Hunters Rhok

Dragon Sorrows

2012-02-01T22:32:00.001+10:00

The thing I'm finding most annoying about Dragon Soul at the moment: when the cooldown for Heroic Will goes off and you still cop a death on Ultraxion. Stupid latency :(

Not the best idea

2012-01-26T23:47:00.002+10:00

...to lie whilst trying to get people to join your guild:

There is no way my Level 10 trial account alt (for use in forming a raid whilst doing elite soloing) would have played with anyone.

Even if I could join a guild with a trial account char (you can't), I wouldn't join this one!

Lucky Red Envelopes - Now Spam-Free!

2012-01-23T00:02:00.000+10:00

This year's Lunar Festival has thankfully been updated to include the Lucky Red Envelopes as a quest reward instead of what happened in previous years, where your mailbox got spammed the following day with a red packet from every Elder you visited the day before:

Hooray for progression! :P

Back in Business

2012-01-16T23:15:00.001+10:00

We had our first all-guild raid today since before Christmas. With our current limited raiding pool, I've been going BM for Ancient Hysteria.

Even though raiding as BM is a little more frustrating in general (I'm pretty sure I died a lot more than I would have if I'd had Chimera heals to fall back on...), at least the bosses in the first half of Dragon Soul don't involve much pet movement or target switching - Kill Commands landed when they were supposed to (mostly!) and having done it for a few raids now, I'm comfortable playing the spec again.

Plus - an all-guild raid is a definite win. 3 bosses down with at least a couple not even having seen the fight on LFR mode is a pretty good effort for this lil' guild :)

Looking for Raid vs Guilds

2012-01-12T00:05:00.000+10:00

With LFR making raiding the easiest it has ever been, we seem to now be back at the stage where being in a guild isn't much of an advantage.

Sure, guild perks help, but I could join a level 25 levelling guild and get the same perks without having to join a raiding guild.

On the one hand, I think it's great - everyone gets to see end-game content, I can raid for 15min if I don't have time for anything more and if you want to stay with a guild of friends rather than an anti-social bunch of overachievers, it's fine.

On the other hand, it isn't so great when you're in a guild trying to recruit more for your raiding team - nigh impossible, in fact.

I'd be interested to see whether Blizzard thinks this issue is important enough to do something about it in the next expansion, or whether they believe that the LFR-casual-friendly approach outweighs the need for mid-level raiding guilds. I'm not sure I'm liking the fact that there are less than 10 people in guild chat these days (thank you, SW:TOR) and even though we may have a couple of regular PuGs that join our guild raids, it just isn't the same.

Holiday Hunting

2012-01-04T00:08:00.000+10:00

Happy New Year!

As Proudmoore is usually a highly populated server, I decided to take advantage of the holiday lull to get some "rare" hunting done and hit the jackpot:

I finally managed to tame Loque'nahak - and not only that, I found him again to kill for Frostbitten! :D

I now only have 3 rares left for Frostbitten (one of which, Dirkee, will likely be difficult due to all the people camping for the Time-Lost Proto Drake in Storm Peaks) and none for Bloody Rare:

Unfortunately, there were still a few people around for the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza and I didn't manage to win it... but I did grab a PuG to do a few Cataclysm 5man Heroic achievements, putting me over the 12,000pt mark.

Not bad, considering that 1) the person with the highest number of Achievement points in the world is somewhere in the mid-14,000's and 2) I haven't done any PvP for a good long while and still haven't tried the two newest, meaning there are a few more Achievements I could easily get! :)

Crickets

2011-12-22T22:11:00.001+10:00

I don't know about anyone else's guild, but mine is rather empty at the moment due to SW:TOR and the Christmas break.

At times like these, I of course turn to PuGs... and the LFR tool is making it easier than ever to get loot.

The encounters themselves are also quite fun - the Spine of Deathwing is probably my favourite, since it actually feels like the way a dragon should be fought (seriously... why the hell would Onyxia, Nefarian, all the green dragons, Azuregos, Vael or any other frickin dragon that I missed fight us on the ground or in a cramped room when they can fly?!).

I am also rather amused by the tank queue - yes, there is one! - in LFR; it's a switch to have to be waiting for healers rather than tanks for a change (although sadly, the DPS queue is still the same 10-20min wait it usually is).

Anyway, as I'm not likely to post again before Christmas, I'd like to wish everyone a Merry Winter Veil - don't forget to open your Winter Veil presents come Sunday! :)

Race to World First

2011-12-12T20:15:00.001+10:00

I thought I'd highlight the Race to World First movie.

It's a longish documentary about WoW in general and focussing on high-end raiding guilds, with interviews with various players from some of the top guilds in the world.

It's probably not anything extraordinary in terms of content, but I found it interesting enough to watch.

I have to admit... I think some of these people take WoW a little too seriously for my taste (I lost count of the number of people saying they were the #1 in the world), but I suppose each to their own!

Oh, and another thing - they even mention an Aussie raiding team, Adept, who managed to grab the world first heroic Halfus Wyrmbreaker kill. Oi oi oi! :)

Guild Restructure: Earning my Stripes

2011-12-11T21:43:00.001+10:00

Well, not so much earning as there isn't anyone else that wants the job :P

Basically, a couple of weeks ago, our then-guild leader, Sailan (Siha of Banana Shoulders) announced her decision to step down, due to a waning interest in WoW.

Our new guild leader, Benalis, is clearly keen on bringing new life to our little guild and promptly asked me if I would take the role of PvP officer.

This would be a new role, because Southern Wardens traditionally hasn't been interested in PvP; a number of guildies have no interest in engaging in mass slaughter on the battlefield and I've mentioned before how I've had trouble even finding a regular 2v2 partner.

However, now that I've reluctantly accepted this leadership position (I'm a sheep at heart...), I will do my best to make guild PvP a fun and challenging experience for everyone (yeah, that sounds cliche-ingly corny to me, too :P).

Sooooo.... anyone interested in joining our guild? We do PvP! And stuff! *cough* Yep.

More 4.3 Musings

2011-12-06T22:15:00.000+10:00

After having seen most of what Patch 4.3 brought, I can now comment on the following:

Gem prices are horrible :(
The new 5man dungeons are fun, especially End Time
The LFR tool is as easy to use as the LFG tool and the PuG standard is similar too - either great or terrible
The makeover of the Darkmoon Faire is brilliant (and does this remind anyone else of the original Monkey Island? I keep having flashbacks to Meathook with his parrot and the Fettucini Brothers' circus... o.O)
Tyrande is a huntard:

...Seriously, Tyrande? Out of Arrows? :P

It's a crossbow!

2011-12-01T18:59:00.001+10:00

Finally, my crossbow actually sounds like a crossbow instead of a gun! I'm so glad Blizzard fixed the sound for this, although I suppose I'll probably be upgrading it in the near future. Oh well :P

One other little thing I've noticed that isn't specifically in the patch notes: Blizzard cleaned up the tracking list and hunter-specific tracking has its own pullout tab. It looks a tiny bit neater, which I suppose is a good thing.

Other than that, I haven't seen too much of the new Patch (Blizzard of course decided to do a rolling restart in the middle of my first new 5man dungeon run, so I haven't completed that yet), so I will probably post more stuff as it comes.

In the meantime, here's my brand new Elven Ranger look:

Not quite a Warcraft 3 pre-banshee Sylvanas, but close enough! :)

Hour of Twilight: Breaking Dawn

2011-11-29T22:12:00.001+10:00

...Yeah, I think Blizzard missed the boat on Patch 4.3 naming. Think of how many worgen Team Jacob could have had on their side! :P

Anyway, Patch 4.3 is being applied tonight, which means I'll finally be able to free up more than 20 bag slots' worth of gear for Transmogrification. (Woo!)

I haven't quite finished my Dark Ranger outfit, but my Elven Ranger outfit is pretty well done - the only consolation prize is rather unfortunately the most important piece; Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix as a placeholder for the Golden Bow of Quel'Thalas, which I haven't managed to get yet.

Either way, I'm looking forward to my new look and also looking forward to seeing everyone else's new look - I'll definitely be spending a little more time checking everyone's gear in town now!

Chuck Norris is one of us!

2011-11-21T19:04:00.001+10:00

Apparently, the ubiquitous Chuck Norris not only approves of WoW, he's a hunter to boot!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arKpdxjHamI

Always knew hunters were epic :)

Phyl back from Pandaria

2011-11-15T19:56:00.001+10:00

With all the hype about the next WoW expansion, I found it quite amusing that I'd coincidentally booked a RL trip to the very place where it's based: China.

There are way too many beautiful pics to post here, but here are a few:

Pandaren Housing

Pandarian River

Alliance vs Horde

Deterrence Tanking FTW

2011-10-26T23:09:00.002+10:00

I've slowly been going through the more interesting parts of Blizzcon (in my opinion, anyway!).

No panels or previews for me - anything I can read about in a patch note isn't worth watching in real time. Competitions are where I'm at!

Arena is always my first stop - you can't beat the dynamics of fast-paced PvP, really, because anything can and will happen.

My second was the live raid.

This year was probably the best setup out of all the previous years: pitting 2 top WoW guilds, Vodka and Blood Legion, against each other in a race to clear Firelands bosses.

It actually was fairly close, with one guild's half-wipe on Baelroc and full wipe on Ragnaros determining the other guild's win.

My favourite part: if you listen to the commentary (around 8:20 in part 2/4 of the linked vid), hunters get a shoutout on the half-wipe because they used Deterrence to help tank Baelroc after half the raid died.

The commentators mention that that is a familiar sight, and I'd have to agree - I've definitely done my fair share of Deterrence tanking whilst raiding! :D

Blizzkorean!

2011-10-24T00:11:00.000+10:00

I've mentioned before that I'm a fan of the Asian gamers, so it probably comes as no surprise to hear that I was all set to cheer for the Koreans (hey, I'd cheer for an Aussie if there was one! Damn our latency...) while watching the replay of the 2011 Blizzcon WoW Arena finals.

To my delight, the team that won - OMG - also had a hunter in it, so it was doubly fun to watch all the matches they won along the way.

It never fails to inspire me to become better, try the tactics, pick up hints and tricks about how to deal with PvP against other classes.

Unfortunately I haven't been Arena-ing much this year and it doesn't look likely that I'll get a regular team, so I probably won't get to try out the things I've learnt... but one can only hope :)

Free ride

2011-10-21T22:32:00.000+10:00

I'm surprised that my recruit-a-friend made it to 2 months; he's the type that doesn't approve of a "subscription"-type game and had only been playing on "free" game time until recently.

However, I now have a handy flying transport for helping lowbies in the future. Woot :D

Ranger Phyllixia

2011-10-16T19:47:00.001+10:00

Not bad, huh? This is now my official elven ranger outfit for Patch 4.3's Transmogrification system - I have every single piece in my bags except the bow.

I'd really like to thank Veralynn of Arygos, whoever you are - the previews of full green mail sets was a lifesaver!

My dark ranger outfit isn't quite as matching:

...and I also don't have all the pieces (the shoulders are going to be a killer), but I'm still quite happy with it just the same.

I'll also be scoping out possible transmog gear for staves and polearms, because it's the default item you see - unfortunately I've already asked for Terokk's Quill to be restored for my dark ranger set and Blizz said no... so I'll have to think of something else :(

Too soon, Executus!

2011-10-12T00:13:00.000+10:00

Does anyone else think that Ragnaros' summoning animation is nowhere near as epic as the original animation in Molten Core?

It seems.... too sped up, somehow. Too smooth.

I guess you really can't beat the classics...

Camouflage

2011-10-03T22:45:00.001+10:00

No, not the spell - my outfit!

I've been trying to find something to wear when transmogrification kicks in, and I figure it's my chance to look like how I've always wanted - a dark ranger, or failing that, a regular elven ranger.

The above is the closest I can get to an elven ranger - a much better attempt than my closest try at a dark ranger, below:

I just can't seem to find a decent matching darkish set... especially the shoulders.

And this isn't even counting the fact that I may not be able to actually obtain these pieces of mail - it's just what I come up with when playing around with WoW Model Viewer.

So if anyone out there has any ideas on pieces of gear to transmogrify - I'd love to hear from you!

Flame on!

2011-09-27T20:47:00.000+10:00

Apart from Beth'tilac - I haven't seen what being on the web is like, so can't completely rule that out - the Firelands raid hasn't impressed me visually all that much.

This week, however, the orange finally got interesting: Alysrazor is a fun and fiery fight, not only in execution but also in looks:

Not to mention, Alysrazor drops one of the cooler-looking weapons I've seen for awhile; I really wish Blizzard had kept dual-wielding 1Hs viable for hunters, not just because of the loot potential but for looks as well.

...Can you tell I've been investigating transmogrification a bit lately? :P

Baradin Doesn't Hold

2011-09-19T21:14:00.001+10:00

Well, not my gear, anyway.

I'd left the last 2 pieces of Valour Point vendor gear as the two that drop in BH - the Flamewaker's Gloves and Legguards - but even though I haven't been anywhere near VP cap most weeks (I think I've only capped VP once this tier), I almost have enough VP to buy them both and will probably end up doing so, since I haven't seen them drop yet.

Not to mention, PvP gear has been fairly scarce too - apart from the one belt that I won in I think the first or second week, I haven't managed to nab anything.

On the upside, I guess I'm not sick of killing Occu'thar yet - at least I can get VP, even if I'm having the worst luck with gear.

Now, if only I could remember to check when Tol'Barad is on so I can join the queue...

Brutal Beat-up

2011-09-13T23:13:00.003+10:00

I finally convinced a couple of enthusiastic Arena newbies from my guild to do a few games and managed to get myself a new tabard.

It's not really the prettiest-looking tabard (and totally doesn't go with the murloc armour), but I'm definitely keeping this one.

I'm also hoping to continue the 2v2 or 3v3 games - surprisingly our hunter/warrior/mage combo didn't completely fail, even with the warrior not having done Arena and the mage not having done any since lvl 70 on a different class.

Not to mention, it's been a long time since I've been in a triple-DPS team and it's hard for me to call shots in a faster-paced DPS-only match when I haven't even had much practice in the current Arena environment (when did they get rid of the Ring of Valor starting elevator?! I approve! :D).

I don't know if I'll ever make Challenger again, but hey, one can only hope! :)

Rare-ly a dull moment

2011-09-06T23:17:00.002+10:00

Three more rare pets have been added to my "tamed" list:

Skarr

Solix

Ban'thalos

Skarr was fairly easy (Silence, Deterrence, Tame) and Solix was easy the second time around (kiting with Concussive Shot/Ice Trap until ~40 energy, then Concussive Shot, Deterrence, Tame), but Ban'thalos was a little tricky.

For Ban'thalos, I used the tree method:

Move up, down and around until you can stand right at the tip of one of the trees (the tallest one just behind the quest givers)
Turn to face Ban'thalos' path (this is important!)
Lay a Freezing Trap in front of you (if you're not facing Ban'thalos properly, it won't be in the correct position to trigger the trap without you moving back and forth - and if you move back and forth, you'll fall off the tree!)
Mount up and fly directly up so that you're in range to shoot (again, don't move back and forth, or you won't drop back onto the tree tip)
Shoot Ban'thalos and quickly cancel your attack. If you don't, you will melee him before he triggers the trap... and the trap will break.
Once trapped, tame away!

I probably won't keep any of these 3 pets... as fun as they were to tame, I still don't like the actual skins that much. I will, however, keep them for awhile until I can replace them with pet skins I do actually want (if anyone sees Loq up on US-Proudmoore, please let me know...).

Let's Twist Again

2011-09-01T19:32:00.000+10:00

The interview I did with the Twisted Nether Blogcast is now up for download if you missed the live show: http://www.twistednether.net/2011/08/25/episode-141-rhok-it-yeah/

Here, you will find the answers to how I got my character name, why I started this blog and my preference on cake vs. pie...

Burnout or Bore-out

2011-08-30T21:57:00.000+10:00

A couple of weeks ago, I'd been feeling reluctant to log into WoW.

Initially, I'd thought that I must have needed a break from raiding. A little surprising, sure - I'd been able to stay keen for the past 6yrs without needing a break from raids at all - but I figured everyone needs a break now and then and maybe it was my time.

I therefore voiced my opinion to one of our raid leaders, who sympathized but explained that because our raiding team was short on ranged DPS, it was difficult to bench any of us.

Of course, I didn't want to leave the raid leaders struggling, so I signed up for all raids the next week as usual... only to find out that they managed to give me a break after all: I was benched for one of our three raid nights (they're good like that :)).

I definitely appreciated the night off, but it didn't help - I actually still felt like I wanted to raid, but not, at the same time.

This week, I finally figured out what it was that was bugging me: I don't need a break from raids, I just need more time to do some fun stuff.

Having to do Molten Front dailies (for the minipet that just won't drop...) and capping VP was consuming almost all of my time outside of raids, and both are what I'd consider "farming" - no fun at all, in other words.

I needed to do retro raids, try some elite soloing, do some PvP, finish collecting rare Archaeology pieces, or hell - even do some fishing (while reading a book IRL, of course!).

This week, I didn't even get halfway to the VP cap... and you know what? I didn't care one bit. I was too busy trying to get the bindings, Anzu's, Kael's or the Baron's mount to drop!

Oops...

2011-08-24T22:30:00.001+10:00

Accidentally killed Solix the other day because I hadn't read up on the taming strat and didn't realize he would die if he ran out of energy.... I felt a little sorry for the other hunter that was there (although to be fair, the other hunter was going about it completely the wrong way anyway and died at least 3x before I had a go).

On the upside, I did manage to tame Karkin, which wasn't difficult at all. I didn't name it because I had no intention of keeping a crab (I retamed the pet I let go fairly shortly afterward), but it was fun anyway. :)

Jumping into the Twisted Nether

2011-08-20T17:45:00.000+10:00

Surprisingly, someone out there must think that the stuff I write on here is not complete drivel, because the people at the Twisted Nether Blogcast have kindly invited me to join their show tomorrow.

I can't say I'm an expert at anything at all, really, so I have no idea whether what I say will entertain anyone... but I'm looking forward to it anyway :)

If you would like to listen in, I believe the 8pm PST start time equates to a starting time of 1pm Sunday, AEST.

The New Rhok Demons

2011-08-14T19:52:00.000+10:00

These days, it is pretty common to come across hunters that have no idea what my blog title references.

For the old school hunters, we know what exactly what it means to have "done your demons". A rite of passage, proof of skill... you weren't a hunter until you had that bow.

With the Cataclysm breaking that quest chain entirely, I was a little sad that no new hunter would ever get the chance to experience a challenging test like that again, even though all the "new" tricks (trapping in combat, Disengage, Deterrence...) made killing those demons a joke.

Well, I've since discovered I was wrong.

There *is* a mini-hunter test, and completing 1/8 of it took me 9 deaths:

Initially I hadn't been that excited about the 8 new pet taming challenges - the skins aren't generally unique and the rarity of the spawns put me off (there's next to no-one in Outlands now and I still can't manage to find all the rares for Bloody Rare) - but doing this was extremely fun.

Personally, I wish Blizzard would make them spawn more often - if they're easy to find, they wouldn't be such a status symbol, and more hunters would do it for the challenge rather than just to say they have a rare pet.

I still wouldn't keep all of the skins - one spider in my stables is quite enough, and I think the green skin is probably the most appropriate one for me - but I'm definitely going to seek out these rare tames now. Rhok on! :D

When too much is too much

2011-08-09T22:18:00.000+10:00

One of the reasons I've continued to subscribe to WoW is I've always managed to keep it balanced.

Sticking to one main character - my hunter - helps with that, because if I don't invest time in playing other characters I don't end up playing as much overall.

The past couple of weeks, two different friends have been playing WoW; one a fairly new player who I felt obliged to help out (because I'd been trying to get him to play for years), and one a raiding veteran in a small horde guild that needed another member for raids.

Feeling pressured to play not one, but two alts as well as my hunter was getting to me. It seems stupid that a game would stress you out, but it does happen.... and I think the stress filtered through into real life, where I made decisions (totally unrelated to WoW, incidentally) that I might not have made otherwise.

I don't think I'd change anything - although the newbie will almost certainly never play again and I haven't decided whether to try and raid on my druid or not - but it's a lesson I will keep in mind for next time.

Thank you!

2011-08-03T21:30:00.000+10:00

Much appreciated :)

...Clearly I should make more posts asking for gear!

Gun? What gun?

2011-08-02T23:40:00.000+10:00

So far, I've steadily ignored the fact that there happens to be a perfectly good upgrade for my crossbow.
I could use the excuse that it's expensive, but 1) I have plenty of gold and 2) if it had been a bow, I would have made one as soon as a guildie had the pattern.

It isn't the first time I've purposely not upgraded a ranged weapon because of looks, aesthetics or just because, and I'm sure it won't be the last.

In the meantime, I'm determined to will the Lava Bolt Crossbow into dropping. And it will. At some point. Soon. Please? :P

When it rains, it pours

2011-07-26T00:00:00.000+10:00

The past week has been a flurry of reforging, enchanting, gemming and juggling for +hit for me. Opening up a new GoH vendor, getting 4k Honour points back from Blizzard (when I hadn't expected to), having enough Valour points and having good luck with Firelands trash saw me pick up:

...all in the one week.

I'm pretty sure it must be because I gave up the PvP pants that dropped off Occu'thar to the correct hunter when the Master Looter mislooted them to me a couple of weeks ago.

Good karma FTW!

/petassist? More like /petconfuse

2011-07-18T23:32:00.000+10:00

I hadn't really had too many problems with /petassist until recently, although I hadn't really liked the change to start with.

However, I've started to wonder if juggling your pet with /petassist might be possible new source of entertainment, because mine seems to do it a lot.

Seriously - has anyone managed to keep their pet bouncing between mobs but not actually hitting any of them for an entire raid trash pull? At least it'd make trash more interesting, if nothing else.

Casting Mis-HEAL-direct on ~Tank~

2011-07-11T19:40:00.001+10:00

Has anyone else noticed that the current Misdirection animation sounds/looks like casting a heal?

I know it's a small thing, but I do play with game sounds and whilst it doesn't exactly put me off, it's still a little disconcerting.

Hope it's a bug and Blizzard changes it back; the old sound somehow seemed a lot more... decisive? More fitting, anyway - rather than the soothing sounds my druid makes when throwing a few HoTs up! :P

WoW's celebrity couple

2011-07-07T21:29:00.000+10:00

I know his wife is dead, but seriously... why is it that the name "Mankrik" (or various spellings of it) must always appear somewhere in general chat?

Clearly, Hyjal is the new Barrens... but I suppose one positive thing is that Mankrik looks to have gotten over the death of his wife and moved on :P

(If you haven't seen why people keep asking for him in general chat, there's an Achievement)

Remember to Eagle Eye!

2011-06-30T00:06:00.000+10:00

If you've been farming the new Firelands raid for rep - or even actually trying the bosses, if your guild is more organized than ours - remember that you can use:

/cast !Eagle Eye

...and you can chain cast Eagle Eye all the way down to the other end of the raid... meaning that merely standing at the start of the zone can get you pretty pics like this:

Now that's one cool-lookin' boss :)

Can't believe it's come to this

2011-06-25T21:04:00.000+10:00

Naxxramas used to be the ultimate raiding experience.

40 people, top of the range computers to counteract the lag, split second timing, zero mistakes... if you weren't the most coordinated team, you weren't capable of doing it.

A few days ago, I joined an 8man PuG, supposedly to do Achievements.

We ended up failing (some people *really* can't handle Heigan or Thaddius), but a few of us continued on anyway. Someone DCed, someone left...

...and 6 of us ended up doing the entire of the Naxx military wing with no healer class.

No, not even a pally or druid tank - both tanks were warriors.

It's a little sad, killing the 4 horsemen without a healer. That encounter used to take 4 tanks and some epic timed swapping.

Then again... I suppose it's even sadder that we didn't manage to get any Achievements done with all 85s except Spore Loser, because someone (different!) failed each time. Seriously... who fails at Thaddius charges with only 7 people, Heigan dancing *before* the second phase, and controlling DPS on the 4 Horsemen?!

Catching up with old content

2011-06-19T22:56:00.000+10:00

Among the list of things I've always meant to do and never got around to finishing are the Argent Tournament dailies for mounts and the Winterspring grind.

Yes, I do realize it's a lot less of a trial than it used to be, but anything that involves repetitive easy work in WoW doesn't tend to motivate me much.

With Firelands coming in soon however, any free time I'd usually have would be eaten up with Firelands content, so I thought I'd better do this stuff whilst I still can!

Can Haz Chromaggus

2011-06-11T16:04:00.000+10:00

I went into Blackwing Lair recently with a guildie and came out with a new skin colour for Cerberus:

I have to say, duoing BWL with a boomkin is pretty easy - Razorgore gave us the most trouble, but the rest is pretty much a faceroll.

Some tips:

Razorgore: if your partner is controlling Razorgore, keep Mend Pet up to help grab aggro on all the mobs and stand just below the platform so that you can quickly pick up any mobs running towards the orb. I found using a tenacity pet in MM spec the most helpful; if you get low you can hit Chimera, but I mostly relied on traps. Staying in Aspect of the Fox helps to keep your Focus up - you don't really need the extra DPS Hawk provides.

Everything in between: Tank n spank. If you want to tame Chromaggus, just stand at max range and go for it; no tricks required.

Nefarian: Using an heirloom ranged weapon will completely negate Nef's hunter class call, so you won't have to worry about your bow breaking. In phase 1, it's easiest to let the mobs come to you and kill them all in a pile rather than picking them off quickly, so that in phase 3 they'll all rez in the one spot. Being in BM spec can be helpful for breaking you out of fears occasionally. Be mindful what each of your raid member's class calls are and act accordingly.

Now that's what I call a great raid

2011-06-06T00:07:00.001+10:00

My guild, like many casual-friendly guilds that don't have a set 10 people for every raid, occasionally has trouble with consistency.

Even though we may have most bosses on farm status, we'll still wipe repeatedly to them some weeks, which seriously hampers our progression time.

Tonight, however, was the first time in awhile that I've felt we had a brilliant run - 5 bosses down in Blackwing Descent (including Atramedes, a new one for me because I missed our first kill), with most of those a one-shot.

I'm definitely looking forward to tomorrow night's raid - the Ascendant Council will hopefully go down, meaning we'd just have Cho'gall and Nefarian to go... and I'd really like to clear them before Firelands hits, just to say we did it before the nerfs kick in.

(And before anyone says "Sinestra", I think it'll be pretty difficult to get through an entire raid's worth of heroic mode progression to get to her before Firelands hits :P)

Achieving by AFK

2011-05-30T21:36:00.002+10:00

I haven't been doing too much in WoW lately, because I've been busy IRL on non-raid nights.However, for the times I've been at home, I've managed to do work towards an Achievement even when I've been busy - Bloody Rare.

Basically, I park an alt in an appropriate location, occasionally coming back from being AFK to tap the keyboard so that I don't get kicked out of WoW... and with a little help from the NPCScan mod (yes, I've extended my addon list to a grand total of 3!), picked up the rares as they spawn.

I'm working on the Outland rares rather than the Northrend rares, because I think people are probably spending less time in Outland than Northrend at the moment, but I think when it gets to Loq I may have to park my hunter at the camp spot rather than an alt - that's one rare I'm pretty sure I won't have time to relog another character for!

Windrunner Interlude

2011-05-24T22:42:00.000+10:00

Although I did play Warcraft 2 quite a bit - it was my first RTS and I loved it - most readers of this blog would know that Sylvanas Windrunner in Warcraft 3 is one of the main reasons I started playing WoW and rolled a hunter in the first place.

Even though her pre-banshee life was short (in terms of campaign maps, anyway!), I couldn't help but admire her tenacity to keep fighting, trying to protect Silvermoon from Arthas. She just kept coming back, and even after she was dead, she used her new Dark Ranger powers to her advantage and became the leader of the Forsaken.

However, I recently read the novelizations of the Warcraft 2 campaign plus expansion: Tides of Darkness and Beyond the Dark Portal, where Sylvanas' older sister Alleria's story is told.

I was totally struck by how similar Alleria's story was to Sylvanas' - both were exceptional rangers, leaders and tacticians, loved and protected their family to the last, were willing to sacrifice themselves for their cause and pursued their enemies with a reckless burning passion.

I'd never given much thought to Alleria after playing WC2 - the lore behind that game didn't come through as well for me, whether it be because Blizzard improved their storytelling in WC3 or because I was too young to pay much attention - but after this I think I'd really like to know where she is and what she's been up to.

I don't know if she'll replace Sylvanas as my favourite ranger, but if Blizzard brings her back with an epic storyline.... who knows? :)

Wish they'd make up their minds...

2011-05-17T21:47:00.001+10:00

Multi-shot damage has been reduced. It now deals 120% weapon damage at level 80 or higher, down from 137%.

Anyone else tired of having Multi-Shot damage changed each patch?

I have to be perfect to kite on Magmaw as it is; a nerf is going to make it that much harder... all I can do is hope that I'll still have enough aggro from a full Focus bar to make it work as MM.

Well, either that or start trying to get better gear from the new raiding tier so that it won't matter :P

Impressions of the Zandalari Uprising

2011-05-10T23:57:00.000+10:00

So far, ZG has been a lot more fun for me than ZA, purely because it's changed so much.

It also seems more of a challenge, since the last two bosses are where most PuGs (and even guild groups) fall apart.

In fact, I haven't even killed Jin'do the Group-breaker in a guild group yet; the PuG stat bonus helped with both of my kills.

However, there's one thing I did take away from a guild ZA run that I find interesting: a taste of how fun it can be to work things out for yourself.

It's really a little like the elite soloing runs I do - wipe until you figure out the right way to do things.

On my first foray into ZA with a guild group, we went in "blind" (not reading the strats) and figured we'd work out any changes from the old 10man raid on the way.

After wiping a few times on the lynx boss before realizing that we didn't need to spend valuable DPS time on killing the water totems, our priest was still having a little trouble keeping us alive, running out of mana and losing clothies in particular to the cat spirit.

I idly clicked on a totem to read the buff description after biting the dust during one attempt and said, "Hey , what happens if you actually stand next to the totem?"

Of course, once we figured out that the water totems actually gave our priest practically unlimited mana and also helped to keep the DPS alive during the split phase, the fight was a breeze.

Sure, we could have saved ourselves the repair bill by reading up beforehand, but I'm really glad we didn't - it made me feel a tiny bit like being in those top guilds that do this type of thing all the time, figuring out how to kill bosses when there aren't any strats to read.

I mean, I know it wasn't much - the healing circle the dragons in Vortex Pinnacle leave on the floor is a similar concept - but it still felt like a huge lightbulb moment when we figured it out!

Back in Business

2011-05-03T22:48:00.000+10:00

After weeks of respeccing to Survival for Magmaw in Blackwing Descent, Patch 4.1 finally made the Multi-Shot change I was looking for: a big enough buff to MM AoE that I would be able to kite parasites.

Although my Focus management needs to be absolutely perfect to pull it off, I'm ecstatic to report that I can now afford to stay MM for this fight, meaning I can stop feeling annoyed at having to respec every week and our raid leader can stop feeling guilty for wanting me to do it, even though it was my choice in the first place!

Well that's depressing...

2011-05-01T14:09:00.000+10:00

***QUEST SPOILER***

The poor dragon entrusts her last egg to you with her dying breath, and you send it in to fight and "die" for you? Yeesh.

Holiday raiding time 2: Bigger Challenges

2011-04-26T23:37:00.000+10:00

In fact, the biggest:

I grabbed a couple of guildies (a mage and hunter) to make the fight quicker, but it took over a hundred gold in repairs before I managed the trick of swimming backwards and making tiny adjustments to kite the enormous Whale Shark - WITHOUT a range mod.

Yes, I'm aware that it would have been a lot easier if I had installed some sort of range check (too close and the Whale Shark 1-shots you for about 1,000,000 damage, too far and it resets - the range you need to stay in is supposedly 6-20yrds)... but hey, I hate mods and use as few of them as possible; why start adding to the list now?

Besides, I've now proved that I can do it, so nyah to everyone who thinks it's impossible to do this Achievement without one :D

Holiday raiding time

2011-04-24T12:55:00.001+10:00

It's that time of year again - school holidays, the Easter looooong weekend, the official Raiding Break.

And, of course, the absolute best time to get all the stuff in WoW done that you can't do during a regular raiding week due to lack of time: raiding Achievements, lowbie quests, reputation grinds, fun retro raids... and dungeon soloing.

My only "wipe" was on the Chess event while I figured out how things work, and the only other minor trouble was Netherspite before I figured out that I had to kill it within one round of portals, otherwise having the green beam debuff meant the dragon went back up to full HP.

Definitely need more of a challenge next time round... perhaps I should try a couple of bosses in Naxx! :)

We beat our record

2011-04-17T14:58:00.000+10:00

My 2v2 partner and I have had our share of long Arena matches.

Back in the days when mana drain was a common tactic, we started taking screenshots of the time it took to win; 21min ended up being the highest, against a mirror match (pally/hunter).

However, this new record takes the cake: 45min, the current Arena match time limit.

Sure, we didn't win (in fact, both teams lose rating when a draw happens) and unfortunately I don't have any proof (it automatically ported us out almost immediately after the match came to a close)... but I still think it was a damn good effort.

I hope we get that team again in future - losing is one thing, a draw just makes me keen to try again, because I know we can beat them! :)

New but Not So Shiny

2011-04-09T00:20:00.000+10:00

I periodically go through my WoW screenshot folder, rename all the screenshots and store them in folders so I can find them again if I need them.

After sorting through 10 or so of the Algalon fight I did couple of weeks ago, I've realized something - I have nowhere near as many screenshots of the new content than pre-Cataclysm content.

I mean, I know Algalon is quite a visually exciting fight; there's a very pretty celestial theme going on. However, I've hardly taken any screenshots of Cataclysm raids at all - probably a couple in Throne of the Four Winds, but that's about it.

I'm not sure if it's because the raid zones just aren't visually interesting, or because I'm not interested in general... but either way, I hope something stands out in raids soon, otherwise I'm not going to have any good screenshots from the first Cataclysm raid zones at all!

Why doesn't Blizzard hire this guy as a Game Tester?!

2011-04-04T21:33:00.000+10:00

Jider the rogue has done it again, on bosses I never thought could be soloed: Twin Emps and C'thun.

I would never have come up with the idea of pulling another boss into C'thun's room to port you out of the stomach... pure genius. If Blizzard wants a bug tester, surely this guy should be on the top of their list to hire - how many people would have come up with that solution?!

The things that surprise you

2011-04-03T16:34:00.000+10:00

I joined an Ulduar 25man PuG today to try and get my Glory of the Ulduar Raider Achievement.

Usually these PuGs are terrible - someone stuffs up an Achievement, people get annoyed and leave, the raid breaks up at the later bosses, people roll need on everything...

Although this raid had a rogue that rolled need on quite a few items ("for repairs" - as if the rest of us didn't have the same repair bill) - the rest of the run was actually not bad.

Mimiron was where everyone really impressed me; the raid leader had stuck a symbol on his head and told everyone at specific points in the fight to stand together and everyone did - some guild raids I've been in haven't had such a tightly formed pack.

Vezax took a couple of wipes, but Yogg 1 Light was a one-shot, even with people entering portals that hadn't seen the fight at all. Algalon was a one-shot too, even with me spending half the time taking screenshots.

...and I am now the proud owner of another Proto-drake. Woo!

I cheated to get this

2011-03-28T18:23:00.000+10:00

...I specced Survival.

It's probably the first time ever that I've had to respec specifically for a raid, since a small DPS loss doesn't tend to wipe raids and usually that's all that you lose if you're the "wrong" spec.

For Magmaw, on the other hand, my raid counts on me to handle the parasites... and after the raid wiped repeatedly due to me not being able to keep aggro on them and also not having enough overall raid AoE DPS to get the first pack of worms down before the second pack arrived, I was forced to admit defeat - something I absolutely hate to do.

I'm the BM-spec-since-beta girl, the one that managed to Rhok all her demons entirely as BM (if you have no idea why it was so hard to do that quest chain as BM back then, pretend you have no talents at all, not use your pet, do only 60% of the DPS of your average hunter - because pretty much all raiding hunters were MM back then - and then try and kite an elite with Serpent Sting and nothing else. Even then, you're still cheating because we can now auto-shot on the move :P).

I do not like to give up on things, just because I'm a different spec. I don't mind if it's harder; in fact I revel in the challenge. I just don't like it being next to impossible (and keep in mind... I don't have anything against Survival itself. In fact, if it wasn't for exotic pets, my two specs would be MM and Surv).

Fixing Multi-Shot next patch is something I'm really looking forward to, because I hate not being able to do something in the spec I want. .. and with a 250% buff on Multi-Shot, hopefully it'll be enough for me not to have to respec again.

Guest post on Warcraft Hunters Union

2011-03-22T21:58:00.000+10:00

Apparently I've paid my dues, because Frostheim over on the Warcraft Hunters Union blog has honoured me by asking if I would do a guest post on his site... so if you'd like to know about how to get the most out of PuGs, go check it out:

Pain-Free PuGging for Hunters

Surprisingly, he let me post the whole thing - I always ramble on way too long! :)

Cataclysm Pet Control: Part five - Organizing your pet bar

2011-03-20T18:08:00.000+10:00

This is the final post in the Pet Control guide, updated for Cataclysm.

Part 1 - Attack, Follow and Move To
Part 2 - Aggressive, Defensive and Passive
Part 3 - General pet abilities
Part 4 - Species-specific pet abilities

To begin: there are 4 slots for pet-specific spells on our pet bar.

For me, the 2 left-most slots are the easiest to reach (Ctrl-4 and Ctrl-5), so the abilities I have here are both important for timing and on long(ish) cooldowns, such as Sonic Blast (for timed stuns in PvP) or Call of the Wild (to coincide with burst DPS - Heroism/trinkets/Beast Within etc).

The right-most slots, if not required for the more important pet spells, are either emergency spells such as Heart of the Phoenix or Last Stand, or abilities that I need to make sure aren't on autocast, such as Growl for my raiding pets and Cower for my tanking pets.

Spells that do NOT need to go on your pet bar include things like Bite/Claw/Smack (ie spells that can be left on autocast ALL the time).

Anything left over that needs to be cast manually and you can't fit onto your pet bar, you will unfortunately have to macro and pull onto your player bar.

Prioritizing pet abilities for the pet bar

Ferocity

Ferocity pets are usually used for DPS and not much else. Almost all of their abilities can be left on or off autocast due to their short cooldown, so you generally won't have problems organizing these.

As an example, here's my usual Ferocity DPS pet bar:

In order, I have Call of the Wild, Dash, Cower and Heart of the Phoenix.

Call of the Wild and Dash (for moving pet in and out quickly) are really the only two spells that I need on the bar, since they need to be cast at specific times. Every other spell is on a short enough cooldown for me not to have to watch it.

To fill the last 2 slots I chose Heart of the Phoenix so I don't have to look for it when my pet dies and Cower because you can use it when your pet is taking too much incidental damage (which doesn't happen often in a raid situation, but may do for specific boss abilities like bleeds).

Cunning

Depending on what purpose your Cunning pet has, you'll need to have a look at your most important spells.

For PvP, this is usually the species-specific spell, since most people choose PvP pets according to these - Sonic Blast or Pin, for example. Of the family-specific spells, Dash, Bullheaded and Roar of Sacrifice are common in PvP specs; you may also have Roar of Recovery.

Wait a minute - that's too many for the pet bar!

Well, if you have all of these, the best one to macro and pull onto your player bar is Roar of Sacrifice. This is mainly because to cast the spell, you need to be targetting someone to cast it on them - using a mouseover, focus or specific player macro can be more useful than having to target someone manually to cast it from your pet bar.

As for Carrion Feeder, it's an out-of-combat talent and it's therefore not essential to have ready access to it. PvPers are unlikely to have this talent anyway, since there are more useful places to spend a talent point; if you're using your Cunning pet for farming you can rearrange your pet bar accordingly (have Growl on there and leave the species-specific spell on autocast, for example).

Tenacity

For me, this is the worst pet bar to organize in terms of how many active talents you can get.

In the talent tree, you can get Charge, Last Stand, Intervene, Taunt, Roar of Sacrifice and Thunderstomp all at the same time if you feel like it, plus your species-specific spell and general pet abilities.

Personally, I only use my tenacity pets for farming or difficult soloing. My turtle's bar therefore looks like this:

In order, Shell Shield, Cower, Thunderstomp and Last Stand, leaving Growl on autocast (I don't have the other active talents; if I did they would replace Thunderstomp). If my turtle had Taunt, I'd put that on the first slot and shift Shell Shield and Cower down one, because you're more likely to want Taunt in an emergency and on an easy-to-reach hotkey than the other abilities.

For the same reason, I recommend putting species-specific spells in the first slot for easy access and macroing Intervene and Roar of Sacrifice to put on your player bar.

And that's it for the Pet Control guide! Feel free to post questions/comments (or email me) if you think I haven't covered something and I'll make sure to get back to you.

Cataclysm Pet Control: Part four - Species-specific pet abilities

2011-03-13T19:15:00.002+10:00

To recap:

Part 1 - Attack, Follow and Move To
Part 2 - Aggressive, Defensive and Passive
Part 3 - General pet abilities

Each "species" of pet has a unique ability. Some of these are tailored for DPS, others for PvP, others for tanking... and some are just random bonus abilities that suit the pet but aren't as useful. Below, I've separated the various abilities into specific uses for comparison.

***Note: I am NOT going to argue the pros and cons of each pet here. There are plenty of other places where you can find out which pet is best for what purpose; this guide is about pet control only***

Raid buff or debuff replacements:

Bear: Demoralizing Roar (and Rest)
Devilsaur: Terrifying Roar (and Monstrous Bite)
Dragonhawk: Fire Breath
Hyena: Tendon Rip
Fox: Tailspin (and Play)
Raptor: Tear Armor
Ravager: RavageRhino: Stampede (and Horn Toss)
Serpent: Corrosive Spit
Shale Spider: Embrace of the Shale Spider (and Web Wrap)
Silithid: Qiraji Fortitude (and Venom Web Spray)
Spirit Beast: Roar of Courage (and Spirit Mend and Spirit Walk)
Sporebat: Spore Cloud
Tallstrider: Dust Cloud
Wind Serpent: Lightning Breath
Worm: Acid Spit (and Burrow Attack)Wolf: Furious Howl

Most of the straight buffs and debuffs can be left on autocast, as you will want these to be up at all times. However, if there are adds in particular fights that die quickly and your pet is required to switch targets frequently, it may be better to keep pet debuffs on long cooldowns (such as Fire Breath) off autocast so that it can be fired on the main target as soon as possible.

For the pets with extra abilities (mostly the exotics), some care is needed in using them.

Ancient Hysteria, the equivalent to Bloodlust/Heroism and Time Warp (and sharing a cooldown with these), can only be used once per fight, so you will need to determine exactly when this should be cast and be ready for it. Keep in mind that if your core hound is incapacitated or in the middle of casting another ability (eg. Bite), it may not cast and you'll need to spam the ability to make it work.

Utility spells (Spirit Mend, Horn Toss, Venom Web Spray, Web Wrap and Burrow Attack) should be off autocast. I recommend pulling these onto the pet bar to use as appropriate; Horn Toss, Venom Web Spray and Web Wrap to CC adds and Burrow Attack for AoE.

For Spirit Mend in particular, a macro may work better, as this ability needs to be cast on a friendly target. For example:

/cast [@mouseover,help] Spirit Mend(Exotic Ability)

...will cast Spirit Mend on your mouseover target.

For Prowl (and Spirit Walk as well, if I ever manage to tame a Spirit Beast), I personally have a macro on my player bar:

/cast Shadowmeld
/cast Prowl

....since I like to use my cat for camping nodes in battlegrounds.

Play and Rest are bonus abilities, which I tend to leave in the spellbook and manually find when required.

Utility:

Bat: Sonic Blast
Beetle: Harden Carapace
Bird of Prey: Snatch (and Trick)
Crocolisk: Ankle Crack
Chimaera: Frost Breath (and Froststorm Breath)
Crab: Pin
Dog: Lock Jaw
Gorilla: Pummel
Monkey: Bad Manner
Moth: Serenity Dust
Nether Ray: Nether Shock
Scorpid: ClenchSpider: Web
Turtle: Shell Shield
Warpstalker: Time Warp
Wasp: Sting

For almost all of these, I would recommend pulling them onto your pet bar and manually casting them as required. Frost Breath and Ankle Crack could possibly be left on autocast due to the short cooldown, but you really want the rest to be ready when you need it.

Trick is another bonus ability and as with the others I'd leave it in the spellbook and save your slots on the pet bar for something else.

Now that all the pet abilities have been covered, the fifth and final part of this guide will focus on how to organize the million and one pet spells onto 4 measly spell slots on your pet bar!

2v2 in Cataclysm

2011-03-10T23:46:00.000+10:00

It's pretty well into the season for Arena now, and I thought I'd share some observations about the 2v2 bracket:

Firstly, when Blizzard stated they weren't going to balance around 2v2, they really meant it. Most of my Arena matches are incredibly one-sided; all-caster teams get pwned even before they run out of cooldowns, but all-plate teams will almost always come out on top (unless they're *really* terrible, anyway). Rather a different mindset to previous seasons where there was always a chance you could win.

Druids are as annoying as ever - if they can kite well, they can last for ages (or at least a good 10min after their partner dies, particularly in the Dalaran Sewers).

The rogue ability Smoke Bomb is incredibly annoying, as I'd predicted when Cataclysm was still in the beta stage - not only can you not target the enemy, your healer also cannot target you. Not brilliant when your Disengage cooldown isn't up and you're disarmed, although the next patch should help with that (when Deterrence no longer requires a melee weapon, meaning you can cast it while disarmed). It's also very difficult to tell where the smoke is, since there are no bright colours involved in the spell.

I'd really like to try some 3v3 at some point to see how balanced it is, but it's difficult to find a time when everyone is free. Plus, I'd have to figure out some new strats because I'd have new classes to deal with; my old 3v3 partners (rogue, mage and occasionally hunter to go along with my current pally partner) don't play any more.

Oh well, at least my gear is improving - 1 purple a week that I can even wear to raid is pretty hax considering!

Cataclysm Pet Control: Part three - General pet abilities

2011-03-05T12:23:00.001+10:00

See Part one (Attack, Follow and Move To) or Part two (Aggressive, Defensive and Passive) for pet commands and stances.

Besides pet commands and stances, your pet will have several "active" abilities or talents that you will need to control. Some will be species-specific (such as Prowl or Pin), but most will be shared abilities between all pets, or within the pet families of Tenacity, Cunning and Ferocity.

Shared pet abilities:

Growl - Generally, you should have Growl on autocast when your pet is tanking and off if not.

One exception to this would be in PvP, where Growl can be used to your advantage by manually Growling at player pets, taking their focus off the player until your opponent redirects them.

Cower - You can leave this on autocast if your pet will be taking some damage and you don't want to worry about it, although I highly recommend not doing so.

The main reason is because if you don't have Improved Cower, your pet will take a 50% movement speed hit - not good if you're trying to switch targets or pull your pet out of danger quickly.

The second reason is that Cower will only autocast when your pet's health dips below 40%. Occasionally there will be times when you can pre-empt incoming burst damage to your pet, so you may want to save the cooldown for those times.

Bite/Claw/Smack - Every pet has one of these abilities, which are pretty much all the same spell. This is a "Focus dump" ability, which means any spare focus your pet may have will be used by casting this spell.

Usually, you would want this on Autocast, as the other pet abilities that cost Focus have a longish cooldown and the Focus would be wasted. However, if for some reason your pet is constantly out of Focus, or you want to make sure your pet will have Focus for when you really need it (a stun or CC ability in PvP, for example), you can turn Autocast off.

Dash/Dive or Charge/Swoop - These aren't pet spells, but talents that are common and useful enough for most people to have at least one pet specced into. Keep autocast off, otherwise the ability will get used every cooldown and waste Focus even if your pet isn't moving.

Tenacity-specific abilities:

Thunderstomp - For AoE tanking, this talent can be kept on autocast. If some kind of crowd control is required (or if you don't want your pet pulling aggro on mobs), this needs to be turned off.

Intervene - You may want to macro this, as you need a friendly target to cast it on. A simple macro may look something like this:

/cast [@player] Intervene

...for yourself, or perhaps:

/cast [@mouseover] Intervene; [@player] Intervene

...which will cast Intervene on your mouseover target, or yourself if you don't have a target.

Roar of Sacrifice - See above for Intervene. This is also a Cunning ability.

Last Stand - If you expect to use this in a hurry, I would recommend pulling this out onto an easy-access place on your pet bar, or creating a macro and pulling it onto the player bars instead. Although it won't be used often, trying to find it in your spellbook can be annoying.

Taunt - See above for Last Stand. In addition, make sure your pet is attacking the target you want it to Taunt before you hit this spell.

Cunning-specific abilities:

Carrion Feeder - Unless you use this a lot and don't need all four spaces for pet abilities, you can leave this one in your spellbook.

Bullheaded and Roar of Recovery - See above for Last Stand.

Roar of Sacrifice - As above for the Tenacity talent.

Wolverine Bite - In general, this can be left on autocast as for Bite/Claw/Smack. Again, if you find you need to save Focus, you can turn autocast off.

Ferocity-specific abilities:

Heart of the Phoenix, Call of the Wild and Lick Your Wounds - See above for Last Stand.

Rabid - See above for Wolverine Bite.

That's it for now. Stay tuned; I will be covering species-specific pet abilities and how to organize your pet bar (Blizzard really needed to give us more than 4 slots on that thing...) in another post.

It's a Vicious Circle

2011-03-03T23:16:00.000+10:00

...literally, because this season's Arena gear is called just that - "Vicious". :P

So does anyone remember Arena Season 4?

I was 2v2ing quite happily with a pally, Brutal gear was the latest fashion and everyone was wearing it because it was by far the easiest way to gear up.

Well, I'm finding myself in that place again: My paladin partner is back, I'm now wearing 8/16 pieces of PvP gear - exactly half - for my best PvE DPS set and it's by far the easiest way for me to gear up.

It's probably because my guild started raiding a little later than usual, meaning I haven't had much of an opportunity to gain much raiding gear, but still... it's a good thing I enjoy Arenas, or I'd probably still be stuck with blues; as it is, I'm well on my way to Cataclysmically Epic, with only 3 slots to go.

Plus, I guess the hunter PvP set does look way, way, waaaaaaaaaaaaay better than the stupid murloc outfit!

This will stop a hell of a lot of internal swearing

2011-02-27T16:07:00.000+10:00

...if it makes it live:

Hunters

•Deterrence no longer requires a melee weapon to be equipped.

Disengage and Frost Trap (hmm... when the hell did they change the name of that to Ice? I'm so out of it...) seriously don't cut it when trying to get away from pesky melee most of the time... and that's if those cooldowns are even up.

(Yeah, yeah... I know I should have a weapon chain. I'll put one on as soon as I get a PvP 2H rather than using my PvE one)

Cataclysm Pet Control: Part two - Aggressive, Defensive and Passive

2011-02-20T15:26:00.000+10:00

Part one of this Cataclysm pet control guide covered the pet commands Attack, Follow and Move To.

Once you have that under control, we move onto the pet "stances" - Aggressive, Defensive and Passive, in that order as the three right-most spells on your pet bar.

As for Attack, Follow and Move To, the default key bindings for these spells are rather awkward to reach, so you may need to re-bind them to a different key and/or make a macro:

/petaggressive

/petdefensive

/petpassive

Using Pet Aggressive

Having your pet on Aggressive is usually not a good thing, as it will randomly attack anything within a small radius without you having to control it. However, there are situations where it is useful.

In PvE, this usually means places where there are lots of adds and you don't have to worry about either loot (you need to "tag" each mob with a spell to get loot from it) or pulling aggro.

An example of this would be Admiral Ripsnarl in The Deadmines, since your pet will often start attacking the elemental adds before they even appear on your screen. However, I wouldn't recommend having your pet on Aggressive in raids and dungeons unless you're absolutely confident that you can control it (and not forget to switch it back to Passive/Defensive later!).

The most useful PvE use of Pet Aggressive is to nab highly-camped mobs - parking your Aggressive pet on top of the spawn point will usually help you tag the mob before anyone else in the area unless there are 20 mages spamming Arcane Explosion around you.

In PvP, having your pet on Aggressive is incredibly useful for flushing out stealthers - your pet will usually be able to see rogues and druids before you do even if you have Track Hidden and a Flare up, so it's best to use it when you know those classes are around.

Using Pet Defensive

If you're comfortable with controlling your pet, it's easiest to leave your pet on Defensive most of the time. This ensures that when you're attacking, your pet is also attacking.

However, you still have to keep an eye on your pet and make sure it's attacking the mob you want it to - as I mentioned in Part one under "Using Pet Attack", pet AI isn't exactly genius. Some fights are better done with your pet on Passive, even if it means more micromanagement; your pet will often turn and attack a mob with an AoE attack that hits your pet rather than sticking to the mobs you're attacking yourself (your pet will usually hightail it for the goblins throwing bombs at you in the Helix Gearbreaker fight in Deadmines after the oaf dies, for instance).

Using Pet Passive

This is what I would recommend you have your pet set to all the time if you want to be safe. The only downside is that if you're not on the ball with Pet Attack, you'll lose DPS.

Pet Passive is also useful for pulling your pet out of danger. In particular, it can be used in conjunction with Master's Call if you need to get your pet back fast - pulling out of Sartharion flame walls, for instance. On the flip side, it can be used to get your pet back into range for Master's Call - often in PvP your pet will be too far away to cast it, even though Blizzard did increase the range for casting to 40yds recently.

Finally, as mentioned in Part one, you will need to have your pet on Passive and Stay if you want to Misdirect them and don't want them attacking when you shoot.

That's it for Part two - hopefully reviewing Part three onwards won't take too long! :)

Cataclysm Pet Control: Part One - Attack, Follow and Move To

2011-02-13T13:48:00.000+10:00

This is the first of my updates on my previous series of posts on Pet Control. Things have changed a lot in Cataclysm, but the one thing that hasn't is the importance of making the best use of your constant companions - those 25 best friends you have in your stables! :)

How to make your pet Attack, Follow and Move To:

The 3 leftmost buttons on the pet bar are Attack, Follow and Move To in that order, with the default keys being Ctrl-1, Ctrl-2 and Ctrl-3.

Now, unless you have an unusually-shaped hand (or perhaps have long fingers), these combinations are extremely awkward to hit as keybinds.

There are few ways you can change this to work.

Firstly, you can alter the default options for the Blizzard interface. This can be found by pressing Escape for the Game Menu -> Key Bindings, and scrolling down to Pet Action Buttons 1-10:

Pet Attack is actually given a second default keybinding, found further down and defaulting to Shift-T, which you can change as well (note: I've rebound Shift-T to something else in the screenshot below):

Secondly, you can use macros:

/petattack
/petfollow
/petmoveto

Some people like to combine these commands with other spells so that their pet attacks at the same time as casting:
/cast Hunter's Mark
/petattack

However, I don't recommend this myself, because I always prefer not to link spells (so I can cast Hunter's Mark *without* sending my pet in, for example).

Using Pet Attack:

Pet Attack should be one of your most-used pet spells, particularly in raids and dungeons or when grouping. You really want your pet to be attacking the main DPS target, which it doesn't always automatically do.

If your pet is on Passive, it will not attack anything unless you use Pet Attack. In this case, you will need to use this ability every time you change targets.

If your pet is on Defensive, it will automatically attack the first target you hit and switch to other targets if the first one dies. In this case, you need to be careful - occasionally your pet will NOT be hitting the target you want it to be hitting, so you still need to use this ability fairly often to make sure it's DPSing the right target.

This is especially the case in raids, where your pet will hightail it for a target that's casting spells, but you don't want it to be DPSing. For example, your pet will often want to go back and whack an unreachable boss (eg. an immune or airborne boss) after an add dies, so you want to make sure it's hitting the next DPS target rather than trying and failing to attack something it shouldn't.

Using Pet Follow and Move To:

Pet Follow brings your pet back to your side, but unless your pet is on Passive, it will run off and continue attacking, so I tend to just hit Passive for the times I want to recall my pet (Pet Follow is generally the default state). I only tend to use Pet Follow after using Pet Move To.

Pet Move To brings up a targetting circle and tells your pet to stay exactly where you tell it to go, meaning it won't run back to your side. This is extremely useful for different situations where you don't want your pet to be next to you.

For example, if you're pulling to a tank using Misdirection, you can use Pet Move To to keep your pet out of the way - particularly useful if you're pulling adds back behind a wall where the rest of your group is.

You can also tell your pet to move to a certain position for easier or faster access to mobs (eg. moving your pet to where the melee DPS will start a boss fight rather than back where the ranged are, so your pet can start hitting that much quicker).

One thing to note: pet AI is quite advanced these days compared to what it used to be, but you still need to be careful in dungeons and raids (particularly in places like Gnomeregan where jumping off without dismissing your pet tends to mean your pet takes the long way around and pulls every mob on the way down). You used to be able to use Eyes of the Beast to jump your pet down and stay while you jump down yourself, but using Move To won't allow this because the AI won't find a viable path. Instead, you'll have to dismiss your pet and recall it after jumping down yourself.

Finally, one of my favourite uses of Pet Move To is when doing difficult soloing. You can park your pet away from you, Misdirect mobs to it, run past the mobs and then Feign Death once far enough away from them (preferably far enough away to auto-dismiss your pet), thus avoiding having to kill them. You can also put a Frost or Freeze Trap in between the mobs and the pet so that they'll be even slower getting to your pet.

Here's an example screenshot in Utgarde Pinnacle of what I mean:

That's it for this section, stay tuned for the rest of the Pet Control guide, updated for Cataclysm!

Camouflaging Moths

2011-02-10T23:36:00.000+10:00

Most pets, when Camouflaged, merely turn transparent.

The moth, however, appears to turn into what looks like a hovering flea or larva:

Pretty cool, if you ask me - of course a moth would want to tuck their brightly coloured wings away when trying to camouflage themselves! :)

Pet DPS: They do matter!

2011-02-04T00:04:00.000+10:00

The other day, I did a heroic Lost City of Tol'vir run with my guild.

As Marks spec, I naturally fell to second place on the DPS meter, about 2-4k DPS short of our Surv spec hunter in the first couple of boss fights.

However, I had to laugh when we jumped up onto the croc statue heads to do Lockmaw, because whilst I set my pet to stay on the ground, the Surv hunter didn't - meaning his pet was out of action for the whole fight.

Guess who was top DPS then? Yep, me.

One of the main reasons I've been proud of my "BM spec since beta" tag is because back when I first joined my guild and started raiding Molten Core, none of the hunters cared about their pets. MM was pretty much the only decent DPS spec back then and pets were fairly weak. Even so, I as a BM hunter consistently held my own in comparison to the other hunters merely because I used my pet as much as possible... and managed to convince a few to at least rez their pet occasionally, if not use it.

So, if you're a hunter (or any other pet class, for that matter!) and still don't know how to handle your pet, go learn how (yes, I really should update those pet control posts for Cataclysm... will try and do that at some point), because they do great DPS even if you're not BM! :)

The Spare Weapon

2011-01-29T11:40:00.000+10:00

Ever since Nefarian in BWL I've made sure to keep a spare gun and bow/crossbow in my bank so that if I ever need a spare weapon, I'd have one.

After all, you don't want to be that huntard that forgot to repair their weapon, especially since they lose durability 5x as fast as every other piece of armour we wear (which is a pet gripe of mine, although that's another story).

Today, I realized that you don't need a spare gun *and* bow anymore, because they don't use different ammo.

...yeah, took awhile for my brain to catch up :P Hooray for a couple of spare bank slots!

Arena hotfix for 18 Jan 2011

2011-01-19T22:19:00.000+10:00

Arenas
Ring of Valor has been temporarily disabled until select bugs can be fixed in an upcoming patch.

All I can say is: It's about bloody time!

I'm so sick of having my pet stuck on the stupid elevator every time I enter that Arena... and hunters have never had the best burst DPS to take advantage of that layout anyway. Bring on more Nagrand or Blade's Edge!

It's the people that make the difference

2011-01-16T16:12:00.000+10:00

Yesterday I joined what would turn out to be the worst PuG I have been in since WotLK; possibly vying for the worst PuG ever.

People died on trash. People died several times on every boss (it was heroic Stonecore), more often than not making the same mistake. We cycled through people that left the group during the course of the dungeon; probably 2-3 healers and more than 10 different DPS. I had to repair at least twice, and that's not counting all the times I survived a wipe through liberal use of Feign Death and Shadowmeld.

After each wipe, I questioned why I was staying. After all, it's one thing to stick in a PuG that wipes a couple of times (the PuG queue for DPS is often 40min long), but it's quite another when downing each boss in the dungeon is as difficult as a progression raid.

Each time, however, something made me stay. Partly it was the tank, who continuously made suggestions as to how the group could improve (even though these suggestions, whilst helpful, didn't always address the problems the group had with a particular boss). Mostly, though, it was the last healer that joined, a player that continuously failed to avoid the falling rocks on the last boss but was so sunnily optimistic that I refused to give up on them.

I guess what impressed me the most was that these players, whilst possessing considerably less skill than the average raider, just kept trying. And trying. And trying. Even when I'd made my frustration abundantly clear at one point by matter-of-factly stating that it was the worst PuG I'd been in but was sticking around anyway, the healer laughed it off and assured everyone that we would get it "this time!" (we didn't).

After 3 hrs, by which time the only person left from the original group besides me was the tank, we finally (messily) killed the last boss. I stayed in the group long enough to type that I was glad I'd stuck it out and hoped they'd all learnt something (the only person without the Stonecore Achievement dinging at the end was me, unsurprisingly), and was cheered by their response that they had (mainly how to avoid the rocks and interrupt Force Grip).

Of course, it didn't quite make up for the repair bill or time spent in there (and certainly didn't stop me detailing the stupid mistakes the group was making to my guild as they occurred), but I did stay until the end... which made me reflect on the fact that if the people hadn't been as nice as they had, I would have dropped group without a second thought.

Attitude matters, people... and practice makes perfect :P

Random guild PuGging

2011-01-11T23:31:00.000+10:00

Lately I've been braving the 40min random heroic queues and finding myself in a group with 3-4 people from the same guild. I always find it interesting to see how these guilds handle themselves, because like most PuGs, some are great, some not.

Example: Guild #1

I entered the PuG and found myself with 4 people from the same guild. Nothing was said in party chat. As soon as we were standing in front of the first boss - kicked. No explanation, of course, but since they hadn't had a chance to properly assess my DPS and we hadn't wiped on all the trash prior, I'm going to assume they kicked me for a guildmate.

Example: Guild #2

I entered the PuG and found myself with 3 people from the same guild. Very little was said in party chat. During the course of the dungeon, we wiped several times on each boss, occasionally losing the other PuG DPS and gaining a new one. On the last boss, we finally got a PuG boomkin that stayed... and spent probably an hour wiping, although it was clear that we were improving each time. Occasionally someone would suggest something to help.

At this point, I had expected that the 3 guildies were sticking it out because they hadn't done the dungeon; I'd been in a couple of groups where guildies left after a couple of wipes and we'd been in the dungeon for almost 3hrs. To my surprise, when the boss finally went down the only people that had Achievements dinging were the boomkin and myself - those 3 had wiped repeatedly, offered suggestions, put down repair bots and changed boss strats just for us!

Of course, whenever I'm in a guild group and we pick up a PuG or two, I always feel sorry for the PuG(s) when we wipe... so perhaps I'm just being hard on myself to not fail a group, even when the fail isn't my fault.

Still, it's nice to come across some really decent people in PuGs now and then - it makes the run seem that much better, even if I have a huge repair bill and nothing but a few JPs to show for it.

Settling In

2011-01-08T11:54:00.000+10:00

Well, I finally feel like I'm at the stage where I'm an actual hunter again, rather than a generic character going through quests and re-learning how to play properly:

My stables are pretty much complete (still waiting on Loq!), and most of my pets are now level 85. Nothing makes me feel more like a hunter than my animal companions :)
I'm starting to feel comfortable playing both MM and BM specs, although I still feel there is a *lot* of room for improvement in terms of DPS contribution (although to be fair, I still lack a few enchants/good gems and run with a sub-85 pet most of the time).
I'm getting used to trapping things in heroics again. Sure, my aim isn't the greatest, especially when someone else pulls, but most PuG tanks have been pretty good about me accidentally trapping a different mob or wanting to start the pull.
I teamed up with my old Arena partner from BC, a holy paladin, and rocked a few games. Even with no PvP gear other than a trinket and a level 84 pet, we won about as many as we lost and capped out our Conquest Points for the week - a good sign!

I have, of course, made plenty of mistakes - hitting Readiness before using up all of the skills I could get reset is the main problem in PvP, although I'm pretty OK with it in PvE - but I'm definitely feeling confident with my hunter abilities now.

Hopefully this means more useful blog posts will be forthcoming too, especially now the holiday period is over and I've just about finished /boggling at the new stuff in Cataclysm! :)

Tis the Season

2010-12-24T20:47:00.000+10:00

From Phyllixia, Shadow, Tails, Seismic, Koopa, Malice, Shardik, Venom, Quickblade, Riptooth, Slimer, Bullet, Skitter, Cerberus, Myth, Crawler, Vampyr, Celestia, Nightshade, Razor, Hydrastorm, Fenris, Dynamite, Talon, Sting and Galaxy:

Wishing you all a Merry Winter Veil and Happy New Year!

Late to the Party

2010-12-11T17:25:00.000+10:00

I started Cataclysm a couple of days late - Thursday instead of Tuesday night, for my time zone - but am thoroughly enjoying the visual effects of the new zones...or should I say zone, since I've really only quested in Vashj'ir?

One thing I'm rather surprised at is how quickly I'm levelling; in previous expansions it took me several weeks to get to level cap, but being 82 already and only halfway through my first zone tells me that 85 may only take me a week or so.

I'm not sure how to feel about that. Sure, it would be good to get to level cap and start raiding again so quickly, but it seems so short... oh well, I suppose I'll have more time to go back and quest in the lowbie areas, which so far are proving to be brilliant; each zone has its own story and background (I would definitely recommend going through all of them, if you're interested in lore).

And of course, I'm really happy to finally have that last stable slot open, even though I still think there's not enough room for all the pets I want!

I wanted to offer him a stable slot...

2010-12-06T20:05:00.000+10:00

I would have submitted a GM ticket to demand that Grimclaw be given a new friend, but luckily he found another survivor to hang out with... was definitely not happy seeing the above scene, I felt so sorry for the poor bear! :(

Meanwhile: Anyone else trying desperately to finish all of the new "old world" quests before Tuesday? I managed to finish quite a few zones, but still have so many to go... and I feel it's important to try and get through them all because there's a lot of background lore for what's happening in Cataclysm. So much to do, so little time!

What OH&S?

2010-11-30T21:13:00.000+10:00

Shouldn't there be a barrier for this? There are kids running around!

Also, why can't we tame these?

I totally want a snail that can Dash...

Most hilarious quest line ever

2010-11-24T23:28:00.000+10:00

The Day that Deathwing Came.

If you do only one thing in the day after The Shattering, make it this quest and the 2 followups. So worth it! :D

Something you don't see every day

2010-11-23T20:04:00.000+10:00

It was probably 3-4min before another DPS joined, too!

(If you're wondering... it was for one of the elemental boss spawns, immediately after the portal opened)

Pet Makeovers

2010-11-21T14:30:00.000+10:00

Mania of Petopia and Mania's Arcania recently posted about updates to pet skins in Cataclysm.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not entirely happy that some existing pets will change their appearance - I can't always remember where I got my pets from, so I'll be waiting apprehensively come launch day to see whether I need to re-tame pets so that they look how I want them to look.

Not to mention, I'll have to tame an entirely new wolf since Fury, my current wolf, will be changing into a dog.

I mean, I think it's great that there are new pet skins to tame, and I'll even give you the blighthound changing into a dog (it always looked like a dog more than a wolf, anyway), but why change the rest?

I can't be the only hunter out there that cares enough about what my pet looks like that I'd re-tame the whole lot if they all changed... it just isn't right calling a pet by a particular name when it looks entirely different!

(My new wolf will have a different name, not "Fury")

All quiet on the Western front #2

2010-11-14T22:40:00.000+10:00

It's even quieter than my previous post on this topic; my guild has officially stopped raiding until Cataclysm and attempts to get PuGs going for raiding Achievements have failed.

So, I've been mostly sitting AFK in Sholazar Basin on top of a Loque'nahak spawn point.

No such luck yet and I really wish the global LFG channel was still in-game so I could watch "Trade Chat" for PuGs at the same time, but at least I feel like I'm doing something "productive" in-game without actually doing anything! ;)

There should be an Achievement for this

2010-11-05T23:26:00.000+10:00

...because damn, levelling 24 pets (well, 19 plus the 5 I already had...) to 80 was a bit of a grind!

This was my last one:

I'm definitely having fun having such a range to choose from when I feel like running around with a different pet... hopefully I can remember all of their names eventually!

(And thanks to all of those PuG tanks that decided to stay on for more than one heroic... made the queueing a hell of a lot faster!)

Old habits die hard

2010-10-31T22:43:00.000+10:00

Things I still need to get used to, even though I'm now fairly comfortable with Focus:

Not automatically stopping to cast Multi-Shot (you can now cast it while moving)
Not wasting Focus on Widow Venom (that keybind used to be Aimed Shot, which used to do damage as well as the healing debuff, unlike WV)
Using Scatter Shot, particularly in BM spec
Using Lifeblood for the haste buff instead of saving it for the now-pathetic heal component

Anyone else?

Watch your login screen!

2010-10-28T23:31:00.000+10:00

No, I'm not crazy... you really should spend an extra second watching the login screen - your character will do an appropriate animation for your class; in my case, shooting a bow:

Even though the login screen isn't really an important part of gameplay, it's still nice to find the little things that change in WoW :)

He's cute, really!

2010-10-26T23:37:00.000+10:00

This is my new favourite tank pet.

Yes, my turtle Koopa is still the last line of defence for all things tankable, but seriously... for AoE, Burrow Attack is unbelieveably hax - my lvl 79 worm was taking a good half health off lvl 70 elites in heroic Sethekk Halls; I can't wait to try it on Garr when I next have time.

Plus, it does much more damage than Bad Attitude ever did for crocolisks, although a Thunderstomping slime is another of my favourites... so I won't be releasing Slimer any time soon, either!

(25 stable slots? Yeah, not enough. Really not enough!)

Take that!

2010-10-22T22:13:00.000+10:00

Finally some retribution for Sylvanas:

Buying that item was worth the gold... I've been wanting to kill Arthas ever since my first introduction to the creation of a banshee in WC3!

Move To vs Eyes of the Beast

2010-10-17T23:00:00.000+10:00

Pro: You can move your pet while still being in control of your character.
Con: Your pet doesn't "jump" ledges.

I discovered the latter point yesterday and wiped my heroic 5man group with it; luckily it was a guild run and not a PuG.

Sadly, this means we'll have to dismiss pets before jumping down in dungeons... I know it's only a 2sec cast time and your pet doesn't lose happiness anymore, but I still don't like doing it - waving goodbye to a pet never seems nice :(

Trap Launcher = Unimpressive

2010-10-14T23:49:00.000+10:00

Initially, I was rather excited to start practicing throwing traps around with the new Trap Launcher.

Now that I've tried it, I'm disappointed.

It's awkward to use, because there's a small delay between casting Trap Launcher and being able to cast your chosen Trap (unlike the old Freezing Arrow, or just placing a trap at your feet, which is instant).

Even macroing both together doesn't work (as far as I know; I'm not an expert macro-er), since the delay is still there and you still have to spam the macro twice.

If you're trying to make every global cooldown count, the Trap Launcher mechanic definitely needs work... here's hoping it gets changed before competitive PvP starts.

Trueshot Time

2010-10-12T23:46:00.000+10:00

With Patch 4.0.1 beginning the Cataclysmic change in WoW, it's finally time for me to take the plunge and do something I haven't done since Vanilla WoW - spec Marksman.

Survival used to be my favourite survival/utility spec from Vanilla - longer and better traps, extra CC spells - everything to make sure that you last as long as possible on the battlefield; a cannon not so glassy.

Well, all of that really can't compare to the new Chimera Shot. 5% self-healing? Are you kidding me? Not to mention - Scatter Shot is baseline and Readiness is an adequate replacement for Wyvern.

Right now, the only Survival talent left that really jumps out at me as OMGMUSTHAVE is a new one, Mirrored Blades, which is on a much longer cooldown than Silencing Shot... so while I'm pretty sure I'd have a whole lot more fun with that talent than possibly any other talent in any tree (oh, the mages I could kill with their own Pyroblasts...), it isn't enough to carry the Survival tree by itself.

Oh well - looking forward to learning MM. I guess I'll finally find out what it's like to be the top DPS spec in WotLK :)

On another note: I'm really happy to finally post a pure hunter blog post again. It's been so long since my last one that this blog was beginning to feel like a general blog instead of a hunter one!

AQ Scepter Quest Chain - Get it done!

2010-10-08T22:10:00.000+10:00

One of the most (if not *the* most) epic quest chains in WoW, the AQ Scepter chain, will be scrapped in Cataclysm.

I highly recommend you do this chain if you haven't already; most of the steps will be fairly easy to get through with a small group of 80s (as opposed to the full raids of 60s they used to take).

There will probably be no Achievement or Feat of Strength for completing the chain, but being able to say you've done it is a reward in itself :)

Hexxer is Haxxor

2010-10-07T22:26:00.000+10:00

I finally got motivated enough to completely solo clear ZG the other day, and I can tell you now - Jin'do is definitely the most difficult boss in there.

He drops more than a few Mind Control totems (as seen in the above pic!), which tends to make you kill your own personal tank, so here's the method that worked for me:

Use a mix of PvP/raiding gear and BM spec (for better pet survivability).
Use a Ferocity pet (I used my wolf, Fury).

Blow all cooldowns as soon as you start.
As soon as a shade spawns and reaches you, Mend Pet and Feign Death.
Stay Feigned while your pet solos Jin'do, using pet abilities (eg. Cower) on cooldown.
While Feigned, unequip your weapons.
When your pet gets low on health, blow Beastial Wrath and Mend Pet in quick succession - these spells will be all you get off before being Mind Controlled.
Since you unequipped your weapons, you will run around trying to punch your pet to death.
If your pet dies before Mind Control wears off, rez using Heart of the Phoenix and repeat from the beginning.
If you don't have Heart of the Phoenix, you can either try and kite/melee Jin'do for the last bit of health, or use Deterrence and try and rez your pet manually.

For my kill Fury managed to survive through Mind Control, so I didn't have to rez.

Definitely a lot more fun trying to kill this guy than your average tank n' spank fight, so I'm glad I did it before ZG disappears in Cataclysm!

Getting my Mojo back

2010-10-04T19:09:00.001+10:00

I'd been getting a little bored lately - trying to PuG raids when there aren't any running (Oceanic-time players on Proudmoore are in a pre-expansion slump) and farming for mounts that are about as likely to drop as me changing mains (ie: not @#$%ing likely) was getting a little old.

Not to mention, I've about given up on getting any T10.5 - it's just not happening.

Happily, I found something to do last night that renewed my interest in spending time on my hunter instead of my druid again (I do like alts, really... especially my druid. I just don't like them all that much - if there's anything at all I can do on the hunter I'd much rather do that): Farming for Mojo.

What's so fun about farming trash, you may ask?

Well, anything that isn't easy (read: "has a chance of me dying") is a challenge. Just like healing heroic HoR with a 3.8k gearscore is a challenge (take that, you stupid tank that a) tried to kick my druid and b) left before the last boss, after we'd all survived the 1st 2 bosses with no deaths).

And I like challenges.

It wasn't too much of one - I only died twice (once on the Eagle gauntlet - which I finished with ease the next time round - and once on the trash in front of Lynx), but at least I've found a solo activity to have fun with again!

No, I didn't get Mojo.

However, I've found that it's probably faster just to reset the Eagle gauntlet than to wait for trash to respawn, so hopefully I'll get Mojo some time soon! :)

Worth staying up until 2:30am for

2010-09-27T02:19:00.000+10:00

It was with a guild that usually raids at that hour and regularly takes on a few PuGs... not something I'd do usually, but I've had quite a few good runs with those guys and when the advertisement came up in Trade Chat for Professor/Sindy/LK, I decided to chance it :)

(We didn't have time to take on Arthas since we had more than a few wipes on Sindy, but still. One more Achievement to link to get into PuGs!)

Breaking news!

2010-09-26T16:32:00.000+10:00

Yesterday, a DPS in my heroic 5man PuG apologized for accidentally pulling aggro.

(Those of you who PuG will understand why this is worthy of a blog post)

Brewfrost

2010-09-22T22:24:00.000+10:00

If you haven't been killing Coren Direbrew during this Brewfest, start doing it.

You'll have to queue through the Dungeon Finder this time around instead of finding your own group (the queues are quite short, even for DPS).

Even if you don't want any of the epic loot that comes in the once-daily Keg-Shaped Treasure Chest reward, you'll still want the 2x Emblem of Frost - easy for what can be less than a minute's work!

How much?

2010-09-15T23:38:00.000+10:00

...that much.

To tip me over the 9000 edge, I got this one:

...which is also cool, although I am not wearing the Kingslayer title - overused and means little these days; I'd rather stick with "Knight".

It will definitely be useful for linking in PuGs though... and I've finally avenged Sylvanas Windrunner, which I've wanted to do ever since the brave elven Warcraft 3 ranger was forced to become a ghastly banshee.

@#$% you Arthas, this one was for the Dark Lady!

Battle for the Under-Gnomer-City

2010-09-09T19:42:00.000+10:00

So apparently Blizz threw me a bone to alleviate my boredom by implementing the re-taking of Gnomeregan event.

Sure, it didn't take long to complete, but at least it was something different. Besides, it's about time those gnomes got proactive about their irradiated home town; even Undercity, built in the sewers of Lordearon, is a cooler hangout.

I will also likely be doing the equivalent event on my tauren druid, 1) for the troll lore, and 2) just so that every 4hrs I can actually fit through doors properly (why I felt the urge to make my druid a male, I have no idea).

Hooray for new content! :)

All quiet on the Western front

2010-09-07T22:56:00.000+10:00

Not much is happening on the hunter, sadly. Pre-Cataclysm slump seems to have hit most people (either that or post-Starcraft 2 launch... :P), so I've been hanging around on my feral/resto druid.

Of course, whilst healing is a nice change from DPSing and world PvP (my druid is on a PvP server, as opposed to my hunter) is an adrenaline-generating thrill, I'd still rather be hunter-ing.

The problems is, I'm having trouble finding things to do that aren't too boring, grindy or require a group - all of the Achievements I need involve Arena, battlegrounds, raiding, or have terrible odds (ie. killing all the rares or fishing up a turtle).

Soloing elites has also lost its appeal slightly - it takes longer for me to travel to ZG or MC than to kill the bosses that drop the stuff I want, and since I've done them a few times it isn't really much of a challenge any more (which is the main reason why I like elite soloing in the first place).

What to do? I hate leading guild raids, let alone PuGs. I managed to put together a PuG for 20man OS recently without too much trouble, but was lucky in that the tanks knew what they were doing and I didn't have to type many instructions at all. Any PuG that would require Ventrilo is definitely out.

Guess I'll just have to hope the Americans on Proudmoore will start running Achievement runs in a friendlier time for me one day... hopefully before I get so frustrated I transfer my hunter to Frostmourne Horde :P

(Well, either that or Blizzard could send me a beta key. Come on Blizz, I have a blog and everything!)

Boned

2010-08-31T14:19:00.001+10:00

It's amazing how many ranged DPS never bother to hit spikes that they can't hit with random AoE...

It was mainly due to a lucky draw, since only 1 spike was outside melee range (on me, and I was standing in as close as I could to the group).

Tangent: why *is* this Achievement called "Boned", anyway? Shouldn't it be "De-boned" or something, considering the whole point is to free people?

Volley in Cataclysm - or Lack Thereof

2010-08-26T10:33:00.002+10:00

If you're reading this post, chances are you'll already know about the fact that Blizzard intends to remove Volley and "replace" it with Multishot as our main AoE ability in Cataclysm.

Probably every hunter would have something to say on this matter... and whilst I've resisted commenting much on Cataclysm changes, this topic motivated me enough to post the following on the official Blizzard DPS forums:

If Volley is going to be scrapped, I have the following concerns:

1. You cannot control where Multishot lands. With Volley and other targeted AoEs, you can target a specific area and not hit anything outside of it. With Multishot, anything close to your chosen target may be hit (or not hit, as the case may be).

Example: Pull pack of mobs, mage is slow off the mark and sheeps something right next to the rest of the mobs, everyone else shifts their AoE so that it doesn't hit the sheep, hunter hits Multishot and breaks the sheep.

2. Flare/traps have a long cooldown.

If you know there's a stealthed player around, you can stand on a trap and hit Flare... but since rogues can sap from *outside* the flare area and disarm traps, they can get
around it. Not only that, they can vanish and wait until you waste both cooldowns again before they reappear.

Possible solutions:

1. Make Multishot a targetted AoE, or at least a consistent area of effect so that we can control where we're aiming at.

2. Remove (or at least reduce) the Flare cooldown. If you need to compensate for hunters spamming this ability, make the Focus cost high. Alternatively, make Multishot targetted and spammable (or at least a fairly short cooldown), and obviously as an AoE it will have a fairly high Focus cost anyway.

One other concern I have that I didn't put into my post because Blizzard doesn't really support it anyway - keeping your tank pet alive when doing elite soloing is going to be that much more difficult.

Currently in fights with several mobs, you can easily spam Volley wearing 2pc T5 and have your pet healed 15% of the amount of damage you do.

That won't be possible in Cataclysm unless Blizzard makes Multishot spammable (and even then, we're going to be limited depending on the Focus cost).

Blizzard may want to make classes unique, but really.... the way hunters are looking, it'll be that we're missing abilities rather than having something special to bring to the table. Not good.

Random PvP stuff

2010-08-25T10:23:00.004+10:00

Firstly, congrats to "team chris thormann" in Blizzard's North American WoW Arena finals.

No, I'm not actually cheering the hunter on the team for once - it's the Aussie warlock I was supporting; even though they only won against one team at the event (and that team managed to defeat them later), managing to get to the top of the Arena board in the first place with Aussie latency is a bloody impressive feat.

Secondly, trying to excel at, and get Achievements in, PvP takes so much more individual effort than any PvE Achievements.

Sure, you can argue that it's difficult finding halfway-competent people to run a raid in the first place, but really... if you're willing to wait until everyone is geared up (or at level 85 in Cataclysm, for example), you'll finish all the PvE Achievements eventually.

Besides, if you're willing to spend a huge chunk of gold, usually there's at least one guild on your server that will run you through raids and Achievements for a price.

For PvP, on the other hand... if you suck, you'll never be able to get an Arena title no matter how many games you play... and even if your entire battleground team is communicating in Vent, the other faction can still pwn you if they're quicker.

(Props to that team of Horde, by the way... we didn't have any AFKers, only 1-2 PuGs, and a group of about 5-6 Horde - possibly an elite Arena team, but still - managed to roll us and win 1600-1590 in AB)

PuGs? What PuGs?

2010-08-21T11:13:00.003+10:00

After being back for a few days, I've noticed the PuG scene on Proudmoore at Oceanic peak times has... kinda disappeared.

So far this week, I've only seen a couple of PuGs for VoA10/25, 1 PuG for Ony10 and 1 PuG for ToC25... and I started logging on on Wednesday, which is usually the best night for PuGging (being the night after maintenance for Oceania).

No ICC, no Ruby Sanctum.

To be fair, Proudmoore *is* traditionally more a US server (the PuG scene is certainly a lot better on Frostmourne, my "Oceanic" horde server), so this weekend I'll be logging on in US peak times to see if I can at least get some ICC in.

Even so, I'm disappointed about not being able to raid on weeknights... I can only do so much Battleground-ing before getting sick of it, even if Alliance are actually winning!

(Note: My guild is on a raiding break this week - back next week - so if I want to do anything this raid lockout, I have to PuG it)

Back in Action

2010-08-18T19:41:00.002+10:00

I'm finally back from my vacation... and surprisingly, I haven't missed all that much.

Sure, I'm a little behind on character development in terms of PuGging/raiding, but I somehow managed to keep up with the beta news, RealID kerfuffle and Starcraft 2 launch while away, so I'm not doing too badly.

Hopefully I'll have new stuff to blog about soon, although the jetlag is still winning :(

Hunters Rhok

Dragon Sorrows

Not the best idea

Lucky Red Envelopes - Now Spam-Free!

Back in Business

Looking for Raid vs Guilds

Holiday Hunting

*Crickets*

Race to World First

Guild Restructure: Earning my Stripes

More 4.3 Musings

It's a crossbow!

Hour of Twilight: Breaking Dawn

Chuck Norris is one of us!

Phyl back from Pandaria

Deterrence Tanking FTW

Blizzkorean!

Free ride

Ranger Phyllixia

Too soon, Executus!

Camouflage

Flame on!

Baradin Doesn't Hold

Brutal Beat-up

Rare-ly a dull moment

Let's Twist Again

Burnout or Bore-out

Oops...

Jumping into the Twisted Nether

The New Rhok Demons

When too much is too much

Thank you!

Gun? What gun?

When it rains, it pours

/petassist? More like /petconfuse

Casting Mis-HEAL-direct on ~Tank~

WoW's celebrity couple

Remember to Eagle Eye!

Can't believe it's come to this

Catching up with old content

Can Haz Chromaggus

Now that's what I call a great raid

Achieving by AFK

Windrunner Interlude

Wish they'd make up their minds...

Impressions of the Zandalari Uprising

Back in Business

Well that's depressing...

Holiday raiding time 2: Bigger Challenges

Holiday raiding time

We beat our record

New but Not So Shiny

Why doesn't Blizzard hire this guy as a Game Tester?!

The things that surprise you

I cheated to get this

Guest post on Warcraft Hunters Union

Cataclysm Pet Control: Part five - Organizing your pet bar

Cataclysm Pet Control: Part four - Species-specific pet abilities

2v2 in Cataclysm

Cataclysm Pet Control: Part three - General pet abilities

It's a Vicious Circle

This will stop a hell of a lot of internal swearing

Cataclysm Pet Control: Part two - Aggressive, Defensive and Passive

Cataclysm Pet Control: Part One - Attack, Follow and Move To

Camouflaging Moths

Pet DPS: They do matter!

The Spare Weapon

Arena hotfix for 18 Jan 2011

It's the people that make the difference

Random guild PuGging

Settling In

Tis the Season

Late to the Party

I wanted to offer him a stable slot...

What OH&S?

Most hilarious quest line ever

Something you don't see every day

Pet Makeovers

All quiet on the Western front #2

There should be an Achievement for this

Crickets