Friday, February 26, 2010

Hunters: The (Im)mobile class

With the PTR patch notes for 3.3.3 out, I was interested to see the following change to FI:

Ferocious Inspiration: This ability is now an aura and provides 1/2/3% damage to all party or raid members within 100 yards and boosts the damage of Steady Shot by 3/6/9%

While I'm all for a buff to BM - I'm finding myself running as Survival more and more in raids out of guilt that I'm not contributing enough - I don't particularly like this change.

Yes, I realize that Blizzard needs to consider PvP damage and putting talents like Sniper Training and the above change in is the easiest way of buffing hunters in PvE and not PvP, but I've always hated anything that requires me to stand still.

A hunter is *agile*. We're supposed to keep - and kill - things at range, which to me does *not* mean standing in the same spot and hoping they're dead by the time they get to you.

This change would mean BM hunters have less DPS on the move, less threat while kiting and potentially less DPS overall than before the change in certain fights - because how many times have you interrupted/delayed a Steady Shot to get out of a fire or cast something else?

Yeah, it's a small thing to complain about; Steady Shot isn't exactly the longest cast time in WoW... but hey, there isn't exactly anything else I can pick on because that was the only patch note for hunters. QQ.

Monday, February 22, 2010

You learn something new every day


Who knew it could rain in Darnassus?

Not to mention, there is a flight point on the border of Western and Eastern Plaguelands, meaning you don't have to traverse the entire map to do quests in that area... somehow I totally missed that Patch note somewhere.

Things like these always make me wonder what *else* I must have missed. Things that aren't on the Achievements page, aren't pointed out in quests, aren't one of those popular "Easter Eggs" that get slung around the forums every now and again or referred to in the ever-popular Trade Chat, and aren't something that you'd usually come across.

For all of my 8300+ Achievement points, there sure is a hell of a lot I haven't done in this game!

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Love is in the Raid Buffs

Even if you don't participate in World Events usually, make sure you do the daily quest "A Gift for the High Priestess Elune".

All you have to do is collect 10x Lovely Charm (which collect automatically in your inventory when killing green or higher level mobs) to make the Lovely Charm Bracelet.

You will get a Lovely Darnassus Card and 5x Love Token, which can then be used to purchase "VICTORY" Perfume.

Both the card and the perfume stack with flasks/food etc (see below), so are basically a free 30Agi + 75AP for your raiding needs until the Love is in the Air event ends.


Of course, non-hunters will want to do the equivalent quest in either Exodar (Spirit), Stormwind (Intellect) or Ironforge (Stamina).

For Horde, Silvermoon (Spirit), Undercity (Intellect), Thunder Bluff (Stamina) or Orgrimmar (Agility) are your choices.

Too easy! :)

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

MC round 2

Had another block of spare time before Tuesday maintenance this week, so continued soloing MC:

I didn't respec or change my gear from the last time, but I did have to do some careful aggro juggling between my pet and myself to kill Garr. Letting a couple of the adds beat on me when my turtle was out of defensive cooldowns seemed to do the trick... and Spirit Bond brought my health back up after his adds went down.

At this point I was reminded of something that I vaguely recalled from Vanilla WoW - only Golemagg and Ragnaros give reputation past Revered, which means I won't be able to tick over into Exalted until I kill those guys. Bleh.

Anyway, moving on.

Baron Geddon was next, but I forgot to take a screenshot. This fight was fairly simple for me, since I do actually have Hawk Eye in my normal spec and could avoid being bombed by standing at max range.

The only semi-problem was to make sure that every time Baron cast Inferno, Koopa would run around the *back* of Baron and start whacking away... which means he went out of Mend Pet range and I'd have to move closer, putting me within range of Baron's bomb. Setting him on /petstay during these times worked well.

Last kill for the night was Shazzrah, a fairly easy fight; just keep out at range as often as possible.


I had a quick attempt at Golemagg, but ran into the same problem as I had with Garr last time - he hit too hard and my lack of pet armour/dodge talents hurt. Next time round I may try the same tactic as I used for Garr - let Golemagg's dogs beat on me instead of my pet and see how that goes.... or I could respec my pet into more armour and use consumables/scrolls as well.

Other notes: the trash in Baron's/Shazzrah's room is brilliant for Thorium Brotherhood rep, which I'm almost exalted with as well. Hooray for extending raid lockouts!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Forget it, Blizz...

...no matter how much you nerf it, some people just don't like doing heroic Oculus.



Seriously, I get this heroic maybe every 3rd random I do and I don't think I've had any group where all 4 of the initial members have stayed.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

This Patch is great already!


Of course, now that I have this, I'm going to actually have to start doing dailies again for the Frenzyheart... /sigh