Challenge Accepted

With a few guildies, I've started to work on Challenge Conqueror: Gold in earnest. The difficulty of the dungeons seems to vary quite a lot, particularly depending on group composition.

Because most of my group have done the Challenge modes before, they knew what to expect, which helps both with strategy and where/when to move - getting Silver is a given.

For my part, I've had to learn exactly where to use my cooldowns, potions, CC, everything, because if I do something at the wrong time, a few seconds is the difference between success or failure.

So far, my experience has been thus:

• Siege of Niuzao Temple we 1-shot Gold almost by accident while cruising for a Silver.
• Temple of the Jade Serpent looks to be another easy one, since we got close to Gold without trying but haven't been back yet.
• We took a few runs to get used to Stormstout Brewery and another few resets for bad RNG to get Gold, so I'd call that the average.
• Scarlet Halls trash packs are overwhelming for our group, so that one ranks hardest so far.
• The Silver run of Mogu'shan Palace I can see being somewhere between average and hard, since we had a few deaths, but since I've only been there once it's a little hard to tell whether it will be harder than Scarlet Halls or not.
• I haven't tried the other 4, so can't comment on them just yet.

All in all, Challenge modes are a lot easier than I thought they would be. Then again, I have great guildies, so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised!

Wrath-I-Owned

Fighting Wrathion was actually not too difficult, once I'd decided on a strat. I don't know about anyone else, but I was having flashbacks to my Rhok demons.... particularly kiting Solenar.

Back then, when it was a) a bigger deal what spec you chose and b) a bigger deal to respec, I'd stuck my guns and did the whole chain in BM spec. I had a brief moment this time around where I wondered whether I should do the same thing, but it didn't last long.

For Rhok, I had wanted to prove that it was possible to kill the demons as BM. Now, I have nothing to prove... because even if I killed Wrathion in BM spec, all I would be giving up is the convenience of a little extra AoE damage and Entrapment - I may as well just take a piece of gear off and it'd amount to about the same thing.

Plus, the game has changed. Specs are no longer what they were; people tweak talents constantly just to make a fight easier, just like Vanilla hunters changed their gear to +intellect (yes, Int. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you're new to WoW :P) to kite mobs around, or +stamina to have epic pet tanks.

Saying what spec you are as a hunter really doesn't mean much anymore - a hunter is a hunter, and people expect you to be able to do everything and have every buff pet available when required, which basically means that you need BM as one of your specs no matter what.

Since I'm Ms "BM spec since beta", I hadn't thought about it much before, but that must kinda suck for those hunters that prefer MM and Surv. I would applaud anyone who is brave enough to rock those specs and stand by their choice - it'd be the equivalent of what I did back in Vanilla, so I totally see where you're coming from!

Stayin' Alive, Stayin' Alive

Yes, I'm still here, unlike Frostheim. It's been awhile since my last update, but last week I hadn't done much in WoW due to being fairly busy IRL and this week I've been busy catching up with all the things I'd missed!

For one thing, after about 3 months' worth of terrible Runestone droprates, I finally accumulated 12. I've only had time for a couple of goes at the Celestial Blessings quest, but it's looking like an incredibly fun challenge already. Will hopefully have time either next weekend or mid-week (since there's a public holiday here on Wed) to figure out tactics (kill adds? kite adds?).

For another, my guild (Infamy) has shifted their Challenge mode dungeon runs to Wed night instead of Sun arvo, which means I've been able to join in when there's a free spot. I do use my PvP abilities (eg. Silence, Scatter, Trap) regularly anyway, but it's not often when the use of them can mean the difference between living and dying! Unfortunately we only managed Silver in Scarlet Halls that night (and being the only one who has never completed a Challenge mode before, a lot of those resets I'm sure I could have done better), but now that I know what they're like, I'm keen to do more.

Finally, the guild I am currently raiding with (Zero Yard Range, not Infamy :P) is extremely close to getting their first heroic Horridon kill. I actually missed all of Infamy's progression runs on Horri, so I've never felt *entirely* comfortable doing it. Wiping with ZYR has been good - as much as I loved the smooth runs with Infamy, I feel bad if I'm being "carried" through fights and I certainly don't feel like I am this time.

I will endeavour to update the ol' blog sooner rather than later, this time. Wouldn't do to have people start thinking I've gone the way of many other hunter bloggers who have stopped playing! :)