Dragon Wars!

Hornlove is in there somewhere

Hornlove got her chance vs Malygos last night. Fortunately the other members of the 10-man raid had done this fight at least once before. It was a nice experience, doing combat from the back of dragons! (and not in an Occulus nobody-wants-to-be-there kind of way). The first attempt started with a couple early deaths and we got wiped by his enrage in phase 3. The 2nd attempt went great except I stood still inside a cloud while using my "5" shield key and died. No matter, the rest of the party finished the Dragon off and we had our victory!

Hornlove's raiding prowess authenticated by a title!

It's an interesting fight, I can't wait to do it again. (especially since Black Ice didn't drop)

Earlier in the night we did some vaults and 25OS+1 drake. Survival seems to be doing well.

25-Man Vault

10-Man Vault

I'm happy to report that my connection nightmare from tuesday night was history. HiredGun also joined a 25-man OS (pug) and did OK. The goofballs wanted to try it with 1-drake. Of course it took a few wipes to make everyone realize it wasn't going to happen. You know the raid is going to have problems when you get a ready check accompanied by "Press No for 1 drake, press Yes for No".. wait, what?

2/18/51. No, I'm not gonna say fo'shizzle!

I didn't get much sleep last night. First a 5+ hour naxx raid, then a long session on respeccing, trying out this survival thing. 2/18/51 is the new flavor of the month. I know a lot of hunters don't like the idea of respeccing away from Beast Mastery, but for me.. BM isn't getting it done since the nerf. I don't have best in slot items but my equipment is very good overall. If I can't at least get my DPS up above the off-tanks, my spot in the raid may be in jeopardy.

This may have been done before but I'm going to go over the talents and briefly explain why I think they're good for a raid SV hunter.


SURVIVAL TREE
Improved Tracking (5/5) - 5% ranged damage on Beasts, Demons, Dragonkin, Elementals, Giants, Humanoids, and Undead as long as I'm tracking any one of them. This seems like a no-brainer to me. Moar Damage!!

Hawk Eye (3/3) - 6 more yards of distance on my shots. Normally I wouldn't think this is a worthwhile talent for PvE. Most of the time I'd just need to get between 5-30 yards and pew pew. With the SV talent Sniper Training, however, I'll need the extra distance as you will see later.

Survival Instincts (2/2) - 4% better chance to crit on Steady Shot and Explosive shot. (SV won't be using Arcane shot since it share's it's cooldown with Explosive)

Survivalist (5/5) - 10% more stamina. You need 5 points here to be able to get Hunter vs Wild.

Hunter vs Wild (3/3) - Increases you and your pet's AP by 30% of your stamina. This is going to help with the Attack Power quite a bit. Plus those leathery rogue type items don't look as bad with all that extra stamina.

T.N.T. (3/3) - Ignoring the pvp/stun part of this, Explosive shot gains another 9% chance to crit. Hmm this crit is really starting to stack up.

Lock 'n Load (3/3) - I'll just copy the tool-tip text: "You have a 100% chance when you trap a target and a 10% chance when you deal periodic damage with your Serpent Sting to cause your next 2 Arcane Shot or Explosive Shot spells to trigger no cooldown, cost no mana and consume no ammo. 30 second cooldown." I haven't done the trap-dancing thing yet, but even Serpent Sting seems to make this proc often. This is just an awesome talent and vital to any SV build.

Killer Instinct (3/3) - Increases crit chance of all attacks by 3%. As Lienna pointed out, this bonus applies to any damage you do that can crit. (Ranged, Melee, Immo trap) Again, more crit is where it's at!

Lightning Reflexes (5/5) - Agility increased by 15%. As we know, AGI = AP and CRIT% (and other junk like Dodge, armor rating etc). Must-have talent as we'll soon see.

Expose Weakness (2/3) - 66% chance on ranged crits to increase AGI by 25% for 7 seconds. Because of the 7 second duration, 2 points in this talent are plenty to keep this going.

Thrill of the Hunt (3/3) - 100% of your ranged crits will return 40% mana. Again, another skill tying into boosting crit really high. This will really help keep me out of viper.

Wyvern Shot (1/1) - This will be not used at all for boss fights, but it does open up the next skill, which is great.

Noxious Stings (3/3) - "...increases all damage done by you on targets afflicted by your Serpent Sting by 3%". Serpent Sting will be up on my targets all the time, so pew pew some more!

Master Tactician (4/5) - With 4/5 points here, it increases my crit chance by 8% for 10 seconds 10% of the time (for 8 seconds). I guess I could put 5/5 points in here to increase the crit bonus to 10% but I'm going to use that talent point elsewhere.

Sniper Training (3/3) - Increases damage by Steady, Aimed, and explosive shots by 6% when standing beyond 30 yards from the target. Also increases Kill Shot crit by 15%. If the boss isn't going to stand still for trap dancing, I'll be working at getting in the 30-36 yard range. WTB: good range-finder mod!

Hunting Party (2/5) - This gives a 40% chance per Steady/Explosive crit to buff up to 10 party members with mana-regen equal to 0.25% of their max. mana per second for 15 seconds. What? only 2 points here? Yep, it's a great skill but it last 15 seconds and I'm going to be critting like a madman. 40% chance to proc will be plenty to keep this going.

Explosive Shot (1/1) - Here's a 51-point talent that's going to be the most used shot for a SV hunter. It recently got a buff and it's damage is quite good now. You can follow the link for more details but it basically does damage 3 times, 1 second apart. Each of these damages can crit, and they all count towards refilling your mana when Aspect of the Viper is on. Bind this key wisely! =)


MARKSMANSHIP TREE
Lethal Shots (5/5) - Gives 5% better chance to crit on ranged attacks. If you have read this far then you know how important it is to get your crit as high as possible.

Mortal Shots (5/5) - Gives 30% more damage to the crit portion of ranged attacks (including Explosive shot). Big. Huge. Crits.

Careful Aim (3/3) - Increases ranged attack power by 100% of my intellect. This is an AP boost of nearly 400 with my current gear.

Go for the Throat (1/2) - Ranged crits give my pet 25 instant focus. I'll be critting a lot. 1 point is fine.

Aimed Shot (1/1) - This is the skill that had me standing in front of the trainer for far too long. There are several choices to make at this point. Aimed shot is good for shooting on the run (insta-cast), besides that I'm still trying to figure out why I'm taking this over a point in Rapid Killing. In any case, I want the next skill.. so I had to choose one of them to advance down the tree.

Improved Stings (3/3) - It does other stuff but mainly I'm interested in the 30% extra damage to Serpent Sting. Since this sting will be up all the time, I want to make it work a bit harder. In the near future I may have to experiment to see if these points could be better spent elsewhere.


BEAST MASTERY TREE
Improved Aspect of the Hawk (2/5) - Normal ranged attacks will proc this, increasing my ranged attack speed by 6% for 12 seconds. I'd put more than 2 points here but.. there are no more talent points to spend.


And that's the build. I'm anxious to see what my DPS looks like in the next raid. The numbers on the paper-doll look amazing. (Nearly 4700 AP/35% crit unbuffed)

Moving forward?

Over the weekend I switched guilds. I've had very mixed feelings about it since then. Asylum has been very good to me. The people there are friendly, helpful, and very pleasant. I was always invited to come on any heroics and raids. Conversations on vent were always enjoyable. I felt at home in the guild.

So why did I leave? I have to ask myself this question. I wanted to do more raiding content, specifically more 25-man naxx and Malygos raids. Things in Asylum were moving at a glacier pace towards doing these things as a guild. Our 10-mans were canceled more and more. I had semi-serious thoughts of joining Chaotic, the guild who I've been joining for their 25-man naxx's every Thursday. As I've said in earlier posts, I like the way the raids were run and enjoyed the fact that the raids were so successful. But I didn't really know the people there except for a couple times in vent. I wasn't really ready to make such a blind jump into a new guild.

Then, without warning or any explanation, the guy I got along with most in Asylum left the guild. I didn't know what to make of it or what was going to happen next. I think I sort of panicked a little and made the jump and switched guilds.

So how has it been? Ok I guess. If it sounds like I might have some regrets, I do. So far as part of the guild, I've been a part of 1 night worth of raiding, and that was yesterday when we did 10-man OS w/1 drake, 25-man OS, both 10 and 25-man Vault. I was not invited to go to the 10-man Malygos. Everything seemed ok there, pretty much as I expected.

So what's the problem? The other days of the week, when we're not raiding, I feel like an outsider. I know I'm new to the guild and things take time, but it just feels like the guildies don't really get me. When I converse with them on vent, the same connection doesn't seem to be there like with Asylum. I'm not sure if it's because it's a less mature bunch, or what. I won't go into details but the way some people in this guild act and talk just bug the hell out of me. This is unusual since I get along with most everyone I meet. On top of these irritations, I've been informed that the likelihood of Failsauce being invited to raid is very small because the guild is already loaded with DKs. No big deal I guess, but why even have Failsauce in the guild if that's going to be the case. *shrug*

I will continue to give it a shot. I regret acting so quickly, not putting more thought into it or spending time to get to know more people in the new guild. In any case, I will be content as long as I have a spot in the 25-man raids and eventually get to participate in Malygos and future content. I still miss the cool peeps at Asylum tho.

I'd rather be fishing...

No updates on the weekend but certainly a lot of WoW was played. The daily fishing quest in Shat yielded a nice new pet for Hornlove:

Failsauce had some Outland fishing luck too. While trying to fish up the Weather Beaten Journal in the hour leading up to the weekly Fishing Contest she pulled up Mr. Pinchy! And with her first wish, a pet was granted...

Just thought I'd share my good fortune and remind everyone there are still some reasons to continue fishing in Outland. One last note, the fishing quests have become "un-nerfed".. which is to say, you won't get your quest fish on the 1st cast anymore. Something changed in the recent patch to make it so you are likely to have to cast 10 times or so to get what you're looking for.

The one that got away

It's been a week since the 25-Naxx SUPERPUG and I was hoping to have a repeat performance. I caught an invite, my guildie did not (they had too many DKs). And here we go again on another 6 hour tour.

Everyone know what to do?

Nothing needed to be explained this time. Everyone in the group had a good understanding of all the fights. We systematically tore down Naxx, wing by wing. The only thing that gave us any trouble at all was the horrendus lag we encountered for the first hour or so of the raid. Several people including myself took turns at disconnecting, typically in the middle of a boss fight.

Delicious and nutricious!

The fish feast was a great hit! Everyone seemed to love it. I used all that I had cooked during the raid, so I have to set aside some time for fishing in the future. If my DPS doesn't get me invited back, my cooking might.

Things to do in KT's crib when you're dead.

After the lag died down it was smooth sailing. A few wipes overall but nothing that slowed us down much. By Midnight server time we were battling KT again (I feel close enough to call him that now). I was watching half of this battle from above my corpse since an Ice Tomb did me in. KT fell.. and this time I took a screenshot. (Told you it was not impressive)

That's how *I* roll!

I did end up getting a few upgrades. Shoulderpads of Secret Arts, Torn Web Wrapping, and Boots of the great Construct. I only won 1 contested roll. T7.5 eludes me yet. It was fun, I'll hopefully get another chance next week!

Gorilladin ... check!

I finally stopped killing the poor gorilla long enough to tame him. Of course I wouldn't have had to sit in a stinky cave for 3 days if I had been more careful. Horn hasn't seen much of the new patch yet so I don't have much to say about it. I do think some people are overreacting a bit tho.

Failsauce did get a little taste of 3.0.8. I respecced/reglyphed her to match Skeleton Jack's build. I'm also still adjusting to using keyboard macros for the rotations. It's a bit clunky now but I'm sure I'll be kicking ass once I get the hang of it. At some point I'll get her into a tanking role.. I guess I just wanted to first see how badly this patch is going to affect my hunter. So far I haven't seen much of a problem with 3.0.8 for a DPS DK... at least where unholy is concerned. They did a number on our Gargoyle, but everything else seems pretty much the same. They did make the ghoul's Gnaw autocast by default. Which is good for me.. since I never used it before, at it works really well! *embarrassed look*

Oh, and those 1200 Relic of Ulduars I had sitting on Horn's bank.. they became suddenly useful when they stopped being Souldbound and started being turn-ins for Sons of Hodir rep. Most of these went to getting Failsauce Revered with them, and the rest sold for a ton of gold on the AH. Super!

And of course, I've been waiting for Fish Feast for over a month. I gots some fishin' to do!

Huntard.

Epic Fail.

25-Naxx SUPERPUG!

Full clear of 25-man Naxx sounded really good. I actually did not believe we'd do it. What are the odds you can get 25 mostly-random people to pound the thing out for 5+ hours, especially on a Thursday Night?

Loot Rolling Strategy?
The loot rules were interesting. 1 "Need" roll for the whole thing. As many "greed" rolls as you want, however the "greed" rolls were for main-spec only. Because of this setup, it was curious to see people not using their "need" roll on items, even on moderate upgrades. Of course items like the Grim Toll would not get past this need stage. There was a bit of strategy involved for me, with only *1* other hunter in the raid. I was anxious for an upgrade of some kind, but what to shoot for?

The first boss dropped Crippled Treads, a decent upgrade to Hornlove's Dragon Slayer's Sabatons. The raid warning popped up, it was decision time. The other hunter rolled need, and I passed, thinking with this only being the first boss, there would be many more chances for drops and I'd still have my Need roll. I didn't have to wait long. The second boss dropped a Aged Winter Cloak, which by my calculations was the 2nd best cloak in the game for Horn. I rolled a 63 to beat two others and the cloak was mine! *claps hands together, rubbing them greedily* Much loot was to be had for everyone in this run. I missed winning T7.5 Shoulders, Legs, and Chest that dropped, but was able to out-roll the other hunter on the Cult's Chestguard and Pauldrons of the Abandoned! It was a great night for loot.

The Final Wing
A few replacements were needed after the 3rd wing went down, one being a guidie druid who respec'd to help us heal. The abomination wing was the last one left. I had never succeeded in getting past Patchwerk in a 25-man, much less clear the whole wing. We had 6 healers and very good DPS and it showed. The abomination fell easily. More people ended up dying to frogger! The remaining bosses were all new to me. We ended up wiping a few times before clearing the wing. Everyone was a bit tired at this point as the raid had been going on for over 5 hours.

1-shotting Sapphiron?
Many in the group had not got this far and the fight was explained well over vent. Everything seemed to be going good until some crankiness erupted over vent. "So-in-so is standing in the blizzard! Get out of it!" ... "I have the resist gear to be standing in the blizzard!! Worry about yourself!" It was not that polite, but you get the idea. Then later (still during the fight) the healers were arguing loudly, telling each other how to play their class. The raid leader did a good job of trying to "CLEAR VENT!!". Oh, the boss? One-shot. It was very close, just as the dragon had tore thru the main tank and started doing the same to the rest of the raid, it fell. Not the most difficult boss in the game but I thought 1-shotting this guy with a PUG was very impressive.

We Meet Again, KT!
Was this group capable of downing the head honcho? After the last week's battle with him I knew what we were in for at least. About 8 people in the raid did not know the fight so it was explained in detail. We wiped after a couple good efforts (one of which we had him down to 4%). The raid was waning a bit. "Last try for me guys..." "Me too I need to get to sleep." Argh! We've come all this way, and sleep is an issue? It's only 2AM server time. Suck it up! At this point I didn't really think we were going to finish the job, despite the good raid makeup, leadership, and abundance of DPS. After 6 hours people were losing focus. I even msg'd my guildie "Oh well at least it was a good learning expierience and we both got some nice loot" And then we did it...just like that Kel Thu'Zad was down!! YES!!! His crumpled corpse was so weak looking I didn't bother to take a screenshot, although I should have anyways.

In summary...
This was a really fun time. It took me back to the days of raiding MC in that a complete clear of a high-level instance can be a nice achievement, especially doing it in one sitting. Despite the raid consisting of 1/2 PUG, the guild "Chaotic" was running the thing and did a fantastic job. The MT and Raid Leader "Ambitions" kept cool throughout and steered us successfully to the end. I hope to be lucky enough to join them when they run this again next week.

For the Naru! For the Light!

I'm not into PVP, I think it's a very boring aspect of WoW. Without a real sense of loss or gain from the battles, it remains pointless. I much more enjoy advancing in the game somehow instead of repeatedly running back to my corpse/making someone else do the same thing.

Today, however, Hornlove found her way into a 25-man which had just finished OS and was wanting to do vault. One problem, the horde owned Wintergrasp and the battle was about to begin. I tried it out, and could see why a lot of non-pvpers could get into it. The battle of Wintergrasp involves more strategy, the use of siege weapons, and other things besides just numbers/gear.

But in the end, it was still just numbers. The avalanche of Alliance came down on the Keep with a commanding thud. The battle couldn't have lasted much more than 10 minutes. A few achievements earned, good enuf for me.

And of course I got nothing from either raid except the Emblems of Valor. I did end up with enough saved emblems to get this:

I'm Invincible Now!!!

An elusive trinket

Just wanted to say, I've been trying to get this trinket for quite some time. It finally dropped off the oversized dinosaur for Hornlove...

Horray for DPS! =D

And now for something completely different.

25-Man Naxx lf DPS it said... Sounded great to me! It wasn't until after I had joined the group with Hornlove that I realized it was for the last two bosses only. "Fine by me!" I thought.. I honestly didn't think I'd see the last couple bosses in this instance for several weeks at least. The opportunity to kill them and get some loot could not be passed up. If nothing else it would be a fine learning experience. The first boss, Sapphiron was explained well over vent. (I also viewed Tankspot's Guide to learn more) After a wipe or two, we got him (her?) down. No good loot dropped for me, and we moved on to the top dog, Kel'Thuzad... the final boss of Naxx!

The encounter was again explained in detail via vent. It spans several stages, which were easy to learn after a try or two. We came very close (2% once) but could not finish the job. Kel'Thuzad is a bad-ass! In the end we wiped 9 or 10 times, and the group had enough. I'd love to try again tho. Some special stuff can drop from this creep!

Yeah, you're a bad-ass!

Revisiting quests at 80

Hornlove finally got around to trying out some of those quests she skipped over on the way to 80, which were practically all of the ones in Zul'Drak. These quests are very entertaining, and very rewarding! Thousands in gold sits dormant in these little green quests. I'd suggest to everyone to go back and complete ones you skipped over, no matter where in Northrend they may be. Not only are they quick, fun, and profitable, you'll open up more dalies.

Need more mana!

Once I was satisfied with Hornlove having enough Hit Rating in her overall gear options I dropped Focused Aim to try to use those 3 points in something more useful for improving DPS. What did I put them in? Pathfinding. Since I'm always lagging behind by skinning or drinking, I thought the extra bit of speed would help me catch up to the rest of the group. GG, thx for playing, enjoy your parting gifts. Ok, scrap that. I then decided to copy some other huntard by throwing points into Invigoration. Instead of putting that last point into Hawk Eye, I decided Efficiency would serve me better. Here's the 55/16/0 build I ended up with. Hopefully this will keep me out of Aspect of the Viper and more into serious Pwnage!

Also in before the nerf...

Hunters do great DPS. We get to buy an epic weapon as soon as we ding 80. It's relatively easy to configure a hunter's gear to maximize their DPS. It's my beleif that when other classes get geared up, hunters are not overpowered. During a 25-man Vault earlier today, Hornlove went all-out for the top spot. AP-boosting food, AGI/Crit booting elixir, the best ammo, even quaffed a potion of speed to see what I could do on this burst-damage-fight. I was able to stand still thru entire fight, all cooldowns blown as soon they came up, kept the pet alive the whole fight. The results:

As other classes catch up in gear/maximizing gear, it becomes clear that the Hunters are not far-and-away doing too much damage. Yet we are still slated to get a horrific nerf next patch. At least it wasn't today.. another 7 days of "OP" to enjoy.

On another note:

In before the nerf

Sure it was burst damage for 1 boss, but it was a heroic boss and 4k DPS! Enjoying it while I can before hunters get blasted with the nerf stick next patch. Not much going on today. No guild naxx this weekend. Spent some time getting Failsauce's cooking and fishing over 350 so she can at least start doing the Dalaran Cooking Quests. More Northern Spices is always good.

Would you hit that?

Finally, I was able to get the Emblems of Herosim together for the off-hand weapon I wanted. The idea was to throw the Accuracy enchant on it and have a nice set of fist weapons for running Naxx. The amount of hit% bonus hunters need for Naxx is either 8% or 9%, depending on who you believe. I'm trying to get over 8%, and will check the damage meters for misses the next time I get into a 25-man Naxx. Hornlove's racial passive Heroic Presence is great for helping to reach this, btw! Now to the weapons I've chosen for their Hit Rating:

Crimson Steel can be had from 10-man Obsidian Sanctum, and Pride is purchased from a vendor in Dalaran for 50 Emblems of Heroism. Accuracy gives +25 Hit Rating and +25 Crit Rating which is ideal, since I'm only going to be equipping these when I need to get naxx-hit-capped. There are other weapons I'd rather have if I didn't need so much Hit Rating.

Anyone need a squishy pet?

In case you didn't know... The Spirit of Koosu is tameable. I felt obligated to give Hornlove her very own pet slime. Awwww =)

WoW Karma - Proof!

We head out to do some guild heroics last night. Hornlove is a couple Emblem of Heroism's short of the new off-hand for naxx I want. The second Heroic we did, Gundrak, went ok with only 1 wipe. Mr. Gal'darah dropped a Hemorrhaging Circle. This is a nice ring for a hunter, and a minor upgrade for Horn. Two guild mates were rolling on it. Since it came with expertise, I ended up passing.

This morning I remember that my Mysterious Egg was ready to hatch. I eagerly logged in to pop it open. *channels Proto Drake energy* Woah! Reins of the Proto drake! Wheeeeeeee!

After visiting BRK's site this morning, I noticed he actually took the ring, but got no drake! Scientific proof that WoW Karma is real! =D

The end of Winter Veil

Winter's Veil is over in a couple hours, did you get the Merrymaker title? Not me! Maybe next year. I did cram some Fishing and Cooking on Failsauce, which was time consuming.

Hornlove did find her way into a couple 25-man PUGs which were successful but no hunter loot was to be had! There was much hunter-hate to go around, however, when the raid was wiped by an inadvertant pull by one of the other Hunters in the group. Was fun in any case.

A busy New Years Eve!

No parties this New Years Eve for me. Instead some WoW. At least I got some stuff done. Well, in the way you get stuff done in the game, and not in real-life ;)


For Hornlove, the grind of dalies is over with Sons of Hodir, arguably one of the most important reputations in Wrath of the Lich King. Being exalted with them gives her the option to use use The Greater Inscription of the Axe on shoulders. (Still trying to figure out how to show those cool WowHead desciptions by just hovering the mouse over the link).

Earlier in the day I jumped into an Azjol-Nerub Heroic PUG but Hornlove's Crossbow skill was only 330 or so. I had just replaced my bullets with arrows the night before to start using the Drake Mounted Crossbow. I was worried that my misses would be often and obvious, but it didn't take too long for me to get the Weapon skill maxxed, somewhere around the 2nd boss.

Ninja-weapon training in Heroic PUGs 4tw =)

Later in the day our guild ran a bunch of Heroics, Nexus being the last one. The Final boss was nice enough to drop this for Hornlove:


Whew! Quite a lot for one day, and one post! *stares at bed*