group has to CC, then use arcane shot for that engagement.

Also, aoe tanking is stellar now compared to BC. Warriors, pallies and DK's are just amazing at aoe tanking (I don't see many bear tanks these days). I have not done a WotLK heroic yet, but I have not had to cc enough to see the splash of explosive shot being worth losing. Especially when we all know that a good smart hunter can cc away from the tank easily :)

I guess I am just disappointed to lose something I enjoyed so very much. Being THE aoe hunter build was just so appealing. For all I know, the Flame shot may hit hard enough to make it fun and still appealing. Im just still in the shock period right now. Really, it would be the same as the Retribution paladin's getting their Divine storm cut back to just hit a single target -or- a Druids Starfall being downgraded to a single target ability. Those would probably bother the moonkins and Ret pallies of the world.

I will probably get over it...I mean, what is more fun that 1500 agility, right?

Patch verdict: try marksman out

2009-01-20T07:30:00.001-08:00

Amazing how much a week changes things! I usually try not to complain too much, but I have to say....this patch stinks in my opinion.

Explosive shot (new graphic pictured to the left): Ouch...and ouch again. Seriously....what is going on. I don't care how much the damage is increased, I LOVED the way this shot worked. Come on, aoe burst was it man! It was fun and it made survival unique and fun. Now we are just an arcane shot subbing, diluted spec of a hunter.

Yesterday, horde raided Ironforge and Stormwind...tell me something more fun than shooting a fire explosion into a concentrated group of horde? It shouldn't be called explosive shot anymore, it should be called flame shot and the tool tip should say "Does the same thing as arcane shot, just fire damage instead. Slightly more damage and way more mana to shoot.". The damage increase wont be worth it...tonight is the first night I will try out marksman.

Why does "Lock and Load" have a cooldown? The proc chance is 10% already, why does it need to be capped at 1 proc per 30s? If I am using rapid fire and my shot output is vastly increased, so should all of my proc's.

This is the first patch in...well, the first patch I can remember looking and saying "Wow, hunter really are getting the shaft." Whats with all the pet debuffs?? What, finally a BM hunter has a pet doing 40%+ of his damage and you nerf the pet? Come on! That is how it should be.

You are the Master of the beast! You train that pet to be a fine tuned killing machine. You invigorate one another and energize each other!

Blizzard Warrior: "Hey why are BM hunter pets hitting my warrior so hard in WSG?"
Blizzard Druid: "I dunno, let me mangle this guy for 3800 damage while in bear form then I will make sure we nerf them"
Blizzard Warrior: "Hey, could you remove my 15% hit penalty too, it's getting old missing with my pair of 2-handed weapons. Thanks!"

Blizzard Hunter #463: "Wait, you laying me off? Why?"
Blizzard Manager: "Look, you talk too much. We are all happy here and all you do is talk about hunter this and hunter that. Look, you got a cute pet, stop being so damn greedy! It's not ALL ABOUT YOU!"
Blizzard Hunter #463: "Does that mean Blizzard Warrior and Druid are fired too?"
Blizzard Manager: "Are you kidding? My kids play a sick Druid/Warrior arena team."

Yeah, So my mood isn't the best and yes, a level 77 druid mangled me for 3800 in bear form yesterday...I have 416 resilience and I am level 76. Maybe I will get lucky and my Fire shot will hit for 10k damage now!! Finally, let us all try to remember it's called fire shot now...explosive shot is that mythical shot we had in the past that actually exploded.

Happy patch day everyone!! (sorry if you weren't in the mood for a rant)

Time to survive!

2009-01-15T12:10:00.001-08:00

So, I respec'd myself yesterday to survival! Now Lienna can stop throwing toilet paper in my front yard!

I have to say, having a tank with strong aoe control is amazing for the survival hunter. We had a Paladin tank and it was simply a blast! (Thanks Buck!) That being said, I did feel like I was contributing to my parties latency with all my explosions (had to look awesome as a melee character with fire always spraying around you, tell me Wowgirl!, was it like constant fireworks!?).

The adventure was shared with Surbuck, Delos and Caitles. We really flew threw our adventures with few hiccups. Nice smooth control and good times throughout.

I have to say, the damage potential of the survival hunter is very promising. I can see topping damage meters in raids not being out of the question. I mean, when a large chunk of your damage is from a spell type damage, you already have a head start. Not to mention that the Survival hunter critical strike rate is awesome.

I am truly enjoying the hunter as a whole lately. I do much prefer doing instances and hanging with friends, but I have found a subtle enjoyment rotating my pets in and out. It is true you can't really keep more than 2 pets at your same level, but that's not fun! So, I am leveling 4 at the same time. The constant change is doing two things for me. First, it's teaching me more and more about the 3 pet types (cunning, ferocity and tankmaster supreme).

Also, I really am still figuring out which pet will work in which scenario. It's exciting having pet uncertainty. Finding names is much harder though. I think I may have to use Petopia if I get to 80 and haven't named them all.

Another thing, I really like not "wasting" experience for my pet. You know, when your pet dings early in an instance, the rest of the xp would be better going to a different pet. So, all of my pets have enough cushion to run 2 or 3 instances without leveling. I am proud to say I haven't wasted a single bit of pet xp to date. That being said, I am level 76 with 3 level 74 pets (all partly into 75 though). So, who cares what makes sense, I love it!

Also, the loss of critical strike rating as I level has grown old. I mean, how can an Elf possibly forget how to hit someone in just the right spot simply by killing some bears, grabbing some Pelts and serving up some horde? Whatever...I am over it... :(

This should be One Among Many posts to come! Thanks for keeping me on the ball Multi-class friend! :P

Also, in case you haven't figured it out yet, 5 Paladins can do ANYTHING together! FYI.

Happy new year!

2009-01-05T12:00:00.000-08:00

This picture is a great way to bring in the new year!

I have to say, I have been LAZY! The holidays usually bring crazy lazy days out of me...and I become a rhyme guru to boot!

So, lets see...

- My hunter is currently level 74 and beast mastery (is there any other way to level?). I must say I love Viper...very VERY much. Also, I love my gorilla. I have a few new pets coming soon, I will post pics if my brain allows me to remember.

- My Holy Paladin is now a Protection paladin! AOE-mazing? Yes! Especially in my holy pvp gear. I can tank and do amazing damage. It is a beautiful thing! I can;t tell you how much fun I have...and I am only level 72!

- My Draenei Death Knight is kind of puttering along. Level 60 and looks awesome, but I find myself too drawn to my main two characters to play them.

- UGh, I feel awful that my druid is only 66. He deserves better, but I cant help that my druid play time has been hurt by my Guitar Hero time :)

- Lastly, my first attempt at a mage is coming soon. Level 4 now, but plans are in the works for her...and she will be horde :O

I make a vow that my 2009 entries will be more consistent...and that is as solid as your new years resolutions :P

Initial wrath thoughts

2008-11-20T09:17:00.000-08:00

Well, first of all: Holy crap, 1.5 million Xp to level! :D

Second, wow, wow and wow. I truly think blizzard got this expansion right. Beautiful scenery and much more involved quests has created a new fun experience for the game. I have had this much fun since I created my first character!

My favorite experiences thus far:

- Cruising in on the stormwind pimp boat and seeing the Fjord for the first time.

- The Fjord quests! Talk about a new type of fun. Training a hawk, flying on an arrow and turning into a bird were my favorite!

- The Tuskar. I don't know what it is...I just want to be their friends! :)

- Riding on my first mammoth. Talk about cool. Did you know you can use the vendors on them!?

- Leveling the gorilla is crazy fun. 7 mobs? No problem.

- Actually taking time for screenshots and looking at the scenery. Waterfalls, cliffs...finally some stuff worth the time to look at.

- Getting the "Touring the Fjord" achievement passively. That's the achievement for doing nearly all of the Howling Fjord quests...yeah, that place is that fun!

- Being the only person who leveled herbalism in outland for 30 minutes to 400...thus being the only one able to herbalize most herbs the first few days! (maxed already!)

- Seeing Sadie in the snow! Where she belongs!

I am sure many more good times are ahead. I definitely rate Wrath as a 10/10 thus far. Now I just have to find time to play more!

Also, Death Knight is crazy fun! Delos has a great review drawn up for all to see!

Preparing for the Wrath ! ! !

2008-11-11T08:06:00.000-08:00

So, the big day is like 36 hours away now. How excited are YOU?! Like, 'a gerbil with a new tube to run in' excited -or- just a 'toll booth worker being paid with a $2 bill' excited? Either way, I think we can all have some level of excite for new content to our game!

I personally have a lot I look forward to doing!

- First, I am going to be the explorer. No wowhead searches and google searches to help me on my quests. I am gonna go old school and simply track and find what I need to find.

- Try out Death Knight, our new class! This class seems quite interesting and it will be interesting to see how much fun it may be. I am hoping it is extremely difficult to play!

- Continue to save gold and reach 15k and 20k for the first time! (current I sit at about 11.5k...somehow)

- Level 4 pets at the same time. Come on, it can't be that hard...

- Decide on my permanent pets...Cat, Gorilla...who knows what else! Chimera maybe?

- Level my Pally as retribution, protection and holy to learn the new design of all the builds. And hopefully find the one I like the most!

- Somehow level my druid and my DK??? Ha!

Well, other than that, I pretty much have no other plans! My main goal is to enjoy the WoW the way I used to. Before grinding became the staple of my game play. Whether it be pvp grind, arena grind, raid grind or daily quest grind...it becomes a revolving door sometimes. I want to remember why WoW is fun again! :)

So, midnight nerdathon is almost here! Wownerds unite! The Autobots look ready!

The grey period

2008-10-30T11:32:00.000-07:00

So, in this time before wrath I find myself with a lack of motivation to do...well, anything really. I have played my alt druid a little (trying to somehow get to 70 before wrath - 63 now), but other than that...nothing. I have got rich on transmutes and my big sell off at least!

That seems to be my only real goal for wrath; get as much gold as I possibly can. I figure, gold will be needed for something I want! So, selling things off is really all I have tried to do. I realized I was a bag lady on like 6 characters. So, it was time. I did save my mining materials in case I ever get the desire to be a blacksmith. Unlikely, but if that changes...I'll be ready...

I will eventually start sharing my hunter findings and understandings...when i am 80! I see no reason to go much further than general takes on things. Like my post on explosive shot. That is really all I want to do for now. level 80 quests, arena and raiding to come, but for now...we are in the grey period! The period that has drained motivation and somehow made a zombie horde the most intriguing thing we have seen in the last month.

That and the crazy achievement system that has people riding around Desolace for 45 minutes. Am I the only person out there who isn't completely obsessed with achievements? I will tell ya, I enjoy seeing the many places of WoW for the first time...I do not intend to ride around aimlessly to see each spot just to show people I did it. If I get achievements doing things I like, great! If I have to do something annoying and tedious to get them, I will pass, thank you!

So, I figure I should have some wrath goals!

1. Raid as Survival, Marksman and Beast Master and find the one I like this time around. probably survival, but I make no promises. At the very least, I will be very well educated on all 3!

2. Be a part of a casual, fun and shenanigan filled 10-person raid!! With Delos and Caitles!!

3. Acquire 5 pets I truly love and enjoy to play with. Sadie stays, the rest are all going to have to battle for stable slot supremacy!

4. Give Death Knight a serious try. Likely get to 80 and see if I like the style. Then when I find out everything I can...go PVP and own the millions of Death Knights out there with my hunter!

5. Somehow level my paladin and Druid to 80...haha!

6. WTB1337hax - I will have 10k+ gold to offer for these! (one that allows me to have the Glyph: "Gives your arcane shot a chance to delete target players hard drive")

7. Lose Sadie in the snow...several times!

8. Find a new love for WoW. My desire has been fading and the expansion may be able to bring back the fun feeling of playing WoW...as opposed to the obligation feeling that has made me start to resent the game.

Well, that seems like a good base of goals. I am sure you all have fun goals too!! feel free to share!!

The Gold rush!

2008-10-21T13:29:00.000-07:00

Occasionally I am inspired to write about items other than Hunter related topics. This is on of those times (sorry to you hunter loving hunter-er's). This post is about...MONEY!

So, I have for a while now, been thinking I wanted to go through all of my characters and do a cleaning house event! Take everything I do not need, won't use in wrath and have had too long to keep saying..."I am sure I will find a use for this eventually...". So, I did it!

Let me first say, gold is not usually something I have in abundance. I am a gear monger and a pvp monger. In addition, I am extremely meticulous about having every possible raid consumable I can find!! ALl that being said, i am usually broke!

My main income source is transmutation (Alchemy). I create a gem every day (sometimes more if I am lucky!) and sell it for about 150g. Wait a minute! In the patch...transmutation cooldown was removed! Holy crap! I have the materials for an insane amount of gems!! So, half hour later...I have 60 high end gems to sell! :)$:)

So, for the first time ever I was ready to make mass gold. To accompany the gems, I had my buddy Delos disenchant about 60 items on my bank character for me. Lastly, throw in all the junk of all my characters that I needed to sell, PLUS all my herbs since I will just get new ones in wrath and....

** 3k GOLD IN 1 DAY!! **

This may not be much to everyone, but considering my max amount of gold at any time has been about 5k...this is a pretty amazing day. Not to mention only half the gems have sold and I have a few more old items left over!

So...if you see me on a mammoth in Wrath...don't be surprised!! I mean, what else would I possible save the gold for!!??

Explosive shot...

2008-10-17T11:31:00.000-07:00

"Wait, I will be able to set things on fire...for multiple seconds?? That seems very....interesting...and wtfpwnage-like"

So, as we all know...survival hunters can set people on fire now. Woot?...meh. I have to say, I was quite excited to set a few horde on fire as soon as I built my Survival talent line up. Much to my dismay, the climax was as eventful as a presidential debate.

Here is the low down. I have 2300 ranged attack power in my Survival build. Here are my hit results:

Non-crit:
300-500 damage per hit
900-1500 total damage

Crits:
775-925 damage per hit
2,325-2,775 total damage

In essence, I was doing from 900 to 2,800 damage per 6 seconds of cooldown. I was actually hoping for a bit higher number. I mean, 2300 attack power is hard to achieve...but what can you do.

Some important things about explosive shot:

- The AOE effect hits soft AND DOES break crowd control
- Each fire hit has its own critical strike chance, meaning:
You can hit for: 400 - 800 (crit) - 400. All on one shot
- If you can find a condensed group, the AOE does make for some impressive burst
- Explosive shot can easily replace arcane shot in your rotation

Some interesting things about my survival build (0/10/51 - 10 for the 10 crit points in Marksman)
- My crit rating was 35%
- My damage meter said I was criting 58% of the time!!
- The build seems focused on critical strikes and...well...that seems to be it. Decent trapping and cc ability with wyvern sting...but really all about critical strikes. That is gonna make those points to improve your feign death seem so much better in raids now without blessing of salvation!

The last item is kind of peculiar. I essentially could not find a chance to use steady shot in most instances. When I add Aimed Shot in wrath, I doubt I will ever need steady shot. It's personal, but between Multi-shot, serpent sting and explosive shot...I never had down time.

My tips:
- Watch the cooldown and use the shot every time
- In instances and raiding, make sure you actually wont break cc; this skill if used wrong will lead to a severe case of huntarditus, that will be detrimental to your raid livelihood

Though I was not impressed with the number, it is still doing more damage than everything else. So...I like the shot, but not enough to say survival is my end all spec in Wrath. I am intrigued by the Marksman tree and that will be tried next. Also, BM had such a great fun factor...I can see BM getting some miles in Wrath as well.

Don't fret though, survival will get it's fair chance in wrath! I will raid, instance and quest with it to try it out fully. Also, explosive shot was designed as a level 80 skill....so maybe I will like seeing 3 crits over 1k in wrath! :)

Edited after further research - 11/10

What did you do?!

2008-10-16T06:47:00.000-07:00

Ok, so we all know that PATCH DAY!!! just came. :) So, what did you do? What did I do? Well, I tried 500 times to log in and then fell asleep! The next day though . . .

In order of Occurrence:

1st) Log into Nomakk, spec BM and start my hunt for some exotic pets! Let's be honest I love survival, but I play the hunter class for good times and shenanigans with my pets! So, it's off to Un'goro for a T-rex aka Devilsaur. Ironhide!! That's right, the big black dino that ate me when I was a young hunter gathering hundreds of crystals! "They are so shiny, how do I NOT pick them up!?"

So, the T-rex is mine! Some interesting things to note:

- He gets bigger when "Monstrous Bite" happens - This is a skill that damages the target and increases the Dino's damage by 3% (stacks up to 3 times) for 10s I believe.

- He is huge as a big red. I mean...like bury the horde mailbox huge.

- Turn your sound on! He sounds vicious! And blood drips from his mouth when he bites and gets the 3% damage bonus.

- Overall...I love him!

I have to say, I really enjoyed searching out the T-rex. There were all kinds of hunters in Un'goro and it was fun to chase and search. I started helping others find theres too. It reminded me why I play a hunter. It also led me to believe I could be BM and be happy in wrath...but don't tell anyone!

2nd) Go to Winterspring and get me a Chimera. Not nearly as fun...but it looks cool. I think tonight when I look for a cooler Chimera I will have a better time!

I did drag the Chimera through stormwind (fyi, the harbor is very well done, A+). Many people stopped to look and through some /cheer towards her (yeah, Chimeras feel like females for some reason). A few hunters even asked me "What else do you have?". Which of course led me to pull out my T-rex! Hunter adoration to the extreme!

3rd) Log off hunter, log on to Paladin. Time for the extremely over-charged retribution tree! I have to say, Divine Storm is probably the coolest ability (looks-wise) that I have seen in WoW. I felt under-whelmed, but i was also using a 1-h weapon + shield, which makes things hard as a weapon based dps class. Regardless, I loved the play style and design. I will surely be ret for pve in Wrath.

4th) Respec my Pally back to Holy. Shockadin time! So, the Holy Shock spell went from a 15s cd to a 6s cd...time to own faces? Kinda...I did some battlegrounds, but I found I was frustrated with the over-powered warriors hitting me with 2 2-h weapons. I thought it was quite lame that they could own me so bad. I used to eat warriors for lunch...now i am lunch...not fun at all.

Maybe my hunter should be able to use 2 pets? Or my paladin able to use 2 shields in 1 hand and a 2-hander in the other...yeah, that's seems fair. Sorry, i have slight hostility for watching a warrior kill my 10k hp in under 5 seconds last night. Let's see, I have over 10k hp, 350+ resilience...yeah, under 5 seconds. Hopefully he was lucky, but if that is the new design, WoW pvp will be a thing of the past for me.

5th) umm...this will be tonight? I think tonight is Survival or Marksman try night! Time to see what these new trees look like!

Some love for my fav's

2008-10-14T11:26:00.000-07:00

Another picture I managed to capture!!

So, since I have never done this, I figured it was time. I would like to acknowledge the blogs I like to read the most!

Aspect of the Hare
She just got a new site and things are in full swing already! Consistent updates, quirky charm and a love for her class unlike any I have seen! Definitely an enjoyable read! Also, she has a superb guide built to guide you hunter's in hiding all the way to eternal glory (or level 70 at the very least).

One Among Many (Just a wow girl)
This is our resident altalicious pseudo-hunter! She would be full blood hunter-er, but she has defected to classes of Nature!! I will Aspect of the Wild her back to the promise land! Any who, she is fun to read and like to draw moonkins in the least intimidating way ever (aka, cute). Also, I play WoW with her from time to time...nothing like instant nostalgia!

Lienna's Log
A new one that I think will be a regular read from here on out. Can't tell you much about it except it is well written and intriguing enough to read beyond my normal 3 main blogs I check regularly!

Laser Chicken is always a good witty read...thought its hard to tell if he is retired from the blog world!

Arms and Fury is a nice warcraft + real life blog. Sometimes it is great to read about the in game and real life goals, side by side!

Two and a Half Orcs is charming and well written by like 35 people...or two. Either way, fun to read and a nice pleasant adventure to read along with!

Mirshalak's Lair Is another hunter lover who is in love with survival more than most! You want to talk survival? Then you want to talk to Mirshalak!

Turns out I like the females blogs! Who can argue with that? Regardless, I hope you all can find one or two blogs you may not have seen (and enjoy them of course)! Meh...no one reads my blog anyway, but it's ok to be sharing, right? :D

Hunters love and/or hate Paladins?!

2008-10-03T12:25:00.000-07:00

I have noticed a trend in my Warcraft life...Hunter's with Paladin alt's! In many many occasions I have seen hunters on their alt while on my Pally....and they were playing a Pally too! I wonder what creates this trend? I have a few theories, as you may have guessed!

1) Blessing of freedom! Every hunter would love to be able to run free!!

2) Immortality! I don't know about you, but sometime in my 30-level pvp days, I fought a paladin who thwarted my killing efforts with his magical bubble! So, I asked around: "What can get past that bubble thing?" - "How do you kill a bubbled Paladin?" Do you know what the answer was?? You can DO NOTHING!! "Holy crap that's OP" I would cry in my sleep. Every hunter has moments where bubble would been stellar (true for all classes I suppose)

3) Kill difficulty. Ever tried to own a Paladin as a hunter...a good Paladin? One that used freedom, bubble and hammer of justice in a way that made your life truly painful? Yeah, it is those moments where you think to yourself: "I should either throw my keyboard through my screen....or create a Paladin alt and see what it's like!"

4) WTFHAX. So your in BRD, you walk into the main circular rotunda and someone just walks all the way in...Whoops!! Then you proceed to see "Resisted" when you click "Feign Death' and bloop, you die. Why does that Pally have green hands? Why did he just write in chat "Later jerks!"? OMG! He just stood in the middle of 9 guys and hearthed to safety! What a douc...genius! Oh crap...he dropped group! :(

5) Holy Shock. See Below.

So, in my days, I decided to "twink" my characters every 10 levels (get awasome gear for the top level of a pvp bracket, for you that are wondering "wtftwink?"). this desire comes from my extreme love for pvp. Now a true Twink spends hundreds (maybe thousands) of gold on a 'perfect' twinkage. Personally, I would just grab some blues and greens from the AH for lvl x9 (29, 39, etc.) and enchant is decently. Even my main went through this.

The ripple effect from this methodology is that when I twinked, I would park myself at that level, thus if I didn't want to PVP...see where I am going? The twink days led me to level an ALT. My alt was that Paladin I hated for being able to bubble and run free whenever he pleased.

This created a situation where I almost always had a twink and a leveling character at any given time side-by-side (a druid later joined the rotation when I maxed my hunter). In turn, I would also PVP with said Paladin constantly...probably 70% of the life of that Pally has been spent doing PVP. My build? Holy.

I have been in love with the idea of a Holy killer since I read about the Holy Shock ability. This type of player is referred to as a Shockadin. Which I have always been (I leveled from 55-60 as ret, but we will forgive that...it was post-BC). So, essentially I was a healer who could kill people. More importantly, I was a healer who could take the fight into his own hands, which in my battle group is very important.

One would think people would protect their healer (most times I would be the only one). No, it turns out. I would constantly get jumped and destroyed as my teammates ran away or ignored me to kill 1 pesky mage! This type of playing made it so easy to become an offensive Holy Pally at level 40 (the level you get Holy Shock).

For those of you who don't know, holy shock is a Holy Paladins only instant heal, BUT it can also be used to strike an opponent for Holy Damage! So, essentially, a Holy Paladin could judge Righteousness (an offensive judgement spell) and then Holy Shock an opponent in rapid succession (judgements do NOT trigger your global cooldown). At 49, I would hit people for 40-90% of their HP in a matter of seconds.

So, twinkage lasted a while, and then we are to today, where I am now 70! Inspect "Estario" on armory if you like! The lifestyle has survived! Shockadin in brutal gear!! Basically at 70 I buy mostly spell damage gear and then gem it for Healing (except the weapon, that +healing was too dramatic to make up and by god I am a healing class at the core!).

The final say - I love the Paladin for being a Hybdrid class. That may be why Hunters use Paladina as an escape. As my Paladin I can go out and be a straight up killer or sit back and heal the killers on my team who ignore me! I have a choice. My hunter, kill or go home, that is my job! To sum it up, I am a hunter and I love to play my Paladin!

I wonder how many hunters turn to druids, paladins and Shamans...

Have you Shockadin'd lately? Ever? Try it!

Flaskin up! A PVP tale

2008-09-25T11:08:00.003-07:00

Well, this could be seen as a PVP tactic, idea or strategy as much as it can be looked at as a tale. Ok, I am rambling now. Regardless, I would like to share a story of something I like to do to enhance my battleground experience! As we all know, Warcraft PVP is quite the revolving door. Same stuff, different day, right? well, time to spice it up!

I decided a few days agao to go all out for some battleground domination. Basically, I wanted a "I can take on 1v2 fights and win" type of day. So, off to the auction house I went! Purchased:

- 1 fel Lotus - for my "Flask of Chromatic Wonder"
- 30 Super healing Potions (on this day, it was cheaper to buy them, instead of craft them)
- 10 Major Mana Potions (major = 65s each!!)
- 1 Super Mana Oil
- 1 Stack of Spicy Crawdad

So, I have the goods and such to feed me during my epic battle. Now, I had to decide on a spec for this adventure. I decided on BM and I will tell you why..."World of MeleeCraft" was NOT going to ruin my expensive day of fun! As a hunter, the last thing I want is to buff myself up only to get owned by under geared melee classes. So, BM was the choice.

The build is one I like to use as bm, it was 42/11/8. I go 42 for maximum pet dps output from the beast mastery tree. The 11 in Marksman is for aimed shot. I accompany this with 5% crit and 20% chance for concussive shot to stun. I no longer need to mana reduction points, as Viper is more than enough with the mana oil and flask. The final 8 points is for entrapment. Nothing is more pleasing watch people try to chase you through entrapment laden traps (as you pummel their soul).

Just a side note, a lot of people may wonder, "Why not get the +crit damage talent points??". Well, with my current gear, my damage output is not suffering by skipping them. That being said, my survivability is vital to killing multiple opponents consecutively. This build allows greater survivability with still very solid damage.

Got the consumables, got the build, now what? Trinket choice! I figured, one offensive and one defensive trinket would be best. This way I don't get too far to being a defensive bunny rabbit who can't kill or an offensive cheetah who can't run the full race. So, I picked the Blood lust Broach (+72 ranged attack power) and my Alchemist stone. Since I am using potions, the Alchemist stone is almost a must. The 40% additional healing on my potions is just crazy. As I have 30 potions, it definitely made sense.

So, I played for the 2 straight hours of the flask. I mixed all the battlegrounds, focusing mainly on AB because it presents the most opportunities to shine without help (especially in my battle group where calling for help is about as helpful as motor oil is for cooking. My shining moments of the night:

- Defending the Lumber Mill in AB alone for an entire AB match. I was able to muster 15 kills and 13 killing blows to 2 deaths (a pretty nice ratio). After each death, I went back and luckily the group had left a guy to be sacrificed! :)

- Fighting a mage, rogue and Ret pally (attacking our tower) in eye of the storm and killing all three. It is amazing how much can be accomplished with bestial wrath. Just an FYI, to solo this group your kill order is: Mage, Rogue and then paladin. Save the pally for last because they are the easiest to solo once you have endured so much damage. if that pally tries to heal, let him. he is ret and his heals are lame and you can save yourself his hurtful hits while you pump the damage out.

- In a particular AB, two warriors led the horde in damage done. They were always together and hit the same target. At one point they rushed me defending the mine and during my big red I was able to kill on and drop the other to 20% hp. if it wasn't for his 4k mortal strike (409 resilience my butt!) I would have had him as well.

- Destroying every rogue I saw. Not really an accomplishment, but it made me feel better. When BM, find and kill rogues!

- In an AV I multi shot a group and got these three hits: '2306' '2210' '2175'.

- In two separate AV's I was able to hold Stonehearth bunker so long (alone) that the alliance had a 300 point lead.

A lot of you may be wondering why I did this for solo accomplishments. Well, as you may have noticed, my goals were not for top damage and top killing blows, but for objectives to win. The reason these have to be done solo is not because I am a nomadic rogue, but because my battle group really doesn't answer calls for help. So much for being part of the "Alliance". So, after a while, you start to think of creative ways to still do big things that help to win. I can;t remember my exact win to loss ratio, but i know I won 3 AB's. If you ask any alliance in my battle group, that pretty incredible!

So, flask up and spend some gold and try it out! See what you can do!

Deterrence!

2008-09-23T08:29:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder the best way to beat those pesky Warriors and rogues? How about a nice little combination of annoyance combined with shock.

If you have ever went 11 or so points into the Survival tree, then you likely have utilized the skill called "Deterrence" at some point. This is a skill that...well...provides you with all kinds of good times! In a nut shell, Deterrence is a skill that for 10 seconds grants you 25% dodge and 25% parry. If you are full survival, this should get you to at least 50% dodge and 30% parry or more!

If you see THIS, it is an excellent time to use deterrence!

In PVE
In PVE deterrence is an excellent tool to have at your disposal. When grinding solo, wouldn't it be nice to have an escape when you "accidentally" draw too many mobs and would prefer to not kill your loving pet? Simply take agro! Throw down the deterrence machine and continue to fight your pets target at range while avoiding almost every attack from the extra enemies. Bring your buddy back to take the targets back and then proceed to kill them knowing the 10 seconds you absorbed from your pet likely saved you down time and your pets frustration with your carelessness.

If you are trying an extra difficult elite mob or rare spawn, this is also a great way to save your pet and your chance of killing the mob. Let your pet start in, but dps down the mob hard and ignore the agro table, keep mend pet rolling during this burst. When you draw agro, drop a damaging trap (ice likely not possible) and start up the deterrence. Hold the mob while keeping mend pet rolling. This will provide a nice 10s recovery period where you continue to damage the target and they aren't demolishing your poor little buddy. Feign death and drop back and then tell all your friends what you can solo!This technique is especially geared towards a mob that cannot be crowd controlled and/or slowed; if they can be, simply use it in an emergency situation.

What about in raids, instances or heroics?! Well, I will tell you a nice story about a time I went and saw The Dragon killer. Well, we have him at 3% and the second tank died is the premise. Luckily (debatable) I was next on the agro list after both tanks. I decide to not feign and see if 2 dps and 4 healers can finish him with a hunter tank. I switch to monkey and let him come. I release deterrence and for 10s I take 1 hit for 8k but with 4 healers it is quickly absorbed and I live!! Gruul is at 1% when deterrence ends so I just stay in monkey and wait for a huge blow to pop my super healing potion. In the end, we killed the final 3% of Gruul with a hunter tank, mage and 4 healers.

Lets all be happy Atreyu had Deterrence popped at the most important moment!

So, know that as a hunter you can save groups on boss fights. Especially, if you have a resto druid! In 10s the druid can res the tank and full heal him and you can stand strong and prevent a whipe and possible long walk back (Coilfang anyone?). Just be smart and remember you have the skill. What do you do if a trap is resisted in instances? "Trap resist, need help!" or the more dreaded: "Trap resist, I had to feign" The latter being what is usually said after a whipe.

I will be honest...sometimes Deterrence won't help . . .

In this case, it will! If you have deterrence, you simply use it, and for 10s you can recover from a trap resist. Either you get your trap cooldown to finish or the tank has good time to react and you can hold until then. Basically you become a very reliable source of safe and what the group will see as near flawless crowd control. If your group doesn't compliment or say anything at all about your trapping, then you did it right! :)

In PVP - Battlegrounds

Every non-bm hunter has been there. "God, I hate rogues and warriors! How can they get so many ways to catch me!" I have been there many times. It is this fact that sometimes can make deterrence worth it if you are a pvp'r. In battlegrounds Deterrence is sometimes a real way to beat strong rogues and warriors. If you have any doubts, let me share a story with you...again.

One pleasant day I was taking a stroll in WSG as the flag carrier due to no stronger alternative. I get jumped mid-field by a pair of rogues. Now, this usually spells doom for a hunter, but I stayed patient and dropped a frost trap. Faced the rogues and fought. Deterrence and I am at 80% hp; pop Readiness, drop explosive trap and keep fighting. Second deterrence and I am now at 50% hp and the 1st rogue dead. Second rogue is alive at 30% hp. It is at this point that I see 2 more horde mounted coming my way. So, I sleep the rogue in a haste and make for my tunnel. I am met by a resto shaman and we proceed to score.

Imagine if Neo didn't learn Deterrence...we would all be batteries!

In that situation, it was the difference between a point or another dragging effort to score without a decent carrier. Try to watch for the right moments. It is not in your best interest to waste deterrence if you are fighting say, a warrior and he has 2 healers. Be selective and it will pull you out of tight situations. Focus, keep the target in front of you and watch the hp bar hold!

In Arena

Many battleground strategies are the same as the arena strategies. The glaring exception being you can easily plan when to use deterrence. In my opinion, you should save it for the moment of truth. The moment where you have used all cooldowns and all possible escapes and now you must stand and face that warrior. Drop that frost trap and raptor stike his head in. It is far more valuable to stand and fight (even if the damage is minimal) while your team can recover. Also, you may have a cooldown refresh in those 10 vital seconds!

If Gandalf had kept his enemy in front of him, he could have dodged that last attack and won that match . . .

Luckily he learned from this and used Deterrence properly in his final battle with the Big Red Demon.

In conclusion, try to practice using deterrence and keeping folks in front of you. Many warriors and rogues stuck in slowing traps will be blown away by you surviving and dodging like a mad man!

The purple Hunter

2008-09-18T13:17:00.000-07:00

So, as the last few week have gone by I have sometimes come to overlook my current gear. To be honest, I probably shouldn't. I mean, it felt so easy because of how lazily I acquired it all. I tend to like doing bg's a lot (especially when I make 25 Super Healing Potions and flask!). All though, I am sure Warhammer pvp will be more fun...given the focus it has on it. Regardless, I would say I am doing pretty well!

3/5 Brutal Gear

1/5 Vengeful (Head)

1/5 Merciless (shoulders)

4/5 Guardian (Need = Boots)

1/5 Vindicator's (Ring, which is the max anyway. I have the Guardian ring)

Trinkets:

Medallion of the alliance (epic = 45 resilience)

Talisman of the Alliance (900 hp heal + 34 Resilience)

Bloodlust Broach (+72 Ranged attack power)

Alchemist Stone (+15 Stats) - For BG's when I plan on using Potions

Weapons:

Vengeful Waraxe
Playschool Badge crossbow!

So, all in all I am doing quite nicely. I have 375-409 resilience and 35-41% crit rating. Not bad at all me thinks!

In addition, my Holy Pally (who is a down right PVP-whore) has started to look half decent!

2/5 Brutal
1/5 Vengeful (Head)
1/5 Merciless (shoulder)

2/5 Guardian
1/5 Vindicator

Merciless Weapon and Shield

So, considering two weeks ago he had 120 resilience and now he has 265, we are doing pretty well. I have truly stuck to my shockadin plan, taking dmg/heal armor, but using +heal gems. So, essentially I have a Holy Paladin with +750 dmg and +1400 healing. I know my healing has been gimped, but alliance in my battle group is awful. So, I need to eb able to kill folks. It nice in battlegrounds where I can demolish non-warlocks pretty quickly and heal to kind of "cheat" as being both good dps and good healing.

The next step: Await my teammate Delos to get active in arena again...I am pretty confident our success is going to be very high this go round! It will be the return of Moonkin-Hunter and Paldadin-Rogue!! :) Wish us luck!

Picture credit goes to yours truly! :D Think I have got the eye for it?

Arena newbie - Hunter Guide

2008-09-09T10:22:00.000-07:00

So, it's time for arena on your hunter, aye? I bet you think since you lead in killing blows all the time in WSG, you will totally own in arena too! Well, sadly, you couldn't be more wrong! Regardless, do not be deterred. With practice and spec manipulation, in time you will likely find some success in arena! Here are my tips for success when you take your first steps into arenahood.

1. Get the blue pvp set! I know sometimes grinding the reputation needed for items is tedious, but this set is cake. it only takes honored reputation and it is vastly superior to the blues and greens from most dungeons. Resilience is the key. if you have -0- then expect to drop like a rock. if it is 150+ then expect to last and be able to fight. get to 300 and you are able to truly compete (400 and you now have only skill to work on).

2.. Gem for your build. In the beginning, you will likely not know which build will succeed in arena. So, gem the blue set and then play with the three tree's to see what works. Early on, you may want to make sure all of your gems have stamina. 10k hp is a great early goal. When I first began, I used gem's that were x + stamina (x being agility, critical strike chance, etc.). Arena is not about how much damage you can do as much as it is about how long you can be in the fight. Doing huge burst is great, but if the other team survives it and you die, then what good is your +attack power gems and only 8k hp?

3. Aspect of the Viper! I see a lot of hunters using Aspect of the Hawk in arena. Ugh...that's all I ever say. Please remember that Viper is how you survive a DPS+Healer team. Stay in hawk and you are doomed. Remember, a hunter can only do as much as his or her mana pool allows. Why risk losing your fuel source!? I personally have given up Hawk and reserved it for 2v2 arena teams with a second DPS class as my teammate. Having mana is more important to me than 150 attack power.

You may say you switch to Viper when you need it and it is a waste early, but after doing hundreds of arena matches, that tactic is not for me. I really...REALLY want mana when it comes time to close a match. Nothing worse than getting down to a 1v1 scenario and you have no mana (especially if you know you could win with mana). Also, how many times have you forgot to switch your aspect to viper until it was too late?

4. Do not be afraid to experiment. if you are truly a beast master and nothing will ever change that, then more power to you (with practice, you can be great with any build). I encourage you to go out, farm 500g and start playing with your class. I have learned all 3 hunter tree's well and feel comfortable in arena as any build. I would never have discovered the fun of the 0/27/34 build without arena! Also, maybe you don't like to crowd control, maybe you aren't good at kiting (these are traits of a someone who should really try out BM).

5. Expect things to be hard. I have 400 resilience and 12.8k hp and I still have trouble in arena. Hunter are severely handicapped in arena. The hunter problem is really only in 2v2 arena. So, if you want a better chance at instant success, you may want to try 3v3 or 5v5 right off the bat. Especially 5v5 arena! You get more points faster and hunters are excellent dps for a 5v5 team.

6. Find a solid and reliable teammate who you can work well with. If you decide to do 2v2 as a focus (easiest to focus on and organize) then find a teammate you can work with. Personally I like to run with Retribution paladins, amazing rogues and Sl/SL warlocks. Moonkin and elemental shaman are my preference, but I can never find them!!

To be honest though, any strong teammate is best to practice with when you first start and see what you can do. A lot of people will say "hunters are definitely best with X", but I implore you to find this out for yourself. Trust me, 2v2 is hard enough without having the daunting task of finding a very specific teammate who may be some stranger that you may or may not work well with.

7. Do not be afraid to spend arena points on the "lower" arena items. Right now that would mean buying vengeful instead of Brutal gear. By all means grab the gloves when you can, but do not feel defeated to buy vengeful if your not getting the ratings for brutal. vengeful is amazing gear and it will help you get the ratings. Trust me, the vengeful will help so much and you will get higher ratings, more points and the brutal will come in time.

8. Practice is my final piece of information. The more you play arena, the better you will be. I assure you that if you find a teammate that you work well with and the two of you practice, then you will eventually become awesome!

As always, if you have any questions, please ask!

Arena Segment: Hunter vs Rogue - Part 2

2008-08-20T06:39:00.000-07:00

Rogue Skills:

Shadow Step
I am mentioning this skill simply because of the current latency issue it takes advantage of. Shadowstep ignores the flare, this is another excellent reason to use frost trap. They will likely see you drop a trap and then use cloak of shadows + shadow step. If you planned right, they will shadow step into a nice frosty mess to try and get out of!

Cheap Shot and Kidney Shot
The key to fighting a rogue is patience, not panic. Rogues need to hit a hunter many times to kill them. So, you must limit how much they get to hit you. If you get cheap shot, relax! Wait for the kidney shot and trinket at that point. Immediately flare and frost trap and start following your rogue killing rotation. Do not, I mean absolutely do not trinket out of cheap shots unless you will die within a few hits. Kidney shot is usually five seconds which can equate to a ton of damage.

Blade fury and Adrenaline rush
Make sure if you notice the rogue using these skills...RUN. Do not let the rogue pummel you. Escape at all costs and when the rush is over you should have the non-subtlety rogue wrapped up.

Some racial tips:
Dwarves: If you are a beast master dwarf, you should never ever lose to a rogue, even if he has all of his cooldowns. Your escapes are amazing and all rogues should fear the dwarf hunter. Stoneform, simply save it for after your wrath or after your trinket, it is another free crippling escape!

Tauren: War stomp -> Feign Death -> wing clip. Enough said. Watch the crippling poison timer if you are in monkey and standing in your flare toughing it out in melee! ;) When it's low, simply use the combo I listed and watch the rogue fade into the distance.

Orc: Enjoy all the cheap shot/kidney shot resists!

Night Elf: Try this some time. When trying to find a rogue flare first and stand in the middle. Shoot a volley out and then shadowmeld. With five seconds left on the flare, un-stealth and get ready to move a bit to the next flare spot. Then shadowmeld again. Rogues cannot shadowstep when you are melded. If you time this right you can leave rogues with very small windows of opportunity to shadowstep to you. Most times it will create enough time for the stealth eyes to pop up for you!

Draenei: Try using scatter shot, intimidate, entrapment, or even feign death to use your heal. Also, try using it early and not late. use it when things are not desperate to widen the damage gap between you and the rogue.

Trolls try to use berserk when forced to fight in melee to up your chances. Blood elves...I got nothin' (casters you can mess up their day....rogues...use all of the above!)

If you want to try to be good at fighting rogues but know you won't remember everything I wrote...here is the top 5 items I recommend starting with.

1) When you cannot get away after doing everything you can...FIGHT!! You have weapons and a few melee skills. Pop in monkey and do you best to do as much damage while awaiting your next possible escape! I have hit a rogue for 2k before with my axe!

2) Use Frost trap

3) FLARE! FLARE! FLARE! When? During the ENTIRE fight!! Eliminate vanish from the rogues arsenal!

4) Feign death before the rogue reaches you. Wing clip and run. This is an epic way to get an aimed shot onto the rogue and then not get hit after the long cast! Also, it helps if your ability to kite the rogues are limited (another hunterology post coming soon!).

5) Be patient and confident. I used to fear and loathe rogues! now, only the truly elite and fortunate ones beat me. I am happy to see most rogues and I make them say "God I hate hunters" =D Take things slow, once you start feeling like rogues aren't so bad you can take your time and slowly and patiently kill rogues. (stop trinket wasting out of cheap shots!)

As always, ask any question you have! I always like to hear other ideas too!!

Check out Part 1 here

Arena Segment: Hunter vs. Rogue - Part 1

2008-08-19T08:34:00.000-07:00

Ok, if you have ever played a hunter in arena then you know the pain of fighting rogues. I figure non-bm hunters nearly every BG experience think to themselves "I hate rogues" on multiple occasions. So, since rogues are not the thorn in my side they used to be (actually i don't mind them at all now) I figured it was time to share my hax...I mean strategies! :) Beast masters likely don't hate rogues, so you all can keep the wrath burning through every rogue you see! Some of the tips may help when the wrath is cooling down though!

The truth first. Rogues are far superior built for 2v2 arena, so if you are going to beat one, you must be better. No ifs, ands or buts! Unfortunately, when the rogue has a healer, you will have to be near flawless to beat them. You damage source is limited by mana and the rogue has infinite damage. That's just the reality.

Flare! Flare! Flare!
I cannot stress how important a flare is these days. You may say to me "I always use a flare, it the vanish that gets me!!" if you say this, then it is time for you to realize that when fighting a rogue, flare is your most important asset. During the engagement you should be renewing flare. Ever seen a rogue Vanish in a flare?...me neither. They throw smoke and then stand right next to you for a couple seconds pondering their life.

The flare is not just to prevent and opener, it is to save you from multiple cheap shots and vanishes. In an arena where a rogue can possible Vanish twice in a a short period you must combat them with good consistent flare placement for your entire engagement! No Exceptions!

Stop Ice trapping them!
Ice trap is not what it used to be, especially in arena. Everyone has the trinket and the rogue can likely kill you with 1 trinket use especially if he knows to shiv a hunter with crippling poison. Also, most rogues have a healer who can dispel your trap, which even lessens the effect it has! So, that leaves you with 4 more choices: Fire, Explosive, Frost and Snake.

Fire and explosive may as well be removed from the lost because of cloak of shadows (read below for explosive trap possible use). Frost and snake are your best traps to use. This one is personal. Snakes is nice because of crippling poison and a small amount of damage via dots...also nice. Considering that when fighting rogues you are now keeping a flare down...and you have serpent sting, that may not be as advantageous as frost.

Frost trap is amazing for the sheer use of the trap. You can use a frost trap for its entire duration and keep making the rogue slow while you circle the trap area (with a flare in it!). Occasionally you may have to worry about a paladin giving freedom, but remember that arcane shot removes it and you likely have already removed all other buffs with an arcane shot or two prior to getting in the trap. Regardless, the trap will still be there, if the rogue trinkets out, he will immediately get caught again.

If you have entrapment....then you will truly know what it's like to be a "mace-stun-esque" hunter. Watching a rogue struggle in a frost trap is a thing of beauty and it will help you forget the pain of crippling poison.

Side note: Explosive trap does have 1 great use. In this day and age, rogues own hunters in cool downs at their disposal. So, in longer fights where it is just you and the rogue and you are out of escapes and you have to take the rogues damage, simply use explosive trap. Hopefully by this point the rogue is near dead and the initial hit will likely catch him off-guard and hopefully help you win the melee fight!

Speaking of melee . . .

Aspect of the Monkey
The most under-utilized tool in arena. If you are fighting a rogue, eventually he will get crippling poison on you and you will be out of escapes. it is at this moment where instead of walking away slowly dying, that it is time to own the moment. Switch to Aspect of the Monkey and be the melee hunter you always dreamed of being! Consider that whatever you are waiting on as far as cooldowns go, is more likely to come to pass if you live longer. Face front, drop a frost trap to keep the rogue in front of you and melee your hunter heart out.

I don't know about you, but I have 26% dodge in monkey and 0% dodge when walking away from a slicing rogue! You survive during you melee battle; now scatter shot cooldown ends or you finally have some other escape! You switch back to viper and own the rogues face! (my post tomorrow will reflect on why I use Viper over Hawk in arena).

Serpent Sting
Not much to be said here, keep it on to make the vanish tactics to a minimum. The damage is not as important as the stealth prevention (remember....flare while fighting!).

Hunter's Mark
This skill is definitely still useful, but remember that serpent sting is more important in most cases. Hunters mark has less effect when you consider shadow step. The serpent sting will break stealth and hopefully it happens before the shadow step.

Feign Death
We all know the beauty of Feign death in PVE, but my-my-my have you used it in pvp? Hopefully the answer is yes! There is nothing better than a nicely timed FD that leaves the rogue way behind you. An excellent time to use it is when the rogue is approaching you at range. Just as he gets in striking range do a feign death immediately followed by a wing clip. This also works if the rogue shadowsteps to you. Feign right away and wing clip him and gain a ton of ground. if you planned ahead you will also have a frost trap and flare to run through! :)

Volley
In every arena with a stealth class I always pop my flare and stand in it. The next step is to volley in some random location to find someone in stealth. I would say 15% of the time i snag someone. Just think, 15% of the time you find the rogue first! Most times the rogue will panic and burn a vanish right away helping your cause even further! I use rank 1 to conserve mana, so look at it as your second flare every minute.

Check out Part 2 here! Inspiration for this entry came from Mirshalak!

Marksman PVP

2008-08-12T06:47:00.000-07:00

Recently I have been trying the Marksman build for pvp. I was marksman for a year before switching to survival a year ago. I have started to try it out again...to be honest, the inability to excel in arena is why. Survival hunter's in arena are gimped by their CC sharing the same depreciating returns. I have elaborated on this before, but it is the dumbest class design I have ever seen. To have a trap and a sleep share the same diminishing returns and then give a 41st point that refreshes their cooldowns? Wow...just wow.

Here are some keys I have noticed:

- Silence Shot is epic. I can really mess up a resto-druid or priest who has grown over-confident. I am always in a good mood when I get an aimed shot off; I know that person is likely doomed from that point on because of my ability to stop any decent heals. Another excellent use of Silence shot is right after a viper sting on anyone who can cleanse it. Usually the sting lasts it's full duration because after the 2s silence the stung target has to deal with...

- Improved Stings! These points are mandatory for pvp. 30% resistance to removal...yes please! Also, the 30% more damage and mana drained is just gravy.

- Attack power is crazy. In my Survival build I have 1515 RAP and 41% crit. In my Marksman Build I have 1840 RAP and 34% crit. Which is better? Hard to say, but my sustained Marksman damage is quite nice. These numbers are all in Viper by the way. It is debatable whether a Marksman or Survival hunter has better burst though.

Marksman vs Survival in PVP - two major differences

1) Silence Shot trumps Wyvern sting. Both hunters can trap effectively, but Wyvern sting is almost always a waste as it is broken by a teammate or your traps diminishing returns makes it a 4 second crowd control. Silence shot is repeatable every 20 seconds and you can use it with great results all the time. The shot is both reliable and an excellent utility. If you consider your burst as a Hunter, it is vital to be able to stop heals and Marksman can time the interrupt to be right where it causes the most pain.

2) Survival has better sustained burst. It is probably a great unknown that Survival can outburst a Marksman Hunter in arena. It is quite simply the 5-7% higher crit rating and getting to roll 2 rapid fires into every arena exchange or have an extra rapid fire every 5 minutes in battlegrounds. I would say that 65k damage in 30 seconds of battle is not out of the question for a survival hunter.

My 5v5 team last night features me as survival and another hunter as Marksman. When neither of us was under attack, I consistently out damaged him by 15-20k damage. Now, his silence shot may have been more vital, but you have to consider that 20k damage is nearly 2 kills worth of damage. Rapid fire when not under duress is amazing for destroying someone and makes getting the aimed shot debuff on a target so easy.

My current verdict is that I prefer Survival in 5v5 arena and battlegrounds. I can CC at my own discretion while still pumping out heavy damage. In 2v2 and 3v3 arena I prefer Marksman because I really need silence shot in those exchanges (and improved stings in many cases). Less important, but just as good to note, Survival is more fun! It is always an amazing moment to be standing in the field of strife with 4 or 5 people trying so hard to kill you as you are truly making their day feel like forever. Sleep, entrapment and deterrence, oh my!

The Great return!

2008-08-11T14:30:00.000-07:00

So, I took a long (impromptu) vacation to escape from my life for a bit! Now I am back and ready to blog, craft and anything else enjoyable for the time being!

Short Non-Warcraft notes:
I went on Vacation at a beach and I can tell you, seeing storms coming over the beach is an amazing experience! The photographer in me cried out for me to at least TRY a photography side job. It's a dream that hopefully I can pursue one day soon!

Being with kids makes me not want them. I mean, I am sure one day I will want them, but that day is NOT soon. I love my nieces and nephew, but I am happily waiting for my turn!

I really want to find a new thing to do in WoW. I have found myself doing some PVP and such, but lately I haven't found any motivation to do much. Grinding is definitely not my idea of a good time. I wish I had the Alt-itus, thats for sure! Either way, I am sure I will find something fun to do soon. Maybe an odd pvp spec based on 1 goal (like WSG flag Carrying or Solo AV tower defense). Also, that 49 druid is looking quit tempting these days (twinkage fun is fading quickly). Idea?! Please share them!!

More to come guys, thanks to all of you who continue to visit! I promise to post more now that life will return to normality!

My arena teams!

2008-07-16T06:15:00.000-07:00

So, I am back now! :) All settled in (pay no attention to all those full boxes in the second bedroom) and ready for some blogging + warcraft good times!

I figured with season 4 now in full swing I would share my past arena teams and how they fared! I will rate (1-10 scale)Burst, Survivability, Control, Synergy and Ability to succeed. I will rate my experience and then what I feel it would be like with great gear.

Score Key for what rating one might expect:
0-19 < 1400
20-29 < 1500
30-35 < 1650
36-44 < 1800
45-49 < 1900
50 = own everyone

1. Marksman Hunter + Moonkin
- Bursting: 7 - 10
- Survive : 5 - 7
- Control : 6 - 6
- Synergy: 4 - 4
- Success : 3 - 3
Tally: 25 - 30

2. Survival Hunter + Moonkin
- Bursting: 8 - 10
- Survive : 7 - 8
- Control : 8 - 10
- Synergy: 6 - 7
- Success : 6 - 8
Tally: 35-43

3. Survival hunter + Resto Druid
- Bursting: 4 - 4
- Survive : 7 - 8
- Control : 5 - 6
- Synergy: 2 - 4
- Success : 2 - 4
Tally: 20 - 26

4. Survival hunter + BM Hunter
- Bursting: 8 - 10
- Survive : 4 - 5
- Control : 4 - 5
- Synergy: 2 - 2
- Success : 2 - 4
Tally: 20 - 26

5. Survival Hunter + Subtle Rogue
- Bursting: 5 - 6
- Survive : 9 - 10
- Control : 4 - 5
- Synergy: 3 - 3
- Success : 2 - 3
Tally: 23 - 27

6. Marksman Hunter + Combat Rogue (Current)
- Bursting: 8 - 10
- Survive : 5 - 7
- Control : 4 - 5
- Synergy: 7 - 8
- Success : 3 - 6
Tally: 27 - 35

7. Shockadin Healer + Subtle Rogue (I am the holy pally)
- Bursting: 3 -6
- Survive : 7 - 9
- Control : 3 - 4
- Synergy: 4 -5
- Success : 4 - 8
Tally: 21 - 32

8. Shockadin healer + Arcane Mage
- Bursting: 6 - 7
- Survive : 4 - 6
- Control : 4 - 6
- Synergy: 3 - 5
- Success : 4 - 5
Tally: 21 - 29

9. Shockadin healer + Frost Mage
- Bursting: 7 - 9
- Survive : 6 - 9
- Control : 5 - 7
- Synergy: 8 - 9
- Success : 6 - 8
Tally: 32 -42

10. Shockadin Healer + Moonkin (current)
- Bursting: 5 - 10
- Survive : 6 - 9
- Control : 4 - 6
- Synergy: 8 - 10
- Success : 6 - 9
Tally: 29 - 44

Hunter Summary: In short, being an arena 2v2 hunter is hard. i have yet to meet a 2v2 hunter with over 1800 rating. i have seen them with nice 3v3 and 5v5 team ratings though. It is very hard to roll with healer + hunter unless you are both geared extremely well and practice regularly. Without dedicated practice and such, the hunter really needs a hybrid or second strong dps partner. Honestly, if you want to succeed with as little work as possible as the hunter, then simply go to the 3v3 format!

If I had to recommend teams to avoid: Any team, where you are reliant on the healer. Mana burn, drain and sting are so deadly to a hunter team and it makes your ceiling low (again, unless you pour your heart and soul into memorizing what to do). I am casual, so these teams are simply frustrating. if you did take a healer, then go with a paladin. They aren't easily taken out and blessing of freedom can really make life easier.

Teams I would highly suggest trying are good hybrid teammates. Elemental shamans and moonkins especially. Nothing like someone to help burst and throw some game changing heals + poison cleanses your way! Also, the Hunter + Warlock team would be quite intriguing to try.

Shockadin healer Summary: First let me say that I love being a killing holy paladin. I could never be a traditional Holy Pally (in 3v3 I may try my best to do so). A Shockadin Healer is a Paladin who goes 41/20/0 - or - 40/0/21 and Heals while being a good source of dps help.

I would avoid trying to convince a healer you are worthy of their heals! :) No matter what you do you are still a minor DPS source most of the time. What a shockadin can do well is interval bursting. Basically every judgement + Holy shock moment you can spray anywhere from 1500-4000 dmg on an enemy in 1 Second (since judgements do not count towards the global cooldown). So, find another dps, you are still technically the healer.

Teammates I recommend would definately be your high + limitless DPS folks. Such as Warlocks using the Imp as a mana battery, Rogues, and DPS Warriors (centers?). Above all, I would actually search out skilled DPS partners. I mean, any skilled DPS will work as long as they know how to both fight for a quick win and fight in a long drawn out battle of attrition. The best advantage you have is that you are helping DPS while still having the healing gear!

I will do a 3v3 summary as well! Watch for it. :)

New house!

2008-07-03T10:26:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update! This past weekend we closed (my girlfriend and I) on our first house! It is a beautiful English inspired old style brick condo (2BR 2 bath) in a wonderful area. Some thing to note:

- Sleeping on a mattress in your living room instead of moving the bed frame = priceless (and very underrated)

- Carrying furniture up to a third floor = hire movers next time

- Shopping at best buy after you just got paid = not smart

- Moving in with a crazy woman = exciting? :)

- Trying to convince a woman of the worth of your futon = impossible? (sorry guys, even with a $200 frame and $200 mattress...still worthless!)

More updates will come soon as we are nearly settled! :)

Random PVP storytelling

2008-06-25T11:01:00.000-07:00

So, I have to make an admission...I love Eye of the Storm.

"But Nomakk, you lose 70% of your matches!!"

This is true in our battle group actually. That is why I love it though. No expectation of victory. I kind of assume a loss and do my best to make things very hard on the horde. You know, like attacking their base that has 3 guys and killing all 3 only to be shortly decimated by 10 guys. It's ok, I always enjoy being able to have so many 1v1 and 1v2 encounters in one BG. Most other BG's are too small, thus help for the horde is usually a few small steps away.

By the way, who misses the epic battles that used to be AV. I lost the other day in 7 minutes. I remember a time when it took 7 minutes to do your first three quests. It used to mean something to get elite guards and air units and Ivus! It was fun and truly felt Epic. Back then, you could do 5 Av's in a row and they all would be completely different battles. Now, you could do 5 that are exactly the same. Hopefully we get some depth in our BG rotation in WotLK.

Is it just me....or does every class hate fighting warlocks? Maybe rogues and warriors don't hate it as much. Then again, how does it feel to own someone as a warrior and then sit with dot's and die shortly thereafter? Isn't it like the best moment when you realize you are fighting a "shadowmage" who is trying to shadow bolt you?! "This must be my lucky day!" It just seems that like no matter which character I am playing, be it hunter pally or druid...I hate fighting locks the most.

To my hunter friends, have you ever got the flag in Aspect of the Beast and found a nice safe location to hide? You would be shocked at how long it takes to find you. A couple WSG wars back I held the flag on the horde roof for about 15 minutes (while getting to shoot them downstairs when my guys invaded) and then 1 guy came up. After dispatching him the radar said "Wrath of the Horde incoming" so I broke out the second level. I will tell you, when your getting smashed by the opposing side, this is a great way to really slow things down and let everyone settle in. break that rhythm up that they have going. I suppose with the new flag system it won't work as well now :(

Speaking of fun, I have started doing more BG's on my 70 Holy Paladin (easily a shockadin most of the time). I love playing him because when my teammates ignore my heals (all the time) I just switch to being offensive and kill folks. I find that being such a offensive character for so long in the hunter, that I am compelled to kill Hordies as the healadin. Especially since it almost always catches them off guard. Holy shock for 2k+, seal for 2k+? Hammer of justice that heal? You have just been introduced to a healer who can kill joo! =D

Pvp may be a grind sometimes, but if you buy a flask get 20 Super healing potions and sell your left thumb for a healer friend...you will love each minute of that grind...or at least the 2 flask hours of it! :)

Arena Segment: Tips to fight the Healer + DPS Team

2008-06-24T07:46:00.001-07:00

So, one of the more exciting and difficult challenges in your WoW life is when you enter an arena to discover a healer + dps team. These come in a variety of combinations, so we will just keep it general and not address each combination directly. Let us explore two different strategies:

#1) Your team is also Healer + DPS.

This is a difficult fight for a hunter for one main reason: Mana. Most HD (Healer/dps) teams have someone with limitless attacking capability. So, your time is limited in each encounter. Here are some general tips to try and follow:

A) Keep the mana sting up at all times. To avoid instant cleansing you can spec into imp sting (highly recommended for an HD team entering arena). Most matches it should be on the healers. The exceptions to me are when the other team has a mage or hunter. Those two mana pools can be drained and make the healers ability no longer important since they cannot kill you.

B) Use LOS against them! Healers will surely LOS you and this is so great if you use it correctly. Make sure when they LOS you that your healer is dragging their dps to a land far far away. Then when that healer starts to pursue, BAM! Hit em with your CC, rapid fire aimed shot, etc. Also, line of site their dps right back. Of course, vs a warlock this won't work. Against moonkins, mages, other hunters, elemental shamans and pretty much any melee this can work nicely. Drag them around a pole as your pet beats on them and your stings tick. The longer this lasts, the better for you.

Also, make sure those mana burning priests cannot get any burns on you. Stay near a pole and dance back and forth trying to land a shot or two and then avoid the burn. Priests can drain a hunter faster than should be allowed, so never try to stand and take the burns.

C) Be diligent on CC. Remember to fear beast when you can, sleep when you can and trap when you can. Try not to get away from this. Even after all the nerf's, crowd control is still boss. Most dps won't survive the full 10s without their healer. Especially if it is the fifth time you have done it to them! :)

D) Fight in Viper...ALWAYS. This cannot be stressed enough. Viper in arena. Smash it into your head.

E) E-bay - Buy yourself a warlock and then find a resto druid. This will make you forget you are playing a hunter/healer team and without gear or much skill you will make your way to 1700 in no time! Sorry, I am terribly bitter towards locks in arena and pvp :(

Ok, what if you have a DPS + DPS team? Forget support, brute force FTW! Here are some good tips for a double CC team...did I say double CC, I meant double DPS! :)

A) CC like mad - Especially if your partner has no ability to heal at all (rogue, warrior, etc.). Usually one or two timely crowd controls means someone dies. This is extremely difficult vs teams that can remove your traps. If possible, trap the person who can remove your cc to solve that issue.

B) Aimed shot - Usually I like to say only use Aimed shot under a rapid fire, BUT the exception to the rule lies here. An aimed shot can mean that you do indeed win via brute force. Force that healer to try and out-heal your dps with that reduction. I would NOT recommend any aimed shot if you are under attack unless you can do it without interruption. Let's just hope they focus your teammate!

C) Don't let them use LOS to beat you. Make them use LOS to lose to you. Let that healer hide, drag his dps away and burst him and when the healer pops back, CC them right away and burn that DPS down. This will be especially hard with resto-druids, so try other approaches on them. A lot of times you cand rag the dps over and when the druid comes to save him, immediately start your aimed shot on the druid. You accomplish two things, your debuff on him while he is healing his partner and catching him in leather armor. Now he has to decide who to heal and that choice could really sway things in your favor.

D) Pay attention and learn. Some teams will seem unbeatable to you at first. Especially warlock-resto druid. Try to pay attention to what works and try new stuff. Kill the locks pet a few times. Try to rapid fire down the lock. Whatever the case may be. Make sure you watch and learn. So, next time you can try again with something new until you find what works for your combination. Just because hunter A beats mages with LOS, doesn't make it fact. use what works for you through some trial and many many errors.

Being a hunter in arena is hard work. Do not expect easy success until you are geared well. Also, be patient. It is gonna be hard for most hunters in arena. Try to work with your spec and mold yourself for what you need help with. Sometimes, it is as easy as getting wyvern sting :) Go in to arena to have fun at first. After you get geared up and "seasoned" ...then go for the glory!

As always, ask any questions you may have! I will try to go into more specific combinations eventually, I swear!

Arena Hunger!

2008-06-23T13:04:00.000-07:00

So, on the eve of season IV....what are your plans? Religious BG grind? Squeeze on more awesome week of arena out? Get out your Halberd of Smiting and solo raid Undercity?

Whatever the case may be, this is an exciting time! New games, new teams and new 1337 epix! Brutal Epix I could say! What will you do to inaugurate the new season? Start a petition against intercept? 500 games in 1 night? Try to drink a gallon of milk in 30 minutes? Good luck!

I know my plans...enjoy the good times. These are times when WoW is fun and exciting. AH prices sky rocket, enchanters go into hiding and everyone states "druids are OP" to the newly adorned champions of arena.

My plans for season IV are pretty exciting (to me anyway). I plan to buy so many purps that my pet bear smells schnozberries. I have been fortunate enough to be happy in my merciless gear (2 Vengeful pieces). I say that because it has allowed me to bank tons of honor and arena points. To be more specific 4700 arena points and 75k honor. You may be thinking "Nomakk plays too much WoW" and you may be correct. Let me just say....season 3 was long. Very long. Long enough to not need gear for most of the second half.

Let us all be honest, if you maintained a 10-game per week schedule, then you likely accumulated your gear quicker than half the season. This is now much harder to do (luckily IMO). I look forward to pursuing higher arena ratings and 'earning' the gear I would love to adorn. It is exciting to know that the gear will come with a bit more struggle. More heartache and pain to wear the purple gems of Azeroth.

This season's goals:
2v2 - Achieve Survival Hunter + Moonkin glory. Aiming for 1800 conservatively and 2050 aggressively. I am sure if we actually play more, we will surely get to a much higher rating.

Paladin - Build a shockadin team with my roommates magery ways. I would hope to hit 1700 here and to save myself any let down, I am going to say we won't make it (but we totally will/better).

3v3 and 5v5 - these deserve no goals because they get so little attention! (for now)

What about you? Going for 2200? Just want 10 games a week on your 13 alts? Let's hear it!

May your enemies remember you always.

Fresh start!

2008-06-18T13:15:00.000-07:00

So, last night I released myself from my guild. In short, I was finally broken down to being completely empty on hope. Hope that they would be good people...friendly people. I guess I wanted so bad to be a part of one of those guilds that just loves to play together. A guild that doesn't mind laughing at a hilarious wipe or an accidental entire raid with your fishing pole on. If I wanted to be treated like I was in jail, then I could easily buy a ticket to visit the facilities!

Drama: So, I took a week off last week, I simply said "It's not fun, when did it become all business" and then this week after some discussion with some guildies, I figured "one more try". So, I sign up and here is the message I receive (no joke): "hey Nomakk, I saw you signed up this week. You have been replaced with a new hunter, so you likely won;t be able to raid with us anymore." So, I responded: "Lolligans! Are you kidding? I can't take 1 week off....our 'officer' hunter took 2 off and his spot was waiting for him...". Finally, the last line before my departure: "I assumed you were done raiding forever because it wasn't fun".

Yeah, how is that for gratitude? Let's ignore the fact that I spend 100g for my respec's each week. Let's forget that I spend hundreds of gold on consumables each week. At the very least, recognize that our 2 young hunters are as good as they are thanks to my help and guidance. These are young kids who were depressed with the wws report each week. I helped them build better spec's and re-gem and work on shot rotation. No one saw it, I just did it. They needed and wanted to be better, so I helped them get there.

I don't want to entirely rant. So, moving on!

I actually feel liberated, not sad by the change. I no longer am constricted by a guild of selfish and greedy individuals. Control freaks are painful to raid for. Now, I can finally search out a guild that wants to have fun. Build progression through good times and shenanigans. The search is on! I will find a home!! :) or maybe a home will find me?? (fingers crossed!)

I say to any of you being enslaved from the fun by your guild..."Damn the man!". Free yourself and find a new path! Hopefully a sarcastic laden one with crazy folks enjoying the GAME! Viva La Resistance!

Milestones

2008-06-16T06:07:00.000-07:00

How much agility can a Survival Hunter reach?! Is 1,000 unbuffed agility possible? Unlikely, but maybe!

Last adventure in my raid I was fortunate enough to have a feral druid + Enhancement Shaman (dream come true? Yes!). Needless to say I benefited from it very nicely (as did my raid). So, here is the current status of my stats( for expose weakness dps increase, I used our 16 physical dps for the night:

Unbuffed:

Agility: 829

Ranged Attack Power: 2020

Ranged Critical Chance: 34.17%

Expose weakness debuff: Increases attack power by 207.25 or contributes about 14.8 dps.

Expose Weakness dps increase: 236.8

Raid buff without Shaman or Feral Druid:

Agility: 1030

Ranged Attack power: 2601

Ranged Critical Chance: 40.5%

Expose Weakness Debuff: 257.5 or about 18.39 dps (14 attack power = 1 dps is what I am using)
Expose Weakness dps increase: 294.29

Raid buffed with Shaman using grace of air and a feral druid:

Agility: 1142

Ranged Attack power: 2768

Ranged Critical Strike Chance: 46.3%

Expose Weakness Debuff: 285.5 or about 20.39 dps

Expose Weakness dps increase: 326.29

After we got our WWS last trip my dps was 1038. When you consider the expose weakness effect, I essentially contributed 1038 + 326.29 = 1,364.29 dps for the raid. I also managed to lead in damage, though coming second to the BM hunter in personal DPS (1075).

I have begun to wonder if I can get to crazier Agility totals. I mean, 829 with only a few pieces of gear beyond Kara and nothing beyond SSC outside of some badge rewards. It will be interesting to see if I can get to 900 unbuffed agility and 36 or 37% unbuffed critical strike rating.

How was my agility 1142? Here is the list of consumables with agility that I used:

- Grilled Mudfish: +20 agility

- Major Agility Elixir: +35 agility

- Scroll of Agility V - +20 agility

Sadie

2008-06-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

As some of you may have realized, my first pet and spirit bound friend was Sadie. A level 8 Snow Leopard from the snows hills somewhere between Ironforge and Anvilmar. When I found her, I immediately knew she was meant to be with me for my trials, wars and quests. She was timid at first and took me to her den, where I had to convince her mother that she was meant to travel the world with me. Her mother was sad, but could see the connection.
Ever curious and always enjoying her travels, Sadie immediately became my friend and ally.

Even as a small kitten she was feisty and ready to take on the troubles of the world.

In time, she faded from her rebellious nature and grew stronger and closer to me. She started becoming loyal and grew into my best friend. Even in her sleepy adolescent years!

From the kitten would come the Saber. Just like a whisper of the snow storm, she would emerge grown and ready to explore the reaches of the world.

Through time Sadie would become powerful and capable of handling her own. She started to have a ferocity and a growl that tormented enemy after enemy. Her presence was one to be drawn to and enemies fought her in fear as she pulled them towards her. We became a deadly duo as we faced the perils of society and war.

Sadie always kept her playful touch, no matter how hard things got!

There were tough times, times where we felt like we should stand down and stop pushing against the walls in front of us. The travels and battles always made Sadie look a bit different.

Sadie stayed strong, thus we were strong and we overcame adversity to conquer our missions and earn the respect of countless factions and cities. We became revered in some societies and our presence was honored in others. Whatever the case, her gaze seemed almost...somber and humble.

Sadie became my best friend, the second half of my journeys. She stood tall and prideful by my side. No fear in her eyes, even standing on the doorway to join the fight in Outland. Dirt on her face and a spirit in full supply, she was ready to be a part of what this new world would bring. Battled and bruised, dark with ash or freshly white from a swim, she is ready.

Through all our tribulations, we faced so much and have seen what most snow leopards and young night elves can only dream of. By my side, with me, I know she is ready.

We are ready to finally take the battle to her native soil. As our next journey takes us to the doorsteps of the Liche king. Sadie is ready to feel the snow under her paws and the cold wind whistling in her ears.
We step on the frozen lands of Northrend soon enough...and she will be more at home and my fierce ally, friend and warrior Saber. More dangerous than ever before...keep an eye on the snow.

When did it become all business?

2008-06-10T05:46:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been with a group that is taking WoW a little too serious? A group that points out each raid members mistakes and lashes out at people for those mistakes. A group who leaves you out of a raid for showing up 3 minutes early instead of 10-30 minutes early? How about a group where only officers are praised and everyone else is treated like raid fodder?

As you may have guessed, I am talking about my current guild. It saddens me that my old guild chose to merge with a new guild that said they were "just like us". Well apparently they didn't know what that meant. We were friendly and nice to each other. We actually liked to play with one another. I mean, when does the game become all business?? Is it crazy to want to be in a guild where people are genuinely nice and friendly? People like both progression and sarcastic banter? It is almost as depressing as seeing this stance for the first time.

Our guild is the type that have a filter in Vent and ignore the 18 of us in there so they can talk only among officers (not just for strategy, but for the entire raid). That kind of guild. The kind of guild where, when you make a suggestion they say "please see your class officer to discuss that" when the issue has nothing to do with your class. Let me also say that I always bring my own stuff. I know this seems small, but when everyone else depends on consumables from the guild and I bring my own (even friggin scrolls) then I think that is saying something. 1337 dps and I am cheap to have around...what more could you need!? =D It more than my own ability though. It is a culture of controlling the raid fodder. That's all everyone is to the officers, cattle to fill out the flock.

Ok, I could go on for days, but I will stop there. My current dilemma is whether to keep raiding, quit raiding and do other things or just plain quit WoW. It has come to the point where I am sitting in a raid with my hand on my forehead like I am being told my dog needs a $20,000 surgery. I want to enjoy this game again, not feel like i am showing up to a 9-5 where I call people to do surveys about which soap they use (true story). I mean, I know I am not the guru of WoW, but I do my research and have a good understanding of my class and how a raid should be built. Noah wasn't the best carpenter, but he had a good idea how to get the job done. You wouldn't try to explain to him what a hammer was.

I am taking a first step tonight. A new guild has said I may join them for a trial raid run this week (maybe only one night). The idea is both intriguing and frustrating. I want to leave my guild, but I do not want to look like I am being a complete jerk. Oddly, I do enjoy some of the company of the guild (mostly people who came with me in the merger). It is just the core group is a real pain to do anything with and not be treated like I am primitive to their awesome advanced knowledge. So, should I just say "I am trying out a new raid/guild" or should I fluff in case it doesn't work out ("I am just helping a friend's guild out"). I guess it doesn't matter. I do not want to quit the game because I do not like my guild. I would rather quit for WoW2 or something equally as fun...like this!

Either way, hopefully the new guild likes a survival hunter and the old guildies that I get along nicely with won't be too upset (maybe they will leave too!). I do take solace in the fact that I am not alone, other guild members feel this way, but they are afraid to say anything for fear of persecution. It is time to take a stand (uprising?)! Sadly, talking will not help, tried that already with no results (actually I was told to not bother myself with officer concerns; apparently I do not have my shweet offishers badge).

By the way, who wouldn't want a survival hunter in their raid to expose the weakness! What would you do!?

Arena Segment: Hunter vs. Frost mage

2008-06-05T14:55:00.000-07:00

This is a much harder fight for the Survival Hunter than both marksman and BM (Beastial Wrath and silence shot help a ton). With proper patience and quick fingers you will be able to really make the mage have a bad day. Let's explore some aspect of this fight.

1) Do NOT let them get any shatter combo's on you. If you are unaware of what this means, let me tell you. If you are frozen in place you are at risk of taking burst damage. When frozen in place I immediately trinket and break the freeze. The shatter combo has a mana to damage ratio better than probably anything else a mage can do. So, if you are frozen in place do everything you can to get free. Feign death, scatter shot the mage (and don't hit him, let the scatter last the full duration), trinket out or sleep the mage. Just try to focus on not letting them get extremely (mana) cheap burst damage on you.

2) Mage + Healer - If they call their elemental then you no longer see the mage. The mage is dead to you until that pet is gone. The pet is too easy to dispatch for you to take his 800 damage water bolts. Three shots and hes gone. Mage + DPS - This is where you have a crucial decision. If you feel you won't live very long then you may want to try and burst the mage and ignore the pet. If you are well geared and can afford to kill the pet (this usually means you have a healer teammate). For me personally, I 95% of the time drop the pet. If I crit, it usually only takes 2 shots.

3) Which sting? Make it a rule of thumb to always use Viper Sting. Frost mages are great at mana management in PVE, but for arena they use very costly spells all in rapid succession (assuming you aren't letting them get shatter combinations on you). Two sting and their constant drain and they will quickly ice block or sheep you to get their mana back.If they have a healer, it is still phenomenal to drain their mana. Without mana, the healer + clothie combination without offense will fail miserably. So, either way the mana drain is best. Besides, serpent sting is not enough to help with burst anyway.

4) Your pet!? First and foremost she belongs on the healer. If there is no healer, then it is kind of up to you. If you are trying to take the mage down first then might want to toss the pet on the mage early to help with overall damage dealt. Mage versus hunter seems like it should favor the mage. Most good mages will make you feel like it does. Just know that shatters are what they will kill you with. If you are frozen in place, then do everything you can to get free or stop the mage from casting. Good mages will run right up to hunters and you should take the opportunity to wing clip and drop a trap.

Traps are your decision. Snakes are great for mind numbing and freezing is great for recovering from a flurry of ice damage. Also, when a mage gets in your face, a good strong raptor strike may get them to retreat. Whatever you do, keep the damage going. Don't turn your back and try to run, odds are if they are close to you, then you need to start thinking "How will I beat this mage in close quarters" instead of trying to get away. At least do something while you await a cooldown.

In the end, the fight belongs to the player who makes the best and quickest decisions. If the mage uses their pet and gets two shatters on you early, odds are they will win. If you can keep them ranged and keep using your crowd control on them, then you can occasionally win the fight without being touched. Be patient and aware and I promise you can frustrate even the best mage. I have watched a mage try to frost bolt me once (feign death), twice (scatter shot), three times (wyvern sting) and even on a rare occasion a fourth time...all while I am frozen in place.

Beware of mages in freezing traps! Clever mages will ice block while trapped and foil your plans for a big aimed shot. When an ice mage ice blocks, I simply pull my pet to me and feign death and then shadowmeld. Any character can abuse the mages ice block, simply bandage immediately no matter what health you have. odds are they will break the block early to stop you or you will simply gain X amount of health back!

Note: This is a unfriendly Survival hunter fight. You hit harder but if they can stay in close quarters they will beat you without taking much damage. if your having trouble then open with Viper sting, at least their mana will be gone shortly after you die! (good rule for battlegrounds)

BM short tips: Use the wrath and do everything in your power to kill them during this time. Luckily you can save your trinket and such for after the big red fades. I would suggest a wing clip and an intimidate to maintain line of site for your 18 second rampage. Also, mana drain them as well. They wont be able to kill you in those 18s, so make sure that when the 18s is over they have spent cooldowns and wasted a lot of mana.

Marks short tips: Marks has a great defense for the frost mage. As stated above, you can truly stop many casts. For you marks fellas, you have the ability to stop a shatter combo simply by doing 1 silence shot and as soon as the silence ends you can scatter trap them. Every time they freeze you in place you should silence shot them. If they get you faster than the cooldown then its time to burn the trinket. Also, save rapid fire for the moment the pet drops if at all possible. This will make you drop the pet and still get a scatter shot + aimed shot combo on those pesky mages who live for days.

Subtle reminder : Rain the arcane!!

Happy mage hunting!

My Best Friend II

2008-06-02T07:48:00.000-07:00

So, a while back I blogged about my pet and my ideas for pets and their need for more depth (Here). I had so many ideas that I needed two entries to cover them! So, here is part two!

Let me start by saying I have 3 pets and a use for all 3, which is not necessary, I could easily use my cat for all 3. My cat is for PVP (stealthy with me), my wind serpent for raiding (lightning breath FTW) and my bear for instance solo runs (tank it for me!). That reminds me, I should make an "Instance progression" segment for my attempts to solo Outlands instances! All of that being said, I am sad that I can't simply have more depth to my pet experience. Why can I not do pet quests? Why is there not a quest for a rare pet, a quest that is hard and has a cooldown timer on re-trying it?

3) Pet Quests. This kind of carries part of Idea #2 in Part One. Simply, why can't I have a pet daily or pet quest that requires my pet to do something on her own. Like, she must solo Ragnaros and I get a Legendary bow!? Ok, that's just nuts, but just as likely as pets getting some love! Seriously though, is it so hard to have something for Sadie to do? Catch a fish, skin a clefthoof or even build a Gnomish-device of some sort? Clearly my bear could catch some fish and my cat could devour a clefthoof for its skin and meat. It could even fail sometimes "Soggy clefthoof meat" or "Torn Clefthoof leather" which would sell to the junk vendor.

Wouldn't it be amazing to have a quest where your pet had to get killing blows in PVP battlegrounds. Maybe the quest would just be for your pet to be a part of kills. "Nomakk, have your cat slay 20 enemies in the struggle with the horde" Vandaar said. Reward: 10 Sporeling snacks and 5 Scrolls of Strength V or something equally helpful to your pet. Maybe some other buff food like +2% dodge or "Chance on hit to increase haste by 100".

4) Pet armor - This is something that would have to be handled very carefully. We do not want pets to be too powerful. Which reminds me, shouldn't a Beast Master's pet be stronger than him? Is that not the idea? God I could rant here, but I will save it for another day. So, pet armor! :) I am thinking bracers, helmet, and chest plate are applicable and maybe a neck piece. Simple and possibly invisible? I say that because it scares me to think of silly pets with huge helm's on. I would want subtle armor. yeah, this idea would really need to be done carefully. Maybe we can all discuss this later...of all my ideas, this one worries me the most, so I will discuss it no further!

5) Pet sanctuaries - The best example I can think of here is Zul'aman. Locations that pets perform better. I mean, who knows how to attack a bear better than an opposing bear? If I tamed one, this is his fight to shine! Against the bear boss and mounts my bear has +10% chance to hit and chance on hit to receive a raid buff "Bear aggression" which increases each raid members chance to find weaknesses (get critical hits) by 3% for 15s. Something of that nature.

Then we fight the dragonhawk boss. Lets say you happen to have a dragonhawk stored away!? Grab him and throw him in the fight. He has +5% resistance to fire and enrages on the sight of other dragonhawks. His enrage increases his attack speed by 20% and gives the raid a buff of "Dragon's spirit" which increases fire resistance by 100 for 30s.

Did you tame a Lynx? For this one, perhaps any cat should work? Debatable. Regardless, the Lynx fight has cats getting an increase to focus regen by 50% and critical chance increased by 5%. Every time the Lynx hit full energy the raid is healed for 2% of their total health and every time he crits, the raid is replenished with 10 rage or energy and 100 mana.

I mean, we could go on all day as to how great ZA would work for this idea. I mean, it could even work negatively. Perhaps if you have a bear for the Dragonhawk boss they have a chance to be disoriented with bewilderment for 10s and become worthless. Maybe flying creatures fear the Lynx and have their chance to hit reduced by 30% as they get a debuff "attacking with fear".

What about a zone being a pet sanctuary? Snakes in Zangarmarsh have +20% hit points. Cats in Nagrand have +30% outdoor movement speed (oh yeah, it stacks with other movement enhancement buffs). Perhaps dragonhawks hate blades edge mountains (dead dragons on spikes anyone?). So, they get the "attacking in fear" debuff while they fight there.

This isn't an enhancement that would need to be a part of every instance or every zone. It simply would again create an incentive to having multiple pets with multiple uses. These zones could have roaming stable masters. Maybe the troll Instances and dungeons always are pet sanctuaries, makes sense. Maybe some places have a generic pet enhancement. In Hellfire Citadel all beasts have "Magtheridon's enraging presence" which increases their chance to crit with spells and physical attacks by 1% (this could include shifted druids). It would be amazing for planning and definitely create some more depth!

I could do this all day! =D Perhaps I will do a part II and IV and V and....well, let's see what you all think of part II first! Happy trails pet lovers! Thanks again to Pike for the inspiration!

Onyxia - the 4 person assault

2008-05-29T13:44:00.000-07:00

So, yesterday I was driving home and I called my roommate Delos to see what was going on. He reminded me that we wanted to try and to take on Onyxia with 4 people! So, I get home and low and behold, I only have 3 parts of my attunement left (jeez, I waited forever). So, we knock the tedious runs to Winterspring out and we are off! To Onyxia!

Let me first say, pre-BC, I didn't really raid. I did ZG four or five times, other than that nothing. So, I had never tried Onyxia nor had Cait and Bucky. So, our group make-up was Moonkin (Delos), Survival Hunter (me), Resto Druid (Cait) and Protection Paladin (Bucky).

So, we killed her (yay) on our third try! The first two tried we had MANY WHELPS! by mistake (Ony noobs, aye). regardless, we killed her!! Some things that were quite annoying: 1) her agro table seemed random and we all kept pulling her without actually taking lead on threat (omen). Also, I did not bring consumable, which OMG was that a mistake. If Bucky didn't judge wisdom we would never have done it. So, good times from the past times of 40-man content. One awesome thing to note: 32g each from her! Also, tons of DE items and blues to sell on the AH. If we can farm her, that would be a great income source! :)

It was one of the more enjoyable nights of WoW I have had in a while!

Also, we killed Hydross in my guild raid!!

Scatter Shot vs. Readiness in Arena

2008-05-27T07:55:00.000-07:00

The survivalists greatest pvp dilemma: Scatter shot or Readiness in arena. I will be honest, the decision is very hard to make. It's like trying to figure out if you want a warm chocolate chip cookie or a fresh fudge brownie! The good news is: either way, you win. So, it is may be more important to consider your play style. Let's explore!

Crowd Control: 20 points
- Scatter Shot: Scatter shot allows you to neutralize your target while you place the trap at his feet. This make it easier to get traps on the desired targets. There are many moments in arena where a trap is placed and the opposing party can avoid it. Traps are more likely to work with scatter shot.

- Readiness: One would think readiness for trapping would be amazing. Unfortunately, this was ruined by diminishing returns. I can live with my traps having a diminishing return, but for my Wyvern Sting to share that return, is just ludicrous. That is a 31 point...a shaman can frost shock my 50 times in a row and never have a diminished return, but i can't trap then sleep him for two full cc's? Frost shock is free to everyone! Cyclone and roots also don't share cooldowns for druids and those are innate druid skills. No rogue skills stuns share it either. It is just nuts if you ask me.

What this really means is that readiness in arena for CC is near impossible to make as amazing as we would all like. It would be best served as a slowing/surviving mechanism. Use frost trap and then immediately use snakes or a second frost trap (if both frost traps are broken and you have the correct trap enhancing talent points you could cover a huge area in snow!). One nice thing about readiness is a double deterrence. Twenty seconds of immortality if you can keep the target in front of you.

Verdict: Scatter shot wins for arena in the cc realm because you will never need to dual crowd control as much as you will need to scatter shot. Scatter shot is a huge utility (escaping, interrupting heals, positioning your trap target, etc.) and readiness needs to have a buff via the Wyvern cooldown not mixing with the trap cooldown. readiness is only nice for a double deterrence, but if you have scatter shot you wont need deterrence as much as you need the space created by scatter shot.

Scatter Shot:15 points

Readiness: 5 points

Damage Output: 20 points

- Scatter Shot:It is not the damage done by the shot, but the damage you do after the shot. More importantly, did the scatter stop a big heal and then your continued dps finish the deal. It is also important to note that a timely scatter followed immediately with an aimed shot is huge vs a healer + dps team.

- Readiness: Readiness provides you with an excellent opportunity to burst harder than any BM or Marksman ever could. If you rapid fire and then simply use wyvern sting as a stopping mechanism or as your best DOT, then you can have a big burst. The beauty of readiness is if you don't kill someone during this reign of DPS, then you get a do-over and they likely have spent many cooldowns. The ultimate arena burst.

- Verdict: Readiness wins in a landslide for dps. The one issue it has is that arena is all about line of sight these days. So, regardless of your dps output, you need the target to stay in your view. If he takes a corner and you are set 20 yards away, you will have wasted that rapid fire running over to him. Scatter shot allows for you to position and control better to do more dps after the scatter has set up the opponent. Maybe not a landslide after all.

Scatter Shot: 7 points

Readiness 13 points

Consistency: 20 points
- Scatter Shot: If you have 5% hit, then scatter shot is very dependable. Aside from an evasion tapped rogue, scatter is pretty much a guarantee. i would say scatter shot can be an important part of every win.

- Readiness: The ability itself will obviously always work, but it's effectiveness is in question. I would say (being generous) that Readiness can win 30% of your arena battles by itself. Most of the time the shared cooldowns or misplaced traps will waste Readiness and it will have proved useless if things don't go exactly right.

- Verdict: Scatter Shot easily wins here. Readiness has too much luck factor to consider. Even if all goes well, if the other team survives then you are out of cards. Scatter will be back in a matter of seconds!

Scatter Shot: 14 Points

Readiness - 6 points

The Price: 20 Points
- Scatter Shot: 21st point with no pre-requisites. Easy to dabble in the Survival tree with scatter shot.

- Readiness: 41st point with with 5/5 Master Tactician points required to obtain it. The problems are are these: 1) 41 points is expensive for something with a 5 minute cooldown. 2) Master Tactician are points you would avoid for arena if you didn't have to use them for readiness. they aren't awful points, but they aren't as good as say, Improved stings (for arena).

- Verdict: Scatter shot is far more economical and provides for a lot of flexibility. Essentially you can get all the arena friendly points in survival and still have scatter shot! Readiness does however, bring a slight dps increase if master tactician proc's at the right time. Risky chance to make for points 35-40.

Scatter Shot: 12 Points

Readiness: 8 points

My overall experience: 20 points
Just to reflect on what has worked for me, let me say that scatter shot has long been in my arsenal. It is very difficult to avoid dying to warriors and rogues without scatter shot. Readiness simply doesn't have the escape power of scatter shot. On the other hand, readiness is amazing for your warlocks, mages and priests when you can keep them in your line of sight and in range. Having used both, I strongly lean to scatter shot for it's short cooldown and it's saving my butt when i really need it too (in a dependable way).

Scatter Shot: 16 Points

Readiness: 4 points

Final score comes to . . .

Scatter Shot: 64 points

Readiness 36 points

Take that for what it is: a random point system I tried to use to gauge the strengths of each ability when set beside the other. 13-7 simple means i feel in 20 scenarios, scatter would be better in 13 of them and readiness in 7.

Side Notes:
- The bigger the arena you are doing, the better readiness will get. That being said, I would still lean towards scatter in 5v5 arena simply for how powerful a successful trap is as opposed to a "maybe trap" when it is crucial. Play it by ear, your team may need some extra burst or some extra control. readiness gets the burst and scatter gets the control.

- What would make readiness the clear victor? If the survival 31st and 41st points were treated like 31st and 41st points. Wyvern Sting shouldn't share the same diminishing returns as traps. In addition, make readiness a 3 minute cooldown!! :)

What a Survival Hunter does for a raid

2008-05-22T08:22:00.000-07:00

So, we tried Tempest Keep last night. just trash practice and such, no boss attempts. Fun for more than one reason. Shall I elaborate? Oh yes...I shall! :)

I have grown increasingly frustrated with my current guild as of late. Two main reasons: First, they glorify DPS and second, they ignore raid dps and proper group composition. Our group make-up is designed solely on the tank having an awesome group and our two officers (who happen to be dps classes) getting a nice group. Everyone else gets a random make-up. So, I decided to post on my guild forums about my concerns. Here is a piece of my post:

"The survival hunter is designed around RAID dps support. They sacrifice personal DPS for the sake of the raid DPS. Agility and crit are what matters. Every time the Survival hunter crits he opens an expose weakness which is 1044 agility = 261 attack power to all ranged and melee physical dps. So, if 14 attack power = 1 dps, then that is 18.64 dps for all melee and ranged physical dps classes. To put that in perspective, we had 18 such dps sources in Gruuls and Mags. That means 18 x 18.64 = 335.52 Raid dps added. This means that my total DPS contribution was 890 + 335.52 = 1225.52. Imagine if I was in the Shaman's group and the feral druids group.

What does 77 extra agility mean? It is 77 x 1.15x1.02 (from talents) = 90.32. 90.32 x .25 = 22.58 attack power each. 22.58/14 = 1.61 dps for our 18 physical dmg sources = 28.98 dps added to the raid (growing as his agility grows). So, the ideal make-up for a support hunter is a shaman using Grace of Air and a feral druid. "

I then went on to explain the other valuable group make-ups. So, raid time comes and our guild leader says "our main tank is out, would you mind doing the group make-up". Obviously I was quite excited to do this. So, I designed the groups trying to get our spell dps mana regen and our healers some mana regen. Also, focusing on getting the two physical dps groups together.

As a side note, I would like to let everyone know that Dranei retribution paladins are amazing for a dps group. They bring 2% more damage and 1% more hit for their party. So, I put two BM hunters and a rogue in his group. That hit is HUGE in that group (neither hunter is hit capped and both pets miss a lot as well as the rogue). So, I remind that Pally how awesome he is whenever I get the chance (tell yours thanks, i am sure it will be their first time hearing it!)!

So, the end of the night comes and our stats are posted for mags and we did 9900 dps as a group. Our two previous runs we did 8900. So, not to take all the credit in the world, but 1k dps is an amazing upgrade. I just hope when the main tank comes back that they decide to keep my services!

In the near future I will post some items about readiness and my different survival builds. I have discovered many things in the last few weeks!

My best friend (Inspired by Pike) ~Part One~

2008-05-21T11:10:00.000-07:00

This post was inspired by Pike's post! A BM hunter who truly appreciates her class! (Aspect of the Hare)

Pets are likely the sole reason one would decide to roll a hunter when purchasing the game. If you have no knowledge of the game at all, it is comforting to have a companion with you at all times(back-up, if you will). Even if you do, once you watch a hunter solo some elite or just out questing you may desire to have that company through your travels of our great World....of Warcraft.

I find myself wondering sometimes why the biggest selling point of my class (the pet) is also the most restricted aspect of my class. I can get 20 slot bags, a 24 slot quiver and even 5 billion bank spaces! Four pets? That would be a tragedy. Is there a hunter out there who wouldn't save up...500...1000 or whatever gold to have another pet slot. I mean, I am all for balance and keeping the game fair, but who does it hurt to give more pet slots. I would even do an "atunement" for them!

I like to think that because I have had my pet since she (Sadie) was level 8, that I will be able to keep her forever and still bring in other pets that I enjoy. To have to line them up and lay down pro's and cons and then dismiss one is just so cold. Regardless, I have always thought the pets could use more depth! A few idea's I have had:

1) Pet loyalty and aging. Simply, as your pet gets older and you keep her and use her more, she becomes different. She becomes unique. Maybe some innate attributes are learned by the elder pets of our server. Like, a new 70 who tamed a Ravager in outland has the base ravager. Then you have someone who tamed a ravager at level 10 and kept him until 70. The older, aged ravager has through her journeys developed harder skin (2% more armor), more awareness (10 more focus) and has taught herself to be refined and accurate (+1% chance to hit).

My cat has seen countless quests and places. She has endured tireless grinding, deadly pvp and learning to live with her bear and wind serpent companion. She has more game play than new 70 hunters by far. To reward her? She is the same as any other 70 cat. Kinda seems unrealistic a pet wouldn't "develop" into a better pet if you truly stayed loyal to her.

2) Pet transformation. This is an idea I always thought would be amazing. Like a 20 part quest line titled "Heart of the beast" or something like that. Where you went on trials and quests that required the clever use of your pet. As opposed to the brute tank, damage and die role the pet serves now. For instance, a group of NPC's that your pet must solo fight as you wait behind a barrier that stops everything but pets! It is something that would require a lot of creative design, but OMG! would hunters love it!

The quest line could even be a living chain. Like, if you fail to complete a journey too many times then your pet would get a demoted level. My frost sabre is now an Inferior Frost Sabre or a Demoralized Frost Sabre and she has a debuff on her. Something like hit points lowered by 10% and all resistances lowered by 20% (enough to inspire not using that pet). I figure a debuff because a permanent change would be frustrating for someone who makes a few mistakes. Two or three weeks and then you can restart the quest line with your regular frost sabre again (this provides and incentive to have multiple max level pets!).

On the upside, what if you complete the first 10 quests!? Your pet becomes a Noble Frost Sabre and you get to chose an "armor kit" like item to put on your pet. Sorta like grinding a rep for a perma-head enchant. So, you choose the ~30 stamina 15 strength~ kit if your non-bm -or- the ~+3% Pet damage if you are BM. Not those exactly, but you get the idea. Then you complete all 20!! So, you get en "epic" version of the pet kit and the Noble Frost Sabre is now a Marvelous Frost Sabre (or something of that nature).

I am gonna split these ideas up, because I don't want a 500 mile long post! So, more to come on my crazy pet depth idea's! Part II coming soon!

Monday morning maintenance

2008-05-19T07:57:00.000-07:00

What an entertaining weekend of seeing Ironman (amazing movie, excellent work by Robert Downey Jr.) with Laser Chicken and Just a WoW Girl! We tried an awesome movie theatre where you get a menu when you walk in and a waiter takes food orders before the movie! It was a great time! After a fun weekend I finally decided to teach myself to use Links on my blog. I figured it was easy, but I under-estimated how easy it would be! So, from now on links will find their way around my blog!

Also, I have added some quick links to my sidebar for easier locating of my "helpful" posts. Some arena segments and some just general PVE hunter help. I will expand these as I write the actual entries!

This leads me to my thought of the day. What do you like to see?! Is my blog friendly to search, easy to find things....and enjoyable to read? =D I am open to suggestions if you have them! Thanks!

Raid DPS as Survival

2008-05-16T06:21:00.000-07:00

So, as of late I have grown increasingly frustrated with my "raid worth" in the 25-man content. The main reason being that when you look at WWS I am lucky to hit 800 dps. Mind you, I have 32% crit and 2009 RAP unbuffed. One thing I have learned though, is that my efficiency is where I make my money. As survival you likely will never lead your 25-man in DPS, BUUUUT you may lead it in damage done. Which, considering that DPS is not near as impressive as how much you contributed to the night's triumphs, that isn't too bad.

Here is how I compete with our pure DPS spec's and classes:

1) Be diligent - Bring full consumables every night! Try to be very efficient at switching targets on trash. Those extra seconds of dps are crucial to being competitive on the damage output.

2) Live!! - This one is big. Let's consider that our BM hunter does 1050 DPS and I do 800 dps. If he dies just once or twice, then I have no contributed far more damage throughout the night. His 1050dps for only 75% of the time that I did 800 wont hold up on the final damage output.

3) Keep that pet alive! - It is like having a permanent DOT the entire raid. I find that if my pet dies, then I simply wasn't paying attention (obviously a 15k cleave is not my fault!).

4) Shot rotation - This is a survival hunters best way to be sneaky on dps. Most BM hunters use a steady + auto shot macro. Personally, I use one that includes steady, auto, arcane, serpent sting and mutli-shot. This does two things: First, I am not pounding one button the entire raid. Second, I am constantly aware of cooldowns and my surroundings. I may need to save a mage with a sleep or a timely trap. basically, the lack of a macro use really helps me to stay alert.

5) HAX - Cant beat that fire mage in damage output for the raid. A few timely mis-directs will surely solve that issue! (use at your own risk, some guilds frown on this technique)

Those are my top 5 that i can think of now. As survival I try to look at my DPS and realize that:
A) I am helping our 3 Hunters 3 Rogues, Fury Warrior, Enh. Shammy and ret Pally get 250 attack power all night. So, though I may do 800 DPS I am definitely contributing to ALL of their DPS as well.
B) Survival is support. I try to save healers, I can tank a target for 10s or so and I kinda feel like the star sometimes. I help kill the 5 targets, all while saving a priest and a mage. Do people notice, not really (sad, but true), but at least i can take solace in the fact that I am helping everyone, not just thriving on personal glory.

I guess that the moral of this story. As survival I could lead Kara in damage and heroics in damage and even 25-mans in damage. Unfortunately, the glory will still be granted to those who did the most "DPS" for the raid/party. So, I do 2 million damage and our rogue does 1.5 million, but he has 900 DPS to my 800, so he had the better night. Yeah, I guess I have a slight bitterness to gauging your ability to do damage on your DPS number and not how much damage you actually did. Am I wrong? Should I strive to do 1k dps or should I really believe damage done is more important? Maybe I should just spec BM and share in the glory of awesome DPS numbers! :(

Progression and Aggression

2008-05-09T07:33:00.000-07:00

Magtheridon has been slain! Woohoo! 6 pieces of loot, 3 hunter chest pieces!! (mage & lock too I guess...). I actually didn't roll because my chest piece is quite nice from ZA and figured the other 2 hunters and a newer lock would benefit more (as I rack up the DKP).

Now, SSC wasn't as successful, but it was our first time! We couldn't try Hydross because our Nature Resist warrior was not around. So, as painful as I feared it would be, we tried Lurker. Yes, painful...but promising I must say. We got a lot of practice and people are getting it down. Besides, we have never failed a boss on consecutive weeks. I am betting we can down Hydross AND Lurker next week! :)

Aggression came from PVP. After our SSC run I still had my flask and was raid buffed. So, I decided to do the EoTS daily. You know, EoTS as alliance is not as bad as you may think. Ok, it is pretty bad, but I am consoled by the way my hunter performs now. I can tell one short snippet of why I love it. The horde team in one EoTS was doing their old "Hold the flag and farm" technique. So, I crept up the side of the tower and realized a shaman in ghost wolf with 5k HP had the flag. Sadly, he had 2 priests and a resto-druid with him...what to do...

So, I have a flask, 988 Agility and 42% crit right now, right? Lets try it! Aimed Shot, 3700 crit, arcane shot, 1500 crit and then bam Multi-shot hits the Shammy for 2100 (DEAD!) and both priests for over 1500. Just like that the Shaman dies. From there the fun level dwindled as I fought 3 healers for...I dunno, 3 minutes? :D Either way, it was refreshing to see I can drop someone faster than healer reaction time. Did he have 300 resilience? Probably not. But hey, we were down by a bagillion points at the time and it was the shining star of that BG for me!

Gruul...Mag...SSC...Oh mY!

2008-05-06T11:25:00.000-07:00

So, for the first time, Nomakk will enter SSC . Last week he got to meet Mag for the first time as well! Mag is the most fun I have had in an instance/raid in a long time. We got him to 17% on try 3 (our guilds first ever attempts), but never closer than that. We seem to be having trouble with the cubes. If anyone has any insight on click timing, please share! We followed everything we can find, but it seems to be a bit ambiguous as to when to click them.

When bigwigs says "5 seconds to..."
When we see the cast begin
When the spell is channeling?

Our best success seemed like we always did it early, but then there was some debate as to whether we should do the clicky early. He goes down tonight!

SSC will likely start tomorrow, barring Mag owning us tonight. I have decided to deepen my survival points from 33 to somewhere from 34-40, not quite sure yet. I am assuming trap resist, timing and cooldown will be needed again. We have 1 lock and 3 mages though, which is why I am conflicted as to the respec (dps loss for cc quality). If anyone knows how important it is, please let me know. Regardless, the respec would provide an excellent spec for those "hero moments" where the raid realizes that hunters do indeed save the day from time to time! :)

Wish me luck and any advice is much appreciated!
(telling me to spec BM, is NOT advice!) =D

AV- Secrets revealed!

2008-04-28T08:27:00.001-07:00

So, last night I decided to try and do the AV battleground daily quest. I remember a time, back in the day where winning AV was just plain easy. Horde somehow couldn't dominate the only BG involving something multi-dimensional. Which made AV your consolation BG when you lost a 2 hour wsg 0-3 for 125 honor or got your 20 AB marks in 18 AB's.

I digress. So, I am sick of the horde turtle we have to face now-a-days in AV. This led me to take my (under-geared, all blue's) 70 Pally and say "fine, I am going straight for the frostwolf relief hut to open". I mean, I am a pally, I can get there faster than anyone else and if all else fails I will be an annoying immune bubble for 12s of fun! Low and behold, I get to the relief hut and kill the 4 guards and take it. No horde, so I take both towers. Two horde come, but luckily, all the people dying at the next closest GY (the turtle spot) are now rezzing at the relief hut. Both towers turn, we drop Drek and what do ya know, the alliance wins with 415 reinforcements remaining! Wow, that seemed too easy.

Let's revisit on Nomakk (can a Hunter do this as well?). So, this time I get to the relief hut with much more of an annoyance on the way, so it takes me an extra 3 or 4 minutes due to a pesky mage and a pesky Shaman who died for the glory of Drek! Again, I took the relief hut, grabbed one tower (luckily a fancy ice mage took the other for me) and played the waiting game. After killing the mage and Shaman a few times, some real horde finally came. It was nice to farm them on the ramp like they do us so often. I would say at the peak of the battle it was 10 alliance vs 15 horde. To their shame, we dominated them. In most part because half of them simply tried to run to Drek's room mounted (fools!).

Alliance won again, with 350 reinforcements left this time. Isn't it amazing to think that you can sway a battle by simple taking your weakness (too susceptible to a turtle) and making it a strength (make the death at the turtle automatically HAVE to come to you by take the hut)? By default, the turtle is fueling the Drek engagement force. I will test it more and more in the coming days, but it truly felt like alliance knew the better strategy last night. Not to mention in both battles the honor output was 500-ish without it being AV weekend. I will do more to see if it is truly a new solution!

And so on. . .

2008-04-21T07:46:00.000-07:00

Have you ever read something you wrote and couldn't figure out how it came out that way? Well, anyway, I feel like I write to myself on this blog sometimes, but that shouldn't stop me should it? I mean, I do enjoy my awesomeness on most days.

Well, for Nomakk, things have been going pretty well. Nice bow, nice pvp and pve gear, blah blah. I find he has started to feel a lot like a daily grind instead of fun. I am thinking a flask and 30 healing pots are in order and to hop in wsg and be "that guy" that people think is cheap for a while!

Estario, my Pally alt is finally 70. I had carefully acquired all the reputations needed for my 5/5 pvp blue set while leveling, so his gear isn't completely worthless. I also decided that until I have a nice pvp set, I will use better heal gear and spec. Then, when the gear is there, I will switch to a shockadin build.

In other news, I may finally level a horde beyond 18! (As much as I pvp, I would probably have more fun with a horde main) Apparently bloggers unit in a guild called "Pox Arcanum" and play a structured and planned play style (http://poxarcanum.blogspot.com/). it seems fun. It will be my first troll and first serious shaman! I find that lowbie + friends = remembering why warcraft is fun. So, look forward to those crazy adventure ridden times ahead!

Arena Segment: The Hunter vs. Hunter Battle

2008-02-19T08:06:00.000-08:00

It often comes to the forefront of hunter conversations that Beastmaster equates to total domination (spirit fingers and all!) in all facets. I believe now and will always believe that anyone who thinks this is quite silly. Every hunter tree can be completely effective in any area of the game (pvp, pve, etc.). Most times when I see a BM hunter I just smirk as his health drops to the floor. :) Don't get me wrong, I have tab targeted a BM hunter many times in AV only to see my health vanish during the intimidate. They ARE powerful, but so are the other two hunters! Even the hybrids!

Ok, I figured I would give some tips and suggestions for hunters as to how to fight each type of hunter! - I am sure others can use this information as well!

Beastmaster: Ok, this spec is troubling to beat for many people. The key is outliving the big red or preventing it from even occurring. If you see a BM hunter, get ready to cc that pet while you own that hunter! My strategy is usually to open with a sleep on the pet followed by a mana drain to the hunter. Then I will run up drop snakes, a scatter shot and some melee attacks. When things work out I usually feign death - fear beast here as well. Most times the other hunter is pounding the rage button so it really depends on timing. I find that inciting panic with snakes and melee usually helps me get a head start.

Remember, the beastial wrath does NOT break cc, it just prevents it. So, if you beat him to the punch, you could get a nice head start. Remember, regardless of teammate you should go ahead and mana drain other hunters. We all know how worthless we become without mana. Especially since most hunters haven't learned to do all of their arena matches in viper....yet!

Well, eventually the bestial wrath will go off and it is these moments that you must start to force the hunter to expend mana on pet heals and also line of sight him. As soon as I see the wrath I put my finger on my Medallion of the Alliance and start to line of sight while melee fighting the pet. We all know pets are annoying to fight with the getting behind you issue, but if you are using line of sight for those 18s and killing the pet, you will force the other hunter to fight a frustrating fight. Especially if you are mana draining each time he does get line of sight on you.

"If he has a healer should I mana drain the healer?" NO, you should kill his pet and and drain him, thus eliminating their source of dps. mana drain the healer if and only if you are confident the hunter doesn't have the strength to kill you and/or your teammate.

Marksman: Well, these are much different fights, but I really find it interesting to compare a full mm hunter to my hybrid build. I have more crit, they have more rap. Who wins? Well, it usually depends on the way the mm hunter fights. I tend to open with scorpid sting and they tend to open with serpent sting and the smarter ones with viper sting. I use scorpid for a few reasons: First, I may freeze trap them at some point very soon! Second, their sustained dps is going to hurt more unless I get a nice amount of extra critical hits.

I would like to give a nice hint to all you mm hunters out there. DO NOT CAST STEADY SHOT IF YOU ARE BEING ATTACKED BY A FELLOW HUNTER. I can't tell you how many times I have shot a hunter 5 times and then feign death before the steady shot got off. You are better off getting your white shots in instead, trust me.

Marksman hunters are much easier to control, but they burst a lot harder than your BM hunters AND they can sustain it. My approach is all about control. I can trap and re-trap a mm hunter all day. Then when he gets too far I can sleep him. All the while killing his teammate. If he has a pally, then things get interesting (a.k.a. he likely will hurt my feelings). I will use line of sight a lot and mana drain his pally all day, but he will porbably sustain his mana anyway and the hunter will eventually kill me. :( Honestly, your best bet is to control mm hunters and kill their teammate. They are easily controlled and usually focus on your healer anyway, thus even easier to control. Beware though! They hit extremely hard, if you aren't careful they will drop you before you get a grasp of the situation! (Oh and if you roll with a healing teammate, kill their pet, he's easy pickins and your healer can drink for days!)

Survival: "LAWL, did I just get slept?!?!?" I have never faced a Readiness survival hunter (maybe that readiness cooldown should be 2 minutes? :)). I have faced other hunters of my hybrid spec though! Mana drain, mana drain, mana drain! Do it all day, every day! Also, same as mm hunter, drop the pet, they are a sitting duck, or windserpent...whatever! This hunter really should be taken seriously I should warn. This is the trinket enforcer! Meaning, your medallion of the alliance should be very carefully used when fighting this hunter or with good timing he can ruin your day.

When I lose in arena its because of a few things: 1) I ran out of mana early due to a priest, lock or fellow hunter 2) We fight a strong paladin + anything team (mana is so hard to sustain against a pally). 3) The good ole fashioned trap resist on a melee who is crushing my soul.

To be honest, if you line of sight and tamper with their mana, hunter can be kept at bay in most cases (by a hunter with a higher clever rating of course). The hunter battle to often ends up being two guys standing eye to eye shooting til the death. Don't let the lucky crit game win the fight, outsmart that other hunter!

The pain of Arathi Basin

2008-02-08T14:55:00.000-08:00

How do you get 14 AB marks in one night? Well, you simply go 1-11 in AB! That was my daily pvp quest experience yesterday. You know, I oddly always see it coming when AB day arrives....yet I try to hope for a lucky draw of excellent teammates! I did get such a team....on try 12 :( There is good news though, I found a good way to get decent honor while losing all day!

Let me first say, I am not in need of AB marks for anything (I actually spend them on potions to stop from capping at 100). If you are alliance in my battle group, your honor to mark ratio is not so pretty, thus I have tons of all the different marks. As is displayed in my 14 mark day while just trying for my pvp daily. Ok....I digress. More honor you say! So, the AV queue has a 10 minute wait and AB pops in seconds. Soooooo, I join both queues and...if AB is hopeless, I accept the AV queue. Is there really a moral dilemma of leaving your group behind?

Well, considering I can manage to take a base...hold it for several minutes while constantly calling for help...only to die and see zero dots near the base...but oh look, we have 8 alliance at stables and 4 fighting on the road between stables and "insert any close base here." So no, I don't feel bad doing it, though my heart gets the best of me and I passed on about every AV pop with the hope we would get it together. Amazing that after all the AB grief I still have that hope innately. In the end, I left 1 Ab for an AV, so a better idea for you, IF you have an easier time bailing on a likely loss! :)

So, I did in fact get 3k+ honor, which is remotely satisfying. Most of it came from my 4-1 AV night though. A night that saw 1 Alliance loss...a heartbreaking loss. Drek at 3% when Vandaar forget to pop shield wall (he has his noob moments I suppose). Yeah, we lost with Drek at 3%...::tear::

Hmmm...did this come off as a rant? :D

Nomakk is a changin'!

2008-02-07T12:51:00.000-08:00

Well, recently the good old in-game life has been in flux. My arena teams both dissolved due to friends quitting the game (they were casual arena teams anyway). It was a bit depressing to lose the RL friends in game, luckily they are still my friends in RL....ramble ramble ramble. I digress; the one exciting outcome of this change is joining competitive arena teams! I mean, don't get me wrong, me and my moonkin pal wanted to win, but it was about 10 games as opposed to our rating most weeks. Also, due to some donations of the aforementioned retiree's, I now have a lot of gold for the first time. Liberating and fun to just sift through BOE epics at my leisure :)

So, I found a 2v2 team pretty quick...though I think I will be quitting soon and finding myself a frost mage! I am with a BM hunter, which isn't too bad, but whenever we fight a healer+dps we lose...I doubt we ever can beat that team sadly (Bm hunter just doesn't have the strong burst of a moonkin).

Now, my new 3v3 team is much more promising! Holy Pally, cookie warlock and myself. We won our first 8 games without having previously played together! This team is exciting for a few reasons: 1) We are already 1600+ rating, which I only previously achieved once. 2) We have excellent team chemistry, so....the sky could be the limit! I will keep everyone posted on this teams progress...and their names when I finally make an "at home" post. :)

The only fun thing going on is a possible guild merger. I was sad at first, but the merger presents the opportunity to go to Gruul's, Mag's, SSC and beyond! So, in the end, we will lose our little family feel, but trade it in for a bundle of other family people that hopefully are as nice as my current guild! Cross your fingers!

OOM!?!!? Well, let's explore!

2008-01-31T14:36:00.000-08:00

Kaiser says: "The only problem I have in long fights is mana, although I do have TotH. I'm puzzled as to why you aren't experiencing the same"

Thanks for the visit Kaiser!

Well, I don't have mana issues because I decided to use a few small items, thus picking up the slack of mana inefficiency. First, I ALWAYS bring the best mana oil in the game. Second, I utilize drinking time after each fight; even chain pulling ill grab 3 or 4 tics of water, regardless to how much mana I currently have left(i.e. even if i am near full on mana). Lastly, in a boss fight, I will tend to use hawk and when my mana runs out I will pop a mana potion and switch to viper if the fight has much longer to go. I really try to adjust to the situation for a boss.

Another interesting thing to note is that in kara I rank my Pally blessings as such: Kings > Might > Wisdom > Salv. Kings gives us a monster agility boost which is beautiful and then might helps our dps as well. If you have 3 pallies, then you are in Hunter utopia. If you 're bad at keeping mana, grab wisdom; if you keep pulling off the tank, grab salv! Honestly, if your having trouble with mana, then you don't FEEL like trying hard enough to be full :) With mage tables, you can drink at your own leisure.

Side note: Blessing of Salvation - For your typical much beloved hunter....actually people don't like us much. That reminds me....this past weekend a friend asked me to help his guild down the undead dragon jerk in Kara. here is how the conversation went:
Friend: "Hey we need some dps for Kara, are you saved?"
Nomakk: "No, and I am free to help, I will go"
Friend: "Ok, 1 sec...."
Friend: "I'm sorry, they said any dps EXCEPT a hunter"
Nomakk: " Lol, did you tell them I am an awesome hunter?"
Friend: "They said they don't care, hunters always ruin good fights"

At this point I went on for a few minutes convincing when I should have said "%#&8 those guys". It bugs me that so many hunters are the Noob Saibot of WoW that I have to justify my skills. Long story short, I helped and they 1-shot him and I lost only to their Shaman in damage AND my timely Misdirect mid-fight saved our priest from and untimely demise! Bah!

Ok, Blessing of Salvation! :D Why I don't use it? Well, Feign Death is strong, and I think we should all learn to use it early, not when it's too late! I use mine after 1 shot rotation. This leaves me time to adjust my dps if it gets resisted. More so, I have a fallback plan of dropping to Aspect of the Monkey and popping deterrence (While active I hit 65% dodge and 30% parry). I have few recollections of dying during a deterrence, even on Gruul (10s of Legendary Hunter tanking!!). So, Salv may work for some, but I think if you are careful and use FD early so you can tame your dps accordingly, then you can take the dps boost of Might, Kings and Wisdom instead! Also, remember if the group is not utilizing your misdirect, feel free to use it yourself to keep your tank above you so you can rain the dps without worry!

Arena Segment: Fighting POM pyroblast mages

2008-01-30T13:41:00.001-08:00

I figured going over my strategies fighting POM pyro mages woould be a great way to start working through how I am successful (am i? perhaps only marginally, but I have fun so bite me!). Mages are a pickle of a fight for a non-bm hunter, but if you are patient and careful you can hold them under control with a little creative style.

POM Pryo mages: These mages are bundles of joy to deal with. I will say, when you dont have resilience and/or low health, these mages will feel over-powered. Nothing like a 5k damage head start followed by a 2k fireblast and arcane blasts as you try to get into the fight.

- Strategy One: (If you have Low health low resilience) - I am not going to lsugar coat, sometimes the wtfpyroblast + fireblast ends your chances all at once. Beating this mage is all about control. His pyroblast will make him feel in control, it is your job to take that control away. First, try to remember that 80% of these mages will pop the pyro to start the fight, so try to be tricky in the beginning. As he approaches try a feign death -> arcane shot to get lucky and steal the POM from him (now that is awesome luck if it happens).

Also, realize that the pyro mages will fade in numbers as you rise in level, so odds are these mages don't have much health. Try to dps them a bunch if you know they will burn you quickly (no pun intended), thus maximizing your partners chance of surviving after your demise. Also, remember to burn your cool downs! Drop snakes, scatter shot him, wyvern sting him...make sure you have no other resource you could have exhausted. In a normal fight against this mage I will do something like: FD -> arcane shot -> wyvern sting==if they trinket out, i use mutli-shot next, if not I use aimed shot followed by a nice healthy mutli-shot then arcane shot.

If they get you low make sure to become defensive (or smart if you will :)) and do a little LOS on the mage while you await a cool down. At this point you can usually freeze trap them safely and bandage or simply get another powerful aimed shot combo to finish them off. Scatter shot should be used anytime the mage gets too close to shoot. You don't want to be overwhelmed by a blink and then sporadic casting and jumping. Maintain control and this wont be hard!

Strategy Two: (now you do have high hp and resilience). Now this fight is a cakewalk. Nothing really special to note except for the same idea as the end of the last fight. Keep them away from you and make sure you use all your cool downs all the time! No need to mana sting these mages, keep serpent sting, snakes and wing clip on them and you won't have issues (dps is key). If you are strong at kiting this will be quite the easy fight for you. I hated pyro mages at 65 resilience and love them now at 243!

Arena Segment: Buying into resilience

2008-01-11T07:44:00.000-08:00

So, as several of my goals are being met for my character, I finally spend my 70 Heroic badges, 4500 arena points and 32,000 honor points! Here are my purchases:
- Merciless Gladiator's Chain Helm (Enchant: +20 Shadow resistance)
- Merciless Gladiator's Chain Chest (Enchant: +6 Stats)
- Vengeful Gladiator's Chain Gloves( Enchant: +15 Agility)

- Sergeant's Heavy Cloak -for pvp- (Enchant: +12 Agility)
- Talisman of the Alliance (Trinket for arena and pvp)

- Bloodlust Broach (Trinket for PVE)
- Blood War Cloak -for PVE- (Enchant: +12 Agility)

As you can see, I like to make my changes in groups for a more dramatic effect :) In acquiring these items I have now achieved these stats"
PVE Gear:
801 Agility!
I can go two different ways in trinket choice:
A) 32.04% crit and 1714 RAP
B) 30.84% Crit and 1766 RAP
Oddly, B is the likely choice because that trinket lasts 5 seconds longer on its 200 RAP boost.
I am also nearing 11k health (10,650 now)
Arena + PVP gear:
I actually enter pvp and arena with 774 agility still!
Most importantly: 221 resilience! Up from 65!!!
Crit and RAP = 31.14% and 1710 RAP

I would link all of my items, but sadly the proxy at work will not allow it! :(

I noticed an immediate difference in the battlegrounds. Namely being able to fight MS warriors and locks with much better proficiency! Also, we went 9-3 in arena this week, losing to Paladin feral druid twice oddly enough. Our third loss came to a team way higher rated (10 arena point loss) So, all in all, things are looking up :)

My arena teammate has always believed in resilience, but I was stubborn until these upgrades. Not because I didn't believe it was powerful, but because I was not a fan of two sets of gear for the hunter (which I am still not). Good news for me, the two sets really only consist of trinket changes and a cloak change, which is very refreshing :)

As I get my practice in I will keep our progress updated! :) I am sure we can prove a non-resto druid, non-ms warrior....well, a non-bandwagon team can win in arena :) Watch out for the hybrid hunter - Moonkin! :)

Hybrid DPS a myth?

2007-12-19T14:43:00.000-08:00

Hmmmmm.....so......you have no 41st points? Hmm...and only 1400 RAP? I'm sorry, we need heavier dps than you can provide, sorry!

I have come to the realization that the Survival Hunter is severely underrated when it comes to their effectiveness in the dps category. To think, I consistently lead or lose to our rogue in Kara by 1% or less in DPS. Mages, other Hunters, moonkins, feral druids and shadow priests, I beat them all. Until this past week, always with Valano's Longbow. This in and of itself should prove the point. I will give you that my gear is nice, 749 agility and nearly all purped out now, but we all know the reputation....BM is boss and MM is a respectable second. Riiiiiight.

Well, let's be fair, I will never have 2,000 RAP unbuffed until BT type gear. That being said, I WILL have 30% crit without ever stepping foot beyond Gruul's. I will probably approach 35%! This is my focus and it is half the reason I can put out solid DPS. A hunter with 2000 RAP vs my 1400 will likely fall short of me in crit. My survival tree provides me with both 15% agility boost and 3% additional crit. So, I find myself staring at gear that will discount my agility for RAP and you know what....I pass it right along. Crit is where I am going to make my money, I have come to terms with that (being MM for so long, this was no easy task).

As I mentioned, crit is only half the story. The other half lies in the beautiful Surefooted talents. I have 3% additional hit rating for my pve side and 15% root resist for my pvp side. They are 3 of my favorites talent points. They have created the ability to really ignore hit and just let my nice pieces with hit compliment my 3%. I can instead focus on agility and still help my pve abilities at the same time. My miss in my kara runs is .01% which is pretty ncie with my only have 60ish hit rating.

Also, I find shot rotation to be a huge part of my dps. I don't use anything standard or cookie cutter (at least I don't think so!). My rotation is something like this:

A) Rapid fire ->Aimed Shot -> Auto -> Serpent Sting-> Auto - Arcane -> Auto -> Multi-shot (angled if needed) -> Auto -> Feign Death -> Aimed Shot (on the tail end of rapid fire) -> auto and repeat with Steady in place of Aimed from here.

B) RF on CD - Serpent Sting -> Auto -> Steady Shot -> Auto -> Arcane -> Auto -> Multi-shot -> Auto -> Feign Death -> Serpent Sting and repeat.

I have read that multi-shot and Serpent sting are not worth the mana, but I always find that mana is not an issue for me. Firstly, I use Mana Oil and do my raids in Hawk. I drink in between fights, usually for only 5-7 seconds; the next pull comes whether or not I am ready. Considering I grab 80 drinks from the refreshment portal or always have tons of water, this is an easy way to keep mana fresh. In boss fights I simply stay in Viper for the fight and use 1 mana pot if need be. If I have a third paladin with blessing of wisdom for me, then I am golden!

Trapping with Multi-shot as part of your rotation is so easy because you manipulate where you trap....just don't pull your trap with multi-shot! :) Live for the crit!

Why do I use an Agility build?

2007-11-29T15:03:00.000-08:00

Ok, so when my gear and spec are looked at, it may beg the question, why have I built my character around agility? it is based solely on common sense and a little bit of the desire to be extreme.

#1 Reason: Logic
Agility provides me with everything a hunter may need; dodge, crit, atp and armor. So, not only do I survive longer, but I also increase my dps. In pve, agility has provided me with the opportunity to output large dps through crit and a respectable attack power rating. Now, in pvp, agility has a more dramatic effect. Not only am I critting near 30% of the time, but I am also dodging close to 30% of the time. When I reach a point where wyvern sting, my trap and deterrence have all reached their cooldown, those extra dodge % points really start to matter and save my life. Nothing like dodging something when below 10% health.

#2 Reason: Being extreme
In pvp, no matter how geared you get, or how good you get at your class, the gaps remain small between great pvp'rs are average ones. In essence, you have to really set yourself apart from the crowd to have a dramatic advantage. For example, for those of you who love to "twink" a character. How does Kang the decapitator feel from a mortal strike warrior or from a nice critting windfury? That weapon sets those characters apart from the crowd. So, I looked at my class for a long while and decided on two things: Scatter shot will likely always be with me -and- the 15% agility points are underrated. That being said, I have become a hybrid hunter (0/26/35) and utilizing the two tools I find to be perfect for my style of play. Just for fun, I also now have wyvern sting! :) As my gear upgrades and I grow my agility, I am sure eventually when I can find a way to hit 900 agility, everything else will come along with it (the hp and mp more specifically).

#3 Reason: My build and my arena team
As mentioned above, my build is designed to compound my agility by 15% (not to mention my stamina by 10% as well). So, by design I am tailored for agility! In addition to that, my arena team is one that is probably the rarest. Survival hunter + Moonkin, how often have you seen that combination? In this team I have 1 job....survive. My moonkin shadowmelds and I make myself the bait. It is my only goal to create as much chaos and do as much burst as I can while my moonkin burns down our opposition (which surprisingly the moonkin is IMO one of the best at - spells for heavy armor and trees for light, good luck surviving him!). My agility has provided me with a decent armor, dodge approaching 40% in Monkey and not to mention the ability to throw decent damage out in a short period of time!

Side note: If you ever create an arena team like mine, please do not argue that the moonkin should be the bait. Believe me, through countless arena matches we have discovered the hunter is far superior at surviving than a moonkin. In addition to that, resistances mean very little in arena, so the moonkin spell dps is boss over your physical. Sooooo, granting your moonkin the free dps rain until the other 2 tricksters get their sorts will prove quite successful!

Live in the agility world! 800, here I come! (749 now!)

Finally starting the good ole hunter blog!

2007-10-18T11:40:00.001-07:00

So, I have finally started the old hunter blog to share my knowledge of the hunter class with others! I am sure you will find more technical savvy hunters out there, but I will gladly share my combat expertise with you. being actively in pvp, arena and raiding I have a couple of good practices I will share throughout.

I can start with the basics. My build, 0/26/35 is designed to compliment the Moonkin teammate I have in arena. Being a moonkin - survival hunter, we are probably the rarest arena team you can make! My build is designed to survive is probably the best description. I have very good crowd control in wyvern, plus trap cooldown reduction. Furthermore, scatter shot is the most pivotal hunter skill for my build.

Back in the day, scatter shot was the skilled hunters greatest tool. Now-a-days the old BM spec has simplified the hunter into a "spec BM or struggle in arena" class IMO. Not to say I struggle in arena....too much, but it would be much easier if a warrior couldn't slow me or anything for 18s of course :)

The other key to my spec is agility and crit. My agility hit 699 last night when Gruul dropped me a pair of delicious gloves (even Sadie thinks they are teh sexy). When i enchant them tonight (15 agility) I will eclipse 700 and hit 715 (finally). Now to start building on that to obtain 750, then later down the line possibly 800. With agility comes crit, so in addition the the 8% crit i get in talents, I am building more and more crit in gear as well. I am hovering at 27% now. That is the beauty of my spec, not only do i get grand agility, but also 10% boost to all stamina pieces as well. So, agility and stamina both get a slight compound for me!

Final Note: Patch 2.3! This patch is like a direct buff to my spec. Insta-Wyvern, better stings (already have improved) and the death of the dead-zone (maybe). So, things are looking even better for my spec! More to come, please feel free to ask any questions you may have!

I will also be posting, Paladin (51), Druid (49) and other possible alts I have the desire to reflect upon! Stay Tuned!