So! Long-overdue, I present...
The Status Update!
starring:
Crit McGee
P. Veepee
Tak Pouer
Druid: Level 70, ~13000 health, 16,000 armor, tankilicious. Lots of group quests to do to fill out my tanking set, but I have a good head start on it.
Hunter: Level 70 (that's right, still.), spec adjusted, pvpin' her little heart out. Man, hunter pvp is fun... I have however developed the most amazingly beastly hatred for rogues.
No more entrapment, no more Readiness, no more master tactician (great talent but never there when you need it, like on short fights, which pvp is full of), 5/5 mortal shots and the triumphant return of Scatter Shot fills out my summary of changes.
I've trained and levelled a cat, just for a change. My boar will always be #1 in my heart, but hey, variety is good too.
Talon King Ikiss is a total pushover now that I'm used to it - my new Most Hated slot goes to... all of Shattered Halls! The first boss is simple. The second boss... not so simple but doesn't bug me at all since I can FD out of the random aggro shifts. Kargath is also a PITA, but nothing compared to the monotonous grind of the trash pulls. Pulls of 6 mobs always make me nervous, and these are no exception.
In the interim I've also tried out Beastmastery (again) and discovered (again) that I'm still not a huge fan. Immunity to all forms of crowd control is indescribably awesome, but having the only interrupt I'm capable of inflicting come from my pet with its huge miss rate just isn't my cup of tea, I s'pose.
I'm a Hunter at heart, and a Survival hunter at that. Darn skippy.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Ding 65... and phat loot! (?!)
Hit 65 in Nagrand the other day... does that place screw with your sense of direction like it does mine? For some reason whenever I'm in that zone I have to check the map every two minutes, only to discover I've taken the wrong road out of Halaa, like I do every time.
But I've already obtained some fantastic loot for my drood - the Staff of Natural Fury. Mmm. Purples. I managed to buy it from a guildie at a substantial discount, too, joyous day!
Of course I had to dip into my epic mount money. Oh well. Flying faster is a luxury just like having epic druid staves. ;)
Stealth is still incomparably fun - like doing quest after 70 and learning to fly I can just sneak right up to the named mob I need to kill and do so instead of having to fight through an entire camp to get there.
What else...? Ah yeah, Lifebloom! This spell is SO sweet. Another instant-cast HoT to throw on yourself after a fight is always welcome, and this comes in incredibly handy when main-healing instances, as any class with the ability to heal will eventually be asked to do. I have 450 +healing or so (in my healing gear) and stacking lifebloom 3 times on a single target will heal him for 240 or so per second as long as I maintain the stacks. Oftentimes this by itself is enough to keep a target alive, and if not, I can just toss on a Rejuvenation or use Regrowth.
But I've already obtained some fantastic loot for my drood - the Staff of Natural Fury. Mmm. Purples. I managed to buy it from a guildie at a substantial discount, too, joyous day!
Of course I had to dip into my epic mount money. Oh well. Flying faster is a luxury just like having epic druid staves. ;)
Stealth is still incomparably fun - like doing quest after 70 and learning to fly I can just sneak right up to the named mob I need to kill and do so instead of having to fight through an entire camp to get there.
What else...? Ah yeah, Lifebloom! This spell is SO sweet. Another instant-cast HoT to throw on yourself after a fight is always welcome, and this comes in incredibly handy when main-healing instances, as any class with the ability to heal will eventually be asked to do. I have 450 +healing or so (in my healing gear) and stacking lifebloom 3 times on a single target will heal him for 240 or so per second as long as I maintain the stacks. Oftentimes this by itself is enough to keep a target alive, and if not, I can just toss on a Rejuvenation or use Regrowth.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Ding 62... wtb STR
Per the post title, I've hit 62 with my Druid, and Maim is pure awesome. It's spike damage a la Ferocious Bite (not nearly as strong, but unlike Rip it can crit) with a nice long Incapacitate effect that isn't broken by DoTs. You get a nice little break to heal or cast Roots or both, and you get to watch your enemy's life get ticked away by Pounce and Rake.
But where's all the leather gear with Strength? I'm decked out in Rogue gear, doing plenty of damage, but I have about half as much Strength now as I did before I left Azeroth. This totally kills the effectiveness of the Nurturing Instinct talent (increases healing done by 50% of your Strength), which is ordinarily a great levelling (and PvP) talent. So far I've seen exactly one piece of leather with Strength, the blue chest from Zeth'gor Must Burn.
I've taken to wearing +healing rings instead of dps rings, it helps downtime some and gives me more mana to boot.
But where's all the leather gear with Strength? I'm decked out in Rogue gear, doing plenty of damage, but I have about half as much Strength now as I did before I left Azeroth. This totally kills the effectiveness of the Nurturing Instinct talent (increases healing done by 50% of your Strength), which is ordinarily a great levelling (and PvP) talent. So far I've seen exactly one piece of leather with Strength, the blue chest from Zeth'gor Must Burn.
I've taken to wearing +healing rings instead of dps rings, it helps downtime some and gives me more mana to boot.
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Ding! 58
Mah dr00d hit 58 last night, joy of joys, and he's already picked up a significant boost to his already crazy cat form damage and a whole ton of health, not to mention upgrades to his healing set.
One thing I can't seem to figure out, with all this new Outland gear... where does my Mana come from? All the Feral gear I can see is damage stats and Stamina, no Intellect at all. Unless I want to wear boomkin gear and sacrifice my DPS I don't see where to find it, and the mana pool is a significant contributor to a druid's longevity.
I logged onto my Hunter as well to help a paladin guildie get his Charger - what a cool event. Not as cool as the Warlock event, but still very fun. And Rattlegore STILL hurts like a b#%@h.
I had a nice complement from this party on my pulling skills... made me all happy inside.
One thing I can't seem to figure out, with all this new Outland gear... where does my Mana come from? All the Feral gear I can see is damage stats and Stamina, no Intellect at all. Unless I want to wear boomkin gear and sacrifice my DPS I don't see where to find it, and the mana pool is a significant contributor to a druid's longevity.
I logged onto my Hunter as well to help a paladin guildie get his Charger - what a cool event. Not as cool as the Warlock event, but still very fun. And Rattlegore STILL hurts like a b#%@h.
I had a nice complement from this party on my pulling skills... made me all happy inside.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Feral...ism?
That's right - something not related to Hunters?! Sacrilege! But s'true. I've had a Drood at level 40 for some months now, and I decided "Well I've got DPS covered. Problem is, so does a not-at-all-pulled-out-of-thin-air 87.62 percent of the player population."
After seeing months and months of "lf healer and tank" in every channel I have access to I figured it couldn't hurt to have a class at level 70 that could fill those roles, and that's where I've been spending my time lately.
Druids are a unique beast. It's the only class in the game that you could throw five of in a single party and have a (reasonably) well-balanced group: the basic roles of tank, healer, melee dps, and ranged dps all covered. Plus you could skip huge chunks of instances entirely if you felt so inclined... of course you have very limited crowd control and no removal of magic debuffs, but meh.
And stealth is incomparably fun.
After seeing months and months of "lf healer and tank" in every channel I have access to I figured it couldn't hurt to have a class at level 70 that could fill those roles, and that's where I've been spending my time lately.
Druids are a unique beast. It's the only class in the game that you could throw five of in a single party and have a (reasonably) well-balanced group: the basic roles of tank, healer, melee dps, and ranged dps all covered. Plus you could skip huge chunks of instances entirely if you felt so inclined... of course you have very limited crowd control and no removal of magic debuffs, but meh.
And stealth is incomparably fun.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Brain Mouse Tuesday
My Vanadium theorizes that I say random things because there is in fact a tiny mouse lost inside my skull, randomly chewing on synapses in search of its lost cheese.
Today the Brain Mouse has taken control of my blog.
1) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is reeeally good.
2) Dollar Store books are often quite excellent. Helps you remember there are more than just 3 big name authors out there with a lot of talent.
3) The ones that aren't excellent are horrendous. There is no middle ground.
4) Nobody sells .3 mm mechanical pencil lead.
5) I have a little over 2400 gold now. Maybe someday I'll have a flying epic.
6) There is no number 6. This is because it is hiding in its room, terrified of number 7. Why?
Because 7) 8) 9).
Today the Brain Mouse has taken control of my blog.
1) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is reeeally good.
2) Dollar Store books are often quite excellent. Helps you remember there are more than just 3 big name authors out there with a lot of talent.
3) The ones that aren't excellent are horrendous. There is no middle ground.
4) Nobody sells .3 mm mechanical pencil lead.
5) I have a little over 2400 gold now. Maybe someday I'll have a flying epic.
6) There is no number 6. This is because it is hiding in its room, terrified of number 7. Why?
Because 7) 8) 9).
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Ein und vierzig (or) How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Readiness
It was once said to me:
SV has something not a lot of specs for any class has. Redundancy.
From your ramblings it appears as if you aren’t spec’d to do anything but recover from your mistakes/resists.
Lots of talents there to make traps better - faster cooldowns can conceivably be construed as redundancy, since they certainly aren't necessary for a competent chain-trapper... one with a cooperative group, anyway.
Likewise, Counterattack - it serves precisely the same purpose as Wing Clip, in the end, particularly with points in the Improved version.
But really, one point in the tree stands out more than the others, and I speak of course of Readiness.
Ah, Readiness.
In order to examine the skill, you have to examine its effects - in this case, the Hunter skills that are reset when you click that button. Purely by coincidence, I have a list.
Raptor Strike
Arcane Shot
Concussive Shot
Distracting Shot
Scare Beast
Traps
Multi-Shot
Aimed Shot
Deterrence
Disengage
Rapid Fire
Counterattack
Mongoose Bite
Viper Sting
Volley
Wyvern Sting
Tranquilizing Shot
Kill Command
Misdirection
Immediately you will see that some of them are more worth the 5-minute cooldown than others. Some of the skills above have longer cooldowns in proportion to elevated levels of usefulness, and its these that are what make Readiness so great. I feel I can say without fear of contradiction that several of the skills up there, like Kill Command and Distracting Shot, are criminal wastes of such a beauty of a talented skill.
I'll begin with the obvious: Feign Death. I've used this once or twice to escape repair bills, but only if I am the last person standing and there is absolutely no chance of victory. Why? 'cause it will piss your party members off if you FD too early and they get eaten. Even if they would die anyway, it's worth it to me to take the death so I can share in their frustration rather than being a target of their resentment.
Next: Traps. Specifically Freezing Trap. Burning Readiness to fix that big yellow "Resist" is a perfectly valid use of the skill, especially when the mob you are trapping is of the variety that will two-shot you. This can also be used with some creativity to trap 3 mobs simultaneously for up to 26 seconds, giving your party a head start on whatever is left. You can also release an Ark-worthy flood of serpents with a triple Snake Trap, or effectively nuke a crowd of weak mobs with a triple Explosive Trap.
Double Deterrence is also very useful in the proper circumstances - Deterrence and Aspect of the Monkey together turn you into a bona fide untouchable Mongoose Biting Counterattacking pain in the keister. People are wont to cry "But! Overpower!" at which point I'll kindly point out that Hunters are already Dodge machines, and you're likely already getting Overpowered every 6 seconds as it stands - dodging damn near every other attack they make will still reduce the damage you suffer considerably while you wait for that canary yellow Counterattack proc to fly up on your screen.
Much of what remains is a large variety of short cooldowns - most under 10 seconds. A few of them may be worth Readinessing (Readinessing? Did he say Readinessing?) at your discretion - Concussive Shot is a good choice for this, as is Multi-Shot. It's one of the strongest shots we have, and it can help you load on the damage to a group of enemies before they separate.
Scare Beast - another good one. Fearlock that Druid or Shaman; 18 continuous seconds of Fear is more than enough time for a Hunter to lay on some serious hurt. Less useful in PvE, since Fear is an undesirable method of crowd control, but I'm sure you can find a use for it somewhere.
Viper Sting - Good for giving that caster a piece of your mind in a hurry, 2700 mana gone with no reprieve is nothing to sneeze at even in this world of 10k+ mana pools.
And we come to one of my favorites: Rapid Fire. Combine Rapid Fire with one of the garden-variety attack power trinkets and you become a force to be reckoned with... combine it with a Haste Rating trinket to become a shrapnel-spitting death blur with a thirst for blood.
Or as only some of the 6.52% can do it - first one, then the other.
SV has something not a lot of specs for any class has. Redundancy.
From your ramblings it appears as if you aren’t spec’d to do anything but recover from your mistakes/resists.
Lots of talents there to make traps better - faster cooldowns can conceivably be construed as redundancy, since they certainly aren't necessary for a competent chain-trapper... one with a cooperative group, anyway.
Likewise, Counterattack - it serves precisely the same purpose as Wing Clip, in the end, particularly with points in the Improved version.
But really, one point in the tree stands out more than the others, and I speak of course of Readiness.
Ah, Readiness.
In order to examine the skill, you have to examine its effects - in this case, the Hunter skills that are reset when you click that button. Purely by coincidence, I have a list.
Raptor Strike
Arcane Shot
Concussive Shot
Distracting Shot
Scare Beast
Traps
Multi-Shot
Aimed Shot
Deterrence
Disengage
Rapid Fire
Counterattack
Mongoose Bite
Viper Sting
Volley
Wyvern Sting
Tranquilizing Shot
Kill Command
Misdirection
Immediately you will see that some of them are more worth the 5-minute cooldown than others. Some of the skills above have longer cooldowns in proportion to elevated levels of usefulness, and its these that are what make Readiness so great. I feel I can say without fear of contradiction that several of the skills up there, like Kill Command and Distracting Shot, are criminal wastes of such a beauty of a talented skill.
I'll begin with the obvious: Feign Death. I've used this once or twice to escape repair bills, but only if I am the last person standing and there is absolutely no chance of victory. Why? 'cause it will piss your party members off if you FD too early and they get eaten. Even if they would die anyway, it's worth it to me to take the death so I can share in their frustration rather than being a target of their resentment.
Next: Traps. Specifically Freezing Trap. Burning Readiness to fix that big yellow "Resist" is a perfectly valid use of the skill, especially when the mob you are trapping is of the variety that will two-shot you. This can also be used with some creativity to trap 3 mobs simultaneously for up to 26 seconds, giving your party a head start on whatever is left. You can also release an Ark-worthy flood of serpents with a triple Snake Trap, or effectively nuke a crowd of weak mobs with a triple Explosive Trap.
Double Deterrence is also very useful in the proper circumstances - Deterrence and Aspect of the Monkey together turn you into a bona fide untouchable Mongoose Biting Counterattacking pain in the keister. People are wont to cry "But! Overpower!" at which point I'll kindly point out that Hunters are already Dodge machines, and you're likely already getting Overpowered every 6 seconds as it stands - dodging damn near every other attack they make will still reduce the damage you suffer considerably while you wait for that canary yellow Counterattack proc
Much of what remains is a large variety of short cooldowns - most under 10 seconds. A few of them may be worth Readinessing (Readinessing? Did he say Readinessing?) at your discretion - Concussive Shot is a good choice for this, as is Multi-Shot. It's one of the strongest shots we have, and it can help you load on the damage to a group of enemies before they separate.
Scare Beast - another good one. Fearlock that Druid or Shaman; 18 continuous seconds of Fear is more than enough time for a Hunter to lay on some serious hurt. Less useful in PvE, since Fear is an undesirable method of crowd control, but I'm sure you can find a use for it somewhere.
Viper Sting - Good for giving that caster a piece of your mind in a hurry, 2700 mana gone with no reprieve is nothing to sneeze at even in this world of 10k+ mana pools.
And we come to one of my favorites: Rapid Fire. Combine Rapid Fire with one of the garden-variety attack power trinkets and you become a force to be reckoned with... combine it with a Haste Rating trinket to become a shrapnel-spitting death blur with a thirst for blood.
Or as only some of the 6.52% can do it - first one, then the other.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
World of Significant Othercraft
In other news, my wife (owner of the cooking blog in my links section) who also loves WoW, did this the other day:
Booyah! <3
Booyah! <3
D:
It's been a few days since I've made a post, yes. I'm not going anywhere, I've just been distracted lately - my grandmother passed away earlier this week, and of course it's weighing on me.
It certainly wasn't a surprise, this has been coming for a while... but you're never really ready for it.
Ah well.
BRB
It certainly wasn't a surprise, this has been coming for a while... but you're never really ready for it.
Ah well.
BRB
Friday, July 6, 2007
Variance
First, I realize my bizarre build isn't for everyone. I've sacrificed ranged DPS to round out my Hunter's skill set; to allow her to survive in melee combat if necessary and to become a serious candidate for primary CC in instances.
If you aren't comfortable with this, that's completely fine. The above build is a dedicated ranged DPS machine designed to do as much damage as a Survival build is capable of doing while also maintaining the raid-feeding Expose Weakness proc which will make physical DPS classes the world over love you to death.
Key talents:
Marksmanship
Lethal Shots - 5% crit. You know you love it.
Imp. Hunter's Mark - the effect of this stacks with Expose Weakness.
Rapid Killing - Rapid Fire. Know it. Love it.
Mortal Shots - Like I need to go in depth on this one.
Survival
X Slaying - Free damage is rarely bad.
Hawk Eye - Since you're in this tree anyway, if you skip it I'll slap you.
Blah blah traps, blah blah deterrence. Good place for filler points since it adds CC and survivability.
Surefooted - Important for the +3% to hit. This will allow you to wear slightly less +hit gear in favor of slightly more +ap gear, meaning more damage overall.
Survival Instincts - In addition to reducing damage taken, it also now increases your RAP by 4%.
Killer Instinct - I hear you say you want more crit? Well then.
Lightning Reflexes - AGILITY = LIFE
Expose Weakness - the great equalizer. Any damage a Marksman or even a Beastmaster has on you in The Meters (dramatic score) will be made up here. All that attack power multiplied by the number of physical DPSers in your raid... c'est formidable.
Wyvern Sting - a filler point, but it's a great Squishy-saver if your traps are currently occupied.
Master Tactician - A ranged-attack proc'd bonus to crit chance. What's not to love? With this up I have 34% crit chance, and that's in my quested blue gear. Plus it's a prerequisite to Readiness.
Readiness - Is it good? Oh yes. I need to do a post on this detailing why it's so great.
"What, no mana-saving talents?" I hear you whisper. Nope, not a one. Quick answer: use Aspect of the Viper. Long answer: Take 15 seconds out of your DPS time and drink some water if you need to. We can leave combat whenever we please without blowing a 5-minute cooldown to do so, and it's a tremendous boon. Not on top of The Meter? Wrong blog.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Happy 4th!
First, happy 4th of July! Whee, hooray, fireworks and all that!
Second, another word on damage. I remembered to SS my dps meter after the mech run I did last night.
That's an Affliction 'lock in #2 spot, and a Rogue of unknown spec in #3. I'm going to make the disclaimer that our tank was kind of sub-par and the only member that could go all-out DPS without dying (thank you Feign Death) was me... but if you think for a second that that's not part of a Hunter's bag of DPS tricks, you're most definitely wrong.
Nethermancer Sepethrea is a really difficult fight, as anyone who's been there can attest to. She herself hits like a little girl, but kiting those elementals while DPSing is a formidable task.
BRK's favorite trick of doing the Nethermancer pull from Panthaleon's room is unfortunately no longer possible. She'll reset as soon as she sets foot on the bridge, meaning you have to fight her where she stands and deal with kiting those bloody elementals in that tiny room.
Panthaleon was kind enough to drop half of my Arcatraz key, and this little beauty: Abacus of Violent Odds. Having two Rapid Fires I can call on anytime I like is just too delicious.
Second, another word on damage. I remembered to SS my dps meter after the mech run I did last night.
That's an Affliction 'lock in #2 spot, and a Rogue of unknown spec in #3. I'm going to make the disclaimer that our tank was kind of sub-par and the only member that could go all-out DPS without dying (thank you Feign Death) was me... but if you think for a second that that's not part of a Hunter's bag of DPS tricks, you're most definitely wrong.
Nethermancer Sepethrea is a really difficult fight, as anyone who's been there can attest to. She herself hits like a little girl, but kiting those elementals while DPSing is a formidable task.
BRK's favorite trick of doing the Nethermancer pull from Panthaleon's room is unfortunately no longer possible. She'll reset as soon as she sets foot on the bridge, meaning you have to fight her where she stands and deal with kiting those bloody elementals in that tiny room.
Panthaleon was kind enough to drop half of my Arcatraz key, and this little beauty: Abacus of Violent Odds. Having two Rapid Fires I can call on anytime I like is just too delicious.
Monday, July 2, 2007
Master of CC
I had originally planned to whip out my Fraps (in public!) and make a video demonstrating the insane short-term CC Survival Hunters are capable of, but someone has mostly beat me to the punch:
Just crazy.
Add to this the fact that you can pet-tank a sixth mob and Scare Beast (if applicable) yet another, and you're talking seven simultaneously crowd controlled mobs. Practical? Perhaps not.
Sweet as all get out? .... ohhhhh yeah.
Just crazy.
Add to this the fact that you can pet-tank a sixth mob and Scare Beast (if applicable) yet another, and you're talking seven simultaneously crowd controlled mobs. Practical? Perhaps not.
Sweet as all get out? .... ohhhhh yeah.
Survivalism II
In the first installment of the Survivalism post series, I discussed my spec in-depth. It has changed slightly - I exchanged Monster Slaying, Entrapment and Go for the Throat for Deflection and Savage Strikes.
I know, I know. The much-lauded BRK would probably slap me and steal all my BRK Cool Points for enhancing my melee skills at the cost of my pet, but... screw him. This is my spec. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
One of the things I've tried to shoot for is extreme versatility. My traps cool down before they end, meaning I can keep a mob trapped in perpetuity -- there is zero time required for the mob to chase after me, enabling me to do two things most hunters cannot: emergency-trap a mob standing right next to the healer without consideration of threat (bad, bad strategy, but sometimes necessary), and trap casters. If you lay a trap at the feet of a frozen mob it will go into effect immediately, refreshing the duration of the trap, meaning I can keep him trapped as long as I'm able to stand still.
A word on damage: I've run quite a few instances since the last Survivalism post, running SW Stats the whole time. I was the #1 damage dealer throughout the entire instance every time but twice - a fire mage and one epic Rogue managed to outdo me (with the help of MY Expose Weakness!). And I don't even have Mortal Shots! Don't listen to those who tell you Survival is broken and worthless; they have no facts to back it up. Give them an RS crit + Counterattack combo from me, with bells on, and then fill them full of arrows.
Speaking of things Marksmen and Beastmasters can't do - I've Deterrence tanked the last few percent of Warlord Kalithresh during his +100% attack speed tantrum after we missed an aquarium and the tank bit it. That was satisfying, oh yes. Mmmm. Sweet justification.
Survival hunters are also more than capable of being a primary crowd control class. I can't remember the last time a mob resisted one of my traps and there wasn't something I could do about it, and resisting two of my traps in a row is unheard of - and even if they do, so what? If you make sure the party waits for your cooldown before the pull, you get two traps right off the bat. If the second trap sticks, great, your cooldown will STILL be up before the trap ends, and if it somehow magically resists the second trap, Readiness will be there to save the day.
This isn't a discussion of basic Hunter strategy, but rather specific things that can be done with a heavy Survival spec. If you need such a thing, go visit BRK and read through his extensive collection of "L2HUNTR" posts and weep as he shows you how you've been wrong all this time.
I know, I know. The much-lauded BRK would probably slap me and steal all my BRK Cool Points for enhancing my melee skills at the cost of my pet, but... screw him. This is my spec. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
One of the things I've tried to shoot for is extreme versatility. My traps cool down before they end, meaning I can keep a mob trapped in perpetuity -- there is zero time required for the mob to chase after me, enabling me to do two things most hunters cannot: emergency-trap a mob standing right next to the healer without consideration of threat (bad, bad strategy, but sometimes necessary), and trap casters. If you lay a trap at the feet of a frozen mob it will go into effect immediately, refreshing the duration of the trap, meaning I can keep him trapped as long as I'm able to stand still.
A word on damage: I've run quite a few instances since the last Survivalism post, running SW Stats the whole time. I was the #1 damage dealer throughout the entire instance every time but twice - a fire mage and one epic Rogue managed to outdo me (with the help of MY Expose Weakness!). And I don't even have Mortal Shots! Don't listen to those who tell you Survival is broken and worthless; they have no facts to back it up. Give them an RS crit + Counterattack combo from me, with bells on, and then fill them full of arrows.
Speaking of things Marksmen and Beastmasters can't do - I've Deterrence tanked the last few percent of Warlord Kalithresh during his +100% attack speed tantrum after we missed an aquarium and the tank bit it. That was satisfying, oh yes. Mmmm. Sweet justification.
Survival hunters are also more than capable of being a primary crowd control class. I can't remember the last time a mob resisted one of my traps and there wasn't something I could do about it, and resisting two of my traps in a row is unheard of - and even if they do, so what? If you make sure the party waits for your cooldown before the pull, you get two traps right off the bat. If the second trap sticks, great, your cooldown will STILL be up before the trap ends, and if it somehow magically resists the second trap, Readiness will be there to save the day.
This isn't a discussion of basic Hunter strategy, but rather specific things that can be done with a heavy Survival spec. If you need such a thing, go visit BRK and read through his extensive collection of "L2HUNTR" posts and weep as he shows you how you've been wrong all this time.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Shadow Labs, hunter power, and loot (phat)
After finishing Sethekk Halls and getting my Shadow Labs key, it seemed like the logical next thing to do, so as soon as someone asked in Guild about an SL run, I was the first to volunteer my services.
We ended up with a very odd party indeed. Two Hunters (the other was a Marksman with a wolf casting that Ferocious Howl move), two Shadow Priests, one of whom donned healing gear and played the healbot, and a pugged Warrior later replaced by a Druid after my esteemed Priest colleague sent him running home with insults. I thought he did pretty well and the problem was more one of the absurd amount of aggro a Shadow priest can generate, but apparently he thought differently.
Obviously rather short on crowd control, I feel we did very well - no trash pulls (not even Blackheart the Inciter's 6-pulls) managed to wipe us, and we chain-trapped and mind controlled like pros.
We had a total of four wipes, one on each of the bosses while we worked out our strategy - the first boss's fear move really really sucks, Blackheart's group mind-control-slash-aggro-wipe is nothing short of a sickening pain in the ass, and Grandmaster blueberry summoner is just a joke if you set your hunters on killing all the voidwalkers on the kiting path. Our wipe on Murmur was bad luck (we tried to 4-man it while the shadow priest was afk), the healer became the bomb and couldn't get LOS on the tank quickly enough after getting back.
Oh, and uh...
Friday, June 8, 2007
Survivalism
If there's one thing I do more than anything else in WoW, it's experiment. I have spent so much money on respecs over my 70 levels it's just insane - I was at the 50 gold respec cap when I was in my early 60s, and I was level 45 when TBC came out.
Similarly, I have an alt for nearly every class - but that's another story.
Today I'm going to expound on my current Hunter spec, 0/15/46 (here - pay no mind to the fact that the descriptions are wrong, it's correct in essence).
No, it isn't the highest DPS spec. I'm quite convinced that Beastmastery has that position duly covered - and I tried that spec, right from the pages of BRK, but it wasn't for me. This spec gives me something the others didn't: control.
Freezing Trap is quite possibly the best form of crowd control there is, when used properly; it's not limited to types, like Polymorph, Sap, or Seduction, and is one of the only ways to CC typeless mobs, at the cost of being real tricky to use and not being spammable - two points in Trap Mastery is non-negotiable. The points spent in Clever Traps and Resourcefulness help reinforce this role - I can chain-trap anything given no warning at all, since my traps are cooled down two seconds before they end.
The rest of the points that could've gone into Mortal Shots have gone into Expose Weakness - after some questing and enchanting I have just about 600 agility, which means I've passed the threshold required to beat out the maximum rank of Trueshot Aura. I figure for the +30% critical strike damage bonus I've lost, I'll eventually allow an entire raid of physical damage dealers to do extra DPS for as long as I can keep critting - and with lethal shots, killer instinct, master tactician, and naturally high crit from agi, that's a very long time. In addition, my crits are less likely to pull the mob off my pet - and gimped ranged critical strike damage is a lot better than hunter melee damage if you can't get to range.
Unlike many other Survival Hunters, I also elected to keep Wyvern Sting. It could use some adjustment, it's true, but I've found uses for it. I want to say that you can use Scorpid Sting to overwrite the effect, thus cancelling the DoT and allowing you to use it with Freezing Trap... but I'm not certain, so I'll speculate for now and test it later on. EDIT: Turns out you can indeed use Scorpid Sting to overwrite Wyvern Sting, but it works a bit oddly. It's important to know that Wyvern Sting is applied twice; once when you cast the spell (the sleep effect) and after the target wakes up, it applies the Wyvern Sting (DoT portion) to itself, overwriting any existing stings. What you have to do is wake the target up and THEN apply your Scorpid Sting. It is possible to trap a mob while it is still asleep and keep it trapped with the proper order and timing of stings.
What you need to do is this: First, sleep a mob with Wyvern Sting. Lay a trap under it - after the ice appears, you need to apply two stings in rapid order. I recommend Serpent Sting rank 1 to start due to its low mana cost. This will wake the target up and apply the DoT portion of the Wyvern Sting effect. You now need to cast Scorpid Sting, and it has to hit the target before the first tick of damage, and then you have to disable Auto-Shot or you'll break your own ice and defeat the purpose of the exercise. I recommend a /stopcasting macro for this.
Obviously it is a better option to do all this from long range and have it run into the trap sitting at your feet - you'll have much more time to hit it with Scorpid Sting, for one - but this was just a theoretical exercise. /EDIT
Another talent I chose to invest points in is the much-maligned Improved Feign Death. This goes along with my whole theme of control, allowing me to drop hate more reliably, which is one of a Hunter's primary functions: threat management. If I die because FD was resisted, my party loses my chain-trapping skills, my Expose Weakness, and my pet, Resarto.
You'll also notice the presence of Entrapment, which I really like - Freezing Trap junior. More time spent in your Frost Trap means less time beating on you, or your squishies, not to mention that's it's an incredibly annoying thing to run through in PvP - and the lack of +parry and +health talents. These I sort of regret, but I spend comparatively little time getting whupped on, and if I am Deterrence is there to save the day. I do have all 3 points in Surefooted; the last time I PvP'd the only class that really gave me a run for my money was Warrior - that Intercept + Hamstring combo is highly unpleasant.
My Marksmanship talents are fairly standard. More crit for more Expose Weakness procs, Improved Hunter's Mark to - again - someday make a raid full of melee do more damage, Go for the Throat for Gore spam, and Rapid Killing for the Rapid Fire cooldown reduction. And Aimed Shot to... uh... make me feel manly. I mean, for Misdirection! Yeah, Misdirection.
Finally, Readiness. It's obviously a very powerful ability, but has more to do with what ability you're clearing the cooldown of than it does with any intrinsic power. The two most obvious cooldowns you would want to clear right the hell now are Traps and of course Feign Death -- both most often immediately after a resist. The need for the first can be negated with careful pull planning, and using it for the second is arguably selfish, as the only purpose is to save your own life. Interestingly, this is why people hate Hunters so much - they can f*%k up really, really badly and kill the entire group, or even the entire raid, and come out of the thing without even a tiny scratch.
But there are a million other things you can do with it. Two Concussive shots in a row, load on extra damage with two Multi-shots and two Arcane shots in the space of a few seconds, or - this is my favorite - tank a whole swarm of anything that deals melee damage for 20 seconds straight with a pair of Deterrences. It's really nice to see an enormous red cloud of 'Dodge' and 'Parry' (whoosh! clang! whoosh whoosh clang!) while your health bar takes nary a dip.
Ever see Hunter AOE? Explosive trap, wait for cooldown, pull a swarm of monsters. As soon as the first trap goes off, lay a second, Readiness, lay a third, and then Mend Pet and Feign Death and allow your pet to take all the damage.
Well, enjoy my novel, and my misguided opinions about what makes Hunters yummy.
Similarly, I have an alt for nearly every class - but that's another story.
Today I'm going to expound on my current Hunter spec, 0/15/46 (here - pay no mind to the fact that the descriptions are wrong, it's correct in essence).
No, it isn't the highest DPS spec. I'm quite convinced that Beastmastery has that position duly covered - and I tried that spec, right from the pages of BRK, but it wasn't for me. This spec gives me something the others didn't: control.
Freezing Trap is quite possibly the best form of crowd control there is, when used properly; it's not limited to types, like Polymorph, Sap, or Seduction, and is one of the only ways to CC typeless mobs, at the cost of being real tricky to use and not being spammable - two points in Trap Mastery is non-negotiable. The points spent in Clever Traps and Resourcefulness help reinforce this role - I can chain-trap anything given no warning at all, since my traps are cooled down two seconds before they end.
The rest of the points that could've gone into Mortal Shots have gone into Expose Weakness - after some questing and enchanting I have just about 600 agility, which means I've passed the threshold required to beat out the maximum rank of Trueshot Aura. I figure for the +30% critical strike damage bonus I've lost, I'll eventually allow an entire raid of physical damage dealers to do extra DPS for as long as I can keep critting - and with lethal shots, killer instinct, master tactician, and naturally high crit from agi, that's a very long time. In addition, my crits are less likely to pull the mob off my pet - and gimped ranged critical strike damage is a lot better than hunter melee damage if you can't get to range.
Unlike many other Survival Hunters, I also elected to keep Wyvern Sting. It could use some adjustment, it's true, but I've found uses for it. I want to say that you can use Scorpid Sting to overwrite the effect, thus cancelling the DoT and allowing you to use it with Freezing Trap... but I'm not certain, so I'll speculate for now and test it later on. EDIT: Turns out you can indeed use Scorpid Sting to overwrite Wyvern Sting, but it works a bit oddly. It's important to know that Wyvern Sting is applied twice; once when you cast the spell (the sleep effect) and after the target wakes up, it applies the Wyvern Sting (DoT portion) to itself, overwriting any existing stings. What you have to do is wake the target up and THEN apply your Scorpid Sting. It is possible to trap a mob while it is still asleep and keep it trapped with the proper order and timing of stings.
What you need to do is this: First, sleep a mob with Wyvern Sting. Lay a trap under it - after the ice appears, you need to apply two stings in rapid order. I recommend Serpent Sting rank 1 to start due to its low mana cost. This will wake the target up and apply the DoT portion of the Wyvern Sting effect. You now need to cast Scorpid Sting, and it has to hit the target before the first tick of damage, and then you have to disable Auto-Shot or you'll break your own ice and defeat the purpose of the exercise. I recommend a /stopcasting macro for this.
Obviously it is a better option to do all this from long range and have it run into the trap sitting at your feet - you'll have much more time to hit it with Scorpid Sting, for one - but this was just a theoretical exercise. /EDIT
Another talent I chose to invest points in is the much-maligned Improved Feign Death. This goes along with my whole theme of control, allowing me to drop hate more reliably, which is one of a Hunter's primary functions: threat management. If I die because FD was resisted, my party loses my chain-trapping skills, my Expose Weakness, and my pet, Resarto.
You'll also notice the presence of Entrapment, which I really like - Freezing Trap junior. More time spent in your Frost Trap means less time beating on you, or your squishies, not to mention that's it's an incredibly annoying thing to run through in PvP - and the lack of +parry and +health talents. These I sort of regret, but I spend comparatively little time getting whupped on, and if I am Deterrence is there to save the day. I do have all 3 points in Surefooted; the last time I PvP'd the only class that really gave me a run for my money was Warrior - that Intercept + Hamstring combo is highly unpleasant.
My Marksmanship talents are fairly standard. More crit for more Expose Weakness procs, Improved Hunter's Mark to - again - someday make a raid full of melee do more damage, Go for the Throat for Gore spam, and Rapid Killing for the Rapid Fire cooldown reduction. And Aimed Shot to... uh... make me feel manly. I mean, for Misdirection! Yeah, Misdirection.
Finally, Readiness. It's obviously a very powerful ability, but has more to do with what ability you're clearing the cooldown of than it does with any intrinsic power. The two most obvious cooldowns you would want to clear right the hell now are Traps and of course Feign Death -- both most often immediately after a resist. The need for the first can be negated with careful pull planning, and using it for the second is arguably selfish, as the only purpose is to save your own life. Interestingly, this is why people hate Hunters so much - they can f*%k up really, really badly and kill the entire group, or even the entire raid, and come out of the thing without even a tiny scratch.
But there are a million other things you can do with it. Two Concussive shots in a row, load on extra damage with two Multi-shots and two Arcane shots in the space of a few seconds, or - this is my favorite - tank a whole swarm of anything that deals melee damage for 20 seconds straight with a pair of Deterrences. It's really nice to see an enormous red cloud of 'Dodge' and 'Parry' (whoosh! clang! whoosh whoosh clang!) while your health bar takes nary a dip.
Ever see Hunter AOE? Explosive trap, wait for cooldown, pull a swarm of monsters. As soon as the first trap goes off, lay a second, Readiness, lay a third, and then Mend Pet and Feign Death and allow your pet to take all the damage.
Well, enjoy my novel, and my misguided opinions about what makes Hunters yummy.
Monday, June 4, 2007
Sethekk Halls.... and a confession
So I did my first PUG as a Survival hunter today - in fact only the third PUG I've ever been in, the first two being Hellfire Ramparts and Blackrock Depths. In fact... only the third instance I've ever run, ever. Gasp and alas! I am a newb! For shaaaaaame!
Despite all that, I did pretty damn well.
This being my first visit to Sethekk Halls, of course fate would designate me the group leader. We did pretty much all right - our first wipe was on an accidental link, and we didn't wipe at all after that until the 5-mob pull before Talon King Ikiss. That one got us. Sapped one, trapped one, shackled the undead, and tried to kill the last while the shadow priest volunteered to MC one of the others. Well horror of horrors, both the freezing trap and the mind control broke early, and it was just chaos - our second wipe. We managed to down one of the mobs before we bit it, so the resulting 4-pull was just a piece of cake.
Then things got really hard.
Talon King Ikiss is a bitch. Not his Arcane Explosion - that's pretty easy to dodge, unless *cough* some hunter hides behind the wrong pillar, gets blinked to, and the rest of the group can't catch up with the Warrior to heal him. Ahem.
That was only one of our many wipes - the Arcane Explosion was no problem, but that Arcane Volley is just a filthy, filthy move. It ignores LoS, and does 1800 or so damage. I managed to survive this by bandaging while hiding from the Explosion, in the end, but that damage stacks up really fast. Most of the time, the shadow priest died first, and without his Vampiric Embrace healing, the Volley damage just overwhelmed us. It didn't help that at this point I also managed to alt-tab myself out of the game....
I came in second place (after the Rogue) on the damage meters for the entire run, trapped on most of the pulls, and chain trapped on several of them - even managed to trap the Sapped mob with Readiness once or twice, which is a really great skill. I'm still not sure whether it's better than Scatter Shot, but... I'll give it a few more instance runs before I decide.
I did a pretty good job, I think - I never once broke crowd control, I managed to direct the vast majority of our pulls to a successful conclusion (order of kills and such), but by virtue of having the little crown icon (and that everyone else was kinda... grumpy by the end) I couldn't help but feel responsible for our numerous wipes. I also completely forgot about Misdirection. One of our problems was that the tank couldn't get quite enough threat, and I could have solved his problem rather nicely, if I hadn't been so concerned about what I was doing wrong in this instance.
Ah well, I can only get better. My pet served as a handy supplement to my DPS and as a pretty decent off-tank once or twice -- too bad he didn't get any action at all on Ikiss. I just couldn't keep him up against the arcane volleys, and the priests had their hands full keeping the tank alive, so he stayed in pet limbo and Expose Weakness took the spotlight.
And I got my Terokk's Quill and my Shadow Labyrinth key! One good spear down, one great one to go.
Despite all that, I did pretty damn well.
This being my first visit to Sethekk Halls, of course fate would designate me the group leader. We did pretty much all right - our first wipe was on an accidental link, and we didn't wipe at all after that until the 5-mob pull before Talon King Ikiss. That one got us. Sapped one, trapped one, shackled the undead, and tried to kill the last while the shadow priest volunteered to MC one of the others. Well horror of horrors, both the freezing trap and the mind control broke early, and it was just chaos - our second wipe. We managed to down one of the mobs before we bit it, so the resulting 4-pull was just a piece of cake.
Then things got really hard.
Talon King Ikiss is a bitch. Not his Arcane Explosion - that's pretty easy to dodge, unless *cough* some hunter hides behind the wrong pillar, gets blinked to, and the rest of the group can't catch up with the Warrior to heal him. Ahem.
That was only one of our many wipes - the Arcane Explosion was no problem, but that Arcane Volley is just a filthy, filthy move. It ignores LoS, and does 1800 or so damage. I managed to survive this by bandaging while hiding from the Explosion, in the end, but that damage stacks up really fast. Most of the time, the shadow priest died first, and without his Vampiric Embrace healing, the Volley damage just overwhelmed us. It didn't help that at this point I also managed to alt-tab myself out of the game....
I came in second place (after the Rogue) on the damage meters for the entire run, trapped on most of the pulls, and chain trapped on several of them - even managed to trap the Sapped mob with Readiness once or twice, which is a really great skill. I'm still not sure whether it's better than Scatter Shot, but... I'll give it a few more instance runs before I decide.
I did a pretty good job, I think - I never once broke crowd control, I managed to direct the vast majority of our pulls to a successful conclusion (order of kills and such), but by virtue of having the little crown icon (and that everyone else was kinda... grumpy by the end) I couldn't help but feel responsible for our numerous wipes. I also completely forgot about Misdirection. One of our problems was that the tank couldn't get quite enough threat, and I could have solved his problem rather nicely, if I hadn't been so concerned about what I was doing wrong in this instance.
Ah well, I can only get better. My pet served as a handy supplement to my DPS and as a pretty decent off-tank once or twice -- too bad he didn't get any action at all on Ikiss. I just couldn't keep him up against the arcane volleys, and the priests had their hands full keeping the tank alive, so he stayed in pet limbo and Expose Weakness took the spotlight.
And I got my Terokk's Quill and my Shadow Labyrinth key! One good spear down, one great one to go.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
That's armor with a U
I figure it's gaudy enough to be spelled with a U. It was nice in my head, but it feels like there's too much detail and it just looks messy.
As with all the others, be sure to click the thumbnail to see the full size!
Are paladins celibate?
Not this one. That's my paladin at the bar, stealin' a peek at my wife's Warrior.
Gnome girls will seem strangely sexy
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
An introduction
Well now. I can honestly say I never really saw myself as the bloggin' type, but lately I got the itch - and they don't make a cream for it, I already checked.
I started WoW a year or two ago as a Tauren hunter - made it to level 26, shot stuff with my gun, had a bunch of crappy gear with some crazy assortment of stats probably better suited to... I dunno, Cairne Bloodhoof's chief cook or something.
After a server (and faction) change, I'm now the proud owner of Victrium, a level 70 Night Elf hunter, with less crappy gear, a bow, and a Survival spec. I also have altophilia, but that's probably better kept private. Paladin is my latest interest, and I like being able to heal; it's a nice change.
This'll be my li'l corner of tha intarweb. I'll put up whatever I damn well feel like putting up, whether it be art, in-game experiences, or misguided social commentary, so... uh... thanks for visiting!
I started WoW a year or two ago as a Tauren hunter - made it to level 26, shot stuff with my gun, had a bunch of crappy gear with some crazy assortment of stats probably better suited to... I dunno, Cairne Bloodhoof's chief cook or something.
After a server (and faction) change, I'm now the proud owner of Victrium, a level 70 Night Elf hunter, with less crappy gear, a bow, and a Survival spec. I also have altophilia, but that's probably better kept private. Paladin is my latest interest, and I like being able to heal; it's a nice change.
This'll be my li'l corner of tha intarweb. I'll put up whatever I damn well feel like putting up, whether it be art, in-game experiences, or misguided social commentary, so... uh... thanks for visiting!
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